Snarky Sedition

Emotional content

2011-06-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

I'm listening to a mash-up mix http://8tracks.com/vinkerekniv/perpetually-played-mashups where people put the words of one song to the music of another. I love that type of interaction even though I couldn't pull it off if I tried.

It reminds me however that music it completely emotional content and rhythm even if I can sing the words to many of my favorite songs, they make very little sense as stories or written word. Just try and write down the many Na na na na's of the song Hey Jude and you'll understand what I mean.

Which is precisely why writers can't write songs in stories. They connect great stories and a clever rhyme or two to good songwriting. And that it ain't. Songs are more of a base feeling expressed and only need to be written down to allow you to move further along in the feeling of the music. Adding your voice to it only improves the experience.

Which is why I believe humming and mumbling along to your favorite work is so important to all of us. I haven't met anyone who doesn't love music. The difference in what they like however is based more on emotional content than what the content of the song is.

The difference between a country song about losing everything and a rap song on the same thing is really more of a difference on how to deal with it and the emotions involved. They aren't the same. Which is why I think when I listen to music that although I don't particularly like certain styles of music, that there can be an exceptional work in that style that won't let me completely hate the genre.

Again it's not plays on words, or fast fingers in music that matters. It's completely about conveying the most basic emotion you can feel into sound and letting the words echo the feeling not the situation.

Moved to Tumblr

2010-10-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

Due to the ease of posting links, most of my posting activity has moved to http://snarkysedition.tumblr.com because I don't have time to regularly post lengthy updates.

High density living.

2010-07-19T05:00:00.001-07:00

In our ever growing populace we find that people are packed tighter and tighter. As we have more people I think we'll find that it's harder and harder to keep friends for a longer time unless we put more effort into the friendships that we do have. It's really a matter of the amount of time we have to spend with each other and the number of people that we have to interact with.

I tend to think that the impact a person has on the people around them is constant but the less people that a person interacts with the more impact that person has on each of the people that that person does interact with. It seems to be a function of time and proximity. I'm not sure that I'd want to quantify that though.

There are obviously people who will through stardom break this function but the trade off for them is that they have less people who will affect them since there is a matter of trust and freedom that a person in the limelight will have to deal with.

In any case I hate feeling like a replaceable part. I think everyone does. So don't let people who you care about feel replaceable.

3000 nails a couple of hammers and some twine

2010-07-18T21:42:00.000-07:00

If you have no idea what you would do with the list of stuff that makes the post that I just wrote, then be advised don't take an intermedia course. I'm just hoping that no one loses an eye.

Mere Christian Libertarianism

2010-07-17T00:41:00.000-07:00

About two-and-a-half years ago when I was in the Middle East doing my navy thing, my friend Josh Cannon was off in India doing his mission thing. We had some brief exchanges concerning religious philosophy but one of the parts of these conversations that sticks in my mind is when he told me to read a part of the Book of Mormon that dealt with the idea of free agency. In his first e-mail to me in quite some time, Josh wrote:

"i'm sure that you're well aware of most of christianity's fixation on Adam and Eve and original sin, but there's a chapter in the Book of Mormon that not only refutes that, but shows how utterly unreasonable that is. it's found in 2 Nephi chapter 2."

There were a few questions that quickly sprang to mind after reading the chapter but I was most interested in the political implications of what I read. So I asked:

"Does this chapter not mean that Mormons should support libertarian politics (or possibly anarchy)? After all, if people are not able to choose whether to have a homosexual marriage or an abortion or not without outside influence, how do we know whether they are truly righteous? Of course, God is the one who needs to know these things, but didn't he set up freedom of choice to determine who is righteous and who isn't?"

The link between Christianity and freedom has long interested me. Many have made the argument before that the freest countries tend to be Christian. Maybe that's true depending on how you measure freedom but I've always wondered if that link is due to the text itself or our interpretation of it. I could be cultural and a lot of things go into building a culture beyond religion (and I'm sure a lot of culture goes into building a religion).

I never hear Christians discuss the topic of "free will" as granted by God in relation to government intervention. It seems that most people don't consider it an important question but I think it's a pretty vital question. Apparently, Christians in the 50s and early 60s also thought the question was important. So important, in fact, that many believed Christianity to be the backbone of freedom, which was threatened by communism and other leftist agendas that were growing the state to enormous proportions.

LibertarianPapers.org--an online journal published by the Mises Institute--has a paper addressing this very topic called "The Importance of Christian Thought for the American Libertarian Movement: Christian Libertarianism, 1950–71" (the full essay can be found in PDF or DOC format here: http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/14-haddigan-christian-libertarianism). It's quite interesting and I'd like to share some of the highlights. Feel free to discuss it further in the comments and/or read the entire paper if you have the time. I'm curious to know why "free will" or "free agency" is not more frequently discussed in a political context by Christians (besides the fact that it would obviously undermine church influence). It seems that many Christians used to be among the biggest proponents of libertarian thought before being usurped by the evolving Cold War conservatism thanks to men like William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater. Not that I dislike these men but it seems they did a lot to change the argument on the right-wing of politics from one of limited state power to one of concentrated power in what they considered the right areas. Lee Haddigan, the author of the paper, writes:

"The crucial development came, for the Christian libertarian, when Jesus wrote the desire to follow voluntarily the Ten Commandments into the heart of mankind. Jesus gave us the choice, the individual freedom, to believe in Him and his message, or to reject Him. And as no manmade authority can intervene in that decision, the most important an individual can make, then no earthly authority can intervene in an individual’s free agency in those parts of their life—economic, political, or religious—where mankind attempts to be a good Christian and live according to the laws revealed in the Bible. Thus, Government is a ‘necessary evil,’ as Thomas Paine once argued, limited to the police powers of preventing the unregenerate from injuring the ‘life, liberty and property’ of their fellow citizens. When the State arrogated powers to itself more than those basic functions it became the ‘enemy’ of the Christian libertarian, interposing governmental regulations between an individual and their God."

On the topic of free agency:

"Rowe continued the article’s explication of the importance of individual free-will by pointing out that the 'Bible is replete with evidence of free agency on the part of God and man alike.' God was 'free to create and sustain the universe,' and in the act of Creation man emerged free 'to accept or reject Him and His way of life.' Further, God had not coerced Jesus to redeem the sins of mankind and, similarly, Jesus had not compelled the rich young ruler to give up his wealth. He was given the choice 'to choose wealth instead of God.' Neither, did Scripture state that the recalcitrant young ruler should have his wealth redistributed for him; 'Jesus might have instructed his disciples to dispossess the young man and to distribute his goods to the needy, but He did not do that.'

Instead, Jesus taught, and made clear through his actions, that one person could not force another person to act morally. Jesus offered a path to salvation where each individual was at liberty to act according to their conscience, to honor God by voluntarily following the moral lessons contained in the Scriptures. An individual could not be forced, for instance, to give charity as Jesus had given us the 'power to choose between right and wrong,' and when the State took that responsibility upon itself (the welfare state) it broke the First, and Great, Commandment—‘Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.’"

One of the arguments used to justify liberal increases in state power utilized an adaptation of the classic Good Samaritan parable.

"It recounted the tale of a motorist who suffered an accident on the freeway, and who was rescued only after the police were called on a car telephone by a passing driver. Other motorists who witnessed the collision were stymied in their desire to help by their inability to stop on the fast-moving freeway. Keiser’s lesson was that in the new mechanized age the ‘hands-on’ efforts of the Good Samaritan were now impractical; that modern solutions, and modern agencies, were the only answer to modern problems."

A rebuttal to this argument and mode of thinking quickly followed.

"Keiser’s fellow Congregationalist, the Rev. Harry R. Butman, disagreed, and made his rejoinder in the article, 'The Minimized Man.' He argued the modern parable illustrated the lamentable tendency among many ministers, 'to move away from the teachings of Jesus into a religion of collectivism.' Butman contended that Keiser and his brethren were too ready to embrace 'an unthinking worship of the machine,' and as a consequence regarded problems in society as a product of the new industrialized America, structural faults only resolvable by 'engineers' who understood how the machine was supposed to work. Butman argued that Social Action ministers (of whom Keiser was representative) held an unquestioning assumption in the efficacy of the State in administering to the needs of the individual, because the State was the only agency capable of effecting significant and enduring reform in the new mass society. Keiser, Butman objected, dismissed the choices of the individual as irrelevant and ineffectual in the face of the reality of modern conditions, mistakenly claiming that the dictates of a Christian’s conscience were only fully attainable in the pastoral society the Good Samaritan, and Jesus, had lived in.

Butman countered that the teachings of Jesus were timeless; that 'his stress on the worth of the single soul, and his disesteem of the organized group,' were as relevant to an industrial age as to an earlier agricultural society. Where Keiser 'minimized' man by making the car telephone and the police the 'heroes' of the parable, and dehumanized man by substituting the impersonal assistance of an organization for the human contact and compassion of the Samaritan, God glorified man by making him in His own image. The poet of the Eighth Psalm, Butman explained, delivered 'a pean (sic) to man’s greatness as God’s son,' and that ennobling perspective should fortify the individual in the impersonal society inhabited by liberals, and help him maintain the scepticism to 'never grant the Moloch-machine or the godstate the idolatrous homage they get from the unthinking many.' Butman recognized that Christian libertarians could not escape the mechanized world, and held out little optimism that the prevailing collectivist society could be changed until there was a spiritual revelation in America, but he stressed the need to fight the good fight and 'hold fast' to God’s commandment to 'love his God and his neighbour with all his heart.'"

Carl McIntire discussed how the Eight Commandment established the morality of property rights. Property rights, of course, are important to to libertarianism as it is often described by libertarian thinkers as the origin of all other rights and freedoms.

"McIntire explained the meaning of each Commandment in the struggle to preserve individual freedom, and in his discussion of the Eighth Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ asserted that it 'establishes upon divine authority the right of private enterprise.' God decreed that that each individual held the sacred right to dispose of their private property as they deemed most suitable to fulfil one of the obligations of Christian freedom; the stewardship of responsibility to God to aid those who were not as fortunate as they were. The state could not usurp that responsibility by the forcible redistribution—taxation—of an individual’s private property without condemning America to a socialistic future. McIntire ended his explanation of the Eighth Commandment with the declaration that it was the religious justification of the private enterprise system, as understood by the nation’s founders, that conceived, 'the system of freedom that made America great!'"

Apparently the classical liberal argument used to be seeped in religious context. I imagine increasing popularity of Ayn Rand had something to do with the shift of the debate but perhaps it is more likely due to the increasing unpopularity of libertarian politics. At any rate, the argument of libertarian being godless was baseless.

"In the Autumn issue of 1964, Ralph Raico reviewed 'What is Conservatism'—a collection of twelve essays, edited by Frank S. Meyer, presenting the ‘fusionist’ ground where traditionalists and libertarians could unite to argue a common conservatism. Raico took particular umbrage at M. Stanton Evans’ essay, 'A Conservative Case for Freedom,' for arguing, the 'libertarian, or classical liberal, characteristically denies the existence of a God-centered moral order.' He then proceeded to demolish Evans’ argument by documenting the Christian faith of classical liberals like Ricardo, Bright, Cobden, Acton, Macauley and Bastiat. He quoted approvingly Bastiat’s 'Harmonies of Political Economy,' where the French economis wrote: 'There is a leading idea which runs through the whole of this work… and that idea is embodied in the opening words of the Christian Creed—I BELIEVE IN GOD.'"

Even Murray Rothbard came to the defense of Christian libertarians. It's best to have a unifying political goal of freedom than be fragmented by religion.

"In the same issue Peden’s editor, Murray N. Rothbard, delivered a cogent defense of the philosophy of Christian libertarianism. While admitting, it 'is a bitter pill for us non-Christians to swallow,' he argued that in the two thousand years since the death of Christ 'the greatest thinkers… have been Christian,' and to 'ignore these Christian philosophers and to attempt to carve out an ethical system purely on one’s own is to court folly and disaster.' Of course, Rothbard noted, Christian libertarianism should be questioned, as all tradition should, by the faculty of reason. But, the empirical record showed that the Christian system of values has 'the longest and most successful tradition,' and that the 'Christian ethic is, in the words of the old hymn, the Rock of Ages.' In an almost Burkean conclusion, Rothbard acknowledged that modern libertarians 'stand on the shoulders of the thinkers of the past,' and reminded them, 'it is at least incumbent upon the individual to think long and hard before he abandons that Rock, lest he sink into the quagmire of the capricious and bizarre.'"

Those were just some of my favorite bits. For anyone interested in this topic, I think you should read the whole paper. I was mostly happy to see a paper that dealt with the issue of free agency as it related to political freedom. Naturally, it would be political suicide to try to use this context in politics. The implications would be that the state should do virtually nothing and even Christians enjoy their handouts. So Mormons like Mitt Romney can get away with forcing an entire state to buy health insurance. And Obama can get away with forcing an entire country to do the same thing (but we all know he's really Muslim).

Thoughts? Questions? Fears?

Russian Male Order Bride

2010-05-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports:

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia made clear on Monday that he and his protégé, President Dmitri A. Medvedev, were just friends. Really.

During a visit to Italy, Mr. Putin mocked a question from an Italian reporter who wanted him to explain the secrets to success in a “political marriage.” Mr. Putin has led Russia jointly with Mr. Medvedev for the past two years, after term limits prevented Mr. Putin from running for a third consecutive term as president.

Mr. Putin said the question had been phrased “in a very literary way.”

“Mr. Medvedev and I are people of a traditional orientation,” Mr. Putin said. “I can tell you this with complete certainty. As for marital unions, you have exaggerated a bit. But we are friends, friends for many years, I have already said this. And the way that we have arranged our work today — it seems to me, we can be proud of this.”

Don't worry, Putin. I hear they're quite liberal in Italy. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Day 26 On talent

2010-04-21T01:54:00.000-07:00

When I enter a class often times I find that there's a curse associated with working against talent, especially good talent. I never feel like I'm making progress towards talent. There is a competitive attitude in many classes that I feel pushes people towards progress. However the competitiveness I'm feeling lately is on a slow curve. I'm just not feeling like I'm making any progress at all. The problem is that every once in a while I'll feel it.

This is the in the zone feeling that everyone associates with sports. There will be a flash of inspiration and then my idea will work out great. It's like working with slot machines though. There doesn't seem to be a predictable way to make it work, sometimes it comes with music, sometimes not. Often there will be a day when the sun seems to shine just right, an idea will flash into mind and away I go. Artists often talk about their muse, but I don't have a thing that inspires creativity and I've never had to worry about a block for ideas. There isn't ever a time when something wants to come out, however there are times when those ideas don't translate to a story, or like yesterday come in the form of leave me alone I'm tired.

I've seen that there is a ratio of talent to people's work some are consistently above average and others not so much. I'm not sure what it is, some hard work I'm sure but some never seem to get better, and I'd like to find a formula for improving people in an expedient manor. Especially me.

Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration

2010-04-19T02:02:00.000-07:00

This one has been going around for a while. Naturally, I fell in love with it the first time I saw it. I thought it was worth posting here.

Something Wrong with Capitalism

2010-04-17T14:50:00.000-07:00

I had to make a definitional argument in a paper for English so I thought I'd share what I came up with:

Something Wrong with Capitalism

There's nothing wrong with capitalism. So sang Danny Elfman with his band Oingo Boingo in 1981. But what does that actually mean? What is capitalism? People the world over decry the system or sing its praises based on entirely different interpretations of the word. During the Cold War, there was a lot of skepticism about capitalism. People feared that it might not be sustainable and communism was seen as a viable alternative—indeed, perhaps the essential alternative. Then the Berlin Wall was torn down, eventually bringing with it the rest of the Iron Curtain. With new details brought to light, people in most of the developed world were finally able to see the fatal flaws in the Soviet system and how truly terrible life was for the nation's citizens. The fall of the Soviet Union was taken as proof of the superiority of capitalism and the American way of life (often times with no delineation made between the two). However, the recent global recession, spurred by the financial crisis that began in 2007, has once again brought capitalism into question. Or has it? There is a disconnect today in how capitalism is described and what capitalism is used to describe. When people talk about the failure of capitalism or the failure of our current economic system in the United States, what do they really mean? Are the two the same thing? In short: no. The fact is that the United States has an interventionist economy, one in which the government regulates certain industries and intervenes where and when it considers such intervention necessary. Today capitalism is commonly understood to mean precisely a "free market" and through the history of the term, its evolution, and modern day usage in the media, it can be shown that the United States does not operate under capitalism.

The earliest known usage of the term "capitalist" is from The Hollandische Mercurius, which "uses it once in 1633, and again in 1654" to refer to owners of capital—i.e. men of wealth (Braudel 234). The word capitalism evolved from this definition and the first usage of the word can be found in Encyclopédie to mean "the state of one who is rich" (Braudel 237). In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary only has three simple definitions listed for the word. The entry reads: "The condition of possessing capital; the position of a capitalist; a system which favours the existence of capitalists" ("capitalism," Oxford English Dictionary). The word started out with a very unambiguous usage. Capitalism means owning capital. It makes perfect sense. If we take a look at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, however, we get a different story. They tell us capitalism is "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market" ("capitalism," Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). Now the definition looks more familiar. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary is, after all, known for being the go-to source for American English. Thus, in an American context, capitalism relies on "a free market." How did the term go from such an elementary meaning to one so hotly contested? As it turns out, the roots of the modern understanding of capitalism can be traced back to the system's arch-nemesis himself, Karl Marx.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's Das Kapital discusses in great length the "capitalistic system" and the "capitalist mode of production" (Marx and Engels). The system explained is complex but ownership of private property remains key. Marx explains that "...the possessor of money becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which the money starts and to which it returns" (Marx and Engels 170). Marx doesn't exempt any and all functions of the state. Even with the state providing certain securities, Marx still considered capitalism to exist. "In the manufacturing period par excellence," Marx writes, "the capitalist mode of production had become sufficiently strong to render legal regulation of wages as impractical as it was unnecessary..." (Marx and Engels 811). Here Marx is describing a 16^th century system that is foreign to most people today and hardly what people would associate with American capitalism. Even though the state intervenes with wage controls, Marx still considers terms the economic activity as "the capitalist mode of production." This is because to Marx, capitalism was simply the fact that private capital was being used to produce goods. Not even Adam Smith, the man championed by self-proclaimed capitalists the world over, envisioned an economy sans governmental function. Smith left room for things like public education, a standing army, and a judicial system (one "united to the executive power") as roles for government (Smith). However, Smith promoted ideas most closely associated with capitalism such as free trade and the "invisible hand" of self-interest in the free market. Those are the ideas that live on in the interpretation of American capitalism. The idea of the proverbial invisible hand endures but there's no question as to how government intervention might affect the outcome of market forces.

This focus on private enterprise and the free market being the staples of capitalism would have an effect in how capitalism is referred to today. Noam Chomsky is widely considered one of the top intellectuals in the United States. In September of 1999, Chomsky said this of capitalism in a lecture at Kansas State University: "I should say that when people talk about capitalism it's a bit of a joke. There's no such thing. No country, no business class, has ever been willing to subject itself to the free market, free market discipline. Free markets are for others" (Chomsky). Chomsky is no capitalist. He is known mostly for his vehemently anti-capitalist ideas and yet he understands what constitutes capitalism. It is the unbridled market. At least, that is the common understanding. Robert Murphy is another intellectual who tackles the topic of capitalism. Unlike Chomsky, Murphy is a libertarian and a big proponent of the free market. In a book he wrote defending capitalism, Murphy explains, "Capitalism is the system in which people are free to use their private property without outside interference. That's why it's also known as the free enterprise (or free market) system, because it allows people freedom to choose..." (Murphy). Murphy's understanding of capitalism is the same as Chomsky's even though the two are approaching the topic from completely different philosophical points of view. It is this sort of language and this definition that informs most Americans on what they know about capitalism because this is exactly how it is portrayed in the media.

Last year Michael Moore, an Academy Award-winning director, released a documentary titled Capitalism: A Love Story. The film takes a long, negative look at Capitalism, blaming its free market policies for so many ills in the world. During an interview to promote the film with Larry King on CNN, Michael Moore said, "Capitalism, in the last year, has proven that it's failed. All the basic tenets of what we've talked about the free market, about free enterprise and competition just completely fell apart" ("Michael Moore..."). As an acclaimed director, Michael Moore is an authoritative figure in mainstream media. He's not the only one who has decried free market capitalism since the financial crisis of 2007-08. People all across the media have described capitalism in similar ways. In November of 2009 a journalist for CBS News wrote, "Capitalism itself failed a little more than a year ago. Or rather the bizarrely rigged corporate-run market economies that determine at least some portion of nearly everyone's life on Earth imploded in a frenzy of deregulated fecklessness and weirdly disassociative procedures" (Solnit). The idea that the market is completely "corporate-run" and "deregulated" sticks in the readers' minds even though it is not an entirely accurate description of how the system operated in reality. Over a year earlier, an op-ed writer for The Washington Post defended capitalism by claiming, "We are not witnessing a crisis of the free market but a crisis of distorted markets" ("Is Capitalism Dead?"). The author clearly marks a difference here between the "free market" of capitalism, the topic of the article, and the "distorted markets" that currently exist in the United States. CNN gave an even more recent example of how capitalism is viewed in this country. In the online article, the author explains a recent kerfuffle about the content of the next generation of public school textbooks in Texas. There has been a lot of disagreement and a lot of criticism coming from and going towards conservatives who want to change a great deal of content. According to the article, these activists "[insist] that, for example, textbooks stress the superiority of American 'free enterprise'-- they think the word 'capitalism' is too negative." This signifies that conservatives, largely seen as proponents of "capitalism" in America, connect the concept with "free enterprise" (Czitrom). An argument can be made as to what the activists really meant but "free" inevitably implies no intervention, the opposite of the economic system in place in the U.S. right now. As evidenced, this is precisely the kind of language that dominates explanations of capitalism in the media. The CNN article also illustrates the point that Americans seem to associate this idea of capitalism with their country. The media, and thus the rest of American society, have taken hold of the idea that capitalism is synonymous with the free market. Alas, markets in America are far from free. Whether good or bad, this system should not be referred to not as capitalism but by its more accurate description: interventionism.

The term capitalism clearly has a complex history. It started out with a simple, clearcut meaning: the owning of capital. Today the word represents an economic system that people automatically associate with a negative or positive connotation. Either way, these feelings stem from the meaning the word has taken on in the United States: free markets. Many still refer to modern economies like those of the United States, Great Britain, and other industrialized nations as capitalist. It is clear that the definitions by example don't quite fit the operational and formal definitions used throughout the media. It is the latter definitions that form the basis of the word in people's minds. For this reason, when there is talk of capitalism, the most immediate thought is that of an unregulated and untampered-with market. This idea remains even as it is put it into context of a modern economy in a developed country. Without thinking, laissez faire capitalism is frequently associated with the United States. As Noam Chomsky said, though, "there's no such thing." Not today, at least. For now, neither the United States nor any other country in the world can truly claim to be a capitalist nation.

Works Cited

Braudel, Fernand. The Wheels of Commerce, Vol. 2, Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982. Print.

"capitalism." The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. CD-ROM. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

"capitalism." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2010. Merriam-Webster Online. 17 March 2010 <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism>.

Chomsky, Noam. "Sovereignty and World Order." Kansas State University. 2006. Web. 20 March 2010.

Czitrom, Daniel. "Texas school board whitewashes history." CNN 22 March 2010. Web. 31 March 2010.

"Is Capitalism Dead?" The Washington Post 20 October 2008. Web. 20 March 2010.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Capital: a Critique of Political Economy. Trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. New York: Random House, Inc., 1906. Print.

"Michael Moore: Capitalism has proven it's failed." CNN 24 September 2009. Web. 17 March 2010.

Murphy, Robert P. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2007. E-book.

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Mississippi: Project Gutenberg, 2009. Project Gutenberg. Web. 20 March 2010.

Solnit, Rebecca. "How Capitalism Failed Us." CBS News 25 November 2009. Web. 20 March 2010.

More New York Times Incompetence

2010-04-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

Op-Ed Contributor - Our Fill-in-the-Blank Constitution - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com

Constitutional law is not a mechanical exercise of just “applying the law.”

This article is further evidence of the complete incompetence of the NY Times editorial staff. The article states:

[The constitution] defines our most fundamental rights and protections in open-ended terms: “freedom of speech,” for example, and “equal protection of the laws,” “due process of law,” “unreasonable searches and seizures,” “free exercise” of religion and “cruel and unusual punishment.” These terms are not self-defining; they did not have clear meanings even to the people who drafted them. The framers fully understood that they were leaving it to future generations to use their intelligence, judgment and experience to give concrete meaning to the expressed aspirations.

The terms used in the Bill of Rights were not considered to be "open ended." The understanding of the constitution was that it defined the powers the federal government has, not that it defined the powers it doesn't have. The idea that the federal government had only "expressly delegated" powers (a phrase that appears in the Articles of Confederation and was included in debates about the constitution) was what got fiercely independent states like Virginia to ratify the constitution. If any of the founders thought the constitution was open to interpretation, that's not a context that was brought up at the Constitutional Convention.

Rulings by conservative justices in the past decade make it perfectly clear that they do not “apply the law” in a neutral and detached manner. Consider, for example, their decisions holding that corporations have the same right of free speech as individuals, that commercial advertising receives robust protection under the First Amendment, that the Second Amendment prohibits the regulation of guns, that affirmative action is unconstitutional, that the equal protection clause mandated the election of George W. Bush and that the Boy Scouts have a First Amendment right to exclude gay scoutmasters.

Whether or not you think conservative judges are "neutral and detached," the fact is that they more consistently favor individual rights, which, in turn, is more consistent with the original intent of the constitution. People who try to argue that "corporations" do not have the same rights as individuals have a severe deficiency in logical thinking. A corporation is not some entity with ascribed rights and powers. A corporation is made up of individuals, all of whom have the right to freedom of speech and thus have the right to use their property (i.e. money) in any way they see fit. The SCOTUS didn't redefine the constitution to give rights to "corporations." In such a context, corporations don't exist. The money is owned by individuals. When a corporation buys and ad, who do people think made that decision? A disembodied entity with a brand name? Sheer stupidity.

It is also true that the federal government does not have the right to regulate guns (although states do, which has been muddled a bit by the 14th amendment, I think) and affirmative action was only ruled unconstitutional if it awarded points for race. There's nothing unique or bizarre about that interpretation of the constitution. Frankly, any school that accepts government money (which is just about all of them) should not be allowed to discriminate based on race in its acceptance policy. A private school funded completely independently should be allowed to set any rules for acceptance that it wants. Similarly, my only problem with the Boy Scouts excluding gay members is that they get a bunch of government funding and are allowed to use public property for their meetings.

Although the framers thought democracy to be the best system of government, they recognized that it was imperfect. One flaw that troubled them was the risk that prejudice or intolerance on the part of the majority might threaten the liberties of a minority. As James Madison observed, in a democratic society “the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended ... from acts in which the government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.” It was therefore essential, Madison concluded, for judges, whose life tenure insulates them from the demands of the majority, to serve as the guardians of our liberties and as “an impenetrable bulwark” against every encroachment upon our most cherished freedoms.

The framers did not all necessarily think democracy was the best system. We have a democratic republic for a reason (increasingly becoming more democratic and less republican--in the traditional sense of the words, nothing to do with political ideology). States' rights were the first defense against federal government. The SCOTUS was certainly established to settle disputes and balance out executive and legislative power, in effect (supposedly) inoculating individual rights from encroachment by the federal government. But why would a New York Times columnist want to point out that the U.S. was established as a republic?

If all judges did was umpire, then judicial empathy would be irrelevant. In baseball, we wouldn’t want an umpire to say a ball was a strike just because he felt empathy for the pitcher. But once you understand that the umpire analogy is absurd, it’s evident that a sense of empathy can, in fact, help judges fulfill their responsibilities...

Stone completely fails to discredit the "umpire analogy." Judges are supposed to be impartial. Even though it's an impossible ideal, there's no harm in striving for it. You don't have to rule on empathy to outlaw bans on interracial marriage and protect "the rights of political dissenters and members of minority religious faiths." Those things rely on individual rights which is what the constitution was built to protect. This is yet another completely absurd editorial from the Times. It seems as if Stone purposely avoided legitimate arguments to his claims but it could be that he's just another idiot on the editorial staff.

A New Element. Uh-oh...

2010-04-14T21:13:00.000-07:00

The Economist reports:

Researchers in Russia created a new element. Temporarily known as ununseptium, because it has 117 protons in its nucleus, it was made at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna by smashing calcium ions into berkelium atoms. It is the 26th artificial element heavier than uranium to have been added to the periodic table.

I think we all know who to expect at the party:

I suspect that ununseptium is a little less valuable than unobtainium, though, given that the latter is, by definition, unobtainable.

There's Nothing Wrong With Capitalism

2009-09-16T04:34:00.000-07:00

Naturally, this is one of my favorite Oingo Boingo songs. WSJ once named it one of the great pro-capitalism songs of all time. I've long wondered how much of the song is sarcasm, though. Someone once ask...ed Danny Elfman if the song was sarcastic or serious and he replied, "Both." It's sarcastically serious, he said. Elfman has also been quoted as saying, "I've traveled around the world. I left thinking I was a revolutionary. I came back real right-wing patriotic. Since then, I've kind of mellowed in between. It affected me permanently and totally." Elfman has always seemed fairly moderate to me. But I love this song along with the rest of Oingo Boingo's debut album.

Obama Keeps 'Em Riveted

2009-09-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

As you can undoubtedly tell by this picture, the students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, VA were hanging on the President's every word. If you're a parent who is afraid of your child being influenced by party politics, you might want to confirm that they're even remotely interested to begin with.

What do we have here? Students looking bored, a couple people resting their heads on their fists, someone more interested in grooming his finger nails with his teeth, and some sinister guy in the top left who looks like he's planning to blow the place up. At least there's one girl here who is interested enough to be taking a picture... wait, she's pointing the camera in THE OTHER DIRECTION. Good thing there were level headed parents out there who had the right mind to keep their kids from hearing the president of their country. The kids in this picture probably suffered severe brain damage as a result of the speech.

For a speech to be effective, people first need to think that the words are pertinent or important. So before anyone freaks out about what the president is saying to students in America, we may want to first teach them that what the president says is, in fact, consequential.

Ah it's school time so let's let the readers know what's on my mind.

2009-08-31T01:04:00.000-07:00

First and Foremost, I'm back for a bit of a blog update. I thought I'd go over the items that most make me go wow, in order.

First off space travel. I've been watching a program called When We Left Earth, and I must say space stuff gets my attention like no other. I have even been caught watching the Nasa channel on television once in a while and that stuff is stuffier than most turkeys. But the problem for me is that space tech is super elite and there's no way I'll get to do it in my lifetime unless...

Biotechnology gets up and awesome. I've been reading about many different things like the ability to use mushrooms for antibiotics, pollutant clean up and teraforming in deforested areas, and by just getting to understand some of these incredible fungi we can extend life span by a couple of years. Anything that can do that, stem cells, implants, inoculations and the like are things that are right up my alley. If I'm to live for my want of 5000 + years we need to seriously work on things like alzhiemer's and understanding how to perform maintenance on our bodies. I'm all for maintaining mine as long as I can afford it. I realize a more real life expectancy is like 85 but lets shoot for the moon here people nobody wants to die.

Next I'll go for the fantastic, I hear more and more about a singularity. It's the exact opposite of the end of the world at 2012 that people all want. (by the way I'm hosting the Zex's I was right you were wrong party on January 1 2013 more details later) The singularity is the hope of all technogeeks that technology will grow so fast that everything will be fixed, the world will completely change and everyone will be in a state of superadvanced awesomeness. In a word heaven. I'm not thinking it will happen as most of these people can not make a concrete prediction about what is coming in the next 5 years let alone after technology can make us gods. But that doesn't mean that I think they are crazy. The world is changing, not always for the better, but If we work to improve it, (e.g. going to school and using your education, making a better ice cream cone) we can definate make the world a Zexier place.

Finally a confession, I'm an art major. I like to draw and watch cartoons. I see science and cheer it on but don't actively participate in it. So if you're working in the field Go Team! I like to send a nod every once in a while to people who can show interesting things.

As I go I leave you with this advice if you're going to travel abroad buy your condoms before you go. Just ask Douglas Adams.

Tintin au Congo Taken Off Shelf at Brooklyn Library

2009-08-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

A Library’s Approach to Books That Offend - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

Librarians are trained to listen politely but stand firm when patrons object to the presence of a book or other item on a library shelf. But patrons who persist are entitled to file a challenge.

Another public library trying to justify America's latest censorship: Tintin au Congo.

No one has a right to not be offended and censorship is far worse and far more threatening to liberty than offensive material being out in the open. I also wasn't aware that "tolerance for what some may consider detestable" translated into "we will hide away anything we find detestable." Your tax dollars hard at work, ladies and gentlemen.

At any rate, the offending material is all over the internet. Imagine that. Tintin au Congo can be downloaded here: http://rapidshare.com/files/3481040/Tintin_-_02_-_Tintin_au_Congo_-_www.freecomicbooks.blogspot.com.cbr.

New Leona Lewis and Justin Timerlake Song Leaked

2009-08-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

The song is called Don't Let Me Down (mediafire link).

MTV reports: "SyCo thinks that the track was leaked by hackers and not by someone within the industry." To be clear, I do not support hacking. I think it is a clear breach of personal property. Hacking someone's computer is the same as breaking and entering as far as I'm concerned. However, intellectual property is not real property. Once digital content is out floating around the web, it is impossible to but the genie back in the bottle and fruitless to try. Since the digital content is not physical, people use their own property to distribute it. It's their own bandwidth and hard drives they are using. Anyway, I reserve the debate on IP law for another time. Enjoy the song. And get it while it lasts. It's being taken down left and right.

Gaiman Gives it Away and... Voilà!

2009-08-20T03:54:00.000-07:00

Gaiman and Doctorow Discuss Giving It Away

Neil Gaiman on giving away free ebooks: "It’s been really fun in my own slow way nudging HarperCollins out of the stone ages and into the dark ages. As far as I’m concerned the entire argument was won at the point where I got them to put American Gods online…we gave it away for free for a month, and during the course of that month and for about four weeks after, the number of copies of all of my books…went up three hundred percent. As far as I’m concerned, that answered that question."

'Nuff said.

Wry ©ensorship

2009-08-19T02:41:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have read in the news recently that an unauthorized sequel of The Catcher in the Rye was blocked via court order from being published in the U.S. Being the anti-censorship and anti-copyright individual that I am, I immediately found the book on eBay and purchased a copy from someone in the UK.

I think it's ironic that for the latter half of the 20th century The Catcher in the Rye was one of the most censored books in the U.S. Salinger has even been (rightfully) accused of hypocrisy. The author of the sequel commented, "I am pretty blown away by the judge's decision. Call me an ignorant Swede, but the last thing I thought possible in the U.S. was that you banned books." Pretty sad. Well, I got my copy. Might I recommend you go do the same?

The 10,000-Hour Rule

2009-08-18T03:08:00.000-07:00

Below is the second chapter in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. I thought it was interesting and I wanted to share it. A friend, known on this blog as Zex, first introduced me to the idea of the 10,000-hour rule (though not as such). I have no idea where he came across it.

Zex: I'm reading an article on creating genius
Spider: step one: get Kanye West
Zex: basically it says to start young teaching a specialty
Zex: and keep at it
Zex: Critics call it the drudge method of genius
Zex: but the method requires that thousands of hours be spent on the pursuit of what you are learning
Zex: so that by a person's early 20's they will be set for success in a field
Zex: not very useful for creating a well rounded person
Zex: but we don't like round people anyway
Spider: well, society at large claims they do
Spider: doesn't result in much
Spider: well rounded people just never know what they want to do
Zex: So what's gonna be your thousands of hours genius thing?
Zex: when they say "start young" don't they mean younger than us?
Spider: lol
Zex: sure but why not be a genius at 40?

Then I hear this theory repeated on the latest episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit about lawn care (they seemed to be supporting the claim). Now I was armed with a source so I went and found the ebook via the Naval General Library Program. I thought the chapter was interesting enough to share. And now I pose the question to all of you: What's gonna be your thousands of hours genius thing?
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The 10,000-Hour Rule

“IN HAMBURG, WE HAD TO PLAY FOR EIGHT HOURS.”

The University of Michigan opened its new Computer Center in 1971, in a brand-new building on Beal Avenue in Ann Arbor, with beige-brick exterior walls and a dark-glass front. The university’s enormous mainframe computers stood in the middle of a vast white room, looking, as one faculty member remembers, “like one of the last scenes in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.” Off to the side were dozens of keypunch machines—what passed in those days for computer terminals. In 1971, this was state of the art. The University of Michigan had one of the most advanced computer science programs in the world, and over the course of the Computer Center’s life, thousands of students passed through that white room, the most famous of whom was a gawky teenager named Bill Joy.

Joy came to the University of Michigan the year the Computer Center opened. He was sixteen. He was tall and very thin, with a mop of unruly hair. He had been voted “Most Studious Student” by his graduating class at North Farmington High School, outside Detroit, which, as he puts it, meant that he was a “no-date nerd.” He had thought he might end up as biologist or a mathematician. But late in his freshman year, he stumbled across the Computer Center—and he was hooked.

From that point on, the Computer Center was his life. He programmed whenever he could. Joy got a job with a computer science professor so he could program over the summer. In 1975, he enrolled in graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley. There, he buried himself even deeper in the world of computer software. During the oral exams for his PhD, he made up a particularly complicated algorithm on the fly that, as one of his many admirers has written, “so stunned his examiners [that] one of them later compared the experience to ‘Jesus confounding his elders.’”

Working in collaboration with a small group of programmers, Joy took on the task of rewriting UNIX, which was a software system developed by AT&T for mainframe computers. Joy’s version was very good. It was so good, in fact, that it became—and remains—the operating system on which literally millions of computers around the world run. “If you put your Mac in that funny mode where you can see the code,” Joy says, “I see things that I remember typing in twenty-five years ago.” And do you know who wrote much of the software that allows you to access the Internet? Bill Joy.

After graduating from Berkeley, Joy cofounded the Silicon Valley firm Sun Microsystems, which was one of the most critical players in the computer revolution. There he rewrote another computer language—Java—and his legend grew still further. Among Silicon Valley insiders, Joy is spoken of with as much awe as someone like Bill Gates of Microsoft. He is sometimes called the Edison of the Internet. As the Yale computer scientist David Gelernter says, “Bill Joy is one of the most influential people in the modern history of computing.”

The story of Bill Joy’s genius has been told many times, and the lesson is always the same. Here was a world that was the purest of meritocracies. Computer programming didn’t operate as an old-boy network, where you got ahead because of money or connections. It was a wide-open field in which all participants were judged solely on their talent and their accomplishments. It was a world where the best men won, and Joy was clearly one of those best men.

It would be easier to accept that version of events, however, if we hadn’t just looked at hockey and soccer players. Theirs was supposed to be a pure meritocracy as well. Only it wasn’t. It was a story of how the outliers in a particular field reached their lofty status through a combination of ability, opportunity, and utterly arbitrary advantage.

Is it possible the same pattern of special opportunities operate in the real world as well? Let’s go back over the story of Bill Joy and find out.

For almost a generation, psychologists around the world have been engaged in a spirited debate over a question that most of us would consider to have been settled years ago. The question is this: is there such a thing as innate talent? The obvious answer is yes. Not every hockey player born in January ends up playing at the professional level. Only some do—the innately talented ones. Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.

Exhibit A in the talent argument is a study done in the early 1990s by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music. With the help of the Academy’s professors, they divided the school’s violinists into three groups. In the first group were the stars, the students with the potential to become world-class soloists. In the second were those judged to be merely “good.” In the third were students who were unlikely to ever play professionally and who intended to be music teachers in the public school system. All of the violinists were then asked the same question: over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?

Everyone from all three groups started playing at roughly the same age, around five years old. In those first few years, everyone practiced roughly the same amount, about two or three hours a week. But when the students were around the age of eight, real differences started to emerge. The students who would end up the best in their class began to practice more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine, eight hours a week by age twelve, sixteen hours a week by age fourteen, and up and up, until by the age of twenty they were practicing—that is, purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better—well over thirty hours a week. In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. By contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.

Ericsson and his colleagues then compared amateur pianists with professional pianists. The same pattern emerged. The amateurs never practiced more than about three hours a week over the course of their childhood, and by the age of twenty they had totaled two thousand hours of practice. The professionals, on the other hand, steadily increased their practice time every year, until by the age of twenty they, like the violinists, had reached ten thousand hours.

The striking thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals,” musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. Nor could they find any “grinds,” people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks. Their research suggestes that once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.

The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.

“The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin. “In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. Of course, this doesn’t address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do. But no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

This is true even of people we think of as prodigies. Mozart, for example, famously started writing music at six. But, writes the psychologist Michael Howe in his book Genius Explained,

by the standards of mature composers, Mozart’s early works are not outstanding. The earliest pieces were all probably written down by his father, and perhaps improved in the process. Many of Wolfgang’s childhood compositions, such as the first seven of his concertos for piano and orchestra, are largely arrangements of works by other composers. Of those concertos that only contain music original to Mozart, the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No. 9, K. 271) was not composed until he was twenty-one: by that time Mozart had already been composing concertos for ten years.

The music critic Harold Schonberg goes further: Mozart, he argues, actually “developed late,” since he didn’t produce his greatest work until he had been composing for more than twenty years.

To become a chess grandmaster also seems to take about ten years. (Only the legendary Bobby Fischer got to that elite level in less than that amount of time: it took him nine years.) And what’s ten years? Well, it’s roughly how long it takes to put in ten thousand hours of hard practice. Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness.

Here is the explanation for what was so puzzling about the rosters of the Czech and Canadian national sports teams. There was practically no one on those teams born after September 1, which doesn’t seem to make any sense. You’d think that there should be a fair number of Czech hockey or soccer prodigies born late in the year who are so talented that they eventually make their way into the top tier as young adults, despite their birth dates.

But to Ericsson and those who argue against the primacy of talent, that isn’t surprising at all. That late-born prodigy doesn’t get chosen for the all-star team as an eight-year-old because he’s too small. So he doesn’t get the extra practice. And without that extra practice, he has no chance at hitting ten thousand hours by the time the professional hockey teams start looking for players. And without ten thousand hours under his belt, there is no way he can ever master the skills necessary to play at the top level. Even Mozart—the greatest musical prodigy of all time—couldn’t hit his stride until he had his ten thousand hours in. Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

The other interesting thing about that ten thousand hours, of course, is that ten thousand hours is an enormous amount of time. It’s all but impossible to reach that number all by yourself by the time you’re a young adult. You have to have parents who encourage and support you. You can’t be poor, because if you have to hold down a part-time job on the side to help make ends meet, there won’t be time left in the day to practice enough. In fact, most people can reach that number only if they get into some kind of special program—like a hockey all-star squad—or if they get some kind of extraordinary opportunity that gives them a chance to put in those hours.

So, back to Bill Joy. It’s 1971. He’s tall and gawky and sixteen years old. He’s the math whiz, the kind of student that schools like MIT and Caltech and the University of Waterloo attract by the hundreds. “When Bill was a little kid, he wanted to know everything about everything way before he should’ve even known he wanted to know,” his father, William, says. “We answered him when we could. And when we couldn’t, we would just give him a book.” When it came time to apply to college, Joy got a perfect score on the math portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test. “It wasn’t particularly hard,” he says matter-of-factly. “There was plenty of time to check it twice.”

He has talent by the truckload. But that’s not the only consideration. It never is. The key to his development is that he stumbled across that nondescript building on Beal Avenue.

In the early 1970s, when Joy was learning about programming, computers were the size of rooms. A single machine (which might have less power and memory than your microwave now has) could cost upwards of a million dollars—and that’s in 1970s dollars. Computers were rare. If you found one, if was hard to get access to it; if you managed to get access, renting time on it cost a fortune.

What’s more, programming itself was extraordinarily tedious. This was the era when computer programs were created using cardboard punch cards. Each line of code was imprinted on the card using a keypunch machine. A complex program might include hundreds, if not thousands, of these cards in tall stacks. Once a program was ready, you walked over to whatever mainframe computer you had access to and gave the stack of cards to an operator. Since computers could handle only one task at a time, the operator made an appointment for your program, and depending on how many people were ahead of you in line, you might not get your cards back for a few hours or even a day. And if you made even a single error—even a typographical error—in your program, you had to take the cards back, track down the error, and begin the whole process again.

Under those circumstances, it was exceedingly difficult for anyone to become a programming expert. Certainly becoming an expert by your early twenties was all but impossible. When you can “program” for only a few minutes out of every hour you spend in the computer room, how can you ever get in ten thousand hours of practice? “Programming with cards,” one computer scientist from that era remembers, “did not teach you programming. It taught you patience and proofreading.”

It wasn’t until the mid-1960s that a solution to the programming problem emerged. Computers were finally powerful enough that they could handle more than one “appointment” at once. If the computer’s operating system was rewritten, computer scientists realized, the machine’s time could be shared; the computer could be trained to handle hundreds of tasks at the same time. That, in turn, meant that programmers didn’t have to physically hand their stacks of computer cards to the operator anymore. Dozens of terminals could be built, all linked to the main-frame by a telephone line, and everyone could be working—online—all at once.

Here is how one history of the period describes the advent of time-sharing:

This was not just a revolution. It was a revelation. Forget the operator, the card decks, the wait. With time-sharing, you could sit at your Teletype, bang in a couple of commands, and get an answer then and there. Time-sharing was interactive: A program could ask for a response, wait for you to type it in, act on it while you waited, and show you the result, all in “real time.”

This is where Michigan came in, because Michigan was one of the first universities in the world to switch over to time-sharing. By 1967, a prototype of the system was up and running. By the early 1970s, Michigan had enough computing power that a hundred people could be programming simultaneously in the Computer Center. “In the late sixties, early seventies, I don’t think there was anyplace else that was exactly like Michigan,” Mike Alexander, one of the pioneers of Michigan’s computing system, said. “Maybe MIT. Maybe Carnegie Mellon. Maybe Dartmouth. I don’t think there were any others.”

This was the opportunity that greeted Bill Joy when he arrived on the Ann Arbor campus in the fall of 1971. He hadn’t chosen Michigan because of its computers. He had never done anything with computers in high school. He was interested in math and engineering. But when the programming bug hit him in his freshman year, he found himself—by the happiest of accidents—in one of the few places in the world where a seventeen-year-old could program all he wanted.

“Do you know what the difference is between the computing cards and time-sharing?” Joy says. “It’s the difference between playing chess by mail and speed chess.” Programming wasn’t an exercise in frustration anymore. It was fun.

“I lived in the north campus, and the Computer Center was in the north campus,” Joy went on. “How much time did I spend there? Oh, a phenomenal amount of time. It was open twenty-four hours. I would stay there all night, and just walk home in the morning. In an average week in those years, I was spending more time in the Computer Center than on my classes. All of us down there had this recurring nightmare of forgetting to show up for class at all, of not even realizing we were enrolled.

“The challenge was that they gave all the students an account with a fixed amount of money, so your time would run out. When you signed on, you would put in how long you wanted to spend on the computer. They gave you, like, an hour of time. That’s all you’d get. But someone figured out that if you put in ‘time equals’ and then a letter, like t equals k, they wouldn’t charge you,” he said, laughing at the memory. “It was a bug in the software. You could put in t equals k and sit there forever.”

Just look at the stream of opportunities that came Bill Joy’s way. Because he happened to go to a farsighted school like the University of Michigan, he was able to practice on a time-sharing system instead of with punch cards; because the Michigan system happened to have a bug in it, he could program all he wanted; because the university was willing to spend the money to keep the Computer Center open twenty-four hours, he could stay up all night; and because he was able to put in so many hours, by the time he happened to be presented with the opportunity to rewrite UNIX, he was up to the task. Bill Joy was brilliant. He wanted to learn. That was a big part of it. But before he could become an expert, someone had to give him the opportunity to learn how to be an expert.

“At Michigan, I was probably programming eight or ten hours a day,” he went on. “By the time I was at Berkeley I was doing it day and night. I had a terminal at home. I’d stay up until two or three o’clock in the morning, watching old movies and programming. Sometimes I’d fall asleep at the keyboard”—he mimed his head falling on the keyboard—“and you know how the key repeats until the end, and it starts to go beep, beep, beep? After that happens three times, you have to go to bed. I was still relatively incompetent even when I got to Berkeley. I was proficient by my second year there. That’s when I wrote programs that are still in use today, thirty years later.” He paused for a moment to do the math in his head—which for someone like Bill Joy doesn’t take very long. Michigan in 1971. Programming in earnest by sophomore year. Add in the summers, then the days and nights in his first year at Berkeley. “So, so maybe...ten thousand hours?” he said, finally. “That’s about right.”

Is the ten-thousand-hour rule a general rule of success? If we scratch below the surface of every great achiever, do we always find the equivalent of the Michigan Computer Center or the hockey all-star team—some sort of special opportunity for practice?

Let’s test the idea with two examples, and for the sake of simplicity, let’s make them as familiar as possible: the Beatles, one of the most famous rock bands ever; and Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men.

The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr—came to the United States in February of 1964, starting the so-called British Invasion of the American music scene and putting out a string of hit records that transformed the face of popular music.

The first interesting thing about the Beatles for our purposes is how long they had already been together by the time they reached the United States. Lennon and McCartney first started playing together in 1957, seven years prior to landing in America. (Incidentally, the time that elapsed between their founding and their arguably greatest artistic achievements—Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles [White Album]—is ten years.) And if you look even more closely at those long years of preparation, you’ll find an experience that, in the context of hockey players and Bill Joy and world-class violinists, sounds awfully familiar. In 1960, while they were still just a struggling high school rock band, they were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany.

“Hamburg in those days did not have rock-and-roll music clubs. It had strip clubs,” says Philip Norman, who wrote the Beatles biography Shout! “There was one particular club owner called Bruno, who was originally a fairground showman. He had the idea of bringing in rock groups to play in various clubs. They had this formula. It was a huge nonstop show, hour after hour, with a lot of people lurching in and the other lot lurching out. And the bands would play all the time to catch the passing traffic. In an American red-light district, they would call it nonstop striptease.

“Many of the bands that played in Hamburg were from Liverpool,” Norman went on. “It was an accident. Bruno went to London to look for bands. But he happened to meet an entrepreneur from Liverpool in Soho who was down in London by pure chance. And he arranged to send some bands over. That’s how the connection was established. And eventually the Beatles made a connection not just with Bruno but with other club owners as well. They kept going back because they got a lot of alcohol and a lot of sex.”

And what was so special about Hamburg? It wasn’t that it paid well. It didn’t. Or that the acoustics were fantastic. They weren’t. Or that the audiences were savvy and appreciative. They were anything but. It was the sheer amount of time the band was forced to play.

Here is John Lennon, in an interview after the Beatles disbanded, talking about the band’s performances at a Hamburg strip club called the Indra:

We got better and got more confidence. We couldn’t help it with all the experience playing all night long. It was handy them being foreign. We had to try even harder, put our heart and soul into it, to get ourselves over.
In Liverpool, we’d only ever done one-hour sessions, and we just used to do our best numbers, the same ones, at every one. In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours, so we really had to find a new way of playing.

Eight hours?

Here is Pete Best, the Beatles’ drummer at the time: “Once the news got out about that we were making a show, the club started packing them in. We played seven nights a week. At first we played almost nonstop till twelve-thirty, when it closed, but as we got better the crowds stayed till two most mornings.”

Seven days a week?

The Beatles ended up traveling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962. On the first trip, they played 106 nights, five or more hours a night. On their second trip, they played 92 times. On their third trip, they played 48 times, for a total of 172 hours on stage. The last two Hamburg gigs, in November and December of 1962, involved another 90 hours of performing. All told, they performed for 270 nights in just over a year and a half. By the time they had their first burst of success in 1964, in fact, they had performed live an estimated twelve hundred times. Do you know how extraordinary that is? Most bands today don’t perform twelve hundred times in their entire careers. The Hamburg crucible is one of the things that set the Beatles apart.

“They were no good onstage when they went there and they were very good when they came back,” Norman went on. “They learned not only stamina. They had to learn an enormous amount of numbers—cover versions of everything you can think of, not just rock and roll, a bit of jazz too. They weren’t disciplined onstage at all before that. But when they came back, they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.”

Let’s now turn to the history of Bill Gates. His story is almost as well known as the Beatles’. Brilliant, young math whiz discovers computer programming. Drops out of Harvard. Starts a little computer company called Microsoft with his friends. Through sheer brilliance and ambition and guts builds it into the giant of the software world. That’s the broad outline. Let’s dig a little bit deeper.

Gates’s father was a wealthy lawyer in Seattle, and his mother was the daughter of a well-to-do banker. As a child Bill was precocious and easily bored by his studies. So his parents took him out of public school and, at the beginning of seventh grade, sent him to Lakeside, a private school that catered to Seattle’s elite families. Midway through Gates’s second year at Lakeside, the school started a computer club.

“The Mothers’ Club at school did a rummage sale every year, and there was always the question of what the money would go to,” Gates remembers. “Some went to the summer program, where inner-city kids would come up to the campus. Some of it would go for teachers. That year, they put three thousand dollars into a computer terminal down in this funny little room that we subsequently took control of. It was kind of an amazing thing.”

It was an “amazing thing,” of course, because this was 1968. Most colleges didn’t have computer clubs in the 1960s. Even more remarkable was the kind of computer Lakeside bought. The school didn’t have its students learn programming by the laborious computer-card system, like virtually everyone else was doing in the 1960s. Instead, Lakeside installed what was called an ASR-33 Teletype, which was a time-sharing terminal with a direct link to a mainframe computer in downtown Seattle. “The whole idea of time-sharing only got invented in nineteen sixty-five,” Gates continued. “Someone was pretty forward-looking.” Bill Joy got an extraordinary, early opportunity to learn programming on a time-share system as a freshman in college, in 1971. Bill Gates got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader in 1968.

From that moment forward, Gates lived in the computer room. He and a number of others began to teach themselves how to use this strange new device. Buying time on the mainframe computer the ASR was hooked up to was, of course, expensive—even for a wealthy institution like Lakeside—and it wasn’t long before the $3,000 put up by the Mothers’ Club ran out. The parents raised more money. The students spent it. Then a group of programmers at the University of Washington formed an outfit called Computer Center Corporation (or C-Cubed), which leased computer time to local companies. As luck would have it, one of the founders of the firm—Monique Rona—had a son at Lakeside, a year ahead of Gates. Would the Lakeside computer club, Rona wondered, like to test out the company’s software programs on the weekends in exchange for free programming time? Absolutely! After school, Gates took the bus to the C-Cubed offices and programmed long into the evening.

C-Cubed eventually went bankrupt, so Gates and his friends began hanging around the computer center at the University of Washington. Before long, they latched onto an outfit called ISI (Information Sciences Inc.), which agreed to let them have free computer time in exchange for working on a piece of software that could be used to automate company payrolls. In one seven-month period in 1971, Gates and his cohorts ran up 1,575 hours of computer time on the ISI mainframe, which averages out to eight hours a day, seven days a week.

“It was my obsession,” Gates says of his early high school years. “I skipped athletics. I went up there at night. We were programming on weekends. It would be a rare week that we wouldn’t get twenty or thirty hours in. There was a period where Paul Allen and I got in trouble for stealing a bunch of passwords and crashing the system. We got kicked out. I didn’t get to use the computer the whole summer. This is when I was fifteen and sixteen. Then I found out Paul had found a computer that was free at the University of Washington. They had these machines in the medical center and the physics department. They were on a twenty-four-hour schedule, but with this big slack period, so that between three and six in the morning they never scheduled anything.” Gates laughed. “I’d leave at night, after my bedtime. I could walk up to the University of Washington from my house. Or I’d take the bus. That’s why I’m always so generous to the University of Washington, because they let me steal so much computer time.” (Years later, Gates’s mother said, “We always wondered why it was so hard for him to get up in the morning.”)

One of the founders of ISI, Bud Pembroke, then got a call from the technology company TRW, which had just signed a contract to set up a computer system at the huge Bonneville Power station in southern Washington State. TRW desperately needed programmers familiar with the particular software the power station used. In these early days of the computer revolution, programmers with that kind of specialized experience were hard to find. But Pembroke knew exactly whom to call: those high school kids from Lakeside who had been running up thousands of hours of computer time on the ISI mainframe. Gates was now in his senior year, and somehow he managed to convince his teachers to let him decamp for Bonneville under the guise of an independent study project. There he spent the spring writing code, supervised by a man named John Norton, who Gates says taught him as much about programming as almost anyone he’d ever met.

Those five years, from eighth grade through the end of high school, were Bill Gates’s Hamburg, and by any measure, he was presented with an even more extraordinary series of opportunities than Bill Joy.

Opportunity number one was that Gates got sent to Lakeside. How many high schools in the world had access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968? Opportunity number two was that the mothers of Lakeside had enough money to pay for the school’s computer fees. Number three was that, when that money ran out, one of the parents happened to work at C-Cubed, which happened to need someone to check its code on the weekends, and which also happened not to care if weekends turned into weeknights. Number four was that Gates just happened to find out about ISI, and ISI just happened to need someone to work on its payroll software. Number five was that Gates happened to live within walking distance of the University of Washington. Number six was that the university happened to have free computer time between three and six in the morning. Number seven was that TRW happened to call Bud Pembroke. Number eight was that the best programmers Pembroke knew for that particular problem happened to be two high school kids. And number nine was that Lakeside was willing to let those kids spend their spring term miles away, writing code.

And what did virtually all of those opportunities have in common? They gave Bill Gates extra time to practice. By the time Gates dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year to try his hand at his own software company, he’d been programming practically nonstop for seven consecutive years. He was way past ten thousand hours. How many teenagers in the world had the kind of experience Gates had? “If there were fifty in the world, I’d be stunned,” he says. “There was C-Cubed and the payroll stuff we did, then TRW—all those things came together. I had a better exposure to software development at a young age than I think anyone did in that period of time, and all because of an incredibly lucky series of events.”

If we put the stories of hockey players and the Beatles and Bill Joy and Bill Gates together, I think we get a more complete picture of the path to success. Joy and Gates and the Beatles are all undeniably talented. Lennon and McCartney had a musical gift of the sort that comes along once in a generation, and Bill Joy, let us not forget, had a mind so quick that he was able to make up a complicated algorithm on the fly that left his professors in awe. That much is obvious.

But what truly distinguishes their histories is not their extraordinary talent but their extraordinary opportunities. The Beatles, for the most random of reasons, got invited to go to Hamburg. Without Hamburg, the Beatles might well have taken a different path. “I was very lucky,” Bill Gates said at the beginning of our interview. That doesn’t mean he isn’t brilliant or an extraordinary entrepreneur. It just means that he understands what incredible good fortune it was to be at Lakeside in 1968.

All the outliers we’ve looked at so far were the beneficiaries of some kind of unusual opportunity. Lucky breaks don’t seem like the exception with software billionaires and rock bands and star athletes. They seem like the rule.

Let me give you one final example of the hidden opportunities that outliers benefit from. Suppose we do another version of the calendar analysis we did in the previous chapter with hockey players, only this time looking at birth years, not birth months. To start with, take a close look at the following list of the seventy-five richest people in human history. The net worth of each person is calculated in current US dollars. As you can see, it includes queens and kings and pharaohs from centuries past, as well as contemporary billionaires, such as Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim.

No. Name Wealth in Billions (USD) Origin Company or Source of Wealth
1 John D. Rockefeller 318.3 United States Standard Oil
2 Andrew Carnegie 298.3 Scotland Carnegie Steel Company
3 Nicholas II of Russia 253.5 Russia House of Romanov
4 William Henry Vanderbilt 231.6 United States Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad
5 Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII 210.8 Hyderabad Monarchy
6 Andrew W. Mellon 188.8 United States Gulf Oil
7 Henry Ford 188.1 United States Ford Motor Company
8 Marcus Licinius Crassus 169.8 Roman Republic Roman Senate
9 Basil II 169.4 Byzantine Empire Monarchy
10 Cornelius Vanderbilt 167.4 United States New York and Harlem Railroad
11 Alanus Rufus 166.9 England Investments
12 Amenophis III 155.2 Ancient Egypt Pharaoh
13 William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey 153.6 England Earl of Surrey
14 William II of England 151.7 England Monarchy
15 Elizabeth I 142.9 England House of Tudor
16 John D. Rockefeller Jr. 141.4 United States Standard Oil
17 Sam Walton 128.0 United States Wal-Mart
18 John Jacob Astor 115.0 Germany American Fur Company
19 Odo of Bayeux 110.2 England Monarchy
20 Stephen Girard 99.5 France First Bank of the United States
21 Cleopatra 95.8 Ancient Egypt Ptolemaic Inheritance
22 Stephen Van Rensselaer III 88.8 United States Rensselaerswyck Estate
23 Richard B. Mellon 86.3 United States Gulf Oil
24 Alexander Turney Stewart 84.7 Ireland Long Island Rail Road
25 William Backhouse Astor Jr. 84.7 United States Inheritance
26 Don Simon Iturbi Patiño 81.2 Bolivia Huanuni tin mine
27 Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah 80.7 Brunei Kral
28 Frederick Weyerhaeuser 80.4 Germany Weyerhaeuser Corporation
29 Moses Taylor 79.3 United States Citibank
30 Vincent Astor 73.9 United States Inheritance
31 Carlos Slim Helú 72.4 Mexico Telmex
32 T. V. Soong 67.8 China Central Bank of China
33 Jay Gould 67.1 United States Union Pacific
34 Marshall Field 66.3 United States Marshall Field and Company
35 George F. Baker 63.6 United States Central Railroad of New Jersey
36 Hetty Green 58.8 United States Seaboard National Bank
37 Bill Gates 58.0 United States Microsoft
38 Lawrence Joseph Ellison 58.0 United States Oracle Corporation
39 Richard Arkwright 56.2 England Derwent Valley Mills
40 Mukesh Ambani 55.8 India Reliance Industries
41 Warren Buffett 52.4 United States Berkshire Hathaway
42 Lakshmi Mittal 51.0 India Mittal Steel Company
43 J. Paul Getty 50.1 United States Getty Oil Company
44 James G. Fair 47.2 United States Consolidated Virginia Mining Company
45 William Weightman 46.1 United States Merck & Company
46 Russell Sage 45.1 United States Western Union
47 John Blair 45.1 United States Union Pacific
48 Anil Ambani 45.0 India Reliance Communications
49 Leland Stanford 44.9 United States Central Pacific Railroad
50 Howard Hughes Jr. 43.4 United States Hughes Tool Company, Hughes Aircraft Company, Summa Corporation, TWA
51 Cyrus Curtis 43.2 United States Curtis Publishing Company
52 John Insley Blair 42.4 United States Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad
53 Edward Henry Harriman 40.9 United States Union Pacific Railroad
54 Henry H. Rogers 40.9 United States Standard Oil Company
55 Paul Allen 40.0 United States Microsoft, Vulcan Inc.
56 John Kluge 40.0 Germany Metropolitan Broadcasting Company
57 J. P. Morgan 39.8 United States General Electric, US Steel
58 Oliver H. Payne 38.8 United States Standard Oil Company
59 Yoshiaki Tsutsumi 38.1 Japan Seibu Corporation
60 Henry Clay Frick 37.7 United States Carnegie Steel Company
61 John Jacob Astor IV 37.0 United States Inheritance
62 George Pullman 35.6 United States Pullman Company
63 Collis Potter Huntington 34.6 United States Central Pacific Railroad
64 Peter Arrell Brown Widener 33.4 United States American Tobacco Company
65 Philip Danforth Armour 33.4 United States Armour Refrigerator Line
66 William S. ÓBrien 33.3 United States Consolidated Virginia Mining Company
67 Ingvar Kamprad 33.0 Sweden IKEA
68 K. P. Singh 32.9 India DLF Universal Limited
69 James C. Flood 32.5 United States Consolidated Virginia Mining Company
70 Li Ka-shing 32.0 China Hutchison Whampoa Limited
71 Anthony N. Brady 31.7 United States Brooklyn Rapid Transit
72 Elias Hasket Derby 31.4 United States Shipping
73 Mark Hopkins 30.9 United States Central Pacific Railroad
74 Edward Clark 30.2 United States Singer Sewing Machine
75 Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal 29.5 Saudi Arabia Kingdom Holding Company

Do you know what’s interesting about that list? Of the seventy-five names, an astonishing fourteen are Americans born within nine years of one another in the mid-nineteenth century. Think about that for a moment. Historians start with Cleopatra and the pharaohs and comb through every year in human history every since, looking in every corner of the world for evidence of extraordinary wealth, and almost 20 percent of the names they end up with come from a single generation in a single country.

Here’s the list of those Americans and their birth years:

1. John D. Rockefeller, 1839
2. Andrew Carnegie, 1835
28. Frederick Weyerhaeuser, 1834
33. Jay Gould, 1836
34. Marshall Field, 1834
35. George F. Baker, 1840
36. Hetty Green, 1834
44. James G. Fair, 1831
54. Henry H. Rogers, 1840
57. J. P. Morgan, 1837
58. Oliver H. Payne, 1839
62. George Pullman, 1831
64. Peter Arrell Brown Widener, 1834
65. Philip Danforth Armour, 1832

What’s going on here? The answer becomes obvious if you think about it. In the 1860s and 1870s, the American economy went through perhaps the greatest transformation in its history. This was when the railroads were being built and when Wall Street emerged. It was when industrial manufacturing started in earnest. It was when all the rules by which the traditional economy had functioned were broken and remade. What this list says is that it really matters how old you were when that transformation happened.

If you were born in the late 1840s you missed it. You were too young to take advantage of that moment. If you were born in the 1820s you were too old: your mind-set was shaped by the pre–Civil War paradigm. But there was a particular, narrow nine-year window that was just perfect for seeing the potential that the future held. All of the fourteen men and women on the list above had vision and talent. But they also were given an extraordinary opportunity, in the same way that hockey and soccer players born in January, February, and March are given an extraordinary opportunity.*

Now let’s do the same kind of analysis for people like Bill Joy and Bill Gates.

If you talk to veterans of Silicon Valley, they’ll tell you that the most important date in the history of the personal computer revolution was January 1975. That was when the magazine Popular Electronics ran a cover story on an extraordinary machine called the Altair 8800. The Altair cost $397. It was a do-it-yourself contraption that you could assemble at home. The headline on the story read: “PROJECT BREAKTHROUGH! World’s First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models.”

To the readers of Popular Electronics, in those days the bible of the fledgling software and computer world, that headline was a revelation. Computers up to that point had been the massive, expensive mainframes of the sort sitting in the white expanse of the Michigan Computer Center. For years, every hacker and electronics whiz had dreamt of the day when a computer would come along that was small and inexpensive enough for an ordinary person to use and own. That day had finally arrived.

If January 1975 was the dawn of the personal computer age, then who would be in the best position to take advantage of it? The same principles apply here that applied to the era of John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.

“If you’re too old in nineteen seventy-five, then you’d already have a job at IBM out of college, and once people started at IBM, they had a real hard time making the transition to the new world,” says Nathan Myhrvold, who was a top executive at Microsoft for many years. “You had this multibillion-dollar company making mainframes, and if you were part of that, you’d think, Why screw around with these little pathetic computers? That was the computer industry to those people, and it had nothing to do with this new revolution. They were blinded by that being the only vision of computing. They made a nice living. It’s just that there was no opportunity to become a zillionaire and make an impact on the world.”

If you were more than a few years out of college in 1975, then you belonged to the old paradigm. You had just bought a house. You’re married. A baby is on the way. You’re in no position to give up a good job and pension for some pie-in-the-sky $397 computer kit. So let’s rule out all those born before, say, 1952.

At the same time, though, you don’t want to be too young. You really want to get in on the ground floor, right in 1975, and you can’t do that if you’re still in high school. So let’s also rule out anyone born after, say, 1958. The perfect age to be in 1975, in other words, is old enough to be a part of the coming revolution but not so old that you missed it. Ideally, you want to be twenty or twenty-one, which is to say, born in 1954 or 1955.

There is an easy way to test this theory. When was Bill Gates born?

Bill Gates: October 28, 1955

That’s the perfect birth date! Gates is the hockey player born on January 1. Gates’s best friend at Lakeside was Paul Allen. He also hung out in the computer room with Gates and shared those long evenings at ISI and C-Cubed. Allen went on to found Microsoft with Bill Gates. When was Paul Allen born?

Paul Allen: January 21, 1953

The third-richest man at Microsoft is the one who has been running the company on a day-to-day basis since 2000, one of the most respected executives in the software world, Steve Ballmer. Ballmer’s birth date?

Steve Ballmer: March 24, 1956

Let’s not forget a man every bit as famous as Gates: Steve Jobs, the cofounder of Apple Computer. Unlike Gates, Jobs wasn’t from a rich family and he didn’t go to Michigan, like Joy. But it doesn’t take much investigation of his upbringing to realize that he had his Hamburg too. He grew up in Mountain View, California, just south of San Francisco, which is the absolute epicenter of Silicon Valley. His neighborhood was filled with engineers from Hewlett-Packard, then as now one of the most important electronics firms in the world. As a teenager he prowled the flea markets of Mountain View, where electronics hobbyists and tinkerers sold spare parts. Jobs came of age breathing the air of the very business he would later dominate.

This paragraph from Accidental Millionaire, one of the many Jobs biographies, gives us a sense of how extraordinary his childhood experiences were. Jobs attended evening talks by Hewlett-Packard scientists. The talks were about the latest advances in electronics and Jobs, exercising a style that was a trademark of his personality, collared Hewlett-Packard engineers and drew additional information from them. Once he even called Bill Hewlett, one of the company’s founders, to request parts. Jobs not only received the parts he asked for, he managed to wrangle a summer job. Jobs worked on an assembly line to build computers and was so fascinated that he tried to design his own...

Wait. Bill Hewlett gave him spare parts? That’s on a par with Bill Gates getting unlimited access to a time-share terminal at age thirteen. It’s as if you were interested in fashion and your neighbor when you were growing up happened to be Giorgio Armani. And when was Jobs born?

Steve Jobs: February 24, 1955

Another of the pioneers of the software revolution was Eric Schmidt. He ran Novell, one of Silicon Valley’s most important software firms, and in 2001, he became the chief executive officer of Google. Birth date?

Eric Schmidt: April 27, 1955

I don’t mean to suggest, of course, that every software tycoon in Silicon Valley was born in 1955. Some weren’t, just as not every business titan in the United States was born in the mid-1830s. But there are very clearly patterns here, and what’s striking is how little we seem to want to acknowledge them. We pretend that success is exclusively a matter of individual merit. But there’s nothing in any of the histories we’ve looked at so far to suggest things are that simple. These are stories, instead, about people who were given a special opportunity to work really hard and seized it, and who happened to come of age at a time when that extraordinary effort was rewarded by the rest of society. Their success was not just of their own making. It was a product of the world in which they grew up.

By the way, let’s not forget Bill Joy. Had he been just a little bit older and had he had to face the drudgery of programming with computer cards, he says, he would have studied science. Bill Joy the computer legend would have been Bill Joy the biologist. And had he come along a few years later, the little window that gave him the chance to write the supporting code for the Internet would have closed. Again, Bill Joy the computer legend might well have been Bill Joy the biologist. When was Bill Joy born?

Bill Joy: November 8, 1954

Joy would go on, after his stint at Berkeley, to become one of the four founders of Sun Microsystems, one of the oldest and most important of Silicon Valley’s software companies. And if you still think that accidents of time and place and birth don’t matter all that much, here are the birthdays of the three other founders of Sun Microsystems:

Scott McNealy: November 13, 1954

Vinod Khosla: January 28, 1955

Andy Bechtolsheim: September 30, 1955

* The sociologist C. Wright Mills made an additional observation about that special cohort from the 1830s. He looked at the backgrounds of the American business elite from the Colonial Era to the twentieth century. In most cases, not surprisingly, he found that business leaders tended to come from privileged backgrounds. The one exception? The 1830s group. That shows how big the advantage was of being born in that decade. It was the only time in American history when those born in modest circumstances had a realistic shot at real riches. He writes: “The best time during the history of the United States for the poor boy ambitious for high business success to have been born was around the year 1835.”

Mormons for Ron Paul

2009-08-18T02:57:00.001-07:00

In an email to my friend Josh, I once wrote:

"I read over 2 Nephi chapter 2 and thought it over... Does this chapter not mean that Mormons should support libertarian politics (or possibly anarchy)? After all, if people are not able to choose whether to have a homosexual marriage or an abortion or not without outside influence, how do we know whether they are ... Read Moretruly righteous? Of course, God is the one who needs to know these things, but didn't he set up freedom of choice to determine who is righteous and who isn't?"

This is why I thought it was kind of funny to find a site called Mormons for Ron Paul. In a reply to my surprise, another Mormon friend commented:

A lot of us are libertarians--particularly in Arizona and Idaho. The "Constitution Party" in Utah has some libertarian leanings as well.

As with most organized religion, however, the pull of conservatism grows stronger (and the tendency to lapse into groupthink rises) as the density of believers increases.

The deeper theological questions (re: freedom of choice) I'll leave for another time (suffice it to say that most churchgoers in any religion have very little grasp on their own theology). But outside the United States, most Latter-day Saints classify themselves as "liberal" according to the politics of their respective countries. And even in the U.S., prior to Ezra Taft Benson's calling as the prophet (he was previously a Republican cabinet member) the Church was fairly politically diverse.

The way most religious people (including, sadly, my people) have turned politics into basically two questions--abortion and homosexuality--is a serious problem.

I agree. It is a problem. I hope we can eventually fix it. I hope all Mormons gradually gravitate towards libertarianism and stop doing underhanded things like pouring money into campaigns against propositions that would make gay marriage legal. If they believe so strongly in heaven and hell, why are they so concerned about what other people freely choose to do on earth? Will they not be justly judged in the end? To oppose such trivial things makes it seem more like a lack of faith in their religion rather than upholding the word of God (much of which is vague gibberish, anyway).

Stephen King Gets it Right Again

2009-08-18T02:47:00.000-07:00

The key to Dan Brown’s success - Times Online
Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk
The famous man looked at the wooden lectern. On May 7, 2005, the horror author Stephen King gave the commencement address to graduates at the University of Maine, his home state. In it, he half-joked: “If I show up at your house in ten years from now...
First he lampoons Stephanie Meyer, now it's Dan Brown. Stephen King: "If I show up at your house in ten years from now ... and find nothing on your bedroom night table but the newest Dan Brown novel ... I’ll chase you to the end of your driveway, screaming, ‘Where are your books? Why are you living on the intellectual equivalent of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese?’"

And the man knows where he stands. "King referred to his own work as 'the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and large fries.'" You don't need to be a literary genius to recognize bad writing. In his defense, the likes of King and Rowling write good fluff. Brown and Meyer are bad in every respect.

Obama and the Post Office

2009-08-18T02:39:00.000-07:00

National Health Care and the Postal Service: Two peas in a very rotten pod.

Obama and the Post Office - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute
Source: mises.org
Writing in The State and Revolution in 1917, Vladimir Lenin summed up the economic aim of socialism as follows: "To organize the whole economy on the lines of the postal service…."

Still No Honorary Degree, Obama

2009-05-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

"We've become accustomed to the title of 'military super-power,' forgetting the qualities that got us there. Not just the power of our weapons, but the discipline, and valor, and the code of conduct of our men and women in uniform."

And FREE MARKETS! No, wait... he left that part out.

"We've become accustomed to our economic dominance in the world, forgetting that it wasn't reckless deals and get-rich-quick schemes that got us where we are; but hard work and smart ideas--quality products and wise investments."

And FREE MARKETS! Damn it, he left it out again. He must have just forgotten that part. As a side note, Thomas Paine probably wouldn't be a fan of Obama's America.

Obama's full commencement address to Arizona State University Class of 2009:

Another Actress Starving Herself

2009-05-14T06:09:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Farrow ends Darfur protest fast

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Mia Farrow has ended her hunger strike to show solidarity with the people of the war-hit Darfur region of Sudan, because of "health concerns".

Mia Farrow is finally hungry, so she'll start eating again now. She's so happy she gets to eat again because "the women, children, and men I am fasting for do not have that option." Hey, did you ask the Sudanese if they'd like some salt with that wound? I am curious to know, though, just how many people this piss-ant, 12-day fast helped. Now that a real live Hollywood actress has undergone an oh so strenuous less-than-two-week period without food, the whole world is surely more aware and sympathetic to the genocide in Darfur.

The torch is being passed to Richard Branson who is "honoured to be taking over the fast for the next three days." WOW! Three days without food?! MY GOD! He says, "We cannot stand and watch as one million people suffer." This is why he's offered himself up as a distraction, so that we can instead watch him suffer through three whole days without food.

They should try self-immolation. That would be real dedication to the cause.

How America Does Business

2009-04-13T05:56:00.000-07:00

So how many of you have read about the rescue of the captain that was taken hostage by Somalian pirates? "With Hostage in 'Imminent Danger,' Navy Seals Shoot Three Captors, Detain a Fourth." Obama did something right: he "had given standing orders Friday night for the Navy to take action to rescue Capt. Phillips if the danger escalated." I don't think we should have been trying to negotiate to begin with. I think the U.S. Navy should be utilized more for its original purpose. Our country's military is trying to do so much, involving ourselves in things we have no businesses being involved in, that we seem to have forgotten our own history:

The initial challenge to the rapid expansion of U.S. commerce, however, came not from London or Paris but from the corsairs of the Barbary coast. In the 1790s the Algerians again began to prey on U.S. commerce in the Mediterranean. Once again, Congress debated whether the nation ought to buy protection or establish a navy to safeguard shipping. In March 1794 Congress decided to respond with force and passed a naval act that called for the construction of a half-dozen frigates.

It's just so... American, isn't it? As a country, we've never been ones to shy away from a fight. Fighting for what we think is right is perhaps the most inspirational aspect of American history. There have certainly been times when we have fought when we shouldn't but we also have a strong history for fighting when we should. I find it kind of funny that the first U.S. merchant ship taken by pirates since the 19th century is taken back by the Americans using brute force against the pirates. That's how America does business! The Navy Seal snipers rescuing the captain is icing on the cake.

Piracy is an increasing problem and with it disrupting commerce and threatening lives as often as it is at present, I can't believe our navy hasn't done more to help. This is precisely the kind of thing our navy was created for. Now we're too busy playing international politics. Obama could do a lot for his reputation if he takes an aggressive stance against piracy. I hate his economic policies but at least he had enough sense to authorize force against the pirates to rescue the captain. Granted, he tried negotiating first and that only encourages them. Hopefully this comes as a blow to their egos. Next time, let's try a little harder. If there's anything worth using our navy for, it's this. I would gladly go out on a ship to fight piracy. It's certainly a more worthwhile pursuit than anything I'm doing at present.

Value and what is valuable.

2009-03-07T22:23:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been reading books by Orson Scott Card, the most famous of which is Ender's Game, all of which frame his beliefs in a futuristic narrative. One of the things that he discusses is the value of money and the value of talent and he makes a statement to the effect that the difference between the two is that you can't inherent talent from your parents, or at least not directly.

Along with that he implies that everyone values money, but few value talent, and valuing talent is where one has a chance to change the world.

Now, I know that I value talent but it seems to me that it is the rarer of the two to find. The reason seem to be that the drive to have talent isn't needed to survive and takes more energy than most judge worth it especially to develop a talent or skill that others can't show to you, which explains why technological change takes longer than it should.

Talent is a coin but is only accepted in exclusive clubs.

Cocain now cheaper than wine!

2009-02-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

The recession has dropped the price of drugs to below that of alcohol.

That means a line of cocaine can cost as little as £1, with an average price per line of between £2 and £4.

The average price of a pint of lager is around £2.75, although some pub chains have reacted to the credit crunch by cutting the price of a pint as low as 99p. A glass of wine typically costs £3.50.

If the fear is that people will start looking for cheaper highs, maybe the government should stop taxing the hell out of alcohol. Hey, if the Great Depression saw the end of prohibition on alcohol, then maybe... nah!

The Speech

2009-01-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

He said:

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

For us? Try removing all personal incentives for working and see how many people continue to do it. People work to advance their lives and the lives of those they have a personal interest in. For these same reasons we fight for freedom. Ayn Rand told the 1976 graduates of West Point, "You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service— it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one's country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. This is an enormous virtue."

He said:

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

The market's failings are due to the inherent failure in government regulation, not government's failure to regulate. The market is freedom. Yet when things don't go as desired, people call out to government to help and help it does. It helps to feed itself and solidify its power. Ultimately, each person must decide what is most important to him. To me, freedom is paramount. I want transparency and to be the master of my own destiny. We can build anything we desire without government. People are crafty and find ways to deal. However, we cannot allow mankind's own ingenuity to be turned against us, used to steal from us and enslave us. Business gets its power directly from us, through our spending habits. Government has too many buffers, too much influence, and can so easily exercise power precisely where it has no right to be exercised. As easy as it is to be won over by our new president's charm, don't become blinded by anything so petty as party lines and nationalistic romanticism.

Thomas Paine wrote:

A great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It had its origin in the principles of society, and the natural constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has in man and all the parts of a civilized community upon each other create that great chain of connection which holds it together.

The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and forms their laws; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself almost everything that is ascribed to government.

Tsk, Tsk, Korea.

2009-01-13T15:37:00.000-08:00

Shame on Korea.

South Korean officials arrested a blogger who for months had been criticizing the government's economic policy, charging him with spreading false rumors that led to a drop in the country's currency.

Who Predicted the Financial Crisis?

2008-12-16T00:55:00.000-08:00

The video is a bit dramatic and I don't want to be one of those guys who puts Ron Paul up on a pedestal. The fact is, Ron Paul is a politician, not an economist. However, he does understand economics, which is something I have come not to expect in politicians. This is the reason Ron Paul has become the modern face of free-market economics. However, the only reason Ron Paul knew what was coming was because free-market, Austrian school economists knew what was coming. Paul was not the first person to point out the problems discussed in the videos. Free-market economists have been talking for years about the brewing problems of our over-regulated economy and much of what they've predicted has come to pass. You might be thinking, "Oh, blah blah blah, good guess..." But if you really want to understand what has been happening over the last year, I recommend you go through the articles the Mises Institute has compiled into what they call The Bailout Reader. The articles compiled were written over the last few years explaining what was happening at the time, predicting what has turned out to be true, and recent articles explaining what has happened.

Government spending did not get us out of the Great Depression and it won't get us out of the current mess. It's natural during hard times to turn to the people who promise everything and ultimately have control of all the money ("the power to tax is the power to destroy") but the government should not have that much power or control. Follow the links if you really want to know why (warning: articles require audience participation in the way of active, intelligent thought).

Freedom Rings

2008-12-11T00:10:00.001-08:00

Oh good, the IWF listened to me.

New Study Links Kissing to Hearing Loss

2008-12-10T01:57:00.000-08:00

Kissing is dangerous. I like a partner to be passionate in her kissing but this is just ridiculous.

$25 Bil Well Spent

2008-12-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

Say What!?

2008-12-09T04:52:00.001-08:00

Dear UK,

Back yo ass up!

Sincerely,
Me

PS. The censorship is not "raising tough questions." The question and answer are simple. Is it right to censor the public under any circumstances? No.

Intelligence and the Art of Restraint

2008-12-03T03:35:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to India on reaching the point in the aftermath of their terrible national tragedy at which they start blaming their own government:

Indian intelligence agencies are leaking information that they gave about half a dozen warnings to the government in Maharashtra state - of which Mumbai is the capital.

While a unique situation in its own right, it brings to mind the accusations of foreknowledge of 9/11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Governments are often faced with making decisions on what to act on and what not to act on and they always risk upsetting citizens no matter what decision they make. I would make the case that it is better to err on the side of freedom. Some may say that this is a horrible thing to say in the wake of what has been called the most organized terrorist attack since September 11th but in no way do I mean to say that the people in Mumbai or New York or Pearl Harbor should have lost their lives due to inaction. Other people might say that freedom and security are not ideas opposed to one another. I disagree. I think most people's concept of security is diametrically opposed to freedom.

The consequences of September 11th on U.S. policy are seen in the news everyday. War, the PATRIOT Act, secret prisons, prison abuse, unwarranted wiretapping... The truth is that what is happening in America today is so minute compared to the oppression in so many countries around the world. Yet look at the kerfuffle that something like the PATRIOT Act has caused among Americans. This is a direct result of 9/11, though, and the desire to up the ante in U.S. security. People were afraid and upset with the failures in our government that might have allowed such an attack to slip through the cracks. Those who consider 9/11 a failure of the Bush administration are among those responsible for the PATRIOT Act and the Iraq War.

I'm not saying that government shouldn't work to improve intelligence or security. Given the nature of my job, I understand the importance of intelligence and as of late I have come to more understand its limitations and the necessity to improve it. Regardless, with any important piece of intel any government must arrive at the crossroads where a decision must be made; a decision that is bound to affect the public in some way whether they know it or not. To completely protect the public from every threat would require a crackdown that would not be accepted in any democracy. A democratic government that is supposed to be protecting the freedom of its people cannot jump the gun on threats that are vague and may not even seem plausible or possible.

This whole thing has made me think about what kind of actions we can now expect from the Indian government. Consider the fact that attacks on this scale always embarrass the government it happened under. Whether it was their fault or not, it looks bad. Now that the public and press are playing the blame game and pointing fingers, I figure an embarrassed government is more likely to go to greater lengths to "secure" their country. It sounds nice but think about what that really means. It means people will have to give up a some freedom in return for some security. If you think this has worked out well so far in the U.S. then fret not. If you think the restrictions of freedom on what is really a comparatively small number of people in this country has been a failed experiment, perhaps it's time to start scrutinizing. And please don't kid yourself about a better way of increasing security while maintaining the same level of freedom. History is not on your side.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

On the Next President of the United States

2008-11-05T02:24:00.000-08:00

I feel it's only right that I join everyone in making a statement about the election. As I'm sure many (read: all) of you know, history was made just hours ago when the United States elected its first black president. It's weird for me to think that history was made today. I think for many Americans in my generation, race has never been an issue in judging a person's character. So I find it strange that today it's such a big deal to have elected a black president but it is a big deal. In spite of my political differences with Obama (to put it lightly), I am, on some level, happy with what has been accomplished today. I would be lying if I said that Obama's election did not excite me in any way. I'm eager to see how Obama's rhetoric and international appeal might improve national unity and America's reputation. I think Obama could be good for immigration (if the effects of his popularity are not offset by globalization, which has allowed people is foreign countries to make a better living while staying close to family in their home nation). Living in a nation that was built by immigrants, it does excite me to think that our country's popularity and promise of a better life might once again inspire people to emigrate to America. It's also exciting to think that we might once again have a president that is not so divisive. I remember Mr. Helsel back in AP history talking with some affection about Ronald Regan in spite of their idealogical differences (though I suspect he had more conservative tendencies than he let on) because Regan had the ability to make people proud to be Americans. Obama also recognized Regan for his great leadership qualities and it seems Obama might have picked up some good political instincts from the old gipper.

Those of you excited by today's election results have much more faith than I do about this ushering in a new period of change in America (I think politics are pretty cyclical in this country), although I really don't want the kind of political change Obama is offering. But I'm not here to rain on your parade. As I've pointed out in the above paragraph, I have things to be happy about myself. If all else fails, I can always move to China, which seems to be, as one of my co-workers jokingly pointed out, more capitalist than the U.S. these days. I hope you all went out to eat, drink, and be merry after the results came through.

For those who went out to the polls, here are some words from my father on the subject:

I enjoy going to the polls on Election Day. It may be less convenient, but with so few community activities left in society, I enjoy doing something that as a nation we can say we do together. I see some neighbors I know, and mostly meet people I don’t know, but I like the pageantry, the signs, the sense of anticipation and excitement.

Here's to getting Bush out of the White House.

Obama voted with the Socialist

2008-11-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

Thom Lambert wonders:

If the fact that Sen. McCain voted “with the President” 90% of the time means a McCain administration would be “more of the same,” does the fact that Sen. Obama voted with Congress’s sole socialist 92% of the time mean that an Obama administration would be socialist?

To Vote or Not to Vote...?

2008-10-30T23:45:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of this deployment, I volunteered to be one of the voting representatives for our detachment down here in Okinawa. I took on this "responsibility" a few days before October 4th, the date by which a large number of states required voting registration to be post-marked. A couple of people told me they were interested in registering and I told them about the October 4th deadline but they never got back to me for further information. I guess it wasn't that important to them. Truth be told, I'm not the type to preach about the value and importance of voting. I'm not going to tell you it's your civic duty as an American citizen to vote. That's just stupid. Penn Jillette of the famous Penn & Teller TV show and Vegas magic act often says the only way to waste your vote is to vote. In a way, he's right. On the other hand, the only way to be heard is to vote.

This is why I consider voting to be of some importance. This is also something that has been ingrained in me since I was a child when my father was running for public office to be a selectman of our town in Massachusetts. I remember going door-to-door with my dad to pass out fliers and seeing my dad giving out lawn-signs. I was exposed to campaigning at a young age and during my father's re-election campaign saw how vicious things could turn in politics even for something as small and inconsequential (comparatively) as a board of selectmen. My father lost his second bid. My feelings towards politics have been mixed throughout my life. On the one hand, I've always had my very political father imbuing in me a sense of importance in taking an active part in our political process. It's important to vote (Republican), my father would tell me. The parenthesized word was usually implied, sometimes stated in a half-joking manner. On the other hand, choices in politics are very limited and usually the choices consist of people looking to improve themselves at the expense of others. Politics is a parasitic business.

So this year I decided to do something that seemed simple and logical, I sent a message with my vote. I told the GOP and the Democrats that I don't like what either of them have to say and I voted Libertarian. Many have told me that I threw my vote away. Others have used different words to let me know of their disappointment. This is what is wrong with our our system of politics. Voting for the person I actually like most is frowned upon. Stepping outside the two-party system is a political sin in this country. It's seen as letting the "other guy" win. Well, the simple, unfortunate truth is that I don't give two-shits about whether Obama or McCain is sitting in the oval office come January 20th. I don't like either of them and neither of them will have the ability to change the system to the degree they claim they want to. I'm slightly angered by the fact that people would look down on my voting in a way that is most representative of my views just because they think I should vote for one of the major party tickets. It has nothing to do with voting for one candidate over the other, only voting for our entrenched system of politics. Moreover, I am a registered voter of Arizona. It's no secret who is winning the state's electoral votes.

Should Obama win the election (as is looking more likely every day), I will be happy to have a president who is more elegant, polished, popular than Bush. I'll probably despise every piece of legislation he tries to pass, though. If McCain is elected, I will be happy to have a president who seems slightly (emphasis on slightly) more informed on how economics really work than Obama and who is more concerned with balancing the budget than "spreading the wealth" (even though actually balancing the budget is impossible with our military spending right now). Either way, I won't be happy with with the guy in the White House, so I decided to send a message with my vote, hoping that the numbers will add-up enough to make major candidates notice they are losing votes.

Out of what respect I have left for politics and those who participate in it, I opted to help my unregistered coworkers who desired to vote in this year's election. That turns out to have been no one. I can't say I blame them. Voting will probably only make a difference in swing-states but even then, it's easy to be jaded with the system. Mostly, I agree with what Penn Jillette has to say in his video on voting. His major points are that you can't vote against someone, telling people it doesn't matter who they vote for as long as they vote is stupid, and if you want your vote to really matter, "vote for a nut." "They will really, really pay attention to the votes that go outside the two-party system," he says. The only way to really bring about change is to let the two major parties know you want something different. Obama might be running on "hope" and "change" but he will be able to change little and Democrats will resort to celebrating the same small victories that are celebrated with any administration as bills are passed here and there, shifting money around, and sustaining the political system that feeds fat cats like Obama and McCain. Years down the road we'll have another Republican in the White House and when all the liberals are griping about the same things they've been griping about for the last eight years it will be more evident than ever how little has changed in in American politics.

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
-Douglas Adams

Open Letter to Obama

2008-10-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: I think this link might be where the letter started on the Internet.

Below is an open letter to Senator Obama that has been making the rounds on the internet. It has been posted in so many places that I don't know where it originated. Not caring enough to spend the time finding its origin, I'm just going to post the letter here and tell you I found it through a LiveJournal Objectivist community. The letter is worth reading, even if you don't agree with it. Maybe especially if you don't agree with it. The letter was supposedly written by a businessman who has spent so much of his life struggling for his success. It's like the true story of the ant and the grasshopper if the grasshopper got a group of thugs together to go rob the ant of half its food to "spread the wealth." I wish this Cory Miller had a slightly better grasp of the English language to improve some of the grammar and word choice (as it's usually more helpful than not to appear more educated) but the letter is definitely readable and carries a worth-while message. The man's lack of schooling certainly doesn't seem to have been to his detriment, anyway. As always, share and enjoy:

Mr. Obama,

Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce myself. You can call me "Cory the well driller". I am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn't go to college like you, I was too ready to go "conquer the world" when I finished high school. 25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when the economy here in East Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80's oil boom. I didn't get any help from the government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job. My businesses did not start as a result of privilege. They are the result of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn't afford a backhoe the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).

I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the most competent and most honest water well driller in East Texas. 2 years along the way, I hired another full time employee for the drilling business so that we could provide full time water well pump service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn't work out for 3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of any added income from the new machine. No government program was there to help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working properly, and that provided another full time job for an East Texan in the screen service business.

2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for $250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.

A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water well convention to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a problem. I had depleted my assets making the prototype, and nobody would make me a business loan to start production of the new pumps. With several deposits for pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started applying for as many credit card as I could find and took cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over $150,000.00 (including modest loans from my dear sister and brother), to get this 3rd business going.

Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in an effort to start another business. I had never manufactured anything, and I had to design and bring into production a complex hydraulic machine from an untested prototype to a reliable production model (in six months). How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just made the paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you, but there were plenty. I managed to get the pumps into production, which immediately created another 2 full time jobs in East Texas. Some of the models in the first year suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee (another East Texan employed) had to drive across the country to repair customers' pumps, practically from coast to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments to all the credit cards that had financed me (and my brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving and refining the product, building a reputation for the pump and the company, working to get the pump into drill rig manufacturers' product lines, and paying back credit cards. During all this time I continued to manage a growing water well business that was now operating 3 drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the screen service business continued to grow. No government programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that's ok, I didn't expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy fighting to make success happen to sit around waiting for the government to help me.

Now, we have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and distribute $5,000,000.00 annually through the local economy. Now, just 4 months ago I borrowed $1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled machining equipment to start my 4th business, a production machine shop. The machine shop will serve the mud pump company so that we can better manufacture our pumps that are being shipped worldwide. Of course, the machine shop will also do work for outside companies as well. This has already produced 2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out of it in the next few months. This should work out, but if it doesn't it will be because you, and the other professional politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our countrys' (and the world) economy with your meddling with mortgage loan programs through your liberal manipulation and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. You see, at the very time when I couldn't get a business loan to get my mud pumps into production, you were working with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet, bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates, I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that I had used to provide me the funds for the mud pump business that has created jobs for more East Texans. It's funny, because after 25 years of turning almost every dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow them, it has been only in the last two years that I have finally made enough money to be able to put a little away for retirement, and now the value of that has dropped 40% because of the policies you and your ilk have perpetrated on our country.

You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I'm the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I'm the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn't want to take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I'm the guy you characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything. You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career. What's worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems across our land.

What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was made great by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that success was in reach of every able bodied American who would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states. If you and your liberal comrades in the media and school systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating your entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large embracing the conviction that they can elevate themselves through personal betterment, personal achievement, and self reliance. You see, when people embrace such ideals, they act on them. When people act on such ideals, they succeed. All of America could find herself elevating instead of deteriorating. But that would eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn't it, Mr. Obama? The country would not need you if the country was convinced that problem solving was best left with individuals instead of the government. You and all your liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating a dependent class in our country. It is the very business of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on government. What's remarkable is that you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn't need my money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal politicians to raise their station in life.

You see, I know because I've had them work for me before. Hundreds of them over these 25 years. People who simply will not show up to work on time. People who just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6 days. People always looking for a way to put less effort out. People who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first pay them more. People who take off work to sit in government offices to apply to get free government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would have turned out for them if they had spent that time earning money and pleasing their employer?). You see, all of this comes from your entitlement mentality culture.

Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama, wrong again. You see, I've seen what the average percentage of your income has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the years you started running for office - can you pronounce "politically motivated"), you averaged less than 1% annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it is someone else's money you are giving to them. I won't say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years, but the percentage is several times more than you and Joe Biden. combined (don't you just hate google?). Tell me again how you feel my pain.

In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside over the final transformation of America from being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities, have a little less to offer mankind every year.

God help us...

Cory Miller

just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of Americans used to be.

P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American... www.cmillerdrilling.com

Politically Incorrect Guide To Politics

2008-10-18T03:41:00.000-07:00

Someone uploaded John Stossel's latest program on 20/20, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics, and put it on YouTube. This is something worth checking out. Since it's divided into 6 parts, I thought someone ought to put all the videos in one spot. So I'm putting all the videos in one spot. Many thanks to the YouTube user wisted for uploading these videos. Being based overseas, I wouldn't have been able to watch this otherwise.

Palin As President.

2008-10-16T04:02:00.000-07:00

Palin As President

Hilarious! Perhaps more so now that her chances of making it to the White House look slim.

Health Care is Not a Right

2008-10-16T02:13:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine was recently upset by a blog post from a friend of hers. In fear that her friend would delete the opposing comments, my friend made her own blog post with her rebuttal and an explanation. Then I got upset at my friend's blog post and wrote my own rebuttal and now I'm going to share it with the world. My friend explains, "I am not voting for Change because I need it, I am voting for change because I can't stand to look into the eyes of the kids in my neighborhood who are desperate for it." She seems to be convinced that health care is a right and Obama has the cure for what ails this nation. Her response to her friend's post was this:

It kills me that someone can honestly say that not everyone has a right to healthcare. "we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable rights...LIFE...." How can someone honestly say that a child born to parents who have made poor decisions, or who can not support them financially, does not have a right to health care? How can you say that this child does not have a right to the care that enables life itself? Perhaps those of us, like myself, who have been born to parents who are able to provide for us can easily say that "we shouldn't be sitting around waiting for the government to take care of us" because honestly, when have we had to REALLY worry about lacking a necessity, or for that matter, even taking care of ourselves? But to say that someone who has lived life, has been born into a life without...to say that they do not deserve the chance to have some form of stability, some hope in a world that they see as dark and hopeless...it makes me sick to think that people could even begin to think this way. I understand the concepts and the arguments, but honestly, since when do we want doctors to be motivated by money, rather than the desire to bless someones life? I pay tuition to be a nurse to help people. I could care less if they are being supported by the government because I am ONLY there to help them, not get some sort of financial payoff because someone is sick and suffering. And I hate to say it, but people who are not as fortunate as we, they do have bad teeth. They do die of cancer, and tetanus, and who knows what else....those things happen. People suffer. People Die. Every day of our pampered lives.

When I came back with my own response I got a bit carried away. I always do when talking with friends or debating issues with people. That is why I'm sharing this. It's healthy and I think worthwhile. Naturally, I welcome dissenting opinions should anyone decide to continue the dialogue here. Here is what I had to say:

There is no shortage of reasons to disagree with nationalized health care (aka socialized medicine). Government regulation has made health care as expensive as it is today and I find it ironic that the only solution people could come up with to fight rising costs is socialization rather than remove all the restrictions that have spurred a lack of competition and have gotten us to this point. Explaining the whys and hows of health care economics is quite a process but if you would like some analysis on the finer points, let me point you to a couple articles:

How Medical Boards Nationalized Health Care

The History of Health Care Costs and Health Insurance (you might want to just right click and "save link as..." for this one and open it in Acrobat Reader)

The first article is about how the American Medical Association has monopolized medicine in the United States and the consequences of it. The second link is an essay on how regulation has raised health care costs and why eliminating such regulations will decrease costs and most benefit Americans (it's long but worth reading--humor me). I'm not going to pretend that these don't come from biased sources. I'm a biased person. I am certain that freedom is better than socialism and that socialized ANYTHING leads to economic strain and trouble for nations as a whole (not to mention individuals). Law in the U.S. frequently champions the utilitarian principle of the most good for the most people. Free markets will do this. You might think that health care can be "universal" under government control but in reality, government does not have the ability or the means to care for everyone.

It's fine to say things like "since when do we want doctors to be motivated by money, rather than the desire to bless someones life?" without thinking of the consequences. If you're going to go that route, since when do we want pain and suffering to exist in the world? Since when do we want a world with despots, murders, thieves, starvation, disease...? We live in the world that exists, not the one we want to exist. People are motivated by things that increase their standard of living. This is a human desire. I imagine most doctors choose their field because they have a desire to help people. That does not mean they won't be influenced by money, though. In fact, I want my doctor to be influenced by money. I enjoy living in a capitalist society in which the threat of taking my business elsewhere should I receive poor service is always looming. This isn't even something I get to take advantage of right now. I am in the military and am subject to socialized medicine. Military medical is a joke and you'll find that many in the military consider it such. Sure, many people also enjoy not having to pay for medical expenses but they know they aren't receiving the best care. It seems that every time a person goes to medical there's a new ridiculous story or joke to recount. Right now I have a friend with chicken pocks or shingles. None of us who work with him know which it is because there doesn't seem to be a consensus. Military medical does not inspire confidence. Medics in the military get the same pay no matter how many people they help or how good or bad their reputations are. There are good doctors in the military, of course. But it is rare to receive superb medical care. It's really just enough to get by, which might be necessary for a military (since it requires entrenched medics), but it is not something I would want to see tried nation-wide. It would be a disaster.

What I most want to address here, however, is the idea that health care is a right. You seem so adamant about this but I don't know how you come to this conclusion. It seems to me that most people who consider health care a right do so because some people need it to live. Needs are not rights, though. Just because a person needs something doesn't give him a right to it. Taking something without the consent of the owner is sealing and I have yet to find any moral code that says "thou shalt not steal unless you really need it." As a Mormon, I'd think you'd be able to appreciate that.

You cite the right to life from the Declaration of Independence and infer that this means a right to health care. This is a perversion of the declaration's original meaning. The right to life is the right to live your life, not the right to not die. Rights are something you have even in the absence of other people. In fact, only when other people are around can your rights be restricted. John Locke once described natural rights as the rights to "life, liberty, and estate." These are things you would have without receiving anything from anyone else. Of course, as we all know, "estate" was changed to "pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence because some people, it was determined, did not have the right to own property. Determined by whom? Determined by a government that considered some people superior to others and even considered some people to BE property.

Health care is the product of other people's minds. Without other people, a sick person has nothing. With other people, a sick person has care at the discretion of its provider. If you cannot force someone to prescribe health care on the grounds that to do so would be restricting an individual's right to liberty, how can you claim that anyone has a right to health care? Let's say, for argument's sake, that a person has found the cure for cancer; all kinds of cancer. Let's also say he's a complete dick and doesn't want to share his knowledge and, thus, is the only person on the planet with a known cure. If people with cancer have a right to health care, what are they allowed to do in order to obtain it? Is torturing the dick with the cure for cancer in his head justified because other people need the cure to live? That would be infringing on his right to liberty and possibly his right to life (you know, if you go overboard). It's easy to say that it is OK to take money from wealthy, unwilling participants because they have so much as long as the money is used for the less fortunate but that still infringes on the right to own property. We come back, again, to theft. To make this argument, you have to either be against the notion of the right to property or still believe that need denotes right. In either case, I would assume you to be a hypocrite because I doubt very seriously you would like someone infringing on your right to property. You might be OK with giving money away to certain causes but that is your prerogative. If a person has a need for shelter, does that give him a right to intrude on your home? What if he needs food? Can he rummage through your kitchen and help himself to whatever he desires? What if you walked in on him taking advantage of your property? Would you kick him out? Would you call the police? I may be too presumptuous here but what I assume you WOULDN'T do is let him take advantage of anything in your house and stay as long as he likes. If you claim you WOULD do these things, why haven't you? Or do you not live in a place of your own, yet? Perhaps you are still in the dorms or your parents' house. Maybe you are just biding your time until you get an apartment so you can invite all the homeless men and woman you can possibly fit without creating a fire hazard to stay with you. No, I doubt it. And why is that? It's because you enjoy the fruits of your labor and the ability to live comfortably even when others need shelter and food. This is not something to be ashamed of, though. It's human.

I am not saying people shouldn't want to help others or have a "basic concern for people." Having a "basic concern" doesn't mean you have to propose new "rights" that infringe upon others' natural rights. I am simply saying that taking a person's property in the name of "need" or "good" is infringing on that person's rights and is wrong. If you feel so strongly about the issue, you should spend more time fundraising for charities rather than trying to force people out of their money. That would be something I could support. You are right about one thing, though: change IS needed in this country, just not the kind of change proposed by the likes of McCain and Obama. They want more regulation, more government involvement, if only to make it seem like they are working for you and trying to solve our country's ills. They are not solving them. They are only making things worse.

NOTE: If you would like some more points on why health care is not a right, check out this article by Leonard Peikoff: Health Care is Not a Right. It's pretty good and raises some points I didn't address here.

Keep An Active Mind

2008-10-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

When discussing the idea of "open" and "closed" minds, there's a quote from Ayn Rand's book Philosophy: Who Needs It that I like to share with people:

[There is a] dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an “open mind.” This is a very ambiguous term—as demonstrated by a man who once accused a famous politician of having “a wide open mind.” That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skepticism, for holding no firm convictions and granting plausibility to anything. A “closed mind” is usually taken to mean the attitude of a man impervious to ideas, arguments, facts and logic, who clings stubbornly to some mixture of unwarranted assumptions, fashionable catch phrases, tribal prejudices—and emotions. But this is not a “closed” mind, it is a passive one. It is a mind that has dispensed with (or never acquired) the practice of thinking or judging, and feels threatened by any request to consider anything.

What objectivity and the study of philosophy require is not an “open mind,” but an active mind—a mind able and eagerly willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. An active mind does not grant equal status to truth and falsehood; it does not remain floating forever in a stagnant vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty; by assuming the responsibility of judgment, it reaches firm convictions and holds to them. Since it is able to prove its convictions, an active mind achieves an unassailable certainty in confrontations with assailants—a certainty untainted by spots of blind faith, approximation, evasion and fear.

One person I showed this to claimed this was just semantics, tomato/tomahto. I don't think this is the case. My experience is that when a person of an opposite point of view asks you to keep an open mind, what he means to say is "imagine that this is true." That person wants you to "suspend disbelief," so to speak, which then makes you more susceptible to his arguments. You might start to say to yourself, "that's certainly possible" or "when you put it like that..." There are ideas and concepts people want me to have an open mind about that are just as reprehensible to me as the murder of another human being. "You think communism can't work and is a bad idea because of American propaganda and you're closed minded," an argument might go. I try to have what Rand describes as an "active mind." The people with passive minds are the ones who never consider the fact that they might be wrong. It's possible, however, to consider the fact that you might be wrong without conceding the point that the other side is probably right. I think once a person entertains that idea, he becomes more susceptible to believe falsehoods. I prefer to just look at the facts and use logic to determine the truth. Or in the words of Daria Morgendorffer, "Stand firm for what you believe in, until and unless logic and experience prove you wrong."

What If...?

2008-09-29T05:09:00.000-07:00

What if you remembered every face you ever laid eyes on? Every person you glanced at on a busy street of New York City or in a packed restaurant during your lunch break? How much would this increase the odds of you running into someone you've seen before in the future? Would it be weird? Would you say, "I once saw you sitting in a Starbucks on 42nd street in your long brown jacket, sipping and staring vacantly out the window."? Would you have to explain, "No, I'm not a stalker. I was just passing by. It's this thing with my memory."? Would you even be interested enough to strike up a conversation? Because I think you should be.

Zex and Government drugs and terrorism

2008-08-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

I was watching the movie"Good Night and Good Luck" which covered the subject of McCarthyism and the media. The subject of whether or not a person is a communist was deeply important to people at that time. I think that the moral issues of communism and capitalism that are brought up are relevant to today inasmuch as the treatment of people is concerned.

I've heard that societies, especially governments ought to exist to help out the individual, in my experience the opposite is true, the people that compose a society are there for that societies benefit, however the relationship is symbiotic, for as the health of the people that compose the society declines the society suffers, and so for the most part society looks to keep its' people happy and content.

This explains why totalitarian societies can be successful. As long as the people are kept happy, or improvements in daily life can be seen the government need not fear the people, and can impose rules on the press, military service, careers, and exert control on people's lives.

However I don't believe that these things are good for the people they are just tolerated or endorsed out of ease for a normal person. This is similar to the functions of a body If everything is working well no further actions are necessary however should part of me start to be diseased then actions should be taken to fix the problem.

So there are some things that I think we need to do to change our governing practices in this country, first and foremost I think we need to change drug policy. Throwing people in jail for drug possession is a poor deterrent to people especially when we see that drug use remains steady, and that the number of people incarcerated for drug related problems is more than the current number of people in the armed forces.

I realize that legalizing drugs is considered a moral issue, the fights over prohibition in during the last century and famous photographs that proclaimed as lips that touch alcohol shall not touch ours were over the very fabric of what our society should be. I don't condone drug use as a habitual thing however I think we could take a page from the book of the past and see that we've created a problem and we aren't addressing it properly. Maybe it's time that we stop treating people that take drugs as losers and trash and look to see what makes them take the drugs in the first place and where the drugs become a problem. Alcohol only becomes a problem in excess, so why should it be any different with other substances. At one time serious research could be done with these substances to help people now we've thrown alll that away over fear.

In the same vein I think that holding people as terrorists without trial is wrong, and that much of the current government is run on people's fear. When we run our country out of fear we become the McCarthy's of this century If we dismiss people with a grievance against this country and its policies as lunatics then when later they take drastic actions and force us to remove our shoes every 15 feet because a bomb might be in them at an airport, when we dismiss them and find ourselves in a war in two countries that is unpopular at home and nobody is sure how to win this war because there is no country to fight against. When we find ourselves critising a president for these actions but offer no alternatives as to how to improve the world in the area where civilizations first started to spring up we need to stop.

Fear is good for us it helps us survive in a moment, but it is only good for a moment. It allows us to recognize problems, threats and works to bring about immediate action. I'll admit that fear is changing the way I interact with the environment. I'm really trying to consume less and I think about ways to make a lasting change and not a feel good moment. But fear must not be made to govern us. Such is the lesson that has been ingrained in me by every writer, every actor, every history book and lesson I've ever taken seriously. Fear is the indicator that something is wrong and we must then take actions to stop the cause, however if the actions we take do not remove the fear, then we have taken the wrong actions. I believe that the actions of imprisoning suspected terrorists without exposing them and what goes on has not only made us fear terrorists more but it makes me fear my own government. Secret trials don't lead to security and secrets don't make me safe.

There are reasons for secrets but justice isn't one of them, I don't think terrorists love terror I think that they want to feel that they have taken action against someone who's trying to control their way of life someone who doesn't listen to their point of view and who will impose on their way of life. I can not believe that terrorists exist only to kill other people. Sure killers exist, but terrorism is a statement not a random act.

"Little Brother" a quick look at an e book

2008-08-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

So I was looking at a review for a book called little brother, and Its got one of Spider's favorite authors Neil Gaiman's thumbs up. It's sort of a reworking of the terrorist theme and the feeling you get from George Orwell's 1984. I was extremely paranoid after reading the first few chapters. The book is available online as an e-book for free at http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/.
I suggest that everyone take a look at this book, not because it's an extremely well written book, it's not but because the author has a tech's view of the world. The technology he's written about in his book isn't very imaginative or far-fetched but because of the reality of the technology in the book it makes for a good thought experiment.

The dangers in the book highlighted are those of surveillance society.

I'm not a fan of government, inasmuch as the government's ability to invade on liberties rarely seems to diminish. There is a breaking point for that controll whatever anyone may say but where that breaking point is I don't know.

I know that this is true because we have real world examples of governments ruining lives and failing it happens all the time in Africa. The breaking point isn't murder of citizens however, as long as the citizens murdered are in a minority be it religious, political, or racial. That scares me.

So when a book like this comes out and has some ideas on how to subvert systems that become dangerous I'm all for it. However my paranoia was racked up a notch or two.

One of the problems we face with the internet is that privacy gives way to information in most areas. Google is especially bad about this. It uses the most sophisticated hacking software in the world (as far as I know) to search out pages and check out their links it then posts those pages on the net and Even though you can opt out of their search engine the people at google have no problem with gathering info prior to your consent.

This doesn't mean don't use google it just mean that you should be aware that things you post online are public. To anyone. Including your mom and dad. So exercise a little caution.
-Zex

Talent

2008-08-02T01:33:00.001-07:00

It's always great to see talented people get together and work on a project. More than great, it's inspiring.
Here we have (left to right) Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, and Kyle Cassidy. A great writer, a great musician, and a great photographer. How awesome is that? I'm pretty excited for Amanda's solo effort and the accompanying book, which Gaiman and Cassidy are working with her on.

Cassidy writes in his blog:

"Since I left high school," I said, after a long, contemplative silence, "my
life has been going up, and up, and up. I feel like every day is better than the
one before."

I hope that when I am his age I feel the same way. So far so good. Two more decades to go.

I hope I one day get to collaborate with creative geniuses. That would make my life.

The Politics of Freedom

2008-07-24T05:15:00.000-07:00

I've recently finished The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul and started in on The Audacity of Hope, which, I'm sure the whole world now knows, is written by Barak Obama. During my reading, a recurring realization came back to me: I am completely disillusioned with politics in this country. I care passionately about the philosophical issues behind the debates but I know the candidates debating them are disingenuous (please note the term "debate" is used very loosely in this context). No one cares about human autonomy anymore. The supremacy of the state as an ideal is as popular as ever.

I understand the appeal, though. The idea that should anyone fall on hardships, there's a powerful, benevolent system at work to pull him up and set him right. The problem is that any system so powerful is never benevolent in the way people want or hope. There are also unintended consequences of such a system. Rarely does it leave society better off than it was before or would have been in the long run. The question of what right a government has to exercise power over people has been the issue of long, drawn out debates. I think John Locke came up with a good rule of thumb:

"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."
-from A Treatise Concerning Civil Government

We do this all the time, of course. Ron Paul talks a lot about the founders and their intentions but if their intentions were to keep the government as small and unobtrusive as possible, they didn't do a very good job of it. Shay's Rebellion helped make a cause for scrapping the Articles of Confederation for the Constitution. Then when the Whisky Rebellion started up, Washington used the Militia Act of 1792 to crush it. And do you remember the Alien and Sedition Act under John Adams? Jefferson would later deem this to be unconstitutional but it existed. In fact, Adams created it to avoid criticism and to increase the power of his political party. Pretty underhanded for a founder of our country, don't you think? Even Thomas Jefferson, my favorite and most freedom-loving of the founders, failed to get rid of the national bank and signed that economic fiasco known as the Embargo Act of 1807 into law.

Our federal government has a long tradition of exercising and increasing its own power. Every time I think about this I am somewhat struck by how much it annoys me. I like freedom in the strictest sense. I would call myself anarchist if I thought an anarchy could sustain itself. The problem is that humanity basically started with anarchy and gradually grew into what we have now. People form societies out of necessity and society is a good thing. Unfortunately, it's easily manipulated and soon enough we have power hungry despots ruling over people.

What we really need is more projects like Peter Thiel's Ocean Colonies. The idea of governments having to actually compete for people is appealing. Or just being outside the range of oppressive policies. For now, I find crypto-anarchism to be the most logical policy to support. You don't need to rely on government to accomplish the goals of crypto-anarchism and, if it works properly, you can express and share ideas freely without worry of government reprisal. With a little more work in the department of e-gold (particularly allowing refunds and staying out of reach from accusatory governmental bodies) then a thriving, free cyber-society could emerge. This would undoubtedly lead to some leakage into the physical world and would be an all-around great thing for all societies and freedom-loving people.

None of this cures me of being irked at my country's political system but it helps. I'm worried that my antipathy for the likes of Obama and McCain and what passes as politics in Washington now is leading towards a kind of apathy resulting in inaction. I don't want to be apathetic towards what's going on. I want to think that things can change and that I might one day be able to operate completely free of the system I am now living in. But as the candidates of different parties grow more alike, I can only feel a sense of disappointment. It's really hard and takes a lot of effort to get worked up over something that has been going on my entire life.

The Media

2008-07-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

The Media - An original poem

Economist to Obama: Lighten up!

2008-07-16T05:20:00.000-07:00

Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the Obama camp took the New Yorker cover much too seriously:

AS my colleague suggested earlier, the Obama campaign's silly overreaction to
this week's New Yorker cover has called attention to the fact that Mr Obama is
perhaps not a man with a good sense of humour.

Ouch. And you'd think that the guy shouldn't have a hard time cracking better jokes than the ones McCain makes about beating his wife. (I was not aware of this joke until I read The Economist article--it's priceless!)

WikiObjectivist?

2008-07-16T04:59:00.000-07:00

Say what? Jimmy Wales, the creator of Wikipedia, is an Objectivist?

The philosophy that appealed to Mr Wales was Objectivism, a strand of thinking
associated with the author Ayn Rand. “It colours everything I do and think,” he
says. In her cult novels “Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” and other works,
Rand described rugged and unbending individualists who embodied a raw brand of
capitalism and a metaphysical conviction that reality was fixed and objectively
knowable.

Nice. Wales shows that wealth and its accumulation is not the primary goal of Objectivists. Different people value different things and Wales valued free knowledge and easy access to it over becoming rich.

As Mr Wales struggles with such intellectual controversies, he now does so as a
minor celebrity. Neither Bomis nor Wikipedia has made him rich--if he is
comfortable, it is mainly the result of earning money from speaking engagements,
say friends. But as the face of Wikipedia and of free knowledge he hobnobs with
the likes of Al Gore and Tony Blair. He may live in a modest home in suburban
Florida, but he has also been a guest on Necker Island, the private Caribbean
hideaway of Richard Branson, a British tycoon. When Mr Wales had an affair with
a Canadian television presenter, bloggers treated it with the same voyeuristic
zeal usually reserved for the likes of Brad Pitt.

Hey, whatever works, Jimmy. Apparently he's now trying to make some money with Wikia.com but so far it remains a poorly designed website with intrusive ads. The site looks like it has potential but those ads have to go. Are you that desperate for money, Wales?

Pound It!

2008-07-15T02:12:00.001-07:00

In the spirit of pissing on censorship-friendly sentiments, I have to put this picture up in yet another place on the internet. I don't get how anyone can not think this cover is funny. It cracks me up! Granted, I'm a little biased because I don't like Obama. But I hate lies and the distortion of facts for political gain, as well. This cover is a clear satire of everything that has been said about Obama since he began running for president. Why is it hard for people to see this?

From AFP:

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
"But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree," he said in a statement.

"Tasteless and offensive"? No, it's hilarious! I got it. I understood it the second I saw it. The average person who reads magazines like The New Yorker is going to understand this cover. The real ignorance lays in jerks like Bill Burton who have no confidence in the intelligence of the average person. This cover has "exaggeration" drawn all over it. David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, had this to say:

"Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the
open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's
the spirit of this cover."

This 22-year-old sailor understood this within seconds of seeing the picture but the media would have its audience believe that their neighbors and co-workers are too stupid to figure out what satire is. At this point all I can really say is thank you, New Yorker. You have done this country a great service by putting out this cover because people need to learn not to be afraid or offended by cartoons and caricatures. Leave that job to muslims like Obama. Oops...

A quick thought on brains.

2008-07-14T01:34:00.000-07:00

The biggest difference (I've been told) between the way a human brain works and the way a computer works is that when a human brain learns a rule the rule makes processing information generally faster, while when a computer gets a new rule the process slows down.

The ability to apply rules makes smart people very adept at completing calculations but clumsy when it comes to people. The reason it seems is that rules don't work when you talk about people for every rule with people there is an exception and more often than not the exception applies more broadly than a third of the time. Even a recent study that showed that 80 some odd percent of men would sleep with a random woman who asked that question still leaves more than 1 in ten not following the rule. Zero women would do that presumably since they can have sex whenever and it is something for women to safeguard, whilst men have to pursue it.

Anyway since smart people use the rule system well, when they interact with people they tend to have to put on different mental gears which is difficult for any of us and thus we get the awkward smart kid stereotype, which even then isn't hard and fast. Look at that Bill Nye, what a great science guy. So anyway when interacting with people drop the rules you can and see where it goes. I'd like to know.
-Zex

The Pirate's Dilemma

2008-07-13T05:07:00.000-07:00

This book started being offered for free on the internet about a month back and I just started reading it earlier today. Click here to check out The Pirate's Dilemma. You get to choose what you pay and I'm sure most people are choosing to pay $0 as they did with Radiohead's last album.

The premise of this book is that piracy is giving rise a new "punk capitalism." The author claims that piracy is bad only when it does not add anything or do anything good for society. Many pirates today, Mason says, are creating something new and giving new value to intellectual property. I have to agree with the man on that point. There is some merit to what he has to say. I never really viewed the downloading phenomenon going on today as piracy, really. But then again, I grew up in the '90s recording shows and movies on television and music off the radio to share with friends. The hubbub about those practices had long since died down when I started doing it. Downloading is the same thing to me.

Access to information is a vital part of any society's growth. In so many ways pirates can be very innovative with other people's work that they otherwise would not have had access to. When a young individual in a developing country downloads photoshop and uses it to create gorgeous images that make him popular on the internet, how can I condemn him? I would be happy for his opportunity, success, and art. Furthermore, when people like this become successful, they tend to spend money on the very products they once got for free. With money comes convenience.

I hardly ever used to spend money on music because I couldn't afford it. Soon after joining the military I purchased subscriptions to Napster and Rhapsody. I later used Urge, as well, before they merged with Rhapsody. I spend much more money today than I ever thought I would be spending on music because it's more convenient to find and download music from a central server. Granted, I'm not purchasing dozens of albums but I am spending money. That's the general goal, right?

Anyway, I will no doubt have more to say on this issue in the future. In the mean time, watch the video below and go download the book. It's good stuff.

Idiot Chiefs

2008-07-10T00:45:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a little bit about guys in the navy I like to call Idiot Chiefs. These guys are truly some fantastic specimens to behold. Should you ever run into one, you may be baffled by how little he knows for a senior enlisted individual in the armed forces. This man has been around, you think to yourself. Surely he must know something! And you would be right; he does know something. What that something is you'll never know because whatever the fuck he's telling you is straight bullshit.

Idiot Chiefs like to display their superiority in a very proactive way. They believe that their higher rank automatically gains them greater knowledge. They fail to realize that knowledge is something you must work for and spewing shit out of your mouth does not make it true just because you have anchors on your collar.

The Idiot Chief must not to be confused with the Good Chief. The Good Chief takes care of his people, is not lazy, gets work done, and actually knows what the fuck he is talking about.

Let me clarify my point by telling a little anecdote. One day (i.e. 30 minutes ago) I was walking back to my barracks from the good 'ol USS Blue Ridge and I came across a tall Idiot Chief with dirty blond hair and a head shaped like a vertical brick. I did not know he was an Idiot Chief when he pointed at me and beckoned me with his finger like I was some goddamn whore in Thailand or his juvenile delinquent of a child; no, this knowledge came when he first opened his mouth. "You have to wear that backpack on both shoulders or carry it," he told me.

"Oh, really?" I said, sounding innocent and surprised. I really was surprised because I knew he was wrong. However, I did not challenge him because I knew that challenging an Idiot Chief is a losing battle. Always. You see, Idiot Chiefs are often wrong but never, ever realize it. You can prove to them that 2 + 2 does, in fact, equal 4 but they will never concede that they were wrong. An Idiot Cheif would rather waste time trying to show how right he is by saying something retarded like, "Well, when you put it that way..." and then digress into some nonsensical bullshit about how you were putting words in his mouth and trying to make him look stupid. Knowing the inner mind of the Idiot Chief helped me quickly identify the problem and rush to alleviate it by agreeing with everything he said and walking away. I find this to be the best strategy as it wastes the least amout of time and is sure to get me to my destination and away from the Idiot Chief ASAP. On the other hand, proving an Idiot Chief wrong is perhaps one of the most satisfying feelings a lower enlisted individual can have. Should you ever have the unfortunate experience of running into an Idiot Chief, I suggest you figure out what you value more: speediness or making the Idiot Chief look dumb.

As I walked away with my backpack now resting on both my shoulders, the Idiot Chief called after me, "It's in the uniform regulations. It's chapter 4. No, it's chapter 5, I think." He was wrong. Twice. Backpacks are covered in chapter two. The irony here, and one of the other reasons I did not argue with him, was that I was actually out of regulations. My backpack is not entirely black as it has the white North Face logo on it (logos are not allowed unless they're completely black). Also, I had a watter bottle in one of those netted side-pockets made for watter bottles. A backpack "must conceal its contents" completely. Nothing can show on the outside. So there were two discrepencies right off the bat that I knew the chief could hit me on but he was completely oblivious to them. Instead, he criticized the completely authorized manner in which I wore the bag. In fact, if I remember correctly, the uniform regulations were only updated recently to allow wearing backpacks on both shoulders. Uniformed personnel used to only be able to wear bags on the left shoulder and that is still true for service uniforms. I now know this man is an Idiot Chief and I will remember to steer clear in the future.

So for anyone coming to this blog who is in the navy or is looking to join, let me give you this bit of advice: know the regulations, learn to identify the Idiot Chief, and don't let him push you around. Especially if you work with him. I could ignore this guy because I'll probably never see him again. If I actually had to work with the guy, you bet your ass I would print out the regulation and go slap it in his face. I don't stand for ignorant khakis. Anyone that high up in the ranks should know better.

(Credit: picture taken from this blog.)

Robert A. Taft

2008-07-09T03:15:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading Ron Paul's The Revolution: A Manifesto. In it, Paul includes a great quote from Robert Taft.

When I say liberty I do not simply mean what is referred to as "free enterprise." I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and to live; the liberty of the family to decide how they wish to live, what they want to eat for breakfast and for dinner, and how they wish to spend their time; liberty of a man to develop his ideas and get other people to teach those ideas, if he can convince them that they have some value to the world; liberty of every local community to decide how its children shall be educated, how its local services shall be run, and who its local leaders shall be; liberty of a man to choose his own occupation; and liberty of a man to run his own business as he thinks it ought to be run, as long as he does not interfere with the right of other people to do the same thing.

It is nice to see someone really lay down what libertarianism is all about. It's all about having the freedom to live life the way you want to. Libertarian thought does not seek to establish a political system, but tear it down to at least the bare minimum. All other political philosophies, in order to work, must force people to live a life they did not volunteer themselves into. I always find it funny when communists preach about their utopia of a free society where everyone is taken care of when they don't realize that they would inevitably have to steal from those who did not support their system to make it work. No matter how much a person might fight against reality, he is never going to wake up in a world without selfishness. This is why I'm fine with communes because they are confined only to those who volunteer to join such a base society. The more rational among us can ignore communes and go on living our lives in peace.

The above quote was taken from Robert Taft's book A Foreign Policy for Americans and you can read it for free at Mises.org. Here is the direct link to the PDF.

Blogger of another mother

2008-07-09T00:53:00.000-07:00

So first off let me say hi to all those who are faithful followers of the Spider's blog. (though that might include only me) I'm Zex, (real name withheld cause I felt like it.) I'm here to let you know that you shouldn't go into politics. Seriously you'll end up dead. Just ask Ronald Reagan.

Oh wait you can't he's dead. Many thanks to the Arrogant Worms for the insight I'll just pass it along.

I thought that I'd share a memory. While undergoing some trials and tribulations I found there was one person, with whom I shared my dream, of becoming a successful animator. I had shown that person some drawings of mine which I'm pretty sure weren't good in the least. However this person, didn't laugh it off like many that I know would have.

Now this person asked specifically for a signed drawing of mine and said that in exchange for belief in my success that I'd remember them when I finally got to the dream. Now I know that all of that took all of 5 minutes but somehow that is etched in my memory, However I've forgotten the name of the one who did this. I've got the physical appearance and the feeling but I'm feeling that I'm not holding up my end of the bargain. So I'm putting this out there for everyone to know I remember the drawing and I want you to know that when I see you again I want you to know that you are the first to believe and give support. Others may come or they may not but that act I will remember.

So if you know someone's dream let them know that you support it. (good luck on the Journalism Spider) It's more important that the belief is there than that the dream is achieved. Dreams may change, but support is rare.

Robin Hood and the Men of Rights

2008-07-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite shows that I've watched in the last couple years has to be BBC's Robin Hood. I know it seems silly that a libertarian would support a character that "steals from the rich and gives to the poor," but here's the thing: the only rich people in this show gained their wealth from inordinate amounts of taxes. Thus, Robin Hood is only stealing back money that was stolen from those who earned it (which makes this interpretation similar to Ragnar Danneskjold, a character from Atlas Shrugged that denounced and criticized the popular image of Robin Hood). How many shows on television are you going to find that promote ideals like that? Seriously. The show is not quite as libertarian as South Park or Penn and Teller: Bullshit! but it is the only action/adventure show espousing anything close to libertarian ideals.

I'm certainly not the first person to make the Robin Hood/libertarian connection. An article titled Liberals Have Robin Hood All Wrong covers the Disney version of the character and why he's conservative rather than the liberal everyone suspects him to be. The author makes a point of showing that Hood supports King Richard, who is currently off fighting a crusade for Christianity. In the BBC's version, Robin Hood is disgusted by the war.

GISBORNE: There will always be war. So, let's have a king who will fight for our gain -- not the pope's.

ROBIN: Do you know why I went to war? To recover Jerusalem -- to recover our Holy Land. When I got there I met the Muslims and the Jews. And I saw it was their Holy Land too.

GISBORNE: What are you, Locksley? Lord of the Dance?

ROBIN: You're right. There will always be war. As long as people like you revel in their own ignorant bigotry.
Episode 8: "Tattoo? What Tattoo?", Robin Hood, Tiger Aspect 2006.

In the end, King Richard wants to make peace but the only peace offering is a fake one offered by villains in disguise hoping to assassinate the king. So far we have a hero who hates taxes, fights an oppressive government, and is anti-war. What do you call that?

Mises Analyzes Pixar

2008-07-06T05:34:00.000-07:00

The latest review of a Pixar film by the Mises Institute is disheartening. They provide some searing criticism of WALL-E for its anti-capitalist message. This is sad news for me. I have been a big Pixar fan since Toy Story. It seems their latest movie is their second foray into films with an anti-capitalist message, since Cars stood as an attack on progress. Do I always care what Mises has to say about a particular movie or art? No. But I saw Cars before I read their review two years ago and had come to the same conclusions. Pixar's latest movies are a far cry from films like The Incredibles, which many claimed had an overt Objectivist message. This is a sad departure.

"The creators of WALL-E, sitting in their comfortable Hollywood studios, did a tremendous disservice to the civilization that made their work and high standards of living possible. They glorified a lifestyle that would likely have killed them — and countless others — had it actually been revived."

Check out the whole article here.

Happy 4th of July

2008-07-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

First, some words from my father:

As anyone who knows much of anything about me is aware, July 4th has very special meaning to me. In fact, this only true summer holiday is my favorite...

This week, I have been watching (on DVD) the HBO adaptation of David McCullough’s excellent book, “John Adams.” I have been pleasantly surprised (given HBO’s previous forays into political movies) at how good it is. Adams is, perhaps, our most underappreciated Founder. His greatest work came outside his presidency and his presidency was unfortunately (for him and his legacy) sandwiched between those of our greatest president, George Washington, and our greatest political philosopher, Thomas Jefferson.

In a letter to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776, as the Declaration of Independence had just been approved, Adams wrote: “It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Day’s Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

Americans have maintained the “Pomp and Parade” for more than two centuries now, and the “Bonfires and Illuminations” are commonplace, but how often do we recognize Independence Day as “the Day of Deliverance?” How often do we honor it with “solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty”? How often do we contemplate the cost of our freedom, “the Toil and Blood and Treasure?”

Jefferson began the Declaration of Independence, “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” Jefferson spoke not of the rights of British subjects, not of the rights of American colonialists, but of the rights of ALL mankind. These rights were not bestowed by a King or potentate. They did not derive from a political system or social standing. These are rights to which all people are entitled by the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”

Tomorrow we celebrate that Declaration of Independence, a pronouncement not just for Americans, but for the dignity and freedom of all people. Jefferson understood that the highest level of human existence and morality in this world is for man to live in a state of freedom.

Adams asked, “What do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution.”

That explains the difference between American patriotism and European nationalism. One becomes French or German or Italian by virtue of birth. You can move to Europe, but that does not make you European. But anyone can come to the United States and by virtue of pledging allegiance to a set of ideals and values that are both quintessentially American and universally true, they become American. The revolution remains in the hearts and minds of the people.

I, naturally, would not go so far as to say human rights are endowed by "Nature's God," but they are inherent by the "Laws of Nature."

A right cannot be violated except by physical force. One man cannot deprive another of his life, nor enslave him, nor forbid him to pursue his happiness, except by using force against him. Whenever a man is made to act without his own free, personal, individual, voluntary consent—his right has been violated.

Therefore, we can draw a clear-cut division between the rights of one man and those of another. It is an objective division—not subject to differences of opinion, nor to majority decision, nor to the arbitrary decree of society. No man has the right to initiate the use of physical force against another man.

-Ayn Rand

I went and watched the fireworks tonight and enjoyed the "Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations" that not only spanned from one end of North America to the other, but across the world. I am in Japan and am celebrating my 4th hours before the celebrations begin in the states. So here's to the Rights of Man. I hope you all have a wonderful Fourth of July. I am off to Tokyo to let the real partying begin.

Obama: Out Of Touch

2008-07-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

It's not inappropriate to wonder why Obama wants all the smart kids to go into public service when recent economic woes started in the private sector. Public policy isn't helping the situation but I would hate to see the best and the brightest turn their backs on private enterprise when it could so clearly use a new burst of fresh inspiration.

New GI Bill!

2008-07-01T05:15:00.000-07:00

It's true, ladies and gentlemen: President Bush has signed into law the bill that includes full tuition for those who have served three years or longer in the military after the 9/11 attacks. In spite of the fear that this bill might decrease retention, this little bill that could pushed its way through the ranks of the House, Senate, and Oval Office. Why? Well, here's the trick (watch closely): the bill includes war funding through mid-2009 to appease Bush; it has the new GI Bill to make Democrats happy about what might decrease manning for this war they hate so much while including the stipulation that service members can give the education benefits to a dependent (a detail Republicans were picky about so as to keep the "lifers" on board in the military); it has more unemployment insurance for the Democrats but the unemployed must show they worked for at least 20 weeks for the Republicans; it blocks cuts in funding to Medicaid which is pretty much a complete win for the Democrats (much to my chagrin); finally, there's some food aid and a bunch of other wasteful spending that would just irk me to talk about.

How do I feel about all this as a fair-minded libertarian in the military? Well, I can't deny that every time a new spending bill is passed it makes me want to pull my hair out. However, this time I directly benefit from the spending, which has never happened before in my entire life. It's a unique situation I find myself in. I hate government spending but it will be paying for my diploma. I don't know how to feel about this.

Personally, I would have been fine with my $50k college fund (I got more money due to my high school GPA or some shit). Tuition would not have been a problem for me under the old system. This new bill, however, gives me money for books and a monthly living stipend. This will make my transfer back to civilian life much smoother than anticipated. I've been saving a large chunk of change for when I got out so that I wouldn't have much to worry about during my time out of work. Now I might be able to save/invest a little more for retirement. We'll see how that goes. Either way, I would have been fine without the extra government cash flow

I could have gotten completely behind this bill if it had cut funding in other areas. Personally, I think an educated population with a military background will be very beneficial to society. Also, I have heard countless people in the last couple weeks talking about how they would definitely get out of the military if this bill were to be passed. Well, it passed and Republicans' fears about retention might come true. I always felt too many people were making a career out of the military for convenience purposes. The military takes care of everything and it can be a bother to transition back to civilian life, especially for those who have a family. In fact, most people consider having a family in the military to be one of the things that will keep a guy in for at least 20 years. I like the idea that more people will see getting out and getting an education for a career in the private sector as a more viable option. I also think that VA benefits such as these are less "sticky" than Medicare or unemployment insurance. The latter two (especially Medicare) are things politicians create and expand to get votes. Most people who join the military are pretty much predisposed to vote Republican anyway. VA benefits have fallen by the wayside before and probably will again once we reach another "time of peace" (is there really such a thing?). Unless America wakes up and smells the coffee, that godawful resource hog known as Medicare is here to stay. How unfortunate.

Death Wish

2008-06-26T05:06:00.000-07:00

The death penalty is tricky business. Traditionally, Democrats and Republicans have been diametrically opposed to one another on this issue. In order to survive the polls, the Democrats have made come concessions on the issue, but Obama's recent criticism of the Supreme Court ruling on capital punishment used against child rapists is a drastic departure from previous party lines. I haven't looked at any polls on the issue lately but Obama is either trying to appeal more to conservatives or all of America has shifted further right on the issue.

Now, I hate child rapists as much as the next guy but I've had second thoughts recently about issuing out death to murderers, much less guys who have not gone that extra mile. There is no doubt in my mind that murderers deserve to die. People like to toss around the phrase "no one deserves to die" in a vain attempt to appear wise and philosophical but that's just bullshit. Those who take life do not deserve to live and, unfortunately for them, the only alternative is death.

The problem here is that if those who take life deserve to die, no one can carry out the most appropriate justice without ultimately deserving the same fate. I'd have fewer moral qualms about this if humans were infallible. As it is, however, humans make tons of mistakes; we make them by the dozens. Usually, it seems so obvious whether someone is guilty or not. Other times it's harder to discern. Either way, we have been proven wrong multiple times and have had to pull people off death row. Alarming realizations like this are enough to make a guy second guess his stance on such a weighty issue.

If we can't get it right 100% of the time with murder trials, do we really need to open up capital punishment to a wider number of subjects? I don't have an answer to this question. I'm still grapling with whether it's right to murder a murderer. Regardless, Obama and McCain's position on the issue stands in order to win the hearts and minds of voters and, perhaps, even because they believe in what they preach. I just hope there are more than a few people in the U.S. who realize that the question of captial punishment is a heavy one. There is nothing more serious than ending the life of another human being.

Censorship & Comedy

2008-06-24T23:08:00.000-07:00

For those who know me, it’s no secret that I loathe censorship. I have done a lot over the years to prove my sincerity in the matter. From elementary school to my time in the military, I have routinely spouted off comments that insulted those around me either on purpose or through apathy. I'm not saying this was always a good thing or a proper way to conduct oneself in all venues. Occasionally I apologize to the insulted individual if he or she happens to be a person I like (yes, smart ass, these people do exist). However, I'm so passionate about my loathing of censorship that I will say almost anything just to help desensitize another person.

Why do I despise censorship? Censorship promotes the idea that there are words and images so strong and so potent that our feeble minds would not know what to make of them. We might get the wrong idea, some claim. No one worries about those doing the censoring getting the wrong idea, though. In this way I find censorship to be a blow to freedom and self-esteem. The only way to truly inoculate someone against bad ideas in this digital age is by explaining and teaching; censoring is bound to fail.

I got into George Carlin's comedy routines in a big way just as I approached the peak of my anti-censorship and anti-religion phase of my life. It should be no wonder that Carlin's sardonic humor appealed to me in a big way. A sarcastic guy getting paid to say whatever he wants on stage? My god, this guy is brilliant! I have a lot of respect for guys who push the envelope and Carlin had been doing it for decades before he died. I haven't felt such a pang of emotion over the death of a celebrity since Douglas Adams died in 2002 (while I was in the middle of Mostly Harmless, no less).

Carlin was a big influence on me. I don't know how big because I was partial to his kind of humor before I ever heard of the man, but I think it would be fair to say that I became much more critically sarcastic once I started listening to him. It's weird to think of a world without him, knowing I'll never hear a new comedy routine by him (besides his last HBO special, which I will soon be watching). It was the same way when I realized I'd never be able to read a new Douglas Adams book. I feel the world has lost so much with his death even though I knew it had to happen eventually.

Apparently Carlin told Kevin Smith that he was convinced he'd live into his 90s. If that were true, I might have had a kid or two by the time he died. I might have been able to introduce my eldest to the comic genius while he was still alive (and even though my kid might have been 10-years-old at most, I'd still let him listen to Carlin). When an influential person of another generation is alive during a person's lifetime, it does not matter how short that time is; it lets that person feel he's part of a movement that preceded him. Such is the power of the influential. This is doubly so for likable, iconic characters like George Carlin. His presence on this earth is already missed.

Here are two videos on euphemisms and death (respectively) that I enjoy a great deal:

Digital Rights Maligned (DRM)

2008-06-21T18:45:00.000-07:00

I have found out that my dead Sony Reader has "a broken substrate." This is especially disappointing because there's no cheap option for replacing it. I didn't have a warranty but even if I did, this damage wouldn't have been covered. I'm being told that Sony charges about $190 for a replacing the screen and at that price I may as well just get a new device. The one I've been most anxious to try since its debut is the Amazon Kindle.

Sure, it's a bit on the pricey side but they did recently drop the price $40 and pitched in free 2-day shipping. If I get it, I just want it waiting for me in Misawa upon my return. One big downfall with the Kindle is no real PDF support. All PDFs must be converted to another format (likely the native mobipocket format). This can be done more easily thanks to the work of third party programs but it's still annoying that Amazon is pushing so hard to push their own DRM format. So let's take a look at DRM and what it really means.

I will admit that I am biased and I hate DRM. I have never purchased a product with DRM without knowing before hand that I'd be able to somehow remove the DRM. This has led to more sales of DRMed products to tech-savy guys such as myself. This means that the less tech-savy are getting a bum deal should they ever decide to get a different device or (should the device fail) if support stops being provided. The other side to the issue is that DRM has allowed for an ease of mind for the large corporations who are starting to offer their content on the web. Without DRM, it is likely that legal digital content would not have grown as quickly as it has these past few years.

Why is DRM dissappearing from music?

Digital music sales got a huge boost from iTunes because of its DRM scheme. Now that there is more success with the selling of the unprotected MP3 format (thanks in large part to, ironically enough, Amazon) many are championing their anti-DRM cause by using this as proof that they were right all along and anyone still trying to push DRMed products is wrong. People forget, though, that Amazon's success with its MP3 store is largely due to the largest music companies looking for another option beyond Apple to provide competition. Can't blame the companies there and the results have been great for consumers.

This is the progression that movies and books must follow. The MPAA seems even more paranoid than the RIAA, if that's even possible, so it will take some time. But anyone calling for government intervention in the matter is just foolish. DRM is not criminal, nor should it be considered so. It has allowed for a lot of growth in the digital marketplace. That isn't to say you shouldn't be bitching and complaining about DRM. You most definitely should! Consumers complaining about products is what results in positive change.

Right now Amazon is trying to become the iTunes of ebooks. They're using DRM to lock people into their format and their reading device. This is why Amazon is losing money by selling best-sellers for $9.99 instead of the higher price they pay publishers (which is ridiculous). Amazon is banking on making up profits on other books in the short-term and, in the long-term, using their leverage as the leading ebook distributor to get publishers to lower their prices. I don't think digital books will catch on the way digital music did, though. And now that DRM is more publicized, Amazon might have a harder time with this.

Eventually, to survive in the ebook market, Amazon will have to offer books without DRM. There is nothing wrong with being the largest ebook distributor, though. There could be a lot of money to be made in the future of that business. People are sure to be reading on their smart phones while out and about or their laptops or whatever new devices will be invented in the future.

What to do.

For those of you who hate DRM, keep on keeping on. It's the noise of the uncontent that brings about progress. Avoid DRMed products when you can. For those of you who love ebooks as much as I do, I suggest you purchase only LIT from sites like Fictionwise.com and Booksonboard.com. So far as I know, LIT is the only protected ebook format available that can still be cracked. Consumers are probably not the only ones who know this, either, and by purchasing LIT files you could be sending a very clear message to publishing companies.

This is why I still want a Kindle in spite of the DRM issues. I don't expect to be purchasing any books from Amazon (though I might if I find it convenient and cheap enough--you never know). Right now, I'm just happy ebooks are getting more attention. This is an important early step in the digital distribution of literature and DRM is just part of the growing pains.

Commencement Addresses

2008-06-19T06:08:00.001-07:00

Let’s talk about commencement addresses. J.K. Rowling was in the news recently for giving the commencement speech at Harvard but apparently “Rowling's Harvard Speech Doesn't Entrance All.”

"I think we could have done better," shrugged computer science major Kevin Bombino. He says Rowling lacks the gravitas a Harvard commencement speaker should have.
"You know, we're Harvard. We're like the most prominent national institution. And I think we should be entitled to … we should be able to get anyone. And in my opinion, we're settling here. "

No shit, right? To be honest, when my father first told me Rowling had delivered the Harvard commencement speech, I had a similar reaction as some of the Harvard kids. “Rowling?” I said. “Really?” I thought it was kind of ridiculous but then I remembered Seth McFarlane giving the Harvard commencement speech a couple years ago. That video was spread around the net via YouTube very quickly. I thought it was hilarious when it came out and didn’t give much thought to the fact that he was speaking at Harvard. I didn’t know Harvard was in the business of grabbing high profile names to speak at their school for the sake of getting attention (and don’t tell me that’s not what they’re doing!).

I had low expectations and didn’t really want to like the speech before I even started reading Rowling's address. However, I quickly discovered that Rowling had meaningful things to share to college graduates and any young person starting a career and a life for himself. As much as I didn’t want to like Rowling’s speech because I think she’s vastly overrated, she wooed me with her meaningful ideas.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

I couldn’t help but to relate to this. In my own quest for success, I already plan to dispense with the secure life I have in the military. I want to build my life on my own terms because I think I can do better and I will be disappointed in myself if I don’t try. That’s true failure in my eyes. I just hope I never wind up having to experience poverty. My problem was never “romanticizing” poverty, but romanticizing my own view of success.

Ultimately, I had to accept the fact that Rowling had worthwhile things to say. Much more so than Seth McFarlane, who was funny but irrelevant. For those of you who would like to watch the speech instead of read it, here it is. It’s good.

Another commencement address I read recently was one given by Ayn Rand to the West Point Class of 1974. It’s a great speech about the necessity for philosophy in a person’s life and why it is important.

Nothing is given to man automatically, neither knowledge, nor self-confidence, nor inner serenity, nor the right way to use his mind. Every value he needs or wants has to be discovered, learned and acquired — even the proper posture of his body. In this context, I want to say that I have always admired the posture of West Point graduates, a posture that projects man in proud, disciplined control of his body. Well, philosophical training gives man the proper intellectual posture — a proud, disciplined control of his mind.
In your own profession, in military science, you know the importance of keeping track of the enemy's weapons, strategy and tactics — and of being prepared to counter them. The same is true in philosophy: you have to understand the enemy's ideas and be prepared to refute them, you have to know his basic arguments and be able to blast them.

…

You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you are dedicated to selfless service — it is not a virtue in my morality. In my morality, the defense of one's country means that a man is personally unwilling to live as the conquered slave of any enemy, foreign or domestic. This is an enormous virtue. Some of you may not be consciously aware of it. I want to help you to realize it.
The army of a free country has a great responsibility: the right to use force, but not as an instrument of compulsion and brute conquest — as the armies of other countries have done in their histories — only as an instrument of a free nation's self-defense, which means: the defense of a man's individual rights. The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right. The highest integrity and sense of honor are required for such a task. No other army in the world has achieved it. You have.

She speaks to my heart and mind. There should be more speeches like this today. Needless to say, Rand’s speech was way better than Rowling’s.

Broken Sony Reader Screen. ARG!

2008-06-19T03:22:00.001-07:00

My Sony Reader screen has gone all garbled and is seemingly unfixable. I searched around and found this Kindle Screen Woes blog post and this Mysterious Broken Screen thread on the MobileRead forums. It can be confirmed now that this is not an isolated incident. Interestingly enough, this problem is not exclusive to any single reader. Including my Sony, there are now at least three accounts of this screen problem on three different e-ink devices. This seems to be a current shortcoming of e-ink devices and I will be a bit upset if Sony does nothing to help me out. Before I go on, here's a photo of my Sony Reader:

I had seen it do this before, but it was always fine after being recharged and turned back on. Recharging didn't work this time. I had left it alone for well over a month while I was out to sea. It's not that I couldn't recharge it but I didn't want to bother with it because I was enjoying some good paperbacks and there are few outlets on the ship. So I left my Reader alone and when we pulled back into port I charged it up at the barracks. No luck.

I'm flustered and I'm jaded with e-ink technology. I've only had the Reader since October, so it hasn't even lasted me a year. That $280 is a big investment for me to not have the device last even one full year. If Sony does nothing to help me, I want to get a Kindle. I've been looking for an excuse to get one for some time but have my device break was not what I had in mind. I'm really hoping I can work something out with Sony. But if I have to drop money on a new Reader, it will be a Kindle. I hear Amazon is pretty helpful with these types of situations. Unfortunately, I don't even know if I really want to stick with e-ink this early in its development. It seems pretty unstable right now.

Better than the Superbowl

2008-06-18T05:29:00.001-07:00

They pulled it off. Sweet!

Party time! (Note: I actually have work in the morning, so party time must wait.) A nice return to prominence, Celtics. Congratulations!

Kill Rock Stars Showcase (Thanks Chase Kamp)

2008-06-17T06:23:00.001-07:00

Early Friday morning I started surfing the Internet for some entertainment in Tokyo over the weekend. My watch was from 0630 Thursday morning to 0630 on Friday. I had mere hours to go until I’d be let off to do my thing. I found some good bars and clubs that I might want to hit up. I then looked at the concert venues. I recognized the Liquid Room from when I tried to see Super Furry Animals my first time in Tokyo. So I decided to check the weekend schedule for the place, hoping for a lot but not expecting much. The first name I recognized was Deerhoof, then I saw Xiu Xiu, and finally Mika Miko. There was also this band called Panther that I had never heard of before.

During my senior year of high school, my friend Chase Kamp did his best to educate me in the ways of good music by answering any and all questions I had on the matter. The silly guy always vehemently disagreed with my position of Barenaked Ladies being a great band (the greatest, even), but he just doesn’t understand. That aside, Chase has always been more in tune with the indie scene than I ever have (I guess that happens with people more dedicated to the craft) and I was always happy to hear his suggestions. It was that year that he introduced me to Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof. I’m pretty happy about it, too, because I would have missed an awesome concert in Tokyo had I never heard of these bands. I later discovered Mika Miko on my own but I never listened to them much.

So there I was looking at the website telling me that Kill Rock Stars Showcase would be at the Liquid Room Saturday evening. I was so excited that later that day I immediately went to a Lawson store and checked the ticket machine. Turns out the concert was sold out (at convenience stores, anyway). I was dedicated, though, and decided to try my luck the next night at the venue (I figured there would be tickets being sold at the door to make extra money off that ¥500 mark-up).

I spent half of my Saturday sleeping off my night of partying, but I managed to make it to the Liquid Room around 3:30 PM where I was told that tickets would start being sold at 4:00. Sweet!

So I waited around and looked at the music selection at the Virgin store. Then I noticed a group of average looking chicks sitting on a couch giving an interview. It was Mika Miko and I was rather shocked by their normal appearance, although I don’t really know what I was expecting. They looked like the complete opposite of rock stars. Of course, they’re not rock stars and that’s the beauty of it. They way they acted was equally normal and at ease and novice. It made every interview I’ve ever seen with big-name artists seem practiced and calculated. But I guess that comes with years of practice and having different expectations. The Kill Rock Stars bands don’t have these expectations of them and they act like completely normal human beings. It’s great to see musicians act in such a manner.

After the interview with Mika Miko, Deerhoof came up to do their interview, and after them it was Panther. I noticed Satomi Matsuzaki, Deerhoof’s lead singer, translating the Japanese questions for the band and realized (the great detective that I am) that she is Japanese.

Tickets started being sold at the beginning of the interview with Panther so I didn’t really listen to that one. I went and paid my ¥5,500 for my ticket and then saw one of the members of Deerhoof standing by himself, looking around. So I decided to introduce myself and start up a conversation. The guy turned out to be Greg Saunier, the drummer (yes, I have no shame in admitting that I had no idea what any of these people looked like prior to my arriving at the theater). I knew Greg was the guy to talk to because he was the most talkative during the interview and seemed like he had the most to say. Those are the types of guys who are always the most interesting to talk to.

“Hi,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Matt. Your live shows came highly recommended from a friend of mine.” I was referring to Chase Kamp but I couldn’t actually recall whether Chase had actually mentioned attending a Deerhoof show to me. I think I just wanted a good line to open up with and that seemed like a good one given that I didn’t know a whole lot about the band. I couldn’t exactly claim to be a huge fan or anything.

Greg smiled and said, “Oh, well I hope we live up to your expectations. Greg.” We shook hands. I laughed and told him I was excited for it. It was quite fortunate that I was in Tokyo for the show, I told him. “Do you live here?” he asked and I explained my situation of being based in Misawa with the navy and that I was temporarily down in Yokosuka for work. Sometimes I’m nervous about the reaction I might get about telling people I’m in the navy. Greg didn’t bat and eyelash. He talked to me like he was just another working Joe. He is another working Joe, though, which I think is something many people don’t realize that the music profession has. I was eager to find out his experience and perception of the business from his unique position of playing in an indie band that has slowly gained in popularity throughout his whole career.

After talking a little bit about my life in the navy, Greg said it would be weird to work in such a regimented environment. Deerhoof, being a small indie band, has always done their own management and made their own decisions for the direction of the band. Larger bands don’t always have that freedom, especially if they’re starting out and haven’t yet established themselves as a powerhouse (bands like Radiohead obviously have no problems doing whatever they want with the band). Saunier has been with the band since the beginning and has been playing under the name Deerhoof for 13 years. It has been a lot of experimentation and it seems to have paid off for Greg and the rest of the band.

Greg then discussed the experience of touring with Bloc Party. He said the guys in that band were “so young,” “over-managed,” and, in his opinion, didn’t know what being in a band was really like. He didn’t mean any of it in a condescending way, he just wanted to illustrate the different worlds the two bands inhabit. Bloc Party is the first and only band the members have ever been in. In fairness to Bloc party, though, they formed in 1999 and didn’t become big until 2005. Of course, Bloc Party’s success came from their debut album and they haven’t yet been playing a decade, unlike Deerhoof. In that sense, the popular British band never “paid their dues,” as many bands call it (though Greg was quick to point out that “paying dues” was more fun than torture, as it should be with those who love making music). According to Greg, Bloc Party’s management gave them direction on how best to play certain instruments, kind of like the kind of training I might get in the navy or someone might get out in the corporate world. Deerhoof never had that direction or outside help. I tend to think it’s for the best. How else could they have ever wound up with such a unique sound. I don’t want to say Bloc Party isn’t unique, but it’s not the same as the bands on the Kill Rock Stars label. I told Greg that it was awesome that they built themselves up and were an entirely self-made band. He agreed.

Wanting to know whether it was rough at the beginning, I asked how they were able to keep plucking away with little income to show for it in the early years. They obviously had other jobs in the beginning, Greg explained. He said he didn’t know what led to it, but the band was able to quit their other jobs in 2002. “You’re good,” I offered.

“We are very fortunate,” Greg said. He seemed to be more of the persuasion that fortune more than talent brought the band to where it is. I don’t wholly agree but I’m sure that with any success story like theirs there must be some good fortune involved.

I mentioned that Liquid Room seemed like a good venue for small bands since I had tried to see Super Furry Animals there once before. Greg then got excited and said those guys are awesome and funny with their Welsh humor. I said that I had served with the Brits in the Middle East and knew exactly what he was talking about when he mentioned their sense of humor. (I was thinking specifically about a Welshman by the name of Sam that I had met out there. His jokes were dirty and sexist and oh so hilarious.) In reference to the venue, Greg said this was the largest venue the band had yet to play in Tokyo. The place wasn’t particularly large but I imagine it was pretty good for a little-known indie band in a foreign country.

Greg asked if I played any music and I had to admit that I did not. I told him I wanted to learn piano, though, as it is my favorite instrument. He said he could imagine it would be hard to get a piano on the ship. I laughed and said I imagine so. I then explained that I had contemplated purchasing a keyboard to play up in by barracks in Misawa (the problem with this, of course, is that I’m never actually in Misawa and wouldn’t have time to practice during deployments). He said that would be good and Japan has some cheap electronics so that should suit me. I have actually found cheaper keyboards at the NEX than out in the city (Japan is more expensive than you think!). But Greg explained that it wouldn’t take anything expensive. Deerhoof always used the cheapest Casios, he said, and it suit the band’s purpose great. Good to know.

After talking for about half an hour, Greg decided he needed to go find the rest of his band. I said it was great meeting him and I loved his music and was looking forward to the show. So how was the show, you ask? Well, it as great!

Panther opened up with fantastic energy. In fact, the lead singer had the best dancing I saw all night (this includes my time spent in Roppongi afterwards). He had this way of hopping around stage and shaking dramatically like Tigger having a seizure. It was crazy. The music was also great. In fact, the music from every band was great.

Following Panther was Mika Miko. The lead singer yelled into a red phone microphone as if she were making an emergency call to Commissioner Gordon and danced around stage by shaking her head furiously, sending her blonde hair flying through the air and across her face. It brought up images of a girl jumping on her bed to rock music spewing from the record player in an age long gone.

Xiu Xiu was next. Unfortunately this band was the least pleasant to watch. Fortunately, they were the most pleasant to listen to. The band kept a serious demeanor on stage. Rarely did they crack a smile. It didn’t look like the band was enjoying themselves at all, which I didn’t really like, but I couldn’t deny their talent. They have a fantastic sound. When their set was over the lead singer thanked the audience with a sincere voice and smile. After that, I couldn’t really knock them.

Finally, Deerhoof came out on stage and the Japanese crowd went wild. At first I was surprised, but then I remembered the Japanese lead singer. Japan loves its native people. Don’t believe me? See: Red Sox in Tokyo. I’m not so naive as to believe Japan has any romantic notions about Boston. It’s all about the Daisuke Matsuzaka frenzy. The Japanese love anyone of their own who finds any success in the U.S. So the crowd was great for Deerhoof. The music was great and the band was fun to watch. The only down side was that I had no idea what Satomi or Greg said whenever they started talking because they were both talking in Japanese. I should work on that.

In summation, it was a great concert and a good time. I’m glad I went and got to see these guys live. I’m also glad Panther has entered my consciousness. I will be listening to more of them in the future. Most of all, I’m happy I got to talk to Greg and get a bit more understanding of how these guys operate. He’s a cool guy and if any of you ever get the chance to talk to him, I recommend you take it.

Deerhoof with Greg looking over at me taking his picture:

Panther:

In thanks to Chase Kamp for introducing me to these awesome bands, I will take this moment to pimp his band: My Feral Kin. Check 'em out and enjoy. For those of you familiar with the likes of Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu, I'm sure you won't miss the influence.

The Progressive Book Club for Liberals

2008-06-16T02:12:00.000-07:00

The New York Times dishes out the goods on a new book club calling itself the Progressive Book Club:

The progressive movement has prided itself on its ability to get its messages out by harnessing the Internet, through organizations like MoveOn.org and blogs like Daily Kos or The Huffington Post.

But now a liberal-minded group is returning to an old-fashioned model: a book club.

I will give props to the new club for picking one of my favorite authors, Michael Chabon, to be on the panel that chooses books to be offered each month. It's so unfortunate that the ideals being promoted are more socialist than freedom-loving. But here's the punchline:

The club will also offer about 200 older titles like “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine and “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson.

I can understand a group like this pushing that "Silent Spring" crap, but Thomas Paine? This is a guy who once proclaimed, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." Looks like another case of selective reading: if liberals like one part of a person's philosophy it's acceptable, the rest of it is just nonsense, though. They don't understand that a person either agrees with the man or he doesn't. Eventually a movement must pick a side. As Thomas Paine said, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

Smoking is Back! (In Hollywood)

2008-06-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

The American Medical Association is pretty peeved at Marvel Studios for allowing General Ross to smoke cigars in "The Incredible Hulk." All I can say is "kudos!" I am pretty happy that Marvel is forgoing a form of censorship in order to stay true to the comics. In recent years Marvel has actually cracked down in its comics on smoking, keeping the source material from being true to the earlier source material. So sad. Marvel has even replaced cigars with toothpicks for poor Wolverine (as if he would actually settle for a toothpick). I'm no proponent of smoking but I am a proponent of freedom (including the freedom to smoke) and a vehement opponent of coerced censorship. Here's the best quote from the New York Times' article:

Presumably, the physicians’ association worries that children who identify with
the authoritarian general — who wants to annihilate the Hulk, played by Edward
Norton — may be tempted to pick up the habit.

If this presumption is correct, I don't think there's much solid footing in the argument. After all, why would anyone want to keep little future Hitlers from taking up a cancer-causing habit? I'm all for it.

The smoking doesn't seem to have hurt the new Hulk movie, as it opened with $54.5 million and topped the weekend box office. As Superhero Hype points out, the first Hulk movie opened with $62 million. Given the current state of the economy and this year's movie market, however, I'd say the new film did pretty well. Not all Marvel movies can be an Iron Man (or a Spider-Man for that matter).

So for the record: Marvel - 1, Power-Hungry Anti-Freedom AMA - 0. Marvel FTW!

And Still We Persist...

2008-06-13T19:35:00.001-07:00

From The Only Path To Tomorrow by Ayn Rand:

While men are still pondering upon the causes of the rise and fall of civilizations, every page of history cries to us that there is but one source of progress: Individual Man in independent action. Collectivism is the ancient principle of savagery. A savage's whole existence is ruled by the leaders of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
We are now facing a choice: to go forward or to go back.
Collectivism is not the ``New Order of Tomorrow.´´ It is the order of a very dark yesterday. But there is a New Order of Tomorrow. It belongs to Individual Man — the only creator of any tomorrows humanity has ever been granted.

Why is it that over six decades later we are still trying to find the “right mix” of socialism in a poor attempt to make society better? Are its failures not evident by now?

Wicked Pissah!

2008-06-12T21:27:00.001-07:00

Biggest comeback in a Finals game in NBA history. ‘Nuff said.

This guy comes off as kinda funny/kinda annoying:

In this video, however, he’s pretty fucking hilarious.

Free Market Economics FTW!

2008-06-11T04:52:00.000-07:00

What's with that hike in unemployment last month? Was it Bush? Was it the greedy corporations or free trade?

It wasn’t Bush, it wasn’t greedy corporations, or free trade, or history’s most over-predicted recession. It was not the oil companies, income inequality, or the excesses of cowboy capitalism. None of these things caused the unemployment rate to jump a half a percentage point in one month.
Ask yourself a few questions: Why did unemployment surge at a time when unemployment compensation claims are historically low? More to the point, how could unemployment spike this much without a coinciding spike in corporate lay-offs?
The answer to all of these questions is same: because very few people lost jobs last month. This huge jump in the size of the unemployed comes from new entrants to the economy – hundreds of thousands of them. In short, well over 600,000 people who were not job seekers in April became job seekers in May. And who starts looking for work at the end of Spring? That’s right – students. Hundreds of thousands of students are looking for work right now, and they’re not finding it.

Oh, I get it now! Jerry Bowyer explains at Townhall.com.

Boston Bruins Given 90 Days to Relocate

2008-06-10T03:03:00.000-07:00

An article from my father:

BOSTON (AP) – The Boston Sports Federation has issued an eviction notice to the Boston Bruins, after the National Hockey League franchise failed to reach the Stanley Cup Finals for the 18^th consecutive year. The notice, which gives the Bruins 90 days to relocate to a city that doesn’t care about sports, also notes the B’s 36-year drought since last hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup. The Federation states that with the success of the defending World Series Champion Red Sox, the defending AFC Champion Patriots, and the NBA’s Eastern Conference Champion Celtics (who are 2 wins away from their 17^th world championship), the city of Boston can no longer tolerate the Bruins’ incompetence. It cited Buffalo, the home of Bruins’ owner Jeremy Jacobs, as a possible relocation site, apparently unaware that the Sabres are still in the NHL.

A spokesman for Jacobs, who edged out Bill Bidwell as the worst owner in sports in a 2002 ESPN poll, noted that before last week, the Celtics had not been to the Finals since 1987, a span of 21 years. He raised the fact that the Red Sox went 86-years without a championship before their 2004 triumph and the Patriots went through over 40 years of ineptitude before capturing Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002. Unmoved, Federation President Stephen King responded that the Red Sox are the only team to win more than one World Series in the 21^stcentury; the Patriots have won 3 of their 4 Super Bowl appearances this century, and the Celtics are on the precipice of returning the Larry O’Brien Trophy to Causeway Street. The common thread to the winning tradition in Boston sports is ownership changes. In 1994, Robert Kraft became the owner of the New England Patriots. Two years later they were in the Super Bowl. In 2002, a group led by John W. Henry purchased the Red Sox. Two years later, they won the World Series. In 2003, Boston Basketball Partners LLC—consisting of Wycliffe Grousbeck, Stephen Pagliuca, and H. Irving Grousbeck—bought the Celtics. One of their first moves was to hire Danny Ainge as Executive Director of Basketball Operations. Ainge is responsible for brining Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett to Boston. Conversely and perversely, Mr. Jacobs has owned the Bruins for over 33 years, bringing zero Stanley Cups to the Hub during his tenure.

King included what was widely condemned as a cheap shot by noting that the New England Revolution has won four MSL Eastern Conference championships since 2002. He suggested that the Bruins should have followed the Boston Breakers of the now defunct USFL to New Orleans in 1983. Better yet, they could have followed the Boston Lobsters from World Team Tennis fame from the finals in 1978 to oblivion in 1979.

Jacobs was overheard retorting, “I paid for this Garden, Mr. King!”

Death and Journalism

2008-06-09T04:23:00.000-07:00

The BBC reported about two of their reporters that were killed recently for doing their jobs. It's a sober reminder that getting out of the military won't necessarily be safer for me in the long run. If I carry out my plan of double majoring in foreign affairs and journalism, I might get the opportunity to be sent somewhere that might be more hazardous to my health than the navy (Russia, anyone?). I can leave one dangerous job for another one. But this time I'd enjoy my job. How sweet would that be!?

The Wonderous Life of an Experience Whore

2008-06-09T04:18:00.000-07:00

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
-Mark Twain

Years ago (I don't really remember when) my step-mother was trying to illustrate a point and used my father as an example. Her point was that my father would try anything while I was too cautious or afraid to try certain things. Even though my dad has never been skydiving, she explained, he wouldn't hesitate to give it try. While my step-mom didn't realize it at the time, she had basically given me a lifelong dare.

As you can imagine, it's pretty hard not to live with a "you only live once" mentality as an atheist. In fact, it's impossible if you're a true atheist. When faced with any new opportunity or experience, I weigh benefits vs potential losses vs "you only live once," all the while my step-mom's words are echoing throughout my consciousness. This has turned me into a bit of an experience whore.

Even though I needed the money for college and I wanted the perks of free travel, the thought of the experiences I would gain in the navy excited me just as much as my two primary reasons for joining, if not more. The main problem was reconciling my decision to join the military with my ardent individualism and libertarian ideology.

I've always been sympathetic towards certain Realpolitik views in terms of protecting national interests. I always thought getting rid of a national military would be counter productive as it would immediately paint a giant target on us. This has always put the anarcho-capitalist sect of libertarianism outside the realm of reality in my mind. Anarcho-capitalism is my utopia in the strictest sense: ideal and completely unattainable. The best we can do is work to limit government and its power over the people rather than try to eliminate it.

With that in mind, I was put at ease about my decision to join. Three years later I've seen the grotesque waste of resources and the bureaucratic and political nature of the military. I wasn't ignorant of it before but seeing it is a whole new experience. You always hear about the government wasting money on the news but the public only has these intangible ideas about where the waste is going: "war," "health care," "business," "poverty." Whether you agree or disagree with specific policies, these are the things that the news talks about money going to. When you work for Big Brother, though, you get to see what that money actually purchases to support these operations (in my personal experience this would be the "war" aspect). Trust me, the military is wasting a LOT of money. I will save the specifics as to how and why this happens (to my knowledge) for a later post. I need to stay topical.

The best thing I've gained in joining the military is the singular experiences that most people will never rival. My "lifelong dare" pushed me into boot camp and later got me to NACCS and SERE. These are just things relating to my naval career. I've been working hard to try everything I can whenever I can. With every new experience I have that much more knowledge to back up my claims and philosophy on life. Everything I do is applied to and measured up against my philosophy. In that sense, my actions and philosophy aren't so contradictory. After all, what's "knowledge" without credence except empty claims and guesswork?

9 Reasons To Not Join the Navy vs The Flip Side of the Coin

2008-06-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

Last year some guy named Jim posted "9 Reasons To Not Join the Navy" on his blog FEWL.NET. Jim is a sailor stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. Apprently he has a rather wide readership in Yokosuka because I caught wind of this list via e-mail on the USS Blue Ridge. This list was so popular and got forwarded so much that the attachment name became unauthorized and was taken off and replaced with a txt file explaining how I wasn't allowed to receive this attachment. I had already read the document, anyway. One of the people I work with explained to me that "this is so funny," and proceeded to have me read a list that wasn't so much as funny as depressingly realistic. I don't think the "funny because it's true" formula worked here. Sure, Jim is sarcastic and that sometimes comes off as comical but for the most part this blog post focused solely on pointing out the most negative aspects of the U.S. Navy. While I like bashing the navy as much as the next sailor, I would like to recognize that there is another side to the points illustrated in Jim's post. So let's play a game. It's called Point/Counterpoint. Here's my flip side of the coin to Jim's post, from one to nine:

#1. While you do have to deal with collateral duties and a lot of other bullshit that has nothing to do with the job you signed up to do, you still have opportunity to learn some very relevant job skills. The key is to making the most of it. As an IT, Jim should know that not everything he learns is useless in the private market. Things like networking and other aspects of working with desktop computers aren't going to change so drastically as to make your skills useless. While operating systems are updated and change with every new OS, Windows will mostly be the same. While you may not get much of a chance to work in the area you hoped to (as an IT I got stuck in radio side which deals little with the types of computer experience I would have liked to get), you can still push to get into the work you want to do. You just have to get the right orders. Other rates might not have as big of a problem with the different job areas as rates like ITs have. Maybe Jim was hoping that the navy would provide him with skills that would set him up for a full career the second he stepped back into the civilian world. There are certainly other things you'll need to add to your experience to build for a good career in the private sector because, as should be expected, work done in the navy is going to be made to fit the needs of the navy. Makes sense. If you have the drive, though, you can get a lot from your navy experience. It might not be exactly what you expected, but it's far from useless.

#2. You do get to travel the world if you actually put some effort into it. This is another one of those things you have to make the most of. When you are on a ship you will only have a few days at any given port to see as much as you can. Some people aren't really interested in the tourist type things and they should have no problems finding the bars and clubs or whatever they're in to. There are tours set up by MWR, as well. I usually found these to be pricier than doing my own thing, but they are available. I would recommend that anyone on a ship look up the next port on the internet and start finding things to do. You might be surprised to find what you can accomplish in a few short days. My biggest problem with ships' liberty policies is the buddy policy. I understand why it's in place (sailors go out, do stupid shit, and get in trouble) but I get pretty agitated when I have a plan of action no one else wants to follow. Many people will just want to go hit the clubs and pick up chicks. I won't deny that this is fun, but there's no reason for this to take up most of your time in any port. You might have to put some effort into finding other people who are interested in actually seeing what the country has to offer. It's well worth it to avoid submitting to peer pressure, spending night after night in clubs and bars that look alike, and fucking sleazy women. But if that's your thing, I won't bash it. Another point is that you can take leave for MWR or ITT sponsored tours while in port or at a shore command. I did this while in Korea and got to see Beijing and Singapore for about $100 a day (about $500 for five days each). Considering this included flights and meals and hotels, the trips turned out to be pretty fantastic deals and a great experience.

#3. Yes, you will work for some assholes and idiots. Welcome to the planet earth. This is something you will encounter in many, many places. It's what makes The Office a popular show. So whatever problem you have with this system, get over it! You will also work for some really cool people. These people will alleviate some of your pain.

#4. You can look good without sucking up or sucking cock. You just have to play the game. I've seen people do this with great success. I don't play the game because I'm what you call "self-absorbed." It's not impossible, though. If you're good at your job and keep your uniform sharp people will notice. Sometimes that's all it takes.

#5. Chiefs and officers do get away with more than lower enlisted. No doubt people higher up in the private sector get away with more at their job, as well. This is another one of those things that are just a way of life. Put your time in and work hard and eventually you'll arrive at the same place if it's what you really want. And yes, women are sometimes treated better than men. But isn't that also true everywhere? Men always aim to please. Granted, navy men who go out to sea tend to be more pussy-starved than other men and this could contribute to some of these problems, but I'm never that surprised when I see a female getting special treatment. For the most part, the equal opportunity programs in place keep bias from being a factor in the most important decisions.

#6. There are always guys in the navy talking about how our life in the military will affect us when we're older. The aging thing is always a factor. I'm an aircrewman and I'm always hearing about how the pressure in our old, shitty planes is going to make me look much older than I am (I've always looked older so I don't think I'll ever notice what effect the plane has had on me). I also hear about how the radiation from the giant radar I sit above is going to give me cancer or affect my having kids in some way. There isn't any data to prove any of this, though. Stress from the navy isn't going to kill you unless you're naturally a stressful person and it gives you a heart attack. I'm sure that for every guy who got out and died prematurely there is a guy who lived a normal life. Don't stress it.

#7. Lots of people in the navy cheat on their spouses: true. Lots of people in the navy don't cheat on their spouses: also true. If you're a loyal person with a loyal wife, you shouldn't worry to much. This has a lot to do with what is accepted and not accepted in the navy environment. The “what happens underway, stays underway” mentality can be counteracted with good moral grounding. Dating can be rough, of course, but I know people who do it. In fact, I know people who keep relationships going without being committed to it at all. Imagine if you put some effort into it. The key is finding someone you really like to make it all worthwhile.

#8. See point #1. You will need to build on the skills you gained in the navy and get some college under your belt, of course, but there will be jobs that will respect your military background.

#9. It can be difficult to do college while moving around with the navy and working full time. It is not impossible, though. Many people in the navy don't think most online colleges are worth much but plan to transfer their credits to a university when they get out. You just need to make sure the college you want to graduate from accepts the credits from the online school. While credits may not transfer exactly as advertised, you can still get a lot of college credit. You can also take CLEP exams and DANTES exams for free. These are accepted at most universities across the country. Again, make the most of your time in the navy.

I already plan to get out. My aspirations span far beyond what the military can provide me. Let's also not forget my libertarian philosophy and my desire to get away from the government. I want to go back to school full time and get my degree and move on towards work that I really enjoy. But I won't say that the military is a bad choice for everyone. We need a military and therefore need people with the drive to supply us with good soldiers and sailors. I hope anyone looking at joining the military who finds this post seriously considers the points made by both Jim and me. It's important to have a well-rounded perspective before taking the plunge. I've always said that with the resources available on the internet today, you should have no excuse to be surprised by what you got yourself into when you joined the military. The information is out there, you just have to search for it.

On Piracy

2008-06-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

I was recently checking up on this Stephanie Meyer character who has drawn such a large following. I've read some excerpts of her stuff and I can tell that I'd probably enjoy her novels about as much as I would the next shabby piece of crap by Dan Brown. Regardless, I visited her MySpace because I like to know about the authors creating big waves in the realm of literature (if it can really be called that) and a blog post titled "Copyright issues" caught my attention. So I clicked on it and found her attempting to discourage her fans from sharing her work. Not just whole works, but anything more than "a sentence or two." Just to be ironic, I'm going to give you her whole post right here:

As some of you may have noticed, many people who have typed out or scanned either the entire books, portions of the books or first chapter of Breaking Dawn have received (or should be receiving) a message from their hosting companies that notices were sent from my publisher to take the content down. I know people are eager to share their excitement about my books, which I love, but you may not be aware that making portions of the book available for download is violating my copyright (unless you have written permission from me or my publisher). Quoting a sentence or two is fine, but anything beyond that is in violation of copyright. Basically, copyright gives an author control over where, when and how her work is made available to the public. This exists to protect the author and her work – a lot of effort has been put into creating these books for you to enjoy -- so I hope people cooperate in respecting the copyright for all my novels.

Thanks!

Of course, all her fans atingle with serendipity at finding new correspondence from their favorite writer chimed in their support. I respect people on all sides of the "piracy" issue as there are many complex aspects to consider, but I have to admit that I don't really see it as piracy and I find few things more important in the modern age than sharing information. So I shared with this Meyer character a few good quotes on the matter. First was one of my favorite quotes on the matter from South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker (these guys are my heroes, no joke). The following is taken from an interview with Reason Magazine:

Reason: When it looked like Comedy Central wasn’t going to rerun the Mary episode, people were still able to download it illegally online. Did you see that as a victory for free speech, or did you think, “My God, these people are stealing our intellectual property”?

Stone: We’re always in favor of people downloading. Always.

Reason: Why?

Stone: It’s how a lot of people see the show. And it’s never hurt us. We’ve done nothing but been successful with the show. How could you ever get mad about somebody who wants to see your stuff?

Parker: We worked really hard making that show, and the reason you do it is because you want people to see it.

My next quote was a rebuttal against David Pogue's NY Times blog entry explaining why he does not offer his work as ebooks, saying he's given out PDFs only to find them quickly put up on p2p sites (how tragic).

"But I am sanguine about what would happen if some of our ebooks were to be shared widely. I don't believe it would hurt sales because if we (and Google) are doing our jobs right, it will always be easier to find and purchase our legitimate copies than to hunt down some out-of-date illicit version. Would such copying help sales in a noticeable fashion? If I'm right about the bell curve, that's also unlikely, unless such a shared book also somehow became associated with a fast-spreading Internet meme. But any exposure is better than none, at least for the vast majority of authors. As O'Reilly Media publisher Tim O'Reilly has said, 'Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.' To tie this back to the music world, encouraging copying may not work for well-known artists with multiple distribution channels, but for the vast majority of unknown musicians, that Internet meme lottery ticket is a way better bet than a spot on American Idol.

In the end, I find myself on the opposite end of the spectrum from David Pogue. I've proved over four years that ebook piracy is not a fact of Internet nature, and I'd argue that it's something that all authors could both control and profit from. The trick, as always, is to watch how the recording industry behaves and do the opposite. Bring on the iTunes Store for ebooks, Apple, and make the Kindle better, Amazon!"

Finally, I dug up this quote from another famous LDS writer as the cherry on top (I love Orson Scott Card):

"I make my living from copyright, so you'd think I'd have more sympathy for the music and film industries. After all, I wouldn't appreciate it if somebody started taking my books and letting people read them ... for free! Without paying me each time!

Oh, wait. They already do. In fact, the government does it -- with libraries.

But ordinary citizens do, too. They buy my books and then lend them to friends. They proudly tell me, 'Fifteen people have read this copy of your book.'

I've known writers who would answer, 'So that's fourteen sales I didn't make, fourteen royalties I won't get paid.'

But I think those writers are idiots to think that way. That isn't fourteen lost sales! That's fourteen readers who will be looking for my books in the future...

... And for those who say, Ah, but would you put your books online where people could download them for free? -- well, my answer is, I not only would, I did. Until the bookstore chains made me stop.

It didn't cost me royalties. It widened my audience. But try persuading a greedy paranoid of that!"

The man is smart. See also his criticism of J.K. Rowling's latest power-trip-inspired lawsuit. I hate stupid, corny quotes like "the information wants to be free" and you will never catch me saying such a thing in a serious manner. However, I will always argue that the world is better off for the sharing of information on the internet. I even think sharing things like movies and television shows and especially sharing computer programs improves the lives of many people. In fact, pirated programs allowed people who hitherto did not have access to these sorts of things to improve their computer skills and find a niche that would later make them assets to the technology community. Am I a bad libertarian for thinking this way? I don't know, but I have seen more good come out of sharing on the internet than bad. One thing that will never cease to be true is that when people have money in their pockets they spend it. If you have a product worth buying, people are going to buy it. If you don't have a product worth buying everyone is going to know it because world has already seen it. Big name writers have nothing to fear from piracy. This is why I respect Orson Scott Card's stance on the matter. People like Stephanie Meyer and especially J.K. Rowling need to shut up and sit down. Your millions aren't going anywhere.

So here's my vow to the world at large: If I ever publish a book, somewhere, somehow there will be free electronic copies available and I will not bitch about it. If I say anything about it, it will be to express how happy I am that people are reading my work (if people are reading my work). I'm nothing if not appreciative.

Where did I come from?

2008-06-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

I think I ought to put a proper introduction to myself on this page on the off-chance that people start to actually look at this little blog of mine. After all, this stuff is up on the internet for people to read and people who read what I write should be able to put it in context.

Let’s start with the origin of my philosophy. I’m not quite sure I’ll ever have it all figured out myself, but I mostly attribute my current philosophy on life to my father.

Who

"You don't have to be a 'person of influence' to be influential. In fact, the most influential people in my life are probably not even aware of the things they've taught me."
-Scott Adams

"The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love. Whomever I love and am with most of the time, or whomever I remember most vividly. I think that's true of everyone, don't you?"
-Tennessee Williams

My dad, the staunch conservative he is, took to teaching me at a young age to look beyond what’s in plain sight, plan for the longterm, and to look at situations with reason and logic. Logic is the key to unearthing the unsound socialist policies and the poor, nearsighted judgment of the modern-day liberal.

Applying logic to everything in my life would become perhaps the most important aspect of my philosophy (both political and personal). What my parents didn’t count on was my using logic and reasoning to distance myself form religion and later vehemently oppose certain neo-conservative policies. In nineth grade I declared myself an agnostic. (I had basically been one the majority of my life in practice, I just never had a word for it. Years later I would realize I act like an atheist, talk like an atheist, think like an atheist, and may as well just call myself an atheist.) My step-mother was distraught when I turned a critical eye to now-infamous Bush policies like the Patriot Act and establishing the Department of Homeland Security. While she might loathe to hear me say it, I was able to take a bold stance on political and religious issues because of the critical things she taught me from day one of stepping into our Massachusetts home.

Born an only child, I was unaccustomed to living with a sibling and never before had to share my possessions or deal with any other issues that arise when living with another kid my own age. Those of you with siblings should know that it didn’t take long for the fights to break out. It is these fights that brought my first hard-learned lesson from my new mom: tattling is unbecoming. At my private, Christian elementary school I was always taught that I should tell a teacher about a problem before it escalates. Now I was learning to be independent and to solve my own problems. I would never look at authority figures the same.

My step-mother also had a “boys-will-be-boys” attitude that would completely alter the way things were run in my household. That isn’t to say I didn’t get dealt my fair share of punishment, but it was often curtailed or softened by the same woman who taught me the value of dealing with problems on my own. I took from this that I am entitled to mistakes so long as I learn from them. My step-mom’s views on life completely liberalized my household. It was no longer the structured , one-way only place I remembered. Increasingly, plans and events became open to improvisation and adaptation. Part of this had to do with noticing a more complicated life and world around me as I grew up, but there can be no doubt that my step-mom softened some of my father’s rough edges. This is how I would later be able to tell my parents that I was an agnostic and gripe about Bush’s policies and, finally, declare myself a libertarian and disown the GOP, the party of my entire family.

I don’t want to do my parents any disservice, so let me clarify a few points. First, no single lesson was learned from the efforts of one parent. While my father’s lessons were mostly verbal and my step-mother’s lessons were mostly the results of her actions (neither point is exclusive and occasionally the roles were reversed), the two complimented each other to a certain point and resulted in the man behind this keyboard. Second, my father often describes himself as a 19th century liberal and this is mostly true. I don’t want to portray him as some rigid neo-conservative because he’s far from it (he did, after all, place emphasis on logic an reasoning in raising me). He does stick with the Republican party through thick and thin and sometimes defends policies I don’t think deserve to be defended. But I’m not my father and he’s not me. Also, my step-mother is a very conservative woman who enjoys watching the likes of Sean Hanity and Ann Coulter. She is open-minded to some socially liberal issues, but it should be clear that when I say she liberalized our household I certainly do not mean she liberalized our household.

Where

"This town of Boston has a history. It is not an accident, not a windmill, or a railroad station, or cross-roads tavern, or an army-barracks grown up by time and luck to a place of wealth; but a seat of humanity, of men of principle, obeying a sentiment and marching loyally whither that should lead them; so that its annals are great historical lines, inextricably national; part of the history of political liberty. I do not speak with any fondness, but the language of coldest history, when I say that Boston commands attention as the town which was appointed in the destiny of nations to lead the civilization of North America."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue."
-Barry Goldwater

I am not unaware of the effects of environment. I have no doubt that living in both Boston and Mesa effected me in ways I’m not entirely aware of. My education on Boston, however, mostly consisted of its strong history of standing up for and defending liberty back in its 18th century heyday and its strong emphasis on education. Massachusetts came a long way by the time I was born and is, of course, now known for its exuberant taxes, the Kennedys, and gay marriages. I dream that one day Boston will return to its roots of tossing taxed goods into Boston Harbor. What a sight that would be.

Had I lived more than 11.5 years of my life in the great state of my birth, I don’t know what the effect would have been on me and my political philosophy. After all, it gets tiresome arguing with your peers day in and day out. I remember distinctly being the only person along with my step-brother pulling for Bob Dole in the 1996 election (there may have been others at my school, but this was my impression as a 10–year-old kid).

My move to Arizona would place me in a more forgiving political atmosphere, but I never lost my Boston roots. I would forever adhere to the socially liberal ideals of Massachusetts. Yet Arizona was not foreign to these ideas. Arizona was, of course, home to Barry Goldwater, the man who revived classic liberal (now mostly known as conservative) ideals for a generation and paved the way for a Reagan presidency decades later. I can only hope the likes of Ron Paul are doing the same today.

The South West is pretty open, comparatively speaking, to libertarian thought. Ron Paul is a representative in Texas and Jon Kyl, a senator in Arizona, generally supports a lot of limited-government legislation. Entrenched in the history of the Wild West is the “don’t tread on me” mentality that I find to be at the core of American philosophy, especially libertarian philosophy.

I recollected that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids—She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance.—She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage.—As if anxious to prevent all pretentions of quarrelling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her, she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenceless animal; and even when those weapons are shewn and extended for her defence, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal:—Conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her.—Was I wrong, Sir, in thinking this a strong picture of the temper and conduct of America?
-Benjamin Franklin

NEXT: Why I’m experience whore and how it drew me into the navy.

What is Love? (Baby, don't hurt me.)

2008-06-02T04:30:00.000-07:00

I have had many conversations on the issue of love (mostly with one particular individual who is as interested in the subject as I, but occasionally with others) and what it means to be in love. How do we know we’re in love and why is love given to certain people over others? These are good questions to ask yourself if you’re in the business of self-discovery and learning more about human nature.

Often when people try to define love, the words “selfless” and “sacrifice” crop up. This always baffles me because I don’t know that anyone can engage in anything more selfish than love. To describe just what I mean, I turn you to the guru of selfishness, Ayn Rand. Below are some of my favorite quotes on love.

[Selfless love] would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person’s need of you. I don’t have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.
--“Playboy’s Interview with Ayn Rand,” March 1964.

One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love.

A “selfless,” “disinterested” love is a contradiction in terms: it means that one is indifferent to that which one values.

Concern for the welfare of those one loves is a rational part of one’s selfish interests. If a man who is passionately in love with his wife spends a fortune to cure her of a dangerous illness, it would be absurd to claim that he does it as a “sacrifice” for her sake, not his own, and that it makes no difference to him, personally and selfishly, whether she lives or dies.
--from The Virtue of Selfishness.

"The men who think that wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning, are the men who think—for the same reason—that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of one's mind, choice or code of values. They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you—just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life.

"Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he's taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment—just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!—an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as., his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience—or to fake—a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer—because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut. He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body. But the man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises—because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a fraud, she will give him a momentary illusion of his own value and a momentary escape from the moral code that damns him. Observe the ugly mess which most men make of their sex lives—and observe the mess of contradictions which they hold as their moral philosophy. One proceeds from the other. Love is our response to our highest values and can be nothing else. Let a man corrupt his values and his view of existence, let him profess that love is not self-enjoyment but self-denial, that virtue consists, not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, not in response to values, but in response to flaws—and he will have cut himself in two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make him impotent toward the woman he professes to love and draw him to the lowest type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil will attract him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of pleasure. Then he will scream that his body has vicious desires of its own which his mind cannot conquer, that sex is sin, that true love is a pure emotion of the spirit. And then he will wonder why love brings him nothing but boredom, and sex—nothing but shame."
--from Atlas Shrugged.

But who will educate the educators?

2008-05-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

On the Sadness of Higher Education:

“Thus, under the heirs of the academic '60s, we moved on campus after campus from their Free Speech Movement to their politically correct speech codes; from their abolition of mandatory chapel to their imposition of Orwellian mandatory sensitivity and multicultural training; from their freedom to smoke pot unmolested to their war today against the kegs and spirits—literal and metaphorical—of today's students; from their acquisition of young adult status to their infantilization of 'kids' who lack their insight; from their self-proclaimed dreams of racial and sexual integration to their ever more balkanized campuses organized on principles of group characteristics and group responsibility; from their right to define themselves as individuals—a foundational right—to their official, imposed and politically orthodox notions of identity. American college students became the victims of a generational swindle of truly epic proportions. If that part of the faculty not complicit in this did not know that it was happening, it was by choice or willful blindness.”

One flew east, one flew west...

2008-05-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

Chuck Palahniuk on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey:

I just didn’t recognize how this is everyone’s story, in a two-party democracy. Even now, especially now, in America where an almost equal number of people must follow the will of their peers. No matter how democracy holds them responsible for their government, no matter how much they protest, the minority is still the minority. Saviours or slaves.
These days, the looming social order is terrorists, drawn just as broadly as Kesey’s ‘black boys’. The obedient Americans will die as martyrs – frightened people living in a system that constantly reminds them of their weaknesses. Reinforces their fears with homeland security warnings, the same way Jennifer North’s mother nagged her to marry before her breasts might start to sag.
And of course we have rebels, loud and dashing, but they’ll be silenced when they become too much of a threat. Arrested or lobotomized or wrongly accused of molesting children and thereby discredited. But always lost, killed, left bereft.
That’s the pattern. That’s always the pattern. But we’re never stuck with just two choices.
With any luck, the rest of us will see what’s happening and choose to find a third option. Instead of reinforcing a social system by rebelling or conforming, we’ll
become the Big Chief, and escape into some beautiful vision. A future that’s not
a reaction to or an extension of any mental ward where we find ourselves trapped at the present moment.

It's good to have options. That's what the libertarian philosophy is all about: options. Politically, it's that "third option" that doesn't get taken seriously. However, I don't see libertarianism as a political party or a movement. It's about living life way we, as individuals, choose. In today's political culture, liberal and conservative are two different ways of saying people who want to exercise control over the way others live their lives. This is the sad state of our political culture.

That is why I don't see libertarianism as political movement. Rather, it's a decision to let others live however they desire provided they are not infringing on other people's same rights. If you can't get everyone agree to live one way, the least you can do is give people options.

I guess that's as good an introduction to my philosophy as any. These are the kinds of ideas I intend to expound upon in this blog in addition to several other things that catch my fancy (especially music and literature). As I am in the navy, you can also expect to see writing on my life in the military and my constant travel.