What have you got?

Tom Harkin and other proponents of central planning were the wrong people to be asking the question, "What do you have?" leading up to the recent, so-called health summit. As the below video of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez demonstrates, central planning can't even keep the lights on for the top thug in that once-prosperous country. (Video with English commentary can be found here.)

And if Chavez, sitting atop vast petroleum and hydroelectric resources, can't even keep the lights on, how will Barack Obama keep us healthy?

The state is not omnipotent, and initiating force against others not only produces nothing, it hinders those who can produce when not repeatedly robbed and bossed around by thugs.

Any question by a central planner to the effect that you need state planning to produce anything is a bluff designed to distract from the fact that his own answer to "What have you got?" is "Only what I can steal from someone else."

-- CAV

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Sleeping on It

File this one under, "small, but interesting, victories."

I have, at least a couple of times here, mentioned that it often pays for me to allow my subconscious mind to percolate over a problem. I first noticed that I could sometimes stack the deck in favor of this when I was in college, and so I did: Much of my classwork as a math major, I would often joke, I performed in bed.

There is nothing special about doing this in and of itself: That is, after all, part of why we have the idiom, "Sleep on it." There is also quite a bit of scientific research concerning this very phenomenon. The idea is old hat, but it's always fun to experience such "bolts from the blue" for oneself.

Yesterday, I had one such moment of inspiration. All week, I'd been having trouble getting an experiment to run, and had finally nailed down why by the end of the day the day before yesterday. The problem was due to the eventual failure of a quick fix someone else had made to a crucial piece of equipment. I could simply re-do the same fix or I could find a more permanent solution to the problem. Quick fixes have a nasty way of backfiring on me at just the wrong moment, so I decided to tinker around at the end of the day. I wanted to either solve the problem once and for all, or find a better quick fix.

I got nowhere and I was tired. I threw my hands up and decided to look at it again after a night's sleep. (No, I wasn't thinking about college.) Perhaps, though, I had stumbled on exactly the strategy I needed:

The study by Sara Mednick, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, and first author Denise Cai, graduate student in the UC San Diego Department of Psychology, shows that REM directly enhances creative processing more than any other sleep or wake state. Their findings will be published in the June 8th [2009] online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Of course, it could have simply been that I was just too tired to think straight, but I'm not so sure. In any event, solving the problem in time to run another experiment the next morning would have been easy had I tubing of exactly the right size on hand to connect the two parts of my experimental apparatus. Obviously, that was not the case (or so it seemed), and ordering wouldn't help me that day.

I puttered around a bit, and then, on a sort of non-verbal level, wondered whether a piece of special, expensive tubing not normally used for the purpose I had in mind would work. I tried it, and it fit like a glove. (I had removed the tubing from another piece of equipment because it could have been worn out and, as a result, caused or exacerbated the very problem I was having. (It could be unfit for its old purpose and still suited for this new purpose or, if it leaked, I could have just used a newer one.)

The tubing was in exactly the same place the previous day, so why hadn't I come up with this "obvious" solution then? I suspect that as I was looking for objects to use as connectors, my brain was grouping the expensive tubing either as trash or according to its usual purpose -- but ignoring it as a potential connector. Using it simply as a connector would normally be a waste of money, too. So I had to both ignore several preexisting mental associations for that piece of tubing and form new ones.

Of course, the tubing might not have fit at all, but it still required a couple of new mental steps even to think of trying it out. My solution has worked beautifully for an entire day now and, since the package the tubing arrived in was stamped with its dimensions, we now know what to order in the future for a permanent fix.

Who knew something I was about to toss into the trash would save my day and provide such an interesting, first-hand look at how the mind operates?

-- CAV

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Quick Roundup 509

Two on Tiger Woods

The recent public apology by Tiger Woods for his marital infidelity has, like other celebrity news generated mostly banal commentary, but I stumbled across a couple of people with interesting things to say about it (or because of it) yesterday.

First, Brian Phillips, who has followed Woods since he was in high school, considers the ethical and psychological dimensions behind his behavior.

[Woods] believed that his accomplishments on the golf course, which resulted from an unparalleled devotion to his values, allowed him to [act] against his values in his personal life.

This conflict remained hidden from the public until last November, at which time Tiger's carefully honed image disintegrated. Tiger's soul was exposed as that of a second-hander, that of a man who lived one way in public and another in private. In public he was presented as a devoted husband and father; in private he was a philandering scoundrel. The reason, Tiger claimed, was because he thought of nobody but himself. But the truth is, Tiger did not think of himself--in fact he did the exact opposite.

Thomas Sowell takes the Woods apology as his point of departure, and discusses the inappropriateness of most public apologies. While I suspect that Sowell might disagree with me that Woods does owe an apology to his fans for his disappointing behavior, he eventually brings up an excellent point I'd never heard before when he moves on to recent "apologies" for slavery.

[S]lavery is not something you can apologize for, any more than you can apologize for murder.

This, of course, is on top of the absurdity -- which Sowell also mentions -- of today's non-slave-owning politicians apologizing to today's non-slaves for the instiution of slavery.

Fascist Pig ... gy Bank

Paul Hsieh has written an excellent op-ed about Barack Obama's latest fascist scheme to steal from the productive -- don't worry, el Presidente is asking for public comment us to smile and thank him for taking the trouble to rob us.

[R]egardless of the precise method employed, the basic principle would be the same: Your money would no longer be your money. Instead, the government would claim the right to redistribute your wealth to pay for others' retirement on the grounds that they needed it more. In essence, the government would be implementing the Marxist principle: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

"Your money would no longer be your money." Aspects of this retirement scheme remind me of a medical "Flex" account I tried a few years ago. For the ability to claim less tax income, I set aside pre-tax dollars for medical expenses. No, I couldn't keep whatever I didn't spend, so I had to budget by predicting the unpredictable -- or go on a medical spending spree at the end of the year. I had to keep track of an annoying, ATM-like card. I had to periodically send medical receipts to the company contracted to run my account in case I was really trying to defraud Uncle Sam by spending my own money. Yes, I had to waste lots of time whenever my billing got screwed up, which it predictably did. And yes, it was so much trouble, I got out of the program because I figured that more time and less hassle were worth far more than the trivial amount of money the Flex account saved me.

Guess what any "private" retirement option would be like under such a scheme.

Image Credit

The image above is from Despair, Inc. Other images, many hilarious, can be found here. I believe I've seen their take on government somewhere before.

Objectivist Roundup

According to the Blog Carnival web site, Secular Foxhole will be hosting this week's Objectivist Roundup.

Galen Institute

I haven't had time to look at it much, but through HBL, I have learned of yet another pro-freedom health policy organization, the Galen Institute.

Quote of the Day

I don't agree with all the advice here on starting a political blog, but I found this comment quite wise as a general policy:

[N]ever bother to explain yourself. Your friends do not need it, and your enemies won't believe you.

The point being addressed is a common manifestation of determinism affecting how one interacts with others. (HT: Glenn Reynolds)

The World's Most Useless Device

As seen at Unclutterer...

Insistent thing, isn't it?

-- CAV

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The Anti-Obama

Over at Fresh Bilge, Alan Sullivan takes note of an article about a rising star in the Republican Party, Florida's Marco Rubio. The article is titled "The Republican Obama," and I suspect that, at least on a sense-of-life level, that may be the case. Or, as Sullivan puts it, "[the] most recent immigrants [are] more American than most Americans..."

The significance of this last observation is twofold. First, let's recall what a "sense of life" is:

Long before he is old enough to grasp such a concept as metaphysics, man makes choices, forms value-judgments, experiences emotions and acquires a certain implicit view of life. Every choice and value-judgment implies some estimate of himself and of the world around him--most particularly, of his capacity to deal with the world. He may draw conscious conclusions, which may be true or false; or he may remain mentally passive and merely react to events (i.e., merely feel). Whatever the case may be, his subconscious mechanism sums up his psychological activities, integrating his conclusions, reactions or evasions into an emotional sum that establishes a habitual pattern and becomes his automatic response to the world around him. What began as a series of single, discrete conclusions (or evasions) about his own particular problems, becomes a generalized feeling about existence, an implicit metaphysics with the compelling motivational power of a constant, basic emotion--an emotion which is part of all his other emotions and underlies all his experiences. This is a sense of life. (Ayn Rand, "Philosophy and Sense of Life," The Romantic Manifesto, p. 25)

Now, consider the following scene in the above light:

His trick consisted partly of echoing the great themes of conservative America: opposition to big government, support for free enterprise, a determination to defeat "radical Islam and the threat it poses through terror." But he breathed life into these ... notions by infusing them with his own life story, which proved their worthiness and their applicability. Unlike many a prominent Republican, Rubio could not be said to have been born with a silver or even stainless steel spoon. The son of Cuban exiles--his father worked as a bartender and mother as a maid--Rubio first attended college on a football scholarship. His is the classic story of the American dream fulfilled.

In his speech, he related how his grandfather, who had grown up in rural Cuba, had told him "that because of where he was born and who he was born to, there was only so much he was able to accomplish. But he wanted me to know that I would not have those limits, that there was no dreams, no ambitions, no aspirations unavailable to me. And he was right. ... I have never once felt that there was something I couldn't do because of who my parents were or weren't." [bold added]

On a sense-of-life level, it seems safe to me to say that Rubio and Obama are complete opposites.

Unfortunately, as Ayn Rand also indicates, a sense of life can be no substitute for a rational philosophy -- a coherent, explicit, integrated view of the world. Rubio's political positions, being all over the map, bear this out. According to Wikipedia, Rubio is best known for soliciting advice from his constituents, which he published in book form as 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future and used as guidance when he became Speaker of the Florida House.

There is certainly nothing wrong with being open to suggestions -- another way Rubio seems to differ from Obama. However, Rubio's selection criteria leave much to be desired and show us that, ideologically, he is an inconsistent, mixed-economy type at best.

There were three requirements for a submission: 1) It had to be relevant to daily life, 2) It had to focus on the future, and 3) It could not unnecessarily expand government.

Not only does this immediately raise the question, "For what might government expansion be necessary?" there is not a peep about, say, better protection of individual rights, or even something like, say, "Must help reduce government to its proper scope."

A few of the "innovative" ideas are listed below, followed by my comments in bold.

[Replace] the current school standards with "a new, world-class curriculum" Not only is this vague, but this could be done very effectively by getting the government out of education altogether and letting the market go to work on the problem.

[Give w]histleblower protection to prostitutes informing on their pimps. The problem here is that prostitution (excluding that involving minors) does not violate individual rights and so should not even be a crime. Making it easier to prosecute people who would not even be criminals in a free society sounds like an entrenchment of improper government activity to me.

[D]eny sex offenders and stalkers access to Internet networking sites like MySpace, [and] require schools to issue instructions as to what information students can post on such sites. These two are mixed-up at best. On the one hand, it should be easier for the government to stop pederasts from acting on their impulses, but on the other, we're issuing orders to educators and, in today's intellectual climate, coming perilously close to inviting state regulation of communications.

As I said, at best Rubio is a mixed-economy type. At worst, he's a big-government conservative who knows how to sound like an advocate for freedom.

Sadly, with his ability to appeal to voters who are sincerely concerned about the erosion of freedom in America combined with his lack of ideological coherence, Marco Rubio is the diametric opposite of Barack Obama in another, more important respect: Whereas the danger to freedom represented by Barack Obama's political ideas is clear, that of Marco Rubio's is not. Barack Obama incites opposition to statism. Marco Rubio would likely disguise a mixed economy as capitalism and perhaps lull awakening America back to sleep.

-- CAV

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Buying Time

American Olympic Hockey GM Brian Burke has dumped some much-needed cold water over the heads of his promising squad:

"We got outchanced, 2-to-1," Burke said. "Our goaltender stole us a game. That's what happened. People can say that Canada didn't play well. I disagree with that. They outchanced us. I thought that, except for the goaltending position, we didn't deserve to win that game last night.

In other words, Burke saw his team's 5-3 triumph over the Canadian side for what it was: A mere battle won in the perspective of a larger war that rages on.

Many of Barack Obama's opponents would do well to hear a similar warning.

Megan McArdle, for example, sounds almost complacent in her assessment of the chances that ObamaCare will become law:

Despite having declared the death of the health care bill before almost anything else, I don't want to say that the thing's impossible. But the House has lost three of the votes it used to pass their bill 220-215 . . . which means that you have to persuade someone (probably a Blue Dog) to vote for it, who already voted against it. Progressives have been making the almost-plausible argument that the public is going to treat a vote for the House or Senate bill as a vote for final passage, so Democrats might as well go ahead and pass the thing. But their best argument totally falls apart for those who originally voted no.

I think that her analysis of the short-range behavior of our elected officials is probably sound, except that she could be woefully underestimating the power of the ideas that animate many of the Democrats. Many an altruist has been known to commit self-sacrifice when called upon to do what he feels is right. In addition, as I indicated yesterday, the defeat of ObamaCare will not be the end of this particular skirmish by a long shot, anyway.

And then there's an entire article on "Quiet Libertarian Victories" over at RealClear Politics, which outlines several recent legal efforts by various libertarian organizations. (We'll set aside for the moment the merits of the libertarian approach to fundamental ideas, which is to treat them as irrelevant.)

Last week CEI filed suit in federal appeals court challenging the EPA's forthcoming regulation of greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act. This came on the tail of a petition filed by CEI and a few other groups asking the EPA to reconsider its rule in light of the recent Climategate scandal. The idea isn't so much to win in court - though they would take a win, they assure me - but to gum up the works long enough for Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski to get a resolution of disapproval through the Senate, which will then be used to force the EPA to back down.

This sounds like it could be good news, at least in the short term. But in the long term, we need to disband the EPA (among many other things) -- and the above legal strategy depends on most of the American people continuing to understand the importance of rule by law. Neither of these things can obtain for long in a culture that does not appreciate freedom on a deeper level than ours currently does.

The greatest threat to freedom in America is the fact that the vast majority of those who do appreciate it in some way do not understand its philosophical roots. This weakness is manifest on many levels, including: advocacy of measures that actually threaten freedom, ineffective opposition to collectivism, moral cowardice, and half-measures. These weaknesses stem from several causes, which include some combination of a deficient grasp of the principles themselves, a failure to appreciate their importance, and the psychological weight of uncertainty, which directly results from not really knowing what to do.

Only time, education, and the unstinting efforts of a relatively few intellectuals can address this problem. Like whatever mistakes the Canadian hockey team made Sunday evening, the pragmatism of our elected officials might cause them to destroy our freedom less effectively, and like goaltender Ryan Miller, legal activists might stop a few potshots from time to time. Both of these things do buy us time, but we lose if we don't take our game up a notch.

-- CAV

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Quick Roundup 508

5-3

I ended up not getting to watch the U.S.-Canada Men's Hockey game last night, but did get to follow it, and saw some clips later on. In retrospect, I realized something else brilliant about Brian Burke's player selection process: He picked mainly players for whom Olympic gold would be a first taste of really big success. That's a huge motivational advantage.

And then there's Wayne Gretzky's pre-game prediction of insignificance for the American squad:

Wayne Gretzky is predicting a showdown between Team Canada and Russia for the Olympic men’s hockey gold medal game.

"And I pick Canada to win gold," he told a roaring crowd Friday night at Molson Canadian Hockey House.

If I were the United States' coach, I'd have used that before last night's game -- along with that brilliant goalkeeper. That guy stopped 42 shots from the Canadians.

Our National Broken Record

Now that Scott Brown is serving as Massachusetts' junior senator, socialized medicine is dead, right? Wrong.

In addition to having to the threat that the Democrats will try to pass ObamaCare using underhanded legislative tricks, the Republicans could be waiting in the wings to finish the job of destroying freedom in medicine: Mitt Romney, the Republican governor who signed Massachusetts' failed mandatory insurance program into law, is lining up support for a 2012 run for the Presidency.

Until more Americans learn to think in terms of principles, those of us who do will find ourselves having to fight the same battles over and over again. One note regarding that last link, though. Leftists aren't the only ones who sound like parrots to me any more.

And you get to skip number six!

LB's post on "NYC by the Numbers" was quite entertaining.

And, yes, death-themed names for drinks do draw one like a moth to a flame, don't they? I once tried a beer called "La Fin du Monde" because of its name, and it was a favorite for a while.

Vintage Calvin and Hobbes

Amit Ghate points to a collection of what he calls "existential humor" on Facebook -- snow art from Calvin and Hobbes. The first made me laugh out loud.

-- CAV

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The Miracle on Ice

Each evening, although we've been busy at work and are tired by the time we get home, my wife and I have enjoyed snuggling on the couch to watch the Olympics. To keep up with things, I've been checking RealClear Sports, where I found an interesting article this morning about this year's American Men's Hockey Team.

Sports writer Ian Johnson's comparison of this team to the "Miracle on Ice" squad seems a bit of a stretch, but it did draw my attention to an interesting story:

In 1980, U.S. hockey coach Herb Brooks overlooked some top-level college talent and built his "Miracle on Ice" hockey team around players who hailed mainly from just two areas--Minnesota and Boston--figuring they'd jell better into a team that could trump talent.

Thirty years later, something similar is going on at the Vancouver Olympics. While the U.S. men's hockey team is many giant steps away from a gold medal, it's been built on a similar philosophy. Players have been chosen for their chemistry, with many big names left behind.

The group is also very young, which, aside from perhaps bringing superior stamina to the table, also brings a degree of brashness many veteran players might lack:

As the team prepares for one of the Olympics' high points--the U.S.-Canada match on Sunday--it's already won the two games it had to, beating Switzerland 3-1 on Tuesday and stomping Norway 6-1 Thursday. And it's doing so in an entertaining and risk-taking style with a bit of the "truculence" [General Manager Brian] Burke says he wants from his players.

"These big stars on the other teams are going to get their chances, but we're not sitting back and waiting for them," says 23-year-old defenseman Jack Johnson. "We're playing an aggressive, in-your-face style. We are not sitting back."

Thanks to our culture's saturation with collectivism, we can probably expect lots of babbling about "unselfishness," "sacrifice," and "unity," but don't let that noise get in the way of what sounds like a good show this Sunday. (There are important, objective principles behind achieving success in team endeavors that have nothing to do with the ethics of self-immolation.)

And don't let it distract you from the soundness of Burke's personnel decisions, either. As I see it, he has deftly avoided two huge problems endemic to building a tournament team -- fragile egos and unfamiliarity:

For 22-year-old Bobby Ryan, a former overall No. 2 draft pick, the lack of older players is just fine. "You're not with a lot of veteran guys that you have to tiptoe around," Mr. Ryan said. "You're comfortable with each other. It absolutely helps cohesion."

Another reason for the togetherness might be Mr. Burke's adherence to his NHL team-building playbook. That means a limited number of elite players--mostly the seven youngsters from the Ann Arbor program--and a bunch of raw-boned role players: grinders, defensive specialists and muckers, in other words, the gritty players who have populated Mr. Burke's teams in Vancouver, Anaheim (where he won a Stanley Cup) and now Toronto. The result is clean lines of responsibility and no sulking stars who are asked to play a defensive role. [bold added]

This sounds promising. I think I'll watch the game against Canada Sunday.

-- CAV

PS: The movie Miracle, about the 1980 Men's Team, is excellent and I highly recommend it.

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Quick Roundup 507

When altruism and collectivism go unchallenged, ...

... "budget hawks" look like this:

For those 55 or older today, [Social Security] would remain unchanged. For those younger, benefits would be reduced -- with no cuts for the poorest workers. Workers 55 or younger in 2011 could establish individual investment accounts that would be funded with part of their payroll taxes. Government would guarantee a return equal to inflation.

Note that there is no talk of phasing out and eventual repeal. Oh, and treating inflation like a metaphysical fact rather than the man-made disaster of government planning that it is won't help, either.

And yet, as Robert Samuelson indicates, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), "stands virtually alone" in proposing that we do something about our ballooning federal deficit before it's too late.

136 at 3

This week's Objectivist Roundup is posted over at 3 Ring Binder.

A Fine Line

On the one hand, computer vendors help large numbers of people realize the potential of their various computing devices without having to wallow in technical details for inordinate amounts of time.

On the other hand, many computer vendors seem intent on going beyond simple division of labor to actively fostering dependence, as this excerpt from an article at Cracked indicates.

[T]here's an unfortunate catch with Apple products. Even after you spend your hard earned money on fancy Jobsian wonder-toys, you still don't really own them. ...

... [M]anufacturers of other cell phones and gadgets generally don't care what customers do once they've paid for their products ... But Apple goes beyond complaining. They will actively break your shit for disobeying their arbitrary rules.

Yes, Apple has sent out updates specifically designed to disable phones that have been modified to work with carriers other than AT&T, or to run Microsoft Office. [links dropped]

I can see not wanting to provide support for technologies their designers might not have had in mind when designing the iPhone, but why not just make it clear that any problems associated with such modifications are unsupported? Or, if Apple's contracts with AT&T and Verizon demand such updates, why not make it clear that they will break your phone if you stray? (Maybe Apple does both. I don't know.)

I wonder whether Apple would fare so well in a more rational culture. On top of the fact that it would probably face better competition, would as many people accept such deals so willingly? Would more people want to go the extra mile to modify their iPhones? Would this cause Apple to have to be more accommodating?

Heh!

Nature's wonders are fine, but her bloopers are underappreciated.

-- CAV

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Stossel on Education

John Stossel relays some interesting facts and makes some good observations on how government monopolies hinder education. Although he does not consider the question of public education from the perspective of individual rights or consider deeply how central planning ruins education, Stossel's look at the results of state-run education is quite thought-provoking.

[Education professor James] Tooley spends most of every year in some of the poorest parts of Africa, India and China. For 10 years, he's studied how poor kids do in "free" government schools and -- hold on -- private schools. That's right. In the worst slums, private for-profit schools educate kids better than the government's schools do.

Tooley finds as many as six private schools in small villages. "The majority of (poor) schoolchildren are in private school, and these schools outperform government schools at a fraction of the teacher cost," he says.

Why do parents with meager resources pass up "free" government schools and sacrifice [sic] to send their children to private schools? Because, as one parent told the BBC, the private owner will do something that's virtually impossible in America's government schools: replace teachers who do not teach.

As in America, the elitist establishment in those countries scoffs at the private schools and the parents who choose them. A woman who runs government schools in Nigeria calls such parents "ignoramuses."

But that can't be true. Tooley tested kids in both kinds of schools, and the private-school students score better. [links dropped]

Stossel then goes on to show this very folly exhibited on a colossal scale by Barack Obama:

The $166 billion [Head Start] program is 45 years old, so it's had time to prove itself. But guess what: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently found no difference in first-grade test results between kids who went through Head Start and similar kids who didn't. President Obama has repeatedly promised to "eliminate programs that don't work," but he wants to give Head Start a billion more dollars. The White House wouldn't explain this contradiction to me. [link dropped]

Stossel doesn't say so, but look at how effectively state control of education can eliminate parental decisions from aiding them in their quest to educate their own children! Obama's already taking some of their money away from them at the outset (making it harder for them to send their children to good schools), and he has proven time and time again that he's not open to suggestions. A school administrator with such an attitude would be fired or run his business into the ground in a free market, limiting the number of minds he could cripple.

While my parents weren't exactly poor, I do know that their decision to send us to private schools was a hardship for them, and it's something I am grateful for to this day. Thanks for being "ignoramuses," Mom and Dad!

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected Professor James Tooley's name.

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Republican Life Support

Commentators who specialize in handicapping political horse races have been offering wildly different prognostications regarding the fate of Barack Obama's unconscionable effort to extend the institution of slavery to America's sick and the physicians they so desperately need. Michael Barone's rosy assessment is that the House is about 100 votes short of any deal to foist ObamaCare on America. He bases his forecast on the vagaries he imagines a pragmatist Democrat might have to consider on the level of deal-making. Absent some kind of cover, I suspect he would be right.

What kind of cover would it take to cause the Democrats to regain their enthusiasm for comandeering one sixth of the American economy? Moral cover. And Barack Obama suspects that the Republicans will provide them with it, which is why he is calling a sham "bipartisan" summit to "discuss" "healthcare" on the twenty-fifth of this month, although many of his political opponents strongly suspect that he will do so with passage of his act via reconciliation all but a done deal.

In an article titled, "Thump-Thump ... Thump-Thump," New Republic's Jonathan Cohn notes that Obama's gambit of asking for the Republicans to offer a counter-proposal at this "summit" is an attempt to re-frame the debate (or, more accurately, to show that the Republicans have failed to do so):

Republicans want to make this event--and, indeed, this whole debate--a referendum on the Democratic health care reform plan. Obama wants to make this a referendum on what to do about the nation's health care problems, with each party putting forward its ideas. And it looks to me like Obama will get his way.

If the Republicans don't post a plan, everybody will see that the GOP isn't serious about health care reform. If the Republicans do post a plan, they'll have to defend it. That might look even worse, given how unpromising their ideas are, although I realize that's a matter of opinion.[bold added]

The first sentence is what makes all the rest possible. Since the GOP will not oppose government intervention in the economy on principle, it ceded the moral high ground to Obama long ago. Furthermore, since the GOP does not oppose central planning on principle, its counterproposals are a hash of timid baby steps towards greater freedom in the medical sector and equally timid, half-guilty, statist proposals that differ only in detail from those of the Democrats. Its backbone and imagination are limited by the very premises -- altruism and collectivism -- it shares with the Democrats.

If ObamaCare does indeed have a pulse, it is because the GOP is keeping it on life support through its own cowardice.

-- CAV

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Quick Roundup 506

The Headline Says It All, ...

... especially when you remember that, in 2001, "Loaded, Hijacked Passenger Jets Hit Targets, Intentionally Killing 3,000 Innocent Civilians:" "NATO rockets miss target, kill 12 Afghan civilians."

The same, non-American parties are responsible for all these deaths.

Genie Out, Apple Trying to Cork Bottle

Regarding the recently released Apple iPad which seems to this author to have gone down in flames*, I recall two essays by venture capitalist/software coder Paul Graham. Together, they explain why a company would even consider releasing a device lacking such things as USB ports and the ability to play YouTube videos.

First, in "Apple's Mistake," an essay about the iPhone App Store software approval process, he writes:

They treat iPhone apps the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes. Apple is the channel; they own the user; if you want to reach users, you do it on their terms.

Second, in "Why TV Lost," about how television networks misjudged the opportunities presented by the emergence of the Internet, he elaborates on what is wrong with the "broadcast" business model:

One predictable cause of victory [of four --ed] is that the Internet is an open platform. Anyone can build whatever they want on it, and the market picks the winners. So innovation happens at hacker speeds instead of big company speeds.

And later,

After decades of running an IV drip right into their audience, people in the entertainment business had understandably come to think of them as rather passive.

Has all the adulation Apple usually gets from its customers similarly caused it to regard them as ready for anything it puts out? Perhaps this is why, in this day and age, Apple is apparently trying to graft the television broadcast business model onto the new media.

A self-described "working mom" describes her reaction to this particular misreading of the consumer electronics market:

... I am not buying any device that is intended to become my primary media consumption tool when it won't display most video that exists online, or that someone might want or need to show me. That would be nuts. I get that Apple wants to force everyone to begin offering an Apple video alternative online, along with or instead of Flash-based video, but I am not going to spend $600 or more to be their consumer battering ram on this issue. If I spend that much money on a piece of technology which is primarily designed as a way for me to look at things online, I darn well better be able to see ALL the video that's out there, and see it easily and without hassle.

So far, the answer to my earlier question about the iPad would appear to be "nowhere fast."

* Update: Commenter Adam points out that my use of the past tense is a little bit premature: "I agree with your thoughts on the iPad, but it hasn't been released yet, so I don't think it's fair to say it has gone down in flames."

That said, if Apple has any sense, it will make a few changes before release.

This Might Get Interesting

Last Friday, neurobiologist Amy Bishop gunned down several colleagues, three fatally, after a faculty meeting. News reports made it sound like she had just been denied tenure, but that was actually old news. She was denied tenure in April and was completing her terminal year at University of Alabama, Huntsville.

What I found disturbing, on top of her previous record, was the fact that she seemed successful in her research, and yet apparently she still may have had enough personality problems to be denied tenure anyway. (That would be saying something for a scientist.)

... Dr. Bishop was a respected scientist who nevertheless had trouble getting along with colleagues. As members of the biotechnology program, students have to pass core classes in biology, chemistry and chemical engineering. But Dr. Bishop became convinced, he said, that the chemical engineering professors were trying to keep biology students from succeeding by making the classes too difficult.

"It was one of those things that ultimately became irrational with her, in my opinion," Dr. [Krishnan] Chittur said.

Some students also had problems with Dr. Bishop's teaching style, saying she simply read from the book in class but then tested them on material that she had not covered.

...

She was "very socially awkward with students" and never made eye contact during personal conversations...

... She was involved in an effort to censure the university president, David B. Williams, over that and other policies, according to Richard Lieu, a Distinguished Professor of Astrophysics at the university who sits on the Faculty Senate.

On the one hand, many scientists are socially awkward, and this could just be the New York Times looking for whatever red flags it could find that should have tipped people off earlier to the fact that Bishop was mentally unstable, but on the other hand, she could just as easily have been someone UAH would have liked to get rid of long before last April.

If the latter turns out to be the case, one fertile question may be this: Why wasn't she shown the door long ago? Another fertile question, on why she was not even charged for fatally shooting her brother in 1987, is already being asked.

Neither Jacksonian Democrat Nor Conservative

While Democrats try to tell themselves that Barack Obama's recent electoral disasters simply reflect the disaffections of "Jacksonian" Democrats, and Republicans seem to think they can absorb the movement into the GOP, this movement is looking like trouble for the incumbent Republican governor of Texas.

Could the Republican primary for Governor in Texas end up in a runoff between Rick Perry...and Debra Medina? Medina is coming on strong and polls now at 24%, just four points behind Kay Bailey Hutchison's 28%. Perry continues to hold a double digit advantage at 39%.

Further success on Medina's part could lead to a runoff with Rick Perry, despite his earlier populist noise about secession.

Worth noting is the fact that Perry's secessionist babbling came right around the time the Tea Party Movement was being felt in Texas, and that the tea partiers apparently haven't just snapped up the bone that Perry was obviously tossing their way. I guess that for whatever they lack in explicit understanding of the philosophical basis for limited government, they at least partially make up for it in not being so easily fooled..

Update: Dismuke comments on Medina:

Actually, your news article on Medina was written just before she had a DISASTROUS interview with Glenn Beck in which she hesitated and refused to answer when asked if she thought the 911 truther movement (which holds that the World Trade Center collapse was a US government plot) had credibility.

Here's a link. Medina sinking in the next poll would lend support to my point.

Update 2: A look at the Medina website -- linked in comments -- indicates that she is a social conservative candidate with a poor understanding of the nature of property rights.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: (1) Corrected section on Apple iPad. (2) Added update to article on Texas Republican gubernatorial primaries.
2-16-10: Added additional note on Debra Medina.

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Two Winners

My first foray into Indian cuisine, Chicken Tikka Masala, was at my wife's urging: It's what she usually orders when we go out for Indian. For this latest pair of recipes, it was my turn to choose, so I went with something close to what I usually order, Tandoori Chicken, and paired it with an interesting recipe for curried spinach that I found by accident -- I believe while looking up a spice substitution for the chicken.

As usual, I make spice substitutions to accommodate what is convenient or most easily available to me and look for ways to save time or make the steps flow better. Most notably -- some may say, egregiously -- I use butter rather than ghee in the spinach, and I broil the chicken. The original chicken recipe (linked below) calls for grilling or baking. No grilling for me since the move from Texas, and baking strikes me as a great way to produce dry meat. Since broiling has worked so well for the Chicken Tikka Masala meat (which I always sample when making that), I adopted it for the chicken. Given the choice, I'd grill the chicken, but this was still so good that I'm posting it after making it only one time.

My wife was highly skeptical of the spinach when I showed her the recipe, but we both loved that, too. If you make them together, which I recommend, start the spinach shortly after you start cooking the meat. Finally, don't be fooled by the long ingredient lists. Both dishes are actually quite easy to make.

-- CAV

***

Tandoori Chicken
(adapted from Emeril Lagasse)

Preparation Time is 15 minutes on day 1 and 45 minutes on day 2.

Ingredients

olive oil, 2 tbsp
onion powder, 1 1/2 tsp
minced garlic, 2 tbsp
ginger paste, 2 tbsp
black pepper, 1/2 tsp
cayenne pepper, 1/2 tsp
paprika, 1 tbsp
salt, 1 1/2 tsp
cumin, 1 tsp
turmeric, 1 tsp
coriander, 1 tsp
garam masala, 1 tsp
yogurt, plain, 1 cup
lemon juice, 1 tbsp
chicken pieces, boneless and skinless, around 8

Directions

Day 1

1. In a large, sealable mixing bowl, thoroughly blend the oil, spices, yogurt, and lemon juice.

2. Cut any breasts in half and slash each chicken piece several times with a knife. Place in bowl with marinade.

3. Coat chicken evenly, rubbing the marinade into the holes and slits.

4. Seal bowl with lid and refrigerate overnight.

Day 2

5. Preheat grill or adjust broiler rack to 6-8 inches from the top of the oven and turn broiler to high.

6. If broiling, spread aluminum foil on baking sheet.

7. Remove chicken from marinade, scraping off any excess. If grilling, save bowl of marinade for basting.

8. If grilling, proceed to step 9. Otherwise, broil the chicken, turning every five or six minutes four or five times and basting as necessary, until just cooked through and browned in spots and juices run clear. Skip step 9.

9. Remove the chicken from the marinade. Place on the grill and cook for 8 to 10 minutes on the first side. Turn, baste as needed, and cook on the second side for 8 to 10 minutes. Turn and continue cooking, as necessary until the chicken is cooked through, but still tender, about 25 to 30 minutes.

***

Palak Masala (Palak ka Saag, or Curried Spinach)
(adapted from An Indian Kitchen in France)

Preparation Time is about 25 minutes.

Ingredients

frozen spinach, chopped, 10 oz. box
olive oil, 3 tsp
onion, large
tomatoes, medium, 2
cardamom, 1/2 tsp
ginger paste, 1 tsp
minced garlic, 1 tsp
turmeric, 1/2 tsp
chili powder, 1/2 tsp
cayenne, 1/4 tsp
paprika, 1/4 tsp
coriander, 1/2 tsp
garam masala, 1/2 tsp
salt, about 3/4 tsp
butter, 1 tbsp

Directions

1. In parallel with the next step, defrost the spinach.

2. Finely chop the onion and set aside in a bowl.

3. Chop the tomatoes and set aside.

4. In parallel with the next step, heat the oil in a large frying pan, then add the cardamom. When you detect its aroma, add the onions and fry until they start to go from a golden brown to a darker brown.

5. Mise en place: Ginger and garlic together in a small bowl, and the dry spices together in a small bowl.

6. Add the ginger and garlic pastes, fry for a couple more minutes.

7. Add tomatoes and fry until oil starts to appear on the sides.

8. Add the dry spices and fry for a minute.

9. Add the spinach, season with salt, and cook, covered, until the leaves are soft.

10. About a minute before removing pan from heat, add butter, and mix thoroughly.

Updates

Today: Changed note on basting to apply to grilling only.

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Quick Roundup 505

Boob Tube

Software Nerd notes:

Even Venezuela's dictator [Hugo] Chavez realizes that the "wrong ideas" about life and philosophy can be more "corrupting" than a little nudity. A while back The Simpsons were ordered off the air, to be replaced by Baywatch!

This comes on the heels of his comparison of Ayn Rand's vs. the conventional views of the relative merits of Playboy and National Review.

Interesting to contemplate is why, aside from merely breaking a commandment or two, viewing nude pictures so raises the hackles of traditional moralists. Enjoyment of any kind is both selfish and motivating, and will, if morality is equated with altruism, lead to various levels of rejection of "morality." Such a rejection would be implicit (at least at first) and visceral. The images expose, so to speak, what is missing from their moral code.

This is fire, and the traditional moralist sees it as something not even to be played with.

The "Middleman"

At a professional networking event, I was recently quite surprised to find myself in a couple of conversations about politics that other people spontaneously started. Since most of my previous face-to-face exposure to leftists has been on the job (where I usually avoid such conversations like the plague), I found myself lacking in good replies.

Several times, people came out in favor of socialized medicine since it would (they said) realize cost efficiencies of scale and take "the middleman" out of the picture. Both arguments take altruism as a given, to be sure, but both are also wrong on economic grounds. (For example, the "middleman" argument discounts the role of insurers as brokers of information on health risks and medical costs, and resembles the more general fallacy that "management" does no actual, productive work.)

On later reflection, I think that what I really wanted was not necessarily a quick reply, but a better approach that engages minds: I suspect that the Socratic Method (or something like it) would be a better. Perhaps the process of asking "What do you mean by that?" can, after a time, lead to my being able to indicate the moral and economic flaws of socialized medicine, or, better yet, help someone realize them for himself.

Objectivist Roundup

It's over at Reepicheep's Coracle this week.

The First State of the Union Address

A small windfall of the return of principled men to politics will, mercifully, be shorter speeches. (HT: Jim Woods, who reads it on YouTube at his blog)

What a Crop!

Sez Amit Ghate: Ten years ago, let alone twenty, who ever would have thought it would be possible to put up this "collage"? Ghate introduces four new books by Objectivist intellectuals on the following topics: philosophy of science, neoconservatism, and the War We Should Be Fighting, but Aren't (twice).

Hsieh on Filibusters

Apparently, the "anti-filibuster" movement I thought I'd caught wind of is (or is becoming) more of a "Filibuster For Me But Not For Thee."

Basically, [Ben] Eidelsen argues that when Democrats use the filibuster it's for the benefit of the majority of Americans, whereas when Republicans do so it's to thwart the majority.

Memo to the Democrats: The United States is not a democracy, and for good reason.

Free Beer!

The first word is a verb. Via HBL, I learned of a lengthy, but very interesting-looking post about government controls on the beer industry.

-- CAV

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Wrong Again

As a fan of Ayn Rand's fiction and an advocate of her philosophy of Objectivism, I have seen the following charges made ad nauseam by her admitted opponents and false friends alike. [Note: In the below, Cathy Young's words are in plain type, my responses are in italics.]

1. Her vision, articulated in several novels and later in nonfiction essays as the philosophy of Objectivism, earned her a sometimes cult-like following in her lifetime and beyond it.

Nearly every major modern thinker attracts the professed allegiance of people who are not looking for intellectual guidance, but rather want to be told what to do.

The question to which any thinker can and ought to be subject is, "Do his ideas encourage or necessitate such slavish, dependence?" Objectivism does not. Cathy Young's charge that Objectivism "earned" for Ayn Rand such a following is thus, to the degree that this even happened, false. Such behavior, when it does happen, is despite the content and meaning of Rand's ideas.

Young's hedging this falsehood by saying "cult-like" is a both a confession that she lacks facts to back her position up and a harbinger of things to come in the rest of her article.

Finally, "in her lifetime and beyond it" is a feeble attempt to preempt anyone challenging her word, and a variety of an argument that Rand once identified: The Argument from Intimidation. To wit: My standing up for Rand does not, ipso facto, make me a "cultist."

2. One of those flaws [in her moral case for capitalism] is Rand's unwillingness to consider the possibility that the values of the free market can coexist with other, non-individualistic and non-market-based virtues--those of family and community, for example.

Would Cathy Young, one wonders, regard it as one of modern medicine's "flaws," that it does not hold that the principles of achieving and maintaining good health can "coexist" with whim-driven behavior or mystic ritualism? As for the notion that "family and community" require self-sacrifice, that's also untrue, and probably accounts for Young's expressed belief that Rand despises family life.

It is noteworthy that Ayn Rand once identified this type of error on Young's part. She called it the "package deal." Family and community need not imply self-immolation. See below on the former and recall Galt's Gulch on the latter.

3. Family fares even worse in Rand's universe. In her 1964 Playboy interview Rand flatly declared that it was "immoral" to place family ties and friendship above productive work; in her fiction, family life is depicted as a stifling swamp.

Cathy Young obviously missed or chose to ignore the passage in Atlas Shrugged about motherhood, not to mention the numerous comments about education Rand makes throughout the body of her non-fiction.

What part of "They [her sons --ed] represent my particular career, Miss Taggart," does Cathy Young not understand?

Here, we don't need Ayn Rand's help to identify an error. This is just wrong.

4. Rand's detractors have often branded her a fascist. The label is unfair, but her work does have shades of a totalitarian or dictatorial mentality. ...

...

Rand does not advocate these people's murder (though she is sympathetic to a trainmaster who chooses not to avert the disaster, partly in revenge against the regulators). Yet she clearly suggests that they had it coming. Both in Atlas Shrugged and in Rand's nonfiction essays, political and ideological debates are treated as wars with no innocent bystanders.

If Ayn Rand said nothing else, she made the case that ideas matter. In particular, they have consequences when put into practice. If you advocate socialism, get a leader like Hugo Chavez, and find yourself mysteriously sitting in the dark due to blackouts (or beaten to a pulp), you got exactly what you asked for, whether or not you knew or admitted to yourself what the consequences of central planning would be.

Cathy Young would have us believe that warning us that bad ideas have bad consequence is of the same moral category as cheering on fascism. I don't know what to say to that, but to ask: Why?

5. [Rand's] extremism limits her value as a messenger, and our current intellectual climate makes it likely that many of her new admirers will adopt not her best traits but her worst: intolerance, paranoia, and dehumanization of the enemy.

As for her charge of "extremism," I'll allow Rand to speak for herself this time: "If an uncompromising stand is to be smeared as 'extremism,' then that smear is directed at any devotion to values, any loyalty to principles, any profound conviction, any consistency, any steadfastness, any passion, any dedication to an unbreached, inviolate truth -- any man of integrity." (From "'Extremism' or The Art of Smearing", Chapter 17 of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal)

Young ends where she began: Blaming Ayn Rand for the problems inherent in "our current intellectual climate." Among these problems are massive confusion about fundamental philosophical principles and the commonness of people lacking in integrity. Blaming Ayn Rand for these problems will help solve them about as much as ignoring her or, worse, putting words in her mouth and laying unearned blame at her feet. And attacking her and those who wish to carry on her fight for their integrity is unconscionable.

-- CAV

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No Fluke

The reader will kindly forgive a happy Saints fan two posts in a row about football...

The more I learn about New Orleans coach Sean Payton, the more I like him. Yesterday, I linked to an analysis by NFL writer, Bucky Brooks, of Payton and company's second-half coaching adjustments. As ingenious as they were comprehensive, that analysis still turns out not to tell the whole story of how well-thought-out this victory was, or how well-prepared the team.

Remember this play? (HT: Amit Ghate) It is an example of the motto, "Fortune favors the prepared mind."

This is one of the greatest NFL quarterbacks of all time getting burned as he tries to execute one of his favorite plays. New Orleans cornerback Tracy Porter even makes it look easy, but it wasn't. As sports writer Charles Robinson notes, Manning "was ultimately thwarted by the kind of film study and diligence that has so often delivered him to victory."

That's how Porter was able to recognize the pivotal route late in Sunday's game, as the Colts lined up with 3:24 remaining, trailing 24-17. Indianapolis came to the line of scrimmage in a three-wide look, with rookie wideout Austin Collie on the outside and [Reggie] Wayne next to him in the slot. Porter was across from Wayne, and he remembered from film study that the Colts rarely ran plays with Collie on the outside, in what was essentially the No. 1 receiver spot. He knew if Collie went in motion, which he eventually did, that Indianapolis would "stack" the rookie behind Wayne, snapping the ball at the exact moment that Collie and Wayne were only feet apart, in hopes of confusing the opposing coverage.

...

Porter had the play diagramed [sic] in his head, and the moment Wayne crossed the first-down marker and began to put a foot in the ground, Porter devoured the space between them, stepping in front of Wayne to snatch Manning's pass.

"It didn’t surprise me at all," Wayne said of Porter jumping the route. "That's kind of how they were playing a little bit throughout the game. They kind of were squatting a little bit [on routes]. ... We've run [that play] quite a few times. We ran it earlier in the game and Peyton went backside with it. I think [Porter] kind of had a feeling it was coming. It was the same formation. He did a good job of recognizing it." [links dropped]

His players being this well-prepared thus enabled Payton's staff to realize a huge payoff on what was actually something of a gamble: the decision to send six men after Manning on that play in the first place.

This story at the last link even explains the sound rationale behind Payton's decision to go for it on fourth-and-goal, a move whose lack of a score I was afraid would be bad for the Saints' morale:

With 1:55 to go in the first half, down 10-3, Payton went for it on fourth-and-goal at the Indianapolis one. The safe play is to take the three points and cut the lead, but that also means kicking off and giving Peyton Manning the ball with two timeouts and possibly decent field position. The gamble looked like a loser when Pierre Thomas was stopped for no gain by Gary Brackett and Clint Session.

But with the Colts backed up against their own end zone, Manning had to be careful and kept the ball on the ground. The Saints called time before a third-and-one with fifty-one seconds to play, stuffed Mike Hart, called another timeout, and got the ball back with enough time for four plays followed by the field goal they'd passed up two minutes earlier. [bold added]

The field goal would normally be the safe play, but Payton saw that in his context, it was actually a boneheaded play. Prepare well, keep the big picture in sight, keep your opponent guessing, and deprive him of his most potent weapon.

To move from Payton's big picture approach to his general outlook, I'll borrow from another sports writer: "The Saints played to win, and the Colts played not to lose. " Bob Kravitz then correctly notes that the coaching philosophies of the two sides in that game corresponded directly with those each exhibited in the final three games of the season, when each team still had a perfect season record within reach.

[I]t felt like an extension of the way both teams approached the final weeks of the regular season, the way the Saints looked at perfection and said, "Let's go for it," and the Colts said, "Um, we have other goals, thank you very much, and if you don't like it, too bad."

When the big moments came Sunday, the Saints were willing to walk way out there on the tightrope with no safety net. They dared to be great. And even after a fourth-and-goal at the Colts 1 got stuffed, they still got their field goal, still got to go into the locker room with all the momentum.

I don't know where I read it, but I agree that this game will go down as one of the best-coached Super Bowl victories. The Saints exuded confidence and discipline the whole time. If they didn't win, their loss was going to be nothing to be ashamed of.

I'll close by quoting Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle, whom I mildly picked on yesterday for predicting an Indy win:

Payton ... takes crazy chances, does things others wouldn't.

But maybe that nuttiness is part of his magic.

Justice also notes that Payton, "knows every button to push and seemed to love it that the world picked the Colts. He seemed to think this made the game easier."

That's my kind of coach.

Thanks again, New Orleans Saints and Mr. Payton, for your inspiring performance Sunday.

-- CAV

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Quick Roundup 504

Who dat?

The team that nobody picked to win the Super Bowl played with guts and determination to win championship glory under the leadership of a quarterback familiar with adversity and similar unwarranted skepticism about his ability to win.

Oh, and don't forget the coaching.

Sean Payton, widely regarded as one of the game's most fearless play-callers, made several bold moves that sparked the Saints to a surprising comeback in the second half.

Although most of Payton's brilliance is tied to his offensive acumen, it was actually his daring special teams gamble that initially changed the game's momentum. The Saints' confident leader instructed Thomas Morstead to attempt a surprise onside kick to open the third quarter, and the risky maneuver paid huge dividends as Jonathan Casillas came up with the unlikely recovery.

With the Saints finally set up in prime field position, the offensive wizard immediately made adjustments that got his offense in gear. [links dropped]

Read the whole thing to fully understand how Payton managed to defeat the Colts. Before the game, a friend and I concluded that the Saints had a chance -- if they could build up a huge lead and then hang on for dear life after, "Peyton Manning figures out their defense." Good thing Sean Payton saw another way.

My initial reactions upon seeing the onside kick could be summed up as follows: (1) "What the hell just happened?" (2) "Why on earth are they doing an onside kick?" (3) "Nice! Peyton Manning's going to be busy keeping the bench warm for a few more minutes." That was a risky call, but its success immediately wiped away the sting of a Saints' drive just before halftime, in which the team came up just short of a touchdown after going for it on fourth down.

To have the Saints as one's hometown team has often been an exercise in waiting for the other shoe to drop, of wondering when the "Ain'ts" will finally show their true colors and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Not anymore.

When "change" means ...

... to put in another quarter and try again.

The host at the Super Bowl party I attended yesterday had the television on mute during the pre-game, so all I could do was wonder why Barack Obama was suddenly interrupting America's day off. Apparently, he's going to offer the same raw deal on medicine to members of both parties, as if he hasn't already done so, and as if nobody understood what he meant the first time.

"I want to come back [after the Presidents Day congressional recess] and have a large meeting -- Republicans and Democrats -- to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward," Obama said in an interview with Katie Couric during CBS's Super Bowl pre-game show Sunday.

In other words, Barack Obama is promising to open up a "dialogue" and warning that his ears will be well-sealed before he shows up. Watch him complain, if this gets where it should, that the Republicans can't seem to get past the "standard conservative talking points" on "healthcare."

He'll make that "argument" too transparent to take seriously, too. Keep up the good work, Barry.

The Worst Super Bowl Ad

Is this Audi ad:

(a) guilty of downplaying the danger of the environmentalist agenda, (b) an attempt at bullying, or (c) both?

It's like someone there read Ayn Rand complaining about pragmatic businessmen destroying capitalism by sanctioning its enemies and said, "I'll show her what 'destroying capitalism' means!"

Note to Self

Read about this innovation:

Suddenly, the mammoth shale formations in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, North Dakota, and elsewhere have the potential to produce abundant amounts of gas for decades to come.

As C. August indicates, "Prior to this innovation, the natural gas in the shale could not technically be termed a resource."

-- CAV

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Portable Ubuntu

Last week, I made note of one of the more intriguing software packages I have come across in a long time: Portable Ubuntu. I said at the time that, as a means of bringing the convenience of Unix utilities to my Windows workstation, it "might be far better" than the two software packages I had used before, Cygwin and MobaXVT (since renamed MobaXterm).

That has turned out to be an understatement, as one might guess from the Lifehacker writeup I found the day I googled around to see whether such an animal as portable Linux might exist. (The writeup is slightly outdated, though. Since then, a new release has come out, DOS: the Spanish numeral, not the operating system. You now start the program with "portable_ubuntu," a batch file that resides in the "bin" subdirectory of the Portable_Ubuntu directory.)

First of all, you are running Linux, in parallel with Windows. Portable Ubuntu is built on a sort of virtual machine called "coLinux." (Click on the "trayrun" icon that shows up during startup and you'll see the Linux VM booting in a console.) The user experience is much like running VMWare in Unity mode in that there is no switching around between desktops.

This is good for novice and expert alike: People new to Linux have an easy way to experiment with it in comfortable surroundings and experienced users can manage their Linux installation like an actual computer. This SuSE Linux user got to kill two birds with one stone on my computing "to do" list: Experiment with the Ubuntu flavor of Linux and become able to use my normal calendar and organization software in any location. (Or almost any location. Read on.)

On those scores, I updated my "new computer," added some extra software with the Synaptic package manager, and got my calendar and list management scripts of choice running. It's nice to have my productivity applications at my disposal at work again, and to know that I now will always have them regardless of what operating system I might have at hand.

The major down sides have been the space requirement -- about 4 GB -- and "seeing" the data on the "Linux side" of the disk when not actually running Portable Ubuntu. The former difficulty can be offset somewhat by uninstalling some of the bulkier software (e.g., Open Office) either within Portable Ubuntu or, in my case, any other portable application suites on the drive.

The latter difficulty might have been a deal-breaker for me since I run Linux at home and always back up my "pocket office" at the end of the day once I get home. The easiest solution lies in creating a mount point and then mounting the disk image of the Linux OS as a "loop device" and then treating it like a part of the rest of the file system. For example:

mkdir /mnt/pen
cd /media/disk/Portable_Ubuntu_DOS/images
mount -o loop rootfs.img /mnt/pen
[Do what you need to do.]
umount /dev/loop0

Another potential fly in the ointment is that, according to the Portable Ubuntu FAQ, one needs Administrator rights to run it at all on a Windows machine. I was under the impression that I did not have these at work, and yet I can run Portable Ubuntu there. Perhaps I have some sort of limited Administrator rights, and these are enough. Perhaps this information is wrong. (I don't know the answer to either of these questions.)

In the meantime, I'm enjoying this fun boost to my productivity and highly recommend Portable Ubuntu.

-- CAV

Updates

9-15-11: If you'd like to run a more recent version of Ubuntu from your pen drive go here and scroll down.

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Quick Roundup 503

Justice Thomas on President Obama

Regarding Barack Obama's disgraceful slam of the Supreme Court's recent ruling in favor of freedom of speech, Clarence Thomas offers the following history lesson:

The part of the McCain-Feingold law struck down in Citizens United contained an exemption for news reports, commentaries and editorials. But Justice Thomas said that reflected a legislative choice rather than a constitutional principle.

He added that the history of Congressional regulation of corporate involvement in politics had a dark side [Just a "side?" -- ed], pointing to the Tillman Act, which banned corporate contributions to federal candidates in 1907.

"Go back and read why Tillman introduced that legislation," Justice Thomas said, referring to Senator Benjamin Tillman. "Tillman was from South Carolina, and as I hear the story he was concerned that the corporations, Republican corporations, were favorable toward blacks and he felt that there was a need to regulate them."

It is thus a mistake, the justice said, to applaud the regulation of corporate speech as "some sort of beatific action."

Justice Thomas said the First Amendment’s protections applied regardless of how people chose to assemble to participate in the political process.

That's an example of capitalism being fundamentally at odds with racism I had not heard before!

Objectivist Roundups

Having recently rearranged my schedule so I can resume posting in the morning, I have been remiss in linking to the last two Objectivist roundups, so here they are.

And the next one will soon appear here.

Interview with Jared Rhoads

Around the time of the Scott Brown election, learned of yet another organization working to promote freedom in medicine, the Lucidicus Project. Via We Stand Firm, I see that Reality Talk has posted an interview with its founder, Jared Rhoads.

Olberman, Has-Been?

Maybe. Maybe not. His ratings are down and the article is parsing the usage of a tense by one of his network executives, but I do like the sound of that.

Worst, Olbermann's network president, Phil Griffin, is publicly praising him, always an ominous sign in television. While referring to his host almost in the past tense. "Keith has been our tentpole," Griffin says, adding later, "I'm pleased with where we are." [bold in original]

I'll leave any juvenile cracks about the term "tentpole" to him.

Too Late to Zing

I think the French have a colloquialism for the phenomenon of coming up with the perfect response to a jab far too late to use it. (The idiom, if I recall correctly, involved the idea of having already walked down stairs after an argument.)

Anyhow, my riposte came up just now, days after some angry Christian apologist asked me if I thought children were innocent.

What could I have said? "Of course I do: I reject the idea of original sin!"

That doesn't cover the whole issue, of course, but I still like it.

[Update: The term I was looking for is l'esprit de l'escalier ("staircase wit"). Many thanks to commenter B. Wilson.]

Among the Perils of Social Metaphysics...

... is the fact that a five-year-old can "emasculate" you.

The danger to me in that situation would be different: I'd break out laughing, and possibly test my safety harness as a result!

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Added note on "staircase wit."

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Integrity Ban to be Lifted?

For as many of his policies I so vehemently oppose, I am cautiously optimistic that Barack Obama will succeed in lifting the ban-that-isn't-called-a-ban on service in the military by people who are openly homosexual.

I am particularly impressed with this argument in favor of ending the "don't ask, don't tell" policy by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

"No matter how I look at the issue," Mullen said, "I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens." Noting that he was speaking for himself and not for the other service chiefs, Mullen added: "For me, it comes down to integrity - theirs as individuals and ours as an institution." [bold added]

I served in the submarine force when Bill Clinton was elected President and recall the last time this issue was raised for serious consideration. Among the objections to having gays serve openly was the fear that their presence could damage morale and harm unit cohesion, I presume due to the homophobia that used to be so prevalent in male culture. While you can certainly change the official policy on homosexuality with the stroke of a pen, you cannot change common attitudes quite so easily.

When this question was in the limelight, I could see merit in both the above argument and the notion that if someone is gay and serving in the military, he ought to be able to say so if he wishes. I also recall being unsure that making big changes to the then-current policy quickly would be a wise move and so leaned against doing so. (I did think even then that the ban should eventually be lifted. My concern was that the time was wrong or that the change would be implemented poorly. The latter possibility does give me some pause now.)

I would, some time later, be surprised to learn that there were several gay enlisted men serving with me on my submarine. I even got the impression that practically all the enlisted men and my fellow junior officers knew who they were. As far as I could tell, nobody really cared. So much for my theory that I was probably a little bit ahead of my time on that question! Apparently this issue wasn't really a big deal after all.

Granted, the submarine force is generally better-educated than other segments of the military, but still, that was nearly twenty years ago. Social acceptance of homosexuality has improved drastically since then. Knowing what I know now, and having a better philosophical grasp of the issues at stake, I think it's high time to lift the ban on openly gay individuals serving in the military.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Fixed last sentence. (HT: Jennifer Snow)

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The Meddler-in-Chief

meddle -- to involve oneself in a matter without right or invitation; interfere officiously and unwantedly

Meddlers come in all shapes and sizes. Some mean well, and some don't, but all annoy. Why?

Because even in the rare case that the meddler really does have the best interests of others at heart (and he is also actually right), he is failing to respect their sovereignty as individuals. This meddler is also often, like his close cousin, the incessant proselytizer, guilty of a failure to communicate objectively. Such a failure usually starts without even bothering to listen before droning on about whatever it is the whole world ought to drop everything to start doing right now.

In such a best case, such a failure can antagonize even people who might otherwise be naturally inclined towards a meeting of minds with the proselytizer or the meddler. It rankles to be spoken to like a child about a matter, as if one has never given it a moment's thought before. I wonder how many times fellow advocates of Objectivism have made such a mistake -- particularly when still new to the philosophy and so eager to get the word out that they become blind to the need for other people to see for themselves what the big hubbub is all about. I've made this mistake before and will doubtless stumble into it again.

In any event, it was while pondering Cassandra's dilemma that I ran into several blatant examples of our "Commander"-in-Chief, a consummate meddler who does not have our best interests at heart, both failing to respect the personal sovereignty of his employers and being guilty of non-objective communication. On the latter score, Obama is doomed to communicate non-objectively because his goals require him to be deceptive.

First -- and I am disgusted to see a Republican siding with him here -- the President of the United States is preparing to stick his nose into how a game is played:

... President Barack Obama, before he was sworn in, had stated his preference for a [college football] playoff system. In 2008, Obama said he was going to "to throw my weight around a little bit" to nudge college football toward a playoff system, a point that [Republican Orrin "Boyle"] Hatch stressed when he urged Obama last fall to ask the department to investigate...

And note the condescension below, adding insult to the injury of the threat to violate the property rights of those involved.

[Assistant Attorney General Ronald] Weich said that other options include encouraging the NCAA to take control of the college football postseason; asking a governmental or non-governmental commission to review the costs, benefits and feasibility of a playoff system; and legislative efforts aimed at prompting a switch to a playoff system.

Obviously, since Barack Obama sees things differently than the rubes who run college football, they can't have thought of "other options" or crunching the numbers on a playoff system. The nerve! Even if a playoff system would make them more money, perhaps the BCS was chosen for some other reason. It really doesn't matter, though: It's Barack Obama's job to make sure we, the people, can mind our own affairs, not to tell us what to do in excruciating detail.

Moving along, we have Barack Obama admitting to a room full of political opponents what we all figured he knew all along -- what he had to know:

The last thing I will say, though -- let me say this about health care and the health care debate, because I think it also bears on a whole lot of other issues. If you look at the package that we've presented -- and there's some stray cats and dogs that got in there that we were eliminating, we were in the process of eliminating. For example, we said from the start that it was going to be important for us to be consistent in saying to people if you can have your -- if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you're not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge. [bold in original]

As if we're supposed to get up and thank the One for putting a stop to the political gravy train before it was too late...

As with his lousy governing philosophy and policy ideas, Barack Obama's meddling and obfuscation, which are part and parcel of his motivating philosophy, are becoming too obvious to ignore. Mark Steyn, writing about the State of the Union Address, sums this up beautifully, although some dots could use connecting:

Simply as a matter of internal logic, this [advocacy of government solutions for everything] is somewhat perplexing. After all, when he isn't blaming George W. Bush, Mr. Obama blames "Washington" - a Washington mired in "partisanship" and "pettiness" and "the same tired battles" and "Washington gimmicks" that do nothing but ensure that our "problems have grown worse." Washington, Mr. Obama tells us, is "unable or unwilling to solve any of our problems."

So let's have more Washington! That raises the question: Does even Mr. Obama listen to his speeches?

I think he does, but that he thinks the American people are too dull-witted to catch on. Too bad Orrin "Boyle" Hatch is really playing on the same team.

-- CAV

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