Hey! Everybody else is doin' it!

Sabrina Ferilli

I did not receive permission to display this image. I apologize to the copyright holders and promise not to do it again.

The pic came from show.supereva.it, I think this is the best one out of about 150 in MO. Now do like my epitaph is going to say and "Get Your Own!"

Oh, who else is doing this sort of thing? FukiBlog, Kim du Toit and the Gweilo Diaries all do it on a regular basis that I know of. For myself, you might get this sort of thing at about midnight Saturday night, if I don't forget and if I'm able to blog. If the wife doesn't knock the blogging spirit out of me. One way or the other.

The Probligo answers the critics

of New Zealand's anti-nuke policy (and guarantees that I will not ignore him nor forget him; I'm sure that was his secret agenda).

A taste:

NZ's anti-nuclear stance has its genesis in the 1950's and early 60's. At that time Britain was testing at Christmas Island, the US was testing further north. I have strong recollections of the continuing reports of scientists testing Strontium 90 levels in both pasture and milk over a period of some 10 to 15 years. The conclusion was that there was clear connection between Sr90 and atmospheric testing. Those soil tests were resumed when the French moved their test programmes from the Sahara to Mururoa.

Why was this so important? Because our major markets had expressed concern and threatened to stop buying dairy product because of the potential Sr90 contamination. What started as a protective (it is not as bad as you think) study, became an early weapon against the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. It formed a strong part of the case that NZ took to the World Court in the 1980's against atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

Read the whole thing. He felt it important enough to email it to me. This is my response [All right, so my response isn't brilliant.]:

It's a beautiful story.* Have you posted it yet? Never mind, I'll check before you can respond. It should be a copyrighted piece in a prestigious publication somewhere.

Got any room for a cheesehead and his family? You sound like you've got the right attitude.

*What right does any foreign government have to tell you what pollution you have to accept from them? Thumb away!

"Futility of isolationism?" I look forward to seeing you back that claim up.

But, as I said, the third freest (did I spell that right?) country--and the MOST pleasant, from what I hear--in the world MUST be accepted morally as an equal in all peaceful endeavors. I'll tell all five of my readers so. [A blogger said that? It must be false humility.]

Live long and prosper,
Al.

Update: Email from The Probligo
>The point really is, Al, that it is NOT a story. It is fact. It is a
>part of our history. I know it. I lived with it. I lived in it.
>
>Thanks for the kind words...
>
>Ka whakarongo, ko whawhai tonu matou
>Bob

My answer:
Now THAT was a case of hitting the send button before I thought better of it. Although, even now I can't think of a better way of phrasing what I was thinking. I suppose a complete revision would be in order.

What I think is beautiful, is the independence it shows. The pain of accepting the consequences of that independence--that standing for principle can end a great friendship (when the "friend" irrationally refuses to understand your side).

Well, it's time for me to part with a little money

for a couple of books: The Myth of National Defense, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and Crisis and Leviathan, by Robert Higgs, to see the well-developed arguments for privatization, in the former case, and against endless growth of government in the latter.

I have to say, that The Devil You Know over at Lucifer's Condiments has a pretty good, if somewhat Marx inspired, take on the pitfalls of pacifying a foreign region that wasn't your own to control until recently. But of course he goes and spoils my admiration by slandering my beloved Ayn Rand. I came to that piece via his comment on
Ayn Clouter's blog about a post ripping Ann Coulter for her namby-pamby moderation.

Ms. Clouter thinks that Libertarians are her tools. She forgets that we insist on the retention of, not only pitchforks and torches, nor ever merely pistols and hunting rifles, but all the weapons customarily issued to regular soldiers. Retained by the individual citizens for their own protection. Keep in mind that the Soviet Union was overthrown with less. An Oligarchical Conspiracy won't have as much support.

John B. is heading out of town and all

so maybe he just ran out of time to answer me, but just in case I've offended him with my use of the, admittedly derogatory, term "papist," I do apologize.

I was looking for a synonym for Catholic. I hope it doesn't have the strength of a word like n*****. I thought that whatever power it may have had in the past to offend had long since died out. On the other hand, I wouldn't have called him a Polack, either and... well, I can't think of anything that he could call me that would really offend me, I pretty much acknowledge all the collectivist epithets that could be hurled my way as things to be proud of. "Finnlander" is considered an ethnic slur by my ancestors who are still living. It was a term of real social oppression for some who are still living in our neck of the woods. I suppose "Jew-lover" might be used against me in a way that would make me see red. And if someone were to seriously insult my black or Mexican friends I would be very angry. And, as I've said before, I have deep respect for a number of gay people that I don't want to see harmed or hurt.

So, if I've done that to Catholic Packer Fan or his loved ones, or anyone like them, I will do what needs to be done to make it right.

Who are these tela.net people?

They've examined my blog close enough to program my replacement pod, but I never hear anything from them.

Mark. I got your message. I call shortly. [I bes callin' shortly, I mean.] Just checkin' the blog and the emails. I think I'd better do some plumbing tonight, too. And dislodge this cat from this cubbyhole in the computer desk.

I wonder what Papist gents with eclectic tastes

in sports teams think of this slap at the Yankees.

A little housecleaning here.

Here's a link to Polo Hofer.

And I need to go in and delete a foul expostulation in my comment box and fix the thing that caused it.

Update: I knew this guy was great. Check this out:

Alle Tontraeger haben wir selbst finanziert und in unserer eigenen Schallplattenfirma (Schnoutz Records) herausgegeben. Wir sind Unternehmer, die nie um staatliche oder institutionelle Unterstuetzung ersucht haben, worauf wir stolz sind.

There's something odd about the page that keeps me from getting a Google translation (they're always amusing to me) but it says, "We self-financed all our albums and produced them in our own recording studio, under our own label (Schnoutz Records). We're entrepreneurs who have never sought government or institutional support. We're proud of that."

Here's all I have to say

about Kerry/Edwards.

Oh, except thanks to some guy named Dave and VodkaPundit.

Satirists of the World! Feast your eyes and weap!

Creative genius, right here!

Damn! Read this customer review of a book I saw in a comment ad:

A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
Talk about enthusiasm combined with knowledge! [As near as I can tell. I'm a Liberal Arts major.]

If anybody was worried that the 9/11 Commission Report

wasn't getting enough play, the WaPo reports:

One week after its release, "The 9/11 Commission Report" remains atop bestseller lists and has entered its second printing, according to publisher W.W. Norton. The initial printing was 600,000 copies, and 200,000 more have been ordered. The commission's Web site, which includes free access to the report, has logged more than 50 million visits, panel spokesman Al Felzenberg said.

I was one of those visitors. I printed up the executive summary and read it on my daily walk. It's an easy read.

Looking at the discussion of the Mises.org article,

Ten Recurring Economic Fallacies, 1774-2004, exerpted below, on their blog, I found this guy who posted a great summary of Bastiat's Broken Window Fallacy as part of a screed against Bill Gates:

In a nutshell, the fallacy says that breaking windows is good for the economy, as it creates the need for replacements, and thus "creates jobs." This is of course nuts. At the end of the replacement process, we're worse off by having consumed whatever resources it takes to produce a window and we can't use those resources for whatever we would've used them for had the window remained intact. Presumably spending resources on windows isn't our first choice, so we're also worse off by whatever the "utility" difference between our first choice and windows.

Right now, I'm also trying to find time for this article by Murray Rothbard, Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire. More advice for activists.

Oh, for God's sake!

The courts are oracles of God apparently.

Look, three sentences in a row with the word "God" in them.

Well, more in order to show my good taste, I guess,

than to direct more readers there ["...far above our poor power to add or detract..."], The Opinion Journal today has three great articles: Taranto describes the last couple days among the protesters in Boston and has the other two links at the bottom. But especially read That '90s Show: A return to Clintonism wouldn't be a return to peace and prosperity. It's an economic history of the 90s. See if it doesn't ring true to you.
Oh, and Brendan Miniter says, We need more spooks, not more bureaucrats. Yep.

There's a great example of

Epicureanism in this month's Reason:

Beyond Conventional Thinking

Life's rich pageant, outside the halls of state

Brian Doherty

And you know the affinity I have for that philosophy.

Nothing like this week of all-Kerry-all-the-time Democratic convention coverage to turn one's mind to the other side of life - you know, the side not directly connected to the system of coordinated violence and threats designed to force other people to do what you want them to, and people's attempts to game that system in a usually futile attempt to "make a difference."

I know far too many people of what would generally be called "progressive" political tendencies who have been hoodwinked by two-partyism into thinking that they must devote great amounts of money, time, and effort to the cause of encouraging people to vote for Kerry, a man who stands for almost nothing they believe in passionately, on issues from war to civil liberties.

I try to resist the temptation (often a totalitarian one, as it can lead all too quickly to thinking that you, or someone, has to do something about it) to let other people's choices about what to do with their lives depress me. But I confess the sight of a sincere activist commie (especially one I might be personally fond of) wasting time and treasure on the cause of John Kerry's election is a serious bummer. It's a situation where I fear two-partyism has imbued my progressive comrades with what the more intellectual-history-minded among them might call "false consciousness."

Or perhaps it's a purer form of what we consider hedonism to be, from the author of This is Burning Man.

Little comes out of throwing your support behind candidates except further support for a system of petty controls and evil tyranny. Believers in progressive politics who are interested in the arts and experiments-in-living, as they so often are, have much more to offer the world - and, if I may be so bold, their own lives - by producing art and experiments in living rather than indulging in electoral politics.

This is the true political philosophy:

The Catholic Church has long advocated the rich and wonderful principle of subsidiarity, which advocates dealing with social concerns at the level closest to the individual human being. Our federal system leaves some room for this--San Francisco itself, is, obviously, far closer to the dream polity of its progressive denizens than the U.S. at large. While attempting to perfect the entire world, or even an entire nation, is inherently futile and impossible, attempting to make our own lives, and those of our immediate family, friends, and block, successful and peaceful and cared for is something within the realm of possibility. And it's a path whose rewards (and, of course, failures) would be real and immediate and fulfilling. But it is, make no mistake, harder than voting, or getting out the vote, or attending political conventions, or writing about them.

As I write, I'm indulging myself, while my wife and daughters are out of town, by blasting my favorite rock... I almost feel ashamed to admit it's a tape... Polo Hofer und die Schmetter Band. Hard-core, bluesy rock-n-roll in a language I can barely make out, Schwaitzerdeutsch (as he would spell it). It's an exceedingly rough sounding dialect, well suited to the form.

Sitting here, enjoying the raw emotion combined with exquisite instrumental skills and rock/blues compositions reminded me of this article. I felt that blogging about it would make a perfect evening. Blogging about rebellion against politics, listening to a guy ripping out his vocal cords and reading an article by an anarcho-capitalist... I expect to be as satisfied as I can be, in the absence of my wife and children, by the time the album is done.

I owe my new New Zealander friend

at least one more mention, due to my horrible typo. The Probligo does wonderfully thoughtful and [I fancy myself a sort of Cheesehead John Cleese] balanced critiques of events in New Zealand and the World. I believe he's a lefty, but a very thoughtful one. [Okay, what's another word for that?]

BTW, I can't believe that our government finds it essential to put our nuclear warships in at Auckland and would hold up a free trade agreement over that. [I can't quickly find a link for that, I wonder if he has one. Ah, here's one. Thank you Google.] Especially with a country as free as New Zealand. Free trade is vastly more important than military prestige. Oh, here's another fascinating story on the subject. Especially the

Conclusion

As The Wall Street Journal recently noted, "The loudest proponents for free trade the U.S. and the leaders of the European Union -have refused to open their markets to New Zealand's best products." American protectionism has not escaped the attention of the world. Clearly, the crumbling credibility of U.S. commitment to trade needs to be addressed. With only 3 out of the 131 trade and investment agreements in the world, the United States needs to keep its commitment to free trade by liberalizing its market and by seeking bilateral trade agreements to expand opportunities for American producers. Negotiating a trade agreement with New Zealand will start this process and build on a longstanding friendship.

My emphasis.

BTBTW, what do all those Ds mean?

Note to self: watch this page: Heritage Foundation: Trade and Economic Freedom

William Graham Sumner described how the Civil War,

which he lived through, had squandered capital and labor: "The mills, forges, and factories were active in working for the government, while the men who ate the grain and wore the clothing were active in destroying, and not in creating capital. This, to be sure, was war. It is what war means, but it cannot bring prosperity."

The preceding is quoted from an article at Mises.org, Ten Recurring Economic Fallacies, 1774-2004 By H.A. Scott Trask [Posted July 26, 2004]

This is a great article. I consider my self a student of Austrian Economics. Trask is farther along in his studies. Consult his article.

Of course, as soon as I posted this, I realized I meant to say a little more. People are demanding more sacrifice from the people who support the war. Mostly democrats, they love it when people sacrifice. They're always bragging about how they sacrifice. I just caught a couple minutes of Al Sharpton bragging about his sacrifices.

War is destruction. It isn't construction. Yes, the people supplying the soldiers get rich, but everybody else sacrifices. There's only one good reason to fight a war and that is to defend the lives and freedom of a people. Freedom (and its basis life, of course) benefits economies. Returning to where you were before a war doesn't really count as a boom time, though it may train in - by rewarding non-destructive behavior - the good productive hapits that will lead to the next real boom.

Most effective way to prevent terrorism

is missing from 911 report, Libertarians say

[Originally posted without comment. (I have to sleep sometime.) Now there's comment.]

WASHINGTON, DC -- The report by the September 11 commission is missing
one obvious way the U.S. government could reduce the chance of another
terrorist attack, Libertarians say: Quit meddling in foreign nations.

"The intelligence reform needed most right now is a more intelligent
foreign policy," says Libertarian presidential candidate Michael
Badnarik. "Pulling U.S. troops out of nations where they don't belong
would make America much safer than appointing a thousand new
intelligence czars."

The report by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States, released on Thursday in Washington, notes that the
government missed up to 10 opportunities to unravel the September 11
plot because of bureaucratic bungling among 15 U.S. intelligence
agencies. It recommends creating a new multi-agency center to fight
terrorism; appointing a single director of national intelligence; and
strengthening congressional oversight of intelligence agencies.

Unfortunately, the politicians who authored the 600-page report chose to
overlook the simplest way to protect America, Badnarik says: Adopt a
foreign policy of neutrality and non-intervention.

"Most Americans would be shocked to learn that U.S. troops are deployed
in more than 100 nations around the globe," he said. "Putting U.S.
troops in volatile, anti-American regions such as the Middle East makes
them tempting targets for terrorists."

In fact, terrorists attacked several U.S. targets -- such as the USS
Cole and the World Trade Center -- before the catastrophic events of
September 11, and each time made it clear that they were reacting to
U.S. foreign policy in the region.

"You don't see terrorists targeting other prosperous, Western-style
democracies such as Switzerland, Canada or Sweden," he said. "And one
reason is that those governments don't meddle in other nation's affairs
or embark on foolish nation-building missions."

For decades, he noted, the U.S. government has provided military and
financial aid to both Israel and its Arab enemies, has sided both with
Iran and Iraq in their bitter, 10-year war and has routinely supported
and armed brutal dictatorships around the world -- so politicians
shouldn't pretend that they're shocked when Americans become targets for
terrorists.

That's why the biggest missed opportunity of all is the government's
refusal to reform U.S. foreign policy, Libertarians say.

"Instead of making America safer, Republicans and Democrats have opted
once again to make government bigger," he said. "When will they learn
that the best way to protect Americans at home is to quit making enemies
abroad?"

The trouble with the Libertarians, besides that Badnarik will probably be in jail for tax evasion by election day, is that I really haven't seen a credible plan to turn the US into a giant Switzerland. Actually, I suppose the point would be to use Switzerland, or better, New Zealand as scale models, but we're at A here and we need to find the way to B.

Democrats should reimburse taxpayers $40 million

for cost of Boston convention, Libertarians say

WASHINGTON -- In light of a surprising new poll showing that 62 percent
of Americans oppose taxpayer-funded conventions, Libertarians say the
Democratic Party should immediately reimburse taxpayers for the $40
million cost of staging their Boston event.

"Let's hope the American people love this convention, because they paid
for it," says Libertarian Party National Chair Mike Dixon. "There's
something terribly wrong when two rich guys running for office can
force ordinary Americans to pay for their televised advertising
campaign.

"If John Kerry and John Edwards really care about the little guy,
here's their chance to prove it: Give the money back."

The organizers of the Democratic and Republican national conventions
have each received checks for $14.5 million from the Federal Election
Commission to finance their events. That, combined with an estimated
$25 million in security costs that each will incur, means that
taxpayers will foot the bill for nearly $40 million for each event.

The Libertarian convention, held over Memorial Day weekend in Atlanta,
was financed entirely with private funds.

"In a Rasmussen poll released on Sunday, Americans made it clear that
they want to kick politicians off the welfare wagon," Dixon said.

The survey, commissioned by the Libertarian Party, asked: "Should tax
money be spent to stage the Democrat and Republican national
presidential nominating conventions?" An overwhelming majority of 62
percent said no, 24 percent said yes and 14 percent weren't sure.

Libertarians are proposing two alternatives to taxpayer-financed
conventions:

One: Let corporate sponsors and other donors, who already gave a
record $103.5 million to the two major parties' host committees, pick
up the entire tab.

Dixon said: "Former Democratic National Chairman Don Fowler is quoted
as saying, 'Some of the best lobbying in the world is done at these
conventions. It is a tremendous boon for special interests.'

"As long as Democrats and Republicans have something to sell, special
interests will have something to buy. It's better to charge these
fatcats up-front than to send taxpayers the bill for their weeklong
bribe-a-thon."

Two: Make Kerry and Edwards pay the $40 million personally.

"Kerry's personal fortune is estimated at $60 million, and Edwards is a
multi-millionaire trial lawyer, so both can afford it," Dixon noted.
"It's simply outrageous for these two wealthy politicians to bilk
ordinary Americans to pay for an event at which they're scheming for
yet more ways to bilk us if they get elected. They should have the
decency to give the money back."

They will say the same thing about the Republican convention, don't worry.

The Probligo tells me that his screenname

derives from... I don't know if it's a common New Zealand term or ideosyncratic... a term for and old beater car that will "probably go" at any minute. With the erudition he shows in his writing, I figured it was some Latin term like "cogito" that it would behoove me to look up. He saved me a lot of digging and gave me a laugh too.

[If you know this just ignore it: "Cogito" means "I think" and is the short term philosophers use to discuss Descartes' argument that starts with "I think, therefore I am." (Cogito ergo sum.)]

Update: After much haranging, I'm editing my typo. We'll put in the link too, while we're at it. Fair enough?

Tough getting any computer time these past few days.

I've managed to carve some out anyway, but it's cut into other things. Mainly sleep. Saturday my body rebelled and basically knocked me out. But otherwise I've been spending a lot of time with the girls. (No, I mean my daughters, you lunkheads!)

I went for a jog yesterday, for the first time in years. In my cheap Earth Shoes. (The sell expensive ones too, but these are working fine.) I've had zero hip pain since I bought them, so now they're my cross-trainers. I jogged about 3 miles. I figured I could, because I walk 3-4 miles every work day - it was just an increase in the pace. But I'm sore as h*** now.

When I stepped on the scale afterwards I was 120 Kg. It was great to see me edging back into the old 242 weight class again. Of course, about a pound an a half of that was water, but it was a great emotional kick.

TCM here I come! Oh, all right. Just the 5K then. I'll get my butt kicked by some 10 year-old kid again. I think my best time (in three whole races) was about 24:38. I guarantee I wasn't going that fast yesterday. More like 36 minutes.

Enough of that? Fine.

The Second Letter from ARI

Dear Editor:

Contrary to the claim by the 9/11 commission chairman, the failure to prevent 9/11 was not "a failure of imagination." It was a failure of cognition.

For decades prior to 9/11, terrorist attacks against Americans were perpetrated without any noticeable response from the U.S. government. The first attack on the World Trade Center, for example, occurred back in 1993--and it was dealt with as a mere criminal matter. More recently, in 1998, Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States and publicly called for the indiscriminate murder of Americans all over the world as a religious duty. A few months later Al Qaeda destroyed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The United States did not respond to any of these threats and assaults.

The reason that the United States was taken by surprise was not a lack of imagination, but a lack of honesty in facing the facts--and a lack of courage to act against these obvious threats.

As the commission itself reported, "The 9/11 attacks were a shock, but they should not have come as a surprise."

David Holcberg
Writer, Ayn Rand Institute

Two new letters from The Ayn Rand Institute

[Remind me to fix my link in the link bar. No, I don't think it hurts anything to be their tool.]

Dear Editor:

What is the White House doing about Iran's production of nuclear weapons? Insisting on a diplomatic solution through negotiations!

But it is precisely this wrongheaded approach that failed to prevent the current crisis--and which will allow Iran to become a nuclear power soon.

Negotiations are moral--and practical--only between individuals who are open to reason, who respect each other's rights, and whose purpose is to exchange values for mutual benefit, without coercion.

But the Iranian leadership is wildly irrational, has no respect for individual rights, and seeks--by threatening nuclear attacks against the United States (the "big Satan")--to further advance the spread of Islamic totalitarianism over the globe.

The proper approach to eliminate this threat against the United States is not to negotiate with Iran's mullahs--but to eliminate them.


David Holcberg
Writer, Ayn Rand Institute

2121 Alton Parkway #250
Irvine 92606 CA
(949) 222-6550 ext 226

The Probligo, who has kindly commented on a couple of my posts

This one and this one, sent me an email to get around the 1000 word limit on my free Haloscan comments. (Anyone who feels that way is welcome to do the same.) His comments require me to do a little editing on my posting of the section from Tibor Machan's Ayn Rand (see links at that post). I hope to say, "done," here in a moment.

Done.

Hopefully that's a lot clearer. Let's see what points remain. I'd like to post the letter, so you could see the respectful tone. I hope to do it justice, but occasionally, my Spartan laconism defeats me when I'm passing along "the word" from someone else. (One could also blame my tendency to think of myself as a Superior being.)

Sorry. One's hometown is just another kind of granfalloon.

No, I'm quite excited to get such a thoughtful response to a post, though the credit goes mostly to Mr. Machan (and Miss Rand, of course). I eagerly await a response to my edited post.

Points remaining:
1. Machan's pedantry.

Hopefully I've improve the context enough for you to understand something of Objectivism. If this doesn't do it, well, Andrew Bernstein says that the best salesman (Rand would not say "salesperson") of Rand's ideas is Rand. Frankly, she's the better writer.

2. The hammer and soft word example is a koan.

Koans, as I'm sure you know, serve the purpose of promoting enlightenment, whether suddenly, in a satori experience, or slowly through meditation. Of course, the assumption is that the enlightenment would be comprehensive, or holistic, about the true and complete nature of reality. I doubt that any Objectivist would assume they could do that. A flash of enlightenment couldn't cover more than an aspect of reality, an probably only a small one at that.

3. Question: is Rand telling us how to think or what to think?

I believe that, at least up until the 1960s, Miss Rand considered it most important to tell us how to think. When she began directly publishing essays about current event using her philosophy, it could be argued that she was telling us what to think. I doubt that she would accept the distinction. Chris Matthew Sciabarra has written a large book, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (a pigeonhole The Ayn Rand Institute would reject as too confining), describing the degree to which dialectic thought - the collapsing of false dichotomies - figures in to Rand's thought.

4. Defense of Cartesian rationalism.

My own study of Descartes is weak, but what I hear is that the result of the Cogito was Humean Skepticism and it's less well-grounded descendants. Doubt of the status quo in science has born great fruits, true, but I think Rand would argue that actual buildings (and railroads) are built on certainty, or rather making certain, that they would stand and serve their users well. Scientists and engineers make good use of the scientific method (also expounded by Roger Bacon and Francis Bacon) but thinkers in the social sciences and philosophy have not, it seems to me (and Machan), been equally meticulous.

After posting a couple of slaps at this guy

I have to say that this is a pretty good article by Justin Raimond at Anti-War.com:
Do We Want a War Criminal as President?
The 'Anybody But Bush' movement is morally and politically bankrupt

Rand Beers, Kerry's foreign policy chief, is a longtime veteran of the national security bureaucracy, having served under the last four presidents in some capacity or other, including Special Assistant to the President for Combating Terrorism, under George W. Bush. Reporting on a Kerry speech in which the candidate called "for a harder line toward Saudi Arabia and a softer approach to Iran," the New York Times cited Beers as saying that "thousands more new coalition troops were needed to stabilize Iraq and that Kerry would not rule out sending more Americans as part of that mix."
...
John Kerry's foreign policy chief honcho has a lot of 'splaining to do to all those Anybody But Bush (ABB) types, whose mindless support for the warmongering Kerry is based on an addled but sincere desire to at least mitigate the immense evil now emanating from Washington.

The only problem with the ABB strategy, however, is that the man they want to replace George W. Bush with is potentially even more of a monster. After all, Kerry personally cut the throats of a great many Vietnamese during our losing war in Southeast Asia: listen here as he confesses to what he himself describes as "war crimes."

As part of the murderous "Phoenix" program, designed to dry up the pool of support in which the Viet-Cong was submerged, Kerry and his cohorts unleashed a reign of terror, and killed many thousands of Vietnamese villagers, most of them ordinary peasants, including women and children. He brags about his three Purple Hearts, and his campaign compares his military record favorably to the AWOL Bush, who managed to stay well out of it, while the Bush-haters screech that the president is a "chickenhawk" because he wasn't eager to become a mass murderer.

I hate to cut off exerpting because the whole article is great, from my point of view. This is followed by a long section about the support Kerry is garnering from the Communist Party-USA.

I enjoy Raimondo when he's skewering his compatriots in the anti-war movement:

What Nader calls "corporate socialism" rules the day – and the uncomprehending silence that greeted Nader's denunciation of it at a San Francisco rally last week just underscores how clueless much of the Left is to what's really going on in this country. Nader's rhetoric was greeted with a single cry of "Down with corporate socialism!" that rang out over the stunned audience. I couldn't help but burst out laughing, and my loud applause startled the people sitting in front of me enough to crane their necks to see who was causing this unseemly outburst.

It's too bad the Democratic party was so successful in its "dirty tricks" campaign against Nader, keeping him off so many state ballots that he won't be on but a dozen or so. He could have given voice to a large constituency of antiwar voters, and given his own unique – if not always correct – analysis of what empowers the power elite.

I'm afraid that we're just going to have to grit our teeth, endure the next few months as best we can, and wait out the partisan static until the air clears after November. Then we can face what has to be faced and move forward from there.

The difficulty is that, if the anti-war crowd wins, it won't be Libertarians in the ascendancy. It'll be the commies and the authoritarian, so-called anarchists.

Television May Prompt Early Puberty

From News Max:

Puberty is on setting earlier than in previous generations and scientists think they may have found the reason: Watching television prohibits the production of melatonin, which delays puberty.

The Week reports that a study conducted by researchers at Italy's University of Florence discovered that when kids sat in front of the tube at least three hours a day, they had less production of the sleep hormone. But they also found their bodies produced 30 percent more of it after a week with no TV.

"What's interesting about this study is that it's stripping TV entirely away from the content," said Syracuse University's Robert Thompson. "This isn't about bad, indecent, or sexual programming. It's about the totally neutral impact of the medium itself."

When kids are exposed to the artificial light from a television screen - particularly during nighttime hours - their bodies suppress melatonin production.

Various studies say that approximately 19 percent of eight-year-old girls in Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. have already begun puberty, whereas just one generation ago only one percent had.

More of the same story at New Scientist.

For those of you who got your fix of Hot Abercrombie Chick

by looking at my HAC for President button and were terribly disappointed when my efforts at improving my template (finally successful due to the kind intervention of S. Michael Moore, of FukiBlog)wiped it out, I went over and got a picture of her:

I feel the occasional need to affirm my heterosexuality.

I'm going to brazenly post a section

of a chapter from Tibor Machan's book Ayn Rand. I don't think he can be said to misunderstand her here. [Edited - all indented paragraphs are Machan's, all bracketed comments are mine. Parentheses outside brackets are Machan's.]

Here is another exerpt, adapted from the book and published as an article here, which will help a little to establish some context.

Aristotle and Ayn Rand have something in common. They repeat the obvious.

The First Principles of Ayn Rand
by Tibor R. Machan
(Adapted from Dr. Machan's forthcoming book, Ayn Rand)
(First published on TDO October 20, 1999)

In Ayn Rand's philosophy a central place is occupied by axiomatic concepts: roughly, ideas that we cannot do without anywhere, any time (even if we don't identify them explicitly). They are basic because they point to a fact that is ubiquitous, omnipresent.

Rand's concern with axioms has often been ridiculed. As one author, Leon Wieseltier, puts it, "A=A. Big deal." Yet her claims for the role and function of axioms are sweeping. If those claims are justified, her stress on the importance of axioms is not at all misplaced.

According to Rand, the formulation "Existence exists" is a way of "translating into the form of a proposition, and thus into the form of an axiom, the primary fact which is existence." (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. [The original link was to Laissez-Faire Books, but they seem to have stopped carrying it I've switched it to The Ayn Rand Bookstore]) "But," Rand goes on to add, "explicit propositions as such are not primaries; they are made of concepts. The base of man's knowledge—of all other concepts, all axioms, propositions and thought—is axiomatic concepts." [Emphasis mine.] It is axiomatic concepts that serve as the first principles of Rand's philosophy. She defines an axiomatic concept as:

…the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e, reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest.

This squares with common sense: we learn first and foremost what there is—not statements or propositions about what there is. And while a good deal of later learning—as well as human communication—occurs via propositions, the experiences we have provide us with plenty of brute facts that we access directly by means of our perceptual organs and minds.

RTWT - read the whole thing.

And a bibliographic biography of Ayn Rand can be found at Laissez-Faire Books.

Pages 125-126 in the paper back:

Rand's Alleged Rationalism

It is, furthermore, wrong to label Rand a rationalist - that means someone who proposes to derive all truths from first principles alone and usually by merely thinking them up in the unaided human mind (as per Descartes, Spinoza)!

[Or like Marx did with political economy.]

For example, nowhere does Rand claim that "We know a priori that all events have a cause." This is [Norman] Barry's [Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism (Oxford, England: Blackwell, 1989).] imposition of a view on Rand that she rejects - she is, as we have already seen, neither an empiricist nor a rationalist.

Rand does hold that "the law of causality is the law of identity applied to action," meaning that the fact of X being I (having this identity) will necessarily condition the way X will interact with the surrounding world, something that isn't true a priori - based on some pre-experiential understanding - but on the plain fact that nothing can be produced by nothing. (In other words, when X is a,b and c and a, b, and c can produce x, y, and z but not p,q, and r, this is because results other than p, q, and r would have no source - they would simply pop into existence.)

[That must be a typo. Either the second p, q, and r should be x, y, and z or there's a missing line.]

Thus, Rand would hold, that a hammer enables us to make a dent in a car's fender but a softly spoken word will not. Our understanding of hammers and cars and dents provides us with this knowledge. (And the "necessity" involved is the realistic - not fantastic or socalled "logical" - necessity of all scientific-engineering claims.) [Because their logical arguments are based on Logical Positivism these days?] Similarly, given what a human being is, force will not produce morally good behavior but personal resolve can do this. [My emphasis.]

Certainly, our engineering sciences rest on such facts of reality, rather than on some supposed contingency that Barry thinks obtains. Our political and other social sciences, in turn, are going astray - rational analysis is precluded from them - because they fail to heed the point.

Rand adheres to a pluralistic conception of what there is and thus of how we might come to know it. The simplistic division of the world into the empirical and the rational sectors is alien to Rand's way of thinking. Barry's efforts to use the division to classify Rand's views just will not succeed in those terms. Indeed, by the common sense (as distinct from radical) understanding of "empirical," Rand takes the law of causality as an empirical principle - I.e., a principle of how the world actually works discovered in part by the utilization of one's sensory organs.

For Barry and Co., however, "empirical" means, most significantly, contingent, i.e., a state of affairs that does not have to be so and might just be otherwise - anytime, anywhere. Contingent used to mean, in philosophy, "dependent upon the will of God." When God became unfashionable, it was retained to mean "conditional and not necessary, could be otherwise, not having to be the case or "not logically impossible." But all this is dependent heavily upon a very rich and questionable theory in terms of which, for example, "certainty" came to mean "incorrigible," "infallible," "true beyond a shadow of a doubt." Once one accepts this theory and its language, there is no telling what else you must buy into and usually it leads (logically) to the conviction we find in Paul Feyerabend and Richard Rorty, namely, that every belief is equally good and we must leave it all up to small democratic assemblies or "our" communities to decide what will prevail. It recalls the old Greek thinker, Cratylus, who stopped talking because he realized that talk assumes some measure of consistency of meaning of terms over time, and skeptics are not entitled to this.

I chose this passage because it seems to me to be an exceptionally clear, concise and fairly comprehensive explication of Rand's epistemology.

Buried at the end of this story about

the allegations against Halliburton are these admissions from the USA Today writers:

Despite all the criticism, Halliburton was a logical choice for Iraq. It is the military's main logistics supplier around the world, working side by side with U.S. troops in the Balkans, Somalia, Rwanda, the Middle East and Central Asia. It also is among global leaders in oil field services. The company insists it did not call in any favors from Cheney to win business in Iraq.

Last week, Defense officials and others involved in the contracting process told the House Committee on Government Reform they had no contact with Cheney or his office about the contracts. Cheney and his aides played no role in the contract awards, they said.
...
Several Wall Street analysts predict the company will outperform others in the oil field services sector.
...
Halliburton isn't the only contractor in Iraq getting scrutiny. Fluor, Perini and Washington Group International are among others facing "substantial subcontracting pricing issues," Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim told a House hearing last week. "Halliburton's performance in Iraq has not been perfect, but it has not been terrible," Zakheim said.

But it's almost libelous to leave you with the impression that the article was negative on the whole. The format is 'allegation followed by defense' throughout. The jury's not in yet. I predict the verdict will be an aquittal, but it won't silence the howlers.

Flores didn't go gently on Kinder

Nor should he have:

Prisoner Put In Cell With Molester Who Raped Him As Child

A Tampa man will not be prosecuted for beating the pedophile who raped and choked him as a child.

In a bitter coincidence, Jason Flores, 23, was mistakenly placed in a cell with Kevin Kinder, a man who had raped and strangled him 13 years ago.

Now, how'd that happen?

Story found at The New American Revolution while checking out FukiBlog's links.

The True Direction of Campaign Finance Reform

Conrad, over at The Gweilo Diaries (a site you don't want to read at work, particularly on Wednesdays), has a post about election laws in South Korea. He quotes this article (I use his exerpt, it's brief and won't have odd characters):

A Seoul court on Thursday fined a college student 1.5 million won (US$1,300) for producing and spreading parodies through the Internet that aimed to defame certain candidates ahead of the April 15 general elections.
It is the first time in South Korea that a citizen has been punished for producing parody works on the Internet.

The 26-year-old student, identified by the surname Shin, was accused of creating and posting some 20 parody photos on the Internet that were considered unfair for some candidates from the Grand National Party.

"Shin deserves punishment because he tried to influence the elections through his parody works,’’ the Seoul Central District Court said in the ruling. Shin said he would appeal.

"Everyone has the right to express their opinions by creating works, including parody works, but Shin’s work passed a limit and tried to influence politics with the works for a certain party,’’ the ruling said.

"Making parody is one thing and using it for political propaganda is another,’’ an official of the National Election Commission told The Korea Times. "The government is needed to strictly deal with those producing parody as a means to sway voters in elections and making political decisions. Such acts are obviously not condonable.

Ah, but it couldn't happen here. [The allusion, if you don't recognize it is to a book by Sinclair Lewis. (That Amazon price must be a typo. It's a little paperback. Shoot, I'd part with mine for a mere $65.00.)]

The Ayn Rand Institute on the 9-11 Commission Report

Dear Editor:

As the 9/11 commission's final report made clear, both the Clinton and Bush administrations were at fault for not striking at Al Qaeda before September 11. While leftists hypocritically have blamed Bush, conservatives retroactively blamed Clinton. Yet both camps are repeating the mistakes of the past and still trying the diplomatic approach in dealing with terrorist states.

Today there is no doubt about the threat to America posed by Iran, Syria and North Korea, among others. But almost no one is calling for an attack on any of these regimes. Hopefully, America will not wait for a more horrific version of 9/11 before striking at its avowed enemies. Hopefully, but--at this rate--not likely.

David Holcberg
Writer, Ayn Rand Institute

2121 Alton Parkway #250
Irvine 92606 CA
(949) 222-6550 ext 226

One more quick post as a spacer

Here's a quote from Walter Lippmann (not this guy) that I got from Freedom's Nest:

Free institutions are not the property of any majority. They do not confer upon majorities unlimited powers. The rights of the majority are limited rights. They are limited not only by the constitutional guarantees but by the moral principle implied in those guarantees. That principle is that men may not use the facilities of liberty to impair them. No man may invoke a right in order to destroy it.

I've always felt that this was a little unclear. I'll meditate on it and expound on it later. One of the problems I have doing that is that I first try to get inside the head of the person speaking to me, and I haven't seen enough of this guy's stuff to do that.

So, I guess I'll just have to state what I think he means in my own words. Or what I would mean if I said it.

Update: I just added the links above. Good stuff there.

Well, how about that?

Does Quizilla only exist to flatter me?


You are Proverbs.


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Here's the article about Halliburton and Cheney

that LibertyBob brought up in a post below:
From FactCheck.org

Anti-Bush Ad Overstates Case Against Halliburton
Moveon Pac ad says administration gave contracts "on a silver platter," but government investigators say otherwise.
June 18, 2004
Modified: June 28, 2004

Summary

An ad that began airing June 15 portrays a white-coated White House waiter serving contracts and wads of cash, while an announcer says the Bush administration gave Halliburton no-bid contracts "on a silver platter" and that the company was "caught" overcharging by tens of millions of dollars.
But in fact, investigators from the General Accounting Office (GAO) found Halliburton's no-bid contracts to be legal and probably justified by the Pentagon's wartime needs. Furthermore, Pentagon auditors have yet to make any final determination of whether payment should be denied to Halliburton for gasoline or meals for troops. Those billing disputes are still being negotiated.
(Note: See the italicized "footnote" below for Moveon PAC's response to this article.)

Bouncing around the Net today

I passed an amusing response to this article:

UN vote demands Israel tear down barrier

The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to demand Israel obey a World Court ruling and tear down its West Bank barrier, but Australia has joined Israel and the United States in opposing the resolution.
The vote in the 191-nation assembly was 150-6, with 10 abstentions. The tiny Pacific states of Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau also voted 'no'.
Israel, which does not have to obey the General Assembly ruling, has said it will be ignored.
Only a UN Security Council resolution would be binding, which the United States, as permanent member, would be expected to block.

 

Only a Security Council resolution would be binding.  What would the UN do then?  If the US were on that side, I suppose they'd sick us on them.

Israeli UN ambassador Dan Gillerman criticised the vote.
"Mr President, allow me to start with a vote of thanks. Thank God that the fate of Israel and of the Jewish people is not decided in this hall," he said.

All right, we're down to merely an incentive for

me to post a lot.