Objectivist Roundup

Rational Jenn has the "Best of 2009" Edition of the Objectivist Roundup posted on her blog. Go check it out!

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Dave Barry on 2009

As 2009 comes to a close, you must read one thing, namely Dave Barry's lengthy review of the year. It's insanely hysterical -- and depressing. Here's the opening:

It was a year of Hope -- at first in the sense of "I feel hopeful!" and later in the sense of "I hope this year ends soon!"

It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting "business as usual," finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it.

To be sure, it was a year that saw plenty of bad news. But in almost every instance, there was offsetting good news:

BAD NEWS: The economy remained critically weak, with rising unemployment, a severely depressed real-estate market, the near-collapse of the domestic automobile industry and the steep decline of the dollar.

GOOD NEWS: Windows 7 sucked less than Vista.

BAD NEWS: The downward spiral of the newspaper industry continued, resulting in the firings of thousands of experienced reporters and an apparently permanent deterioration in the quality of American journalism.

GOOD NEWS: A lot more people were tweeting.

BAD NEWS: Ominous problems loomed abroad as -- among other difficulties -- the Afghanistan war went sour, and Iran threatened to plunge the Middle East and beyond into nuclear war.

GOOD NEWS: They finally got Roman Polanski.

The column then launches into a month-by-month survey of major events. It's fabulous. And it's awful. Go read the whole thing.

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Watkins and Brook: Repudiate the Morality of Need

The December 28, 2009 Investor's Business Daily carried this piece by Don Watkins and Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights entitled, "Memo To Foes Of Health Reform: Repudiate The Morality Of Need".

Here is an excerpt:

...The reason we continue to move toward socialized medicine is that everyone -- including the opponents of socialized medicine -- grants its basic moral premise: that need generates an entitlement.

So long as that principle goes unchallenged, government intervention in medicine will continue growing, as each new pressure group asserts its need and lobbies for its entitlement, until finally the government takes responsibility for fulfilling everyone's medical needs by socializing the health care system outright.

They also note:

...The only way to effectively oppose socialized health care is to reject the morality of need in favor of a genuinely American alternative. According to the American ideal, men are not their brother's keeper -- we are independent individuals with inalienable rights to support our own lives and happiness by our own efforts.

That means taking responsibility for your own medical needs, just as you take responsibility for your grocery shopping and car payments. It means no one can claim that his need entitles him to your time, effort, or wealth.

Where is the willingness to defend this ideal by saying, "Your health care is your responsibility -- and if you truly cannot afford the care you need, then you must ask for private charity -- not pick your neighbor's pocket to pay for it"?

(Read the full text of "Memo To Foes Of Health Reform: Repudiate The Morality Of Need".)

Watkins and Brook also note that the Republicans are failing to make this kind of principled moral opposition to the Democrats' plan, instead relying predominantly on more derivative economic arguments.

America will likely soon learn the consequences of this failure.

(Crossposted from the FIRM blog.)

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Open Thread #125

Here's yet another 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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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This past weekend, I read Stieg Larsson's huge bestselling Swedish mystery The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Despite some periodic anti-business elements, I really liked it. The mystery -- or rather, interlocking set of mysteries -- were very well-constructed. The main characters, although very different in personality and life-situation, were engaging and enjoyable. It definitely wasn't deep, but the novel was good popular fiction, perhaps the best I've ever read. (However, I'm not the best judge, as I don't read much popular fiction. I vastly prefer the classics.)

The second novel in the trilogy is The Girl Who Played with Fire. That's available now, and I'm eager to read it. I think I'll wait until February or March though -- if I can. The third novel, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, is due out in late May. So I'd like to space them out a bit.

Notably, I didn't read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo myself: I listened to the unabridged audiobook read well by Simon Vance. That's how I'll read the others. If you like audiobooks, I definitely recommend those versions. You can get them for relatively cheap via a subscription to Audible.com; that's what I use for all my audiobooks. (Disclosure Coerced by the FTC: I get a commission if you subscribe via that link.)

Unfortunately, Stieg Larsson died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2004, so we won't be enjoying any more novels from him. However, it looks like movies are coming.

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Horse Agility

Yes, it's a horse doing all the usual dog agility stunts, e.g. weave poles, a-frame, tunnel. Awesome!



Take that, Amy Peikoff! :-) (Amy does awesome agility work with her Pyrenean Shepherds.)

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NFL in the RedZone

I've become a major fan of the NFL's new "RedZone" channel this season. The basic idea of the channel is that it switches between the most exciting portions of all the games playing on Sunday mornings and afternoons, without any commercials. So unless I want to watch a full game -- which I'll do for Indy and other notable games -- I'll just watch the best of all the games via the RedZone channel.

A recent Sports Illustrated column sang the praises of the channel. It even reported on the best description I've seen yet: "as if God was holding the remote control." That seems apt to me, as I often say that I worship at the Church of the NFL on Sundays! That NFL God is Scott Hanson. Here's a bit on him from the article:

"You get a bucketful of 100-percent concentrated football awesomeness," says Scott Hanson, the studio host who deftly sets the scene each time RedZone switches games. Hanson's enthusiasm seems boundless, even though inmates at Leavenworth have a cushier setup: During his seven hours on the air he gets only a two-minute bathroom break and, if he's lucky, a bite or two of a sandwich.

I like Hanson's style as a host. He's very smooth, easily able to handle the swapping between games. Plus, he's relentlessly focused on the football. I've heard him cut away from a game just after a touchdown, where the camera was focused on the scoring player's end zone dance, saying something like "Okay, enough of that" with just the perfect touch of exasperation.

Oh, and need I mention that I was not happy with Jim Caldwell's controversial decision to rest starters in the Jets game on Sunday? Probably not: it goes without saying. Granted, I was disappointed, but wowee, Peyton looked downright irate. He kept his helmet on while pacing the sidelines for quite some time. Normally, he's on the bench reviewing plays with a baseball cap on. (Yes, I'm totally appalled that I'm such a football fanatic that I know that.) Of course, Peyton was gracious in the post-game press conference.

Of course, any and all disappointment will be forgotten if the Colts win the Superbowl!

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Poor Doggie

Some dogs really are the omega of the family:



First, the indignity of the argyle sweater. Then to get beaten up by the cat. Woe is that doggie!

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Link-O-Rama

I'm feeling somewhat brain dead, plus I'm trying to get myself organized for the new year. So I think posting will be somewhat light this week. (I have plenty of material to post, but nothing hefty.)

I laughed so hard that I cried: Wikipedia Content Versus Donation Plea. Here's another.

Cannibalistic Snow Monster. Enough said.

In 1985, a former Soviet agent spoke about the four stages of psychological warfare. (Via Robb)

Since I outed myself as a fan of Lady Gaga, friends have been sending me links related to her. The latest, from Guy, is this article from MSNBC. Oh, and in this interview, Lady Gaga explains why she never wears pants.

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Recap #73

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

• Wednesday, December 23, 2009: The Religious Left: The Audacity of Obama's Anti-Capitalism by Gina Liggett
  
• Thursday, December 24, 2009: Merry Christmas! by Diana Hsieh
  

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

• Monday, December 21, 2009: Rebutting the Mammography Rationers by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, December 22, 2009: Negative Reviews Of Senate Bill by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, December 22, 2009: Lewis: "Arbitrary Power, Dictatorship, and Health Care" by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, December 23, 2009: Pipes: Get Ready To Wait by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, December 24, 2009: Parker WSJ LTE on Health Care Entitlements by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, December 24, 2009: 10 Lumps Of Coal In The Health Care Bill by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, December 24, 2009: Senate Passes Bill, Now Things Get Interesting by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, December 25, 2009: Merry Christmas! by Paul Hsieh, MD
  

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Open Thread #124

Here's yet another 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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Paleo Notes on Chocolate

A few weeks ago, I posted the following notes on chocolate and dairy to OEvolve. As some of them might be of interest, here they are, with some editing:

• To make unsweetened chocolate milk, just add pure cocoa powder to milk. (You might need to whisk or blend it, as it might not dissolve easily.) That's how I make my hot cocoa -- with just milk and cocoa powder. I find that the milk is sweet enough for me. (In years past, hot cocoa was just a delivery device for marshmallows. Ugh.)
  
  
• The flourless chocolate cake I made for Thanksgiving -- using the Cook's Illustrated recipe -- was fantastic. I used a pound-bar of 70% dark chocolate from Trader Joe's (obtained when I was in California). Other than that, the cake contains only 1/2 pound of butter and eight eggs. You can also add 1/4 cup of liquor or strong coffee. It's super-rich, so a small slice is almost too much. Topped with whipped cream -- no sugar necessary -- it's heavenly!
  
  
• Regarding cream, I recently discovered that Costco sells a very thick whipping cream in 1/2 gallon jugs. All whipping cream in my regular grocery stores is ultra-pasteurized, whereas this cream is merely pasteurized. When I opened it, the top had the nice crust of the super-dense cream that I often find in my raw milk. It tastes great -- much better than any of the ultra-pasteurized cream I've been buying. And it whips up wonderfully, also better than ultra-pasteurized cream. So that cream from Costco is now my backup cream for when I don't have enough raw cream.
  
  
• I accidentally made my own chocolate mouse some months ago. I started with a few spoonfuls of cocoa powder in a small bowl, and I gradually added a bit of cream, then whisked until well-blended, then added more cream, and whisked more, and so on. I was trying to make chocolate sauce for some fruit, as Ari Armstrong does with cocoa powder and water. I was baffled by the fact that the cream just seemed to be continuously absorbed by the cocoa. But I continued. Ultimately, I ended up with a really excellent mousse.

I love chocolate!

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All I Want for Christmas Is the Death of ObamaCare

My deepest apologies for posting about the Democrats' evil plot to socialize medicine on Christmas, but I didn't want to delay this post.

On December 24th, I received the following letter from Colorado Senator Michael Bennet:

Dear Friend,

Today I voted for a health care reform bill that will bring meaningful change to Coloradans. Reform that provides coverage to 840,000 uninsured Coloradans, extends and protects Medicare for our seniors and provides free preventive care for everyone. Reform that provides tax cuts to small businesses and eliminates exclusions based on pre-existing conditions. And, as promised, I voted for health care reform that doesn’t add a dime to the deficit.

This bill will make a substantial difference in the lives of Coloradans who are doing jobs much harder than those in Washington, working late into the night, and taking an extra shift before Christmas so they can afford that extra gift beneath the tree. It is for those Americans who are unemployed in this savage economy and still trying to make sure the kids know they are remembered during this holiday season.

For Colorado, this bill will help over 68,000 small businesses provide health care coverage for their employees as they have always tried to do. It makes health care more accessible and more affordable in rural areas by making sure doctors receive a fair rate of return for the quality care they provide. And for the nearly 500,000 seniors in Colorado, it strengthens and protects Medicare while ensuring seniors don’t see a single cut to their guaranteed benefits.


I do not support the special deals in this bill. I continue to believe we should include a public option. And I have been disappointed by weeks of delay tactics that have done nothing but expose a broken Washington.

However, this bill is about the Coloradans and all Americans who just want a decent shot at the American dream. It’s about lowering skyrocketing health care costs and reducing the deficit by nearly $1.3 trillion over the next 20 years. It’s about ensuring the strength of Medicare for years to come and bringing much-needed, improved and affordable care to working families.

After decades of trying, we finally passed a bill that saves money, saves lives and gives families a fighting chance against relentless insurance company abuses.

I will continue to push for improvements in this bill as we move toward the conference report and a final bill.

As always, I would love to hear from you. You can send me a message or find contact information at my web site. I encourage you to reach out.

Sincerely,

Michael F. Bennet
U.S. Senator for Colorado

I was so angry that I immediately sent the following letter to him:

Dear Senator Bennet --

I am thoroughly disgusted with your vote in favor of the health care bill.

The lives and health of Americans depend on freedom in medicine. We need politicians willing to see that government controls, regulations, and welfare are the source of today's high-cost, bureaucratic medicine -- and brave enough to advocate for repeal.

Instead, we have you and your pork-loving, vote-buying, economic-illiterate, moral-degenerate, freedom-destroying colleagues in the Senate.

Shame on you. You all deserve to be voted out of office as soon as possible.

In Utter Disgust,

Dr. Diana Hsieh

Since Colorado's other senator -- Mark Udall -- voted the same way, I sent him the same letter. (Note: If you live outside Colorado, you're more than welcome to copy and/or modify my letter to send to your own Senators.)

Undoubtedly, Senators Bennet and Udall deserve to be voted out of office pronto. The problem is that the Republicans don't deserved to be voted into office. Yet I think that's what needs to happen in 2010, if only to buy us a bit more time with gridlock. We are traveling down the road to hell at breakneck speed right now. (Update: I explained a bit more about my views on this point in Comment #4.)

Notably, ObamaCare is not yet a done deal: the Democrats have some major political infighting ahead. Paul posted the following message to OActivists yesterday:

One final pre-Christmas message for my fellow OActivists.

Just as a small ray of hope, I read this interesting analysis which indicates that the health care battle is not yet lost.

Ironically enough, it depends on whether the far liberal Congressman will find the current bill so unpalatable that they're willing to vote "no", rather than rubber stamp the Senate version.

I'll send out more after Christmas. But those of you who live in Congressional districts with very liberal legislators, you may be able to help bolster their desire to kill the current ObamaCare bill.

In particular, there are a couple of arguments you can make that are true that would also resonate with them.

1) That you oppose a mandate to buy insurance from a company where you can't negotiate freely. It would be as if the government forced you to buy a new GM car every 2 year as a form of a government bailout.

2) You oppose any further government restrictions on a woman's ability to get an abortion.

And of course, you can make your usual arguments. I believe it's possible to make arguments that they might heed without compromising our core principles.

Hence, we should not give up yet and despair. More later.

Please... Do not give up yet! We simply must fight to the death on this issue. Your life and health will depend on it.

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Conrad: Licking and Swallowing Fits

Since we adopted our dog Conrad last spring, he has suffered from a strange kind of fit that we're pretty desperate to see somehow resolved. The set of symptoms are very distinctive: he'll compulsively lick and rapidly swallow, and sometimes give a sharp cough. If the fit is particularly bad, he'll attempt to eat anything in sight -- grass or snow if he's outside, but otherwise clothing, dog toys, carpet, his dog bed, etc. (That seems to be a desperate attempt to settle his stomach.) Basically, the symptoms develop based on the severity of the fit: the core symptom is the rapid swallowing -- and to that might be added licking, then the cough, and then, only in the worst cases, eating anything and everything in sight. The more severe the fit, the more upset and agitated Conrad becomes. A fit might last five minutes -- or two hours. They come in waves. So he'll be fine for a few weeks, then he'll suddenly have many of them each day for a few days.

We have not been able to discern any kind of pattern to them, nor any kind of cause. Nothing seems to ease his symptoms at the time. As for prevention, we've varied his food in all kinds of ways, to no effect. My vet recommended putting him on a daily dose of pepcid, but that didn't work. I've even tried Dr. Eades' Protexid, but that hasn't worked.

Conrad isn't unique in these fits. On rare occasion, they're referred to in forums as "the gulps" or "licky fits." They seem common to certain breeds, albeit not German Shepherds. Apparently, the fits don't lead to bloat, and they aren't due to any anatomical abnormality. However, they're said to be a mystery. I've not seen any definitive account of their cause, nor of treatment.

Conrad has been fine for the last few weeks, but then in the wee hours of the morning, he developed a severe bout. It has recurred many times today. He's pretty unhappy -- and I'm miserable that I can't help him. (I also have to watch him like a hawk, lest he eat something he shouldn't. Worst case, I can put him in his crate without any bedding, as they he can only lick the plastic tray. I hate to do that unless absolutely necessary, however.)

Tonight, I finally captured a portion of a bad fit on video, using my iPhone. Here it is.



Do any of you have any experience with these fits? If so, do you know what the cause might be -- or how to treat it? If so, please comment! Or e-mail me at diana@dianahsieh.com.

Notably, my vet has never seen or heard of these kinds of fits in any dog. She's never seen Conrad with them either; I've only just described them to her. Given their transient nature, I think that trying to get the dog to the vet during a fit would be difficult, if not impossible. Also, I imagine that the anxiety of being at the vet would suppress all but the worst fit. (Oh, and I'm pretty grossed out by the thought of poor Conrad compulsively licking the floor of an examination room, even if just cleaned.) Now that I've got a video of a fit, I could show that to her. And I could take it to one of the specialists at VRCC.

In the meantime, if you have any familiarity with these kinds of fits, Conrad and I would welcome any information or advice.

Update: From what I've read, these fits don't seem to be dangerous in and of themselves. However, I worry about him eating something harmful, as he has shown himself perfectly willing to eat quite a bit of fabric, not to mention foam stuffing from his dog bed, when desperate. For example, last night, he managed to chew off the end of my brand-new coveralls in less than five minutes:



I had to buy those new coveralls because he ate about 1/3 of each leg from my last pair in a prior fit. So I'm deeply worried that Conrad will cause himself serious harm in one of these fits by eating something he ought not.

That exerts a toll on me: whenever he shows any signs of compulsive swallowing, I have to watch him like a hawk. That's a huge drain on my attention and energy. For example, he kept me mostly awake with a fit from 2:00 am to about 3:40 am last night. He was safe in his crate, but I hated to hear him so obviously miserable.

That's why I'm quite desperate for some kind of solution.

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Objectivist Roundup

Miranda Barzey has the Christmas edition of the Objectivist Roundup on her blog Ramen and Rand. Go check it out!

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Merry Christmas!

Onkar Ghate published an excellent essay on the joy of Christmas in US News and World Report. It begins:

I'm an atheist, and I love Christmas. If you think that's a contradiction, think again.

Do you remember as a child composing wish lists of things you genuinely valued, thought you deserved, and knew would bring you pleasure? Do you remember eagerly awaiting the arrival of Christmas morning and the new bike, book, or chemistry set you were hoping for? That childhood feeling captures the spirit of Christmas and explains why so many of us look forward to the season each year.

That joyful spirit of Christmas, Ghate argues, is part and parcel of a commercial Christmas. It's nowhere to be found in a truly Christian Christmas.

As someone who felt rather overwhelmed this holiday season, I appreciated Ghate's explicit rejection of the all-too-common duty-based approach to Christmas toward the end of his essay:

It's not uncommon today to hear people say Christmas is their most stressful period. Pressed for time (and this year probably for money, too), they feel there are just too many lights to put up, meals to cook, and gifts to buy. Seeking something to blame, they blame the commercialism of the season. But there is no commandment, "Thou shall buy a present for every­one you know." This is the religious mentality of duty rearing its ugly head again. Do and buy only that which you can truly afford and enjoy; there are myriad ways to celebrate with loved ones without spending a cent.

Take some time to enjoy a mug of hot cocoa while staring at the pretty lights and decorations on your Christmas tree. Enjoy time with beloved family members and friends. Reflect on your accomplishments for the year. Look forward to 2010. Most of all, take a deep breath and enjoy your holidays in the most selfish way you can!

Merry Christmas!

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Link-O-Rama

Wow, I so love the idea of cheap, reliable, and clean off-grid power. (The analogy to mainframes versus desktops is striking, I think.)

What does fair trade mean? It's not pretty. I've always been indifferent to "fair trade" before, but now I'll avoid it when I can.

A building in China topples over whole when its foundation is excavated. Amazing.

I just finished re-reading George Orwell's 1984, so this blog post hit home: 20 Signs That The U.K. Has Become The Most Oppressive Big Brother Society On Earth

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Open Thread #123

Here's yet another 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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Al Gore's Merger of Environmentalism and Religion

Yet more global warming alarmists are linking environmentalism with religion. Here are a couple of recent discussions of this topic.

The first comes from Thaddeus Russell, someone who is concerned about AGW but dislikes the religiousity.

Here is an excerpt from his 12/19/2009 piece, "Blame the Smug Climate Warriors":

...Many climate-change deniers and even some who accept global warming as a fact, like the authors of Superfreakonomics, have attacked what they call the "religion of climate change." Al Gore is often singled out for raising the discourse on the issue to a supernatural level, thus taking it out of the realm of human questioning.

Though Gore's books, speeches, and Oscar-winning film on the issue are chock full of secular scientific information, they are also laced with biblical references. And Gore himself has said that climate change is "ultimately a moral and spiritual issue."

Gore recently told Newsweek that since the publication of An Inconvenient Truth, he has trained Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu clergy to spread his message.

He admitted that he uses a version of the "Inconvenient Truth" slide show that is "filled with scriptural references." Moreover, "It's probably my favorite version, but I don't use it very often because it can come off as proselytizing."

The Gore interview with Newsweek can be found in the 11/19/2009 story by Sharon Begley "The Evolution of an Eco-Prophet". Here are a couple of excerpts:

Asked how he reconciles that realization with the wonkish content of the book, Gore at first seems stymied. But then, when I prompt him, he points to pages on the spiritual dimension of climate change, the idea that God gave man stewardship over the earth, and that preserving it for future generations is a sacred obligation. Then he opens his laptop to show a commercial by his Alliance for Climate Protection, in which the Revs. Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson make an odd-couple plea for "taking care of the planet."

Gore allows that he's been tailoring the slide-show training he gives to faith-based volunteer groups. "I've done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references. It's probably my favorite version, but I don't use it very often because it can come off as proselytizing."

In the Newsweek interview, Gore cites reason and the Enlightenment (!) as two of his major influences:

So, if efficiency is so great and saves so much money (leave aside the CO2 part), I ask, why don't businesses do it? "You know, I was raised in an Enlightenment-influenced family," Gore says. "Both my parents were such believers in the preeminence of reason, and I still believe all that."

Al Gore is as much a defender of the Enlightment as President Obama is a defender of capitalism.

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Smart Octopus

I've always been fascinated by the intelligence of octopuses, but this video of an octopus carrying a coconut shell takes the cake!

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Lewis: Arbitrary Power, Dictatorship, and Health Care

Duke University professor John Lewis has a great essay up at PajamasMedia (12/22/2009) entitled, "Arbitrary Power, Dictatorship, and Health Care".

Here is the opening:

The essence of a dictator's method is not to write harsh laws and enforce them rigidly. The world's most destructive thugs have wanted something different. They have wanted to impose their wills on a compliant populace using arbitrary power -- power not limited by laws or constitution, but power that was open-ended, ill-defined, and could be expanded based on the whims of the moment.

Well-written laws are the enemy of the dictator. As philosopher Ayn Rand put it, "When men are united by ideas, i.e., by explicit principles, there is no room for favors, whims, or arbitrary power: the principles serve as an objective criterion for determining actions and for judging men, whether leaders or members." Laws, properly formulated, are based on principles, and serve to translate those principles into firm criteria for judging particular cases. What a dictator wants is to be free of such principles and to use his power as he wishes.

Professor Lewis then proceeds to show how the current ObamaCare health bill gives an unprecedented degree of arbitrary power to bureaucrats to determine what sort of health insurance you may buy and what sort of health care you may receive.

Some examples:

If you are an employer, you will not escape punishment if a bureaucrat decides that your health plan is not "acceptable" and that you must be fined for your failure to meet his decision. If you are an individual who does not want to purchase full-coverage health insurance, but would rather buy catastrophic insurance that covers hospitalization only, your decision will not be "acceptable" and you may face a government audit and a new tax.

Do you have a serious disease? Does your doctor wish to readmit you to the hospital? A bureaucrat will decide whether or not you get treatment, based on a statistical analysis of the number of such readmissions by the bureaucrats: "excess readmissions shall not include readmissions for an applicable condition for which there are fewer than a minimum number (as determined by the secretary) of discharges for such applicable condition for the applicable period and such hospital" (Sec. 1151).

(Read the full text of "Arbitrary Power, Dictatorship, and Health Care".)

As Dr. Lewis notes, the current health care debate is not just about health care. It's about basic American freedoms.

(Crossposted from the FIRM blog.)

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Hsieh LTE on Federal Debt

The December 20, 2009 Denver Post has printed my LTE on the federal debt. It was written in response to their December 12, 2009 story, "Democrats plan nearly $2 trillion debt-limit hike".

My LTE is 4th on this page:

Congress' plan to cut the deficit by raising the debt limit now, then reducing spending later, is like trying to lose weight by eating a box of chocolate chip cookies now, then promising to exercise next week.

Paul Hsieh, Sedalia

(The Denver Post has a dedicated LTE section called "To The Point" for short LTEs. This one came in at 37 words.)

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The Impartialist Ethics of Deep Ecology

FAIL Blog recently posted this remarkably honest card from The Green Game (via Kevin Delaney):



In case you can't read that easily, it says:

Question: Which is greener; being obese and out of shape or slim and healthy?

Answer: Although obese people do consume slightly more energy than slim people, they will not live as long and therefore, will consume less of the earth's resources.

Most people would likely think that's some kind of horrible mistake: "Surely, they can't mean that!" Yet in fact, the card perfectly represents the ideological core of the environmentalist movement, often referred to as "deep ecology."

As I've argued before, most self-described environmentalists are motivated by fundamentally human concerns: they want clean air and clean water; they want "open space" for hiking, camping, and other sports; they want to preserve species for future study and enjoyment. Such people often wrongly suppose that government controls are required to achieve these ends. They are often mistaken about the benefits and dangers of certain products or practices. They err in thinking in terms of intrinsic value of nature. Yet fundamentally, their aims are anthropocentric: they wish to protect and improve human life.

Undoubtedly, the creators of that game are environmentalists of a different sort: they are "deep ecologists." Here's the description of deep ecology from Wikipedia (with my emphasis added):

Deep ecology's core principle is the claim that, like humanity, the living environment as a whole has the same right to live and flourish. Deep ecology describes itself as "deep" because it persists in asking deeper questions concerning "why" and "how" and thus is concerned with the fundamental philosophical questions about the impacts of human life as one part of the ecosphere, rather than with a narrow view of ecology as a branch of biological science, and aims to avoid merely anthropocentric environmentalism, which is concerned with conservation of the environment only for exploitation by and for humans purposes, which excludes the fundamental philosophy of deep ecology. Deep ecology seeks a more holistic view of the world we live in and seeks to apply to life the understanding that separate parts of the ecosystem (including humans) function as a whole.

Notice that, in addition to its metaphysical collectivism, deep ecology specifically rejects anthropocentrism, i.e. man-centered environmentalism. Ultimately, that's why it promotes human suffering and death as a positive good. To understand the why and the how, we need to draw some parallels to altruism -- particularly to utilitarianism and impartialism.

The moral perspective of deep ecology is similar to that of utilitarianism -- or, more broadly, impartialism. Utilitarianism demands that we always act so as to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism is hedonistic: happiness is understood to be nothing more than pleasure, whether physical or emotional. Today, the widely-accepted variant of utilitarianism is the non-hedonistic doctrine of impartialism.

Impartialism abstracts away from the hedonism of utilitarianism: it is neutral about the nature of the good. Impartialism speaks in terms of "interests," yet that can mean just about anything: pleasure, wealth, happiness, health -- or even obedience to duty or submission to God's will. However, impartialism is still decidedly collectivistic: the good is neutral between persons. So whatever the standard for the good is, we must promote that good for everyone, not merely ourselves. We must be impartial in our decisions: we ought not concern ourselves with whether something is good for me or my loved ones -- or good for a stranger and his loved ones. All that matters is that something is good. (Kant's ethics of duty shares the same detached view of the good: that's why I think of impartialism as the distilled essence of both utilitarianism and deontology.)

Technically, impartialism permits each person to consider his own interests when acting. Yet the desires, goals, and welfare of one person must always be deemed inconsequential in comparison to the interests of the other billions of people in the world.

For example, you might think that your choice to buy a latte is your own private business, perhaps just concerning you and the owner of the coffee shop. You aren't harming anyone by buying the coffee. In fact, you and the coffee shop owner are better off after the transaction. Sounds good, right? No! That's far too narrow a perspective for impartialism: you must consider the impact of that transaction on everyone else, including the billions of total strangers in the world. Impartialism demands that you consider everything else that you might have done with those few dollars. Clearly, you could be feeding the poor, rather than indulging your desire for luxury. You have no moral right to a cup of coffee while someone in the world lacks bread. (For that argument, see Peter Singer's classic essay, Famine, Affluence, and Morality.)

The fact that the needs of the one are always swamped by the needs of the many is why impartialism is properly regarded as a form of altruism. In practice, you must always do for others, never for yourself. Unless you are the worst-off person in the world, you have no moral right to your own life or happiness.

That sounds awful, but it gets even worse.

(I'll speak of altruism from here on, as the rest of my analysis is not specific to impartialism.)

Impartialism and other forms of altruism cannot rejoice in the fact that people's interests are often in harmony. That only creates epistemic problems when attempting to judge people morally. How so?

Sometimes, a person might act for the sake of his own interests, yet by so doing, he happens to benefit others. In such cases, the person deserves no moral praise or credit -- even when the benefits provided to others are tremendous, like when neurosurgeon saves the live of a beloved child. Such a person is motivated by his own selfish concerns -- perhaps by the expected payment for the surgery or even his enjoyment of the work -- not purely by selfless concern for others.

Thus, when a person benefits from his actions in some way, we must wonder about his motives. He might be a secret egoist! As Kant observes in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, even the person himself might be deluded, thinking that he was motivated by duty when instead he was motivated by self-love. The result? A person can only be safely praised by altruistic standards when he receives no benefit whatsoever from his actions -- and better yet, when he suffers deeply for them. Only in such cases -- when the person clearly and deliberately inflicts harm on himself for the benefit of others -- can he be judged moral by altruistic standards.

Moreover, the person praiseworthy by altruistic standards need not really benefit other people much, if at all. A person's noble plans might go awry for all kinds of reasons beyond his control. Or perhaps a person lacks the resources or power to accomplish much. The critical question is whether the person decided on his course of action using the proper impartial or altruistic principle -- or "maxim," to use Kant's term. That's all that this morality demands.

So what does that mean? Altruism demands that people help others, yet shrinks from measuring moral worth by that standard. Instead, a person's moral worth is determined by his private motives or maxims: he must act for the sake of others, not for his own sake. He clearly demonstrates that only by his choice to suffer for others. Thus, self-inflicted suffering is the measure of a person's moral worth according to altruism.

Sadly, that's not some far-fetched, stretched interpretation of the meaning of altruism. It's exactly what the most consistent altruists have preached as the good throughout history -- Kant most explicitly.

Recall that the highest moral ideal of Christianity is that of Jesus, a god who willingly allowed himself to be brutally murdered for the sake of sinners. Jesus didn't die in a fight against injustice -- as might the leader of a slave rebellion. He didn't die in defense of anything of personal value to him -- like a friend, lover, or child. He died for the sake of all humanity, wicked and sinful as we are. He died for the sake of the very people who rejected him.

Moreover, that mythology of Jesus' death was based on the same altruistic principles he preached during his life, most clearly exemplified by the story of the Widow's Mite.

[Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

Notice that the widow is not morally superior to those who donated large sums because she provided a greater benefit to the poor. She didn't. Instead, she's morally superior because she sacrificed more. She will suffer greatly for her donation, as now she has nothing to live on. That's what makes her virtuous: her deliberate suffering.

So what does all of that have to do with deep ecology? What does it have to do with the suggestion that we die sooner for the sake of the environment?

Deep ecology is deep impartialism: the interests of everything in the natural world must be considered on a par with human interests. After all, why should mankind be so selfish as to only consider its own interests? Shouldn't we consider the interests of cows, moles, robins, turtles, worms, maples, lichen, and amoebas too? And more: even rivers and rocks have interests that we ought to consider, as well as the planet as a whole! For deep ecology, any form of anthropocentrism -- including traditional utilitarianism -- is really just another form of selfish egoism.

In practice, just as the interests of one person are totally swamped by the interests of billions of other people in human-focused impartialism, so human interests are totally swamped by the interests of living organisms, ecosystems, and natural objects in deep ecology. Consequently, humans will always be obliged to sacrifice themselves for nature. Just by sheer numbers, we're always going to lose.

As with altruism, the test of moral virtue for deep ecology is not any benefit done to the natural world but rather the depth of human sacrifices. Otherwise, we might just be pretending concern for nature, while actually secretly pursuing our own selfish ends. We can only prove our morality by eschewing anything that might benefit ourselves. That's why the morality of deep ecology demands human destruction.

These various moral theories -- utilitarianism, impartialism, altruism, and deep ecology -- are similar for a reason. The morality of egoism is the morality of life and happiness. To reject egoism as immoral requires adopting suffering and death as the moral standard -- whether for a single individual or all of humanity. The form of that ideal differs, as does its window dressing. Yet if you dig a bit, you'll find suffering and death at its core.

Sometimes, as with the card from "The Green Game," that's just a bit more apparent than usual.

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Recap #72

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

• Monday, December 14, 2009: The Religious Left: Obama and Black Liberation Theology by Gina Liggett
  
• Thursday, December 17, 2009: Conservative Sees the Light on Pragmatism by Diana Hsieh

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

• Monday, December 14, 2009: "Doing Nothing" Is An Option by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Monday, December 14, 2009: Message From Louisiana by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, December 15, 2009: Hsieh OpEd at PJM: "ObamaCare: Tightening the Noose Around Private Health Care" by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, December 16, 2009: Goodman on the Senate Bill by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, December 16, 2009: Mythbusting From McCaughey by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, December 17, 2009: "Freedom To Contract" Article Now Available On Audio by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, December 17, 2009: How Leftists View America by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, December 17, 2009: The Public Option In 40 Seconds by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, December 18, 2009: Coburn: The Health Bill Is Scary by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Monday, December 21, 2009: Rebutting the Mammography Rationers by Paul Hsieh, MD

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Open Thread #122

Here's yet another 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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Food-O-Rama

Is foie gras torture? Although animal rights activists say "yes," the facts clearly say otherwise. The fact that these activists persist in their lawsuits against humanely-raised fois gras tells me that they're far more interested in diminishing human welfare (by preventing any use of animals for human ends) than in promoting animal welfare.

The Los Angeles Times reports on the growing criticism of fruit juice: It's time fruit juice loses its wholesome image, some experts say. Despite the connection to rights-violating "sin taxes," I'm glad to see questions raised about the health of juice.

What the World Eats -- a fascinating photoessay showing a week's worth of food for families around the world. The two American families stood out: almost everything on their menu seemed to be packaged junk.

Someday, I'd love to get a miniature Jersey cow. Seriously. Maybe I can get a curly-haired pig too. I've got plenty of room in my new barn!

Monica Hughes of FA/RM, OEvolve, and Ancestral Generation published an op-ed in the Denver Post this week on Animal fat, sugar and diabetes. She analyzes a study to reject the conclusion that exercise and low-fat diet prevent diabetes.

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Utterly Inappropriate

Trey said, "This is utterly inappropriate, so you KNOW it's hilarious." I agree with that, but I'd also say, "This is utterly inappropriate, so you KNOW I have to post it." Yup, they're selling handjobs on infomercials.

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Objectivist Roundup

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

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How Leftists View America

The leftist health care advocacy group Public Option Please recently held a contest for the best pro-public option art.

Here's the winning entry:



(Click on the image to see it full size.)

As Jonathan Adler noted:

I suspect many health care reform supporters find this poster inspiring for the same reasons many health care reform opponents find it disconcerting.

What would you say is so disturbing about it?

Update: Rand Simberg found this photoshopped version:

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Spot the Fallacy

Can you spot the logical fallacy?



(Taken while at a medical conference in Sarasota, FL, 12/9/2009.)

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Link-O-Rama

John Drake -- fellow OBlogger and Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Eastern Michigan University -- writes about his successful use of a blog in teaching. I'm pretty darn impressed with the blog posts written by his students!

Why less would be more with GPS navigation systems.

Hysterically awful music, courtesy of Regretsy: Varga: River of Love. Even the armpit hair on the album cover won't prepare you for just how terrible-in-a-funny-way it is.

This cat photobomb just killed me. My caption would be "Sometimes, it's just not easy to get a picture of the intended pussy." As you might guess, it's NSFW-ish.

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Religious Environmentalism

If you're wondering about the state of the nascent merger of religion and environmentalism, some useful data can be found in this USA Today article: "Religious Groups Active in Climate Debate." The article examines the emergence of explicitly religious arguments for environmentalist controls at the UN Summit in Copenhagen.

For example, consider the views of Tyler Edgar, the assistant director for the environmental arm of the National Council of Churches:

Edgar, who also is traveling to Copenhagen, sees things differently [than the religious global warming skeptics]. Broadly speaking, America's religious communities have shed their long-standing suspicion of the environmental cause "as that hippie, tree-hugging thing," she says. In the past three years or so, many have rallied behind the belief that "we are all called upon to protect God's creation and God's people" by acting to stop climate change, Edgar says.

Indeed, that's the doctrine what's known as "creation care" or "stewardship." As the web site of Creation Care for Pastors explains:

This site is to serve pastors who are interested in a growing emphasis within the Christian community called "Creation Care": applying biblical principles of stewardship to the environment we share with all living things. We like the word "creation" even better than the word "environment" because it includes all that makes the earth a wonderful place, and it reminds us it's all a gift, a sacred trust from the hands of the Creator.

From a biblical perspective, "the environment" is God's creation. Creation care does not just mean caring for "nature," apart from humanity. It means caring for the entire creation: the environment and "all creatures great and small" including humanity. As those who confess Jesus Christ to be Savior and Lord, our relationship with all of creation must be in keeping with Christ's relationship with all of creation. When we explore what the Bible says about creation, we interpret each text in light of our relationship to Christ and his relationship to all of creation. If the Bible teaches us that Christ has created the universe, gives it life and sustains it, and has reconciled everything to God, then our actions should participate in Christ's creating, sustaining, and reconciling work.

Here's another telling example from the USA Today article:

[Jim Ball, head of the Evangelical Environmental Network], who arrives in Copenhagen on Friday, says he plans to spend most of his time "hanging out in the hallways" of the Bella Center conference hall, where international delegates will be negotiating a deal. He'll be looking to speak with senior Obama administration officials and members of Congress.

Ball's pet cause is a proposal for rich countries, including the USA, to send poorer countries money -- at least $10 billion a year will be needed, the U.N.'s Ban says. The funds would help the countries overhaul their economies to pollute less, and cope with possible consequences of climate change such as lower agricultural yields, or rising seas that could devastate island nations.

"Our role is to remind (politicians) that this is a profound moral issue, and that the basic moral teachings of religion apply to these environmental problems," Ball says.

Particularly in light of the scientific scandal of ClimateGate, I believe that religion will bolster environmentalism with the faith-based moral fervor that it needs to survive -- just as faith-based altruism has kept socialism alive and kicking after the supposed science of central planning was demolished with the economic collapse of the Soviet empire.

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Christmas Cheer

I was so depressed by my depressing lack of Christmas cheer this year ... that I decided to put up the tree, dammit!

It's just the small tree, and it's decorated with nothing but lights and shiny balls. But ... it's a tree! Hooray! As you also see, I put some red lights on the railing for the stairs. It's not much, but the house does seem much more festive.

Also, the cats are pleased: they're quite certain that I've installed the most exiting cat toy ever. (I wonder how many of those shiny balls will be broken this year. Any bets?)

Today, I also managed to haul three large loads of horse manure down to the ravine this morning. So the barn is now quite clean, as barns go. (Due to the extreme cold last week, mucking was simply impossible.) I'm also quite proud that I installed eye hooks in the stalls and on the posts of the overhang. Now Tara and Image are eating in style! (Okay, not really, but my buckets are of a type that should be hung rather than merely set on the ground.) The horses don't much care, but I'm so glad to have managed that small chore! To be unable to do those two simple chores was weighing on me terribly.

I have another bijillion things to do with the barn to get it in working order. I can't do much, but I can make some slow progress. So tomorrow, I'll install hooks in the tack room to hang my array of blankets. After that, I'll try to get my tack organized.

Now I'm feeling just a wee bit feisty. Take that, hypothyroidism! Pow! Pow!

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Link-O-Rama

The Funniest Facebook Snafus Of All Time. I've seen some of these before, but the new ones were gems! (Via The Agitator)

How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell. Very funny! My mother was a graphic designer, and I remember that she had some experiences rather like described here.

I'm not too surprised to discover that religious morality is mostly just projection: Screw Jesus, What Would I Do?. That explains why so many people simply ignore the revolting barbarism of so much in religious scriptures, including submission to slavery, stoning of homosexuals, and the like. They don't think that's right, so surely God couldn't mean it!

Ari Armstrong provides a template for free-market reading groups: Liberty in the Books. I've definitely benefited from Ari's Denver "Liberty in the Books." I've been wanting to learn more about economics, and the groups provided me with the slight push that I need to read and then chew on a bit of economics each month.

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Open Thread #121

Here's yet another 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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Hsieh OpEd at PJM: ObamaCare: Tightening the Noose Around Private Health Care

The December 15, 2009 PajamasMedia.com has just published my latest OpEd, "ObamaCare: Tightening the Noose Around Private Health Care".

My theme is that some little-discussed provisions of the health care bill will increasingly limit the freedom of patients to seek (and doctors to deliver) medical services based on the patient's best interest. Instead, doctors will be increasingly forced to practice according to collectivist "cost-effectiveness" government criteria.

Here is the introduction:

The U.S. Senate is making increasingly Byzantine backroom deals in an attempt to pass some form of universal health care by the end of the year. But even though the final bill isn't settled yet, one fact is becoming increasingly clear. Any plan they pass will result in the government seizing an unprecedented degree of control over previously private health spending decisions.

Two of these proposed new controls are worth highlighting, because they are not often discussed in most mainstream media reports...

(Read the full text of "ObamaCare: Tightening the Noose Around Private Health Care".)

Note: This is an expanded version of my earlier blog post, "Tightening The Noose Around Private Medicine".

(Crossposted from the FIRM blog.)

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Another Radiology History

From the night shift...



(Click on the image to see the full-sized version.)

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John Lewis Talk: Individual Rights and Health Care Reform

Duke University professor John Lewis give the following lecture to the Davison Council, Duke University Medical School on November 13, 2009.

Over 100 medical students heard his talk, "Individual Rights and Health Care Reform" followed by an energetic Q & A. Here is his talk, in 6 parts:

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6



(Crossposted from the FIRM blog.)

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Holiday Traditions

On OGrownups, some people have been discussing favorite holiday traditions. That got me thinking.

Although I love Christmas, Paul and I don't do much for it. He usually volunteers to work the whole Christmas holiday, in part so that he's sure to get time off for other holidays like Fourth of July and Thanksgiving. This year, he's working ten days straight from the 21st to the 29th, then he has a four-day weekend for New Year's. Often, he's so busy that we don't even open presents until a few days after Christmas. That's not bad though: I like stretching out the fun over a few days.

Some years, I've decorated the house, but that seems like too much work this year. I just don't have much energy, and I'd rather spend what little energy I have setting up the new barn. I also tend to do lots of cooking over the holidays, and this year, I'll be experimenting more with my Sous Vide Supreme. But again, I'm just not up for much: I'm still too easily worn out due to my hypothyroidism.

That all sounds rather depressing, I know. However, Paul and I are not entirely bereft of Christmas cheer. We do have two very important traditions:

First and foremost, Paul and I stay home for the holidays. I hate to fly during the crazy rush of the holidays, and I find that I don't much enjoy visiting family during the frantic bustle of holiday get-togethers. I love spending time with my parents, but I found that holiday visits were less than fun. So I stopped them; we visit at other times, when tons of fun will be had by all. (Such is the liberating power of an ethic of selfishness! Most people feel obliged to visit family over the holidays, whether they enjoy doing so or not.)

Second, Paul and I enjoy a fabulously fancy dinner with some of our local Objectivist friends. The past few years, we've dined at Opus in Littleton, always a gastronomic delight. I'm looking forward to doing that again this year.

Normally, Paul and I also take a few days off in early January to go skiing and/or snowshoeing. I don't think I'm up for that this year. It's not just the physical activities that would wear me out, but the travel itself, and the preparation for the travel. Right now, I'm exhausted by the mere thought of driving three miles to the Post Office to pick up a package. I'm not always so bad; I've been particularly worn out today, from the moment I woke up. Still, staying at home seems like all I want to do this year. Paul has that time off, so perhaps we can enjoy some more modest fun around Denver.

So... all of that was just a long-winded way of asking: What traditions do you enjoy to make your holidays of year particularly enjoyable? What could you do this year -- or next year -- to make it more enjoyable?

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Link-O-Rama

A fool and his 127 million dollars are parted. What does the fool do? Duh! He sues.

Why men shouldn't write advice columns. I could imagine a similar one written by a woman, regarding the state of her hair and nails after that long walk home! (Via The Agitator)

Dr. Peter Watts, science fiction writer, was "beaten, pepper-sprayed and imprisoned by American border guards at a Canada U.S. border crossing December 8. Fascist police state, anyone?

Ari Armstrong on Abolish the FTC: New Blogging Rules. He's also posted a lengthy list of compelled disclosures.

Much to my annoyance, I need to waste my time in a similar fashion before the FTC takes note of my unseemly relationship with such blackguards of capitalism as the Ayn Rand Institute, The Objective Standard, and Amazon. I don't receive any money from the first two, but by the FTC's totally non-objective rules, our friendly relationship might be construed as violating their regulations, thereby subjecting me to thousands of dollars of fines.

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Recap #71

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

• Sunday, December 6, 2009: Restart by Diana Hsieh
  
• Monday, December 7, 2009: Religious Right Takes a Deep Philosophical Breath by Gina Liggett
  
• Thursday, December 10, 2009: A Joke by Gina Liggett

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

• Monday, December 7, 2009: Arguing That Less Choice Is Good by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, December 8, 2009: Spot the Fallacy by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Tuesday, December 8, 2009: Mundy: Comparing Screening of Breasts and Shoes by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Wednesday, December 9, 2009: Durand On Rationing by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Thursday, December 10, 2009: Five Questions On Health Reform Americans Should Be Asking Now by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Friday, December 11, 2009: Tightening The Noose Around Private Medicine by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Saturday, December 12, 2009: Schwartz: Why To Condemn Insurance Companies by Paul Hsieh, MD
  
• Sunday, December 13, 2009: John Lewis Talk: "Individual Rights and Health Care Reform" by Paul Hsieh, MD

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Happy Birthday to Me

Happy Birthday to Me. Happy Birthday to Me. Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeeeeeee. Happy Birthday to Me!

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Open Thread #120

Here's yet another 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.)

Read more...

A Week of Sous Vide

Tomorrow, I'll be 35 years old. To celebrate the occasion, Paul bought me a Sous Vide Supreme, the amazing slow-water-bath-vacuum-cooker developed by the Drs. Eades. I managed to wheedle dispensation from him to open it a week early. As my Twitter followers know, I enjoyed a week of delicious experimental cooking with it. Sadly, Paul wasn't able to partake of the fruits of those experiments, as he was in Florida for medical conference all week. (Don't feel too sorry for him. He also missed our freezing cold weather, including an overnight low of -18° F!)

This post is my report on my five days of cooking with the Sous Vide Supreme.

The Sous Vide Method

First, what is sous vide? It's a method of cooking all manner of foods -- on par with roasting, grilling, braising, or sautéeing. To understand sous vide, let's contrast it with the common features of those other methods of cooking.

Normally, we cook meat using temperatures significantly higher than desired in the food itself, then remove the meat from the heat when its middle becomes sufficiently hot. If you're cooking a medium-rare steak, the result is that the meat is well-done on the edges, but then increasingly medium-rare toward the middle. If you overshoot by allowing the meat to remain in the heat for too long, the temperature of the meat continues to rise, rendering it overcooked. Also, the meat loses moisture as it cooks.

The sous vide method of cooking is dramatically different. As the Sous Vide Supreme web site explains:

Sous vide (pronounced soo veed) is a culinary technique that involves cooking vacuum-sealed food at a consistent, low temperature for a longer length of time than compared to other methods. The term sous vide is French for "under vacuum," and was developed in the mid-1970s by chef Georges Pralus for the Restaurant Troisgros in Roanne, France.

So if I want a medium-rare steak sous vide, I seal the meat in an inexpensive vaccum ziplock bag with any desired spices. I immerse the bag in a vat of 125° F water for a few hours. (I can remove it from the water bath pretty much whenever I please: the window is hours, not seconds.) The whole steak is cooked to 125° F; it's perfectly medium rare throughout. The fat has melted, and little if any moisture is lost. Then, just before serving, I can create a crust on the meat by a very quick sear in a hot pan or using a torch.

The sous vide method has long been used in fancy restaurants. Drs. Mary Dan and Michael Eades (of Protein Power fame) recently developed a sous vide machine suitable for home use: the Sous Vide Supreme.

The sous vide method requires keeping the water at precisely the right temperature, so the Sous Vide Supreme is no small feat. It does that work remarkably well. It's sturdy, well-designed, and amazingly easy to use.

Here's mine. That's its lid and rack next to it. The machine is a bit large, just a bit bigger than large bread machine. However, with the staggered handles, it's pretty easy to move around.

As I mentioned, I've been cooking up a storm with my Sous Vide Supreme this week. What did I make?

Monday

My very first dish was French-style scrambled eggs, using the recipe posted by MD Eades. I had some problems -- of my own making, as I didn't set the temperature high enough at first. Then I overcooked the eggs somewhat. However, the results were completely completely fantastic, unlike any eggs I've had before. They were not just super-flavorful but also smooth and delicate like pudding.

Because these eggs are cooked for such a short time, so I'm pretty sure you could make them without any fancy sous vide machine. Dr. Eades has some helpful instructions for Do-It-Yourself Sous Vide, but even that set-up might not be required. (Dr. Eades might seem like a nice guy for posting those instructions, but don't be fooled! He's just trying to get you sous-vide addicted, so that you'll succumb to the charms of his Sous Vide Supreme!)

For dinner, I made salmon, using this recipe from Free the Animal. Basically, I just threw the salmon in the bag with a bit of butter, lemon, and dill, then cooked it at 120° F for 40 minutes. It was very flavorful and dense, but I might try it at a slightly higher temperature, perhaps 125° F, next time. (Update: I've since tried 130° F, which I liked a great deal.)

The cooking of fish can be very difficult to time. Even if you watch it like a hawk, it's something of a crapshoot. Plus, it can get stinky and messy. I really appreciated the ease of cooking perfect fish sous vide.

Tuesday

For breakfast, I made myself four "custard eggs," based on these instructions. Basically, I just put the eggs directly in the water bath, cooking them at 145° F for one hour. Whereas I normally only eat two eggs at a time, I gobbled up these four eggs in no time at all! The whites were very delicate, something like a poached egg, and the yolk was runny but slightly thick.

To my surprise, the eggs couldn't be peeled like soft-boiled eggs: they were too soft. So I cracked them open like raw eggs, and they slid out onto my plate perfectly. It was so easy! I plan to try cooking in-shell eggs sous vide using a variety of temperatures, to see what I like best.

For dinner, I made myself a 1.5 pound ribeye steak. I cooked it sous vide at 125° F for about six hours. Then I seared it in a very hot pan with bacon grease for one minute on each side. It browned up surprisingly well, without the too-deep layer of well-done common with grilling.

The steak was delicious, but not evenly cooked throughout. I'm not quite sure why not: I might try cooking it for longer next time, but perhaps at a slightly lower temperature. (Update: I need a higher temperature, particularly for cooking that length of time. I've since done 130° F on sirloin with great results.)

Oh and yes, I did eat the whole thing! I was really, really hungry!

Wednesday

I made myself French-style scrambled eggs again, following the recipe properly this time. It was three eggs, plus a bit of cream and butter, plus an added bonus of goat cheese. I cooked it at 167° F for ten minutes, then I massaged the bag, then I cooked it again for another five minutes. Wowee, it was just as phenomenal as the first batch, if not better! The goat cheese was a very nice addition.

For lunch, I decided to try making vegetables sous vide. I chopped up two zucchini into 1/2 inch thick circles, added a bit of stock, laid them flat in a gallon vacuum ziplock. I wasn't sure how long and how hot to cook them. The guide that came with the machine had some other vegetable recipes, all recommending 183° F for at least two hours. So that's what I did.

That was a serious mistake! They were terribly overcooked, although still edible. Next time, I think that one hour, if not less, would be sufficient. Also, I suspect that the bit of stock increased the cooking rate. I'll have to experiment with that a bit.

For dinner, I made lamb loin chops, with butter, dried herbs, and garlic in the bag. I cooked them for a bit over four hours at 122° F, then ate them directly, without searing them.

As you can see, the chops cooked perfectly evenly. That surprised me a bit, as they can be difficult to cook evenly by conventional methods, primarily due to the bone. Although these chops look quite red, they didn't have any of that raw texture that I find difficult to eat. They were firm and tender throughout. However, I didn't like the garlic flavor: it was bitter. I'm pretty sure that was because I didn't sear them. Overall though, they were quite delicious.

When I was preparing this lamb, I realized that I could also prepare the other four lamb chops in the vaccum bag, with the herbs and butter, then freeze that. Whenever I want to use it, all that I need to do is thaw it, then throw it in the Sous Vide Supreme. Hooray for easy!

Thursday

For lunch, I cooked four eggs in shell again, this time at 146° F rather than 145° F. They were basically the same, but you can see the custard-like yolk in this picture. Next time, I'll do 147° F or 148° F.

For dinner, I ate my one leftover lamb chop. I just allowed that to sit on the counter for about a half hour to warm up, then I seared it in a hot pan for two minutes per side. To my surprise, the taste of this lamb chop was better than the chops of the night before. The searing transformed the garlic flavor into something more palatable, I think.

Friday

For lunch, I made French-style scrambled eggs, yet again. (Hmmm... do I like them? Take a guess!) The results were different than before, to my surprise.

This time, I used six eggs at 167° F, again with goat cheese. (No, I didn't eat all six eggs: I had a friend over for lunch. However, I'm pretty sure that I could eat six such eggs all by myself!) When time was up, I was worried that they weren't done enough, so I mushed them a bit again, then cooked them for an extra 2 minutes -- meaning 17 minutes total. They were less dense than my previous eggs, yet still insanely delicious. (Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture.)

I quickly realized that the difference was due to the additional eggs: they just didn't cook as much. Ultimately, they looked far more like the eggs in the recipe posted by MD Eades. (That recipe calls for five eggs.)

I learned two lessons here: (1) I need to be alert to small changes that might affect cooking times. And (2) these eggs can be cooked more or less, and they're delicious regardless!

For dinner, I made hamburgers. That sounds crazy, but I wanted to try it! I cooked a pound of hamburger, divided into four patties, for three hours at 130° F, with a dab of bacon grease on each. Then I seared two of them in a hot pan for a minute on each side. (I plan to sear and eat the other two for breakfast tomorrow. The green stuff is creamy broccoli purée.)

These burgers were delicious! As you can see they were perfectly medium-rare throughout. They were also super-tender. I might try bumping the temperature up to 135° F next time, as I prefer my burgers medium. Still, these burgers had none of that nasty raw taste: they look more rare than they tasted. Also, I could definitely sear them for a bit longer to get a better crust next time.

I think I could cook the most phenomenal meatloaf in the sous vide: it would be flavorful, juicy, and cooked only to medium, not well done. Yummy!

The Future

I didn't cook any pork or chicken this week! So that's definitely on the agenda for next week.

I'm also interested in experimenting with fruit and other (paleo-friendly) desserts.

The Upside

So what do I think about the sous vide cooking method? I'm really, really impressed. Why?

First, it's incredibly easy. The preparation is simple: pre-heat the Sous Vide Supreme, throw the food into the bag, suck out the air, and submerge it in the Sous Vide. When its time is up, you can simply slide the food out of the bag and on to your plate. You don't need to watch over it, checking temperatures, as you would for other cooking methods. For me, that's huge: I'm now free to fully immerse myself in other tasks while the food is cooking. Plus, I don't have coordination problems with vegetables, as I know that I'll be able to pull out the meat whenever the vegetables are ready.

Interestingly, the Sous Vide Supreme even makes hefty cooking -- like a Thanksgiving turkey -- far easier. MD Eades blogged about the preparation differences in cooking a turkey in the oven versus in the Sous Vide Supreme. The difference in effort is not trivial.

Undoubtedly, sous vide does require some advance planning. A steak will take hours to cook, and short ribs require three days. That's something new for me, as I don't do much slow cooking. Ordinarily, my pan-fried hamburgers are a 15-minute meal, from start to finish. So three hours requires something of a mental shift. But I'm more than willing to muddle through that.

Second, the results are consistently delicious. Apart from my failed zucchini experiment, the food I've cooked sous vide this week has ranged from slightly better to insanely better than when cooked by my usual methods. The eggs are truly phenomenal, unlike anything one can make by other means. The meat is much more evenly cooked, the perfect temperature, and wonderfully moist.

I've been cooking seriously for over a decade, and I've become a pretty darn good home cook in that time. Over the past year-and-a-half, my switch to a paleo-ish diet has simplified my cooking -- and improved it. The sous vide will take my cooking to a whole new level of yummy simplicity. I feel like I'm cheating! Still, I know that I have much to learn.

The Possible Downside

Although sous vide is very easy to use, I wouldn't recommend it for a novice or timid cook -- yet. Why not?

Given that sous vide home cooking is so new, helpful guidelines can be found for some of foods, but the waters are largely uncharted. (No pun intended!) So sous vide success requires the ability to extrapolate from limited information, based on a background knowledge of methods of cooking. You don't need to be an expert chef, but solid experience as a home cook, preferably based on conceptual instruction like that provided by Cook's Illustrated, would help.

For example, although I'd seen a mention of people cooking meatballs and hamburgers sous vide, I couldn't find any instructions for doing so. So I improvised based on the recommendations for steak, paying special attention to the standards for safety. It wasn't hard, and the results were excellent. Yet I know that many people wouldn't or couldn't do that. (I will write up a separate post about the hamburgers, as I took a picture with every step.)

The cooking guide provided with the Sous Vide Supreme is clear, straightforward, and mostly helpful. Yet frustratingly, the temperatures for meats are consistently too high. Presumably, that's for legal reasons: it follows the government guidelines. The government wants us to think that medium-rare is 135° F. Do they think we're morons? (Yes. Yes, they do.)

The good news is that the web will soon been a good source of advice on sous vide cooking. I'm sure we can expect more great recipes on the Sous Vide Supreme Blog. Douglas Baldwin is developing a great resource with A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking. Also, food bloggers will be stepping up to the plate. (Pun intended!) Richard Nikoley has been blogging up a sous vide storm on Free the Animal of late with Sous-Vide Supreme Maiden Voyage: Chicken, Salmon Sous Vide, and Sous Vide: Scrambled Eggs, Bavette, Pork Chops & Pears. I might do some more sous vide blogging myself, but mostly, I plan to make fairly detailed records of what I cook and the results, so that I have my own private store of data on sous vide cooking.

Another downside for some people will be the expense of the Sous Vide Supreme. It's pricey. Personally, I think it's worth every penny Paul spent for it. But others might want to think twice about such a purchase.

Other Notes

Before I close, let me mention a few more random points of potential interest.

First: I bought the Reynolds vacuum pump with the Sous Vide Supreme. That was a mistake on three counts. First, it didn't work. (I need to contact customer service about that. I'm sure we'll get it straightened out.) Second, Reynolds has stopped making the bags, although apparently the pump works with some other bags. Third and most importantly, I already own the equivalent Ziploc Vaccum System. (When Paul placed the order, I thought the Sous Vide Supreme required something fancier than the super-simple system I had already.) I'm going to stick with the Ziplock system, so I just ordered a slew of quart and gallon bags from Drugstore.com.

Second: Food safety is somewhat different using sous vide than using conventional methods. Somewhat to my surprise, cooking temperature isn't all that matters for destroying bacteria: the duration of cooking matters too. Sous vide rocks on that score. Yet if the food is handled improperly, botulism can be a risk. This helpful post discusses these issues.

Third: One common question about cooking sous vide is whether the plastic might leech chemicals. That's not an unfounded worry, given what we've discovered about the BPA lining canned foods. However, from what I understand, that's not a concern, provided that the proper bags are used. (It helps that the food is cooked at such a low temperature.) Moreover, the sous vide method has some noteworthy benefits such as minimizing the oxidation of polyunsaturated fats.

Fourth: Congratulations to the Drs. Eades for a very positive article on the Sous Vide Supreme in the NY Times: Sous Vide Moves From Avant-Garde to the Countertop. Publicity doesn't get much better than that! And it's well-deserved.

Finally: Thank you, Drs. Eades for developing the Sous Vide Supreme! It's going to be tons of cooking and eating fun!

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