The Anger of Compassion

No media bias here

Not at the San Francisco Examiner, oh no.

According to Google News Alerts, the following item ran at sfexaminer.com the other day, under "City Spotlight" in its Features section:

Architecture and the City Film Series

The San Francisco Public Library presents a special screening of "The Fountainhead," a cult classic based on Ayn Rand's best-selling book about controversial downtown architect Howard Roark, who designed Manhattan's Wynand Building.

"Cult classic?" Let's see: it's based on a novel even the Examiner admits was (and remains) a best-selling book. It was directed by King Vidor and starred Gary Cooper, a major Hollywood star. Patricia Neal became a star as a result of her role in this picture. The movie is popular enough that it is still shown and may still be purchased by private individuals.

But for all that, it's a "cult classic," according to our cultural guardians at the Examiner. Good thing they have their objectivity, their professional standards, the better to avoid left-wing bias with, my dear.

We speak with contempt of a newspaper when we refer to it as a rag, as fishwrap. We need an analogous digital term.

UPDATE: Memo 1 September 2004 to the San Francisco Examiner: This is a cult classic.

Your tax dollars at work

So I'm multitasking earlier today -- writing a column for tomorrow's deadline, taking out trash, pressing some shirts, listening to Bellini's Norma on NPR's World of Opera ...and I take notice of a particular visitor in my stats.

No, I don't know who he is, but what I did notice was that he got to my blog from a treas.gov domain. Now, a domain is a domain is a domain, and I do want the traffic, but...but....

A government worker in on a Saturday? He's obviously up to no good, I thought. Mark Twain told us, "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session," and we can I think safely extrapolate this warning to the bureaucracy our legislators create.

Ah, but I offer reassurance! You see, my (or should we say, "our?") bureaucrat found The Anger of Compassion via search.msn.com, and what were his search words?

"kerri walsh pictures"

Relax, friends. We're safe.

Sleep well.

UPDATE (1 September): He's got a brother at the Federal Reserve, who checked in on Monday -- looking for the same pictures. Now, I always imagined that people at Treasury and at the Fed would justify all of their computers by the complexity of the mathematical and econometric models they were building. And input for those models comes, I guess, in the form of pictures of Kerri Walsh and Misty May.

You could choose worse models. And maybe we should just thank our lucky stars that they're pursuing pictures of Kerri and Misty rather than going Weimar with the money supply.

Murderous Mullahs

This is disgusting:

More news is emerging of the sad public hanging of the 16-year old girl in Iran. To recap:

On Sunday August 15, 2004, a 16 year old girl by the name of Atefe Rajabi, daughter of Ghassem Rajabi, was executed in the town of Neka, located in the province of Mazandaran, for "engaging in acts incompatible with chastity". The execution was carried out by the order of Neka's "judicial administrator" and was approved by both the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic and the chief of the nation's "judiciary branch."

Although according to her birth certificate she was only 16 years old, the local court falsely claimed that she was 22.

Like the destruction of the Bamiyah Buddhas in Afghanistan, this act, atrocious as it is, does not justify a US invasion of Iran on humanitarian grounds. If that were the primary concern, it would be the business of the Iranian people to take care of their own problems. But as Roger Simon points out,

It would be interesting if our media confronted the presidential candidates with questions about Iran. As most of us realize, the Islamic Republic which practices this barbarism is on the edge of nuclear weapons, if not already over it. What issue could be more important?

I should think no American needs reminding that Iran has in effect declared war on the US, or is their seizure of our embassy there not remembered?

Conspiracy Theories

Wow, just today I was listening to the "Free Will" lecture of Basic Principles of Objectivism and thinking that I wanted to compare it to the discussion in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Now, just before bed, I find that Diana Hsieh has posted "Two Questions About Volition."

Synchronicity? Or simple conspiracy, perhaps? And don't tell me that it's mere coincidence that Diana's written the only amazon.com review, so far, of the lecture series above. Next you'll expect me to believe that Elvis is dead.

Interesting questions, though. I think I have (partially thought-out) answers to most of what she's posited, but I'm interested in whatever comments come up.

We the Selling

Via the good offices of Joshua Zader at The Ayn Rand Meta-Blog, I was able to read a BookMagazine.com column on the sales figures of the top 50 classic bestselling novels, which included Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead:

Ayn Rand is one of the few authors with more than one book on this list. Here are the sales figures for her two most popular novels, from January through December of 2002:

Atlas Shrugged - 130,000 copies (#19 on the list)
The Fountainhead - 81,000 copies (#35 on the list)

Hemingway had three books on the list, but I was glad to see that Rand outsells both A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises. Honestly, I never understand the appeal of that last one: A group of expatriates in Paris with more money than sense. They have problems. They bitch about them, to no avail. The End. Jesus.

Customer Feedback to PBS

Lynn Sislo has a few words about "Augustfest" for the public television folks in Oklahoma:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against PBS's fundraising; it's just the way they go about it. They entice viewers with shows that are better than most of what you would normally see on PBS and the message, delivered over and over again in 15 to 20 minute segments between brief excerpts of the actual show, is, "if you would like to see more of this kind of show give us money and we will send you a coffee mug or a CD." So lots of people call in pledges, then, after the two weeks is over they go back to the same old shows they have been broadcasting for years.

So I have a few suggestions for PBS: 1. A little more show and little less telethon. Keep the interruptions down to no more than five minutes at a time and no more than two, maybe three times an hour. 2. Actually deliver on your promises of new and better shows. Don't lure people with all those great specials during "Augustfest" and then go back to the same old stuff the rest of the year. 3. Call it something else besides "Augustfest". It's not a festival; it's a two week long telethon. Let's have a little honesty.

I'm with Lynn: the public television people should show their appreciation for the taxpayers who are already paying for a good bit of "public" broadcasting's expenses, whether they want to or not, whether they even watch public TV or not.

UPDATE: Actually, to be clear, I'm not quite with Lynn on this. There should be no "public," that is, state-funded, broadcasting at all. But it's not going away any time soon.

And now for something completely different

From Don Watkins's blog Anger Management, I learned that Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life has been given a new DVD reissue, with a second DVD containing a Los Angeles production of Ideal. I already have the original, but I would like to see Ideal.

Bonus cool thingie for those still on the fence about spending the money: you get to see an artist's rendering of the house designed for Ayn Rand and her husband by Frank Lloyd Wright. I want that house.

The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics

E-mail brought me this press release:

'The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics' - A Breakthrough Book Puts Ayn Rand's Critics To The Test.

On the 100th Anniversary of Novelist Ayn Rand's birth, a new book will be released with never before published essays from Best-Selling Author Ayn Rand's private journals about her former lover, Nathanial Branden.

(PRWEB) (DALLAS, TEXAS August 24, 2004) -- February 2, 2005, on the 100th anniversary of her birth, the world will hear the untold story of novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand's life with the release of James Valliant's new book, 'The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics', a work that challenges the biased assumptions of Rand's critics previously held as truth. For the first time, Rand's never-before-seen diary entries are used along with the only in-depth analysis of the biographies written by psychologist Nathanial and his former wife Barbara Branden--the most widely read sources of information on her life-to reveal that they are riddled with errors and misconceptions, thus giving a long absent voice to Rand's defenders. By setting the record straight, this overdue work brings justice to one of the most prolific and influential thinkers of our time.

And it's justice that author Valliant has sought throughout his career as an attorney in San Diego. It's his hope that here, too, justice will be served by exposing the full story of Rand's life- until now ignored by her critics. "So much of Rand criticism is really just based on a legend authored by Barbara and Nathanial Branden. I hope this book will make people take a second look at Rand: the importance of her work and the meaning of her life," said Valliant.

In a work that New York Heroes Society President Robert Begley calls "brilliant" and author Casey Fahy says is "judgment day for the Brandens," Valliant shifts the focus back to the core of the thinker whose philosophy espoused the concept of man as "a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with production and achievement as his noblest activity and reason as his only absolute," the theme of her best-selling novels, 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas Shrugged'.

Mr. Valliant is currently completing a new book on the historical origins of the New Testament titled, 'Behind the Cross'.

I look forward to it. I read Valliant's essay when it was published on the web and there were a number of discrepancies he pointed to which had never occurred to me. This irked me because I had read both The Passion of Ayn Rand and Judgment Day when they were published, and I didn't do the detective work that Valliant has done. The addition of previously unpublished journal material should make the book just that more valuable, and I look forward to reading it again.

In one thing I am sure that I'm in the minority: the book that actually turned on my interest in Ayn Rand was not Atlas Shrugged, but the Brandens' own Who Is Ayn Rand?, originally published in 1962. I remember reading those four essays ("The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged," "Objectivism and Psychology," "The Literary Method of Ayn Rand," by Nathaniel Branden, and a biographical essay by Barbara Branden) and thinking, "Is all this possible?"

I still say it is. I haven't re-read that book since 1973 or '74, but both Brandens now disavow it, so I think it probably deserves another look.

You oughtta be in pictures

Congratulations to Kerri Walsh and Misty May for winning, a few minutes ago, the USA's first ever gold medal in women's beach volleyball. SI.com sensed greatness:

And SkySports Olympics 2004 also caught the human drama:

You just know there's a movie in this.

Ah, the Olympic spirit...

UPDATE: For more celebration of the value of sport, we can thank the fine photographers of the Associated Press. First, we have Dave Martin:

Colleague Adam Butler also captures an appreciation of the nuances of athletic excellence:

Finally, the folks at the < href="http://www.fivb.org/">Federation Internationale de Volleyball" understand the joy of competing and winning:

Hearing Voices at Harper's

This Jacob Sullum entry at Hit & Run is priceless, from the title ("I Remember It Like It Was Next Week") to its conclusion:

Perhaps the most revealing part of the article is the paragraph where Lapham pretends to have heard the speeches at the Republican National Convention that does not open until a week from today. Referring to "the platform on which [George W. Bush] was trundled into New York City this August with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the heavy law enforcement, and the paper elephants," Lapham writes:

The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal--government the problem, not the solution; the social contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every maiden's prayer--and while listening to the hollow rattle of the rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that [Richard] Hofstadter didn't stay to answer. How did a set of ideas both archaic and bizarre make its way into the center ring of the American political circus?

True, the issue is dated September, but I got my copy in early August, and Lapham must have written those words in July. Didn't it occur to him that his readers might notice he was claiming to have witnessed an event that had not occurred when the magazine went to press? Evidently, Republicans are not the only ones Lapham thinks are stupid.

Wow: Sullum has caught Lapham in a real whopper here, and it would seem that Lapham either needs to come clean and apologize or at least concoct an argument that this represents the "standards" and "professionalism" of the mainstream press.

Unless...well, alert readers can check page 516 of Writer's Market 2005, in which Harper's editors officially tell prospective free-lance writers what they want:

Some readers expect their magazines to clothe them with opinions in the way that Bloomingdale's dresses them for the opera. The readers of Harper's Magazine belong to a different crowd. They strike me as the kind of people who would rather think in their own voices and come to their own conclusions.

So that's it: the voices. Lapham's free and clear.

Are anyone's medals any good?

Basically, no.

I like Paul Craig Roberts when he documents the shenanigans of unscrupulous, overly-ambitious prosecutors. I don't much care for his reasoning when he blasts free international trade and argues for protectionist policies. But he's way off-base in the way he attacks the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth:

This group of frauds claims that Kerry’s heroics were nothing but a PR operation and his wounds exaggerated or self-inflicted.

Think about that for a moment. The scurrilous attack on Kerry is an attack on all decorated veterans. If the US Navy handed out fraudulent Silver and Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts to Kerry, how do we know if anyone’s medals are good?

This is not even logic. Beyond that, I don't think Dr. Roberts gets out much.

Presumably, if Senator Kerry's medals are shown to be bogus, then we are to suspect all other military awards? And therefore, we should never ever impugn such an award, because that constitutes an attack on all decorated veterans? Really?

Well.

Douglas MacArthur is highly regarded by many Americans. He retired as a General of the Army -- that's five stars -- and was rather well-decorated himself. More to the point, General MacArthur was a graduate and later Superintendent of the honor system at the United States Military Academy (West Point). I give you some of West Points own words on honor:

2. The Cadet Honor Code.

a. The Cadet Honor Code is defined as "A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do." The Honor Code expresses four succinct prohibitions. On a behavioral level, the Code represents a simple standard for all cadets. On a developmental plane, West Point expects that all cadets will strive to live far above the minimum standard of behavior and develop a commitment to ethical principles guiding moral actions.

b. West Point's core mission is develop leaders of character for our Army. A leader of character knows what is right, and possesses the moral courage to act on that knowledge. The principles of truthfulness, fairness, respect for others, and a personal commitment to maintaining values constitute that fundamental ideal known as the Spirit of the Code. A leader of character will apply the Spirit of the Code when making decisions involving ethical dilemmas.

I suppose that explains the sleazy, suspicious nature of Lyndon Johnson's own Silver Star -- which was awarded by General MacArthur. True, while it seems likely that the events mentioned in the Silver Star citation probably never happened, it must have been that MacArthur was applying "the Spirit of the Code when making decisions involving ethical dilemmas." Or maybe he simply didn't see a dilemma in making a bullshit award of our nation's third-highest military medal to a sitting congressman.

But, according to Dr. Roberts, an attack on President (then Congressman) Johnson's Silver Star would be "an attack on all decorated veterans." Can't have that, can we?

Except...except that it doesn't stop there. Remember Jessica Lynch? Jessica Lynch was awarded a Bronze Star for her heroic actions when her convoy was ambushed in Iraq. Trouble is, none of it happened. The Army wanted a hero, and a pretty, blonde, female hero was just the thing the PR doctor ordered. Ms Lynch herself says that she never performed any heroics. Has her Bronze Star been rescinded? Do you know of anyone who has been reprimanded for this farce?

And there's a lot more, Dr. Roberts. Anyone who's been in the service recognizes the term "end of tour award." The Marine Corps enjoys the reputation of being probably the most parsimonious with them, and the Army that of being the worst, but they all do it.

I don't know if Senator Kerry's medals were earned or not. I don't know any of the Swift Boat veterans and I haven't the time to closely examine their claims. But Paul Craig Roberts is making the assumption that the awards system is sound, and it is not. He is arguing that calling Kerry's medals into question casts doubt on the medals of genuine heroes. How, then, does he justify calling the Swift Boat veterans "this group of frauds?"

Unfortunately, there is a lot of room for doubt, for skepticism, about the military awards system in general and about many awards in particular. But the blame for that belongs on those who condoned the bogus awards we do know about -- and there are a lot of those out there.

How I contribute to diversity!

Yesterday afternoon, the Anger of Compassion Kid told me that he'd figured out why I was so angry, bitter, grumpy, etc. He said it was because he'd finally figured out my ethnic background ... (drumroll, please...)

I am an Angro-Saxon!

Presumably I am now a member of minority and thus entitled to all sorts of juicy affirmative action.

The (Possible) Ascendance of Television

Monica White of The Atlasphere takes a look at the DVD of the Fox television series Firefly. I've never seen it, but she makes me want to:

What is it, then, that makes this series so endearing to its fans? Why the tributes? Why the passionate struggle to keep it on the screen? Why the knowing smile and instant camaraderie when someone introduces himself at a party as a Firefly fan?

For me, what the show gets so right — what sets it apart from every other show I’ve seen — is the fact that the morality is so damn close to what I agree with. The characters don’t faff about — they know which action will give them the most benefit personally and pursue it without qualms. There is no apology for what would usually be considered crude opportunism.

For someone who enjoys Ayn Rand’s work, Firefly is a welcome respite from the myriad of flawed, moribund, and lackluster moralities of the shows routinely presented on the small screen.

The story itself is engaging, and doesn’t allow the futuristic backdrop to rob it of a plausible storyline. It is not a prerequisite to have enjoyed Sci-Fi previously — this isn’t traditional Sci-Fi.

The characters are well rounded and complex, and the storylines are masterfully and surprisingly interwoven. Whedon spins his verbal mastery to give the characters strong, punchy, funny lines that you will find yourself quoting often.

She has a blog of her own, Th' Inkwell. There's some evidence she's a babe, too.

Happy Birthday, Marginal Revolution!

It's Happy Birthday time over at Marginal Revolution.

50 Worst Guitar Solos

Courtesy of Lynn Sislo, I found this annotated list of the 50 worst guitar solos in (once again) rock music. I find I largely agree. Well, I don't despise the fretwork on Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb," but I'm largely in accord with the rest of the list.

For one thing, I'm happy to see anything by Motorhead, Yes, Kiss, or Bryan Adams appear on such a list.

But there are particulars as well, and as a guitarist myself I must applaud some of what I see slammed here: "Cold Shot," for example. No, Stevie Ray Vaughan was a far better player than I'll ever be--but geez, this one is lame. "Dazed and Confused," ditto. "Magic Man." "Here I Go Again."

The unutterably awful "Do You Feel Like We Do," "Hot Blooded" from the crushingly bad Foreigner, and the wildly overrated "Free Bird." You want southern rock, go with the Allman Brothers Band--or early Chuck Berry. Or, need I mention, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, or Johnny Cash?

Not "Free Bird," though, although a guy in high school once asserted that a band had to be awesome if it had three lead guitarists. I replied, "How about one good solo?"

(The Beatles, you know, had three good lead guitarists, but on only one tune ever--Paul McCartney's "The End," at the end of Abbey Road--were they ever all on display during the same song. And "The End" is about about a third the length of "Free Bird," and a lot more exciting. )

Classical Craig

As a wisp of a lad (fourth-grader) in Tampa, Florida, I discovered Greek mythology by accident. Really: I was already a hell of a reader, and I think I was just permitted to dig around in a closet while Mrs. Karp dealt with the rest of the class during reading period.

Ha. I found an illustrated account of the creation of the earth and sea and universe, and the Titans, and their overthrow by those who eventually came to be called the Olympians, and more. There were concretes which, I guess, helped me to connect with the subject: the names used for the gods, goddesses, and heroes were the Roman ones, not the Greek, and so here I was, 1968, during the height of American admiration for NASA (the first successful moon shot would be less than a year later), and here I'm reading about characters who have the same names as the planets I'm learning about. Probably didn't hurt that I already enjoyed Andre Norton, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov.

Anyway, I was assigned a project: to write my own account of the tales of the gods, and I was assigned a partner. Don't recall his name anymore, but I do recall the writing process, because I had by this time discovered D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, and in that book, the Greek names are used instead of the Roman ones. So, whenever I'd get hold of the pencilled manuscript, I'd erase every instance of Roman-name use. My writing partner would do the same in reverse: whenever he'd get it, out would go Ares, Zeus, and Aphrodite, and back in would go Mars, Jupiter, and Venus. This went on for weeks. What fun.

Decades later, in Alexandria, Egypt, my young son had the D'Aulaire book for his own reading.

So it was with excitement (and a bit of trepidation) that I approached this quiz, from the Guardian, and I highly recommend it to you.

I scored 80%, which the kind Guardian editors tell me is good enough for a Silver medal. I blush.

A blogger by any other name...

Pulled weeds for about an hour this evening, so this is perhaps relevant:

What bloom am I?

Heh.

New Deadlift Article from Louie Simmons

I love the deadlift and I love deadlifting. I do both conventional and sumo lifting, and I believe I benefit from both styles. So I was excited to see this new article by Louie Simmons on why deadlifting is on the rise:

Finally, after many years, it seems the deadlift is on the rise. In New Orleans in September 2002. I was lucky to witness not one but two 900+ deadlifts, by Gary Frank and Andy Bolton. After trading the record back and forth, Andy reclaimed it in Columbus Ohio in March 2003 with 934. With Steve Goggins pulling 881 and Ano Turtiainen having made 892, it is apparent that we must work on deadlifting to keep up. Some lifters are born to deadlift, i.e., short back, long arms, and large hands. In fact, most big deadlifters lack a big bench except for Gary. So, how can one obtain a big deadlift? Hard work, and more hard work.

Note, in reading, the achievements of Jerry Bell and Rick Crain: each one, competing at 165 pounds, was able to deadlift 700 pounds or more. Wow.

Expertise in Children's Literature

Heard about this quiz at Diana Hsieh's blog, NoodleFood: Porn Star or My Little Pony?

Diana managed to correctly answer one question out of twelve: I took the quiz and scored four out of twelve! Must be my superior knowledge of My Little Pony.

Suprynowicz on Kerry vs. Bush

Unlike me, he intends to vote for Michael Badnarik, but the ever-interesting Vin Suprynowicz has some interesting comments on Bush vs. Kerry.

Tepid Conservative Christianity vs. Unprincipled Socialism

Hmm...an opposing Objectivist viewpoint on the upcoming presidential election. We all know by now that Leonard Peikoff intends to vote for Senator John Kerry, but here, Dr. Michael Hurd explains why he intends to vote to re-elect President Bush.

More here, courtesy of Objectivism Online.

Me? I won't vote for Badnarik, but this is a tough one. I'll let you know.

Progress in Property Rights

An update on the recent Poletown decision, which I mentioned here.

UPDATE: Another comment here, too.

Equal Time

I've slammed conservatives and Republicans a number of times here, but I read this the other day and thought it was quite fetching: Matt Taibbi's liberal critique of John Kerry's speech in Boston the other night.

Mure more substantive than the crap heard on TV about how the good senator had "rushed through his speech." Consider: two large commercial jetliners fly into two of the most prominent buildings in the world, destroying said buildings completely, and two wars result. Anyone in the real world give a shit if the man who might be our next president rushes the last few paragraphs of his speech?

And yeah: just those last few: he sure as hell didn't rush through that bit about having been born in the west wing of his hospital in Colorado, did he?

And now for something completely different: Frank J. on the Democrats today.

Subtle, Mathematical Visual Beauty

Dean Esmay scores an Anger of Compassion hat trick here, 'cause I'm linking to yet a third thing I've found at his place.

Now, Dean claims that he spotted the trick to this illusion on his own, although he admits he did have to look closely. That won't hurt...but, as a special public service of The Anger of Compassion, I'll offer an additional hint: it's a fjord, right? Think "Norwegian Blue."

Oh, okay, one more hint won't hurt, and you'll appreciate the levels of subtlety going into the construction of each entry on this blog: think, what is the most common form of colorblindness? Red-green. Relax, clear your mind, take a deep breath, and think on the colors.

Now that you're suitably prepared, go look.

Yeah, Unfaithful Bitch, Indeed

Another one from Dean Esmay, this one a TV commercial aired in Thailand.

Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics

Remember the thirty-six shooters fired by Roy Rogers and other old-time cowboys? White hat or black (or Indian), didn't matter: damn few shooters ever ran out of ammo. Then you might like this very, very cool site I learned about from Dean Esmay.

I especially liked the very first item:

Flashing Bullets

The terrorist unleashes a lengthy burst of submachine gunfire as the hero runs along a gangway in an industrial plant. Bullets bounce everywhere. This would be a dramatic event for almost anyone, yet moviemakers feel it must be enhanced. The special effects representing impacting bullets give off bright flashes of light. Normal bullets, especially handgun bullets, do not.

Typical handgun bullets are made of copper-clad lead or lead alloys. They simply don't create bright flashes of light when they strike objects, even if the objects are made of steel. In the chemical industry it's commonplace to limit maintenance workers to copper-alloy or lead hammers when they are working in areas where flammable fumes may be present. Hammers made of these materials do not produce sparks when they strike objects, while steel hammers can. If you've never noticed this phenomenon with steel hammers, don't be surprised, the sparks generally are barely visible even under ideal lighting conditions.

Now as all of you know, it ain't like me to complain. But I spent twelve years in the Marine Corps, during which time I worked with hundreds of soldiers from the army, and sailors from at least three Navy SEAL Teams. Guys, in other words, who enjoy a good action movie. But I never once heard a complaint about this--and believe me, everyone in all three outfits mentioned above has fired a rifle and a pistol at least once, and probably a lot more than once. But they're right, the guys at Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics: it just doesn't happen.

They'll set you right on silencers, too, for that matter, and if you read to the bottom of their page, they rate a whole slew of movies, too: for those of you who do know the difference between a vector and a scalar, you'll be happy to know that they gob-smacked Speed, and not just for that little bridge jump, either. Gripping comments on Spider-Man and a truly charming take on Seven Years in Tibet.

It gets better, though: the whole thing is only a part of a larger site named Intuitor: How to Succeed Through Creative Learning. Well, just what the hell is an intuitor, you ask? They do answer: "Intuitor: (noun) a person with a passion for learning and innovating that is so strong it is often more powerful than the desire to eat, sleep, or seek personal wealth."

Ha. Is there a better way to be?

Check out their argument for Why Now Is The Most Exciting Time So Far in History To Be Alive.

I'll let them have the last word:

At best, flashing bullets aren't needed. At worst, they detract. Serious movies generally don't use them. Subtlety can be far more dramatic. For example, merely hearing bullets thunk against steel beams as the troops waded ashore in the movie Saving Private Ryan was positively chilling.

(Hat tip, as indicated above: Dean Esmay)

Economics in Three Lessons

Three? Not one?

Sorry, but I'm no Henry Hazlitt.

But here are two articles to read--Ten Recurring Economic Fallacies, 1774-2004 and The Wages of Sinful Economic Arguments-- after you've read and digested Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.

Taking a DIM View of the Bush Presidency

Courtesy of Carla at ...to say the 'I,' I found this bit of comment by Leonard Peikoff on, not only why voting for Kerry is preferable to a vote for Bush, but on why doing so is preferable to selecting "None of The Above."

(Question: did you know that there is such a thing as a Christian Tattoo Association?)

For context, check out the original "DIM Hypothesis" talk at the Ford Hall Forum. I found it valuable.

For further context, compare the above to Libertarians for Bush. Question: is there such a thing as a "mainstream" libertarian?

Further context: Libertarians For Dean seems to be dead, but there is a Libertarians For Kerry...

I'm thinking I just want to dig a deep, deep hole...

Does Your Blog Own You?

Sure, you look to The Anger of Compassion to answer all of your questions about life. But check it from my perspective: does The Anger of Compassion own me?

Well, at 12.5%, it's a large stakeholder.

How Michelle Malkin am I?

Found this cute quiz via Charles Hill at Dustbury: Michelle Malkin's Media Diversity Test.

Out of a possible 100 points, I scored a soft 70: "soft" because I think some of the questions are phrased in more than a bit of a wishy-wishy manner.

Will Durst Web Site

America's top political satirist? The thinking man's comic? Could be.

He once said that if Democrats were put in charge of a firing squad, they'd form a circle.

Yup: Will Durst has a web site.

Durst on living in San Francisco: "I'm a cheeseburger man living in a tofu land." Go check him out: you know you were hoping he had a site.

They're Out There

Heard a grim--horrifying, actually--story this morning at work: a good friend was driving through a particular neighborhood when she spotted a toddler, perhaps two years of age, appallingly underdressed, walking in the street. She spotted a nearby house with its front door wide open--and with, upon a closer look, the boy's father passed out on the floor of the house.

His response, when told that his young son was wandering around in traffic? "It's okay, he knows what he's doing."

Wow, hit me like a story I'd read just this morning. The headline was chilling: "Siberian boy, 7, raised by dogs after parents abandoned him."

A Mowgli-like wild boy who appears to have been raised by a dog since he was three months old has been discovered living in a remote part of Siberia seven years after he was abandoned by his parents.

Andrei Tolstyk, now seven, was found by social workers who wondered why the boy had not enrolled at his local school in the beautiful Siberian region of Altai.

Deprived of human contact for so long, Andrei could not talk and had adopted many dog-like traits including walking on all fours, biting people, sniffing his food before he ate it and general feral behaviour.

"Abandoned by his parents." Abandoned by his worthless, whim-worshipping, piece-of-shit parents.

I'm the father of a young boy: I can't help but think, what are the odds against him, against any tyke surviving in Siberia? Screw that, what would be my odds in Siberia?

But it helps to have friends:

The hamlet of Bespalovskoya, where the family lived, was so sparsely populated and the house so remote that the parents' absence went unnoticed by the few other inhabitants. Instead, Andrei reportedly forged a close bond with the only other living thing around, the family guard dog, which somehow helped him survive and grow up.

"Forged a close bond?"

Forged a close fucking bond?

Lucky little bastard. He's survived, and he's now in the care of Siberian child welfare folks, so that's good. Too, I hope they've done something nice for the dog, you know?

When he first arrived at the shelter, staff told the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti that he was afraid of people, behaved aggressively and erratically and continued to sniff all his food before eating it. They were, however, able to communicate him using basic sign language. Two weeks after his arrival they say he began to walk on two legs and has since mastered the art of eating with a spoon, making his own bed and playing with a ball.

The other orphans are reported to be suspicious of the boy they call "wild" but Andrei is said to have struck up a friendship with a little girl with whom he communicates using sign language.

And, my god, little Andrei has a friend: an actual, human friend. We all want the best for our kids, but so far, "best" for Andrei comes down to one guard dog, one little girl, and sign language...

Andrei Tolstyk's is not the first case of a "feral child" in Russia. In 1998, police near Moscow rescued Ivan Mishukov, then aged six, from a pack of wild dogs with which he had lived for two years. Ivan had left the family home when he was four to get away from his mother and her abusive alcoholic boyfriend. He took to begging and won the dogs' trust by offering them scraps of food. In return, they protected him, from the cold and from ill-wishers, and made him their pack leader. Police finally managed to separate the boy from the dogs by leaving bait for the pack in a restaurant kitchen.

There have, however, been a number of "feral child" hoaxes. The website FeralChildren.com website lists some far-fetched cases - among them are the "The Wild Boy of Burundi", "The Delphos Wolf Girl", and "the Syrian gazelle-boy".

Well, I hope Ivan Mishukov is doing all right (by "all right," I certainly mean, "better than leader of a pack of wild dogs"). I have dogs, I love them, and one of which is a German shepherd, that most intelligent of breeds--but I wouldn't trust them to raise my son. Jesus...just think...

Now, I'm sure as hell glad that some of these tales are hoaxes--especially "Syrian gazelle-boy": wouldn't mind a nickname like that one, myself.

But they're out there, people: cretins who abandon a three-month old infant, monsters from whom a four-year old runs away, drunkards who think a toddler "knows what he's doing" in meandering through city streets.

They are out there, and they pilot two-thousand pound (or larger) vehicles through city streets and Interstate highways; they own firearms and operate heavy machinery and they vote--they'll be voting this November, some of them.

And they breed.

Have a nice day.

(Hat tip on Independent story: WorldNetDaily)

Stuck in the Middle with You -- Not

The Raving Atheist gets this one right. In fact, he properly skewers this review at Salon.

Evangelical agnostics (or apatheists) are fond of characterizing the warring factions in the theist/atheist debate as “extremists” and suggesting that the truth must lie somewhere in the middle. But they never quite state what their own premises are (mine are here) or what arguments or facts support them. The philosophical basis for the “truth in the middle” thesis is certainly never explicated (doesn’t the truth merely lie where it lies?) and the middle itself is left undefined. So one is generally left clueless as to precisely where on that foggy spectrum between Yahweh-worship and militant godlessness they actually stand.

And that's just the first paragraph.

Poetic "Justice"

The worst of crimes in Stalin's Russia?

Being a poet:

"My animal, my age," wrote Osip Mandelstam in 1923, "who will ever be able/to look into your eyes?" In Stalin's Russia, few writers looked directly into the murderous eyes of the age and lived. Strangely, it was the poets—seemingly the least threatening of writers—who suffered the most. Nikolai Gumilyov was executed by a firing squad in 1921, leaving his ex-wife, Anna Akhmatova, to face decades of harassment and censorship; Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide in 1941, after years of persecution; Peretz Markish was executed, along with other Jewish writers, in 1952.

(Hat tip: Arts & Letters Daily)

"Are you now, or have you ever been..."

On this day, August 3, 1948, Whittaker Chambers testified against Alger Hiss.

The Property Status of Property, Part Two

Good news here: the Michigan Supreme Court has overturned a pro-eminent domain decision.

What we need now is, as Andrea True sang for us, once upon a time: "More, more, more..."

(Via Hit & Run)

UPDATE: More -- a comment -- here. Here's a taste:

In community after community, visioning councils are developing comprehensive land-use plans, enforceable largely by the municipality's power of eminent domain. The Poletown reversal must put a monkey wrench into these plans. No longer can a city simply declare private property to be an obstacle to economic development as justification for condemnation.

If the public benefit from economic development is insufficient to justify taking of private property by eminent domain, then perhaps open space, critical habitat and environmental protection are also insufficient reasons to take private property. The U.S. Constitution does not say "public benefit," it clearly says "public use."

Another comment here, includes this chilling remark from a Poletown resident:

"It's the principle of the thing," Poletown resident Kris Biernacki told The Washington Post in 1981. "I think the whole thing stinks. I just don't believe it happened. It's breathtaking. We didn't have a voice in it—not a voice. We didn't want to move. We were literally forced to move out. We were just told to go."

Wouldn't you just know it...

First, you get your mind around the idea of "wouldn't put it past 'em."

Then, you read something like this.

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

By the way, in order to counter the impression some readers may have, based on previous entries here, and elsewhere, I am not just a body: among other things, I am now a certified Six Sigma Specialist at my (Fortune 500) company.

I really think that Six Sigma is more than just another flavor-of-the-month business fad. For example, one of its tools is described as a "fishbone diagram," and one method of using that tool is to employ a process known as the "five whys." Just as a small child might do, when he's not satisfied with the answer you offered to a question he'd previously asked, you keep asking the question "Why?" when an explanation is offered for an unsatisfactory situation.

There's nothing mystical about the number five, mind you: in fact, getting to the root of your problem may require more than five such efforts, or (if you're lucky) not quite as many. The idea is to keep asking why? until you get to the root of the problem, or to what you think is the root of the problem you're trying to solve.

Applicable anywhere.

Well developed, indeed

Along the lines of this entry, and this one, and this one, and this article, I present two more:

this

and

this.

Lovely, just gorgeous. Awe-inspiring. Not work safe, in Puritan America, but then you should be working anyway, shouldn't you, during work hours? But yes, lovely. Enjoy.

"The patient is well-developed"

I'm back on my schedule of heavy lifting, after a painful bout of tendonitis. That is, I hope we're talking "after," by which I mean I do hope it's over. Anyway, it felt good to step into some heavy squats, bench presses, and deadlifts. I do so love to deadlift, and now I'm back to doing it.

I was in a pretty good state of mind for going back to such work, because I received, in the mail the other day, a copy of a report, from one doctor to another, about me. The doctor writing the report (the one treating the problem elbow and shoulder), who is probably almost twenty years younger than I am, described me as "well-developed." Ha! Doesn't take much to make me happy these days, does it?

Hey, he's the one who saw me sitting there shirtless: "well-developed" was his term, not mine...

And no, I have still never taken an anabolic steroid in my life. I do know which ones I'd go for if I ever did take 'em, and I know this because I have deliberately, I'll admit, checked 'em out. But I've never ingested any, in any fashion at all.

Mind you, I've tossed down some desiccated liver tabs in my time, but that's all.

Zader on Mindfulness and Objectivism

I'm looking forward to reading Joshua Zader's paper on mindfulness and Objectivism. That is, if he elects to post it to his blog (he says he'll blog it). I've read a bit in the Buddhist literature since the 70s and I've no interest in their metaphysical or ethical claims. But techniques? Getting a handle on one's own mind and emotions? You bet I'm interested.

Knock 'em dead, Joshua. I'll be waiting for the read.

Chris Muir Interview

Pejman Yousefzadeh alerts us to an interview with Chris Muir, the man behind Day By Day.

Good news for Cox & Forkum

If you enjoy the political cartoons of Cox & Forkum, you'll be happy for them as their career seems to be picking up.

Not the Comfy Chair!!

Joe Nickell checks out the claims of a well-known Canadian stigmata-bearer (stigmatist?) and he, er, has his doubts:

I found the absence of wounds on the palms and soles highly suspicious. A sham stigmatist might well avoid those areas which would be subjected to additional pain-and made more difficult to heal-whenever one walked or grasped something. But a person truly exhibiting the nail wounds of Jesus should have his or her hands and feet completely pierced.

Yeah, and I'm willing to bet that none of them ever exhibit the wounds from the thirty-nine lashes, either.

(Hat tip: Arts and Letters Daily)

The Property Status of Property

Robert Garmong on the Federal Communications Commission:

America was founded on the freedom of speech -- on the right and responsibility of the individual to decide what to say, and what to listen to. Yet in the name of protecting ourselves from being offended -- and almost without noticing it -- we are well on the way to surrendering that crucial right to the control of the omnipotent state.

Dr. Garmong includes this statement, which I'd like to examine more deeply:

The putative justification for the FCC's regulation of broadcasters is that the airwaves are public property, and in exchange for their licenses, broadcasters must promise to serve the "public interest." But just as the government does not own -- and so has no legitimate control over -- the presses of The New York Times, so it has no business regulating what may be broadcast over airwaves. The airwaves, which would be useless without the transmission networks created by radio and television stations, belong to the individuals and companies that developed them.

I have but one quibble with Dr. Garmong's argument: as an electronics--specifically radar--professional, I must assert that there are no such things as "airwaves." There are no "airwaves" out there--out anywhere--awaiting transmission from broadcasters. Electronic transmissions only occur, and only exist, when appropriate equipment is employed to create them; and they exist only in certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum and in no other, unless other means are employed to create those additional transmissions as well. This is true whether we're talking about AM, FM, television, radar, or anything else.

Dr. Garmong's argument, therefore, is in my view on stronger ground than even he may suspect. So, therefore, is Ayn Rand's 1964 argument in "The Property Status of Airwaves," and for the same reason.

Politics: Scylla and Charybdis

Nicholas Provenzo at The Rule of Reason, on Barack Obama's recent speech to the assembled Democrats in Boston:

This speech was certainly audacious, but it is not hopeful. Its favorable reception indicates that a significant part of the population thinks that life is a hospital and that the able must sacrifice to sustain it.... This was not a speech in defense of freedom--it was a speech in attack against it, yet I guarantee you most pundits will miss the point.

This (and the other speeches I've heard thus far) indicate that the choice in this election will be between the religious dogmatism of the right and the socialistic skepticism of the left.

Read the whole thing.

This guy didn't prove Fermat's last theorem

And that's for damn sure.

When I was in college, nobody would question the intelligence of a math major. Whether mathematics or applied math, it was clear to all that it took brains to study its advanced reaches. Brains, and the ability to employ them.

Not any more. At the very least, it seems clear that there are those who can apply logic to mathematics but not to anything else.

Sigh. I was going to fisk this guy--a graduate student in mathematics, mind you, who exhibits just such a poor grasp of what is meant by reasoning. Instead, I'll just point out that he never bothers to define "selfishness" or "capitalism," nor to indicate Ayn Rand's definitions of those terms.

But there's one bit I can't leave alone: he begins by declaring, "Objectivism is a nominal 'philosophy' molded around the turgid, unreadable novels of one Ayn Rand." Now, if you dislike Rand's fiction, that's your judgment. However, that rhetorical device--"of one Ayn Rand"--is a cheap shot, the sort of thing only an intellectual punk descends to. Given the bestseller status enjoyed by The Fountainhead in 1943 and by Atlas Shrugged in 1957--not to mention the 300,000 copies or so her books continue to sell each year--it is only polite and reasonable enough to assume that Ayn Rand is not only not an obscure nobody, but a writer literate readers have heard of and, quite possibly, have read. Try these parallel constructions:

My Life is a post-presidential memoir written by one Bill Clinton.

Like that one? I can come up with a million of 'em. How about one more:

Hamlet is a play about a guy with a Beatles haircut written by one William Shakespeare.

See what I mean?

Soon to find its way onto his reading list, I hope, would be this book. Or this one. This elementary logic text was popular for undergraduate use in my day, and still is.

Or he could just stick to labeling Objectivism as "Stalinism," and keep the audience he already has.

100 Greatest Guitar Solos

Thanks to Lynn Sislo, I found this list of 100 Greatest Guitar Solos. Quickly now, so there will be no disappointment: they mean rock guitar solos. Don't look for Joe Pass or Barney Kessel or Christopher Parkening or Chet Atkins here.

Okay, so there's no jazz, country, or classical work at hand here--it's rock only, which is in line with the demographic of Guitar World, which conducted the poll. With that in mind, I have no real problems with the list, and in fact there's a lot of good stuff on it. I found it fun to read. Two nice touches: for each item, they list not only the album on which the solo/song originally appeared, but a link to the tablature so you can (if you're of such a mind) learn to play the solo yourself.

The Top Ten end of the list looks like this:

10. song: "Crossroads"
guitarist: Eric Clapton
band: Cream
album: Wheels of Fire

9. song: Crazy Train
guitarist: Randy Rhoads
band: Ozzy Osbourne
Blizzard of Ozz

8. song: Hotel California
guitarist: Don Felder/Joe Walsh
band: The Eagles
album: Hotel California

7. song: One
guitarist: Kirk Hammet
band: Metallica
album: And Justice for All

6. song: November Rain
guitarist: Slash
band: Guns 'n' Roses
album: Use Your Illusion I

5. song: All Along the Watchtower
guitarist: Jimi Hendrix
band: The Jimi Hendrix Experience
album: Electric Ladyland

4. song: Comfortably Numb
guitarist: David Gilmour (actually two solos on this one)
band: Pink Floyd
album: The Wall

3. Free Bird
guitarist(s): Collins/Rossington
band: Lynyrd Skynrd
album: Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd

2. song: Eruption
guitarist: Eddie Van Halen
band: Van Halen
album: Van Halen

1. song: Stairway to Heaven
guitarist: Jimmy Page
band: Led Zeppelin
album: Led Zeppelin IV

The only real trouble I have with anything on this part of the list is that the album on which "Stairway to Heaven" appears was actually untitled, at Jimmy Page's insistence (I don't care what amazon.com calls it: "IV,""Zoso,""Runes": why do you think fans had so many damn names for it?). But the list itself seems just fine to me.


Well, I do have a few quibbles, of course. Wouldn't be me, otherwise...

The first is an out-and-out error of fact: the Keith Richards solo on "Honky Tonk Women" at number 96, for one thing. I wouldn't bitch about the placement, but the reference is wrong: "Honky Tonk Women" was released as a single in 1969 and appeared on the compilations Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) and, a few years later, on Hot Rocks 1964-1971. But the song did not, pace the Guitar World editors, appear on Let It Bleed at all. Its place is taken by the execrable "Country Honk."

(Ahem) Not that I'm likely to be pedantic about anything where guitars and players are concerned...

Another nice thing to see: Keith Richards shows up again at number 48 for his playing on "Sympathy for the Devil," a song with which I have some identification.

The Stones, though, are really under-represented if we're to see Eddie Van Halen on here so many times. There's no mention of Mick Taylor's solo on "Love in Vain" from Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out. In fact Mick Taylor isn't on the list at all, in spite of "Love In Vain," "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," "Stop Breaking Down,""Bitch," "All Down the Line," and "Time Waits for No One." But Taylor didn't make the list, and that's all there is to it.

One really nice touch, though, which I was delighted to see: the voters thought enough of Elliot Randall's playing on Steely Dan's "Reelin' in the Years" to place him on the list at number 40. Good call, and one I didn't expect. My hat's off not only to Elliot but to the readers of Guitar World for recognizing such excellence.