Sunday, December 28, 2003

Understand Anarchy

Roderick Long receives a response from Robert Bidinotto in regards to an earlier posting by Long on anarchy entitled “Anarchism as Constitutionalism: A Reply to Bidinotto."

Both pieces by Long, and Bidinotto’s ideas on this subject, deserve your time.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/28 at 06:18 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

It Is to Laugh

Ha, ha, ha.  Laughter comes in all styles, from the obnoxious emanations of Fran Drescher to the bordering on uncontrollable, tears running down your face laughter of Jonathon Winters as he improvs.  I’m not even going to get into the laughter that afflicts one observing the absurdities of political life surrounding us.  Tyler Cowen notes a new book on laughter, written by neuroscientist Robert Provine, entitled "Laughter, A Scientific Investigation." Cowen provides a link to a summary of Provine’s laughter investigations and admits to hating being tickled.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/28 at 06:01 AM
(4) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

What the Fuck?

That F word is used in a myriad of ways today, few of them having to do with sexual intercourse.  It’s a common epithet, exclamation and exculpatory adjective; no fucking way.  It’s a colorful word no doubt.  John T. McWorter, writing for the Washington Post, looks at the F word and the FCC’s recent ruling that proclaims the F word is not “patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." Yeah, tell that to my mother.

The entire piece is here.

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/28 at 05:45 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Saturday, December 27, 2003

Sound Reasoning

From the Ayn Rand interview, linked below.

"PLAYBOY: . . . And that any free nation today has the moral right—though not the duty—to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other “slave pen.” Correct?

RAND: Correct. A dictatorship—a country that violates the rights of its own citizens—is an outlaw and can claim no rights."

Got that?

Posted by John Venlet on 12/27 at 01:05 PM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Ayn Rand Speaking in the Past

Arthur Silber locates Ayn Rand’s Playboy interview from 1964 via The Future of Freedom Foundation.  Arthur posts a couple of quotes from the interview and I’ll quote Rand’s response to the first question posed.

"I seek to provide men—or those who care to think—with an integrated, consistent and rational view of life."

Read it all.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/27 at 12:37 PM
(2) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

The Saudi Three Ring Circus, Under the Big Top

Brought to you by the Council on Foreign Relations, the Saudi Three Ring Circus has Shi’ite clowns, Wahhabi clowns, secret police fools, religious police morons and it is all orchestrated by the competing ringmasters Crown Prince Abdullah and Prince Nayef.  Read all about it.

The essay, written by Michael Scott Doran, is entitled “The Saudi Paradox," and though the seven page piece is scholarly, the antics and acrobatics of this circus will astound.

Via Kathryn Jean Lopez at The Corner.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/27 at 07:43 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Yeah, Like That's Going to Happen

An unsigned editorial in the New York Times has this to say about Senator Ted Stevens (R), of Alaska.

"There is only an amorphous criterion against behavior that brings “shame” upon the Senate. So far, the Ethics Committee has offered no hint as to whether the senator’s home-state dealings merit official shame and sanction. We would hope to see Senate clubbiness at least ruffled by Mr. Stevens’s blithe dealings."

The catalyst for this unsigned statement is the fact that Stevens somehow, ala Hillary Clinton investment techniques, managed to parley a 50K ...investment tailored for him by a developer into a personal fortune of perhaps a million dollars or more in real estate.

Don’t expect any statements of condemnation from the senate.  I am thinking, though, of writing Senator Stevens.  I happen to have access to 50K and I’m wondering if he and his developer have any other such wonderfully profitable investment opportunities available.  Maybe he and Hillary, in a beneficient act of bipartisanship, could walk us all through the steps needed to succeed in the world of lucrative investments.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/27 at 04:08 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Quote for the Day

"We live in a land of abounding quackeries, and if we do not learn how to laugh we succumb to the melancholy disease which afflicts the race of viewers-with-alarm.  I have had too good a time of it in this world to go down that chute."

H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy, Preface, pg. xxiii

Posted by John Venlet on 12/27 at 03:54 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Friday, December 26, 2003

Sing it Loud and Clear

Who, as a high school kid, didn’t utter threats under their breath, or conjure curses, uselessly, against their teachers, parents or others in authority over themselves?  Anyone?  OK, I see one or two do-gooders raising their hands, so they’re excused and allowed to join the moronic zero tolerance lobby.  They’ll fit right in.

Godless, over at Gene Expression, alerts us to the story of a fifteen year old Wisconsin honor student, who cut his own rap album, outside of school, which, becaue it contains “scary” lyrics, at least to the principal of the school, may get him expelled.

Godless’ post, entitled “Assimilated Indian?" also provides the etymology of the word thug, something I did not know, and additional links to commentary on this subject.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/26 at 04:22 PM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Execrable

There is nothing, in my mind, that can excuse a supposed “leader” of a country uttering something as inane as this.

"It is important to call peace by it true name: social justice."

Spoken by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil.

Via Claire Wolfe.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/26 at 04:00 PM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Christmas Message from the Mises Blog

I hadn’t clicked into the Mises Economics Blog over the last few days, and, since the Christmas spirit has kept many individual bloggers from posting or posting only limitedly, I clicked over there a minute tonight.  Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. posted a six paragraph Christmas message entitled “The Work of Freedom" that’s worth taking a look at.  The first sentence of the post,

"Look around and behold the blessings of freedom all around you."

is rounded out by the fourth paragraph,

"These blessings are not brought to you by the Department of Homeland Holidays or any political party. No force was involved in delivering them to your table or under your tree. Those who made them and sold them, and invested in their production in the first place, did so voluntarily and with the risk that there would be no payoff at all. Those who buy them are not compelled to do so but rather choose it to be this way. And all this cooperation via market exchange yields material blessings beyond description. This wealth brings us health, and the ability to be charitable to others."

Enjoy.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/26 at 03:39 PM
(1) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Kwanzaa Cop Out Unveiled

The New York Times publishes an op-ed written by Debra J. Dickerson which looks at the rise of Kwanzaa as a competing holiday for Christmas for American Blacks.  The op-ed is entitled “A Case of the Kwanzaa Blues."

Dickerson’s piece is an open eyed look at this “holiday,” invented in 1966 by one Dr. Maulana Karenga.  Here are some quotes from Dickerson.

"Being black in December is almost as exhausting as being so in February, when it’s taken for granted that you’ll spearhead the office Black History Month extravaganza. What’s worse are those things considered a barometer of your blackness — things like hair straightening, Clarence Thomas and, of course, Kwanzaa."

"Still, it pains me that we need to look outside our American experience for spiritual and cultural sustenance. With all due respect to those who celebrate it, Kwanzaa feels like a cop-out. Just as drugs are for those who can’t handle reality, isn’t Kwanzaa for those who can’t handle knowing that our ancestors fueled themselves with Western ideals, Christianity uppermost among them?"

"More important, insofar as Kwanzaa negates the quintessential Americanness of the slave-descended, it is an affront to the heroism and enunciated goals of our oppressed ancestors. They demanded to be considered, and treated, as Americans, not as Africans."

The piece is well worth reading.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/26 at 05:58 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Meanwhile, in Alaska

Rufus, at Rod’s Alter Ego, compares “caution falling rocks" signs to the FOX news channel “Terror Alert High” sign.  Additionally, Rufus informs of what a peaceful Alaskan Christmas entails.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/26 at 05:21 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Thursday, December 25, 2003

Nietzsche on a Christmas Afternoon

Brian Micklethwait, blogging over at Samizdata earlier in the week, pointed to a series of posts by Friedrich, of 2Blowhards, concerning Nietzsche.  Friedrich’s three part series, was, for me, as someone who has never read Nietzsche, a treat.  Friedrich’s series is entitled "Coming to Grips with Nietzsche" and here are the links.  Part I. Part II. Part III.

Though I have never read Nietzsche, I was aware that the phrase “God is dead” was attributable to him.  Reading Friedrich’s posts provided a more sound understanding of what Nietzsche was attempting to say with this statement, and, within the comment thread associated with Part III, the complete quote was provided by a reader to provide additional context to those three words.

The grip that I was able to latch onto, while reading Friedrich’s posts, is that Nietzsche was, in the main, attempting to discredit some of the more, in his eyes, onerous burdens Christianity has strapped to the minds of men.  I can appreciate his efforts.  I think Nietzsche could have been more successful though if he would have directed his weapons at the hierarchy of the church, the creators of Christianity, rather than at God.  I’ve said something similar before.  God isn’t the problem here.  The problem is individuals erroneously thinking they hold the keys to the one true path and their willingness to torture, coerce, browbeat, what have you, other individuals who won’t follow their path.

Organized religions, especially Christianity, have created religions that only seem to make sense if God is powerless.  To compensate for this, they created all the other burdens which Nietzsche hoped to destroy.  At least that’s my take.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/25 at 01:08 PM
(3) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink

Quoteable Stocking Stuffers

Shonk provides a little gift for your head.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/25 at 04:53 AM
(0) Comments • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
Page 2 of 6 pages  <  1 2 3 4 >  Last »