Friday, February 27, 2004

Degree of Scientificity

Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution we are made aware of Europeans’ ranking, of various fields of study, as to their degree of being scientific.

1. Physics
2. Medicine
3. Biology
4. Astronomy
5. Psychology
6. Astrology
7. Economics
8. History

Cowen noted that astrology beat economics.  I note that history is last.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/27 at 05:19 AM
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Classical Eudaimonism Reconciles

Roderick T. Long proposes reconciliation of egoism and anarchism via the above.

"According to Classical Eudaimonism, self-interest is indeed the ultimate criterion of right action, but our true self-interest is to live a life of objective human flourishing. Acting in accordance with the virtue of justice is not a mere external means to such flourishing, it is part of that flourishing; hence self-interest properly understood requires that we place value – and not merely strategic value either – on behaving justly toward others. Hence the Classical Eudaimonist can happily embrace both the egoist’s insistence of the paramount supremacy of self-concern and the natural-rightser’s insistence on the sacred authority of justice."

Posted by John Venlet on 02/27 at 05:13 AM
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He's Doing the Best That He Can

Kim DuToit is working his way through Mona Charen’s book Useful Idiots. Well, he’s trying to anyway.

"I’ve been reading Mona Charen’s book, Useful Idiots, if tossing the book across the room in fury every dozen pages can be called “reading".”

Read the remainder of Kim’s reading experience here.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/27 at 05:01 AM
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On The Environment

Michael Jennings has a post up at Samizdata which details Bjorn Lomborg’s lecture at the Adam Smith Institute in London.  Andy Duncan, another poster at Samizdata, attended the lecture also and has some observations to share.

Both Jennings and Duncan recommend Lomborg’s book The Skeptical Environmentalist. So do I.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/27 at 04:46 AM
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A Passion for Knotted Panties

Andrew Sullivan quotes “Wieseltier on the passion."

"It is a repulsive masochistic fantasy, a sacred snuff film,..."

Sullivan wrote his own review after seeing the film.

"In a word, it is pornography...The center-piece of the movie is an absolutely disgusting and despicable piece of sadism..."

I have not seen the film, yet, but I’m curious if the term sadism would be applied to the films Pulp Fiction, Resevoir Dogs, Saving Private Ryan, Schlinder’s List, or The Godfather, among others.

Update: Emperor Darth Misha I on the violence.

Update II: Allison, of Allison Lives provides a nuanced comment.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/27 at 04:13 AM
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Thursday, February 26, 2004

Left, Left, Left, Left

In December, I linked to a FrontPage Magazine article penned by Tatiana Menaker in a post I titled “Imagine - Unfortunately I Don’t Need To." Menaker’s article is titled “My Second Marxist Indoctrination" and I quoted the below from her article.

"Imagine the utter amazement of a refugee from a Communist country, where Marxism was forced on all students, now having to sink in a puddle of socialist propaganda again—but this time in the middle of an American university!"

According to FrontPage Magazine, Menaker has now been forced to leave the campus, simply because she has pointed out the university’s blatant leftism, and praised Israel and America, in articles she has written.  FrontPage Magazine’s article, written by Lee Kaplan, is titled “Purge at San Francisco State" and details Menaker’s tribulations at this bastion of leftism.  The following quote from Kaplan’s article details how Menaker was asked to leave.

"The same day that article broke she met with Ms. Cunningham who handed her a form to sign saying she would waive all her rights allowing Ms. Cunningham to mete out any punishment she saw fit to carry out. Tatiana refused and, when she did, Cunningham informed her she was expelled from the University until the year 2009 and had her escorted off campus by a uniformed police officer. The officer informed her that, if she steps foot on campus, she will be arrested for trespassing."

Via PrestoPundit.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 12:19 PM
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Chicken Little

I read the asteroid article yesterday and thought, too ridiculous to comment on.  I realize an asteroid striking the earth is possible, but I would bet that the odds of it happening are statistically miniscule.

The article I read, via Drudge, is titled “Earth almost put on impact alert." The writer breathlessly draws us into his fear of the potential devastation such an event would produce.  Get President Bush on the phone!  And me without my worry beads.

This morning I read this.

"VC readers will know I am skeptical of many government interventions. But I view asteroid protection as a genuine public good. Budget deficit or not, we are not spending enough money to address this problem."


Those words were written by Tyler Cowen and were posted over at The Volokh Conspiracy.

C’mon Tyler, be serious.  The sky is not falling, but if it does, throwing money at it, in an attempt to stop it, is preposterous.  It would be better to adopt a somewhat more cavalier attitude about this miniscule possibility.  For example.  I served on the 688 class submarine, the USS Los Angeles (SSN688). The boat had two watertight compartments, forward and aft.  At times, crewmembers would speak of what they would do if we were struck by a torpedo while operating at depth, or, some other catastrophic hull failure occurred.  As if.  Basically, the only option available, if such a catastrophe struck, was wishful thinking or rational thought.  The rational thought was, if this happens, bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 07:09 AM
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WTF$???

"My wife recently transferred funds from a mutual fund to her bank account to buy a new car (BMW 330 xi). When she checked her bank account to see if the transfer had occurred, she noticed that only 55% of what she requested had been transferred. She contacted T. Rowe Price, and they informed her that, because of the Patriot Act, all their customers are required to fill out a W9 tax form so that the government, with this piece of paper, can verify that she is not a terrorist. The form apparently got lost in the mail, so until she fills it out her account is frozen and, for the transfer she did make, 45% went to the IRS as an involuntary downpayment on 2004 taxes.

Presumably, if a terrorist transferred say, $1 million, that would be fine as long as the IRS got its $450,000 take."

Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo at LewRockwell.com Blog.

Update: Billy Beck asks the more important question in regards to this.

“Just who in hell is T. Rowe Price working for, anyway?”

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 07:01 AM
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More Bridges to View

Brian Micklethwait has another bridge post up.  It’s worth reading and viewing.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 06:55 AM
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Dictionary Compilers Have Done Us a Disservice

The headline:  “Looters bring anarchy as citizens flee.

Go to your dictionary and look up anarchy. Pay particular attention to the etymology of the word anarchy.  It means having no ruler.  It doesn’t mean irresponsible individuals running around looting.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 06:10 AM
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I'm Almost Ashamed to Acknowledge This

Many of the individuals who stop by here know that I have faith.  It developed in me through my upbringing in a Dutch Christian Reformed Church.  Quite a conservative bunch too I might add.  My faith is personal and, for the most part ineffable.  Except for two very important things.  My faith recognizes that the most important gift to man is his reason and that each individual is indeed sovereign.

Last night, while reading some blogs, I stopped by Arthur Silber’s and read a post Arthur titled “Worthy of Death." The post notes an op-ed written by one Susan Sanford and published in the Daily Mountain Eagle. The piece is titled “Sodom and Gomorrah revisited."

Arthur, righteously, excoriates Sanford, and labels this as a "vile piece of filth." I totally agree.  Why am I almost ashamed to acknowledge this?  Because I know there are individuals who actually believe what Sanford so execrably pens.  I know individuals who have set aside reason to embrace the passages Sanford quotes from the Bible.  It saddens me that I do and I cringe, CRINGE, at this rush to judgment by individuals who profess to accept Christ.

Plucking slivers they shove enough boards into their eyes to erect a monument of epic proportions to fools.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 05:38 AM
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You Go Tammy Bruce

I am not familiar with Tammy Bruce, but based on the opinion piece she has penned for FrontPage Magazine regarding the gay marriage issue, I already respect her.  Must I state she is gay?  Tammy’s piece, titled “Respecting Marriage and Equal Rights," is definitely worth reading.  She upbraids extremists, liberals, conservatives and the mouthpiece that roars Andrew Sullivan.  But, what I most approve of, in her piece, is this statement, below.

"While this should actually be a relatively easy situation to resolve (heck, Bush, Kerry and Edwards all hold the same position—against gay marriage, for civil unions), all Hell seems to have broken loose—not only in San Francisco, but in Washington, D.C., as well."

The only problem is, implementing simple solutions takes a leader willing to solve the problem then and there.  We don’t have leaders though, we have professional jobholders counting potential votes.

Via Sasha Castel.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 05:13 AM
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Sancta Simplicitas

"I was in my home office writing a pen-named freelance psy-sex piece for a womens’ magazine in order to put some food on the table, the phone rang and it was an old friend who I had a falling out with a few years ago, an old friend who was doing the same debilitating work under a pen-name for a different magazine. He screamed into the telephone: “switch on your TV, this is great!”. I turned the TV on and it was so beautful that we put our differences aside. I then called an other friend who I had had a falling out with over some political nonsense. . . . On the backdrop of the same images we experienced the same communion . . . Guys the world over who share the same feelings with those who are humilated, felt the same sense of euphoria while watching these biblical images of justice and punishment! For me, 9-11 represents the reconciliation . . . with all those that this mediocre life has forced me to hate because of insignificant differences . . . Truthfully, it was a beautiful moment of love."

The above was penned by Alain Soral and fingered by Stefan Beck in a post at Armavirumque.

Via Billy Beck.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 05:01 AM
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Reverberations on an Earlier Theme

A few days ago I noted Diana Hsieh’s dissatisfaction with The Objectivist Center in a post titled “An Objectivist Martin Luther." This provoked a small discussion via a post by John Lopez, at No Treason, titled “Nailing Questions to the Church Door?"

Stopped by the Mudita Journal a moment ago and I find Joshua Zader has posted a response, which he thinks is ”... the most insightful and productive commentary on this subject so far." The post is titled “WWRD: What Would Roark Do?" Joshua’s post is a republication of David Pott’s thoughts on Diana’s departure as posted at the OWL Discussion Group.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 04:40 AM
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On the Dole

I recall the first time I heard the above phrase used, I was enjoying Swan lagers and mussels in a small pub in Rockingham, Australia with some blokes I met while in the Navy.  It seemed such a polite way to say one was on welfare.  Stopping by the Mises Economics Blog this morning, I see Lew Rockwell has posted a note from Carroll Cox, who is the editor of the Pioneer newspaper in Snowflake, AZ.  Rockwell’s post of Cox’s words follows in its entirety.

"In my county of Apache, Arizona, 2/3 of employed people with full time jobs work for some level of government and education. In the neighboring county of Navajo, close to half of people are employed by government. With the help of Phoenix consultants Elliot Pollock and Associates, we determined that the average government job (in these two counties) pays $7,000-$10,000 more annually than the average private sector job, not counting benefits. According to U.S. News&World Report, there are about 100 million fulltime workers in the U.S. What percentage of them work for government? I have been unable to find breakdowns between jobs in the private and public sectors on Dept. of abor, Dept. of Commerce, etc. websites."

Think about that this morning, on the way to your private sector job.  Think about how many people you employ, quite possibly against your wishes, about how many people are taking a bite out of your paycheck before it even gets to your hand.  Think about the gravy train that is the U.S. government, taxing you to keep the train a runnin down the tracks.

Posted by John Venlet on 02/26 at 04:09 AM
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