Monday, April 19, 2004

Pile 'Em On

“Ridge Forms New Terrorism Task Force."

Why add another layer, you ask?

Here’s why, according to Ridge.

"We are rich with opportunities this year for terrorists to shake our will,” Ridge said in a telephone interview Sunday. “The message is that Homeland Security doesn’t wait to raise the threat level in order to make us safer and more secure."

You have to wonder at his use of language, “rich with opportunities.” Sounds like a prospectus for investment purposes, which, could very well be the way the government views the challenge.

Via Yahoo News.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/19 at 08:43 AM
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Choosy Maori Choose...

"Tamihere has a point - just as Maori shouldn’t be forced to assimilate, they shouldn’t have to give up their rights to inherited land claims if they choose to assimilate. The rights of any minority should include opting out of that minority without penalty, and maintaining a traditional identity is a personal choice that the government should neither discourage nor encourage."

The above statement was posted by Jonathon at The Head Heeb. Tamihere, who is referenced in the beginning of the quote, is Associate Maori Affairs Minister John Tamihere, who is urging caution in regards to collecting and disseminating personal voter information on Maoris.  An excerpt from Tamihere’s view.

"We’ve also got to have some reason in the debate, because tens of thousands of Maori have moved on and they need to be acknowledged as well, as we move forward as a country. So there are big questions being asked, not just about your tribal background or your iwi background, and therefore whether you’re ethnically a Maori, but also what that means on the road to nationhood, asking if one day there will be a belief that we are all Kiwi, regardless of whether you’ve got Croatian, Dutch, French, British or Maori backgrounds."

Via Gene Expression.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/19 at 06:18 AM
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Are You Experienced?

No, I’m not thinking of Jimi Hendrix’s first album. I’m thinking of The Devil’s Dictionary definition of experience as compiled by Ambrose Bierce.

"Experience, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced."

Via the Anal Philosopher who posts some verse by Joel Frad Bink to accompany the above definition of Bierce’s.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/19 at 06:02 AM
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I Guess Mothers Should Only be Submissive

"As is so often the case when I try to comment on today’s American society, I can only fall back on profound understatement: Such a young woman is not the sort of mother whom Mother’s Day was founded to honor."

The above statement was posted by Nicholas Strakon at The Last Ditch in response to a Ben Stein comment made while being interviewed on a NPR show.  Stein’s comment was in regards to having a care for mothers who are serving in Iraq.

Strakon’s statement is bullshit masquerading as anti-statist/war sentiment.  Either that or an exhibition of fear of women who aren’t necessarily afraid to mix it up.

Via Strike the Root.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/19 at 05:35 AM
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Exaggerated Moralism

PC this and PC that.  Roger Kimball has a piece in The National Interest on all the PCing going on around us.  It’s titled “Political Correctness, Or The Perils of Benevolence." An excerpt.

"Just so, the politically correct of our own day seek to bring about a moral revolution by changing the way we speak and write about the world: a change of heart instigated and embodied by a change of language. Examples are legion. We are told to scrap the phrase “learning disabilities” and replace it with “learning differences.” The announced hope is that little Johnny, who is a bit backward, poor thing, will not feel stigmatized; the secret hope is that by refusing to speak the truth, we can change the truth. The bbc tells its employees that they must use the word “partner” when referring to their wife or husband, since using “wife” and “husband” might seem to imply that the married state was somehow preferable to other possible modes of sexual cohabitation. Major newspapers in the United States refuse to accept advertisements for houses to let that mention that their property has “good views” (unfair to the blind), is “walking distance” to the train (unfair to the lame), is on a “quiet street” (unfair to the deaf). I know it sounds mad. It is mad. Nevertheless, it is true."

Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/19 at 04:55 AM
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Sunday, April 18, 2004

C.S. Lewis' Allegorical Journey

I finished reading C.S. Lewis’ The Pilgrim’s Regress this weekend, and though I did not find the book enthralling, it was an entertaining allegory.  The book seems to follow Lewis’ own meanderings from unbeliever to believer, and, as in many other Lewis writings, exhibits Lewis’ complete embracing of Christian faith.

Paging through the book, I find I only took my pen to it two places.  In one of those instances, I penned a remark that a statement made in Lewis’ book reminded me of remarks made by Plato in regards to what we know, or remember, that I had highlighted from the book Great Dialogues of Plato.

The other notation made was an underlining of the following where Lewis criticizes the inductive method when applied to science.

"Hypothesis, my dear young friend, establishes itself by a cumulative process: or, to use popular language, if you make the same guess often enough it ceases to be a guess and becomes a Scientific Fact."

C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress, pg. 22

A statement which, by substituting “Religious Truth” for “Scientific Fact,” can be applied to Christianity.

I did enjoy Michael Hague’s illustrations within Lewis’ book.  On to Nietzsche.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/18 at 09:52 AM
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Forecasting God?

For your Sunday morning edification I link to a piece written by Marshall Lev Dermer, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.  Dermer’s piece is titled “Forecasters and the Existence of God."

"If you care (or dare) to discuss why some people believe in the existence of God and others do not, such discussions almost always reduce to the issue of faith.  Apparently, one person has faith and another does not and we cannot understand the basis for faith so we might well stop our discussion.

I neither understand every aspect of faith nor present a more complete behavior analytic interpretation here, but understanding why weather forecasts ma influence our behavior may tell us something valuable about faith in the existence of God, particularly the faith of children."

Personally, I’ll read or listen to weather forecasts, but I always walk outside to see what the weather is actually like.

Via J. Orlin Grabbe.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/18 at 07:16 AM
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Hii Yaah

Aaron Haspell displays why the pen can be mightier than the sword in his review of Kill Bill Vol. 2.

Not having seen the first film, or the second for that matter, I can offer no opinion of the films themselves, but I must admit I enjoyed Resovoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, for exactly what they were, pulp fiction.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/18 at 07:01 AM
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Immolation Calls

HIV and AIDS are both rather fearsome diseases, which, for the most part, can be judiciously sidestepped.  Individuals who suffer from these life sapping ailments, even as short as ten years ago, may not have had much hope for enjoying future life.  That has changed dramatically in the past decade, as new medicines and drug regimes were developed by pharmacuetical companies.  Millions upon millions of dollars were spent by these companies in developing drugs which are effective in the fight against HIV and AIDS.  Should these companies now be required to give it away rather than profit from it?

The AHF, Southern California HIV Advocacy Coalition (SCHAC) thinks Abbott Labs should give it away as evidenced by this press release titled “AHF to Abbott Labs: “Getting Fat on AIDS!"

Nicholas Provenzo, at The Rule of Reason, looks at the above press release, and Abbott Labs’ response in a post titled “Antitrust News: When is one man’s need . . ." From Provenzo’s post.

"Yet when critics damn corporations such as Abbott for “putting profits ahead of people,” they really damn the self-interest of people. For these crtics, life is a hospital, and man’s life mission is not the pursuit of his own happiness, but the alleviation of suffering of others. It would be refreshing to see, in response, the genius that creates things such as breakthrough medicines applied with the same intensity in defending the very motives that make such breakthroughs possible."

Posted by John Venlet on 04/18 at 06:35 AM
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Up Against the WalMart

I think I’ve been in a WalMart store twice in my life, though I do belong to a Sam’s Club so I’m in that establishment a bit more frequently.  I think Sam’s Club meat butchers buy some fine meats.

WalMart seems to either rise ire, jealousy or dismay, all of which are feelings, in individuals which in turn raise protests and or laws meant to impede WalMart’s progress.  A classic case of a minority bunch wielding sticks to enforce their viewpoint rather than voting with their dollars by either shopping, or not shopping, at the local WalMart.

The Economist has a interesting piece available to read titled “How big can it grow?," which delves into the sustainability of WalMart’s growth.

Here’s The New York Times’ treatment of WalMart. The piece is titled “Wal-Mart, a Nation Unto Itself." The title to the piece provides you with a pretty good idea of what NYT thinks of WalMart’s success.

Links to both articles via Arts & Letters Daily.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/18 at 06:05 AM
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Saturday, April 17, 2004

This From a Man Who Doesn't Even Have a License

Andrew Sullivan points to his own Time article, calling for raising gas taxes, from his blog, with the following.

"TAX GAS MORE: All of your opposition merely convinced me I was right. Here’s my Time column on why raising gas taxes would be a very good thing. Here’s Ramesh Ponnuru’s critique. Make your own mind up."

One particular paragraph in Sulliivan’s Time piece is especially noteworthy, for its glaring idoicy.

"The real reason so many Americans hate gas taxes is that they see them. The government can eat away at your life with payroll taxes, but because they are usually deducted before you get to see your paycheck, you don’t notice. But the price of gas is broadcast on big placards across the country. When it goes up, eyebrows rise a notch. But that’s a good thing! The government has to tax you somehow. Isn’t it better to shift taxation to places where people notice it, so they can demand accountability? The gas tax is therefore a win-win conservative-liberal synthesis. It cuts the deficit, helps the environment and keeps the government fiscally honest and accountable."

I shouldn’t need to point out the ridiculousness in that statement.

For a more nuanced criticism of Sullivan’s piece read Ramesh Ponnuru’s piece. It won’t make the above quote from Sullivan any less ridiculous, though the following statement from Ponnuru’s piece is about as ridiculous as Sullivan’s.

"A related argument, however, is in my mind the strongest for a gas tax. On the assumption that OPEC is following a price-maximizing strategy, a higher gas tax would divert revenue from the House of Saud to the U.S. Treasury. In this sense, a higher gas tax would indeed further the war on terrorism. And if the tax increase were combined with a reduction in a more harmful tax, such as the payroll tax, the American economy would be helped rather than hurt."

Statists.

Update: Lileks has a go a Sullivan’s gas tax increase drum banging after first telling us about a Minnesota storm and Gnat.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/17 at 05:05 PM
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Disingenous, With Feeling

Nicholas Kristof is still pounding the drum for the time machine, that does not exist, to prevent the events of September 11, 2001.  His latest piece, in The New York Times, is titled “Why Didn’t We Stop 9/11?," and in the piece, Kristof was kind enough to provide us with a made up conversation, that maybe could have taken place, if only Bush was smart enough to understand, and if only he would apologize.

Here’s a note for all the hindsighters out there who are wailing and gnashing their teeth over the commission that can’t change history because there isn’t a time machine.  Maybe it will knock the disingenuous askew.

"It’s a show, you morons. It is not about getting at the facts or truth, and it is perfectly impossible that it’s going to change anything serious concerning what happened before or after or on that horrible day. As soon as this show was booked, I recalled the words of Robert Blakey (chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, 1976), instructing his staff: “The purpose of this investigation is to produce a report,” and in that very hour I filed the goddamned thing where it belongs. I would rather watch re-runs of “Cheers” or “Seinfeld”, neither of which I have ever before in my life watched."

The above quote was taken from a piece penned by Billy Beck titled “Quiet Lately." Slap some sense into yourself and give Billy’s piece a read.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/17 at 10:18 AM
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Wall Street Mood Ring

Remember mood rings, the 1970’s wearable fad?  The rings supposedly changed color according to an individual’s mood, you know, kind of a barometer indicating whether someone is pissed off, depressed, sunnily disposed or what not.  They faded away, like hip huggers and bell bottoms. But, just as those have returned to assault our eyes, so have mood rings, of a sort.

"It looks like a size-XXXL chicken egg and glows in colors that change and waver in intensity as it tracks qualitative shifts in financial data from the Internet. But the white plastic Orb was designed to be far more than a barometer of the Dow Jones Industrial average, it’s programmed out-of-the-box function.

Adherents see the glowing $150 device as pioneering a movement where data generated by computers will be increasingly expressed not on video displays but in objects that fit more naturally into our lives.

Ambient Devices of Cambridge, Mass. began selling the Orb a year ago. If the Dow average is up for the day, it glows green. On a down day, the Orb reddens. The colors’ intensity reflects the extent of the swing; yellow means the market is stable.

Provided with that basic information, an Orb owner can decide whether to go online for more detail."

Oh, I’m sure I’ll be adhering to the “Orb” as my financial counselor.  Look, the Orb is turning green, time to buy, buy, buy. 

Posted by John Venlet on 04/17 at 09:45 AM
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Mmm, Cicadas

Cicadas have been in the news both locally and nationally recently.  The noisesom creatures, which hatch in 13 and 17 year cycles, should be hatching in quite prolific amounts this year.  At least the 17 year variety.  For some individuals, this cicada hatch presents an opportunity for gourmand delight.  “Cicada: The Other, Other White Meat." I’ll take a cheeseburger, thank you.

Via Allison Lives.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/17 at 07:13 AM
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Nobody's Perfect, Well, At Least At One Time Nobody Was Perfect

Cloning, genetic engineering, gene therapy, the cutting edges of biological science, are subjects that pop into and out of the news as new developments are released for consideration.  Though I think research into these areas is a good thing, I wonder where it will eventually lead.  In an article published by The Atlantic, Michael J. Sandel, professor of political philosophy at Harvard expresses his thoughts on where this may be going.  The article, and it’s a long one, is titled “The Case Against Perfection."

Personally, I think gene tweaking and genetic engineering, when it is done only to enhance rather than prevent, is a bit like cosmetic surgery.  Both the lovely Melis and I think its a bit much to inject Botox, or get a tuck, simply because a few wrinkles have developed in your visage, but to each his or her own.  And hey, if you want to look like Michael Jackson or Cher, more power to you.  Nobody’s perfect.

Via Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution.

Posted by John Venlet on 04/17 at 06:54 AM
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