Moral Minds(less)

In today's 11/02/06 edition of the Detroit News is a science report titled "Morality May Be Instinctive" by New York Times writer Nicholas Wade.

It looks to me like they are saying that human morality evolved from animal feelings.

"Primatologists like Frans de Waal have long argued that the roots of human morality are evident in social animals like apes and monkeys.

The animals' feelings of empathy and expectations of reciprocity are essential behaviors for mammalian group living and can be regarded as a counterpart of human morality."

So it's ok to equate the instincts of animals with the choices of humans? Nope. Choice isn't even mentioned.

"Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with a moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. In a new book, "Moral Minds" (HarperCollins 2006), he argues the grammar generates instant moral judgments which, in part because of the quick decisions that must be made in life-or-death situations, are inaccessible to the conscious mind."

What is moral grammar? My dictionary says grammar is the study of the structure of words and their usage within a language, but this report treats grammer as if it is not dependent on language. Also, how can grammar generate "instant moral judgements which"..."are inaccessible to the conscious mind"? The article continues:

"The proposal, if true, would have far-reaching consequences. It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best, giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of instinctive moral behavior."

Wow! Not only do these folks not understand human nature, they don't even understand instincts. Instincts don't need enforcers! The idea of innate behavior means that no one is born tabula rasa. Parents, teachers and religions are merely "enforcers" of a thing I suppose we could call original grammar. Anyway:

"Both atheists and people belonging to a wide range of faiths make the same moral judgments, Hauser writes, implying "that the system that unconsciously generates moral judgments is immune to religious doctrine." "

How does one go about making moral judgements unconsciously? Does this mean Muslims' moral judgement systems are immune to Islamic doctrine? Really? Where are these ideas coming from? Of course:

"Hauser argues the moral grammar operates in much the same way as the universal grammar proposed by the linguist Noam Chomsky as the innate neural machinery for language. The universal grammar is a system of rules to generate syntax and vocabulary but does not specify a particular language. That is supplied by the culture in which a child grows up.

The moral grammar too, in Hauser's view, is a system for generating moral behavior and not a specific rules list."

Reading this article you would think a thing like human free will just doesn't exist.
There is so much cognitive fog in this article it's intellectually tiring. I'll just close by adding that Mr. Hauser is probably causing Darwin to roll over in his grave.

The Little LTE That Could

I had a slightly pleasant surprize today. I had written a short two sentence LTE and sent it to the Detroit News. It was actually the last two sentences from my post "Diversity, An Anti-concept." It said simply:

"Dr. King said he wanted his children to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Diversity is the attempt to make sure that kind of judgement doesn't happen."

Well, the Detroit News printed it today (Wednesday). Later my son called me to say that it was read on air on the Drew and Mike Show on WRIF radio and that they said the LTE made a good point. They were talking about afirmative action and were reading a few LTEs of which mine was one. (Last time I checked, WRIF was the most popular radio morning show in Detroit.)

So, the moral is; keep speaking up. You never know when your words will be seen or heard by the right pair of eyes or ears.

To Vote Dem of Repub? Part 2

In my last post on the election "To Vote Dem or Repub" I said another post would be coming. In that first post I linked to Dr. Leonard Piekoff's article at Capitalism Mag. and Gus van Horn's post.

Since then there has been numerous discussions in Objectivist circles. I highly recommend the articles at The Objective Standard blog Principles in Practice by John Lewis and Craig Biddle. Also see Diana Hsieh's in depth article at Noodle Food and for more thoughts, checkout the lengthy comments section.

I haven't modified my original position much. I'm in agreement 99% with Dr. Piekoff and will vote heavily Democratic this election. But beyond that I'll be voting for gridlock. We don't have gridlock now because Republicans control everything. Perhaps things wouldn't be so bad if we had a little more of it. The Repubs however have not earned the right to be re-elected and are bending over backwards to adopt the altruist, collectivist, socialist policies of the liberal Democrats.

I prefer gridlock because I really don't want the Dems to have all the power. With all the power I believe they will immediatly start their censorship schemes one step at a time. There are two issues over which the Dems scare me. One is censorship and the other is nationalization of industry which they will call for as soon as there is a recession while Dems are in control. They will cry that capitalism and free markets have failed and it's time for the government to take control ala FDR and beyond.

It is this kind of evasion and blame game that will not result in the American people putting the blame for Democratic disasters squarely on the shoulders of the Democrats as some think will happen. I'm not so sure. It didn't happen in the 30s. Even though some intellectuals pointed to the facts, the public followed FDR anyway.

So, I will vote for Dems this election to get Repubs out of total control. I might even vote for Dems in 08 for president. But I think gridlock will buy the most time for Objectivism to grow. If anyone can show me how gridlock is a bad idea, well, I will consider it.

Lil' Science Roundup

Dennis Chamberland at Quantum Limit.com tells of the launching of a new project to develop a diving habitat called Leviathon. It's for diving to about 25 feet and spending the week ends there, or it can be used by professionals.

"The Leviathon is an underwater dwelling that features a command and control center, a sleeping, entertainment room and kitchen as well as a shower, bathroom and wet room. The Leviathan also features a refrigerator, air conditioner, a full suite of interior and exterior lighting enhancements as well as a fully enhanced audio and visual entertainment center."

(But does it get ESPN?)

Dennis also has a post on climate change down under and takes a look at the UN's idea of sustainable development.

******************************************

Paul Ashton at the Global Warming is Good site is saying goodby. At least he is going out on a positive, mission acomplished note. He says he started the site to combat GW irrationality, but now thinks the public opinion has turned around and is now moving more toward the rational. I hope he's right.

Anyway, I recommend readers visit his site and read the archives while available.

******************************************

While browsing around at the Sierra Times, I found a link to this report on the astonishing fact that if you lose weight you will save gas mileage. A quote:

"Want to spend less at the pump? Lose some weight. That's the implication of a new study that says Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gasoline each year than they did in 1960 because of their expanding waistlines. Simply put, more weight in the car means lower gas mileage."

This will no doubt, be the next 'crises' that government will have to step in and solve. The report doesn't say who funded the study but it's a good bet our tax dollers were involved.

New Global Warming Authorities

Simondo at Capitalist Solutions in Hong Kong had a post earlier this month on how Greenpeace is using a consensus of government janitors to support claims of catastrophic global warming. The key quote from Greenpeace campaigner Francis Yeung in the South China Morning Post:

"More proof of global warming's effect on Hong Kong comes from a survey conducted by Greenpeace and the Government Mod 1 Staff General Union last month. Nearly all of the 201 government janitors interviewed for the study reported that it was getting hotter working outdoors. More than 90 per cent said they had suffered dizziness, suffocation and heat exhaustion. Serious cases such as shock and heatstroke were also reported."

Looks like Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger can rest easy now that the global warming debate has finally been settled; the janitor said so.

To Vote Dem of Repub?

Capitalism Magazine has a post by Leonard Peikoff giving his reasoning on how Objectivists should vote this fall. I discovered this via Gus Van Horn who has his own ideas on this.

Evidently, Mr. Peikoff advises everyone to vote for Democrats on the ground that the left has no real power or appeal anymore and is not as dangerous as the religious right which has the appearance of having ideas on its side even though it doesn't. Gus also points to the contrary arguement by Robert Tracinski who advises everyone vote against Democrats and for Republicans. There are links to other sites on this subject as well.

My own incling is to do both. That is, to vote for some of each in order to achieve some degree of gridlock in the hope that neither side will achieve enough power to ram its agenda down our throats. The left can't wait to bring censorship to this country and will do so if given the power even if only peacemeal. They need censorship in order to mute the religious right and conservative ideas. In my opinion, the right would oppose this but only up to a point. They would be willing to compromise because they want censorship for their own reasons.

It's hard to predict which poison is most fatal. Both sides are appealing to different receptors. The left appeals to the public's feelings under the guise of an unprincipled practicality, pragmatism, which means, it's intelligent to rely on one's feelings to guide one's actions instead of principles. The right appeals to both the mind and the feelings by pointing out that a morality is a set of principles (which it is) which is derived from an all knowing and all powerful god, which means, if you join my religion you can't go wrong.

So the left says you must sacrifice yourself to the whims of the common good as a matter of practicality. The right says you must sacrifice yourself to the whims of god as a matter of principle. In this light, I would have to say that for Objectivists, the religious right is the more formidable foe and Peikoff is right--Objectivists should not be voting for Republicans.

Peikoff is saying that the Democratic poison may be toxic but the Republican poison will be fatal. In a sense we are building the ovens into which we will be required to leap when the inevitable sacrifices are demanded. Therefore we must elect the least competent builders we can find and hope that allows enough time for the medicine, Objectivism, to work. The least competent of course are Democrats.

Naturally, I leave it to my readers to sort this out for themselves. But I hope the links above and my two cents have helped in some way.

Another post on this subject will be forthcomming.

Diversity, An Anti-Concept

The Detroit free Press had pro and con guest op-eds on 10/17/06 regarding the issue of Afirmative Action. The pro arguement is by Scott E. Page, professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan and author of a book promoting Diversity in all aspects of society.

After Mr. Page tells us how we value individual ability, he then says:

"An employer who wants boxes packed should hire people who are good at packing boxes.

But that logic does not hold for most jobs in the modern economy. Suppose, for instance, that our employee will help design a car or develop a vaccine. These are hard problems, and when a team confronts a hard problem, it needs people with different ways of thinking. Hence, the team's performance depends as much on its members' cognitive differences as it does on their individual abilities. Put simply, effective groups and teams need cognitive diversity. Ability alone is not enough."

First of all, what are cognitive differences? He doesn't explain. He just says "different ways of thinking." To me, that means different psycho-epistomologies, and it is true that everyone has their own psycho-epistomology or method of thinking. However, if you have say one white man and you add another you will have cognitive diversity. If you have one black (or Hispanic or Asian) man and you add another, you will have cognitive diversity. But cognitive diversity is not what Afirmative Action is or was about. Afirmative Action is about racial and gender diversity not cognitive. (Or there'd be a bunch of conservatives in every university.)

So, what he seems to be saying is that cognitive diversity depends on racial and gender diversity, which means that the content of one's mind is determined by race and gender. While such things may influence one's opinion on certain aspects of reality, they should not have much of a cognitive effect. Discovering that 2+2=4 or E=MC2 requires the same cognitive process regardless of race or gender.

Notice how he was first talking about a repetitive manual labor job of packing boxes, and now he is talking about creative jobs like designing cars and developing vaccines. Well, there are a lot more people employed in making and selling cars and working in hospitals and clinics than there are designing those cars and developing vaccines. Claiming that "most jobs" in our economy are of a creative nature is just plain false. Anyway, he still hasn't explained how the pigment of your skin or your gender will help you develop vaccines. But he tries:

"Capturing a person's cognitive ability with a single number (or even two) should strike us as odd -- "this is my son; he's a 116." Better that we think of people as collections of cognitive tools -- as bundles of ways of seeing, interpreting and solving. Better that we see them in their fullness.

Thinking of people as possessing bundles of tools doesn't deny the concept of ability. An individual's IQ score depends on the number and types of tools a person possesses. If Sarah has 60 tools and Kevin has 53, she probably outscores him on an IQ test. Nevertheless, when we put Sarah and Kevin in a group, what matters is not how many tools each has, but what unique tools each brings to the group."

What are "bundles of tools"? I would agree that an IQ score doesn't tell you much about a person's ability to think, but I cannot think of a better description of the cognitive content of many of today's intellectuals--a contextless, haphazard "bundle of tools."

But how do race and gender affect these "bundles"?

"If diversity is good, how do we find it? One source is experience. The person who grew up on a farm sees the world differently than a suburbanite. Other sources include schooling and training -- mathematics is a tool, as is knowledge of how to bore a cylinder -- as well as our cultures and identities. Our identities shape how we see the world, what analogies we draw, and what rules we apply in a given situation."

"Our identities shape how we see the world..." In other words, the color of our skin and our gender determines how we use reason. Reason then is a "tool" that doesn't have a specific nature whose rules and requirements must be learned and followed. Reason comes in "bundles" of different sizes and and types.

Actually, the concept of diversity has no meaning outside the context of that which one seeks to diversify. Diversity could be a bad thing. My car could have a diversity of breakdowns. Low imunity could lead to an attack by a diversity of pathogens. The USA is hated by a diversity of irrational ideologies.

The concept diversity is used today as an anti-concept. An anti-concept is an invalid concept used to destroy a valid one and smuggle into the mind of listeners an invalid meaning. In the context of afirmative action 'diversity' is used to destroy individual merit by holding that one's "bundle of tools" is determined by external influences like culture, race, gender, and other "experiences." See what's missing here? Individual merit. When Mr. Page says "Thinking of people as possessing bundles of tools doesn't deny the concept of ability.," he's right, it doesn't. But it does make ability take a back seat to the intrinsic theory of values known as racism. In short, diversity says a person's value is determined by how different he is from others. That's racism.

Homogeneous societies like China and Japan and others have existed for centuries without any serious diversity. Presumably then, these cultures are evil and immoral.
Of course they are not evil (at least for that reason). To point to the lack of diversity as a bad thing in America, the most diverse society on the planet, is asinine.

Dr. King said he wanted his children to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Diversity is the attempt to make sure that kind of judgement doesn't happen.

A Laugh and a Smile

A Laugh...
On Friday the 13th I was watching TV and decided to give my thumb a rest by watching the TV Guide channel to see what's on. As you know the TV Guide channel likes to show game shows and self-help and other shorts above the scroll of what is on now.

They then went to a commercial which you may have seen, but if not, it showed a man dressed in what might be a toga. He spots a small critter (I forgot what kind) out of its natural surroundings. He scoops it up with his hands and places it back in its habitat. He then sees a goldfish flopping around out of water so he picks it up, again with his hands, and places it back in a body of water. Next is a spider crawling along the floor. He gets the spider to crawl up on a piece of paper then goes outside and deposits the arachnid on a bush.

Now he goes into the house to get a tissue I think to blow his nose. As he takes a sheet from the top of the Kleenex box his eyes open wide as he reads in big bold letters "KILLS 99.9%" while a voiceover says "Thats right! KILLS 99.9% of germs, and that's a good thing too."

I laughed out loud at that commercial and have decided to send Kleenex an email praising that ad.

But, I pondered, what would be the right moral of the story?
Saving some critters is a good thing but killing others is a good thing too?
Buying Kleenex will help you save the right kind (and kill the right kind) of critters?
Enviromentalism tempered with reason?

*****************************************
and a Smile,

Driving home Saturday 10/14/06 morning from a local mall, I was listening to a black, conservative, Detroit radio talk show called Joshua's Trail on WDTK AM. I've only heard this show about 5 times so far but the two gentlemen who host it are religious for sure. Anyway, they sometimes have a unique way of making a point.

On this day they wanted to take a moment to give credit to President Bush for his amazing powers. You see, last year Bush was responsible for the number and intensity of all the hurricanes and the resulting damage. So this year they wanted to give Mr. Bush credit for making sure not one hurricane threatened the USA. What a man!

My Favorite Search Engines

Andy at The Charlotte Capitalist posts on a USA Today article about the search engine Ask.com. which used to be Ask Jeeves I guess. Andy says he uses Ask.com as his primary engine. I got to thinking maybe I should let my readers know what my favorite search engines are.

Although it isn't my favorite, I sometimes use Ask.com too. I prefer their map service to Map Quest which I no longer use.

I also have been known to use Snap.com and have no complaints with it.

But my favorite lately has been Goodsearch.com which is powered by Yahoo. This engine will donate half its profits to your favorite charity which amounts to about a penny per search. The home page has two boxes. The top box is the search box and the bottom box is for your favorite charity. When I emailed them asking if the Ayn Rand Institute was listed, they sent me a comfirming email which also said in part:

"Did you know…….

The Elephant Sanctuary has already earned more than $1400 just by using GoodSearch!

The Bubel Aiken Foundation has earned nearly $700 just by using GoodSearch!

As you know, GoodSearch is a Yahoo-powered search engine with a unique social mission. We give 50% of our advertising revenue to the nonprofits and schools that our users choose. You and your supporters can make a difference in the lives of many just by changing the way you search the Internet!

Here's an example of how much your organization can earn:

· 100 supporters search the internet just twice a day = $730/year

· 1,000 supporters search the internet just twice a day = $7300/year

Spread the Word!

While the press has done a great job in featuring GoodSearch, in order for your cause to earn as much money as possible, it’s important that you spread the word to your supporters.

GoodSearch.com is a new search engine that donates half its revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. You use it just as you would any search engine, and it’s powered by Yahoo!, so you get great results.

Just go to www.goodsearch.com and be sure to enter (my charity) as the charity you want to support. Just 500 of us searching four times a day will raise about $7300 in a year without anyone spending a dime! And, be sure to spread the word!

Put a logo and link to GoodSearch on your website
http://www.goodsearch.com/Logo.aspx

Encourage everyone you know to download the GoodSearch toolbar.
http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/

Make GoodSearch the homepage on all of the computers in your company or school.
http://www.goodsearch.com/MakeHomepage.aspx"

Write about GoodSearch on blogs and message boards.

You can see examples of what some other organizations have done at: http://www.goodsearch.com/About.aspx#faq16 "

With Goodsearch I now use Google rarely.

A Detroit Tiger Correction

Earlier this year I said I didn't think the Detroit Tigers had the talent or skill to hang with the big boys. They could not beat the Yankees and had trouble beating the White Sox. I said they would be at or below 500 for the season.

Well, I have never enjoyed being this wrong before. Even if the Tigers don't beat Oakland for the AL Pennant and fail to go to the World Series, they have still proven they can hang with the big boys, probably because they are now one of the big boys.

I happily stand corrected.

Go Tigers!!!!!

Afirmative Action and the New Segregation

There have been some Public Service Announcements on TV here in Michigan recently campaigning against the Afirmative Action Initiative on the Nov. ballot. The Initiative would ban the use of racial and gender discrimination in the hiring and selection processes. These PSAs show people who have ostensibly benefited from afirmative action laws. They testify that now that they have these laws, "We are not going back."

What these people are really saying is "In a free society where people deal with each other on a voluntary basis, I did not have access to some things I wanted access to, but I did have access to governmental force through the afirmative action laws. These laws enabled the government to force other people to give me access to the things I wanted. Now that I have this power, I'm not giving it up." (The real meaning of "We are not going back.") Nice people.

Unable--or unwilling--to think in terms of principles, these people fail to realize that if discrimination is wrong, it is wrong not only when practiced against certain people, but when practiced for certain people as well. To practice discrimination for certain people is to practice it against all others.

Actually, discrimination is a normal cognitive function and should not be outlawed as such. We discriminate every time we go to the store to buy goods like food or clothing. The process of evaluation requires discrimination. When buying tomatos we may discriminate in favor of the ripest ones and against those not yet ripe or for the cheapest ones against the more expensive ones.

This process of discrimination is always done according to some standard of value. What then was the standard of value being used to determine justice during the civil rights movement? Our Constitution gave us that standard when it recognized that each person has an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, i.e. individual rights.

But that was not the standard being applied to black people back in the 60s. I witnessed that era and I knew the issue wasn't being framed in the proper context to achieve justice. Few were talking about protecting black peoples' constitutional rights.

White racists had been telling blacks that as an individual they had little or no value because of their race. White civil rights activists were telling blacks they did have value but only because of their race, and that the solution to discriminating against blacks and other minorities lies in passing laws that discriminate for those minorities. In other words, the standard of value was still the collective (race) and not the individual. This allowed the white liberals to remain loyal to their core philosophy--collectivism--of which racism is a form.

Staying loyal to collectivism was absolutely essential. It laid the groundwork for getting blacks, and whites for that matter, to accept the next twist on collectivism--diversity--the New Segregation.

Diversity teaches people not to focus on their individual traits, but on their collective differences. Thus it becomes virtuous for schools to have seperate cafeterias, seperate dorms, seperate graduating ceremonies and who knows what else is coming? White southern racists might very well be rolling over in their graves today saying "Damn, why didn't we think of that"?

Americans have been betrayed by their intellectual leaders who have abondoned individualism in favor of collectivism. Adolf Hitler once said "Du bist nichts, dein volk ist alles", "You are nothing, your race is everything"--from Mein Kampf. A lot of real, living, breathing individuals died in his ovens because they did not belong to the right collective.

Dr. Martin Luther King said in his "I have a dream" speech that he wanted his children to be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. While Dr. King did not come right out and say "individualism" he nevertheless was focused on its manifestation: respect for the individual on his own merits and not those of his collective.

If racism is to be ended, it is it's source--collectivism--that must be rejected. But this will require the American people to demand our universities purge themselves of the multicultural and diversity dogmas. I think that alumni refusing to donate until universities abandon their collectivist curriculum and begin to study individualism anew, would be a good start.

Busy Week

I have been very busy this week. Blogging will resume probably by Friday. Hopefully.

Sad Commercial

There is a sad commercial appearing on Michigan TV these days. It is a commercial by Michigan Blue Cross Blue Shield and it says that everyone has a right to health care.

I say it's a sad commercial because it demonstrates how even educated people today do not have a clear understanding of the concept "rights."

"The concept of a "right" pertains only to action--specifically to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men." (Ayn Rand from her essay Man's Rights in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal)

There can be no such thing as a right to a thing, like health care or education or anything else for that matter. There is only the right to earn a value or create it yourself. To have a right to a thing means that someone must be forced to provide it.

Blue Cross isn't advocating anything new. They are just cashing in on the intellectual disintegration of our time. If leaders like to tell the American people they have a right to health care, can we blame the Blue Crosses of the world if they try to make it their health care? If newspaper pundits tell the public that they have a right to a product or service, and politicians agree to make it happen, can anyone blame businesses for clamoring "Can you make that my product or service"?

(For more info on Ayn Rand see here.)

A Few Recommendations

Last weekend Mrs. Eyes and I went to see the movie The Illusionist largely based on recommendations by Objectivists. Well we both enjoyed it very much and are now recommending it to anyone who hasn't seen it.

*******************

Gus Van Horn has a link to a Senate speech by Sen. James Inhofe on global warming. I recommend reading the whole thing.

*******************

Steven Milloy at Junk science.com has a link to a report that air bags and seat belts may not be saving more lives. A key quote:

**The behavior responsible for this seeming paradox is called the offset hypotheses, which predicts that consumers adapt to innovations meant to improve safety by becoming less vigilant about safety, said Fred Mannering, a professor of civil engineering at Purdue University.

"When antilock brakes were first introduced, insurance companies noticed that the accident rates for those cars increased," he said. "We decided to see whether the offset hypothesis could explain this phenomenon."**

They had to spend money on a study to tell them something most people with common sense already knew.

The Geneva Conventions

Another inane Detroit Free Press editorial appears in the Sunday editorial section titled "Don't Bend rules of War, Even if Enemy Does." A subtitle reads "The United States must hold to high standards, not give terrorists more recruiting tools."

First of all, war is not a game with rules that must be followed or you are a bad person or nation.

Second, what is meant by "high standards"? Standard of what?

Third, our enemies don't rely on what we do to recruit more terrorists. Even if we had never humiliated or discomforted a single detainee, our enemies would claim we did and would have doctored photos to prove it just like they have done with the Jews. Plus, our enemies wouldn't have any idea what we were doing with detainees if we didn't have a news media eager to give our enemies those recruiting tools.

The editorial is about the Geneva Conventions which the U.S. signed onto in 1949 and basically how they are noble standards to which we must adhear according to 3 Republican senators who opposed Bush's desire to bend the conventions by giving interrogators more lattitude in extracting information. The fourth paragraph says:

"When dealing with an enemy that crashes planes into skyscrapers full of people and appears to delight in beheading civilians on camera, it is indeed tempting to toss the rules and bring in professional sadists."

I don't agree. To a rational nation and most Americans, the temptation would be to completely destroy the enemy's ability and will to fight. The Free Press must have a low opinion of Americans to assume they would give in to the temptation of becoming savages. The next sentence is "But the United States must be better than that." If the Freep means better than mindless savages, I agree, but the Geneva Conventions will not make that happen. Americans' own sense of morality will keep them from becomming sadists. But why is the Freep worried about how America retaliates against its enemies?

"Congress must ensure the compromise reached last week maintains a high standard. While the proposed law bans some specific actions as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions, it otherwise lets the president interpret the rules without further oversight. That leaves a lot of gray areas that could continue to tarnish America in the world's eyes."

So we must be concerned not with the facts of reality but with world opinion! Not with substance but with appearance!

"To stoop to the savagery of the enemy is to sink to its level, to cede the moral high ground in the righteous war against these international outlaws and to further imperil Americans who might fall into enemy hands anywhere in an increasingly hostile world."

Exactly how is stooping to the enemy's level ceding the moral high ground? When an enemy attacks you it has already ceded any claim to morality. No matter how an attacked nation retaliates it cannot cede any morality. It is always moral to defend oneself. Always.

The U.S. never should have signed the Geneva Conventions. For one thing they are unenforceable. If a nation refuses to abide by them, who is going to do what against them? We need to recind our signing of those conventions and stop trying to make war the civilized game it cannot be.

The Free Press's contention that without the Conventions Americans will automatically become sadistic savages is false and a confession of how it views Americans.

Noah Stahl has a good op-ed at the Iowa State Daily on this very subject. Judging by the hostile comments he must have hit a nerve with those who advocate the conventional academic dogma.

Detroiter Matt May also posts on this editorial.

More Government Worship

The Thursday 09/21/06 edition of the Detroit Free Press carried an awful editorial titled "Recall Power Can Mean Safer Food." It starts with:

"Contaminated spinach's link to one death and 131 illnesses in 21 states makes a strong case for Congress to empower the Food and Drug Administration with recall authority."

Why? Because:

"While grocers nationwide have heeded the agency's prompt and sensible request to remove the product from stores, food safety is too critical to trust compliance to an honor system."

We can't trust men who deal with each other on a voluntary basis but we must trust an institution vested with a monopoly on the legalized use of force and trust them to use it "sensibly." A hatred of the free market and capitalism can't be made much clearer (though the editorial tries to make it clearer below). Despite the fact that individuals acting voluntarily did the right thing, we can't trust them to do it again. We must give the FDA the power to start the use of force against them. Aside from the fact that Americans can't be trusted, the Free Press has other reasons for relying on government force:

"Many experts believe it's only a matter of time before the food supply is subject to terrorism. So the FDA, and related agencies such as the U.S Department of Agriculture, must be able to swiftly order that products be pulled."

That's right. Without government force, us ignorant unwashed masses will just keep on buying and eating the food poisoned by terrorists. The editorial continues:

"Lawmakers have been skittish about extending recall power. Companies that need to remain competitive balk at anything that might betray trade secrets, including how and where they distribute their products.[Obviously, the Free Press suffers from no such skittishness--ME] Even with one of the safest food supplies in the world, more than 76 million Americans a year contract some sort of food-related illness, with 325,000 serious enough to require hospitalization. An estimated 5,000 people die. [It doesn't occur to the Freep that 76 million sick people every year just might be a good reason to get rid of or at least question the existence of the FDA--ME] Food producers and merchants will play a role in protecting the public health.[You bet! It will be a slave to master role.--ME] But the government can't afford simply to trust these companies to do the right thing."

I said they would try to make their hatred of capitalism clearer, there it is. Despite the safest food supply in the world, despite only 5000 deaths a year from food poisoning out of a population of almost 300 million, despite the fact that private individuals handled the spinach scare promptly and sensibly, "these companies" and us ignorant masses can't be trusted "to do the right thing." More government power is "in order":

"Recall authority is in order, and it's a logical step. [This last is for sure!--ME] The FDA already sends inspectors to farms and cooling and packaging facilities to monitor safety. The visits are part of the agency's "lettuce safety imitative," launched last month to deal with resurfacing of E. coli outbreaks." And:

"The fieldwork will no doubt make FDA officials more knowledgeable about tracing problem produce, maybe even pinpointing a source. Congress must work with equal diligence to ensure that knowledge is paired with the overdue power for the FDA to act quickly so suspected problems don't grow into public health nightmares."

In other words, without government force, "suspected problems" will "grow into public health nightmares." Throughout the editorial, the Freep never does explain why the market can't be trusted, or why governemnt should be. The Free Press's attitude toward the initiation of government force reminds me of Yogi Berra's promotion of Aflac insurance in those TV commercials: "If you don't have it, that's why you need it."

Philosopher Ayn Rand once said "Do not, however, make the error of reversing cause and effect: the good of the country was made possible precisely by the fact that it was not forced on anyone as a moral goal or duty; it was merely an effect; the cause was a man's right to pursue his own good." (From "What is Capitalism" in "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal." p-29)

The Freep would probably contend that it is not advocating a moral goal or duty, but only a practical solution to a practical problem. But there is nothing more impractical than the unprincipled use of governmental force.

DDT Malaria Update

Pursuant to my last post below on DDT being approved by the Word Health Organization, I have found no mention of it in either the Detroit News or the Detroit Free Press. You'd think that something that could save the lives of millions of people a year would be front page news. Evidently it's not newsworthy in the Detroit area.

As far as I can tell, this story was available since Friday the 15th of Sept. when
the BBC carried the news.

Also, on the 16th, the New York Times carried this article.

Writer Celia Dugger says:

**Dr. Kochi’s new policies and abrasive style have stirred the small world of malaria experts. Dr. Allan Schapira, a senior member of the W.H.O. malaria team who most recently oversaw its approach to insecticide spraying, resigned last week.**

And:

**“He was professionally insulted by me,” Dr. Kochi said.

In answer to a question, Dr. Kochi acknowledged that he had indeed told members of the staff in meetings that they were stupid. “They are very inward looking, and they do not communicate outside the malaria field,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”**

It sounds to me like Dr. Kochi is the right man for the job because he seems to be reality oriented. The claim that "They are very inward looking...", tells me these people were probably emotionally oriented rather than reality oriented; that they relied on their feelings to guide their thoughts and actions rather than using their thoughts to guide their actions and feelings.

Andy at The Charlotte Capitalist has a good post on this as well.

Finally, the slaughter may be over

Steven Milloy at Junk Science.com. posts that the BBC, the NYT, and the Wall Street Journal are reporting on a World Health Org. press release saying the the WHO now endorses the use of DDT for indoor residual spraying (IRS) in Africa. It's about time. Only about a million people a year died because of the decision of William Ruckelshaus, then head of the EPA, to ban DDT in 1972 despite his investigating committee finding that DDT was harmless to humans and animals. I place the responsibility for all those deaths squarely on his shoulders.

Steve also has "100 things you should know about DDT", here.

I will look at the Detroit newspapers tomorrow to see if there is any mention of this. Both papers have been anti-DDT for a long time.

Housekeeping and Pluto

I apologize to my readers for the less than neat appearance of my blog. It was a little messy and I'm trying to organize it better. My most time consuming task was updating the blogroll. I've eliminated a few links and added some and put them all in alphbetical order. I have resolved to maintain and update my blogroll more often and hope that my site will be slightly more pleasant to visit.

How about poor Pluto. According to a sidebar in the Detroit News 09/15/06 Pluto has been given a number to reflect the loss of his status as a planet. (You'll have to scroll down)

Word is he's taking it pretty hard. I hear his mom is trying to console him:

"There, there now Pluto it could have been worse."

"Yeah how?"

"Well they didn't name you Uranus. Look at him. Earthlings have been laughing at him ever since they discovered him. He doesn't get any respect. Why he's been the butt (see what I mean) of an endless stream of jokes. But you Pluto, you get genuine respect. Now doesn't that make you feel a little better?"

"No, but nice try mom."

Planet, ahem, dwarf planet watchers speculate that this last move will push Pluto into therapy. It's true then, there is a lot of sadness in the world, er, solar system, universe?

The Plain Truth

Sometimes our Islamic enemies tell us in plain and simple terms what they are all about. In Monday's 09/11/06 Detroit News is an AP article by Calvin Woodward about 9/11. It ends with this quote taken from a tape posted on the internet Sunday night about what al-Qaida loves:

**"Planning for Sept. 11 did not take place behind computer monitors or radar screens, nor inside military command and control centers, but was surrounded with divine protection in an atmosphere brimming with brotherliness ... and love for sacrificing life," an unidentified narrator said.**

Doesn't get any plainer than that.

Science--Kinda Sorta

The 09/12/06 Detroit News has an AP report by Randolph E. Schmid titled "Study links warming, hurricane strength." The part that struck me was this quote:

**"The work that we've done kind of closes the loop here," said Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., a co-author of the paper.

"The important conclusion is that the observed (sea-surface temperature) increases in these hurricane breeding grounds cannot be explained by natural processes alone," Wigley said. "The best explanation for these changes has to include a large human influence."**

Please understand what using this kind of criterion for establishing truth means. It means that, in practice, "We don't have any proof that Mr. Walker murdered Mr. Smith, but Mr. Smith's death cannot be explained by looking at any other people. The best explanation is that Mr. Walker had a large causal influence."

Such is the depth to which government funded science has sunk. Ayn Rand said that "Governmental encouragement does not order men to believe that the false is true, it merely makes them indifferent to the issue of truth or falsehood." This study is a glaring example of just such indifference.

There are lots of other things wrong with that report, like how do you "kind of close a loop"? and why are they using link instead of correlation?, but I think I've made my main point.

(The quote is from Ayn Rand's essay "Establishing of an Establishment" which is now in the book "Philosophy Who Needs It?" page 162 and can be found at most book stores or here.)

Remembering

On this 5th anniversary of 9/11 I decided to watch a 43 minute video put together by MEMRI which I found at Principles in Practice.

While I think it is good to remember and honor those who died that day, I also think their deaths require another course of action--to balance the scales of justice. So far, under Bush, this is not happening.

That is why looking into the face of naked evil may strengthen our resolve to get those scales balanced by destroying those states that sponsor jihad against the West, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

***************************************

On 9/11 2001, I came home from working the midnight shift and turned on the tv only to see the twin towers smoking. As I watched, the news people were reporting on another plane hitting the Pentagon. "Wow" I thought, "This is war." "This has got to mean the end of terrorist nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia." When Bush said something to the effect of "They will hear from all of you soon" I was behind him 100%.

But I began to lose confidence in his moral resolve when I heard that he changed the name of the Afgan operation by dropping the word Justice because it offended the feelings of Muslims who hold that only Allah can dispense justice. In doing so Bush was in fact agreeing that America does not have the right to administer justice, and by implication, was acting unjustly by attacking Afganistan.

I lost even more confidence in him when I heard he had our military follow bombing raids with peanut butter sandwich drops! It was like Bush was saying "Hee hee, just kidding. Didn't mean it." This had to convince the Taliban that Americans are moral weaklings confused about what they stand for. Well, as far as the educated class is concerned, they are.

Another Notice

Somehow I missed or forgot this announcement from Sept 1st. On the premise that later is better than never, here it is.


The Objectivist Club Association (OCA), a new organization
dedicated to assisting Objectivist campus and community
clubs, has launched a new forum - forums.objectivistclubs.org
- for all those involved in a club or interested in founding
one.

Discussions about recruitment and advertising stategies,
speaking events, club meetings, and other sundry club-related
topics are already ongoing, and you're welcome to start new
threads of your own.

By registering for free, you can ask
questions of fellow club leaders, share your experiences,
discuss possibilities for collaboration, suggest services and
materials you'd like the OCA to provide, and participate in a
dialogue with other Objectivists who take ideas and cultural
change as seriously as you do.

To learn more about the OCA, you can visit the main website at http://www.ObjectivistClubs.org.

Hope to see you on the forum soon!

Regards,

---OCA Staff

Undercurrent Notice

Dear Objectivist blogger and Ayn Rand fan,

The Undercurrent is now accepting submissions for its November issue. The article draft submission deadline is October 1st.

Please send all submissions and inquiries to mail@the-undercurrent.com .

You are welcome as always to send us your article ideas, or an outline to review, if you would like feedback from our editors in advance of the deadline. Please visit our website - the-undercurrent.com - for a review of submission guidelines or to peruse our past and current issues.

Whether or not you choose to submit an article for this issue, we encourage you to please post this announcement to your blog.

Regards,
_The Undercurrent_ staff

A Little More Good News

Zach Oaks at Oak Tree reports that the Penn State Objectivist club had a photo of their ad on the front page of the Penn State student newspaper. Good. The more publicity the better.

******************************************

My google alert for Ayn Rand mentions in the media also led me to the Iowa State Daily student newspaper and an op-ed writer named Noah Stahl. His op-ed "The boy who cried 'hate speech'" is really well reasoned. I like the way he concretized his points.

******************************************

Dennis Chamberland at Quantum Limit links to a site with some pretty amazing pictures of Earth taken from space. I like the ones taken of Earth at night.

******************************************
IDEAS TO THINK ABOUT

Gus Van Horn has an insightful analysis of Sandall's essay on the role of elites in the decline of their societies.

At Capitalism Magazine Walter Williams discusses the meaning of the concept 'discrimination.'

Craig Biddle at Principles in Practice writes on "Relativism and Religion vs the Lives of Americans."

Cox & Forkum outdid themselves again in two cartoons here and here.

Another Witch Doctor Wannabe

The Monday Sept 4th Detroit Free Press carried an AP article called "Obesity called threat to world health" which states that:

**"We are not dealing with a scientific or medical problem. We're dealing with an enormous economic problem that, it is already accepted, is going to overwhelm every medical system in the world," said Dr. Philip James, the British chairman of the International Obesity Task Force.

James said the cost of treating obesity-related health problems was immeasurable on a global scale, but the group estimated it at billions of dollars a year in nations such as Australia, Britain and the United States.**

By saying obesity is not a scientific or medical problem, he is saying in essence "Let the censorship begin. We won't consider any more scientific or medical facts. Instead we only need to focus on an entity called the globe which is losing billions of dollers and now we must decide how to force citizens to change their behavior in such a way that this entity stops losing so much money."

Novelist Ayn Rand pointed out that Attilas (dictators) rule the physical world but they need witch doctors (intellectuals) who rule the metaphysical world, to provide them (the dictators) with a justification (propaganda) for their rule by force. Notice the phrase "...it is already accepted..." Not proven but accepted. By whom? Obviously by other witch doctors.

Dr. Philip James may not regard himself as a witch doctor wannabe, but that is the role he is playing by allowing himself to become an establishment scientist where facts take a back seat to the latest governmentally desired policy.

A Little Good News

My Google alert for Ayn Rand mentions in the media alerted me to this article on a "Riding for Reading" program. What caught Mike's Eyes was the last sentence of the article:

"The Riding for Reading program also supports and contributes funds to the Ayn Rand Institute's essay writing scholarships."

Good Show!

Mike's Eyes See The Unseen

With all the hand-wringing articles written this past week about how all the King's horses and all the King's men still haven't put Humpty Dumpty (New Orleans) back together again, I thought it would be good to focus attention not on those things that reporters, photographers and politicians can see, but on things that they can't or won't look at.

They can't see for example that in a laissez-faire economy, the government would not be permitted to interfere in the market in any way, that the government's sole responsibility would be to protect the individual rights of its citizens by providing a military, police and the courts.

What does this mean in regards to Katrina? It means that there would not have been Congressmen and Senators using altruism to pass legislation to provide flood insurance for people who wanted to open businesses or build homes on nothing more that Delta silt. The government would not have been allowed to build levees at taxpayer expense so that some people could live in a paradise at the expense of others. In short New Orleans probably would not exist.

But suppose a conglomeration of wealthy businessmen wanted to build there anyway and were willing to pay for the building and the insurance. Because they are motivated by the quest for profits, insurance companies would have some stringent requirements. I can see where they would insist that millions of yards of sand and soil be brought in to raise the ground level to or above sea level as was done after a hurricane devestated Glaveston Texas at the turn of the century. They would also demand that levees be built to withstand the worst case scenario--a catagory 5 hurricane. To insure those levees, the underwriters would demand that maintenance be performed according to a regular schedule. Inspections would be held to ensure the schedule was followed.

There would be other requirements as well. I can see where the insurance companies would demand for example that all buildings with back-up generators place those generators no lower than say, the third floor. I can see where businessmen would want to work with law enforcement and city and state government to ensure an effective evacuation plan. Of course this is all motivated by the profit motive.

But in reality, congress decided it would interfere in the marketplace to provide flood insurance. They were motivated by the ritual-oriented morality of altruism, not the profit motive. No politician stood to lose a cent if disaster struck and people died. A rational motivation just wasn't there. But an irrational one was, the ritual of "It's not for me I do this, it's for others." If you perform this ritual, it forgives all evil that may result.

It's obvious that Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin never bothered to ask what if. What if the city flooded with all those buildings having back-up generators on the first floor? What if it flooded and all those school busses were rendered useless? These and other questions were never asked. There was no motivation to ask them. Neither the mayor, the governor nor even the boss of FEMA would lose a fortune in any disaster. Nor would they stand to save a lot of money by doing things right.

The inefficiencies of government were slap-in-the-face obvious. It's way past time to get the government out of the crises preparedness business and let private enterprise handle it. This is not to say there is no role for government in the aftermath of a disaster. The government can and should have troops poised to move in and patrol the streets to prevent looting of homes and businesses until local law enforcement can regain control. The protection of property rights is a proper function of government.

Laissez-faire capitalism can prevent and at least ameliorate most human disasters. Notice also that there would have been no "projects" built by government to encourage able bodied people to adopt a dependency mindset and to make sitting ducks of the infirm and disabled of that group. The efficiencies of the private sector were only glimpsed in Katrina. But it is time to focus all eyes on the private sector and see what they need to handle the Katrinas of the future.

Spotted by Mikes Eyes Sat. 09/02/06

An astoundingly brilliant headline on page 10 of the Detroit Free Press of Sept. 2nd. 06. I don't blame the reporter because often it's the editors who write headlines. It reads "Hiring helps nation's unemployment rate." Yep and the sun rises in the east and the sky is blue and....

*****************************************

A good report by Ergo at Leitmotif, on the censorship going on in India and how that country may be embracing some elements of capitalism, but is nowhere near accepting the moral code on which it is based-rational self-interest. A key quote:

"India is a primitive tribalistic society that’s being dragged out kicking and screaming into the light of modern civilization and capitalism and it does not know how to deal with the bright lights. So, very often it shuts its eyes in desperate attempts to remain in the darkness that it is so comfortable in."

Yes indeed. An aquaintence from India once told me almost the same thing, that the corruption and primativism were too deeply entrenched to allow the grasping of such concepts as rational self-interest or individual rights. But I want to add that the last sentence in that quote describes to a tee the psycho-epistomology of people I know on the left and the right.

*****************************************

Some good how-tos by Craig Biddle at Principles In Practice. There is the one on how to say grace at a table of Christians--if you're feeling bold.

And there is one on how to make your own Jackson Pollock painting.

On a more serious note he tells us how to win the war on terror in 5 simple steps. I concur.

*****************************************

Paul at Noodle Food has a collection of photos of government incompetence. Heh.

*****************************************

Speaking of government incompetence, Kevin at the Smallest Minority reports on a man who was arrested for stealing his own car. But before he was cleared of all charges, the police sold it. Now he can't get it back!

Another Appeal to Envy

In the Saturday 08/26/06 Detroit News is another Katrina-one-year-later article. This one is titled "Still Devastated" by Detroit News writer Francis X. Donnelly.

I'm not going to fisk this article. I just want to comment on one paragraph that caught my eye which reads:

"One year after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is a fractured city, divided between rich and poor, between neighborhoods with power and those without, between residents who celebrated Mardi Gras in February and ones who continue to live in the dark."

I know that a hurricane like Katrina can cause a city to be divided between those who have power and those who do not, but why the reference to being divided between rich and poor? Are we to believe that there was no such divide before Katrina? Or was this just an appeal to that basest of emotions, envy? I think this was an obvious bit of anti-capitalist slanting.

But the implication that somehow N.O. should all be back together again and the fact that it isn't is some kind of new tragedy, is a little irrational. The sheer magnatude of Katrina guaranteed such widespread destruction that no-one could fix everything within one year.

New Objectivist Psychology Website

I have learned from HBL that Dr. Scott Adams has taken over a psychology website and re-oriented it to a "decidedly Objectivist perspective." The home page of Fire Fly Sun is here. From there you can access other departmental pages. I highly recommend blogrolling or bookmarking it.

Government Worship

In the sunday 08/27/06 opinion section of the Detroit Free Press is an op-ed by James Lee Witt CEO of James Lee Witt Associates, a public safety and crises management consulting firm in Washington D.C. who served as FEMA director from 1993 to 2001, and Max Stier who is the president and CEO of Partnership for Public Service in Washington D.C..

For reasons known only to the Free Press, this op-ed is not in the online version so I can't link to it. Anyway it's titled "Learn the right Katrina lesson." What might the right lesson be? Well, if you're thinking that the human disaster that was New Orleans is proof of governments' failure and inefficiency, you just get those thoughts out of your mind right now.

"...we had better accept that good government is essential and start looking forward to getting things right."

Good government to me means protecting people's individual rights. To sirs Witt and Stier it obviously means providing for people's needs, not rights. But what is meant by 'getting things right?'

"Levees require sound engineering, investment and upkeep.[which would have happened in a laissez-faire economy. Insurance companies would have required it--ME] Advanced preperations need to be made to ensure the prompt delivery of relief supplies. More attention needs to be given to ensuring that those who need it most are being helped."

This paragraph, in fact the whole article, reminds me of the commercial where Bret Favre walks past a lady whose grocery bag just ripped apart and says "I would have double-bagged it." I take these gentlemens' solutions just as seriously as that commercial. As the saying goes, hindsight is 20-20 and that is what these admonishers are exercising.

"But we also believe the failures suggest some longer-term, more consequential, attitudinal lessons on the part of government and citizens that must be learned if we are to do better in the decades ahead." (my em)
They then offer 5 lessons that must be learned.

1. "Good results require good people." Sure sounds reasonable to me. But what is meant by 'good people'?

"The greatest assets of any organization are the ability and passion of its people. Just like the private sector, our government must attract quality people to its ranks by making government a place where public servents are well led, well trained, empowered and rewarded for their service." (my em) In other words, we must stamp our feet and demand that our government act and become just as effective as the private sector.

Obviously, these gentlemen never sat down to figure out what is the essence of government (force) and what is the essence of the private sector (trade) and that what motivates one doesn't motivate the other. They never learned that the government is (or should be) motivated by the task of protecting everyone's individual rights and that the private sector is motivated by the profit motive which is the exercising of those rights.

2. "Coordination matters." Again, *I would have double-bagged it.* "The federal government must play the role of coordinator as well as responder in a crises." Why? Why not let private sector handle it? The profit motive would ensure all kinds of 'coordination' and the money would come from insurance companies who would love the chance to save millions in liability claims. Evidently, these guys think that the lady should not be responsible for double-bagging her own groceries, rather the government should coordinate that aspect of her shopping routine.

3. "A long term perspective is necessary." Yeah, I would have double-bagged that too.

4. "There is no cheap fix." (Get ready, here it comes!) "The damage to a region like the Gulf Coast is almost incalculable, but taxpayers often bristle when told billions may be needed for some mundane sounding necessity like levees and restoring wetlands. If we don't learn that lesson now, we are doomed to repeat it."

This is obviously one of those "attitudinal lessons" we citizens must learn. So when the government comes to loot more billions from our wallets, no more bristling. We must shut up and take it.

5. "Understand and build on successes." Another one for the double-bag.

It doesn't occur to these gentlemen, and most Americans for that matter, that when government assumes such responsibilities, large sacrifices will be required. But when the private sector does so, no sacrifices are required. So why the insistence on a system that requires sacrifice? Because these gentlemen, like most of us, were wrongly taught that sacrifice is virtuous and that trade, because it does not require sacrifice, cannot be virtuous. Thus it becomes obvious that these gentlemen are pursuing what they think is the virtuous rather than that which is effective. Which means performing the altruistic ritual rather than getting results. This in turn, supports the identification of altruism as a morality focused on ritual rather than results.

Or to put it another way; a rational, objective, non-sacrificial way of caring for others is unaceptable to thier minds when in fact, such a morality of rational self-interest is far more virtuous than any sacrificial one.

That is why these men are so blindly attracted to government (force). It can provide them with the forced sacrifices they believe are needed in order to be virtuous.

Review of Surviving Katrina

This is a review of the documentary Surviving Katrina which was shown on the Discovery Channel Sunday night 08/27/06. At first I thought this was going to be another Bush bashing or perhaps another American way of life-bashing documentary like the recent global warming docs. For the most part,it wasn't.

The documentary starts with an explanation of how Katrina formed over the Atlantic, moved across Florida then turned north towards New Orleans (N.O.). A sizeable portion of the documentary is devoted to the warnings given by Dr. Ivor van Heeron, Louisiana State Climatologist. to evacuate N.O. and how these warnings were not heeded at first.

Mixed in with the warnings of impending doom is a human interest story as the documentary shows scenes of Katrina getting stronger and closer to N.O. mixed with scenes showing interviews with citizens who were refusing to evacuate. One lady said "I've been living here 34 years and it never flooded." One man said past huricanes have always veered away from N.O. and this one will too and because of that he saw no reason to leave. Here, the documentary makes no judgements or statements. It just shows that some of the future victims refused to move out of harms way. Period. Of course also shown were the disabled and old and infirm who were not mobile and because of that were stuck.

Narrator Mike Rowe tells us that "Through out Saturday, Mayor Ray Nagin urges people to evacuate New Orleans, but he does not issue a mandatory evacuation order. The city has no plan in place to order and enforce an evacuation and it is taking time for officials to create one."

The documentary also spends time interviewing FEMA director Michael Brown. He tries to explain away why things weren't working out. Evidently, Mayor Nagin asked for 500 busses to be delivered to N.O.. Mr. Brown said he gave the order to staff to arrange it. But the busses never arrived and no one knows why. Michael Brown is quoted as saying the order for the busses "...fell into a black hole."

There was one part I thought was a little disingenuous. It was when the narrator mentioned that 'Governor Kathleen Blanco speaks with president Bush and told him "We need your help. We need everything you've got." But their conversation is vague. The Governor makes no specific requests and the President makes no specific offers.' If this is designed to indicate that both people were irresponsible, I disagree. An offerer of help cannot know in advance what kind of help is needed unless those in need tell him. This tells me that Gov. Blanco didn't know what was needed and was hoping Bush somehow would.

Katrina makes landfall and the damage is extensive. Hospitals lose power. Their back up generators were under water and useless. It's total chaos everywhere. Some levees are topped and others break under the force of the storm surge. The city floods. I think drama director Jonathon Dent did a good job of dramatizing the utter chaos that resulted in the storm's wake as looters tried to cash in on the confusion and destruction.

All in all, the documentary shows that all three levels of government failed at the task of disaster prepardness, and relief. I was a little disappointed though, that the question "Should the government be in the business of disaster prepardness and relief?" was never asked. It is just assumed that such is the government's natural role. But Charity Hospital had lost power and for several days staff were hand ventilating some of the critical patients. When it became clear that the government-at any level- wasn't going to transfer them to another hospital, they appealed to CNN who did a report. Seeing the report a private air-lift ambulance company volunteered its services and quickly transported the patients to other hospitals. To me, the the utter incompetence of government compared to the efficiency of private enterprise was glaringly obvious. Yet it is the government we are told to depend on. It makes no sense.

Yes there were heros. The rescue workers, the National Guard soldiers called in to restore order, the doctors and staff at the hospitals and nursing homes and the people whose own stories of survival were told. For some, the human aspect of the documentary might be tear jerking.

But there were also villians and victims. The obvious villians were the looters and thieves. But these were just the parasites cashing in on the disaster. If the victims who lost everything in N.O. are angry, they should be, but not at those who were unable to save them from the consequences of past bad ideas. Let them be angry at the Senators and Congressmen of many years ago who saw that private insurance companies would not underwrite the building of homes and businesses on nothing more than delta silt, who stood on the floors of congress and used altruism to justify interfering in the market place by deciding to give federal insurance to builders and by building levees so millions of people could live in a paradise. 1800 people died so those politicians could go to bed feeling good about themselves.

They should also be mad at the intellectuals and editorial writers who told them it was ok to let government take care of their needs and some of them should be mad at themselves for believing it.

The documentary does a splendid job of demonstrating the inefficiency of all levels of government. But it doesn't ask or address the question "Why is this so?" It's leaving that up to the viewers to discern.

In a laissez-faire economy, Katrina would still have happened. The human disaster that was New Orleans would not.

It's the Curriculum...

Sometimes a newspaper can run several stories on the same general subject, each one making a different point, sometimes seemingly contradicting each other. Such was the case in the 08/25/06 Detroit News regarding two news items and one op-ed.

First, the front page article "More Schools Flunk" with subtitle "544 schools fail to make progress." These are Michigan schools and that number is up from 436 last year which was up from 297 in 04. So why are they getting worse?

One of the biggest reasons given is 500,000 more students took the Michigan Educational Assessment Test. So? There shouldn't be any schools failing to teach kids how to read and do math. The existence of such large numbers can only mean that the school system has been failing miserably for some time and the new standards are just bringing that fact to light.

Nowhere in the article is there any mention of curriculum. But there is this:

"This is an eye-opener," said Sharif Shakrani, co-director of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University. "We need to do a thorough analysis of where the problems lie and what we need to do about it."

How much do you want to bet curriculum won't get 'analyzed'? Setting high standards is a good thing, but it means nothing if teachers are given a curriculum that stifles childrens' minds. You cannot stamp your feet and demand that carpenters build a stronger house if all you're going to give them is balsa wood.

The second item of interest is an op-ed by Iris Salters who is president of the Michigan Education Association, a teachers' union. It's titled "Union only improves public education." Boy what bad timing!

Ms. Salters op-ed is partly in response to an ad campaign by the Center for Union Facts which "incorrectly accuses union leaders of irresponsible education spending."
I know nothing about the Center for Union Facts but I will look into them. In any event, it seems even they are not concerned with curriculum but with waste.

Ms Salters doesn't mention curriculum either but claims: "Employee unions have helped to create a tradition of high-quality education." I'm sorry but 544 failing schools is anything but 'high-quality.' Again, it doesn't matter how skilled a workforce is, it can't build a solid structure on a foundation of quicksand which is progressive education.

The third article is a news item titled "Anti-psychotic drug use soars." For me the key quote is:

"The findings augment earlier studies that have documented a sharp rise over the past decade in the prescription of psychiatric drugs for children, including anti-psychotics, stimulants like Ritalin and anti-depressants, whose sales have slipped only recently. But the study is the most comprehensive to examine the increase in prescriptions for anti-psychotics.

"The explosion in the use of drugs, some experts said, can be traced in part to the growing number of children and adolescents whose problems are given psychiatric labels once reserved for adults and to doctors' increasing comfort with a newer generation of drugs for psychosis. Shrinking access to long-term psychotherapy and hospital care may also play a role, the experts said."

And this which appeared in the print edition but not the online one:

"Anti-psychotic drugs also carry risks, and experts said that little is known about the use of anti-psychotics in minors: Only a handful of small studies have been done in children and adolescents.

'We are using these medications and don't know how they work, if they work, or at what cost,' said Dr. John March, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Duke University.

'It amounts to a huge experiment with the lives of American kids, and what it tells us is that we've got to do something other than we're doing now' to assess the drugs' overall impact."

Yes. We need to do something other than what we're doing. That something is taking a look at the crippling effect progressive eduction has on a child's mind and to replace it with a rational hierarchically structured curriculum.

I'm not a epidemiologist. I only know from my own experience that things like ADD and dyslexia were either non-existent or very minor problems back in the 1950s. But I believe that the introduction of progressive education was the cause of the subsequent rise in these disorders. I can't prove it but my theory is that when pro. ed. was first introduced in the 60's and 70s, some teachers were still of the kind that knew how to think and even though saddled with an irrational curriculum, could help students get around or somehow compensate for it.

The next generation of teachers however, would have been products of pro. ed. themselves and did not possess rational teaching skills. The fruits of their labor would show up around the early 90s as the article above mentions. I would like to see statistical studies done to verify the time line of pro. ed. followed by increases in the disorders. If anyone knows of such existing studies, please let me know.

Katrina Doc.

This Sunday Aug. 27th The Discovery Channel is showing a documentary called Surviving Katrina. I will watch it and post a review on it probably Monday. More info can be had here.
Im told it will show man as a hero. I'll be watching a trailor later tonight.

Objective Standard Recommended

I just finished reading David Harriman's excellent essay The 19th-Century Atomic War in the Objective Standard. Mr. Harriman shows how philosophical ideas have a direct effect on practical and theoretical science. In particular he demonstrates the disasterous influence of the philosophy of Immanual Kant and his followers on the evolution of the Atomic Theory.

I highly recommend getting a subscription to the Objective Standard which can be had here. The fall issue is due out shortly so I urge signing up now.

Pluto Demoted

Well, it's official. Pluto is no longer a planet. According to an AP report that appeared on my Comcast news page scientists have decided on what is a planet. The new definition is:

"a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

Astronomers have decided that Pluto and other small bodies are to be classified as "dwarf planets."

Now if we can just get them to adopt "rational animal" as the definition of man, it would clear up a lot of things.

A Busy Week

Have been very busy this week. Blogging should resume Thursday I hope. Meanwhile:


Amanda Carlson at The Ivory Tower posts her first LTE. It's on the topic of the minimum wage and I thought she did well. She asked for opinions on her post as an LTE so I left mine in the comments. There certainly is a need for more rational LTEs.

Lil' Round Up

Morgan Freeberg has a post on the hipocrisy of Barak Obama who preaches to others not to drive gas guzzling SUVs but drives one himself. It's titled Missing the Smugness.

Greg at Noodle Food reports on Nicole Kidman and 84 others taking out a full page ad in LA Times blaming Hezbollah and Hamas for lives lost in ME. I left a comment about how I didn't know there were 85 people in Hollywood who thought that way. Greg also has a quote from Jimmy Carter showing how pathetic a person Carter has become. The interview from which the Carter quote was taken is here at Witch Doctor Repellent.

Craig Ceely at The Anger of Compassion reports on how Duranty lives in regard to Castro.

Fellow Detroit blogger P. Aaron at The Motown Blog has a rant on the recent cease fire in Lebanon titled "Joe 6-Pack Knows What It Takes To Win" with which I agree. But, as a side thought, the fact that Joe 6-Pack knows the score and the educated class doesn't, is a damning indictment of our government school system.

Dennis Chamberland at Quantum Limit has a post on how the scientific establishment is having a problem with defining what is a planet. Why don't they just use Aristotle's rules of definition and identify a genus and a differentia? It seems that the problem lies with the smallness of some of the newly discovered planets which are smaller than our moon. Anyway, to me, it looks like they need not a new concept of planet but a sub-concept like planetoid which could be any planet smaller than say Pluto. Then the scientists could safely say the Sun has 9 planets and 3 planetoids. See, all confusion gone!

Scotland Returns To The Primative

The following reminds me of the scene in Atlas Shrugged where a caravan of covered wagons comes out of the night to pull up along side the last train of civilization, the John Galt line. The lead wagoneer says his mode of transportation is "Slow, but Sure!"

From the website of Junk Science.com, Steven Milloy links to this article by John Stewart at The Scotsman.com.

Here is the main quote:

"ON A broiling afternoon recently when anyone with a reasonable excuse was
lying in the shade with a cold drink, I watched a performance in a
Perthshire field that made me as angry as I have been in my life. The
apparatus involved wasn't much to look at, consisting of ten stretchers of
the sort used by the medical corps, but covered in webbing instead of
canvas and mounted side by side on a steel frame with wheels at each end.
The whole thing was surmounted by a light steel frame supporting a canvas
awning and hitched to a tractor. I watched, at first incredulously, then
with mounting fury, as ten workers face down on the stretchers, heads
supported by a small webbing strap, were pulled slowly up the rows of an
organic vegetable field to pull weeds by hand.

This, I thought, is not so
much exploitation as degradation and a disgrace to Scottish agriculture.
To use human beings to do by hand something that horse-drawn scufflers did
a century and a half ag o, or spring tine weeders were invented to do 60
years ago, is the antithesis of everything I consider worthwhile."

If that weren't bad enough, check out the comments in favor of organic
and against modern technology in the comments section. These people
deserve to have Atlas shrug.

A Bolton Interview

Pamela of Atlas Shrugs has an interview with John Bolton which she links to at Politics Central here.


At the beginning of the interview, IIRC, Bolton said the U.S. is not asking for a cease fire but rather a "cessation of hostilities." How is that different than a cease fire? Unless it forbids swear words too! Mr. Bolton went on to say: "Everyone wants a cessation of hostilities." Actually John, no they don't. Hezbollah doesn't. In fact the leader of Hezbollah said that Hezbollah will keep fighting until all Isreali troops are withdrawn. That's neither a cease fire nor a cessation of hostilities. It's a surrender.

Mr. Bolton says that the U.S. is adamant in its demand that there be a Hezbollah-free zone set up in Lebanon. That is a pipe dream. It was the Lebanese government that allowed Hezbollah to set up camp in Lebanon and has allowed Hezbollah terrorists to be members of the Lebanese government. I don't see how the Lebanese government and Hezbollah will be willing to let a foreign force come into Lebanon for the purpose of protecting Isreal. It isn't going to happen. If it does it will be nothing more than a charade.

Mr. Bolton also reiterated America's policy of bringing *democracy* to the ME by pointing out that Lebanese Americans are also committed to bringing democracy to Lebanon. Our leaders, including Bolton, don't know that democracy always leads to unlimited majority rule. In the ME that means Isreal is not supposed to exist.

All attempts at cease fires and truces are evasions of reality. Being evaded is the cause of the hostilities, the Muslim desire to wipe Jews off the face of the earth. Hezbollah will agree to any peace plan as long as it results in the West allowing them to continue to exist. Even though Hezbollah knows it can never destroy Isreal by itself, it just wants to continue to exist so it can kill more Jewish civilians. That is all Hezbollah wants and the real evil is that America and the Western press is willing to let them do it.

Force vs Reason

In my post The Science Establisnment II I wrote:

"The essence of government is to maintain a monopoly on the retaliatory use of force. The essence of science is to maintain a pursuit of truth through a processes of experimentation and verification. In short, the essence of one is reason and the essence of the other is force. It seems obvious to me that to mix these two in terms of fundmental principles can only have the result of reason being slowly forced out."

Some pretty good supporting evidence comes from George Reisman's blog in an article I highly recommend. A key quote:

"State control of science is the attempt to combine opposites. In essence, science is mind; the state is physical force. Science makes its way by means of the voluntary assent of the individual human mind to its recognition of truth. In contrast, the state and what the state sponsors makes its way by means of the use of physical force and the threat of physical force."

Did the congressmen and pundits who advocated the creation of government science know they were creating an establishment? Probably not. Pragmatism has taught them to consider only what is immediately in front of their noses and to disregard consequences because they are not knowable anyway. Oh but they are knowable, and thinking in terms of principles will give them that knowledge.

Update to Obsession

Evidently, the link to the movie Obsession in my last post doesn't work anymore. Two days ago it worked fine as I watched a version of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West called Obsession: What The War on Terror Is All About. For reasons unknown to me (probably legal) Google has pulled it.

You can watch a short trailer and order DVDs of the movie here. If any readers know of a workable link to either version above, I would appreciate it.

A Short Review of Obsession

A friend asked if I would give my opinion on the movie Obsession: What The War On Terrorism Is All About. With a few small changes, here is what I e-mailed him.

I watched the movie and I do think it did a fair job of presenting how dangerous Islam is. They did a good job of showing how Islam seeks a global submission to it and how it preaches hate in all its schools.

I liked the way they showed the paralells to 1930's Germany and how futile and immoral appeasment was then and is now.

The movie also claimed that most Muslims are peaceful and have no desire to run around killing infidels or Jews. I take this however with a large grain of salt. Sure, some no doubt are very peaceful people. I have met some. But the problem is these people are not in charge of the religion today. The jihadists are. So, the religion has to be treated as a terrorist religion. In fact, it should be treated as a state whose leadership needs to be overthrown. (This is how Bush should have presented it to the American people shortly after 9/11.)

I think Islam needs to be treated the same way Sherman treated the South in the civil war: take out major supply centers like Atlanta, cut off supply lines to the rebel armies and let them collapse. This means Bush would have to topple Iran and Syria and Saudi Arabia, and he doesn't have the moral clarity to do that. Just toppling Tehran would cause Damascus to fall shortly thereafter I believe.

I do think more people need to see the movie. I don't think it will make television due to the graphic throat slitting scene unless they edit it out. Too many people believe Bush when he says Islam is a "religion of peace." That needs to change.

The one hour and 17 min movie can be seen here.

This and That August 8th

If you haven't been there already, LGF and Powerline and Michelle Malkin are exposing doctored photos of Lebanon by a Reuters photographer. Evidently, Reuters has retracted the photos. EU Referendum looks at more doctered photos. And for a crituque of same try here. (Hat tip to John Brignell at Number Watch, go to August scroll down to Props.)

What gets me is not that some reporters are dishonest from time to time but that this stuff gets by the editors. We are constantly told that bloggers lack the checks and balances of having a crew of fact-checkers or "gatekeepers" as the BBC likes to call them. There can only be one reason for this getting past the editors so easily, they want it to be true so they go with it. So much for the integrity of the MSM.

***********************************************

In a similar vein, Steven Milloy at Junk Science.com says that global warming advocate Ross Gelbspan is still claiming he won a pulitzer prize even though he didn't. Figures, people who don't care about the truth of global warming won't care about the truth of other things as well.

***********************************************
Why is NASA flying around looking for woodpeckers?

While at Junk Science.com I found this article. "NASA assists in hunt for woodpecker thought to be extinct." Ok I can see NASA helping out the university with their vertical imaging technology but I hope the university is paying NASA for its use. There is also this sentence:

"But last month scientists from NASA and the University of Maryland, College Park, Md., launched a project to identify possible areas where the woodpecker might be living."

It seems to me our tax money would be wiser spent on finding one of the birds for sure then examining the environment around it rather that maping possible areas where the woodpecker might be living.

I Feel Better Now

A few days ago Andy Clarkson at the Charlotte Capitalist had a good post tying Hezbollah's desire to wipe out Isreal and Michigan Senator Carl Levin's desire to loot profits of off-shore based companies as both instances of attacks on the producers because they are producers. Andy is right of course.

But Sen. Levin is my Michigan senator and watching him perform-just listening to him talk-over the years is an exceedingly frustrating experience. Perhaps I'm letting myself get frustrated too easily. Maybe I should console myself that I don't live in Mass. But I'm telling you, Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin could give Sen's Kennedy and Kerry a run for their Robin Hood credentials anyday.

I left a comment to the above post telling Andy that sometimes I feel like I want to join the repub party just to help get Stabenow and Levin out of office. Then again sometimes I feel like voting for more people like them so the economy will crash sooner and people will get what they deserve. But that is just me being spiteful and naturally, being spiteful is irrational and I must avoid the irrational even though it can feel good which of course it shouldn't. Sigh. (Andy was sympathetic.)

So, when I get thusly frustrated, I have decided what works best for me is to visit as many Objectivist sites as possible as well as taking another look at reality.

At the Noodle Food site Diana has the really good news that two of Leonard Peikoff's lecture courses are now for sale at a discounted price. I'll be taking advantage of that shortly because the offer expires Oct. 1st.

Blair at The Secular Foxhole recommends two books for good August reading. One fiction and one non-fiction. The book on coincidences and math seems interesting to me.

Jennifer Snow at Literatrix recommends Six Plays by Henrik Isben for more enjoyable reading.

Danielle Clark at I Blog can post on serious subjects but also likes to be a little lighthearted now and then which I find relaxing.

Toiler at Acid Free Paper recommends The Enemy by Lee Childs.

In addition to the sites above I recommend Cox and Forkum or go to any of the above sites and checkout their blogroll or mine on the right.

In regards to taking another look at reality, my second grandchild was born Friday morning and such an event helps one see the world in a different light, a most precious and value filled light. To see my son beaming with happiness at having a healthy son (the way I did when he was born) and the loving look of the mother as she cradled the little guy in her arms was, well, a scene of complete goodness.

I feel much better now.

Gramps again!

There hasn't been any bloging lately for several reasons the biggest of which is-- Mrs. Eyes and I are grandparents for the second time. Mommy and baby boy are just fine. Needless to say, the grandparents are eager go-fers as well as official picture takers.

Posting should resume Sat. or Sun. I hope!