Sunday, March 28, 2004

Dreaming While He's Wide Awake

The title to this post is how I describe my experience with morphine when I was hospitalized at one point in my life.  I looked forward to each and everyone of those shots.  They wouldn’t let me have anymore shots, though, after the third day.

I’m wondering if Thomas Friedman is hospitalized and receiving morphine after reading his op-ed titled “Awaking to a Dream."

The op-ed starts out rationally enough, but degenerates into somnambulism before the needle is out of your vein.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/28 at 04:52 AM
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Somebody at the NYT Has Read Bastiat

"Petty, cheesy morsels of corruption are like the proverbial “broken windows” of violent crime. If we all shrug our shoulders and look the other way, the consequences can be dire."

From a short, unsigned op-ed published in the New York Times titled “Sweat the Cheesy Stuff" which bemoans political “ethics.” As if there is such a thing.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/28 at 04:47 AM
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The Road to Hell

"Two dissenting judges called it the “road to Hell."

“Court Opens Door To Searches Without Warrants."

"Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business."

Need I expound any further, and on a Sunday at that?

Via Drudge.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/28 at 04:38 AM
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Saturday, March 27, 2004

Damn, I Have to Read More

I’ve never read any Goethe.  I’ve seen his words quoted, though.  BilLee at the blog Somewhere Over the Rainbough has posted a series of quotes of Goethe that I enjoyed reading.  You may too.

Another post at the blog, by Rainbough, titled “An interesting note about marxism, is also an interesting read on a Saturday morning.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 07:07 AM
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Read the Whole Thing

The quotes below were lifted from Cap’n Arbyte’s blog, who lifted them from the “Statement by Ambassador Dan Gillerman, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, before the Security Council."

"Although the Security Council has never met to discuss the attacks for which Sheikh Yassin is responsible, the list is gruesome and shocking. To characterize him as a “spiritual leader” is to attempt to characterize Osama bin Laden as a Mother Therese. Underneath his supposed clerical garb, Sheikh Yassin is a true pioneer in the ruthless murder of innocents. Under his direct leadership, inspiration, and instruction, Hamas — an organization recognized around the world for its brutal terrorism — has perpetrated over 425 attacks that have killed 377 Israelis and wounded 2076 in less than three and a half years of violence. He has stood at the head of a command and control structure dedicated to the destruction of Israel. If Sheikh Yassin was not an arch-terrorist, there is no such thing.

By any reasonable standard of international law, Israel has a legitimate right, in fact a duty, to defend itself against those illegal combatants and their commanders who are committed to murder as many of its civilians as possible. The Palestinian leadership has proved beyond any doubt that it has no intention of taking a single measure to fight terrorism, as it is legally and morally obliged to do. This mass murderer, Sheikh Yassin, lived and operated for years not just in freedom, but under the protective authority and safe haven of the Palestinian Authority in violation of the most basic international norms. What would you have us do? Stand idly by as Yassin and the Palestinian leadership co-sign the death warrants of more innocent civilians?

It is the basic obligation of the Government of Israel — like any other government — to protect the lives of its citizens from the threat of terrorism. Unlike the terrorists we confront, we make every effort under excruciatingly difficult conditions to minimize harm to civilians. We recognize that we have responsibilities. But we will not negotiate by day and bury our dead by night. By removing Sheikh Yassin from the international stage, we send a very strong message to the terrorists: when you kill our civilians, you are not immune."

Hear, Hear.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 06:52 AM
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My Mum Always Told Me

When I was growing up, my Mum always told me “If you can laugh at yourself, you’re a better man.” Yesterday, when I read this article, I thought maybe she was wrong, since John Kerry and the talking heads said that Bush shouldn’t be joking about not find WMD’s in Iraq.

When I read the article, I wanted to post some sarcastic comments, accompanied by jokes uttered by other presidents, or presidential contenders, which would be interpreted as “offensive” because they referred to other wars or other supposed sacronsant subjects.  I couldn’t find any.  Dang it.  Well, thanks to Jon Henke, at Questions and Observations, I can state that these jokes do exist, uttered by no other than John Kerry.  Ha, ha, ha.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 06:42 AM
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Well, That Isn't Working Like We Thought It Would

Via Strike the Root we are made aware of some interesting tax facts.

"In 1967 there were 71.7 million U.S. taxpayers. Of those filing returns, 155 reported incomes over $200,000 and paid no income tax. Those 155 represented 0.00022 percent of taxpayers.

According to the Joint Economic Committee, “in 1969, more people had written to Congress to complain about the 155 people who paid no income tax than had written about the Vietnam War.”

Seeing an opportunity, the government “did something.” Since government is coercion, what it did was pass something called an Alternative Minimum Tax. Did the ATM catch those trying to keep their private property (income)?

No. “In 1976, Treasury reported that 244 taxpayers who earned over $200,000 in 1974 had owed no income tax.”

The ATM disallows many standard deductions and is not indexed for inflation. By 2010 it’s projected to affect 32 million taxpayers with incomes under $100,000. Like the original income tax of 1913, the ATM was heartily approved by voters because it would “soak the rich” and force them to pay their “fair share” of Leviathan."

The above was gleaned from an article written by Terrence Jeffrey titled “The IRS gets one right," which was published at Townhall.com.

Personally, I think the concluding remark of George F. Smith at Strike the Root sums it all up quite well.

"That the solution is to dump Leviathan and all its taxes apparently doesn’t occur to most people. Or maybe it does and is rejected as too “impractical.” Better to ensure that no slaves escape than to abolish slavery."

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 06:21 AM
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Statiscally Speaking About God

Shonk, at Selling Waves, has an interesting post up titled “Statistics prove that God is dead." The catalyst for the post seems to have been a scathing rebuke of Richard Dawkins and an email exchange in response to the scathing.  I thought the post was a great read.  The conclusion of Shonk’s post follows.

"Anyway, the point is that statistics can be misleading and deceptive even in instances where they are applicable. Getting back to the religion question, however, the larger point is that statistics aren’t even relevant to begin with. All they do is obscure the debate. If there is or isn’t a God, it really doesn’t matter how many people believe in him/her/it. To draw another analogy, just because the majority of people throughout the bulk of human history found slavery acceptable doesn’t mean they were right; by the same token, the fact that the majority of people throughout history were wrong about slavery doesn’t mean they were wrong about loving their children or any number of other beliefs they had. “Right” and “wrong”, if we stipulate that such things exist in the first place, aren’t subject to a vote."

Update: In a tag team effort, Shonk’s brother Curt takes to the mat following Shonk’s earlier post "Statistics prove that God is dead." Curt’s post is titled “Religious polemics? To the hatchet-mobile!" It’s a pin.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 05:57 AM
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I Call Bullshit on Bill Dreher, Investment Ass

Stopping by The Obscure Store I found this posted.

"Wall street doesn’t like it when companies are too good to workers." The link associated with that blurb points to a Wall Street Journal article titled “Costco’s Dilemma: Be Kind To Its Workers, or Wall Street?"

Two quotes from the WSJ article caught my eye.

"From the perspective of investors, Costco’s benefits are overly generous,” says Bill Dreher, retailing analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. “Public companies need to care for shareholders first. Costco runs its business like it is a private company."

Uhm, hello Bill Dreher, Costco is a private company.  The “public” you’re so concerned about can opt out and “punish” Costco for running their business the way they currently run it, by taking their dollars out of the company.  That’s the way the game works.

Costco’s president and chief executive understands the reality of this private business.

"The last thing I want people to believe is that I don’t care about the shareholder,” says Jim Sinegal, Costco’s president and chief executive since 1993, who owns about 3.2 million Costco shares valued at $118 million based on yesterday’s price of $36.96, up 52 cents, in 4 p.m. Nasdaq Stock Market trading. “But I happen to believe that in order to reward the shareholder in the long term, you have to please your customers and workers."

You tell em, Jim.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 05:14 AM
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Are the New Brown Shirts, Blue Shirts? Redux

Yesterday, I posted what is once again the title to this post.  Yesterday’s post commented on the number of individuals at the Kerry/Dean rally at GWU wearing almost identically colored blue shirts.  This morning, I stop by Reynolds’ blog and find this post. The post informs us about a pro-Bush blogger who was “beaten up” at an anti-Bush rally.  What is quoted below, comes from an email to Reynolds, from reader Greg Miskin, which is part of the post at Reynolds’ site.

"Something I never wanted to believe seems to be playing out daily: the Democratic party has been overrun by totalitarians. The party is marginalizing old-guard Dems who might (might!) hold differing opinions but who also could be counted on for civility and a rational basis for their arguments. . . .

There is no room for dissent, discourse, debate. My experience is that people behave this way when they hold indefensible beliefs, and they know just how weak their position is. A dog with this behavior is called a “fear-biter” and I can think of no better description for these people."

Are the new brown shirts, blue shirts?

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 04:54 AM
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Shark Ranching instead of State Mandated Species Protection

The Mises Economics Blog has posted a piece written by David J. Heinrich titled “Extinction and Humankind." Heinrich’s piece delves into environmental conservatives and calls for state mandated protection of certain species.  Heinrich also comments on the quoted rates of extinction, personal preferences for various species, and wraps up the piece with a suggestion that I can only call shark ranching.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 04:44 AM
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What is Mom Going to Say?

"Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, according to a top Austrian doctor.

Innsbruck-based lung specialist Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger said people who pick their noses with their fingers were healthy, happier and probably better in tune with their bodies."

The above quote is taken from an Ananova article titled “Top doc backs picking your nose and eating it."

Maybe my kid brother was ahead of his time.  He not only picked his nose and ate it, much to Mom’s dismay, every once in awhile he’d shove a Trix or Cocoa Puff up there and then enjoy that for a treat.

Via Drudge.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/27 at 04:29 AM
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Friday, March 26, 2004

Magic Metal

While in a local, Japanese owned restaurant for lunch today, I had a moment or two while waiting for my sushi to be prepared, so I grabbed a Fortune Small Business magazine to leaf through and stumbled upon an interesting article on a metal called Terfenol-D which is created by combining two rare earth metals.  Terfenol-D, the article informs us,

”...changes its shape—as quickly as 20,000 times a second—when exposed to a magnetic field. A tiny amount of the metal—about a splinter’s worth—causes invisible vibrations that are rapid and powerful enough to move the surface of an entire tabletop, allowing it to transmit sound (see box)."

Amazing.

Also from the article.

"Five of Etrema’s top executives are sitting in a conference room listening to jock rock. The space is drab even by conference-room standards, furnished with an oversized green marble table on which sit two fist-sized chrome discs plugged into a portable CD player. But the music sounds as if it is coming from everywhere. The quality is so good that when I close my eyes, I could swear that Queen’s Freddie Mercury is standing in the room in front of me, promising, “We will, we will rock you!"

The metal can even turn your windows into speakers, or your entire house.

The article is titled “Metal Heads" and is well worth a read.

You gotta love technology that comes to you from the cornfields of Iowa.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/26 at 04:50 PM
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A Feast for the Eyes

The title to the post I am linking to, “An Extraordinary Window into the Past of Russia."

The description.

"I came across these color photographs of life in Tzarist Russia and they had me feeling like I was looking through a window into the past. Photos that are over a hundred years old always seem to be black and white and very posed. They leave me feeling quite distant. These photos drew me in. They look like they could have been taken yesterday. The children look so alive and yet they’re long dead. The monasteries that once were would soon become concentration camps and orphanages."

Very cool.

Hit the link and get on over to Gene Expression and click on the links to those photos.  You won’t be disappointed.  At least I don’t think you will.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/26 at 01:04 PM
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Color Me Unimpressed

Russell Roberts, posting at Marginal Revolution, has been reading some of the articles touting NASA’s “discovery” that Mars was supposedly, at some period in time, a vast watery planet.  This comment of Roberts sums up my thoughts on the heralding to date.

"Love that alliteration—the shoreline of a salty sea. It conjures up images of beachcombers and cottages or at least seashells and seaweed with terns turning in the sunlight. Seems like a bit of a stretch. NASA thinks they’ve found not just moisture, not just a few molecules of H2O but a sea with rocks drenched with salty spray, rocks lovingly shaped by streaming water. Pardon my skepticism, but it seems that NASA has just a bit of interest in stretching the results. Notice that even Reuters uses the word “might."

Posted by John Venlet on 03/26 at 06:21 AM
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