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Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon.-- Winston Churchill Sorry folks, my web host went MIA with all my files and
databases.
I'm moving everything to a new webhost, but it will
take some time.
Meanwhile, check out my photo album. and send a message to the UN. (I got a pro-capitalist message through today :-))
Question for the geeks: Is anyone familiar with XSLT transforms? I want to make /david/essays look exactly the same as /david/writing using XSLT (via PHP's Sablot) transforms. See the "essays" page for XML/XSL sources. Help!
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December 05, 2003
December 03, 2003
December 02, 2003
More death-worship from the Palestinians. Anyone who still thinks only a minority of Palestians support terrorism is living in a fantasy world.
Howard Dean Vows to ‘BREAK UP GIANT MEDIA ENTERPRISES’
Check out this masterpiece of evasion by Howard Dean on the Drudge Report. Observe how he expects the media companies to offer themselves as willing sacrifices for the sake of “democracy,” and that he defines “censorship” not as the absence of governmental control of the press, but as the active use of government coercion to provide “information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.” Note also the New Deal justification of “saving capitalism from itself.”
Dean is right about one thing — “The essence of capitalism, which the right-wing never understands — it always baffles me — is, you got to have some rules.” What socialists like Dean will never understand however, is that the basic rule of capitalism is not the adoption of socialism, but the removal of force from men’s relationships.
Continue reading "Howard Dean Vows to ‘BREAK UP GIANT MEDIA ENTERPRISES’"
Kyoto is Dead
Russia has rejected the Kyoto Protocol. As TCS points out, Russia’s real motivations have more to do with pragmatic politicking than any regard for the sound science, but with the EU itself falling far behind its own Kyoto goals, this environmentalist wet dream (and economic nightmare) is finished. Good riddance!
Never thought it would happen to me…
I discovered today that my credit card racked up $2,500 in charges during the last two days for unspecified “network services.” I have my suspicions about how my number leaked out, so I offer this advice: don’t ever send out your credit card number on a non-encrypted connection, even if it’s someone you trust. Btw, while I was waiting for a CitiBank rep, I heard two things — “Congratulations, your account limit has been upgraded to $3000!” and some advice: “spend wisely - live richly.”
November 30, 2003
Bush has decided to repeal the steel tariffs that caught him so much criticism from all sides of the political spectrum. See my earlier comments on the tariff. Looks like the commies will have one less issue to riot about.
November 29, 2003
Turkey-day Photos
I’m still in San Antonio, but the first of three photo sets is already up.
Update: I’m back - and the rest of the photos are up. (The photos were selected and resized: full-size originals are here.)
November 25, 2003
Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m leaving for a week to visit my parents over Thanksgiving. I leave you with a 1860’s political cartoon that would probably be un-pc today. (Found here.)
November 24, 2003
“Wage slavery” and other falacies…
This post is mostly for my reference. I responded at a local forum in answer to some questions about the nature of wages and the effects of productivity improvements. I don’t have much experience debating economics (as opposed to capitalism) so suggestions are welcome…
Continue reading "“Wage slavery” and other falacies…"
What comes up….
Did you ever wonder about that story of a penny dropped from a skyscraper on a pedestrian’s head?
(Yet more proof of my long-held theory that the today’s KKK is just a bunch of hicks politicians use to attack “extremism.”)
Jews and Political Radicalism
VodkaPundit: “I’ve always joked that Jews who don’t stay Jews end up as either communists or Objectivists.”
How true. I have two compounding explanations for this: (a) For historical and cultural reasons, Jews are more educated and intellectual than the average citizen, so they are more included towards participating in two the dominant philosophical trends of our time: Marxism, and it’s opposite: Objectivism. They are also more intelligent than the public (for social rather than biological reasons I’d say) so they are more likely to seek and adopt the root of the philosophical tendencies they are exposed to. (b) A history of persecution and holding unpopular minority beliefs had led many former Jews towards more radical social solutions, especially utopian ones. Ironically, this led Jewish intellectuals to be some of the strongest supporters of the Weimar-era philosophical and political movements that brought about Fascism. It also created the utopian socialist vision that brought about the State of Israel, for better or worse.
November 23, 2003
Sold Brides Endure And (Barely) Survive: To flee oppression, many North Korean women escape to marry Chinese men. Here are two tales of desperation.
Bin Laden in Iran
Fox News analyst Mansoor Ijaz: Al-Zawahiri was seen within the last two weeks, and bin Laden was spotted in July, says the network’s foreign affairs analyst Mansoor Ijaz.
…
Iran’s provision of safe harbor, finances and logistical support for al-Qaida is a measure to counter the possibility that U.S. action in that region could result in democracies on both sides of the country, in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ijaz said a warlord who controls Afghanistan’s western provinces, Gulbuddin Hektmayer, is working with al-Qaida on a plan to bring a large army of Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops into Afghanistan during the winter months to attack U.S. interests and to try to take control of the entire country.
Iran does not want to see us succeed in building a democracy in Afghanistan under any circumstances,’ he said.
…
‘But it was my judgment,’ he said, ‘that it was vitally important for the broader part of our government’s decision-making apparatus to know exactly what it is that’s going on there, because it’s very clear that the Iranians are trying desperately to not only hang on to power, but to fuel the terrorist enterprise in that part of the world.’
“Economics for Real People” website
Collectrix.com is now hosting Economics for Real People, a new introduction to Austrian economics in the spirit of Economics of One Lesson. Other than excerpts, I haven’t read it yet, but from what I understand, it’s a great book.
More Leftist Nonsense…
Laurel mentions a panel at the University of Chicago’s “Center for Gender Studies” pushing for unisex bathrooms. I found these lines both hilarious and revealing:
…many women’s restrooms have a caricature of a person in a dress on it. “Going into it implies that we are willing to be associated with that image. There are only two [images] to choose from. This moment involves an act of self-labeling.
…
Nate Claxton, another panelist, knew people who had contracted bladder infections because choosing a gender bathroom bothered them so much that they did not go to the bathroom all day. I can’t say whether sexual orientation is a choice, but one’s sex? Not unless you’re a transgendered freak —in which case you need an operation, not a unisex bathroom.
Hillary in ‘04?
Mike Mazza reports that Hillary’s filed a report with the FEC for the presidential vote in ‘04. Could it be? I wouldn’t put it past her. May God have mercy on us all.
New Battlestar Gallactica Series
Last year, I started watching 1979-era Battlestar Gallactica episodes on the SciFi channel. The show was pretty decent, and when I heard that a new series was being made, I was initially excited. Then I read the intro:
So we’ve set out to bring the old boy back to life and give him a new look and a new outlook on life. And we’re going to ask him to tell his stories again, from the beginning. Tell them again, but this time go deeper. See, we were young once and when the old guy spun his tales of Apollo and Starbuck, we were satisfied with clear-cut heroes and nakedly evil villains. But we’re older now. We’ve eaten a lot of popcorn over the years. We’re ready for a bigger meal. Make the story more complicated. Make the people less black-and-white. Challenge us, provoke us, grab us by the throat with those massive hands and dare us to invest ourselves in flawed characters who face ambiguous choices in an imperfect world. Dare us to root for heroes with all-too-human weaknesses. See if we’ll still embrace them if they fall prey to their imperfections.
See if I still care to watch the show. Incidentally, that seems to be the theme of all the original movies and many shows the SciFi channel makes: empty, plotless and nihilistic shoot-em-ups where there are no good or bad guys, just hormone and violence crazed lunatics running around and bitching about how pathetic and primitive human beings are.
(There is some good stuff in the mix: Stargate SG1 is a great show, and Tremors isn’t bad either. SG1 and Law and Order is pretty much the extent of the shows I watch on a regular basis.)
November 22, 2003
Glow in the dark fish!
The next miracle of genetic engineering has arrived: glow in the dark fish!
Eco-freaks are already moaning:
“It’s biological pollution,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety. He said that even if the GloFish was not dangerous, failure to regulate it would set a precedent allowing many other ornamental fish to enter the market unimpeded. The fish may actually be the first positive thing to come from environmentalism: they “were originally bred to help detect environmental pollutants.”
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