Recap #20

This week on Politics without God, the blog of the Coalition for Secular Government:

• Monday, November 24, 2008: Religious Right Is Set Back by Gina Liggett
  
• Wednesday, November 26, 2008: Happy Thanksgiving! by Diana Hsieh
  
• Friday, November 28, 2008: Ted Haggard in the Pulpit Again by Diana Hsieh
  

And this week on We Stand FIRM, the blog of FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine:

• Monday, November 24, 2008: Sooner State Says "Later" to Mandatory Insurance by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, November 25, 2008: Mandatory Insurance Article Now Free by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, November 26, 2008: Herrick on Single-Payer Care by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, November 27, 2008: Happy Thanksgiving! by Paul Hsieh, MD
  

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Sunday Open Thread #25

Here's yet another a Sunday Open Thread for your thoughts:

For anyone in the fiery grip of a random question, comment, joke, or link they'd like to share with NoodleFood readers, I hereby open up the comments on this post to any respectable topic. (Please refrain from posting personal attacks, pornographic material, and commercial solicitations.)

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Pizza Versus CrossFit

Here's an all-too-telling CrossFit story from Kirez. (The original post has a great picture.) Kirez writes:

Early Sunday morning we setup our gym at Starbucks. I laid out 360 square feet of rubber flooring, setup the squat rack, three barbells, about 450 pounds of Olympic bumper plates, 5 Dynamax med balls and 8 kettlebells. We took a Concept 2 rower and whiteboards.

Starbucks donated free drinks for people who won the hourly workout contests. Alicia got a free drink for her 5:27 performance on: 4 rounds for time, 15-12-9-6 reps, Wall ball shots (10 lb. ball), pull-ups. Michelle had an amazing workout, too. Her time was 6:32 for: 5 rounds for time, 5 x 115 lb. Deadlift, 10 burpees. Jim did a workout of 500 m row & wall ball shots, Dean and Kirez worked on Snatches, we demonstrated a lot of kettlebell exercises and taught some Olympic lifting, and had a great time.

The proprietor of the pizza place next door swore that Sunday was her best day for walk-ins and nobody was walking in if there was something fitness oriented next to her store. "They'll feel too guilty buying pizza if they see your fitness setup outside!" — direct quote, I kid you not. So... next Sunday, we'll be on the other side of Starbucks.

And pizza is pretty healthy according to the Standard American Diet! Perhaps people know -- even if only implicitly, based on the way they feel -- that stuffing themselves with pizza is not compatible with the kind of high-intensity workout that Kirez and company were doing.

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Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship

Here's one for the "Great But Overdue" file: The Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship has a beautiful new web site at www.anthemfoundation.org. For those of you unfamiliar with that excellent organization, their mission reads:

The Anthem Foundation provides grants for the benefit of academic professionals engaged in serious, scholarly work based on the philosophy and writings of Ayn Rand, and provides resources to others in academia interested in understanding her ideas.

They have done -- and continue to do -- great work. If you'd like to support their efforts, you can do so here.

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Two Must-See Economics Videos

First, the serious one -- "Peter Schiff Was Right" (via Gus Van Horn and Amit Ghate):



Second, the funny one -- "Real Estate Downfall" (via Rule of Reason):

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A Different Kind of Christmas Card

Objectivist graphic designer John Powers has created these terrific "alternate Christmas cards":



From the website:

Isaac Newton Christmas Cards

Celebrate reason and science on December 25th, instead of the same old bearded mystic!

I like to send Christmas cards, but as an atheist, I have had to limit myself to the hundreds of bland cards that neutrally say "Happy Holidays." I decided that if it's okay for (almost) everyone else to stamp, seal, and deliver their philosophy to me every Christmas, I'll do just the same.

Sir Isaac Newton's ideas helped to rescue mankind from drudgery and propel it into the space age. I am a lover of reason, and I love it unashamedly, and I want my friends to know it too. They will this Christmas. Yours can, too.

Details

Outside: "On December 25th, a Savior was born. He revealed eternal Truth, bringing Joy to millions. He astonished the world with His command over Nature. He changed history forever."

Inside: "Happy Birthday, Sir Isaac Newton. December 25, 1642 - March 20, 1726".

Web site and greeting card designs are copyright © 2008 John Powers.

(John also did free web design for the FIRM site.)

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, One and All!

As always, I'm most thankful for my husband Paul. He's a great man, and he's my man. And life is so very good with him.

This year, I'm also particularly thankful for the company of my loyal but aged dog Kate. She's likely to have surgery next week to remove a large fatty tumor recently discovered in her abdomen. It might be malignant, but we hope it's benign. Whatever it is, we hope that it can be removed safely, so that we can enjoy some more time on this earth with her doggie perfection.

What are you thankful for?

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Objectivist Carnival

Rational Jenn has the latest Objectivist Roundup. Go check it out!

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Obama's Victory and Media Malpractice

Over at HowObamaGotElected.com, they wanted to investigate how someone like Obama sails into the White House. Their conclusion? That the news media simply refused to do their job.

On Election day twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience. The rather shocking video below seeks to provide some insight into which information broke through the news media clutter and which did not.

It is indeed shocking to see the demonstration of just where abysmal ignorance contrasts with easy knowledge.


I wouldn't lay it at just the media's feet, though -- this sort of thing is enabled by serious cultural and epistemological degradation. The state of the news media is only a symptom. An incredibly nasty symptom.

UPDATE: A little clarification: the quote from their website was only sharing what they claim. Obviously, I have no idea what their methodology was for selecting their interviewees, nor how fair they were in their editing. What caught my attention was the contrasting pockets of knowledge and ignorance within the individual people.

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Sowell on Economics?

A question: Are Thomas Sowell's books worth reading? I'm particularly interested in his books on economics, namely Basic Economics, Applied Economics, and Economic Facts and Fallacies. I don't need these books to be philosophically perfect, but I'd like them to be good and clear on the economics.

I'm skeptical because I read his book Marxism: Philosophy and Economics some years ago. Although I read it carefully, I learned absolutely nothing from it. It was just a long string of floating abstractions that illuminated nothing. So I'm reluctant to try again, but I'd like to read some economics -- or rather listen, and he seems to be the only potentially decent author available on Audible.

So what say you?

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Darwin Award Near Miss

Wow:

BEIJING (AP) -- A college student in southern China was bitten by a panda after he broke into the bear's enclosure hoping to get a hug, state media and a park employee said Saturday. The student was visiting Qixing Park with classmates on Friday when he jumped the 6.5-foot (2-meter) high fence around the panda's habitat, said the park employee, who refused to give his name. ... He said the student was bitten on the arms and legs. ...

The student was pale as he was taken away by medics but appeared clearheaded, he said. "Yang Yang was so cute, and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Didn't anyone ever tell this kid that pandas are bears?!? Or did he just think that his warm and fuzzy feelings would protect him from the tooth and claw of a dangerous wild beast? The mind boggles.

(Via The Agitator.)

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Absent a Moral Defense of Capitalism

On a Nov. 20th NPR radio interview, David Wessel, Pulitzer-prize-winning Economics Editor of the Wall Street Journal sounded rather optimistic. Despite calling our present economy "as fragile as at anytime since Roosevelt took over," he predicted that the Obama team would get right to work even before inauguration to hold off another Great Depression.

He said the challenge for Obama will be basically threefold: 1. like Roosevelt during the Depression, Obama will have to reassure the American people, that is "make us feel better," by whom he appoints and how he describes the economic situation; 2. put together a huge fiscal stimulus package consisting of tax cuts and increase in government spending; and 3. deal directly with the housing crisis by helping people whose mortgages are worth more than the value of their home.

He summed up his personal reaction to the economic crisis by saying he was "quite impressed by the diligence of the people in the government who are charged with this and how creative they've been and inventive in trying to respond to it."

In an October panel discussion at his alma mater Haverford College he explained the causes of the present crisis -- that complicated interplay of Federal Reserve interest rates, the across-the-spectrum failure of economic checks and balances by rating agencies and regulators, the "democratization of credit" for homeownership, the "morally criminal" predatory lending practices, faulty assumptions about ever-increasing housing prices and unsecured lending by investment banks, and the under-appreciated connection between the housing market and banking system.

He then describes the timeline of the government's reaction to each emerging crisis: a huge Fed rate cut in January, the historic loan to Bear Stearns (a non-Federal Reserve bank), the quick and efficient nationalization of Freddie and Fannie, Treasury Secretary Paulson's sweeping authority granted by Congress, the $700 billion bailout legislated by Congress in a 400-page bill, Barney Frank, Democrat chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, being unable to refute the argument that "if you help Wall Street, why can't you help Main Street," and the spill-over protectionist reaction by central governments in Europe and Asia.

Mr. Wessel's comment about the historic economic crisis: "I don't think this was a problem caused by government, but government permitted it to happen."

Despite a couple of disparaging remarks Mr. Wessel made about businessmen and choosing a career on Wall Street, maybe I can't explain Mr. Wessel's reaction to the crisis on the fact that he's worked his entire career as a journalist and never as a businessman who has had to meet payroll, answer to shareholders, negotiate with unions, comply with regulations, pay ever-rising costs of employee health care, pay taxes, pay Worker's Compensation taxes, hold the line on production costs, etc. etc. ... and still survive.

I also can't necessarily explain it by the fact that the college economics department co-sponsored the talk with the college's Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, which:

"...exists to expose all members of the Haverford community, but especially students, to the key global issues of the day so that they can better equip themselves to help solve these problems after they leave Haverford's campus. In this regard, the CPGC is one of the most visible examples of the College's Quaker ethos, grounded in testimonies of peace, lives of service, and a concern for the world at large." (emphasis mine)

Regardless, what I can say is that one of society's best-recognized experts on the American economy makes absolutely no defense of capitalism in anyway whatsoever. He not only credits government in "creatively" tackling the crisis, he tacitly accepts the premise that government bureaucrats, regulators and legislators should play a fundamental and sweeping role in managing the economy. Furthermore, he flagrantly denies that government is the problem.

Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute , has spoken a lot about the economic crisis lately. He correctly explains that if capitalism is to survive, it needs moral sanction to counter the altruist ethics that infects our society today. As Objectivists know, Ayn Rand provided that philosophic moral justification for the total separation of state and economics: the morality of rational egoism.

We have a separation of church and state that is explicitly spelled out in the Constitution, and yet we still are fighting tooth-and-nail against the Religious Right to uphold it.

And we don't even have that much of an explicit defense of capitalism. How then is capitalism to survive in an environment when leading knowledgeable and educated intellectuals like Wessel can look the facts straight in the eye, and be blind to the conclusions?

As Dr. Brook states in his talks, obviously the fact about capitalism's success is simply not enough; the fact that government interference in the economy wrecks havoc is simply not enough. We must make the moral argument that laissez-faire capitalism is not only practical, it is morally right.

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Technophobia from 1900

Here's a sign from the early 1900's telling patrons about that new-fangled electrical light. I especially liked the sentence, "The use of Electricity for lighting is in no way harmful to health, nor does it affect the soundness of sleep."



I'm sure glad we Americans in the 21st century beyond such irrational fears of new technology!...

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FROG Media Output: Fall 2008

At the 2008 OCON conference, Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate issued a rousing call to Objectivists to engage in intellectual and cultural activism. This was the concluding message of their superb three-part lecture series "Cultural Movements: Creating Change". A room full of over 400 Objectivists gave them a standing ovation.

Members of the Front Range Objectivism Group (FROG) here in Colorado have responded to their challenge. The following is the summary of our published media output between September 7, 2008 and November 22, 2008:

• OpEds: 15
  
• Letters to the Editor: 28 (including New York Times, Economist and Wall Street Journal)
  
• Articles: 1
  
• Media Citations: 2 (New York Times, Salon.com)
  
• Television Appearances: 3
  
• New Media -- Online Contests Winners: 2
  
• New Media -- Online Debates: 1

(Full details are listed at the end of this post. I've done my best to include all the OpEds and LTEs that I know about, but if I inadvertently omitted someone's contribution, then please let me know and I'll update the tally.)

I chose this time period (Labor Day until just before Thanksgiving), because it coincided with people returning from their summer and Labor Day vacations and with the election season shifting into high gear. As many know, the news/politics cycle is relatively slow before Labor Day, heats up during September, October, and November, and then slows down again during Thanksgiving and the winter holidays. In 2008, this time period included politically important events such as the bailout crisis and the election.

All of us at FROG are amateurs with regular day jobs, writing in our free time with a budget of zero dollars. Hence, no think tank in Washington DC can claim a better output-to-expenses ratio!

We all wrote on topics of our own choosing, based on our personal interests. We covered a broad range of topics, including the financial crisis, health care reform, abortion, church-state separation, and various state and local ballot initiatives, all with the purpose of applying Objectivist ideas to issues of importance to ordinary Americans. Each of us participated as little or as much as was appropriate within the full context of our busy lives, in a non-sacrificial fashion, according to the principles discussed by Debi Ghate and Tom Bowden in their 2008 OCON special workshop, "How to Be An Agent of Cultural Change".

The list also includes some "new media" recognition from non-Objectivists, specifically the "Anti-Socialized Medicine Blog Post Contest". This contest ran weekly for 4 consecutive weeks in September 2008, sponsored by the David All Group, a conservative media consulting firm in Washington, DC. It was open to all bloggers (not just Objectivists). The winner each week received $50 from the David All Group, as well as free publicity on multiple conservative websites and blogs. Members of the Front Range Objectivism Group were the contest winners for 2 of those 4 weeks.

Similarly, I've included the participation of FIRM (Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine) as a "Verified Expert" in the online forum "OpposingViews.com" as part of their "universal health care" debate.

This list does not include our own personal blog posts, online comments that we've left on news websites linking to material from ARI/ARC (or The Objective Standard), or private letters we've written to our elected officials.

Nor does it include some important activities prior to September 7, 2008, such as the "white paper" that Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh issued in August 2008 on Amendment 48 ("Amendment 48 Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters That a Fertilized Egg Is Not a Person"). Their paper has been downloaded over 3700 times, and has been cited by the national media at Salon.com.

Nor does it include the websites that Diana created to inform Colorado voters of various state ballot initiatives (and which generated multiple local media inquiries and requests for interviews).

The battle is not over by any means. But all the participants here in Colorado have greatly enjoyed our activism and we have experienced first-hand the truth of Ayn Rand's adage, "Those who fight for the future live in it today."

So as we get ready to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, I'd like to extend my own heart-felt thanks to my fellow FROG members as well as to all the other Objectivists around the country who have been fighting for reason, individual rights, and capitalism.

And I also welcome Objectivists in other parts of the country to post on their own activism successes these past few months.

Thank you all, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

-- PSH

Front Range Objectivism Group Media Output:
Fall 2008 (Sept 7, 2008 - Nov 22, 2008)

Summary:

• OpEds: 15
  
• Letters to the Editor: 28
  
• Articles: 1
  
• Media Citations: 2
  
• Television Appearances: 3
  
• New Media -- Online Contests Winners: 2
  
• New Media -- Online Debates: 1

Detailed List:

OpEds: 15

• Paul Hsieh, "Free market reforms healthier than Amendment 56", Rocky Mountain News, 9/19/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "'Worthy Cause' Tax, It's Not Your Penny to Give", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/25/2008.
  
• Diana Hsieh and Ari Armstrong, "Abortion and Abolition", Boulder Weekly, 10/9/2008.
  
• Diana Hsieh, "Why Amendment 48 Is Polling 39 Percent", Pagosa Daily Post, 10/10/2008.
  
• Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Mark Your Colorado Ballot For Liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/13/2008.
  
• Ari Armstrong, "Faith-based Politics Costs Colorado Republicans", Capitalism Magazine, 10/15/2008.
  
• Diana Hsieh, "Abortion is a Woman's Right", Pagosa Daily Springs, 10/23/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "It's Not Your Penny to Give", Colorado Daily, 10/26/2008.
  
• Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Time to Speak Out for Free Speech", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/27/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "Vote No on 1B and Donate Your Own Money", Longmont Times-Call, 10/31/2008.
  
• Diana Hsieh, "There's Nothing Wrong with Abortion, But 48 Is Wrong", Rocky Mountain News, 11/3/2008.
  
• Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Ayn Rand Doesn't Need A Bailout", Grand Junction Free Press, 11/10/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "How the GOP Lost My Vote", Denver Post, 11/13/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "The Future of Social Security?", Capitalism Magazine, 11/18/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Asking for Trouble in Health Care", Colorado Springs Gazette, 11/22/2008.

Letters to the Editor: 28

• Paul Hsieh, "The Massachusetts Way", New York Times, 9/7/2008.
  
• Ari Armstrong, "Amendment 48 Smoke Screen", Pagosa Daily Post, 9/19/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "The $700 Billion Plan", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/27/2008.
  
• Tom Hall, "Fate of Her Unborn up to Each Woman", Rocky Mountain News, 9/29/2008.
  
• Gina Liggett, "Amendment 48, the 'Personhood' Measure", Denver Post, 9/29/2008.
  
• Diana Hsieh, "Amendment 48 Would Fabricate Rights for Fertilized Eggs", Grand Junction Sentinel, 9/29/2008
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Markets and Bailouts", Denver Post, 9/30/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Keep government out of benefits arena", Rocky Mountain News, 10/2/2008.
  
• Diana Hsieh, "Eggs Aren't People", Colorado Daily, 10/7/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "Amendment 59 Raises Taxes", Denver Post, 10/7/2008.
  
• Ari Armstrong, "Carroll too quick to invoke Depression", Rocky Mountain News, 10/13/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "Count on taxes rising if Amendment 59 passes", Rocky Mountain News, 10/14/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Running for cover", Economist, 10/14/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Obama's plan would move us toward government health care", Rocky Mountain News, 10/16/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "Mandatory Voting is Immoral", Boulder Daily Camera, 10/18/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Freedom to Choose", Economist, 10/23/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "Capitalism and Socialism", Boulder Daily Camera, 10/25/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Whose Health Plan Is Best?", Denver Post, 10/26/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "Beware Udall's Health Care Policy", Boulder Daily Camera, 11/1/2008.
  
• Hannah Krening, "Surprised By Election Results", Rocky Mountain News, 11/5/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "GOP Recipe", Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/11/2008.
  
• Joe Collins, "On Freedom", Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/12/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Voters Still Want Small Government", Rocky Mountain News, 11/13/2008.
  
• Paul Hsieh, "Compassionate Conservatism Is Dead. What's Next?", Wall Street Journal, 11/14/2008.
  
• Gina Liggett, "The Republican Party Has Gone Bankrupt", Denver Post, 11/15/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "Stop the Bailouts, Try Freedom", Boulder Daily Camera, 11/15/2008.
  
• Bryan Armentrout, "Disgusted with a GOP that's 'Democrat Light'", Rocky Mountain News, 11/17/2008.
  
• Brian Schwartz, "Amendment 59 backers should send refunds to schools", Rocky Mountain News, 11/21/2008.

Articles: 1

• Paul Hsieh, "Mandatory Health Insurance: Wrong for Massachusetts, Wrong for America", The Objective Standard, Fall 2008.

Media Citations: 2

• Ari Armstrong/Diana Hsieh paper mentioned in "Did You Just Call Me A Zygote?", Salon, 9/16/2008.
  
• Diana Hsieh mentioned in, "For Atheists, Politics Proves to Be a Lonely Endeavor", New York Times, 10/17/2008.

Television Appearances: 3

• Brian Schwartz, Channel 54 (CCTV), "Worthy Cause" Tax interview, 10/8/2008.
  
• Ari Armstrong, Channel 31 (Fox), Amendment 59 interview, 10/13/2008.
  
• Ari Armstrong, Channel 4 (CBS), Election Night commentary, 11/4/2008.

New Media -- Online Contests Winners: 2

• "Anti-Socialized Medicine Blog Post Contest", Week 2 winner, Paul Hsieh, "UK Doctors Withholding Treatment Information From Patients", 9/8/08.
  
• "Anti-Socialized Medicine Blog Post Contest", Week 4 winner, Brian Schwartz, "Single-Payer Health Care: Immoral and Deadly", 9/24/08.

New Media -- Online Debate: 1

• Opposing Views: "Should the U.S. Have Universal Healthcare?", 11/14/2008.
  (FIRM participated as one of the "Verified Experts" on the "No" side of the debate.)

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Blogroll Update

I'll be updating my blogroll sometime in the next few days, so if your blog is not on it but you'd like it to be, please post a comment with the URL and title below. Thanks! (Please don't e-mail me; I'd like the list of blog to add to be gathered in one place.)

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Recap #19

This week on Politics without God, the blog of the Coalition for Secular Government:

• Monday, November 17, 2008: LTE: The Republican Party Has Gone Bankrupt by Gina Liggett
  
• Wednesday, November 19, 2008: How The GOP Lost My Vote by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, November 21, 2008: Paul Hsieh LTE on Compassionate Conservatism in WSJ by Paul Hsieh, MD
  

And this week on We Stand FIRM, the blog of FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine:

• Monday, November 17, 2008: More Massachusetts Madness For Montana Max by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, November 18, 2008: Reverse Capitalism in Massachusetts by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, November 19, 2008: Kennedy Jumps In by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, November 20, 2008: Which Obama Will We Get On Health Care? by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, November 21, 2008: Insurers Asking To Be Socialized by Paul Hsieh, MD
  

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Sunday Open Thread #24

Here's yet another a Sunday Open Thread for your thoughts:

For anyone in the fiery grip of a random question, comment, joke, or link they'd like to share with NoodleFood readers, I hereby open up the comments on this post to any respectable topic. (Please refrain from posting personal attacks, pornographic material, and commercial solicitations.)

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Tenth Circle of Hell: A Week of PC After Two Years of Mac

I'm in PC hell.

Yesterday morning, I used my computer -- my beloved Mac PowerBook Pro -- to check and answer my mail. A bit later, after I'd fed the beasts, I returned to find it apparently frozen in sleep. So I rebooted it. It bonged and the hard drive whirred, but the screen never lit up. I tried again, and again, and again. I got nothing. When I hooked it up to an external monitor, I got nothing.

So I took it to the friendly local Apple Store. It looks like a dead video card -- just as I thought. Unfortunately, they need to ship it out, and I likely won't get it back for a full week. Boo hoo hoo!

So in the meantime, I'm working on my old PC laptop. That's not going to be fun. I don't have access to regular programs, including programs that I use regularly for dissertation writing. I'm going to have to use web mail. (UGH!) The setup is now unfamiliar, so I'll be doing all kinds of stupid things. Windows will do its usual dumb things like asking me to reboot every few minutes after an update. (Yes, that's happening already.) The keys on the keyboard are really cramped and hard-to-press. My space key onlyseemstowork intermittently. So I'll have to fight this machine -- like all PCs must be fought. Worst of all, however, the video card on this machine is flaky, so I might need to switch to Paul's old PC, which isn't set up how I like in the slightest. (I'm very fussy!)

The good news is that I do backup my whole Mac -- meaning that I mirror the entire hard drive to an external drive -- every week. (I also backup my dissertation to multiple off site locations on a regular basis.) I just did that total backup on Wednesday night, and the Apple Store did another backup for me on another drive last night. So I shouldn't lose any data whatsoever.

I do expect to age a few years in this next week, however.

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Why I Want a Roomba

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Admin Note

Admin Note: Due to computer failure, Diana will be without e-mail access until further notice.

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How Free Is Speech?

William E. Perry recently sent me (and some other friends) the following thoughtful commentary on the state of free speech in America. I am posting it here with his permission:

Paul Hsieh's NoodleFood post Leaving the Country? Pay the Price! about the exit tax contained in the HEART bill has given me serious concerns. It is another measure removing freedoms that was attached to a complex bill with a deceptive name. It is reminiscent of the internet gaming restrictions attached to the safe ports act.

Ayn Rand said that we should continue to fight and attempt to influence events as long as free speech remains. Lately I've been questioning whether we really have free speech in this country.

When the CEO of a major bank is afraid to speak out publicly even though he was forced to sign over part of his company to the government for a bailout that they didn't need, I question whether we really have free speech. That was the case recently with the CEO of Wells Fargo. After the meeting detailed in the linked article, Wells Fargo has made statements about the use of the bailout money, but no statement about why they accepted it, or the pressure that was put on them.

We have speech codes in colleges, although FIRE fights very hard to limit the worst effects of them.

We have limitations on advertisements during elections due to McCain-Feingold. We have state level restrictions on political speech as well. Unrestricted political speech is necessary for a free country.

There is a strong movement toward reinstating the "fairness" doctrine, which is a further limitation on speech.

On the other hand we do have free speech in some contexts. Yaron Brook and the other ARI intellectuals are not stopped from making their statements in media venues. The people on the OActivists list are not stopped from writing Letters to the Editor and op-eds -- and many of them are published.

Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM) and the Coalition for Secular Government (CSG) have had major successes thanks to the hard and smart work of Lin Zinser, Paul Hsieh, Diana Hsieh, Ari Armstrong, Gina Liggett and others.

So I think that we have free speech to some extent, but it is not a fully robust freedom of speech. At what point do we decide that we don't have freedom of speech to the extent that it is safe to speak?

I'm not advocating leaving the country (to go where?); I'm not advocating setting up some kind of Galt's Gulch. I've even been considering starting a group to deal with a looming issue that is very important to me, and doing advocacy about it with FIRM and the Coalition for Secular Government as models.

Rand famously said, "It's earlier than you think," when asked about some types of advocacy. That has become an overused cliche in some circles. But now I wonder whether it is later than we think.

Here's my reply to him, somewhat edited:

I think that your concerns about free speech are very real -- particularly having dealt with some of Colorado's campaign finance laws these past few months. The federal and state governments won't outright ban speech anytime soon, as is happening in Europe and Canada. However, they are increasingly regulating it with campaign finance laws and the like. These laws are so burdensome that most people would rather shut up than attempt to comply with them -- and risk legal action if they do so wrongly.

More generally, my thought from the first serious talk of the financial bailout has been that perhaps we have less than the 20 years that Yaron Brook speculated at OCON to turn around the culture. That's a very scary thought. Unless more Objectivists ramp up their advocacy efforts, we might go down in flames just as we're gaining a real foothold.

Personally, my plan is to (1) finish my dissertation and then (2) speak in every forum open to me, full-time. I do plan to actively fight for free speech, because like you, I think it's in very serious danger.

I will have more to say about the burdens of campaign finance laws -- including my own experiences with them -- in future posts.

Basically though, I would say that:

1. It's earlier than some might think -- meaning that it's too early for direct political action like running decent political candidates.
   
   
2. It's later than some might think -- meaning that we have very little time to enact the necessary philosophical revolution.

Time-wise, we're stuck between a political rock and a philosophical hard place. However bad that might be, there's only one way out -- namely fighting for our ideas in public forums of all kinds.

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Ayn Rand Bookstore Clearance Sale

An exciting surprise at this year's OCON was the opportunity to purchase audiocassette versions of Ayn Rand Bookstore products at the low low price of $4.95 a tape. Needless to say, I stocked up. Now you can too! From the ARB website:

The Ayn Rand Bookstore is pleased to announce a clearance sale on all audiocassette products published by the Ayn Rand Bookstore, while supplies last.

In order to clear out our existing audiocassette supplies, we are now discounting prices to $4.95 per cassette. A single-cassette item will be $4.95; a two-cassette product will sell for $9.90; and so on. In some cases, prices are now as much as 75% below list price.

Sale prices will remain effective until all of our audiocassette products are sold out. Audiocassette products will later be reintroduced in other formats.

Listen and learn!

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Objectivist Roundup #71

Rational Jenn has the latest Objectivist Roundup. Go check it out!

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Six Down, Two to Go

Last night, I finished the first draft of Chapter Six of my dissertation. Today, I have the day off. (Wowee!! I get to do laundry! Then go see the new Bond movie!) Tomorrow, I begin work on Chapter Seven.

Chapter Six is the first of the final three chapters in which I'm cashing out all the work I've done on the foundations of moral responsibility and judgment by actually solving the three proposed kinds of moral luck. This chapter concerned the easiest kind thereof, namely circumstantial moral luck. I'm pleased with how it turned out, particularly as I think I have some interesting insights about moral judgment in it.

I have to work fast over the next few weeks, as I need to finish the final two chapters by the end of the calendar year. Yikes!

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There Are A Lot Of People In China

Today's Eric Daniels-type bit of trivia comes from Strange Maps":

China is the world's most populous nation. That much anybody knows. But even if we know a bit more (that the number of Chinese is around 1.32 billion, which is just under 20% of all humans alive today), that figure is still too big to mean much beyond that China is 'number one'.

This map compares the population of China's provinces (plus the 'renegade province' of Taiwan), autonomous regions and municipalities with those of whole countries, and thus helps shed some light on that issue.

China is an interesting country in that it is no longer committed ideologically to Communism, but it is no where close to a free country. Instead, the ideology is a mixture of authoritarianism, nationalism, and some market elements. Hence, I'm glad that there are people interested in translating Ayn Rand's works into Chinese.

If Rand's ideas ever took hold there, China could become a true powerhouse on the world stage. On the other hand, if a different bad ideology became entrenched in place of Communism, we could be looking at a huge menace.

(Via Dave Does The Blog.)

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When an Engineer Owns a Dog

This is hilarious and cool! But now I can't help wondering if the connection I feel with the dogs I play with is an illusion. ;^)

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"And Now, Let Us Pra....GLOAT!"

The Religious Right has been driving a sledgehammer into the wall of separation of church and state for 30 years, and has enjoyed an especially-intimate relationship with the politically powerful for eight years running. They have achieved significant successes: Bush's faith-based initiatives, the partial-birth abortion ban, the passage of parental-notification laws, the Bush appointments of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and the constitutional amendments against gay marriage just passed in Florida, Arizona and California. There are doubtlessly many other successes I've left out, especially at the state and local level.

Now, bow your heads and let us gloat. Because the Religious Right had some significant defeats this election, and I think its time to celebrate!

First and foremost, let's sing a hallelujah to the crushing, sweeping, stunning blow to Amendment 48 in Colorado. Hip-hip-horrrahhhh!! Your possibility of getting sued in court by a fertilized egg claiming its right to your body and property is just not gonna happen!

Washington state passed the nation's second assisted suicide law in the country! Now individuals who are suffering and who rationally decide to end their life with dignity have more opportunity to do so humanely. This is a "right-to-life" issue: the right to choose to control your life, and that includes ending interminable suffering, even if evangelical Christians don't want you to.

Another attempt to severely ban abortion in South Dakota failed! Hurrah!! Proponents tried to make a previous draconian abortion bill more palatable by allowing rape and incest victims or women in danger for their health to have an abortion if necessary. Oh, gee, thanks for the crumb, but all women in South Dakota will get to retain at least most of their right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy according to their decision.

And candidates favored by the Religious Right suffered some losses at the polls. Hurrah!! In five of eight Senate races, the Religious Right's favorite candidate lost (Colorado, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina and South Dakota); and two races are in a run-off (Georgia and Minnesota). In eleven races for the the House, six incumbent Representatives favored by the Religious Right were ousted (Colorado, Florida, Idaho, North Carolina, Michigan and Virginia). And three incumbents held off religious challengers (Indiana, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania). This means that it will be more difficult for evangelicals to forcibly decide for all of us that we should abide by a biblical morality.

Nah-nah-nah-nahhhh-nahhh!!

Cheers to us all! The Wall of Separation of Church and State is still there. It's big!!! It won't come down... for the time being, at least!

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Wedding Day Fail

If anything remotely like this had happened to me on my wedding day, I would have nearly died from the shock, then I would have nearly laughed myself to death. Then I would have finished up the vows.

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LTE: The Republican Party Has Gone Bankrupt

My following letter to the editor was published in the Denver Post Editorial page of November 15 in response to David Harsanyi's column, "Getting out of the Republican coma."

I would like to add to David Harsanyi's comments about Republicans needing renewed idealism and intellectualism. To put it bluntly, the Republican Party is bankrupt. Their "statism-lite" support of the massive growth in government is a pathetic imitation of the the sacred policies of the left. And their hijacking by the religious right has turned them into "theocrat-lite." There is nothing of the idealism of limited government and individual liberty -- policies they give only lip service to. They deserve the whooping they got; and as an advocate of reason, individual liberty and laissez-faire capitalism, I'm hoping that out of the ashes will emerge a leader who won't let America go down in flames.

Gina Liggett, Denver

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Real Life Crow Epistemology

Although I think it would be a stretch to call what crows are doing here "reasoning", crows may be smarter than people generally give them credit for:

Crows make monkeys out of chimps in mental test
17 September 2008

Crows seem to be able to use causal reasoning to solve a problem, a feat previously undocumented in any other non-human animal, including chimps.

Alex Taylor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and his team presented six New Caledonian crows with a series of "trap-tube" tests.

A choice morsel of food was placed in a horizontal Perspex tube, which also featured two round holes in the underside, with Perspex traps below.

For most of the tests, one of the holes was sealed, so the food could be dragged across it with a stick and out of the tube to be eaten. The other hole was left open, trapping the food if the crows moved it the wrong way.

Three of the crows solved the task consistently, even after the team modified the appearance of the equipment. This suggested that these crows weren't using arbitrary features – such as the colour of the rim of a hole – to guide their behaviour. Instead they seemed to understand that if they dragged food across a hole, they would lose it...

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All We Gotta Do

Hugh Laurie tells us how to change the world into a utopia of peace, love, and happiness in a classic folk song:



(Via Lin)

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The Loss of Values Due to Contradiction

Two current events I have selected have nothing in common, except for being in the news. Well, they also pertain to underlying rational values that are at risk of being destroyed by their own best advocates. Why? Because their champions are trying to operate under contradiction.

On the heels of the joyously-resounding defeat of Colorado's "personhood" amendment comes another threat to abortion in Colorado. This time a private citizen, Mark Hotaling, is suing Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and Boulder Valley Women's Health center for violating the state's constitution. He claims that federal dollars received by these clinics are illegally being used to perform abortions. Hotaling says he's just standing up "for the will of the people and the constitution." For this, he's getting moral support from Ms. stand-up-for-the-people Kristi Burton, the evangelical who got Amendment 48 on the ballot "to empower the citizens to have a choice" about when life begins. And he's getting financial and legal support from the influential Religious Right group, the Alliance Defense Fund.

In the other story, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the $700 billion bailout plan won't include the purchase of troubled assets from banks after all, a turn-around from the original plan. And unlike the rescued financial sector, the American auto industry might not get the additional help it's been asking for. Stock exchanges revolt in their roller-coaster tumble with daily bad news about the economy and over worries of how governments will fix it.

What values are at stake here?

In the first story, the value is the right to abortion. As writers on this blog and on Politics without God have argued, abortion is an absolute, inviolable right. Ayn Rand explains the right to abortion in her famously clear and pithy way: "An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being."

In the second story, the value is free trade. Free trade is the unencumbered right for free individuals and companies to voluntarily exchange goods or services with each other to their own mutual benefit on terms they both agree on. Because humans must create what they need to survive and thrive, and because they can't individually make everything they need, a market for such exchange is required. It reflects the sum of "all the economic choices and decisions made by all the participants," thereby creating wealth.

In a society based on rational principles, it is possible to protect the right to abortion under any and all circumstances; and it is possible for free trade to proceed to any degree of wealth that can be created by human ingenuity. But not so in a society where contradiction is introduced and enforced.

In the first story, the women's health and abortion clinics vociferously defend a woman's legal right to abortion as granted by the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade. Yet they are willing to accept the expropriated earnings of wealth from others in society in the form of government grants in order to survive. While the clinics in the lawsuit deny directly using federal funds for abortion, they still must play by the arbitrary and ever-changing rules of those who hold the monopoly on force (i.e., the government). In the end, the right to abortion becomes conditional.

In the second story, the biggest intervention in the marketplace in American history has just happened. But decades of regulation, restrictions and biased preferences haven't led businesses to rise up and crusade for their right to free trade. It's led to just the opposite: the despairing cry for help using the expropriated earnings of others in society in the form of bailouts. Business are boldly proud and assertive when things are going well; but when things are not, they crumble under pressure and want a quick fix by any means from those who hold the monopoly on force (i.e., the government). In the end, the right of free trade becomes conditional.

It is a contradiction that we can uphold and pursue rational values that require freedom while accepting the conditions set by those who hold the monopoly on force. We have nobody to blame but ourselves: American citizens, with their endless special-interest appeals to their legislators, have allowed this untenable situation to unfold.

You can't be free and sleep with the devil. Or, as Ayn Rand more eloquently puts it: "a contradiction cannot be achieved in reality and... the attempt to achieve it can lead only to disaster and destruction."

Abortion rights are being chipped away every year. And we are in a worsening financial crisis of unprecedented proportions. The only way out is to eliminate the contradiction. The only way out is to hold government to its proper, non-contradictory function of protecting individual rights. And it is the citizens who must take this corrective action.

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Reminder: G. Gordon Liddy on Ayn Rand

Don't forget!

RadioAmerica's G. Gordon Liddy is devoting a Special Broadcast of his nationally syndicated three-hour talk radio show to Ayn Rand, her philosophy, and understanding the current state of events through the lens of Objectivism.

The broadcast will air live on Monday, November 17, 2008, beginning at 10 a.m., Eastern Standard Time.

The Ayn Rand Center's Yaron Brook, Onkar Ghate, Elan Journo, Thomas Bowden and Eric Daniels will be the exclusive guests for this extended broadcast. They will discuss the financial crisis, Bush's claimed defense of capitalism, today's challenges to free speech, and the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other topics.

The broadcast will air on 200 radio stations across the country as well as on XM satellite radio (on a delayed basis). Live streaming audio will be available on RadioAmerica via this link.

G. Gordon Liddy encourages call-in questions from listeners across the country.

Remember, if you're a sensible person with a question or comment of general interest about the application of Ayn Rand's ideas to today's culture, please consider calling into the show. This great opportunity shouldn't be passed over with a shrug, but used to its full potential.

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The Word Spreads

I'm delighted to report that Paul's Denver Post op-ed How the GOP Lost My Vote seems to be making the rounds of the blogosphere. Most notably, it's a "top headline" on Michelle Malkin's Hot Air and a good chunk of it was sympathetically quoted on Little Green Footballs. (Yikes! LFG has over 1000 comments on that post already.)

Go Mr. Woo!

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Recap #18

This week on Politics without God, the blog of the Coalition for Secular Government:

• Monday, November 10, 2008: Time to Speak by Diana Hsieh
  
• Wednesday, November 12, 2008: Paul Hsieh's Letter to the Editor on the Republican Party by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, November 14, 2008: Southern Baptist Convention: For the Separation of Church and State, But... by Gina Liggett
  

And this week on We Stand FIRM, the blog of FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine:

• Monday, November 10, 2008: Obama's Plan to End Private Health Insurance by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, November 11, 2008: Who Broke Health Care? by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, November 12, 2008: Bailing Out Maine by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, November 13, 2008: Montgomery on Moore's "Sicko" by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, November 14, 2008: Colorado Hospital Association and Universal Coverage by Paul Hsieh, MD
  

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Sunday Open Thread #23

Here's yet another a Sunday Open Thread for your thoughts:

For anyone in the fiery grip of a random question, comment, joke, or link they'd like to share with NoodleFood readers, I hereby open up the comments on this post to any respectable topic. (Please refrain from posting personal attacks, pornographic material, and commercial solicitations.)

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Close But No Cigar

While I sometimes disagree with Mark Sisson, I found his recent blog posts criticizing "The Zone Diet" (of Barry Sears) and "The Paleo Diet" (of Loren Cordain) to mirror my own thoughts. You can read his posts here:

• What's Wrong With The Zone Diet?
  
• What’s the Difference Between Primal and Paleo?

Note that "The Paleo Diet" in this case refers to the specific diet developed by Loren Cordain, not the broad category of what I (and others) refer to as "paleo" diets, of which Mark Sisson's primal eating plan is just one type.

Also, while I'm not so familiar with The Paleo Diet, I do know The Zone -- and Mark's criticisms are spot-on. You can find more in this post by Richard Nikoley. As I said in the comments on that post:

The Zone was my first introduction to "paleo"-type diets about ten years ago. It definitely helped me get my blood sugar under some control: mostly by eating more protein, I stopped crashing and burning as I had been doing on a regular basis. So in that respect, it was good.

However, the allowed calories from carbs was simply way too high -- such it was easy to eat "in the Zone" while still eating tons of processed carbs, including sugars and grains. So I maintained my quasi-addiction to carbs on the diet. As a result, I achieved nothing like the results I've gotten over the past few months.

It's frustrating to think that Sears understands so much, yet ultimately misses the boat so completely.

And that's just one problem among many.

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G. Gordon Liddy on Ayn Rand

Wow, I'm super-excited about this news:

RadioAmerica's G. Gordon Liddy is devoting a Special Broadcast of his nationally syndicated three-hour talk radio show to Ayn Rand, her philosophy, and understanding the current state of events through the lens of Objectivism.

The broadcast will air live on Monday, November 17, 2008, beginning at 10 a.m., Eastern Standard Time.

The Ayn Rand Center's Yaron Brook, Onkar Ghate, Elan Journo, Thomas Bowden and Eric Daniels will be the exclusive guests for this extended broadcast. They will discuss the financial crisis, Bush's claimed defense of capitalism, today's challenges to free speech, and the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other topics.

The broadcast will air on 200 radio stations across the country as well as on XM satellite radio (on a delayed basis). Live streaming audio will be available on RadioAmerica via this link.

G. Gordon Liddy encourages call-in questions from listeners across the country.

If you're a sensible person with a question or comment of general interest about the application of Ayn Rand's ideas to today's culture, please consider calling into the show. This great opportunity shouldn't be passed over with a shrug, but used to its full potential.

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How Well Do You Perceive Colors?

You can test your hue discrimination accuracy here. A perfect score is zero.

Good epistemology requires percepts as well as concepts!

(Via Mental Floss.)

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How The GOP Lost My Vote

The November 13, 2008 Denver Post published my OpEd on the Republican Party in the online edition:

"How the GOP lost my vote"

After a resounding electoral defeat, in which voters in this once-red state rejected Republicans McCain, Schaffer, and Musgrave, the Colorado Republican Party will undoubtedly be asking themselves, "Why did we lose?"

I want to let them know that they lost the vote of many former supporters (including myself) because they have chosen to embrace the Religious Right.

I voted Republican in 1996, 2000, and 2004. I believe in limited government, individual rights, free market capitalism, a strong national defense, and the right to keep and bear arms - positions that one normally associates with Republicans.

But I didn't vote for a single Republican in 2008. I've become increasingly alienated by the Republicans" embrace of the religious "social conservative" agenda, including attempts to ban abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage.

The Founding Fathers correctly recognized that the proper function of government is to protect individual rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion. But freedom of religion also implies freedom *from* religion. As Thomas Jefferson famously put it, there should be a "wall of separation" between church and state. Public policy should not be based on religious doctrines.

Instead, the government's role is to protect each person's right to practice his or her religion as a private matter and to forbid them from forcibly imposing their particular views on others. And this is precisely why I find the Republican Party's embrace of the Religious Right so dangerous.

If a woman chooses not to have an abortion for reasons of personal faith, then I completely respect her right to do so. But she cannot impose her particular religious views on others. Other women must have the same right to decide that deeply personal issue for themselves.

The Religious Right's goal of outlawing abortions would violate that important right, and sacrifice the lives of actual women for clumps of cells that are only potential (but not yet actual) human beings, based on religious dogma. As a physician, I find that position abhorrent and deeply anti-life.

In his October 24, 2008 radio broadcast, Rush Limbaugh told pro-choice secular supporters of limited government such as myself that we should leave the Republican Party. Many of us have already taken his advice and changed our affiliation to "independent."

The Republican Party stands at an important crossroads. The Republican Party could choose to follow the principles of the American Founding Fathers and promote a limited government that protected individual rights but otherwise left people alone to live their lives.

This includes affirming the principle of the separation of church and state. If they did so, I would happily support it.

Or the Republican Party could instead choose to become the party of the Religious Right and seek to forcibly impose the religious values of one particular constituency over others (thus violating everyone else's rights).

In that case, it will continue to alienate many voters and lose elections -- and deservedly so.

Even though I no longer regard myself as a Republican, I definitely regard myself as a loyal American.

My parents immigrated legally from Taiwan to America over 40 years ago. They had very little money, but they worked hard, sent two children to college and medical school, and are now enjoying a well-earned and comfortable retirement.

Their life has been a real-life embodiment of the American dream. America is a beacon of hope to millions of people around the world precisely because our system of government allows honest, hard-working people to prosper and thrive.

Our system is a testament to the genius of the Founding Fathers, who recognized that the proper function of government is to protect individual rights, such as our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Hence, I believe the Republican Party should choose the first path - the path of limited government, separation of church and state, and protection of individual rights.

This is the America that brought my parents from a ocean away in hopes of a better life for themselves and their children. This is the America I want to live in. And this is the America I want the Republican Party to stand for.

Paul Hsieh is a practicing physician in the south Denver metro area and co-founder of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM). He lives in Sedalia.

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How a ButterFly Destroyed a Roof

(Via Robb.)

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Objectivist Roundup #70

Rule of Reason has the latest edition of the Objectivist Roundup. Go check it out!

(I didn't submit anything this week because I didn't write anything substantial. Now that the election is over, it's dissertation-o-rama for me for many weeks to come. It feels good to focus deeply on just one thing, but my head does feel like it's going to explode today after seven hours of writing yesterday.)

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Post Mortem

I followed this political season more closely than I've followed any other. There's the narrative that this just wasn't the Republicans' year, the brand is too tarnished. There's the narrative that Obama is a cool customer, and the narrative that McCain squandered his honorable "maverick" brand. There's the it's-the-economy-stupid-redux narrative. There's the Obama's-shady-associations narrative.

What to make of these narratives? Which one is true?

None, I think. It's all euphemism. I think that every four years, but perhaps in this presidential election cycle in particular given Obama's historic candidacy, the American electorate trots out its metaphysical angst for all to see. And there's a big rush to put the just-so stories out there to cover it up.

The angst to which I refer? It's your garden variety can-I-cope-with-reality angst. American voters get the opportunity to choose which story they prefer to tell themselves about why the problem isn't within, but in the world they never made.

Some people tell themselves that someone is trying to take what they have, some "other." That other might be after their money, or after the spiritual values that they claim make them feel good about themselves. When they seek an answer to why their self-image is threatened, they look down at the threat from "below," from the people they consider beneath them in moral stature. These people run Right with the Republicans.

Some people tell themselves that others got unfair advantages, that those others have forced inequitable bargains on everyone else. When they seek an answer to why their life seems harder than they feel they deserve, they see the threat as coming from "above," from people who get to enjoy the high life because of the luck of the draw. These people run Left with the Democrats.

Both today's Left and Right are really two sides of the same coin. (Yes, I know, depressingly unoriginal observation, there.) They're both asking for the same thing -- they want the government to steal from someone and give to them what they feel themselves incapable of producing on their own. Those on the Right are looking for unearned moral status. Those on the Left are looking for unearned material wealth. Neither those on the Left nor on the Right realize that asking for the unearned is always a single problem, and that there's no real difference between them.

The Right needs to wash out its soul with soap and water. The Left needs to recognize the crook that looks back at them when they look in the mirror.

I sometimes despair of either side accepting that theirs alone is the responsibility for living and enjoying the good life.

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Walking Cultural Activism: One Nation

Tammy and I thought it would be great to produce a series of T-shirt designs for those occasions when it is appropriate to wear our ideas on our sleeves. Bonus points if they aren't just provocative but actually spark some good engagement!

Here are two designs that respond to the religionists who called on Congress to edit our nation's official Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950's to include the phrase "under God" -- along with all those today who smile on that and wrongly insist that our great nation was founded on religious ideals.

(Just click through to BoltOfReason.Com to check out all the available styles and colors. We of course love suggestions and requests -- we're already working on a lot of fun ideas, and if you are the first to hit us with a new one that we use in a future shirt design, you'll get one for free!)

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A Philosophical Critique of Heterophenomenology

Christian Beenfeldt, Oxford graduate student in philosophy and occasional writer for the Ayn Rand Institute, recently published a paper in the Journal of Consciousness Studies entitled "A Philosophical Critique of Heterophenomenology." Here's the abstract:

In this paper Dennett's method of heterophenomenology is discussed. After a brief explanation of the method, three arguments in support of it are considered in turn. First, the argument from the possibility of error and self-delusion of the subject is found to ignore the panoply of intermediate position that one can take with regard to the epistemic status of first-personal knowledge. The argument is also criticized for employing an epistemic double-standard. Second, the argument from the neutrality of heterophenomenology is found to be defeated by the fact that, contrary to Dennett's claims, third-person, functionalist and instrumentalist assumptions substantially underpin and inform the method. Similarities between heterophenomenology and the Turing Test are furthermore explored, and it is shown that a weaker version of the neutrality claim also fails. Third, the argument from the appeal to the standard practice of science is shown to substantially rest on an equivocation on the term 'heterophenomenology' and is therefore rejected. Finally, it is suggested that the use of introspective reports is not inherently at odds with sound scientific procedures.

I haven't read it yet, but it looks of interesting! (It should be available for free via university accounts.)

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Who Owns The West?

This map shows clearly how much of the Western US is owned by the federal government:

The United States government has direct ownership of almost 650 million acres of land (2.63 million square kilometers) - nearly 30% of its total territory. These federal lands are used as military bases or testing grounds, nature parks and reserves and indian reservations, or are leased to the private sector for commercial exploitation (e.g. forestry, mining, agriculture). They are managed by different administrations, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Department of Defense, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Bureau of Reclamation or the Tennessee Valley Authority.

This map details the percentage of state territory owned by the federal government. The top 10 list of states with the highest percentage of federally owned land looks like this:

1. Nevada 84.5%
2. Alaska 69.1%
3. Utah 57.4%
4. Oregon 53.1%
5. Idaho 50.2%
6. Arizona 48.1%
7. California 45.3%
8. Wyoming 42.3%
9. New Mexico 41.8%
10. Colorado 36.6%

The following thought then occurred to me. One day, the US is going to face a financial crisis due to the insolvency of Social Security that will make the current mortgage crisis look like chump change in comparison. And everyone who advocates privatizing Social Security also points out that there would be huge transition costs.

So the question is whether those costs (or overall transition costs of moving from the current mixed economy to a fully consistent system of laissez-faire capitalism) could be covered by selling off those Federal lands? It might conceivably have to be done in stages to avoid depressing the market by dumping all that land on the market at once.

But there is something appealing about the idea of paying for the transition costs of privatizing our economy by a method which also privatizes a big chunk of US government assets.

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Viagra Warning

Advertisements for erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra always include a standard disclaimer like, "Seek medical attention if you have an erection lasting for more than 4 hours".

Here's what will happen if you ever have to make that call. Warning: Some guys probably won't want to read this.

(Via KevinMD.)

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Leaving the Country? Pay the Price!

In the wake of Barack Obama's election as 44th President of the United States, some people have talked about leaving the country. However, an Instapundit reader noted that the US government may impose a stiff exit tax for the more productive people seeking to leave:

..."Going John Galt" is not that easy -- Congress quietly passed an "exit tax" earlier this year to penalize any (somewhat) high net worth US resident that decides to vote with their feet.

As quoted in the links below, the U.S. government, through the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Act of 2008 (the HEART bill, for short, and I am not making this up), effective June 17, 2008, imposes an "exit tax" on certain citizens and long-term residents who expatriate or terminate their long-term residency. Such individuals, called covered expatriates, will be deemed to have sold all of their worldwide property for its fair market value on the day before expatriating or terminating U.S. residency, and will be liable for U.S. tax on the amount deemed realized in excess of $600,000 (subject to cost of living adjustments).

Covered expatriates are: citizens and long-term residents who (a) have an average annual U.S. tax liability for the previous five years of $139,000 (adjusted for inflation), (b) have a net worth of at least $2,000,000 on the expatriation date, or (c) fail to certify compliance with all U.S. federal tax obligations for the previous five years.

Link 1
Link 2

And regular NoodleFood commenter Jim May gets a mention from Instapundit with this quote:

...I left Canada for the greater opportunity and freedom in America. I never expected Canada to follow me here.

I still agree with Dr. Leonard Peikoff's assessment in his November 3, 2008 podcast -- I'd still rather stay in the US and fight for good ideas than leave, at least at this point in time

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Good Warning Sign

Sometimes you need to make the message really, really clear.



The text reads:

DANGER
DO NOT TOUCH
Not only will this kill you, it will hurt the whole time you're dying.

(Via Neatorama.)

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John Allison Lecture at Duke

From John Lewis:

Spread the word, please! Announcing a very special event:

A Lecture by Mr. John Allison, President and CEO of BB&T Corporation: "Financial Trauma: Causes and Possible Cures"

November 19, 2008, 3:30 PM

Griffith Theatre, at the Bryan Center, Duke University (Directions)

As the world struggles with the current financial crisis, we should listen to the executives of successful financial institutions. BB&T is such an institution.

Mr. Allison will outline the causes of today's financial chaos, including the errors that led to the crisis. He will discuss the broader implications for the economy, including the effects on the housing and mortgage industries, and offer economic and political suggestions for both short-term and long-term cures.

John A. Allison became CEO of BB&T on July 7, 1989. At the end of 1989, BB&T was ranked 96th largest bank in the nation with $4.8 billion in assets. After 60 bank and thrift acquisitions, and the implementation of innovative training and measurement programs, the former eastern North Carolina farm bank has grown to become the nation's 14th largest financial holding company. Assets have increased from $4.8 billion, when Allison began his tenure as CEO, to $137 billion today.

Sponsor: The Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, Duke University

Contact: John Lewis, john.d.lewis (at) duke.edu

Wow, now that's a lecture I wish I could attend!

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Clever Counterterrorism

The Washington Post had a terrific story in October of how the British used a laundromat as a counterterrorist tool against the Irish Republican Army. Here's an excerpt:

...Having lost many troops and civilians to bombings, the Brits decided they needed to determine who was making the bombs and where they were being manufactured.

One bright fellow recommended they operate a laundry and when asked "what the hell he was talking about," he explained the plan and it was incorporated -- to much success.

The plan was simple: Build a laundry and staff it with locals and a few of their own. The laundry would then send out "color coded" special discount tickets, to the effect of "get two loads for the price of one," etc. The color coding was matched to specific streets and thus when someone brought in their laundry, it was easy to determine the general location from which a city map was coded.

While the laundry was indeed being washed, pressed and dry cleaned, it had one additional cycle -- every garment, sheet, glove, pair of pants, was first sent through an analyzer, located in the basement, that checked for bomb-making residue. The analyzer was disguised as just another piece of the laundry equipment; good OPSEC [operational security].

Within a few weeks, multiple positives had shown up, indicating the ingredients of bomb residue, and intelligence had determined which areas of the city were involved. To narrow their target list, [the laundry] simply sent out more specific coupons [numbered] to all houses in the area, and before long they had good addresses.

After confirming addresses, authorities with the SAS teams swooped down on the multiple homes and arrested multiple personnel and confiscated numerous assembled bombs, weapons and ingredients. During the entire operation, no one was injured or killed.

(Via Schneier.)

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Recap #17

This week on Politics without God, the blog of the Coalition for Secular Government:

• Monday, November 3, 2008: Amendment 48: Burton's Equivocation by Ari
  
• Monday, November 3, 2008: Burton Backtracks on Amendment 48 by Ari
  
• Tuesday, November 4, 2008: Op-Ed Against Amendment 48 by Diana Hsieh
  
• Tuesday, November 4, 2008: Election Day by Diana Hsieh
  
• Thursday, November 6, 2008: Election Results by Diana Hsieh
  

And this week on We Stand FIRM, the blog of FIRM: Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine:

• Monday, November 3, 2008: WSJ on AZ "Freedom of Choice in Health Care" by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, November 4, 2008: Happy Election Day! by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, November 5, 2008: Mayfield on End Of Life Decisions by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, November 6, 2008: A Few Updates by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, November 7, 2008: Top 10 Myths of Health Care by Paul Hsieh, MD
  

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Sunday Open Thread #22

Here's yet another a Sunday Open Thread for your thoughts:

For anyone in the fiery grip of a random question, comment, joke, or link they'd like to share with NoodleFood readers, I hereby open up the comments on this post to any respectable topic. (Please refrain from posting personal attacks, pornographic material, and commercial solicitations.)

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Migraines Versus Topamax

Hooray! I seem to be past my recent two-and-half week spell of daily migraines. (Yes, that means I had a migraine every day for about 17 days.) From the outset, I knew the cause of my troubles: I'd recently stopped taking the birth control pill after about 15 years of nearly consistent use, so my hormones were totally out of whack. (No, Paul and I are not having children; we've just changed birth control methods.)

I'd hoped that the situation would resolve itself, but no such luck. By the second week, the migraines were becoming harder to control with my drug of choice, Excedrin. Even Maxalt, my stronger prescription triptan derivative, wasn't always effective. Frustratingly, even when I wasn't in pain, I was often suffering from a kind of "migraine hangover" that left me unable to think clearly. It was debilitating. And, by gosh by golly, I have a dissertation to write.

Normally, to break this kind of migraine run, I go on beta-blockers for a few weeks. They work, albeit with some unpleasant side effects. By lowering my heart rate and blood pressure, any kind of physical exertion -- including the simple act of climbing a set of stairs -- becomes an exhausting chore. However, since the beta-blockers in my medicine cabinet expired in 2005 (that's an indication of just how long it has been since my last run of migraines) I made an appointment to see my doctor for this past Thursday.

And wowee, I'm glad that I did. My doctor offered me a different medication to prevent migraines: Topamax. Now, three days later, my migraines are gone. I felt fantastic all day today -- nary a hint of a migraine, nor even any of the common side effects of the medication. Today I even lifted weights without any fatigue. (My good results may not be representative, of course; in general, my migraines are pretty responsive to medication.)

Interestingly, Topamax used to be used to prevent seizures, but it's now more commonly used to prevent migraines. And:

It is not entirely clear how this medication works for epilepsy or migraines. An epileptic seizure occurs as the result of abnormal electrical signals in the brain. Topamax slows down those signals, helping to prevent seizures. The medication also works similarly for migraine headaches. It is thought that migraines may be triggered by nerve cells in the brain that are too easily excited. Topamax helps calm the nerve cells, working to prevent a migraine from ever starting

Notably, migraines used to be thought of as a vascular disorder, but that's been proven false in recent years. More recent research shows that their origins are "neurological, related to a wave of nerve cell activity that sweeps across the brain."

I will have to wean myself off the Topamax carefully in a month or so. If I stop cold turkey rather than follow my doctor's instructions about tapering off, I might cause a seizure. That wouldn't be good, obviously. Of course, I'll have to see whether I develop any of the various common side effects of this new drug. However, for the moment, I'm absolutely thrilled with it in comparison to beta-blockers. I feel like I have my life back, at the cost of a few measly bucks.

So... THANK YOU, BIG PHARMA!

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When Raw Means Not Raw

Recently, Liriodendron pointed me to this May 2008 post by Stephan of Whole Health Source on the pasteurization of almonds. He writes:

I bought about a pound of almonds yesterday for a backpacking trip I'll be doing this weekend. I like to soak raw almonds, then lightly toast them. It sweetens them and breaks down some of their anti-nutrients.

When I arrived at the grocery store, the only raw almonds they had were from California. I prefer to buy domestic products when I can, but in case you haven't heard, "raw" almonds from California are no longer raw. They are required to be sterilized using steam or antiseptic gases, despite their relative safety as a raw food.

The worst part is that they are not required to label them as pasteurized; they can still be labeled as raw. The Almond Board's argument is that there's no difference in quality and pasteurized almonds are safer. I find this highly offensive and deceptive. It flies in the face of common sense. If you walked up to someone in the street and asked them what the phrase "raw milk" means, would they say "oh yeah, that means pasteurized"? A raw seed can sprout. A pasteurized seed can't. Remember all those enzymes that break down anti-nutrients when you soak beans, grains and nuts? Denatured by heat.

I tried soaking them like I would regular raw almonds. I covered them in water overnight. In the morning, I noticed that the soaking water was milky and had an unpleasant smell. The outer layer of the almonds (the most cooked part) was falling apart into the water. They also didn't have the crisp texture of soaked raw almonds.

Tonight, I toasted them lightly. They definitely taste "off", and the texture isn't as good. There's no doubt about it, pasteurized California almonds are inferior. Despite my preference for domestic products, I'll be buying Spanish almonds the next time around. If enough of us do the same, we'll hit the Almond Board in the only place that counts: its wallet.

Here's what Wikipedia says about the change:

Because of cases of Salmonella traced to almonds in 2001 and 2004, in 2006 the Almond Board of California proposed rules regarding pasteurization of almonds available to the public, and the USDA approved them. Since 1 September 2007, raw almonds have technically not been available in the United States. Controversially, almonds labeled as "raw" are required to be steam pasteurised or chemically treated with propylene oxide. This does not apply to imported almonds.

According to this blog post, organic almonds are pasteurized with steam, whereas non-organic almonds may be treated with propylene oxide.

Some months ago, I noticed that the whole, raw almonds I occasionally bought at the grocery store had a chemical taste to them -- almost gasoline-like. They were inedible. I thought perhaps that I'd just gotten a bad batch, but when I tried them again a few weeks later, the taste was the same. Now I wonder whether that taste is some kind of residue from the propylene oxide.

Since then, I've switched to buying my whole almonds at Whole Foods. They're organic, and they taste fine. However, I'm pretty sure that, contrary to their label, they're not raw but instead pasteurized with steam. I'll have to ask a manager whether the "raw almonds" are actually raw or not. If not, I'll probably order some unpasteurized almonds direct from the farm. Or perhaps I can find a local grocer who stocks imported almonds. I want my raw foods to be raw, with all their enzymes intact, dammit. Is that really too much to ask?

In the final paragraph of his blog post, Stephan notes:

One of the most irritating things is that the new rule is designed to edge out small producers. I can't see any other reason for it. Raw almonds are a safe food. Far safer than lettuce. Should we pasteurize lettuce? Pasteurization requires specialized, expensive equipment that will be prohibitive for the little guys. I'm sure the bigger producers will generously offer to fill the production gap.

Sadly, large food producers often seem eager to use the power of the government to prevent their smaller competitors from providing consumers with much-wanted goods. It's very frustrating -- and very wrong.

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Alan Greenspan Is Not John Galt

John Lewis published an excellent letter to the editor on Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand in the News & Observer yesterday:

Wrong Analogy

In Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged," her hero, John Galt, refuses to accept the position of economic dictator. Alan Greenspan accepted such a position as head of the government's central bank, and his dictates were enforced over an economy burdened with thousands of pages of regulations.

Greenspan's own flawed ideas have nothing in common with Rand's philosophy. Nor was the U.S. economy ever set free of government control. Had Froma Harrop (Other Opinion, Oct. 30) discussed the content of Rand's philosophy along with the actual state of business regulation, this would have been clear.

John David Lewis, Durham

Great letter, John!

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