I’m not talking about personal matters like getting married or having a child or having great parents. Or, intellectually, on the level of reading Mises or Hoppe or Rothbard (or meeting the latter two, for that matter). But three great practical things that stand out that have made big differences for me:

• Learning touch-typing in 10th grade.
• Switching to a left-hand mouse (though now I use only trackpads) (see “Go Left, he said”: How Jeff Tucker Saved My Life).
• Adopting the GTD (getting things done) methodology (or, a version of it, as best I can).

I listen to a lot of podcasts and am very impressed by some of the intro/theme music (I think it’s sometimes called bumper music) they came up with. It’s such an incredible skill to me. Hear are my favorite ones, in descending order:

1. KERA Think. Just love it. Soothing and pleasant, just the right length. Wow. (It’s also one of my favorite podcasts.) Recent episode; listen at 0 to 10 seconds; and the transition at 14:02 to 14:50;
2. Slate podcasts, e.g. the Culture Gabfest. Recent episode;
3. Cato’s daily podcast. Recent episode;
4. Free Talk Live’s varied metal openings (example);
5. The awesome opening to Sex, Lies, and Anarchy, clips from the uber-cool song Shiny Toy Guns.

My friend and former patent lawyer colleague Steve Mendelsohn sent me the essay below (Steve doesn’t have his own blog, so this is posted here with his permission). One of his other pieces is the funny “Confessions of a Law School Asshole,” published when he was a law student at U. Penn in The Penn Law Forum (Sept. 26, 1990). Feel free to send Steve comments at steve@mendelip.com.

***

The God of Death and the Death of God

by Steve Mendelsohn

steve@mendelip.com

From almost my earliest childhood memories, I remember being terrified of death.  I remember crying out to my dad from the dark of my bedroom as a 7 or 8 year old, unable to sleep from my fear of death.  “Dad,” I’d wail, “what happens when you die.”  “Your soul goes into a new baby,” he’d reassure me.

            But that wasn’t reassuring.  That wasn’t reassuring at all.  What good is that to me if my soul goes into a new baby?  I don’t remember who I was before that person’s soul came into me when I was born.  So, in the same way, my consciousness would not continue after I die and my soul goes into some other new baby.

            What good was my dad’s version of reincarnation if your consciousness doesn’t continue to your next incarnation?  And where the hell did my dad come up with reincarnation anyway?  Jews don’t believe in reincarnation.  Judaism isn’t sure what Jews should believe in, but it sure isn’t reincarnation.

            Jews talk vaguely about olam ha’bah, the “World To Come,” where we all go when we die, but nobody knows any details.  There are vague references to a judgment day and reward or punishment for things done in this life, but it’s not so clear like it is for Christians with a heaven and a hell and a purgatory and, until recently anyway, a limbo.

            Jews also talk about everyone getting resurrected and returning to the Garden of Eden when the Messiah finally comes.  By the way, we’re still waiting for him to come for the first time.

            But, I guess even when I was 7 or 8 years old, I wasn’t buying it.  I’m pretty sure that I believed in God back then, but I must not have believed in the World To Come, because I was terrified of death back then, and I stayed terrified of death for another 35 or 40 years.

            I mean really terrified of death.  I mean shooting-up-in-bed-in-the-middle?of-the-night-in-a-cold-sweat-screaming-“No!”-turning-on-the-light-hoping-upon-all-hope-that-the-reality-of-my-inevitable-and-ultimate-oblivion-was-just-not-true terrified of death.  This was true in my teens, in my twenties, in my thirties, and well into my forties. 

            And then something happened.  I realized one day that I wasn’t afraid of death anymore.  I don’t know exactly when or how or why it happened, but it did.  My sister noted that it seemed to happen right about the time that our dad died in 2001.  My wife pointed out that it also happened right about the time that our children were born, including our son, who will carry on the Mendelsohn name.  I don’t know if either had anything to do with it or not, but it’s certainly a possibility, although I don’t for the life of me know why it would.

            I say that I used to believe in God, because I’m pretty sure that I remember believing in God.  And if I really did truly believe in God back then, I’m sure that one of the main reasons for me believing in God was because, without God, there would definitely be no World To Come and therefore no continuation of my consciousness.  And that was too much to accept.

            But, at some point in time, probably when I was in my twenties, I stopped believing in God.  I desperately wanted there to be a God, I hoped that there was a God, I thought that it would be better if there was a God, that I would be happier if I did believe in God, but, in my heart of hearts, I just didn’t believe that there was a God.  Even so, I thought it would be prudent to behave as if there was a God, hedging my bets just in case.  Pascal’s Wager, right?

            So I continued to do the things that I thought my (Jewish) God wanted me to do and not do the things that I thought my (Jewish) God didn’t want me to do.  I went to synagogue.  I kept kosher.  I observed the Sabbath.  I rarely if ever bore false witness against my neighbor.  And I made damn sure that my ox never gored my neighbor’s bull.

            Not only did I used to think that it would be better if I believed in God, but I thought that it was a good thing that most of the world did believe in God.  When Marx said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” I replied, “Thank God.  Who wants a bunch of unopiated masses running around loose.”  Since Oklahoma City and September 11, 2001, I don’t say that any more.

            When I went to Egypt in 1984 for a tour up and down the Nile, I was told that, unlike the U.S., in Egypt, the safer neighborhoods were the poorer neighborhoods, because poor Egyptians tended to be more religious than rich Egyptians, and more religious Egyptians would be less likely to rob you.  Today, I’m not going to any neighborhoods in Egypt, rich or poor.

            I used to envy people who did believe in God.  I thought that it was good for them to believe in God.  I did not want to disabuse them of that belief.  Except, of course, for those bible thumpers who always came around campus to preach the Word to us.  They really annoyed me with their circular reasoning (“proving” the divinity of Christ by citing the Bible) and absolute certainty (denying that belief is the acceptance of the truth of something without proof and failing to accept even the remotest possibility of God’s non-existence).

            As recently as the late 1990s, when my wife and I started our family, I thought that it would be better if our children believed in God even if I didn’t.  So I tried to lie to them.  I tried to tell them that there was a God, and I tried to tell them that I believed in God.  Evidently, I’m not a very convincing liar, probably from all those years of not bearing false witness against my neighbor, because our kids don’t seem to believe in God.

            Our son Jack declared at the very early age of 6 or 7 that he was an atheist.  He didn’t use that word exactly, but that’s what he meant.  “At Hebrew School today,” he told us one day, “they told us that there was a God, but I didn’t believe them.”

            Just before she had her Bat Mitzvah (actually, I should say “before she became a bat mitzvah, but whatever), our then 12-year-old daughter Lauren announced that she was no longer Jewish, she was a Buddhist, and she didn’t see why she had to have a Bat Mitzvah.  I told her that she could be a Buddhist if she wanted to, but she was still Jewish, and moreover she would always be Jewish.

            (That’s something about Judaism that a lot of Christians, especially Catholics, don’t appreciate.  From what I understand, if you don’t believe in Jesus, then you can’t be a Catholic.  I’ve learned this from listening to a lot of comedians who start their routines with “I used to be a Catholic.”  This is foreign to Judaism.  Once you are a Jew, you are always a Jew.  It doesn’t matter if you eat pork, it doesn’t matter if you work on Saturday, it doesn’t even matter if don’t believe in God, you are still a Jew.  Benjamin Disraeli may have converted to Christianity at an early age, but, to us Jews, he was the first Jewish Prime Minister of England.  Felix Mendelssohn (no relation) may have been converted by his parents to Christianity to study music, but to us Jews, and especially to us Mendelsohns, he was a Jew.  And let’s not forget the most famous Jew of all:  Jesus of Nazareth.  Born a Jew, lived as a Jew, and died a Jew.  It’s not his fault that so many non-Jews have forgotten that he was a Jew.  I remember listing as a teenage the four people who had the most impact on our world as being Jesus, Darwin, Freud, and Einstein and proudly noting that three of them were Jews.  There are however a few exceptions to this once-a-Jew, always-a-Jew thing.  If a Jew does something really bad, then a Jew might not be a Jew after all.  At first, we thought that David Berkowitz, the infamous Son of Sam murderer, was a Jew.  But then we were relieved to learn that he was adopted by his Jewish parents, so that he wasn’t really a Jew after all.  Even though he looked Jewish, we didn’t bother to ask whether his biological parents were also Jewish.  We just didn’t want to go there.)

            Recently, I’ve started to believe that believing in God is not such a good thing.  Thanks to Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and others, I know that I no longer believe that we need God to be good.  And now I am slowly being convinced that, in the overall scheme of things, it would be better if none of us believed in God.  It’s not the belief in God itself that is the problem; the problem is all the bad things done by people who believe in God because they believe in God.

            Oh, sure, there are plenty of good people who believe in God, and they may even be good (or at least better than they would otherwise be) because they believe in God.  But, when you look at the history of our world, and if you look around the world today, it’s hard to conclude that the world was and is better off because of all the people who believe in God.  You don’t have to take my word for it.  Go ask Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and others.  They’ve done a better job than I ever could to make the case against God.

            So, I used to believe in God, then I didn’t believe in God, but I wished that I did and was glad that others did, then I stopped wishing that I did believe in God, and now I’m getting to the point where I wish no one did.

            And here I am today, an avowed atheist, with no belief in a World To Come, with no expectation of a continued consciousness after this life ends, who nevertheless, for some unknown reason that completely baffles and amazes me, is not afraid of death.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m still not happy about it, but at least it’s not keeping me up at night.

Jeff Tucker and Tom Woods had excellent criticisms of The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace released a document Monday, calling for a world economic authority and condemning the “idolatry of the market.” But were I still a devout Catholic, of the opinion that the Church was infallible when speaking through its pope ex cathedra, this would concern me. Sure, sure, this is not a statement by the pope himself, and is not ex cathedra. And infallibility relates to pronouncements concerning faith or morals. Yet what could be more related to morals than the political system that governs us, given the hundreds of millions of people murdered and billions more lives ruined by these wicked agencies? If God through his sub-wing the Holy Spirit supposedly intercedes to prevent the Church from speaking erroneously on such grave moral matters, why would He let it preach statism and socialism and economic confusion.

Hmm. It’s almost enough to make one doubt the Church’s teaching authority–and the whole religious shebang (Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Hindu, whatever).

Latest notable terms from this and last week’s Slate Culture Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page, which keeps a running collection of the terms from this series of posts).

And added to the list of terms I’m waiting to hear: stigmergic and Cockaigne.

• antipatica [JuneT, CG10-19-11] [really?]
  
• august (adj.) [DS, CG10-19-11] [what's next, halcyon?]
• auteur [JuneT, CG10-19-11]
  
• bourgeois [JuneT, CG10-19-11]
• congeries [SM, CG10-19-11]
• extant [SM, CG10-19-11]
• risible [SM, CG10-19-11]
• tic [JuneT, CG10-19-11]

In a recent TWiT podcast (I think it was the last episode of MacBreak Weekly), one of the guests observed that “Children are like Hitler.” What he meant was that in a political discussion, if you drop “children” or “Hitler” it becomes impossible for the opponent to proceed. You cannot use an argument that sounds like you are”against children” nor can you use an argument that fails to condemn Hitler. So these are conversation-stoppers. They are meant to be, e.g. in the titles Congress-critters come up with in names of legislation, such as the PROTECT-IP or American Invents ACT, the No Child Left Behind Act, and so on–if you vote against them it sounds like you are against property, or innovation, or children or education.

Latest notable terms from this and last week’s Slate Culture Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page, which keeps a running collection of the terms from this series of posts).

• biopic [JT, CG10-05-11]
  
• diacritic [DS, CG10-05-11]
• ennui [SM, JT, CG10-05-11]
• falstaff [SM, CG10-05-11]
• grog [SM, CG10-05-11]
• Janissary [SM, CG10-05-11]
• lacque (lack? black? — IKEA color/style) [JT, CG10-05-11]
• louche [JT, CG10-05-11]
• mettle [DS, CG10-05-11]
• SoHo [JT, CG10-05-11]
• stigmeditation (?) [JT, CG10-05-11]
• tchotchkes [SM, CG10-05-11]
• TriBeCa [JT, CG10-05-11]
• umlaut [JT, CG10-05-11]
• ungainly [JT, CG10-05-11]

I used to publish articles, columns, and letters to the editor in high school, in local newspapers (in Baton Rouge) and then, while at LSU (1983-91), in the LSU Daily Reveille. I was a columnist for a while at the Reveille, while in engineering and law school, and occasionally published pro-free market type columns. But they were not all political. I was quite the smart-ass when I was a young pup.

Well–today I was walking the dogs and saw a bullfrog hiding in a drain pipe in our yard, so took our 8 year old son out to see it. We were talking about him and he said “now I have a pet frog. … what should we name him?” I said, “Hmm, how about ‘Amphibeneur’?” He said “why”? So I ended up relating to him a smart-ass letter to the editor I published back in college, mocking a weepy “my cat has died please be careful not to run over cats everyone!” letter to the editor in the Reveille, in which I made up a story about my own pet frog, Amphibeneur (short for Amphibian Entrepreneur), who was killed by a vicious cat. Here it is.

Some humorous emails from my legal blog:

• Professional Courtesy
• Associate’s Foulmouthed Voicemail Makes the Rounds on the Internet
• Re: Associate’s Foulmouthed Voicemail Makes the Rounds on the Internet
• More on humorous voicemails
• Lawyers and Summer Associates
• Cold Callers

For reasons why, see my post Happy We-Should-Restore-The-Monarchy-And-Rejoin-Britain Day!.

See also my related posts:

• Goodbye 1776, 1789, Tom
• Would YOU sign the Declaration of Independence?
• Richman on the 4th of July and American Independence
• On Constitutional Sentimentalism
• Bill Marina (R.I.P.) on American Imperialism from the Beginning
• Re ‘Untold Truths About the American Revolution’
• Jeff Hummel’s “The Constitution as a Counter-Revolution”
• Untold Truths About the American Revolution’
• The Murdering, Thieving, Enslaving, Unlibertarian Continental Army
• Rockwell on Hoppe on the Constitution as Expansion of Government Power
• Black Armbands for “Constitution Day”
• The Bad Bill of Rights
• Napolitano on Health-Care Reform and the Constitution: Is the Commerce Clause Really Limited?
• Was the American Revolution Really about Taxes?
• Re: Happy Bill of Rights Day — The Problem with the Fourteenth Amendment
• Revising the American Revolution
• The Declaration and Conscription
• ‘Untold Truths About the American Revolution’.

See also:

• Hurrah for King George!, by John Attarian;
• Lew Rockwell, The Enemy Is Always the State
• Sheldon Richman, The Articles of Confederation Versus the Constitution
• John Hasnas, The Myth of the Rule of Law
• Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, The Constitution as Counter-Revolution (mp3; pdf)

This is how I feel when I argue with liberals, opponents of nuclear power, conspiratoids, and IP advocates:

My friend Gil Guillory told me this:

The best advice I ever got was from my father: people judge your intelligence by your ability to follow instructions.

I love that!

Love this.

A Strong Smell of Turpentine Prevails Throughout

Category: Humour • Psychedelic
Posted on: March 31, 2010 8:20 AM, by Martin R

When I was in school I read a great story about a man who took opium, felt that he had a great philosophical insight, wrote it down, and then found, after sobering up, that what he had written was “I perceive a distinct smell of kerosene”, Jag känner en distinkt doft av fotogen.

Mucking around on the blessed web, I now find that the man was Oliver Wendell Holmes, an American 19th century physician and author. But it was ether, not opium, and turpentine, not kerosene. Here’s what OWH writes in his essay “Mechanism in thought and morals : an address delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard University, June 29, 1870″.

I once inhaled a pretty full dose of ether, with the determination to put on record, at the earliest moment of regaining consciousness, the thought I should find uppermost in my mind. The mighty music of the triumphal march into nothingness reverberated through my brain, and filled me with a sense of infinite possibilities, which made me an archangel for the moment. The veil of eternity was lifted. The one great truth which underlies all human experience, and is the key to all the mysteries that philosophy has sought in vain to solve, flashed upon me in a sudden revelation. Henceforth all was clear: a few words had lifted my intelligence to the level of the knowledge of the cherubim. As my natural condition returned, I remembered my resolution; and, staggering to my desk, I wrote, in ill-shaped straggling letters, the all-embracing truth still glimmering in my consciousness. The words were these (children may smile; the wise will ponder): “A strong smell of turpentine prevails throughout.”

This reminds me of a time at a party when one of my buddies was drunkenly talking about how great other drugs than the beer bottle in his hand are, and described some deeply meaningful and intense insights he had attained while tripping on acid. Sadly, as I was sober as always, I failed to see their import. Like my friend the philosopher once said, “When you have that eureka feeling of really having made an intellectual breakthough, you’re generally wrong”.

In a recent Leonard Peikoff podcast, we learn that the problem with the TSA is that it’s part of a defensive posture against Islamic terrorism. We should go on the offense!

Bonus: in a recent NoodleCast, Objectivist philosopher Diana Hsieh and her guest debate when it’s okay to use “butter” as a generic term to include even margarine, and when you should object. I kid thee not. Go to about 45-48 minutes or so.

Note: Due to some career changes and other things, I’ve been unable to keep up with Slate podcasts as much as in the past (mainly because my commute has largely disappeared).

But I’ve tried to note a few of late. Latest notable terms from recent episodes of the Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page, which keeps a running collection of the terms from this series of posts).

• anodyne [DP, PG01-07-11]
• logrolling [JT, CG01-12-11]
• simulacrum [SM, CG01-12-11]
• sonorous [EB, PG01-07-11]
• trope [EB, PG01-07-11]

Funny parody of technology using real fruit, from The Beeb’s The One Ronnie (h/t Peter Surda):

A few weeks ago my wife and I tried this Williams-Sonoma recipe: Slow-Cooker Shepherd’s Pie. It’s really good. We have some family coming to visit from Louisiana, so we are making it tomorrow for Christmas day.

For Sunday we have more family and friends coming over for dinner, and are going to cook Amarone Osso Bucco, and some wild mushroom risotto. For appetizer: Ralph & Kacoo’s Stuffed Mushrooms–super delicious. I used to go to Ralph & Kacoo’s in Baton Rouge when I was in high school and college and eat that as a meal. My favorite stuffed mushrooms. For dessert: Mississippi Mud Pie.

And for brunch Sunday we will make Michael’s Breakfast Casserole.

Some of my other favorite recipes:

• Chicken Big Mamou Pasta–just an amazing dish.
• Patsy’s broccoli casserole (that’s my mom);
• Patsy’s corn soup;
• Margot Burger’s Dutch Potato Wiener casserole–my Dutch friend Margot made this for us once when they visited us in Philadelphia–good comfort food;
• Jay’s Gumbo–one of my wife’s Cajun friends;
• Eckrich Smoked Sausage with Tangy Cabbage (other Eckrich sausage recipes).

When I was younger (say, 8 to 15), I was fascinated by the paranormal books and magazines, like Omni, pyramid power, UFOs, etc. Later on (say, 12 to 15 or so) I became, and remain, more skeptical. In law school I helped co-found a local skeptics’ group, at first named Mid-South Skeptics Association, and later BR-PRISM (Baton Rouge Proponents of Rational Inquiry and the Scientific Method). A reporter covered us in 1988 in the State-Times/Morning Advocate (here’s the story). We were loosely affiliated with CSICOP, if I recall correctly. The founder was a very smart man in his 70s or 80s, Henry Murry, that I became good friends with. He passed on some time ago. I handled our newsletter in the primitive computer days. I went to psychic demonstrations and handed out skeptic literature. I appeared on a local TV talk show, hosted by Pat Shingleton, debating a “psychic”–I brought with me a sealed envelope with a piece of paper with the word “trumpet” written on it, to test him on air, which I did, and which he failed (I had the video but it’s been lost, I think).

I eventually resigned from BR-PRISM, even before I left Baton Rouge, for several reasons.  One was that the group, just like CSICOP, refused to class religion as just another superstition like ESP and witchcraft and UFOs.  I didn’t understand this reluctance. If it was prudential, it seemed to me intellectually dishonest.  If it was because they viewed religion as somehow not as pseudoscientific or harmful as tabloid-type paranormal things, then I thought that was just inconsistent.  Some of our members were religious, and I just didn’t see how they could possibly support reason and still be religious (I’ve become less Randroid and stridently anti-religion since those years).

Another thing that bugged me was when we changed the name of our group to BR-PRISM, I and several others proposed “Baton Rouge Proponents of Rational Inquiry and the Scientific Method.”  But a few others insisted that we say “Rational Inquiry and Scientific Methods,” to keep from sounding too exclusivist or to keep our minds open to new scientific methods, I suppose.  This bugged me.

Finally, there was such a diversity of political opinion in the group, from free market to conservative to very liberal. I did not understand how you could be a proponent of science and reason, and still support the welfare-warfare state. It seemed to me that belief in the state was something akin to faith or a result of economic illiteracy. So, I resigned.

I received a letter on Jan. 5, 1989, from Michael Cavanaugh, a semi-retired lawyer in the group, who was also a churchgoer, who was working on the time on a book, Biotheology: A New Synthesis of Science and Religion (which apparently was published in 1995). One comment in the letter struck me. I had just finished my first semester in law school, and had done very well on the final grades. In his letter, he said:

I am finally ready to send you some of my writing for comment; I spared you during your first semester [in law school], but now you have to re-enter the stream of life, and not allow law school to consume you. That is, unless you aced out all the tests and have to keep up the pace. For your sake, I hope you didn’t. Let me know if you are ready to get the first chapter.

I have no doubt he was sincere but I found these sentiments to be very cynical.

Anyway, I wrote him my resignation, excerpted below:

Friday, January 6, 1989

Michael Cavanaugh

Dear Michael,

As you know, I haven’t been too active with BR-PRISM lately.  One reason is because of law school.  But also, I have been getting increasingly more interested and involved in Objectivism (Ayn Rand’s philosophy of reason, reality, rational selfishness, and laissez-faire capitalism).  In fact I have made a few weekend trips to Jackson, Mississippi, to discuss philosophy with a friend named Jack Criss, who is also an Objectivist.  Jack is 23 years old, as I am, and he hosts a talk show on WJNT AM radio there, 11:00 am to 1:00 pm each weekday.  He has even offered to interview me about BR-PRISM, but we haven’t really decided yet.

Jack and I and a few others are forming a loose Objectivist group, and that is one reason why I cannot continue to be a very active member of BR-PRISM, and I will thus not be able to handle the newsletter anymore.  I can send your article to Leo, if you want.  I probably could spare the time if I tried hard enough, but I really can’t bring myself to try very hard for something unless I passionately feel that it’s worthwhile.  I do feel that way about Objectivism.  But I am not sure enough anymore about BR-PRISM’s efficacy and general philosophy to devote a lot of time to it.

I became interested in anti-pseudoscience in the first place only because I was, and am, primarily an advocate of reason.  Pseudoscience seems really only a symptom of a disease??the real disease is irrationality, or anti-rationality.  I believe this takes many forms??such as subjectivism, religion, and collectivism.  Since there are many in our group who are subjectivists (why did our new name have to include “scientific methods” rather than “the scientific method”?), theists, and collectivists (liberals), I am not sure anymore that the group really does stand for reason.

Many people would ignore differences such as these, and band together to form a “united front” kind of approach.  I still have not solved the problem in my head of whether or not the “united front” approach is valid or not.  But even if it is, the united front for BR-PRISM can be, as I see it, one of two things:  anti-paranormal, or pro-reason.  When we adopted the new name, it is as if we recognized that it is better to have a positive outlook than negative??and this is good.  For I cannot agree with an anti-paranormal position; it is attacking the effect of irrationality, rather than the cause.  And I am not sure that we are promoting reason.  The way to do it is not by debunking; it is through philosophy.  Since most of BR-PRISM disagree on basic questions of philosophy, I do not see how they can consistently champion science and reason.  Also, if you will think about it, there is no justification for our steering clear of religion.  It is certainly as irrational as any other paranormal belief.  An aversion to all forms of irrationality??including religion??should be an integral part of any pro-reason group; yet BR-PRISM tries to remain “agnostic” towards religion.

Philosophy is the bedrock upon which science is based.  And that is what people must be educated in first.  You can show the public a thousand debunkings, but unless they understand what truth is, and how knowledge is validated, and what the true nature of reality is, they can still shrug it all off and say, “maybe you’re wrong,” or “so what?  I want to believe it.”  While an allegedly rational group like MENSA has a high percentage of members who believe in ESP, it is an integral part of Objectivism to reject such paranormal nonsense.  Thus, by promoting and studying Objectivism I will still be promoting reason, and thus rejecting all forms of pseudoscience.

Also, I have been wanting to contact you, because there are some audio tapes I have that I thought would interest you.  They are by a brilliant Objectivist philosopher named David Kelley.  He is the author of The Evidence of the Sense:  A Realist Theory of Perception, which I mentioned to you before.  Anyway, I have two taped lectures by him on the subject of free-will, one on (philosophical) skepticism, and one on the primacy of existence.  All four of these have subjects and ideas that I am sure would interest you, but especially the free-will tapes.  On these, Dr. Kelley discusses how he thinks volition and consciousness arose naturally through evolution.  I thought that this discussion, which is very interesting, might tie in with some of the ideas in your book which concern man’s evolution.  You can order a catalog of the tapes from Uncommon Sense Services, 59 Poplar Crescent, Aurora, Ontario, Canada, L4G 3M4.  Or, you can borrow them from me.  I would also be interested in reading and commenting on your first chapter.  If you wish to discuss any of my comments, feel free to write or call.

That was the apex of my Objectivist phase; I soon cooled it a lot.

I then wrote a letter to the group’s founder, Henry Murry, about this; here is my letter and his reply. Murry was in his 70s or 80s, still sharp but health declining (he died a couple years later), so I was gentle, but Randianly firm in letting him know I did not agree with his conspiracy or racist views.

Hilarious quote from this Slate article (also discussed at about 15:00 in the Slate Culture Gabfest for 12/1/10):

A criticism about the advent of the “fiction writing” degree, MFA:

The whole discipline had been gestating for a decade, beginning with novelist Walter Besant musing in 1884 over the notion of “Professors of Fiction”—something then as fantastical as a steam-powered robot. It was a vision that at least one critic found “Appalling. As if there were not enough novels already. … [Now] we are to have our young maidens trained to the business, and let loose upon the world, in batches, every year to pursue their devastating calling, as if they were dentists or pharmaceutical chemists.”

Love this post by Bryan Caplan:

Why T.V. is Great for the Family

Yesterday my baby acquired a valuable life skill: He learned how to watch television.  I’m thrilled for at least three reasons:

1. Television is fun.  I don’t want my son to miss out on one of life’s great pleasures.

2. Television is a cheap electronic baby-sitter that allows parents of young kids to get a much-needed break.

3. When my son is older, the threat to deprive him of television will become one of our most convenient and effective tools of discipline.  The naughty corner‘s usually enough, but when bad behavior persists, it’s time for a night without t.v.

Won’t t.v. stunt my baby’s cognitive development?  Hardly.  Twin and adoption studies find zero long-run effect on IQ of all family environment combined.  Television’s isn’t just a drop in the bucket; it’s a drop in a bucket that doesn’t hold water.

One reason I like it is I’m sick of “Oh, I don’t have a television” snobs. Also of hand-wringing one-size-fits-all humorless drones.

Another development I like is the rise of the slackers and hackers and young who don’t have TVs anymore, not because they are anti-TV pretentious faux-intellectual snobs, but because they are cheap (though some pretend they are not) and prefer to use Hulu, laptops, Netflix streaming, and so on instead of paying for cable.

In recent Leonard Peikoff podcasts, we learn:

• Peikoff forbids the Kindle version of Atlas Shrugged from using the text-to-speech option because he knows Ayn Rand would not have wanted this. I guess there are no blind Objectivists! (Episode 132, at 13:52-)
• The proper use of profanity in sex;
• It’s okay to use porn for masturbation but … maybe not (you might be enabling an immoral career choice);
• If your neighbor has a yappy dog buy an “air” gun to shut him up and when that doesn’t work sue the neighbor;
• It’s okay for the state to ban a political party during wartime, but not in peacetime;
• Why the Tea Party might be somewhat beneficial, but not too much (okay this is a decent commentary);
• What kind of sex life is appropriate for Eddie Willers;
• Is it an Objectivist sin to look at Munch’s The Scream?

Roger Ebert, Mark Kermode (BBC), and Dana Stevens (Slate). I have spoken.

Note: I was in Turkey for a conference, so missed some. I’m just catching up.

Latest notable terms from this and last week’s Slate Culture Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page, which keeps a running collection of the terms from this series of posts).

• bowdlerized [JT, CG06-16-10]
• garret [JT, CG06-16-10]
• quotidian [DS, CG06-09-10]
• valence [JT, CG06-16-10]

I had lunch a while back with a Christian guy, who insisted there is an “abstract” realm, God, etc. He had a convoluted “proof” of God’s existence (and the existence of this whole Abstract Realm) based on … the existence of language and information. He basically argued that there are certain problems that cannot be solved without assuming his ontology: the fact that there is life in the natural world … means that there is information … means that there is “language”…. implying that there is more than just natural-world causality… implying that there are these other realms and ontological breakdowns. In other words, if you have “meaning” you have to have some intelligent being that imparts the meaning; and language has meaning, by definition, right? And there is a “language” to life itself, right? Right? So… the natural world has “meaning” and “thus” there must have been a God who “authored” this meaning or language.

Hey, the universe sings to me, man, so it must be alive–singers are alive, aren’t they? And here we see the perils of overuse of metaphors and non-rigorous reasoning combined with wishful thinking and creative imagination (see Appendix: On the dangers of metaphors in scientific discourse to my post Objectivist Law Prof Mossoff on Copyright; or, the Misuse of Labor, Value, and Creation MetaphorsRead more: Objectivist Law Prof Mossoff on Copyright; or, the Misuse of Labor, Value, and Creation Metaphors).

Anyway, I tried to clarify his picture of reality, to pin him down, to get him to see how ridiculous this is. He refused to include “God” as part of “the universe” even though it’s “all that exists,” so I had to create new terms. I made this drawing of “The Ontology of the Omniverse,” and provided him with a description, an edited version of which is below. He tentatively agreed with my description, but didn’t seem interested in discussing it further.

My view (psychologizing a bit here) is that if you diagram out the religious/supernatural view of the world, (a) you see how silly it seems–like the universe a fantasy author invents as background for his novel; and (b) the theist recoils from it because it takes the mystery out of things: nothing is really supernatural, it’s just that the domain of the natural is bigger than is normally admitted; and God is not special, he’s just one powerful player in this big scheme. I am not sure why people are drawn to such a mysterious view of the world; maybe they think there’s a role or “place” for them in it. Anyway, here’s my summary of the world-view of my Christian friend, as illustrated by the chart:

***

Dear __: I sketched out my understanding of your view of things. We have the “Universe” or Natural Realm, but there are other things outside this. So, since you have no word for “all that exists,” and refuse to grant the word “universe” for this purpose, I use “Omniverse” to describe “all that exists” (a bit reminiscent of Marvel Comics’ idea of the “multiverse“). Inside the Omniverse there is the Natural Realm (Universe), God, and some spirit or “Abstract Realm” (as you call it). God “permeates” all of the Omniverse and controls it, and He Himself has three persons or aspects: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

The Natural Realm contains the natural world we know, governed by causality (Natural Universe type causality, mostly, although it can somehow interact with the Abstract Realm and with God). It contains the planet Earth, and about 6 billion human bodies. As C.S. Lewis said, “You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.” So there are a bunch of “human beings”–their Souls are in the Abstract Realm, and the ones that still have bodies have bodies in the Natural Realm (on Earth).

The Abstract Realm has its own causal laws, which we know nothing about, but it has to have some, because God controls them and beings in that realm are not omnipotent; yet the humans in that realm have some causal influence over what happens in the Natural Realm too. So the Abstract Realm contains one human soul or spirit or “mind,” for each human body in the Natural Realm (though if we create a clone of a human, here on Earth, maybe it would be a mere-body with no corresponding Soul), and there is some functional connection between each such Soul and “its” body.

Presumably the Abstract Realm contains the souls for now-dead human bodies, say, 4 billion or so of those [note: this was my estimate; looks like it may be closer to 100 billion humans have lived and died]. Some of these are presumably in Heaven, a sub-realm of the Abstract Realm (“Heaven” means the Souls have a connection to God or in his presence; others are in “Hell”–away from God’s presence).

The Abstract Realm may also contain other beings, such as Angels and Demons, some of which can somehow interfere causally with the universe (in particular, Earth)–which his one reason there has to be causality in the Abstract Realm (indeed, an overarching Omniversal causality, to enable the Abstract and Natural Realms to interact), because otherwise a single Demon could just destroy or conquer all of the Natural Realm (Universe); but they don’t, so obviously there are limits on their powers–i.e., some causal rules.

We may refer to the Abstract Realm (plus God) as “supernatural,” because they are “outside” the Natural Realm, but from the point of view of the Omniverse, there are some laws that obviously apply throughout, which may be called omni-natural laws.

Being a fan of imaginative fantasy and science fiction, I can conceive of such an ontology, and even find it interesting … and if there were evidence for it, I suppose one would have to accept it. But as far as I could tell your theory is that there are certain problems that cannot be solved without assuming such an ontology: the fact that there is life in the natural world … means that there is information … means that there is “language”…. implying that there is more than just natural-world causality… implying that there are these other realms and ontological breakdowns. I don’t see how this is implied by the purported problem, or how it solves this problem, or that there is any evidence or indeed reason to believe in the existence of anything other than the Natural Universe itself–i.e., the Natural Universe is the Omniverse. But maybe we can chat on this next time we get together.

Latest notable terms from this and last week’s Slate Culture Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page, which keeps a running collection of the terms from this series of posts).

• alternadad [SM, CG05-19-10]
  
• cowl [SM, CG05-19-10]
  
• detritus [DS, CG05-19-10]
• dint [DS, CG05-19-10]
• funereal [SM, CG05-19-10]
• joie de vivre [JT, CG05-19-10]
• lugubrious [SM, DS, CG05-19-10]
• mimetic fallacy [SM, CG05-19-10]
• précis [SM, CG05-19-10]
• proselyte [SM, CG05-19-10]
• rather (pronounced “rahh-ther”) [SM, CG05-19-10]
• sanguine [JT,DS, CG05-19-10]
• sprezzatura [DS, CG05-19-10]
• spriteliness [JT, CG05-19-10]

Interesting column by Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian (8 May 2010), “Are you an Asker or a Guesser?” The “Asker-Guesser” paradigm seems like bogus pop-analysis, but the first part, I like: just say no and don’t give a reason; giving a reason invites negotiation or argument. I like the ways of saying no: “I’m afraid that won’t be possible”, or “Oh dear, I find I’m watching television that night”, or “I can’t, because I’m unable to.” Here’s the opening:

The advice of etiquette experts on dealing with unwanted invitations, or overly demanding requests for favours, has always been the same: just say no. That may have been a useless mantra in the war on drugs, but in the war on relatives who want to stay for a fortnight, or colleagues trying to get you to do their work, the manners guru Emily Post‘s formulation – “I’m afraid that won’t be possible” – remains the gold standard. Excuses merely invite negotiation. The comic retort has its place (Peter Cook: “Oh dear, I find I’m watching television that night”), and I’m fond of the tautological non-explanation (“I can’t, because I’m unable to”). But these are variations on a theme: the best way to say no is to say no. Then shut up.

This is a lesson we’re unable to learn, however, judging by the scores of books promising to help us. The Power Of A Positive No, How To Say No Without Feeling Guilty, The Book Of No… Publishers, certainly, seem unable to refuse. (Two recent books addressing the topic are Marshall Goldsmith’s Mojo, and Womenomics, by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay.) This is the “disease to please” – a phrase that doesn’t make grammatical sense, but rhymes, giving it instant pop-psychology cachet. There are certainly profound issues here, of self-esteem, guilt etcetera. But it’s also worth considering whether part of the problem doesn’t originate in a simple misunderstanding between two types of people: Askers and Guessers.

…

In Put Your Hands Up In The Air For Peace!, I noted a recent song, “Peace,” by the Luminaries, and other classic pro-peace songs (clips re-posted below). Libertarian philosopher Geoffrey Plauché notes a recent pro-peace video in his post White Flag Warrior:

There’s a new anti-war rock/hip-hop song hitting the air waves lately. It is called White Flag Warrior, from the album Survival Story, by Flobots and featuring Tim McIlrath of the punk rock band Rise Against. It’s a catchy tune with good lyrics, melding both rock and hip hop elements. The song has a strong non-violent resistance tinge to it. The oft repeated line that “we’d rather make our children martyrs than murderers” reminds me of the Socratic position that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it — truly libertarian sentiments.

Lyrics

We request to negotiate
We come to you unarmed
We desire to communicate
You cannot do us harm

They want sacrifice
They hatch schemes and ask me to follow their path to the afterlife

I’ve got an appetite
For nice things and pipe dreams that my enemies could be blasted by

New metaphors
View that are better for you can’t survive if I’m your competitor

Rise together or fight separate wars
I pray I’m never forced to be a predator

Spectres spectate
We wont last
They glad to hate
When gladiators
Breathe their last
Scream en masse
When the dreams do clash
Like the swords in the wars
Let me bleed on that
But they feed on that
Say we need strong backs
Call us weak
If we don’t redeem contracts
But the feast wont last
When this beast attacks
The sons and the fathers
Will be free at last

This is love this is not treason

They see sharks in the estuary
They claim the arc’s Bartholomew’s
They say war is necessary
But we say war is child abuse

We’d rather make our children martyrs than murderers
We’d rather make our children White Flag Warriors

Core-to-core
Were the ones
We’ve been waiting for
We hold steady
Steadier than stevedores
Not tevias or matadors
On matters of what came before
Forgive the debts
To settle scores
Test the mettle
Either ore
Whats your plan got to do with me
If the bell tolls let freedom ring
And find new ways if we must be King
Instead of leading the young to our suffering

We pass testaments down scream back at heaven
For testing us like Wednesdays at eleven
Wanna recruit and train us to act evilly?
Save it for the shooting range and smack DVDs
Won’t study war no more this millennium
It’s never again to me or anyone
So think harder when you refer to us
Rather make our children martyrs than murderers

They shell dwellings to quell the shelling
They lift taboos to seduce the cowards
They say we’re too yellow-bellied
But we say we’re the new superpower

We seek waivers to not be liable
We claim to speak for a higher truth
We stand opposed to the homicidal
We tell you you’re fireproof

***

Some of the others mentioned above are here: first, the wonderful video and song “Peace,” by the Luminaries, which premiered at the Elevate Film Festival 2008 (see The Peace Project).

P.O.D.’s “Tell Me Why”:

Another reader suggested “another artist who I feel has been extraordinarily dedicated to the message of peace. Michael Franti has actually travelled to Iraq, Israel, Palestine, and elsewhere in the Middle East and created a documentary called I Know I’m Not Alone on his trip, where he basically travelled all over Iraq, staying with families, playing music on street corners (and even at bars filled with U.S. soldiers, singing a song that goes “You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can’t bomb it into peace”), and just talking to people about the human cost of war. He also runs an annual Bay Area music festival called Power to the Peaceful. He has many great songs, but one of my favorites (and apparently his most popular music video on Youtube) is called It’s Time To Go Home”:

More or less explicitly libertarian/Austrian: Amy Allen’s “Revolution”; Neema V’s rap “I Own Myself”; and John Papola’s Hayek Keynes rap “Fear the Boom and Bust”:

[LRC]

Latest notable terms from this and last week’s Slate Culture Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page).

• avant la lettre [SM, CG0-12-10]
• curated [DS, CG05-05-10]
• elegiac [CG05-05-10]
• frenetic [SM, CG0-12-10]
• je ne sais quoi [SM, CG0-12-10]
• sprezzatura [DS, CG05-12-10]
• valence [SM, CG05-12-10]

I, for one, am sick of the Robin Hood myth and movies. Or I thought I was. On the latest episode of Mark Kermode’s BBC film review podcast, there’s a fascinating discussion with Russell Crowe and “Billy Bragg” about the upcoming Ridley Scott film Robin Hood, starring (and co-produced by) Crowe. The new movie is a departure from other versions, with Robin Hood involved in the Magna Carta and also the Forest Charter which, “In contrast to Magna Carta, it provided some real rights, privileges and protections for the common man against the abuses of the encroaching aristocracy.” One line I like from the Forest Charter: “Any archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron who crosses our forest may take one or two beasts by view of the forester, if he is present; if not, let a horn be blown so that this [hunting] may not appear to be carried on furtively.”

The discussion about this with Crowe and Bragg (9:00 to about 32:10 of the podcast) goes into how the Norman aristocracy unjustly invaded the land rights of the common people, which was redressed to some degree by the Forest Charter. Sounds interesting.

[TLS]

In Leonard Peikoff’s latest podcast, we learn:

• If you enter someone’s house with a concealed weapon, you have to let them know;
• a pregnant woman has a right to abuse her body even up until the moment the baby’s born, even if it harms the fetus. It’s vicious and immoral but people have the right to do vicious things. After all, Kant with his ideas killed “thousands of generations,” but that was legal;
• it’s okay for immigrants who come to America to continue to celebrate their foreign culture;
• the owner of your body upon death is whoever you leave it to in the will, or whatever the default legal rules in the absence of a will;
• the practice of women, but not men, wearing makeup, may have some objective natural basis, but perhaps in some societies it would be alright for men to wear makeup instead;
• if a student at a public high school is assigned a lot of community service hours as a significant part of the grade of a senior year government class, it’s irrational to refuse to do the community service.

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page).

• august (adj.) [JT, CG04-28-10]
• callipygian [JT, CG04-28-10]
• slanket [JT, CG04-28-10]
• wheelhouse [DS, CG04-28-10]

Last night I downloaded Magic Piano for iPad, by Smule (iTunes page; Smule page). This incredible app cost only $0.99. Several things about it startled me.

First, the sound is very good–the imitation of piano sound, and the speakers on the iPad. Second, I didn’t realize the iPad’s multitouch allowed so many simultaneous touches to be recorded–I tried all ten fingers and it seemed to detect them all.

In normal “solo” mode you can play piano in freestyle mode, or a spiral, circular, or standard-layout keyboard. You can expand or shrink the number of keys, move them around etc.

There is also an amazing “song book” mode which lets you choose one of several songs; then little note guides start gently falling, coaxing you to play the song and showing you where to put your fingers; it’s like a gentler, more beautiful version of Guitar Hero on the Wii.

What really blew me away were the Duet and World modes. If you hit “Duet” the iPad finds someone else in the world in duet mode and you can play together, with your own locations superimposed over a google-earth style globe, and the notes jumping out into little ripples over the earth. It is quite amazingly lovely. And the World mode lets you just eavesdrop over people playing on their own around the globe, or duets. Some of the duets are fun, and some of the people playing are really good. It was just astonishing. Not this app itself so much, but just the idea of all the creative things that you can do with technology and devices like this; with the Internet and connectivity.

Yet another thing Rand was good on. No offense quasi-mystical/collectivist types who “take pride in” belonging to ethnic, religious etc. groups like atavistic cavemen.

Racism

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

A genius is a genius, regardless of the number of morons who belong to the same race—and a moron is a moron, regardless of the number of geniuses who share his racial origin.

Like every other form of collectivism, racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge—for an automatic evaluation of men’s characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment—and, above all, a quest for an automatic self-esteem (or pseudo-self-esteem).

Today, racism is regarded as a crime if practiced by a majority—but as an inalienable right if practiced by a minority. The notion that one’s culture is superior to all others solely because it represents the traditions of one’s ancestors, is regarded as chauvinism if claimed by a majority—but as “ethnic” pride if claimed by a minority. Resistance to change and progress is regarded as reactionary if demonstrated by a majority—but retrogression to a Balkan village, to an Indian tepee or to the jungle is hailed if demonstrated by a minority.

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page).

• “at university” [JT, CG04-21-10]
• baleful [SM, CG04-21-10]
• cowl [SM, CG04-21-10]
• eponymous [Alice Tynan, guest from Australia, CG04-21-10]
  
• garret [DS, CG04-21-10]
• hidebound [DS, CG04-21-10]
• Johns Hopkins [SM, CG04-21-10]
  
• reasonable expectation of privacy [SM, CG04-21-10]
• samizdat [SM, CG04-21-10]
• sartorial [SM, CG04-21-10]

Honorable mention: Dana’s banal and ephemeral.

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page).

• avidity [DS, CG04-14-10]
• épater les bourgeousie [Jodi Rosen, CG04-14-10]
• gestalt [JR, CG04-14-10]
• impresario [SM, CG04-14-10]
• inchoate [SM, CG04-14-10]
• malaise [pronounced "muh-lezz"] [CG04-14-10]
• nascent [JR, CG04-14-10]
• patois [DS, CG04-14-10]
• provocateur [DS, CG04-14-10]
• syncopated [DS, CG04-14-10]

Anarcho-pacifist Jason Ditz did some funny mini-movies about Rothbard and his parting from Cato, with various other libertarian characters thrown in. Recurring characters include Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Tom Palmer, Lew Rockwell, me, Karen De Coster, and others. Many of the movies contain in-jokes regarding various discussions by a group of libertarians on a freewheeling, funny private libertarian discussion list to which Ditz and I belonged. They are strange but oddly compelling and kind of funny. I embed the key movies below; links thereto are found scattered around in various places, viz.: the Anarcho-Pacifist Films blog; What Is The Kochtopus?; and Ditz’s site. Lew Rockwell thought they were great. There is “bonus content” (trailers and director’s commentary) as well. (N.B.: I had nothing to do with the creation of these films other than send Ditz a short voice recording, upon request, for “Wrath of Koch.”)

The following descriptions are taken from Ditz’s site:

Movie 1: I Can’t Drive 55: The Stephan Kinsella Story – 2:24 January, 2007 (based on the September 2003 LRC Blog entry by Kinsella)

Movie 2: The Adventures of Karen DeCoster – 3:01 February, 2007. Based on an email list argument involving Karen talk about what a punk Ben Affleck is.

Movie 3: Hostage Situation – 2:43 February, 2007. The first appearance of Tom Palmer. This movie was later leaked to Roderick Long’s blog and became the first publicly available video. (Long observed: “I have no idea who produced this, but check out this computer simulation of Hans Hoppe, Tom Palmer, Stephan Kinsella, and Walter Block acting out Block’s “negative homesteading” theory of innocent shields by trying to kill each other in a bar fight. … Since I’m on friendly terms with all the participants represented, I of course can’t admit to finding it funny …”)

Movie 4: Pop Pop, Fiz Fiz – 5:41 July, 2007. A not-altogether-successful commentary on one-size-fits-all security solutions for anarchism.

Movie 5: A Libertarian Christmas Carol – 8:50 December, 2007. Stephan Kinsella learns the true meaning of Christmas. Included as a bonus feature on the 2008 DVD. Also the first appearance of Anthony  Gregory. Also includes a preview of the never-made “Open Issue” movie.

Movie 6: The Uncanny Adventures of Pacifist Batman – 3:46 January, 2008. The real reason pacifists survive in Ancapistan?

Movie 8: Universalizability – 6:00 January, 2008.

Movie 13 (unfinished): No Good Reason – 3:49 April, 2008. The ultimately unfinished test some new models I got. Kinsella and Tom DiLorenzo track down Matt Welch. Was designed to end with Welch drawing a pencil mustache on a photo of Ron Paul after they left (which would’ve been my first non-computer generated animation), but I never could get the animation to look right.

Koch Cycle Movies and Bonus Content

(Rearranged in chronological order.)

Movie 10: Koch Cycle Episode One: Rothbard Rising – 7:46, March 2008

Movie 11: Koch Cycle Episode Two: Rockwell Unleashed – 11:08, March 2008

Koch Cycle Episode 3: 1983 (unfinished; about 60% completed): This episode featured Rothbard’s escapades at the 1983 Libertarian Party convention. Filmed scenes featured a cameo of the late Burt Blumert helping Rothbard plan the defeat of Earl Ravenal, and the introduction of David Bergland to the Radical Caucus. Unfilmed scenes included a ritualized knife fight between Rothbard and Ed Crane. Also partially completed was a scene where Crane transforms into a werewolf.

Movie 7 – Koch Hit – 9:27 January, 2008. Later Episode Four of the Koch Cycle. The most ambitious project up to that point

• Koch Hit Director’s Commentary February 14, 2008

Movie 9 – Koch Hit 2 – The Wrath of Koch – 15:12 February, 2008. Later Episode Five of the Koch Cycle. Kinsella provides voice work.

• Wrath of Koch Director’s Commentary February 18, 2008
• Deleted Scenes From Koch Hit 1 and 2 – 2:41 March, 2008. Deleted Scenes included on the DVD
• Koch Cycle Trailer - 2:32 March, 2008. Featuring clips from Koch Cycle Episodes 1 and 2, the clip was originally designed for WhatIsTheKochtopus.com

Koch Cycle Episode 6 (unfinished; about 20% completed): Opening scene featured Bob Murphy and Gene Callahan arguing with Hans Hoppe about Argumentation Ethics before Tom Palmer throws a molotov cocktail through their window, and Stephen Kinsella succumbing to an IED planted by Palmer. Intended to be a two-part wrap up, the first movie would end with a cliffhanger and the apparent destruction of the Mises Institute.

Movie 12: Koch Cycle Gaiden: Do Your Best Dick Clark! – 8:53, March 2008. Introduces Dick Clark and Timothy Lee as rivals

Koch Cycle Gaiden 2: Wichita (unfinished): A spaghetti western starring Kinsella and Karen DeCoster. The two go to Wichita to stop the forgery of some controversial newsletters, and end up in more trouble than they bargained for. Only a script, never filmed.

Rock Cycle (unfinished): Intended as an April Fool’s release, the never finished movie was to involve the Catoites making a movie retelling the first Koch Hit movie from their perspective. Only one scene was (partially) shot, involving them dressing Lew in a Confederate uniform and arguing if he should be a sergeant or a general.

I’ve been remiss on my duties… just busy at work. Plus there has been a lull in esoteric terms of late. But given my increasing renown (see My Bourbon and Cigar Entertaining Discussed on Slate Culture Gabfest), I better get back on the job! So, with that: the latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest (no terms for the Slate Political Gabfest for this week yet) (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page).

• au courant [JT, CG03-24-10]
• nettlesome [SM, CG03-31-10]
• portmanteau [DS, CG03-24-10]
• tropes [SM, DS, CG03-31-10]

This is funny. The Slate Culture Gabfest (just about my favorite podcast) had a contest for the best “conversion story”–where a listener would turn some friends or others on to the podcast. One of the entries was by Taylor Roesch, a documentarian.

Coincidentally, Roesch interviewed me at my house a few months ago for a documentary (see Who Owns You? — Gene Patent Documentary), and during libations and sticks after, I mentioned the Culture Gabfest and we found we had a mutual interest. Since I am the notorious “gray-scale croissant” commentator on their Facebook page, Taylor mentioned this in his entry. Go to 35:30 or so of the March 30 episode. It’s very funny; Taylor almost won, but, alas, the blind kiwi listening to the podcast on a donkey in the Grand Canyon edged him out. Metcalf refers to me as a “nettlesome libertarian.” Ha!

My friend Juan Fernando Carpio ran into actor Corey Feldman in a bar in Ecuador (as one does), and got him to say “No Offense, Kinsella” (an inside joke between me, Juan and some other buddies). hahaha

***

Update: Juan ran into Lew Rockwell and Tom Woods at another event and got them to do it, too.

The brilliantly innovative band OK Go has decided to leave its label, EMI, and and starting up its own company, Paracadute Recordings. The band’s Damian Kulash explains why in a fascinating interview with Leo Laport on TWIT. This presages the direction a lot of creators and artists will start to take as they leave the copyright-mired Old Media Dinosaurs behind.

and my Cajun heritage, and apropos nothing in particular, here is the joke “Illegal Cock Fight”:

One of my posts from years back on another blog:

Reflicted

When I was a youngling in rural Louisiana, we would often use the pejorative, colloquial term “reflicted,” as in, “Oh, shut up, you’re so reflicted!” It was a synonym, roughly, for “retarded” or stupid.

Other colloquialisms from my home state:

• silver dime, meaning, a dime (one time when I was a checkout boy at a supermarket, this black guy, when I was giving him change, kept asking me to give him “silver dime,” and, as I used to collect silver dimes, started fishing through the cash drawer, looking on the edge of the dimes, searching for a pure silver one. Finally he pointed at a regular dime, and I realized, he meant a dime by “silver dime”. What a non-silver dime is, to him, I have no idea.)
• This calls to mind the time the black lady handed me a nickel and two dimes and asked me for a “solid quarter.” After looking at her with the deer-in-the-headlights look for a second, I realized she meant just a quarter. I think two dimes and a nickel must be a “non-solid” quarter.
• The blacks would also ask me to slice them up half a pound of “pepper sausage,” by which they meant salami. I got to be good at interpreting their colloquial expressions, like the way they pronounced shrimp (“swimpses”).
  • I hereby apologize for relaying this story and for remembering the racial aspect.
• In Louisiana they say this, when they see that one of their friends is pregnant: “Who’s dat baby for?” Which means, “who is the father of your child?” The answer would be of the form, “It for John.”
• They also say someone “caught a heart attack”
• grocery shopping is “makin’ groceries”. The Schwegmann chain capitalized on this with a campaign “Makin’ Groceries–Schwegmann Style”
• They end sentences with the personal pronoun for emphasis, like so: “I need to get me some boiled peanuts, me.”
• “If” is used for emphasis. As so: A says, “Man, is dat chick HOT or what?” B would respond, “If!” meaning “Yes!” My theory is that this was someone’s adaptation of the Spanish usage of the word “si” for both yes and if (there is some Spanish influence there).
• “Skiing” means water skiing. If you want to refer to the other kind, you have to say “snow-skiing”.
• I once saw a flier for a “PENTECOSTAL REVIAL.” The typo made me feel much more secure in my lack of thumperness.

Wow, this is some story. HT to philosopher Quee Nelson, one of Duston’s descendants.

The Badass of the Week
Hannah Duston

Despite what Riverdale Elementary School’s annual First-Grade Thanksgiving Day Class Play might have you believe, early Colonial America wasn’t all one giant super happy mecha fun time made out of maize, delicious roasted turkey breast, and Pocahontas teaching John Smith the meaning of friendship and cooperation by baking pumpkin pies and putting out on the Sabbath ? it was a sick, murderous hellhole of suck where freezing temperatures and near-constant warfare meant death was an omnipresent threat every time you stepped foot outside your crappy, poorly-insulated, makeshift shelter.  On the one hand you had the Puritans ? crazy, whacked-out European religious zealots intent on exerting their inflexible will over the New World one Smallpox-infected blanket at a time.  Standing opposed to them were the Native Americans, who voiced their displeasure at this tactic by winging tomahawks into peoples’ faces, murdering their families, and torching their settlements to cinders.  Living in a frontier town in Haverhill, Massachusetts, a young woman named Mrs. Hannah Duston was caught in the middle of this raging death-sanity, and when she was swept up in the tide of senseless violence that ravaged the Northeast in the seventeenth-century, she made a name for herself as a completely insane-o-bot madwoman who was absolutely not to be fucked with for any reason.

In March of 1697, Hannah Duston’s tiny farm was attacked by a marauding band of Abenaki Indians (alternate sources say they were Mohawks, who are widely believed to be among the most badass and ruthless of all the North American Indian tribes).  The battle-raging warrior braves attacked Hannah’s husband Thomas while he was out working in the field, but he managed to run back to the farmhouse and warn his wife of the impending raid.  Unfortunately, Hannah was unable to escape ? she had just given birth to a child a couple days prior, and wasn’t in any condition to be moved at this time.  Hannah, her nursemaid, and her newborn stayed behind, and she encouraged her husband to get the fuck out of there and flee with their eight other children while they still could.

Now, the fact that this woman gave birth to nine fucking kids back in a time when anesthesia involved little more than taking a swig of whiskey and biting down on a stick really hard should give you some indication of how tough Hannah Duston was.  Despite the fact that she could usually headbutt an antelope unconscious with one swing of her head, on this day she wasn’t in any position to fight off a swarming horde of pissed-off warriors, and was quickly captured and forced out of her home.  Her house was plundered and torched to the ground, and a subsequent raid on the village of Haverhill resulted in forty additional settlers being killed or captured by the Abenaki.

But Hannah’s adventure in getting worked over by the natives was just beginning.  Along with the other captives, she was forced at gunpoint to walk north towards Canada.  For several days they walked through ankle-deep snow and bitter, nut-freezing cold, traveling nearly fifty miles from Haverhill to present-day Concord, New Hampshire.  Anybody who couldn’t keep up was brained in the face with a hatchet, and when Hannah’s child wouldn’t stop crying, her captors gave the kid a post-partum abortion by smacking it against a tree (they weren’t screwing around).  By the time the party left Concord and started traveling by canoe up the Merrimack River, all that remained of the captives were Hannah, her nursemaid, and some fourteen-year old kid they’d picked up along the way.

Sure, she’d been beat to shit by this super-long crazy death march, but Hannah Duston was a tough New England broad, and she wasn’t going to let anybody fuck with her like that and get away with it.  Knowing that all she really had to look forward to at the end of her journey was being killed and/or sold into slavery to French Canadians (the worst kind of Canadian), and realizing that she wouldn’t be able to keep up this grueling travel pace for too much longer, she resolved to teach her captors what it felt like to be on the receiving end of a Puritanical boot up the ass.

The next night, while all of the warrior braves were sleeping, Hannah sought her vengeance.  She somehow broke free from her restraints and slowly tiptoed her way across the campsite.  Using extreme caution, she held her breath, quietly reached into the pack of one of a nearby warrior, closed her fingers around the wooden handle of a razor-sharp tomahawk, and silently pulled it out into the night air.

The weapon in her hand, Hannah Duston completely fucking flipped out, Hulked up (Hogan or Banner, your call), and went Lizzy Borden on her captors like Anakin Skywalker venting his irrepressible teen angst by butchering the Sand People all over the desert landscape of Tatooine.  Before anybody knew what the fucking shit was going on, Hannah Motherfucking Duston was in the midst of their campfire whirling and slashing at everything she could reach.  In the span of just a few seconds, she had killed ten people with a tomahawk and sent two other warriors sprinting off into the woods screaming their heads off.

That?s right, bitches.  This crazy Puritan axe-murderer violently took out an entire raiding party by herself without even blinking.  I told you they shouldn’t have screwed with her.

Well, moking out a bunch of people with a hatchet and rescuing your captured friends is great and all, but now the small party was completely stranded on an island in the middle of the Merrimack River, and the two men who ran off were sure to be returning in the relatively near future, presumably with a large party of their incredibly distraught (and heavily-armed) colleagues.  It probably made sense for the Puritans to not be sitting around a giant pile of corpses when they returned.  Luckily for Hannah, she was well-equipped to deal with the situation.  She assembled her friends, grabbed a rifle and some food from the campsite, carjacked a canoe Grand Theft Auto-style, and headed back towards Haverhill as quickly as possible.  Oh, just in case you didn’t pick up on the fact that this chick was a stone-cold badass, I should mention that she went back and scalped the dead before heading out. In the canoe, the small group of fugitives paddled their asses of, desperately trying to get down river before they were caught, recaptured, and harshly executed.  They traveled at night, hiding the canoe and sleeping in the bushes during the day, constantly surrounded by uncharted territory and unforgiving wilderness.  Finally, after a couple days of this nocturnal adventuring, they reached the New Hampshire town of Bradley Cove, where they convinced a local farmer to provide them with food and shelter for the night.  From there, they headed out for home, walking the remaining 30+ miles to Haverhill.  The group was received as heroes by the populace, none of whom ever expected to see Mrs. Duston alive again.

Hannah Duston was a crazy hardass who really didn’t take kindly to being captured, force-marched, and having her kid brutally murdered right in front of her.  This tough lady traveled over a hundred miles on foot just days after giving birth, pushed her body to the limit, and didn’t even flinch when it came to single-handedly rescuing her friends by slaughtering an entire raiding party of battle-hardened warrior braves with a fucking hatchet.  To commemorate the adventures of this face-smashing, take-no-bullshit frontierswoman, in 1879 an appropriately-grim-looking statue of Mrs. Duston was erected (huh huh) in downtown Haverhill.  She is believed to be the first American woman to have a public monument built in her honor.

Sources:

Cook, Bernard.  Women and War.  ABC-CLIO, 2006.

James, Edward T., et al.  Notable American Women.  Harvard Univ. Press, 1971.

The Story of Hannah Dustin

Lew and Heroic Burgers

Words I have yet to hear from the Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest, but which I expect to hear any day now. Some taken from my list of Annoying & Pretentious Terms. I’ll keep an updated list on the main page.

• alarum
• antinomy
• apparatchik
• atavistic
• august (as in old)
• ballyhooed; much-ballyhooed; long-ballyhooed
• beyond cavil
• bids fair
• brisance
• bucolic
• chowder
• clapboard
• cohort
• cordite
• doppelganger
• ennui
• ersatz
• familiar (noun: as in, companion, or member of household of a high official)
• frenetic
• fillip
• frisson
• halcyon
• hangdog
• high dudgeon
• hirsute
• insouciant
• jejune
• laconic
• let slip the dogs of war
• man of letters
• manque
• nod
• pleonasm
• repast
• resplendant
• sabre-rattling
• sanguine
• scintilla
• shuffle off this mortal coil
• slake
• splenetic
• stolid
• sue for peace
• terra firma
• turgid
• unawares
• vainglory
• vaunted or much-vaunted
• vouchsafe
• wag
• wainscoting
• well-nigh
• worry a bone
• writ large

In Authors: Beware of Copyright, Jeff Tucker warns authors to be careful with their publication agreements not to alienate their books and other works. A good illustration of this peril is found in the case of Buddy Holly and his recording contract with Decca. As reported in Buddy Holly’s secretly recorded contract negotiation with Decca,

In 1956, Buddy Holly traveled to Nashville to record several songs. One of the songs he recorded was “That’ll Be The Day”, but the producer assigned to his sessions (Owen Bradley) hated rock n’ roll, and did a terrible job on the song. After that, Buddy traveled to New Mexico and re-recorded “That’ll Be The Day” (the version that became the monster hit) at a different studio with his own (superior) arrangement, but according to his contract with Decca, he couldn’t release it, because Decca owned all rights to his music. He decided to call Decca, to try reason with them, and he secretly taped his conversation. They refused to give him the rights to his own song, but he went ahead and violated his contract. Here is the conversation he secretly taped.

Listening to Holly pleading with the masters he has alienated his rights to is heartbreaking. Decca had dropped him, apparently, but had the rights to sit on his recordings for 5 years. Although they had no intention of releasing the songs, they also would not give Holly permission to do so–the cigar-chomping executive kept saying “well, we got a lot of money tied up in them, Buddy!” But Holly offered to reimburse those costs; no dice.

Authors: do not let this happen to you. When you publish a book, consider publishing it yourself on Amazon/Kindle (or, soon, iBooks/iPad) or LuLu. Or persuade the publisher to let you post an online version for free. At least make sure the publisher will offer a kindle and ebook version. Negotiate, at the very least, the right to post the work online for free after, say, 3 or 4 years, when sales have petered out.

[Mises; AM]

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page).

• efficacity [DS, CG01-27-10]
• recherche [DS, CG01-27-10]

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page). Dana was the host for Culture Gabfest this week, filling in for Steve Metcalf; she did a great job. It’s become my favorite podcast, overtaking the Political Gabfest (in part because I disagree so much politically with the leftish politics of the latter–though Plotz can surprise, e.g. with his “contrarian” views on gridlock, the campaign finance decision, etc., while Emily routinely takes the mainstream, statist line at the same time she adopts the superior liberal “more-tolerant” pose).

• denatured [DS, CG01-20-10]
• épater les lesbiennes (June Thomas, CG01-20-10) 19:00
• gamine [DS, CG01-20-10]
• somatizes [DS, CG01-20-10]

From twitter.com/shitmydadsays:

No, I’m not a pessimist. At some point the world shits on everybody. Pretending it ain’t shit makes you an idiot, not an optimist.

This guy’s hilarious, and wise. He’s better on this issue than rah-rah libertarian “optimists” who crawl into a hole when they hear a peep of realism.

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page). Funny note: the Jan. 13 Culture Gabfest is a fantastic episode, discussing Eric Rohmer’s films, Conan v. Leno, the Simpsons, etc., though I dislike Conan O’Brien and am meh on the Simpsons. Dana Stevens, talking about a man with synesthesia, refers to him as a “synesthete”. Metcalf loves the word and Dana assumes she coined it (but she didn’t). Metcalf then says (around 20:40) “Here comes the gray-scale croissant,” refering to this very blogpost series, and the ladies burst into laughter. Heh. Gave me a good chuckle driving in to work.

• haute bourgeois [Jodi Rosen, CG01-13-10]
• oeuvre [Jodi Rosen, CG01-13-10]
• synecdotal (SM, CG01-13-10)
• synesthete (DS, CG01-13-10)

Hilarious — an oldie but a goodie. Youtube video.

While scanning files a while back in the process of going paperless, I came across a one-page Reading List, “Suggested by C. H. Murphy, Jr., to El Dorado High School students during National Library Week, April, 1964. I can’t remember where I got it, but reviewing it, we can see the times certainly have changed. Most college kinds now have not read much of the material listed on it. But at least they have advanced video games and cell phones. (And here is a National Review Reader’s Guide for the Intelligent Layman I was sent a long time ago.)

[LRC cross-post]

On Rabid Soccer Parents

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• objet d’art (DS, CG01-06-10)
• priapic (SM, CG01-06-10)
• sartorial (JT, CG01-06-10)
• satyriasis (SM, CG01-06-10)

The guest host, Adam Gopnik, says “risk adverse” instead of “risk averse.” Tut-tut. A glance through the written word of our pundits (e.g., in the recent Movie Club–which is fantastic, BTW) displays even more fancy words on display.

Cato’s Robert Levy argues that it is, in The moral and constitutional case for a right to gay marriage. He argues:

Thomas Jefferson set the stage in the Declaration of Independence: “[T]o secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” The primary purpose of government is to safeguard individual rights and prevent some persons from harming others. Heterosexuals should not be treated preferentially when the state carries out that role. And no one is harmed by the union of two consenting gay people. … Whenever government imposes obligations or dispenses benefits, it may not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That provision is explicit in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, applicable to the states, and implicit in the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the federal government.

I’m skeptical of the validity of the legal arguments being appealed to here, and also to the wisdom of trusting the central state for protection of individual rights. As to the former, it seems far-fetched to believe that Jefferson or other Founders believed the Declaration or Constitution to enshrine a right to gay marriage, or to things like sodomy or miscegenation (re sodomy, see my Supreme Confusion, Or, A Libertarian Defense of Affirmative Action). After all, slavery was legal, Jefferson was a slaveowner, and sodomy was not looked on kindly [update: see Jefferson's A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments, proposing "Whosoever shall be guilty of Rape, Polygamy, or Sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least"]. This is not to justify these odious views, but rather to recognize that the Founders were not libertarian, contra Randian mythologizing. As for the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, again, it seems unlikely the the Framers and ratifiers of that amendment, in the late 1860s, interpreted it so broadly as to protect such rights. After all, if the Equal Protection Clause were so broad, why wouldn’t it have prohibited discrimination against blacks and women in voting? Obviously, it didn’t, since these had to be provided for in subsequent amendments to the Constitution (the 15th and 19th). The Fourteenth Amendment and its Equal Protection Clause were obviously not as broad as some modern libertarian centralists might like. It it was not broad enough to prevent the blatant racial and sexual discrimination in voting law, it’s ludicrous to suggest it was broad enough to cover the very modern idea of gay marriage and to prohibit treating it differently from heterosexual marriage.

As for the latter point, about the strategic wisdom of relying on the central state for protection of individual rights–it is futile to expect a paper Constitution, construed by the state, to serve as a significant and effective limit of that state. Indeed, as Hoppe has argued, the Constitution served as a means of expansion of state power. This is not surprising, given the nature of the state. As Hoppe observes (in Reflections on State and War):

the state is defined as an agency with two unique characteristics. First, it is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction). That is, it is the ultimate arbiter in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself. Second, the state is a territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, it is an agency that unilaterally fixes the price citizens must pay for its provision of law and order. … Predictably, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in favor of the state.

Thus, because

the government is the ultimate judge in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself … instead of merely preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will also provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. That is, if one can only appeal to government for justice, justice will be perverted in the favor of government, constitutions and supreme courts notwithstanding. Indeed, these are government constitutions and courts, and whatever limitations on government action they may find is invariably decided by agents of the very same institution under consideration. Predictably, the definition of property and protection will be altered continually and the range of jurisdiction expanded to the government’s advantage. The idea of eternal and immutable law that must be discovered will disappear and be replaced by the idea of law as legislation – as flexible state-made law.

Hoppe, The Idea of a Private Law Society. (See also Hoppe, On the Impossibility of Limited Government and the Prospects for a Second American Revolution; and Anthony de Jasay, Against Politics, pp. 5, 19, 22, and ch. 2 et pass., discussing the impossibility of limited government when the state itself construes its own authority, as discussed in my review of same on pp. 86-87.)

Similarly, as J.H. Huebert writes in Book Review of Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty by Randy E. Barnett:

Mr. Barnett’s well-reasoned and well-supported arguments for a limited federal government make up a large portion of the book, but I make short shrift of them here because, despite their appeal, they are almost entirely useless. The Ninth Amendment and the Commerce Clause are not, as he says, “lost”—they have been in the Constitution all along. Courts have distorted these provisions not because judges have not had Randy Barnett to explain their true meaning. Courts have done so because they are part of the very federal government Randy Barnett seeks to limit. In general, judges and those who appoint them have no reason to want to limit government. … Have not judges been responsible for some of the most outrageous expansions of government power? And, after all, are judges not a product of the same political system that gives us legislators and presidents? What president would appoint judges who would tell him he cannot do anything he wants? What Senators would confirm a judicial candidate who tells them that everything they have ever done in office is unconstitutional? The whole enterprise of libertarian constitutional theory ignores all we have learned from public choice economics about the incentives of government actors.

(See also Barnett’s response, Libertarianism and Legitimacy: A Reply to Huebert, and Huebert’s rejoinder, No Duty to Obey the State: Reply to Barnett. For more skepticism of centralizing state power in the vain hope of protecting individual rights, see The Libertarian Case Against the Fourteenth Amendment; Barnett and the Fourteenth Amendment; Randy Barnett’s Proposed “Federalism Amendment”; The Unique American Federal Government; Libertarian Centralists; To Hell with Heller; also More on Kelo and Federalism, and Doherty on Kelo.)

Levy has a point about the morality of this issue, however. I’ve set forth my thoughts on this before in The Libertarian Case for Gay Marriage. The basic idea is this. There should be no state. In a stateless world, marriage would be just one of many voluntary relationships, with contractual aspects. The contractual aspects would be recognized and given effect by the private legal system(s). People could refer to various relationships by whatever words they wanted, and other people would be free to respect, or sneer, at the “legitimacy” of others’ relationships. And even if there is a state, there is no need for it to decree and regulate marriage. If it is going to monopolize the legal system, it can give effect to contracts and consensual arrangements without “blessing” the relationship to which the contractual aspect pertains.

But the state has not done this. It has not only coopted the legal system–in taking on the role of defining, approving, regulating, and licensing the status of marriage itself, it has stated that it will give effect to the contractual regime (hospital visitation rights, coownership, medical power of attorney, default inheritance rules, etc.) accompanying a romantic (or other) relationship only if it qualifies as “marriage” as the state defines it; and then the state restricts marriage to heterosexual couples. I.e, it is the state that says “it must be ‘marriage’ for us to recognize contractual aspects of your relationship. If it’s not ‘marriage’ (as we define it), then we do not recognize it.” This is what the state has no right to do: they force you to pay for and be subject to their legal system; they outlaw competition; and then they tell you that this system will not honor your contractual arrangements. This is the same as banning or penalizing the behavior you are trying to contract about, and the state has no right to do this. The state must recognize and enforce the contractual regime set up by free individuals, if it is going to coopt that field. Now, if the state simply said, “call it a ‘civil union,’ and we’ll recognize it,” then the gay marriage advocates would have no complaints. But so long as the state continues to insist that only “state-approved-marriage” will be able to protect its contractual aspects in the legal system, so long as the state coopts the courts and the contract-enforcement system, then they have no right to exclude people from that protection. If “marriage” is the only legal classification for which the state will recognize civil effects of a relationship, then the state must allow gay relationships (or any kind of relationship–friends, spinster sisters, whatever) to qualify for “marriage” too.

[Mises]

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• verklempt (JT, CG12-23-09)
• rumpy-pumpy (June Thomas, CG12-23-09)
• zaftig (June Thomas, CG12-23-09)
• zeitgeist (SM, CG12-23-09)

My wife and I saw Avatar this weekend in 3D. Here’s the verdict: four out of four stars. Absolutely amazing special effects–best I’ve ever seen; fun story; all in all a very fun, nice movie.

And at its core it was very libertarian: it was about a group of people (the Na’vi) defending their property rights on the world Pandora from aggressors (the human invaders), and about one of the humans (a soldier named Jake Sully) deciding to join and help the right side. Sure, the movie has some stilted dialogue in parts, and a few cliched scenes (I liked how the evil military commander referred to their outrageous assaults on the Na’vi as “shock and awe,” but his telling the troops that they would “fight terror with terror”–when the Na’vi had not really been shown to have done anything characterizable as terrorism–was a bit of a stretch in its attempt to dig at the current American “war on terror”), but overall it was great and fun, and libertarian. And the passion and vision and craft that has gone into this movie is amazing to behold. Cameron is to be commended for this great work of art.

Ignore the cynics–such as Peter Suderman on Reason‘s Hit & Run blog who accuses Avatar of “anti-corporate clichés and quasi-mystical eco-nonsense”. Nonsense. Libertarians are not anti-environmentalism, for one; property rights are the only way to protect the environment. As for “quasi-mystical”–I can’t say much without spoiling, but the various beliefs of the Na’vi are perfectly grounded in reason and reality, as the movie shows. As for anti-corporate–nonsense.

And the “corporation” here is basically a mini-state, or an arm of a state–it has an army going around killing and destroying (Lester Hunt makes this point here). In fact, in the review of the leftish Mark Kermode of the BBC, he just calls the bad guys the military; even he is not taken in by the corporate facade. And the libertarian hosts of Free Talk Live (12/19/09 episode) get it right too: the plot is about property rights. In particular, the property rights of the Na’vi, in an established tree-city that they have clearly homesteaded. The Na’vi are not just some uncivilized savages as some curmudgeonly reviewers imply; they live they way they do because of the wondrous bounty of their strange world and some unique features it has–which, again, I can say little of without spoiling, but suffice to say it’s grounded in reality and extrapolative science fiction, not some quasi-mystical nonsense. They even have a sophisticated homesteading technique worked out for ownership of the wild, pterodactyl-like creatures known as Banshee or ikran. In addition, the main Na’vi character, Neytiri, although she is betrothed to another Na’vi, is permitted to change her mind and choose someone else–respect for individual choice and autonomy.

As for the 3D: the 3D was well done, not over-used, and did add depth to the picture. It’s worth seeing in 3D if you go to the movies. That said, I don’t think it adds much. Avatar will still be great on HD home theater systems in Blu-Ray or HD. Note: we intentionally avoided the IMAX version because I assume the image has to be cropped (left and right sides chopped off) to fit IMAX’s different aspect ratio.

[Mises; LRC]

Jeff Tucker’s Sing Like A Catholic (2009) looks very interesting. It’s available on Amazon, and Scribd (below). Buy a copy, help a seminarian attend the Sacred Music Colloquium.
Sing Like a Catholic

In response to recent comments by Emily Bazelon on the Slate Political Gabfest, I posted the following on their facebook page:

Two bones to pick with Emily. First, she is infuriated with Palin for not giving credit to feminism, even though she “gained” from victories of feminism. I am no Palin fan, and as a libertarian am not completely opposed to the feminist agenda. But criticisms like these seem incredibly unfair to me. They seek to muzzle people by virtue of their gender or race. It’s okay for a white man to oppose affirmative action but not Clarence Thomas since he “benefited” from it; a man can criticize feminism … but not a woman? People have a perfect right to hold whatever views they want, regardless of their gender or race etc.; they can even disagree with a policy that has affected (even benefited) them. (I oppose patent law even though I’ve made money off of it; a tax lawyer can oppose the income tax; a cancer doctor can oppose cancer, etc.)

Second bone: Emily accuses Palin of lying because of the Death Panels remark. The other lies or errors that I’ve heard of seem trivial, and this one does not seem like a lie. See Lew Rockwell here:

On Morning Joe today, all the Republicans employed by the Obama …regime via MSNBC were united with the Dems in chastizing Sarah Palin for her comment that Obamacare would lead to death panels promoting euthanasia and infanticide of the “unfit.” How could the mobs possibly think this? After all, Obama supports federal funding for killing the unborn, and his plan will massively expand this program. He sends his predator drones to kill those unfit for life, according to his calculus, in Afghanistan. He supports a war in Iraq that has taken a million lives. He has ethnically cleansed millions in Pakistan. He is the product of an ideological movement that is pro-euthanasia. Of course, Obamacare will eventuate in killing people.

We libertarians recognize the state is nothing but a killing machine, an agent of destruction and death. You liberals are very inconsistent about this. As the great Ludwig von Mises said, “No socialist author ever gave a thought to the possibility that the abstract entity which he wants to vest with unlimited power—whether it is called humanity, society, nation, state, or government—could act in a way of which he himself disapproves.”

[LRC cross-post]

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• contrapuntal [JT, CG11-10-09]
• plaudits [DS, CG11-10-09]
• programmatic [DS, CG11-10-09]

Honorable mention (questionable selections): pabulum (does anyone really know what the heck pabulum is?) and speaks to (as in, “that speaks to this issue”–God, I hate that figure of speech).

One of the things I have always liked about Objectivism was its moral defense of economic and personal liberty. The objection to antitrust law, for example, is based on the right to engage in non-aggressive action, including attempts at collusion and price-fixing, say. It’s not based on the economic case against antitrust law. Similarly, there is a right not to give to charity, a right to discriminate in one’s business, and so on–even if we can expect people to be charitable and for irrational discrimination to be penalized and wither away on the free market; the case for these rights is not dependent on these subsidiary observations. It’s principled, not consequentialist.

Thus I was a bit surprised to hear Leonard Peikoff, in his latest podcast (no. 87, around 9:00), provide an argument for personal liberty similar to that of Milton Friedman’s flawed rationale for being libertarian. As I noted in Friedman and Socialism (and alluded to in n. 53 of Hoppe’s “The Western State as a Paradigm: Learning from History“):

While I cannot help but admire Friedman’s general pro-free market message and work, I was struck by a passage in something he wrote in his July 1991 Liberty article, “Say “No” to Intolerance”. I don’t have a copy any more (if anyone does, please fax it to me at 281-966-6988 and I can post it) but I recall he said that he was in favor of liberty and tolerance of differing views and behavior because we cannot know that the behavior we want to outlaw is really bad. In other words, the reason we should not censor dissenting ideas is not the standard libertarian idea that holding or speaking is not aggression, but because the we can’t be sure the ideas are wrong. This implies that if we could know for sure what is right and wrong, it might be okay to legislate morality, to outlaw immoral or “bad” actions. This line of thinking has always bothered me a great deal, more so than the fact that Friedman, like most free market proponents, compromises on this or that concrete issue.

In Peikoff’s podcast, he takes a question from a listener who asks whether he should sue a tennis club who denies him entry based on his race. Peikoff says no, they should not be sued; that they have a right to form their club on whatever terms they want–even if this rule or use of their property is “irrational.” But then he says:

and who is to judge what’s irrational? It’s going to come down to the courts, the government, and then what rights or freedom do you have? Every totalitarian dictatorship will give you the rights to do what’s proper as it chooses. So the right to behave irrationally is inherent in property rights, in liberty itself.

I think he’s basically right, but the way he words this seems to imply that a problem with outlawing irrational behavior is you can’t trust the government, especially a bad government, to objectively determine what’s irrational; that if the government were an Objectivist one, there would be no problem with it outlawing “irrational” behavior. I doubt Peikoff really believes this but the way he worded this (admittedly, he was speaking in a more or less informal setting, on the fly) does remind a bit of the very problematic Friedmanesque defense of liberty.

Update: I located a copy of the Friedman article, it is here and I have added it to this post, Friedman and Socialism, with selected quotations.

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• anodyne [DP, PG10-30-09]
• arrivistes [SM, CG11-4-09]
• bookend [PG10-30-09]
• déclassé [SM, CG11-4-09]
• lability [DS, CG11-4-09]
• martinet [DS, CG11-4-09]
• optics [DP, PG10-30-09]
• paean [DS, CG11-4-09]
• patrimony [SM, CG11-4-09]
• Sturm und Drang [JD, PG11-6-09]
• sui generis [EB, PG10-30-09]
• treacly [JT, CG11-4-09]
• Tribeca [SM, CG11-4-09]

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• epigrammatic [JT, SM, CG10-14-09]
• perfervid [DP, PG10-16-09]
• raconteur [DS, CG10-14-09]

Awful way to lose a football game
A Michigan high school team blocks a late field goal and erupts in jubilation. » But they forget one thing

See also these: Amazing ending to a 1994 High School football game, Plano East down 41-17 with 3 minutes to go

Then there’s LSU v. Kentucky: The Bluegrass Miracle: The #1 Most Amazing Finish in Modern Football History:

And, of course, LSU’s Billy Cannon’s famous Halloween Run:

LSU Football causes an earthquake:

And this one: “It’s been nearly 16 years since Leon Lett taught the world to not touch the ball after a missed field goal. (Crap, I”m old.) Sadly, current high school kids were too young to learn that lesson.

A high school football game ended tragically this weekend, when a potential game-winning field by Jericho Mount Mansfield in Vermont—that’s the school, not the kicker’s name—fell very short and into the arms of a waiting Otter Valley player. Otter Valley had just finished a remarkable comeback to take a 2-point lead with 16 seconds left and the missed desperation field goal as time expired seemed to seal the deal.

Except the Otter Valley player took the ball on the fly, ran out of the end zone with his arms raised in celebration, then spiked the ball on the ground. As the former Dallas Cowboy could tell you, the play was not yet dead. An alert Mount Mansfield player scooped up the ball and ran into the end zone. Touchdown. Game over.

Why the coach put two players back to receive the kick may never be known, but we won’t name him or the player out or respect for their loved ones.

“

Latest notable terms from this week’s Slate Culture Gabfest and Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• arrogate [PG10-9-09]
• materiel [JD, PG10-9-09]
• slattern [SM, CG10-7-09]
• sui generis [SM, CG10-7-09]
• totem [SM, CG10-7-09]
• transom [DS, CG10-7-09]

In Leonard Peikoff’s latest podcast (no. 82), we are informed:

1. It’s okay to say “bless you” after someone sneezes–they have Peikoff’s “blessing”.
2. Homosexuality is a defect, based on erroneous premises; and someday in the future, maybe 100 years from now, the science of psychology and introspection may have advanced enough to let gays “fix” their error and become straight.
3. It’s not a good idea for an old person who will lose medical benefits because of Obama to kill the medical health panel experts so she goes to jail to get better health care in prison.

Latest notable terms from today’s Slate Culture Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• distaff [Leo Laporte, MacBreak Weekly]

The BBC reports, in Working mothers’ children unfit, a study concluding that “Children whose mothers work are less likely to lead healthy lives than those with ‘stay at home’ mothers. … The Institute of Child Health study of more than 12,500 five-year-olds found those with working mothers less active and more likely to eat unhealthy food.”

As Gil Guillory told me,

This could easily be presented with a positive spin: children of stay-at-home moms benefit from better eating and exercise habits. Instead, insanity reigns:

“Our results do not imply that mothers should not work.
“Rather they highlight the need for policies and programmes to help support parents”

[LRC cross-post]

Along the lines of my Favorite Pretentious Terms of the Slate Podcast Literati, a related list: words most people don’t know; that a few learn, but only learn it through reading books, so they don’t know how to pronounce it. List to be updated from time to time on this page: Frequently Mispronounced Fancy Words.

• Ayn (they say “Ann”)
• detritus (often mispronounced as DEH-tri-tuss)
• imprimatur
• Mises (all over the map–MY-zeez, MEE-zeez)
• premises (one philosopher I know called it “preh-MY-sess”)
• short-lived (rhymes with dived, not lived)
• stare decisis (all over the map)
• Stephan (they say “Steven”)
• voir dire (all over the map)
• welsch (“welch”)

More to come…

funny post: 76 Words. Check it out–Karen eviscerates all the slacker gamer fanatics and other tar babies and nits who go crazy if you call a spade a spade.

The way abortion is portrayed on TV and in movies is annoying. Because Hollywood is dominated by left-liberals, whenever a woman has an unplanned pregnancy, we always see the mom-to-be wonder “what she’s going to do,” making it clear that she has the option to abort. But they don’t say the word abortion, and the woman always exercises her choice to keep the baby. That way, Hollywood gets to help spread the image that “of course” pro-choice is the right position, but the woman makes the “right” choice so as to avoid alienating the pro-life “rubes.”

Well that’s not enough for some of them. The new CBS comedy Accidentally on Purpose is about a late-thirties single woman who gets pregnant after a one-night-stand with a 22 year old slacker, and decides to keep the baby and raise it as a single mother. It’s based on the true story of one Mary Pols, who is upset because the CBS sitcom doesn’t have the pregnant mom consider an abortion. Pols is okay with the decision to keep the baby; that’s what Pols did in real life. But Pols considered an abortion; so she’s upset that the sitcom didn’t at least show the mom wonder–out loud, for the benefit of the rubes in Red states, you see–”Should I have an abortion?” And maybe–in a network sitcom, natch–casually mention that she had had an abortion in her youth. After all, Pols had one–she’s “been down the college-girl abortion route”–what good liberal college girl doesn’t?; its part of the natural learning experience, you see; and Pols even says “it had broken my heart”–but not, she’s careful to note, to avoid the raised eyebrows of anti-choice feminazis, “in a I-shouldn’t-have-done-that way, but” only in a politically correct, acceptable, “I-wish-I-hadn’t-had-to-do-that way.”

The Pols complaint was published on DoubleX, Slate’s spin-off web portal for liberal women. An even more pro-abortion, even anti-choice, piece appeared on the same site, Bonnie Rochman’s I Don’t Support Carolyn Savage Carrying the Wrong Baby to Term. This is about “Carolyn Savage, the Ohio woman who, in the process of undergoing IVF, was mistakenly implanted with another couple’s embryo. She decided to carry the baby to term and just passed the 35-week mark.” Rochman is having none of it. “I’m not lining up behind the well-wishers cheering on” Savage. She wonders “at what point self-interest should trump altruism”. By making it a simple calculus, Rochman seeks to make it clear that the life of the fetus is irrelevant. As one commenter noted,

There are some opinions that make for interesting articles; there are others that you keep to private conversations. This was the later. Publishing this is article is anti-choice, both literally and politically. Literally, Ms. Rochman goes on the record as opposing the choice of women who would make different decisions than she would. What about being pro-choice doesn’t she get? Politically, this only fuels pro-lifers who equate pro-choice with pro-abortion.

It reminds of the sickening pro-abortion comments of some Randians (see Objectivist Hate Fest) who were opposed to women with Down Syndrom fetuses carrying them to term–they believe there is a moral obligation to abort–to “squelch”–an “unhealthy fetus”–and that support of these mothers is the “worship of retardation.” Methinks such bloodcurdling sentiments don’t really help the “pro-choice” cause very much.

[LRC cross-post]

As noted on LewRockwell.com, there’s a wonderful Rap video by a young libertarian rapper, Neema V (from Houston, so he’s my homie). See the video below, and a great short interview by him on FreeTalkLive, in which Neema V goes on about the influence Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, and Butler Shaffer had on him (Shaffer’s book Boundaries of Order is featured in the video). This young man is intelligent, thoughtful, pleasant, interesting, and talented (amazing video and song for a home-made solo production). Go Neema V! FYNV!!

From FreeTalkLive:

09/20/09

Or at least, my arm. I’ve noted before his nuggets of wisdom–his Rules of Thumb for Living. The latest concerns mouse usage. I’ve always had a bit of skepticism about people who whined about “carpal tunnel” syndrome. But over the last year my right arm has gotten worse and worse, from typing and mouse manipulation. Jeff told me to switch to my left arm for mouse usage. I briefly tried it, about 6 months ago, and gave up. But the problem got worse; Jeff told me again recently to switch to the left hand, and that his switch was one of the best things he’s ever done. So the last few days I’ve tried it, and have largely switched. At first I would give up and switch to the “good” hand when I got frustrated. But now I’m almost exclusively left-hand mouse. Still slower, and it’s frustrating, but already I’m feeling better. And one advantage: your right hand can do the arrow keys while left can do mouse at same time. Jeff: I love you, man!!!

Update: Jeff also highly recommends this task chair. [Update: he was wrong about that: it sucked]

Followup: some replies:

If you ever get tired of using the mouse with your left hand, I would suggest a different solution that worked for me. Try a wireless optical or laser mouse, and use it on a book or other surface that you can put on your lap. This way you can keep your arm at your side and your hand resting comfortably on your lap. I used to get pain in my right arm, and this solution made it go away in about a week. Just a suggestion.

and

Use two mice, and make your right-hand one a rollerball.

[From LRC blog, Oct. 2006]

This is the practice of doing something your wife will permit, while she’s awake (such as taking a nap), and saving till she’s asleep the things she would bitch about if you were doing while she’s awake (such as surfing the Internet–”why don’t you spend time with me?!”).

This could also be called nap-shifting, or “surfing dogs”. In the nap case, if you take a one hour nap, you can stay awake an extra hour, after the house is quiet. (Of course, she may not let you nap earlier, or will contrive some way wake you early–turning on the vacuum cleaner, claiming she needs you to help her open a jar or lift something heavy, etc. But on occasion she may let you nap.)

Another example: suppose you have an hour’s worth of bills to pay. It’s stupid to do this at night, during your time. If your wife is sauntering around the house and catches you surfing the internet, she is bound to cock her eyes and try to drag you into her activities, even if it’s just abject boredom. But if she catches you sitting at the desk, paying bills, she will leave you alone since you are doing something that needs to be done for the family, something she might otherwise have to do if you don’t. So it’s much more efficient to save your surfing for later and do the wife-approved things while the beast is prowling. When she finally tires out and retires to her lair, then you can do what you want.

From LRC, below. And an update: another reason I expect Kindle to fail: it’s not color, no touch, slow refresh, and unsuitable for any browsing. Media pads/tablets, like the rumoured iPad, the CrunchPad, even things like Archos 5 Internet Tablet, will be the book reader of choice, in my view–many people already use iPhones and iPod Touches for this, despite their small screens.

Re: Kindle v. Netbook v. ePub, Bookworm and Stanza

I formerly called this feature “Pretentious Terms of the Slate Podcast Literati.” But after debate and reflection, I am changing it to the more ungainly and accurate, but less insulting and offensive, “Interesting and Notable Words and Phrases”. These are words and turns of phrase I notice: either interesting, or delicious, or perhaps a bit too fancy or strained or, yes, in some cases, maybe pretentious, or even misused. But usually just interesting and notable.

Latest notable terms from today’s Slate Culture Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• ascribe [SM] (just kidding on this one!)
• cuneiform [not too notable except SM pronounces it the way everyone else does, DS says kyoo-NAY-ih-form]
• giant nougat of incivility [SM]
• l’esprit de l’escalier [SM, a new one on me, I'll admit]
• triptych [DS]

Hey, Camille said it, not me: “After a lifetime of observation, I must regretfully conclude that men make everything hotter — whether in gay or straight porn.”

As Gary North noted in M.I.T. Calls Academia’s Bluff,

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has begun the most revolutionary experiment in the history of education, stretching all the way back to the pharaohs. It now gives away its curriculum to anyone smart enough to learn it. It has posted its curriculum on-line for free. These days, this means a staggering 1900 courses. This number will grow.

It’s now available on iTunes U. This is so amazingly incredible.
[LRC cross-post]

Stephen Metcalf of Slate’s Culture Gabfest is right–this is a great Beatles song and performance.

Latest pretentious terms from today’s Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• risible [Dickerson, pronounced oh-so-correctly]

In this week’s Culture Gabfest, about 3 French words were used, some more than once IIRC, and pronounced oh-so-correctly, such as “oeuvre,” “milieu,” and maybe another that I’ve forgotten.

Latest pretentious terms from today’s Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• banal
• imprimatur [and Emily mispronounces it as im-PREE-muh-tyure--at 24:00]

A friend on an email discussion mentioned Carl Sagan and noted he was good on skepticism of pseudoscience and mused about whether he was good on politics. Alas, no. As is typically the case of engineers and scientists brainwashed with scientism (The Trouble with Libertarian Activism, Libertarian Activism-comments, Yet More on Galambos, Engineers’ Syndrome and C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” and Misesian Dualism), he was a clod on this issue. From a review of one of his books:

My second critique is with regard to Sagan’s contradictory political views. On the one hand, he argues against authoritarianism of any sort, he points out government waste, discusses how the government shouldn’t be anti-choice, and is upset that politicians only work for the short term since they are only working to get elected again. I agree with his assessment to this point. However, then he seems to argue out of the other side of his mouth that the government should be there to provide ever larger social safety nets (i.e., welfare, social security, entitlements, etc.), collect more taxes in some cases, give U.S. tax dollars to other countries, and fund projects that don’t justly benefit those doing the funding (taxpayers). I don’t understand how someone can reconcile the seemingly opposed views. If the government can’t do its current jobs well, why give it more to do inefficiently and ineffectively? If individuals should be the responsible party, why shift all the burdens (in the form of more tax dollars and more government spending) to governments?

And another friend stumbled across this amusing anecdote, which illustrates what a statist and/or arrogant jerk he was. From the Wikipedia entry on Sagan:

In 1994, Apple Computer began developing the Power Macintosh 7100. They chose the internal code name “Carl Sagan”, the reference being that the mid-range PowerMac 7100 should make Apple “billions and billions.” Though the internal project name was never used in public marketing, it did come up in Usenet postings and news of the name grew from there. When Sagan learned of this he sued Apple Computer to force the use of a different project name. Other models released conjointly had code names such as “Cold fusion” and “Piltdown Man“, and Sagan was displeased at being associated with what he considered pseudoscience. (He was at the time writing a book discrediting pseudoscience.) Though Sagan lost the lawsuit Apple engineers complied with his demands anyway and renamed the project “BHA” (for Butt-Head Astronomer). Sagan promptly sued Apple for libel over the new name, claiming that it subjected him to contempt and ridicule, but he lost this lawsuit as well. Still, the 7100 saw another name change: it was finally referred to internally as “LAW” (Lawyers Are Wimps).

This reminds a bit of the story in Shades of Galambos!

Man collapses with ruptured appendix... three weeks after NHS doctors 'took it out'..

This is hilarious. A sampling:

1. “You need to flush the toilet more than once…No, YOU, YOU specifically need to. You know what, use a different toilet. This is my toilet.”about 23 hours ago from web
2. “Don’t touch the bacon, it’s not done yet. You let me handle the bacon, and i’ll let you handle..what ever it is you do. I guess nothing.”11:15 AM Aug 22nd from web
3. “Your mother made a batch of meatballs last night. Some are for you, some are for me, but more are for me. Remember that. More. Me.”8:57 AM Aug 21st from web
4. “Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn’t stand for shit. Just sat there. Big let down.”9:35 AM Aug 20th from web
5. “Love this Mrs. Dash. The bitch can make spices… Jesus, Joni (my mom) it’s a joke. I was making a joke! Mrs. Dash isn’t even real dammit!”9:28 AM Aug 19th from web
6. “The dog is not bored, it’s a fucking dog. It’s not like he’s waiting for me to give him a fucking rubix cube. He’s a god damned dog.”10:43 AM Aug 18th from web
7. “They serve Jim Beam on airplanes. Tastes like piss. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, because you drink shit. I don’t.”9:23 AM Aug 17th from web
8. “My flight lands at 9:30 on Sunday…You want to watch what? What the fuck is mad men? I’m a mad man if you don’t pick me the hell up.”2:42 PM Aug 15th from web
9. “It’s watering plants, Justin. You just take a God damned hose and you put it over the plant. You don’t even pay rent, just do it. Shit.”9:56 AM Aug 14th from web
10. (left on answering machine) “Hello? Hello? It’s Sam. Anyone there? Nobody checks this god damned thing. HELLO?! HELLO?! Screw it.”8:46 AM Aug 12th from web
11. “Tennessee is nice. The first time I vomited was in tennessee, I think.”10:22 AM Aug 11th from web
12. If your brother comes by, tell him I’m on vacation. I already told him that, but who knows with that guy. Are you listening to me? Fuck.9:51 AM Aug 11th from web
13. Why would i want to check a voicemail on my cell phone? People want to talk to me, call again. If i want to talk to you, I’ll answer.9:33 AM Aug 7th from web
14. “Jesus it’s hot in here? Right? No? It’s fucking hot, you people looking at me like i’m crazy. You’re crazy.”9:41 AM Aug 6th from web
15. “When I used to live in Los Angeles, I used to step in human feces a lot.”9:13 AM Aug 5th from web
16. “The dog is an outside dog. You want an inside dog, you go get your own inside.”9:59 AM Aug 4th from web
17. “I didn’t live to be 73 years old so I could eat kale. Don’t fix me your breakfast and pretend you’re fixing mine.”11:24 AM Aug 3rd from web

There’s a fascinating and riveting interview by Bill Moyers of David Simon, about Simon’s HBO show The Wire–referred to here as “the greatest, bravest, most truthful narrative programming ever heard on American television,” and described this way by one critic: “When television history is written, little else will rival ‘The Wire.’”And when historians come to tell the story of America in our time, I’ll wager they will not be able to ignore this remarkable and compelling portrayal of life in our cities.” And I agree it is one of the most amazing TV shows I’ve ever seen (which was on HBO–premium cable produces by far the best television recently, e.g. Californication, Entourage, the Sopranos, True Blood).

The show was amazingly honest about relationships, underclass issues, racism, crime, drugs, and so is Simon in the interview. Well worth watching, or reading. Any drug warrior needs to read this interview or watch the show. At one point Moyers asks Simon, “The character in that excerpt we just saw says, “What’s the answer?” Do you have the answer after all these years?” Simon’s answer:

Oh, I would decriminalize drugs in a heartbeat. I would put all the interdiction money, all the incarceration money, all the enforcement money, all of the pretrial, all the prep, all of that cash, I would hurl it, as fast as I could, into drug treatment and job training and jobs programs. I would rather turn these neighborhoods inward with jobs programs. Even if it was the equivalent of the urban CCC, if it was New Deal-type logic, it would be doing less damage than creating a war syndrome, where we’re basically treating our underclass. The drug war’s war on the underclass now. That’s all it is. It has no other meaning.

As for the state’s corruption, and the corruption in schools caused by state regulations, see the discussion of “juking the stats”:

BILL MOYERS: Yes, one of my favorite scenes, in Season Four, we get to see the struggling public school system in Baltimore, through the eyes of a former cop who’s become a schoolteacher. In this telling scene, he realizes that state testing in the schools is little more than a trick he learned on the police force. It’s called “juking the stats.” Take a look.

[...]

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL: So for the time being, all teachers will devote class time to teaching language arts sample questions. Now if you turn to page eleven, please, I have some things I want to go over with you.

ROLAND “PREZ” PRYZBYLEWSKI: I don’t get it, all this so we score higher on the state tests? If we’re teaching the kids the test questions, what is it assessing in them?

TEACHER: Nothing, it assesses us. The test scores go up, they can say the schools are improving. The scores stay down, they can’t.

PREZ: Juking the stats.

TEACHER: Excuse me?

PREZ: Making robberies into larcenies, making rapes disappear. You juke the stats, and major become colonels. I’ve been here before.

TEACHER: Wherever you go, there you are.

***

And don’t miss the concluding discussion of one of my favorite scenes from the series, the scene where Det. Greggs is holding her baby by her living room window late at night, looking out the window onto the streets of Baltimore, and they recite a modified version of Goodnight Moon:

BILL MOYERS: But I want to close with some poetry. Some poetry that I don’t know whether you created or whether you discovered. But it’s that unforgettable moment in THE WIRE when we hear “Goodnight Moon.” Tell me about that before I play it for the audience.

DAVID SIMON: You know, I’m going to– I’m going to tell you that that is straight from a book that I totally admire. CLOCKERS by Richard Price. And Price wrote that episode. And he recreated it right out of the novel. It’s almost a benediction for the city. And it is the thing that, you didn’t get it if you were a politician or a police commander or a school superintendent, and you were running on your rep. You didn’t get that THE WIRE was actually a love letter to Baltimore. From your point of view, what it was, was just this nightmare that you had to like argue against.

But if you were a schoolteacher or a kid on a corner or a cop walking the beat. If you– if you were, our sentiments were always with labor, it was always at the street level. If you were one of those people, you couldn’t help but hear the affection. That this was– it may have been a conflicted lover. But it was a love letter nonetheless. And I thought that scene really caught it.

BILL MOYERS: We’ll hear it now, this love letter. Thank you, David Simon, for being with me on the Journal.

DAVID SIMON: Thank you.

[...]

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Let’s say goodnight to everybody. Goodnight moon. You say it.

CHILD: Goodnight moon.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: There you go. Goodnight stars.

CHILD: Goodnight stars.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight po-po’s.

CHILD: Goodnight po-po’s.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight fiends.

CHILD: Goodnight fiends.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight hoppers.

CHILD: Goodnight hoppers.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight hustlers.

CHILD: Goodnight hustlers.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight scammers.

CHILD: Goodnight scammers.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight to everybody.

CHILD: Goodnight to everybody.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight to one and all.

CHILD: Goodnight to one and all.

Granted, some of Simon’s analyses of “capitalism” are confused–he wants to equate the plight of the poor and those ravaged by the logic of the drug war with “capitalism,” without really clearly seeing that it is the anti-market state that is causing the problems he thinks the state can help to solve. But still–fascinating interview.

Update: See also Jesse Walker’s Q&A with Simon from 2004.

[LRC cross-post]

From Coyotebanjo:

Bill Moyers talks to David Simon, creator of the greatest, bravest, most truthful narrative programming ever heard on American television.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Let’s say goodnight to everybody. Goodnight moon. You say it.

CHILD: Goodnight moon.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: There you go. Goodnight stars.

CHILD: Goodnight stars.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight po-po’s.

CHILD: Goodnight po-po’s.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight fiends.

CHILD: Goodnight fiends.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight hoppers.

CHILD: Goodnight hoppers.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight hustlers.

CHILD: Goodnight hustlers.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight scammers.

CHILD: Goodnight scammers.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight to everybody.

CHILD: Goodnight to everybody.

DETECTIVE KIMA GREGGS: Goodnight to one and all.

CHILD: Goodnight to one and all.

This is wild. I found this when my 6 year old started telling me about how the Angler fish is one of the weirdest creatures b/c of its mating ritual. He described it but it didn’t sound right, so I googled it-…-sure enough, he was right. I found this list: I think the angler should be #1 not #7. But the octopus, #1, is weird.

My good friend John Wax is an excellent artist. See his prints and artwork here.

Latest pretentious terms from today’s Slate Political Gabfest (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• on Martha’s Vineyard [PG 8-12-09, Plotz--as if everyone knows it's an island]
• peripatetically [PG 8-12-09, Plotz]

This is funny (NOGap).

A recent MacBreak Weekly podcast had a very cool recommendation: The Forbidden City: Beyond Space and Time, and I learned about a nice iPhone/mobile phone app, Shoot It!, in a recent GeekBrief episode.

Forbidden City is an application for all platforms, providing an amazing “3D Virtual World of the Forbidden City in Beijing.” China and IBM apparently spent $2M developing this free application.

Shoot It! allows you to create a postcard from your iPhone from any picture in your phone, and have it mailed to whoever you want, for a modest fee. I plan to use this from now on, on vacation, instead of buying a postcard, addressing, buying a stamp, and finding a post office. The only drawback that I see is they don’t include a way to upload a picture from your computer to your account — you have to use your phone. That’s stupid. If I have a nice pic I took with a camera on vacation, I have to first put it on the computer, then sync with the iphone to get it on there, or email it to myself and save the email attachment to my iPhone photo library, and then use Shoot It!. I can’t see why they won’t let you do it from the website interface as well; but this will probably be fixed and in any event is just a minor annoyance.

This little chart served me well for many years, especially when I was a baby lawyer (when the suit was worn all the time). The Half-Windsor remains my knot o’ choice.

My friend Brad Edmonds–a libertarian with expertise in music, cooking, and psychology, about to be a newly-minted attorney–published a delightful book in 2004, There’s a Government in Your Soup: Why There’s Too Much Government in Your Kitchen, and What You Can Do About It. I reviewed it in Eat This Book: Review of Brad Edmonds’s There’s a Government in Your Soup: Why There’s Too Much Government in Your Kitchen, and What You Can Do About It. As I wrote there:

Some pairings don’t seem like they would go together – melons and prosciutto, pineapple on pizza, dark chocolate and bourbon – but pleasantly surprise you when they do. So it is with Brad Edmonds’s recent book, There’s a Government in Your Soup: Why There’s Too Much Government in Your Kitchen, and What You Can Do About It, which combines food and politics to yield a mighty fun read.

This book will proudly grace your coffee table or make excellent bedtime reading (full disclosure: Edmonds and I are buds). Edmonds – whose work will be well known to LewRockwell.com readers – draws on his experience as a libertarian writer, scholar-musician (he has a doctorate in music), and cooking expertise to combine a mouthwatering yet intellectually stimulating gumbo of interwoven advice, recipes, related economic-political analysis, and fascinating vignettes.

As the Mises Institute store‘s blurb says:

“Government in Your Soup is a revealing, often funny, and sometimes shocking exposi of government intrusions into your kitchen.

Author Brad Edmonds brings his economic background together with his love of food to show how government mucks up the food industry, and what can be done about it. “Government in Your Soup” covers a diverse range of topics, including:

• How regulations raise prices and hurt American businesses and consumers
• How government involvement can slow developments in food safety
• The brilliance of chefs, home cooks, and free markets in overcoming government interference to bring great food to the table
• The beauty and variety of regional and traditional cuisines, and what these cuisines tell us about free markets in food”Government in Your Soup” includes easy ways you can reduce government nannying and snooping into your food, fun, shopping, and living, and is a useful resource for those who want to reduce the size and cost of government.

Brad has given me permission to post it online: here it is. Enjoy! And buy a copy from Amazon or the Mises Institute store.

In an email discussion list, one of the members had become convinced of the “controlled demolition” theory of 9/11 (which I consider to be completely nutball), after watching a 2 hour video by Richard Gage. He edited it down to a 22 minute version (and also a 12 minute version) for easier viewing.

Another member of our list, David Christy, watched it and replied as follows (he gave me permission to post this):

Okay, i finally took the time to watch the 22 minute summary clip.

Not only has it failed to convince me, but as a physics major for 3 years before I decided to drop it for math and computer science, it was clear that these people were full of crap, and that makes me f*cking mad.

1st, the steel would not need to melt to collapse the building, and they know it. Steel loses structural integrity long before it reaches the melting point, and considering that most buildings like this are built to use the minimum amount of steel necessary, it actually bolsters the case for collapse.

2nd, all the buildings in the demolition “examples” were steel re-enforced concrete. The WTC buildings were an exo-skeleton, and only an imbicile wouldn’t know the difference. There was absolutely no re-enforcing aspect about the concrete in that building it in the slightest. One would expect all the non structural concrete to fall apart and it did. One would expect massive dust clouds and they happened.

3rd, the fire would have weakened the building enough to collapse, but no-one ever said that the fire itself “caused the explosion outward”. Those assholes refuted an argument that was never even made. The collapse was more than enough to push crap outward.

4th, the weakening would have caused the upper part of the building to push out the exo-skeleton, causing it to break away with insane force and for the floors to fall as quickly as they did .. which would also explain the popping.

5th, the testimonials were bullsh*t, and mean nothing.

6th, sulfer is very common in nature and also in many forms of insulation, it would have been expected to be found at the site.

7th, another name for “iron oxide” is RUST – when you have a mega steel building with an exo-skeleton, rust will likely be everywhere. Why didn’t those assholes just call it f*cking RUST.

8th, thermite is commonly used in welding to bind steel beams. Any thoughtful asshole would know that, and would expect fragments and traces to be found in the way that they were almost everywhere on the structural material.

9th, the burn temperatures of diesel were more than enough to burn people to charcoal, and the collapse more then enough to expell bone fragments everywhere, why in the f*ck did they treat it like such a mystery.

In sum, these people are either full of sh*t and they know it, or are too incompetent to have an expert opinion. It really pisses me off that they would f*ck with peoples lives where they have no business f*cking with them. If they want to make a compelling argument, they need to do a f*ck of a lot better than that!!!!!

The truther guy responded: “Wow, I commend you for watching the video. Now that you’ve seen the evidence, we can discuss it. Specifically, the thermite. Your explanation does not account for why there were unreacted thermite chips in the dust.”

Christy’s response:

Actually, it does. Have you ever seen the tack welding where it spews sparks everywhere. I would expect any welding site to have occasional loose fragments.

If they found c4 traces, and could prove it, it might have convinced me, but this is just bullsh*tting and especially not compelling.

And here is a 1 minute video…., this thermite techique may not have been used in wtc, but it still makes the point. fragments and scaring. the demolition argument is NOT COMPELLING.

Oh, btw, technically–people won’t be burned to charcoal, but it would have been more than enough to burn off all the flesh and probably make the bones brittle.

Most the buildings and their references seemed to be concrete reinforced, ones, not necessairly “all” of them, I didn’t super zone-in, but it was still clear that they were talking apples to oranges and bullsh*t.

Followup to this post: Latest pretentious terms from today’s Slate Political Gabfest and Culture Gabfest #40 (feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• annus horribilis [CG#40]
• anodyne [PG7-17-09, Emily]
• chanteuse [CG#40]
• gonzo [CG#40-all 3 hosts]
• milquetoast [PG7-17-09,guest host Chris Beam]
• patrimony [CG#40]
• spanner (for wrench) [PG7-17-09, Dickerson]
• sussed out [CG#40]

To be added to my favorite quotes collection:

“If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another.” –Adam Smith

“It’s so wonderful to see a great, new, crucial achievement which is not mine!” –Ayn Rand

very cool video.

As mentioned on episode 53 of Leonard Peikoff’s podcast, this poem, by Badger Clark, was one of Rand’s favorites:

The Westerner

My fathers sleep on the sunrise plains,
And each one sleeps alone.
Their trails may dim to the grass and rains,
For I choose to make my own.
I lay proud claim to their blood and name,
But I lean on no dead kin;
My name is mine, for the praise or scorn,
And the world began when I was born
And the world is mine to win.

They built high towns on their old log sills,
Where the great, slow rivers gleamed,
But with new, live rock from the savage hills
I’ll build as they only dreamed.
The smoke scarce dies where the trail camp
lies,
Till the rails glint down the pass;
The desert springs into fruit and wheat
And I lay the stones of a solid street
Over yesterday’s untrod grass.

I waste no thought on my neighbor’s birth
Or the way he makes his prayer.
I grant him a white man’s room on earth
If his game is only square.
While he plays it straight I’ll call him mate;
If he cheats I drop him flat.
Old class and rank are a wornout lie,
For all clean men are as good as I,
And a king is only that.

I dream no dreams of a nurse-maid state
That will spoon me out my food.
A stout heart sings in the fray with fate
And the shock and sweat are good.
From noon to noon all the earthly boon
That I ask my God to spare
Is a little daily bread in store,
With the room to fight the strong for more,
And the weak shall get their share.

The sunrise plains are a tender haze
And the sunset seas are gray,
But I stand here, where the bright skies blaze
Over me and the big today.
What good to me is a vague “maybe”
Or a mournful “might have been,”
For the sun wheels swift from morn to morn
And the world began when I was born
And the world is mine to win.

Amazing and beautiful. HT Juan Fernando Carpio.

????

I confess: I am an avid listener of various Slate magazine podcasts, mainly the Slate Political Gabfest, Slate’s Culture Gabfest, and Slate’s Spoiler Specials. I’ve noticed that the liberal artsy hosts repeatedly employ certain terms–usually with the correct foreign accent, where necessary–that are not often used (or even known) by normal people, with a certain breezy, blithe liberal arts smug pretentiousness. Here are some I heard or remembered this morning–I’ll supplement this list from time to time (and see also my list of Annoying & Pretentious Terms; feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments to the main page):

• ennui
  
• frisson
  
• peripatetic
• oeuvre
• trope

On the last Political Gabfest, all 3 were bending over backwards to pronounce Medvedev so it sounds like med-yee-uh-dev.

[Old LRC post]

Some of the best fiction I’ve read in some time, maybe ever, definitely just about the best sci-fi I’ve ever read: The Golden Age trilogy, by John C. Wright. If you liked Atlas Shrugged and like hard sci-fi (e.g., fans of Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center saga; Dan Simmons’ Hyperion novels; Orson Scott Card’s Ender books; and Vernor Vinge’s Fire Upon The Deep), you’ll like this. It’s sci-fi by an obvious libertarian and proponent of individualism and free-market, if not Austrian, economics (some of the mini-speeches about the necessity of money even in an advanced society a million years down the road, are very impressive), but it’s not “libertarian sci-fi” of the jokey, preachy, or humorless (no offense, Ayn Rand) type. Highly recommended.

Interesting interviews with Wright: here; and here.

One of the funniest things I’ve ever read

But then, you won’t think so, if you dislike male chauvinist pig fratboy antics or don’t have a juvenile sense of humor: “The Now Infamous Tucker Max Charity Auction Debacle” Story. “How Tucker became an urban legend (This is the complete, true story behind the famous email. If you aren’t familiar with this story in some way, you might want to read the others first; this one is long and gets very involved, especially if you aren’t a lawyer or never got the renowned “The Now Infamous Tucker Max Charity Auction Debacle” email.)”

Also funny is Tucker Max’s just recently restored story of his dating Miss Vermont–it was taken down until her lawsuit against him was recently dropped.

The true story behind “The Now Infamous Tucker Max Charity Auction Debacle” email

Apropos my recent poetry-related post–I just stumbled across what may be my only published poetry. It’s a letter to the editor published in LSU’s Daily Reveille, when I was in college, probably in September of 1985. It was a response to a poem attacking Leona Helmsley. The original is here; text below:

Poem Rebuttal

Kristin L. Heflin’s poem in the 9-19 Reveille included the following lines:

Zsa Zsa slapped a cop,
And she’s supposed to go to jail.
She’ll endure many hardships-
Things like shopping through the mail.

Leona is a jail-bird too;
She jipped the I.R.S.
I’ve heard she tried to locate
A designer prison dress.

She’ll share a cell, the sheets aren’t silk,
And to her great dismay
She’s found out that the prison food
Cannot be classed “gourmet.”

Very nice. So nice, in fact, that she inspired me to write a poem. I call it “Dear Ms. Heflin.”

When you attack these ladies,
Your talents you misuse.
You’re knocking them not ofr vices,
But instead for their virtues!

Zsa Zsa slapped a cop.
Yes, that much is true.
But for that cop’s obscenity,
I’ll bet–so would you.

And Leona “jipped” the I.R.S.?!
But whose money is it, hey?
Since I.R.S. jipped her first
Turnabout is fair play.

Zsa Zsa’s fame, success and riches
Must really make you mad;
Leona’s great achievements
I guess you think are bad.

A barometer of our age, Ms. Heflin–
Oh, yes, you tell us plenty.
Such resentment against achievement!
This is the age of envy.

The temptation to despair is high for realistic libertarians. It seems ever more difficult to achieve the society we strive for. But a comrade passed on to me some inspiring words from Blaga Dimitrova, a Bulgarian poet:

I’m not afraid
they’ll stamp me flat.
Grass stamped flat
soon becomes a path.

–Blaga Dimitrova, “Grass,” quoted in Harold B. Segel, The Columbia Guide to the Literatures of Eastern Europe Since 1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003 [1974]), p. 146.

Lucy Lovejoy, Gospel Clown

(From an old LRC post.)

On the one hand, I love this. On the other hand, it frightens and confuses me. First saw this a couple years ago–a friend saw a flyer stuck on the wall of a Chinese restaurant. Ever since it’s been on the ledge of the whiteboard in my office. Every day… Lucy stares at me.

This is such a great New York Post headline:

IKE ‘BEATS’ TINA TO DEATH

The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads Of All Time

What do murder, pedophilia, suicide and a baby tiger have in common? They have all been used to sell stuff in these amazingly disturbing vintage ads!

These are real, untouched advertisements from the good old days. It doesn’t matter if it’s lovely ladies or adorable clowns, somehow these old-time ad wizards found ways to traumatize us while pedaling everyday products.

Enjoy them now, call your therapist later!

15. White Bread Demon
“Bread is swell, but what I’m really excited about is eating jelly made from the blood of the innocent!”


14. French Suicide Sausage
It’s enough to make you want to eat Kosher forever.

13. A Girl Around The House
It’s nice to have a girl around the house… especially if you are a psychopath serial killer who makes women into rugs!

12. Chubby
Who needs self-esteem when you can have a free fashion book for chubbies? Also, proving that advertising weight representation has always been screwed up, the girl pictured is totally not chubby.

11. Christmas Weapons
The family that guns together, has funs together.

10. Eye patch. Shirt. Baby Tiger.
Sexy?

9. Chase & Sandborn Spanking
She totally deserves it. Seriously, what kind of woman doesn’t “store test” for fresher coffee?

8. Fry’s Chocolate Nightmare
Nothing wants to make consumers buy chocolate more than 5 faces of a sickly kid looking 5 different shades of miserable.

7. Root Beer Baby!
Mama, please DO NOT give your baby another glass of Root Beer. It is clearly doing something horrible to him. He is terrifying.

6. Locked Out
You better wash out your privates with Lysol, or your husband will install cartoon locks on the door.

5. Pears Soap Disaster
“Pears Soap- now with such a soothing lather, you won’t notice that your baby has gotten into a horrible accident!”

4. Postage Meter Murder
“Is it always illegal to kill a woman?” This is a truly important question and makes us want to buy a new postage meter.

3. Shave Yourself
The old man baby’s gonna sing karaoke into a razor! Hooray!

2. Baby Soft
JonBenét Ramsey, eat your heart out. (Too soon?) This ad makes us want to scream, gouge out our eyes and then barf.

1. Chocolate Poulain
Drink that cocoa, or this clown will murder you in your sleep.

Another one for my list of annoying words: troops, to mean several soldiers, which is also what troop means. An individual soldier is a trooper, not a troop. So shouldn’t it be trooper is singular, and troopers is plural; or, if troops has to mean plural, then troop should be singular, not plural too!

My list is here.

Mentioned on:

• Annoying and pretentious terms (Althouse blog)
• Adjectivey, Alliterations, Britishisms, and Loving (Karen De Coster’s blog)
• Stephan Kinsella’s rulings on term coolness (metafilter)

From Althouse:

Annoying and pretentious terms
Collected by N. Stephan Kinsella (via Metafilter). The list is excellent — reminds me of one of my all-time favorite books: Flaubert’s “Dictionary of Accepted Ideas.” The list is also pretty long, so let me select a few that especially annoy me …

Congrats, Marvel. You’ve turned Spider-Man into a drooling statist product of goverment education. See the nauseating Early Look: Spider-Man Meets Obama; Comic stores donating Spider-Man/Obama profits to charity; Zeb Wells – Writing the Spider-Man/Obama Meeting; Advance Peek at Spiderman/Obama Comic; Spider-Man, Obama team-up comic sells out. The vapid writer intones, “‘I have a lot of respect for President Obama and how he ran his campaign,’ the writer said. ‘I like how he never shied away from who he was, and always answered tough questions about mistakes in his past with candor. He didn’t try to be everything to everyone, and that takes a lot of character … more character than I have. I like being able to say that about my President.’”

The comic strip nauseatingly shows Spider-Man doing a “fist-dap” with Obama, each telling the other, “Thanks … partner…” And in one of the panels, as Spider-Man observes the inaugural festivities, he thinks to himself, “It looks like Washington is in capable hands.”

[LRC blog cross-post]

Thanks to my good buddy Russ Lindenfeldar, patent lawyer with Engelhard, who was in town the other night and with whom I did some carousing, along with another patent lawyer buddy, Mark Gilbreth, I’ve discovered a new beer: Chimay, made by the Trappist monks in Belgium. Comes in three flavors, red label, blue label, and triple, and are top fermented and refermented in the bottle. The large bottle has a champagne type cork that pops when you uncork it. Meant to be served in a wide-mouthed glass, it’s wonderful. (Okay, this has little to do with law or IP, but I love beer so much I had to tell.)

While I’m on the topic of alcohol, my former patent-lawyer boss Bill Norvell introduced me to the truly fine Blanton’s bourbon (and several varieties of tequila, but that’s another story). The Mises Institute’s Joe Stromberg gave me my first Elijah Craig bourbon experience. And my PhD EE former co-worker, Jim Baillargeon, initiated me into the world of scotch, especially his favorite, Lagavulin. My fellow patent lawyer Warner Delaune of Baton Rouge gave me some additional cigar and scotch tips.

And while I’m on this topic–I love the politically-incorrect site SmokeThis!, by “Cigar Dave”, who hosts the Smoke This! radio talk show. I particularly like his sense of humour and the Cigar Dave Motto:

“Live the good life. Drink, smoke, gamble, feast, joke, fornicate and be tolerant of those who do. Take risks and thrive for the good challenge. Work hard and play hard without going over the edge. Live in the moment. Believe in moderation in all things, including moderation. Live it up!”

You gotta love this guy. He calls cigars “sticks,” his female fans his “harem,” his listeners “Cigar Lieutenants,” and opens his show with the greeting “Long Ashes.” His site has features like Cigar Dave’s “Babe Magnet” Cologne Selections, Living Like Bond (Interview with author of the “Complete James Bond Lifestyle Seminar”), and Top 10 Cities for the Hottest Delicious Dames. His message to a “whiney” email that complained he “advocates” cigars: “My show does not ‘advocate’ cigar smoking. My show advocates enjoying life’s great pleasures. Amongst them: cigars, spirits, dames, diversions, and the right to be politically incorrect. I advocate treating yourself after a long stressful day or a hard week.”

***Update: Man, am I am amateur! Here’s an email from a Belgian friend, whose knowledge of the suds puts me to shame. Oh well, something to look forward to… “So you like a Belgian beer! Chimay is not my favourite. It isn’t even the best Trappist beer on the market. If you’d ask me, the best Trappist is Westmalle, with Sixtus coming close. Right now Leffe is very popular. Anyway, is it the same quality you get over there that we serve here in the home of the abbaye-beers? [...] [Other good Belgian beers include]: a Duvel (devil), Judas, Delirium Tremens, Verboden Vrucht (forbidden fruit), Kasteelbier (castle beer), Geuze, Hoegaarden, Graal (grail) or one of the other 200 or so Belgian beers.”

***Update: at the advice of my Frenchy friend Alex Padilla, check out www.realbeer.com, where you can order Belgian beer delivery.

I’ve come across DynamicDrive.com, a neat website with cool tricks, tips, and tools for web sites, e.g., mouse trail effects.

I’ve been using Netflix–a great service that I recommend–and the other day rented The Man in the Moon. It’s a fantastic movie; I agree with Roger Ebert’s review.

There are a growing number of sites containing free, electronic copies of classic and other books, such as Bibliomania. Others are listed here.