I've just discovered that there is a new website for the Lakota Freedom movement: www.republicoflakota.com (the old website forwards to it). The new website is, in my opinion, a little better looking and, more importantly, better organized. There's a separate section explaining their motivations, as well as one explaining the history of the movement. I do think it would be helpful to their cause if they added a news section or blog with an RSS feed to make it easier for people to keep track of what's going on (and help their search rankings). Most importantly, however, they have addressed the criticisms leveled at them that they do not actually represent the Lakota people. They say that they have had ongoing communications with traditional chiefs and treaty councils for the past three years, and have been in consultation with the traditional treaty councils of: Pine Ridge, Porcupine, Kyle, Rosebud, Lower Brule, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, and Flandreau.
I hope that this means they actually do have some legitimacy behind them, although there still hasn't been any real mention of them in the news. But I'll be continuing to follow the story and hopefully something actually come of it.
Edit: It appears that republicoflakota.com is now down, and currently displays only a GoDaddy domain parking page... (Thanks, Windtalon, for the heads up.) I've emailed the people in charge (the Means) and let them know, so hopefully this will be resolved soon.
For the week leading up to Christmas, Jessi and I were in New Mexico with my mom. Flying to New Mexico is a somewhat ridiculous affair, because there aren't all that many direct flights to Albuquerque. In general, the best bet has always been to fly Southwest. I've never been a particularly big fan of Southwest, but it wasn't that big a deal because I was only ever taking short flights (Oakland to San Diego, Oakland to Albuquerque, and Oakland to Los Angeles, were about it). Now, of course, I'm living on the East Coast again, so not only did I have to drive an hour to get to an airport that Southwest operates out of (they fly to Providence and Manchester, we chose Manchester for this trip), but there weren't any direct flights. It wasn't really all that bad though, as long as I have a book and an aisle seat so I can stretch my legs every so often I can deal with it.
The real problem arose after we got back to Manchester. We came back with an extra suitcase that we hadn't taken with us, so had 3 checked bags instead of 2. Unfortunately, only 2 of them actually made it to Manchester—the two that had only my stuff in them. Jessi's bag was nowhere to be found. So we filed a claim in the baggage office and they assumed that it was just stuck in Chicago (where we had caught our connecting flight) and would come in the next day (yesterday) at which point they would send it to us by courier.
So yesterday I spent the day waiting for the courier. He finally arrive in the early afternoon and brought in a suitcase. Unfortunately it wasn't ours. It wasn't even the right color, although someone had thoughtfully tagged it with our baggage claim number. The courier was very apologetic, although also very happy when I didn't blame him for the problem; apparently he gets yelled at a lot when that sort of thing happens even though all he does it take the bags where the airlines tell him to take them. We figured what probably had happened was that the tags on two bags got switched some how, so he had dropped our bag off at someone else's house (if it's not an apartment you can have them just leave the bag for you), so I figured we'd get a call about it that night when the people got home from work and discovered the mistake. No such luck.
So last night I got a call from Southwest. They confirmed that the bag that had been delivered was the wrong one, and then basically just said that they have no idea where our bag is. I repeated the description of the bag that I had given them before and let them know that it had one of Jessi's business cards in the name tag holder and that all the contact information on it was valid.
Now we're essentially just waiting for Southwest to conduct some sort of national search for our bag. Maybe it's still in Albuquerque, maybe it's still in Chicago, maybe it's still in Manchester somehow. Maybe it got put onto the wrong flight at some point and ended up somewhere altogether different. Maybe a baggage handler stole it. Maybe the TSA stole it. Who knows (although I'm leaning towards the TSA being to blame just because).
I've never actually had a bag get lost on a flight before, it's not a very fun experience. It also does little to improve our perception of Southwest. We don't really plan on ever flying with them again, although New Mexico is the only destination of theirs that we'd even have considered them for anyway.
This technology is one that's been of interest to people for quite a while, and has been showing up in science fiction for decades. Apparently the Pentagon is also interested in space-based solar power, and the South Pacific nation of Palau has expressed interest in being part of a proof-of-concept implementation of the technology.
The details are all in the article, but essentially Palau has an uninhabited island where they propose building the rectifying antenna to receive the power from space. This would demonstrate the possibility of the technology as well as the safety. Apparently, this project could be completed as early as 2012 for about $800 million.
I, along with a lot of other people, have been watching the development of photovoltaic technologies with much interest over the past two years. For a lot of people, photovoltaics represent the holy grail of power generation, and for good reason. Almost all off the power we use currently comes from the Sun in one way or another (oil and coal are condensed plant matter from millions of years ago, the energy we get when we burn them is the energy that they stored through photosynthesis from the sun; nuclear power is a bit of a stretch, but when you get down to it, all elements heavier than hydrogen were produced through the fusion power of a star, including the fissionable materials we use for nuclear power generation). The only power sources that I can think of that don't harness the Sun's energy in one way or another are hydroelectric and tidal generation, which derive from gravity (which, I suppose, you could still say comes from the Sun because without the Sun the Solar System wouldn't have formed, but that's probably taking it a bit too far). So solar power, whether it be from photovoltaics, sterling engines, or some other technology is really just a means of cutting out the middle man. The sun puts out so much energy that once we have the technology to make solar power generation a large-scale reality, we'll basically have access to infinite energy (approximately 386 billion billion megawatts).
The reason we haven't started using large-scale solar power installations, of course, is that we haven't been able to get it to the point where it's cost-competitive with coal, oil, and nuclear. The number that's always been bandied about as the tipping point where solar power becomes viable is $1 per watt. That goal was reached, indeed exceeded, last month by Nanosolar who managed to bring the production cost of photovoltaics down from about $3 per watt to about 30¢ per watt. Their technology is now shipping, and being sold for a mere 90¢ per watt.
Essentially, this now means that we have access to limitless, cheap energy. Of course the problems of cloud cover and night time are still an issue when it comes to solar generation, but there are certainly ways around that. It's always daytime somewhere on the Earth, so enough solar plants spread around the Earth will allow us to generate power 24 hours a day. And there are always places where cloud cover is essentially non-existent, basically all the large deserts around the world. The true holy grail of power generation, though, is power generation satellites. Once we put large photovoltaic arrays outside of Earth's atmosphere, we have an unobstructed view of the sun forever. Microwave power transmission can then beam that power down to Earth's surface, although there are obviously some issues there. One of personal favorite ideas is to combine the idea of solar power satellites with the idea of a space elevator: basically a giant tower that pokes up out of the Earth's atmosphere and has a huge array of solar panels at the top so that we can just transmit the power down the tower on wires; if we wanted to get really crazy we could build an entire ring of solar panels that completely encircles the Earth with multiple elevators connected to it serving as distribution nodes. That, of course, solves multiple problems at once but is sadly beyond our current technological abilities.
Science fiction aside, though, we have reached an important point in the history of human technology: the point where limitless, safe, clean energy is in reach.
I've been doing some more research into the authority of the Lakota Freedom movement to actually declare independence for the Lakota Nation. From what I can tell, even amongst the Lakota there's a lot of confusion about the issue. The man largely behind the movement appears to be Russell Means, a Lakota activist and one-time gubernatorial candidate, and there are mixed feelings, to say the least, about him taking the role of spokesman. Some say that even if he did have the authority to represent them, they wouldn't want him to. Others appear to be all in favor of what he's doing and hopeful, if not confident, that the U.S. government will acknowledge him as a representative of the Lakota.
The discussion about this issue seems to be the same, regardless of which side of the always-complex relationship between the U.S. and American Indian nations you happen to be on. The fact that everyone is questioning whether the delegation that went to Washington had any authority to do so makes me suspect that they probably did not. However nearly everyone, myself included, also seems to think that even if it's nothing but a PR stunt, it could turn out to be a tremendously effective one. It certainly raises the questions (or would, if the media was actually covering it... I still haven't found any coverage of this in major US sources, maybe on Monday) of the legality of the way we (the U.S.) have treated the Indian nations, the true nature of the supposedly sovereign nations created by the reservation system, the reality of Indian dependence on the U.S. government, the desirability of freedom and independence, and whether or not the more recent treaties have been honored any better than past ones were.
If nothing else, I think this will be successful in raising these questions on the reservations where it is, at least, getting more attention than off of them. Probably unsurprisingly, I, for one, think every step that can be taken towards true independence should be. Obviously it would be complicated for everyone if a completely sovereign nation sprung up in the middle of the country, especially if others were to follow. I'm currently in New Mexico outside Santa Fe, and driving from here to the Albuquerque airport next Wednesday I'll pass through about 5 or 6 different reservations. What would happen if they decided to become fully independent nations as well? Nevertheless, I think it is extremely important that we look at the treaties that we've signed, understand what obligations they entail, and examine whether or not we've actually lived up to them. The treaties were theoretically supposed to be for the benefit of both sides. Were they? If they were, are they still? If they're not, they should either be re-negotiated or gotten rid of entirely.
The declaration made this week was almost certainly timed to take advantage of the upcoming elections. Now, in particular, we're all questioning the wisdom and benefit of pursuing imperialistic policies abroad. Before we can even hope to answer those questions we need to answer the questions surrounding our imperialistic policies at home. Putting real thought into these questions and trying to answer them will, I think, be of tremendous benefit not only to Lakota and other Indian nations, but to us as Americans, and to all the peoples we currently do and will deal with abroad.
There is, of course, some question as to the reality of this movement. It's being said by some that it's nothing but a political stunt by the American Indian Movement. Certainly the AIM was involved, but I'm not sure that necessarily means the whole thing is a farce. Some more research into the matter is called for. I, for one, would like it to be real, and to actually happen. But it seems that even among the Indian community they're saying that it's nothing but grandstanding and that the delegation that went to Washington didn't actually represent them. Well, I'll still be following to story to see what happens.
I haven't seen a whole lot of coverage of this, and what I have seen hasn't really had all the much information. But apparently the Lakota Sioux have unilaterally withdrawn from all treaties with the United States and are taking steps to emphasize their sovereignty including plans to issue their own passports and drivers licenses, as well as opening diplomatic relationships with other countries. The most interesting step they're taking, to me, is the offer to allow U.S. citizens to move to the new Lakota Country where they can live tax free so long as they renounce their U.S. citizenship. This move could serve to attract the talent and marketable skills that they will need to survive as a fully independent nation, but only time will tell. They've also announced that they will be pursuing energy independence through renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and bio-fuels.
The best coverage of this that I've seen so far comes from the Indigenist Intelligence Review. It also contains the only link I've found so far to their website: lakotafreedom.com. Unfortunately, due to the recent news exposure, the site has exceeded it's bandwidth allotment and is inaccessible. I've attempted to contact them in order to offer some of my own hosting for the interim, but have yet to hear back. Edit: the website is apparently now back up, so we have a first-hand source of information.
I'm extremely interested to learn more about what's going on, and will be doing my best to keep on top of the story. Unfortunately it doesn't really seem to have been picked up by any major news outlets, which is unfortunate. In particular it will be interesting to see how the U.S. government responds to this. In theory it's completely legal, and they were technically already sovereign. In practice, the sovereignty of the various American Indian nations has always been tenuous at best. A few other nations, however, including Bolivia and Venezuela, have apparently already expressed their support.
We were watching the Republican debate the other night, and every time Alan Keyes was on the screen I just couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen him before in some other context. Something about his facial expressions and the way he moved just really reminded me of someone else.
Here's a video of him from the debate to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:
It was still bothering me a couple hours after the debate until it hit me! I knew who he reminded me of! This guy (YouTube)!
Am I crazy, or could that totally be a young Alan Keyes?
The other day I got a call from a recruiter. Apparently Apple wants to hire me to work at the Genius Bar at the new Boyleston Apple Store. Presumably they found me through my Apple certification, and I certainly have the resume for the job. Being a Genius isn't really that bad a gig. You get something like $20/hour, benefits, and, of course, you get to play with toys all day. Of course this isn't exactly the direction I'm looking to go in professionally. I have no particular desire to work retail. And I certainly have no particular desire to do nothing but fix people's computers for $20 and hour when I already do that for more money on the side of a more lucrative business. I might consider a job managing the Genius Bar, but retail tech support seems like a bit of a backwards step at this point.
On top of that I think I may be on the cusp of moving my business to the next stage. As I've mentioned before, I've transitioned my business into being primarily about web development and services. My business model has been to partner with web developers who need someone to do the programming for them. This strategy has been working very well, and for the past few months I've been much busier on average than I had been previously. Now, I think, things may be about to really take off.
I'm about to start a very big project, my biggest so far. Because of that, I'm basically going to be completely booked for the next two to three months while I work on this. But, with my business model being as successful as it has been lately, I can be pretty sure that during this time there will be a number of other opportunities that arise (in fact I already know of a few that will be coming up soon). This is exactly the position I've been working towards since I started this whole experiment just about 18 months ago: having more work coming in than I can handle myself. This means I'm finally at the point where I can seriously consider hiring more people. Of course at this point I'm really only looking for a contractor or two. Someone who can put in a few hours a month for me doing the work I don't have time for myself.
Having gotten to that point there's a clear path forward. While I work on this big new project, I'd only hire contractors as I need them for the work I don't have time for myself. Once it's done and I have a little more leeway to think about other things I can continue to take advantage of them to reduce my own work load and let me spend more time on finding new business. At some point after that I should be able to have enough business coming in that I can afford to hire a developer full-time and focus primarily on sales myself. And, of course, if that goes well I can hire someone to do sales full-time, and then I'll really be getting somewhere. The obvious 'end-point' of this strategy is for me to be managing a company that employs a full-time sales staff as well as a full-time development staff. Maybe even bringing in my own design team, although I think I'd prefer to maintain my partnerships with a large network of designers. At any rate, I think I'm finally approaching the point where I can truly consider this whole venture to be 'successful'.
