The Anger of Compassion

XX...!

Hmm....tonight ends the first twenty years of Macintosh, does it not?

No need for a link, I think. Being here says it all.

Rumors of the Magna Carta having been sold to the House of Saud are absolutely, libelously, false

Yeah.

Yeah. Please, open your eyes, and read this one, by Ron Liddle in The Spectator:

In the middle of December last year, five police officers turned up at the Welsh home of Nick Griffin, leader of the British National party, and arrested him on suspicion of inciting racial hatred.

Griffin was driven to Halifax police station and forced to watch three hours’ worth of his own speeches, which the police had surreptitiously recorded. He was then released without charge, bailed and told to reappear on 2 March this year — precisely at the time campaigning is expected to begin for the next general election. Mr Griffin is standing against David Blunkett, in Sheffield Brightside.

A bunch of other BNP members were arrested at the same time as Mr Griffin. The West Yorkshire police investigation was provoked by a BBC ‘undercover’ programme which revealed the startling fact that some members of the BNP — although not Griffin — clearly harboured racist views. It also showed Griffin talking in a pub and suggesting that Islam was a ‘wicked’ religion.

This programme was shown in July last year and, in a statement following the arrests, West Yorkshire police proudly announced that it had deployed a team of officers on the case ‘five days a week, ten hours a day’ ever since. Now at this point in the article, a really good journalist would tell you how big that team of policemen was. And how much the investigation had cost the taxpayer. And also cross-referenced it with how many burglaries, muggings, etc., had been carried out in the West Yorkshire area from July to 12 December. Especially unsolved ones. But I haven’t been able to find that stuff out: the police won’t tell me. But let’s just remember: a team of police officers, five days a week, ten hours per day.

Granted, that's West Yorkshire in the UK, not anywhere here in the US, but ask yourself: does that not translate? Isn't that a lot of police time, spent on tasks not involving the protection of free citizens? Isn't it something akin to what could happen, and in some fashion, is happening, here?

Earlier this month, I wrote about this proposed law, and I tagged comic actor Rowan Atkinson a free speech hero, which he clearly is.

Mr Atkinson said comedians should be able to make jokes about whatever they wanted. If they went over the top, people would not find their jokes funny. "There should be no subject about which you cannot make jokes."

I should say that this goes beyond jokes: there should be no subject about which you cannot make comment. Period. Or, as our Brit cousins should say, full stop. If that encompasses describing Islam as something evil, then so be it.

Aye, but there's the rub, according to Mr. Liddle:

I got interested in this case after writing an article for the Sunday Times about Blunkett’s proposed law prohibiting people from inciting religious hatred. This is part of the new Serious and Organised Crime and Police Bill, unveiled in the Queen’s Speech. According to Blunkett, it is intended to protect ‘individuals’ rather than ‘ideology’ — but this is a meaningless and disingenuous statement. It’s actually to stop you dissing Islam, full stop. I tried to find out from the Home Office what would constitute an offence under the new Act and nobody could tell me: they haven’t got a clue. I asked loads of times. And then, on 8 December, a Home Office press officer said to me the following:

So, you heard the man: stop dissing Islam, full stop. Now.

Or, well, you'll just have to read the whole thing, won't you?

(Hat tip: lewrockwell.com)

So maybe reading is a sweaty business...

El Paso leaves 2004 on a...well, on some kind of note: Dr. Jack Miller of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater created a literacy ranking for the 79 U.S. cities with populations over 200, 000, and El Paso came in...79th.

The most literate U. S. city is Minneapolis, followed by Seattle, Pittsburgh, Madison (Wisconsin), and Cincinnati. All of the bottom ten cities were in California or Texas (69th place is held by Detroit, and roaring in at 68 is Los Angeles).

The category rankings were:

Education: El Paso was ranked 75, beating out Miami and Newark

Publications: El Paso was ranked 69, beating out Virginia Beach and Anaheim

Newspapers: El Paso was ranked 73, beating out Arlington and Garland (both Texas), and Hialeah

Libraries: El Paso was ranked 74, beating out Sacramento and Anaheim

Booksellers: El Paso was ranked 71, beaing out Newark, Detroit, and Phoenix

Overall, of course, El Paso was ranked dead last at 79.

We can take heart, though: this year, El Paso beat out Phoenix, Corpus Christi, and Greenville, South Carolina to emerge NUMBER ONE as America's Sweatiest City!

(Hat tip: Dustbury's Charles Hill, whose Oklahoma City came out considerably better)

Taking Sides in the Browser Wars

Yes, I've had to take sides in the browser wars: I use a laptop PC running Windows XP when I'm traveling on business, and it's just gotten too easy for malware to hijack it, as I mentioned here. At home in El Paso I'm on a Mac, and so far I've had no problems with Safari, the browser which comes with OS X.

I'd heard of Opera, and tried it on the Mac long ago because of its rumored speed. I didn't notice anything impressive at the time. But earlier this month, I downloaded Opera for the PC and gave it a spin. At first I didn't like it, but that was just a matter of getting used to some new ways of doing things. One of those new ways, to me, was tabbed browsing, which I've come to like. I didn't notice that Opera was any faster than Internet Explorer, but I continued using it anyway because of the security (hijacking) question.

Back home for the Christmas holiday, I downloaded and tried Camino, Firefox, and Opera for the Macintosh. This time it was apparent that Opera was quite faster than Safari and the two Mozilla browsers, Camino and Firefox. I liked it. One thing I especially liked about, in addition to its speed, was that Opera could be set to open from exactly where it last shut down, including two or more pages if I'd had that many open.

Unfortunately, Opera needs that feature, because it possesses another interesting one: it tends to shut down whenever it wants to! I'd noticed a few other rendering instabilities, which I'd for the most part ignored, but those plus the involuntary shutdown feature meant that I'd have to give Opera a pass.

It's a shame, too, because I really did, and do, like Opera -- and there's no cooler name for a browser anywhere -- but that instability was just too annoying.

I'm now sold on tabbed browsing, however, and I've set up Safari to do tabs. The problem with Safari is that now I'm spoiled by Opera's speed. But Camino and Firefox are sprightly enough. Not as fast as Opera, but faster than Safari, so I'm using/testing them.

Next week I'm on the road again and I'll be putting the Windows versions of Opera and Firefox through their paces on the PC. Something has to be better than Internet Explorer, a browser I never disliked until I began getting all sorts of spyware and hijacking attempts (one of which was successful in a major way).

So, what with two anti-spyware applications and five different browsers, this has turned out to be quite a bit more of a season of software than I'd expected. Plus I really need to learn something about setting up an RSS feed for this blog.

Oh, and that trip I'm taking next week? That, too, is for the purpose of learning another piece of software.

Great Moments in Microprocessor History

No, I'm not kidding. Really. Worth a read -- and, since microprocessors are the stars of the digital age, each one is given a "where are they now?" treatment, with a bit of attitude as well:

Early Intel: 4004, 8008, and 8080
Intel released its single 4-bit all-purpose chip, the Intel 4004, in November 1971. It had a clock speed of 108KHz and 2,300 transistors with ports for ROM, RAM, and I/O. Originally designed for use in a calculator, Intel had to renegotiate its contract to be able to market it as a stand-alone processor. Its ISA had been inspired by the DEC PDP-8.

The Intel 8008 was introduced in April 1972, and didn't make much of a splash, being more or less an 8-bit 4004. Its primary claim to fame is that its ISA -- provided by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC), who had commissioned the chip -- was to form the basis for the 8080, as well as for the later 8086 (and hence the x86) architecture. Lesser-known Intels from this time include the nearly forgotten 4040, which added logical and compare instructions to the 4004, and the ill-fated 32-bit Intel 432.

Intel put itself back on the map with the 8080, which used the same instruction set as the earlier 8008 and is generally considered to be the first truly usable microprocessor. The 8080 had a 16-bit address bus and an 8-bit data bus, a 16-bit stack pointer to memory which replaced the 8-level internal stack of the 8008, and a 16-bit program counter. It also contained 256 I/O ports, so I/O devices could be connected without taking away or interfering with the addressing space. It also possessed a signal pin that allowed the stack to occupy a separate bank of memory. These features are what made this a truly modern microprocessor. It was used in the Altair 8800, one of the first renowned personal computers (other claimants to that title include the 1963 MIT Lincoln Labs' 12-bit LINC/Laboratory Instruments Computer built with DEC components and DEC's own 1965 PDP-8).

Although the 4004 had been the company's first, it was really the 8080 that clinched its future -- this was immediately apparent, and in fact in 1974 the company changed its phone number so that the last four digits would be 8080.

Where is Intel now?
Last time we checked, Intel was still around.

The Probability Graphic

This just in -- at least, I just found out about it --

A graphic novel based on L. Neil Smith's first novel, The Probability Broach.

Smith, by the way, claims that in this novel he predicted the invention of the internet. I agree.

(Hat tip: The Happy Curmudgeon)

Fighting a Flood of Fake Charity

David Holcberg's press release from the Ayn Rand Institute makes the case that the U.S. should not help the tsunami victims in Asia.

As the death toll mounts in the areas hit by Sunday's tsunami in southern Asia, private organizations and individuals are scrambling to send out money and goods to help the victims. Such help may be entirely proper, especially considering that most of those affected by this tragedy are suffering through no fault of their own.

The United States government, however, should not give any money to help the tsunami victims. Why? Because the money is not the government's to give.

Note what is not being argued: Holcberg isn't saying that we shouldn't care, or that the victims asked for it or brought it on themselves, or even that there are better things to be done with the money. He is simply arguing that it's not the government's money to dole out.

Class Clown goes to the School Nurse

George Carlin has entered drug rehab to curb his dependence on wine and Vicodin, according to the Associated Press.

"I know it isn't easy, but I'm highly motivated, and will do whatever's needed," he said in the statement. "My levels of use are nowhere near the worst you hear about these days. I could easily have continued functioning at a good level for a while, but my use would have progressed.

"I would have been in deeper trouble and I didn't want to tolerate that."

Carlin's website is here.

George Carlin is a brilliant, insightful, and genuinely funny man. The Anger of Compassion wishes him success in this fight.

(Hat tip: World News Daily

Make Mine Mozart

Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte is probably the next opera performance I'll attend, assuming that the 101st Airborne will be finished with me in time, so I was amused by these results to a vital question:

Cosi Fan Tutte (All Women Do Thus). For a complete
synopsis, see
http://www.metopera.org/synopses/cosi.html.


Which Mozart Opera Does Your Life Most Resemble?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Hat tip: Lynn Sislo, who is The Abduction from the Seraglio)

Tell it to the Marines

From Glenn Reynolds: "DAN RATHER, PETER JENNINGS, and a Marine. Heh."

Bits and bytes, if a bit dated

This would be a cool calendar to have. Not to date myself, but I've actually seen or owned ten of the twelve (never heard of the Enterprise or the Hit Bit thingie).

And Charles needs to consider how to use more than one wall.

(Hat tip: Dustbury)

Warning: Cool Shirt

Cool Christmas present, available here (I received Front 1, Back 1).

Vermeer Studio Discovered

According to this story by Marcel Michelson, from Reuters.

DELFT, Netherlands (Reuters) - An art restorer says he has solved a centuries-old mystery with the discovery of the studio of the 17th-century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer.

Ironically, Daan Hartmann had been working in the same studio for over two decades before he made the Vermeer link.
....

Hartmann, 60, is one of the few experts who can tell a real Vermeer from a fake. The art world was scandalized in 1945 when art dealer Han van Meegeren confessed to forging some Vermeers which museums had declared genuine.

Hartmann said his father had always believed that one Vermeer in a Rotterdam museum was fake but had not dared to speak out.

Earlier this year Hartmann, who runs the small gallery and Vermeer museum shop near Delft's central square, was contacted by a rich American family to check the authenticity of a Vermeer that was coming up for auction at Sotheby's in London.

"Young Woman Seated at the Virginals" was sold for some $30 million in July, 10 times the auctioneer's estimate.

During his research into the history of the painting Hartmann stumbled on clues to the location of the studio and checks in the local registry clinched the find.

Records showed Vermeer had rented the building which has three large bay windows that are seen on several of his paintings. The penny dropped.

Wow.

And hey: have I really scooped the arts bloggers on this story? Seems so...anyway, just another reminder that Out of Lascaux is due to return after the New Year, which by now is but a matter of days.

(Hat tip to lewrockwell.com)

Delighting in the Visual Arts

Another one I meant to blog. I think I got this one from Lynn Sislo.

Anyway, the world needed a blog about corsets.

The Robot Runs

News from Ian Hamet's part of the world: Asimo, the robot at Honda, can run, at approximately 3km/hour.

I noticed an odd reaction as I watched this video. The robot actually seemed to me to be hesitating, to be slightly unsure of himself (not of "itself," but of "himself"), to be...to be trying to run, to do well.

Normally, of course, I try to avoid that sort of anthropomorphizing of robots and computers. I know they hate that.

(Hat tip: Mises Blog)

Essay on Satire

Courtesy of someone named AJ on an e-mail list I read, here's a really nice introduction to English satire:

One key date all students of literature should remember is the year 1660, the date of the Restoration, when the great republican experiment under Oliver Cromwell came to an end and the British reinstated the monarchy by inviting Charles II (the son of the king whom Cromwell had executed about twenty years earlier) to come back as king in a restored monarchy. King Charles and his friends had spent their exile in France and the new court climate was very influenced by French manners and literary styles.

Beyond that, the Restoration came at a time when Europe had, after about a century and a half of religious warfare, reluctantly come to the realization that religion could no longer serve as a suitable basis for a shared communal life. Since there was no longer any shared agreement about what the revealed word of God meant or about an authority which might interpret that revealed word for everyone (as the Roman Catholic Church had done for centuries), the social and political life of the nation had to find some other grounding if people were to live together without killing each other over religious questions.

Out of this cultural climate increasingly grew a hope that the basis of social and political life must be a new reasonableness, combined with a concerted attempt to limit emotional excesses that had prompted so much religious bloodshed. Part of this new program of cultural reform stressed paying attention to all forms of language, both in the popular and in the high cultural forums. Language needed to be purified of passionate rhetoric and misleading metaphors, the major features of much of the enthusiastic preaching and general rabble rousing which had accompanied the religious conflicts. Public discussions should use simple, clear language and appeal to the reasonable sentiments of educated people.

Appeals to reform language encouraged certain literary efforts and discouraged others. For example, they led to increasing demands for words which were clearly defined with meanings everyone shared; hence, here begins the great age of dictionaries, attempts to codify the meanings of words in ways that everyone could understand. There were repeated attempts to purge language of complex metaphors, especially religious metaphors. These were incapable of clear exposition in a way that satisfied everyone, and since people could not agree on their meaning they only promoted disagreement. Styles of literature should move from the passionate lyric or the account of visionary religious experience to more public, restrained, and polite forms. The common popularity of the heroic couplet, for example, reflects the desire for a poetic style that is inherently more restrained, incapable of generating the eomotional momentum of an impassioned verse paragraph (for example, in Shakespeare or Milton).

It's important to realize that in this period words like "imaginative," "extraordinary," "visionary," "fanciful," "enthusiastic," and so on are words of serious criticism, indicating a form of thinking or behaviour in which reasonableness has surrendered to passionate feeling. In the vocabulary of Swift, Pope, Johnson, Austen and many others, this value system is built into the language, and you will have trouble understanding some of their texts if you fail to recognize the deep distrust of passionate feeling unaccompanied by reasonable control (e.g., Swift's praise of the horses in Book IV of Gulliver's Travels because they are not "fond" of their children, a phrase which strikes the modern reader as rather odd). The term of the highest praise is "sensible," because it suggests an imagination which confines itself by experience and does not impose visionary schemes on experience or rely upon impassioned metaphors.

Good point, that one. Reading the greats of English literature can be challenging due to the distance in time and attitude as reflected in the language of the day, as mentioned above.

For our purposes here, the important point to observe is that the demands for a new reasonableness in public conduct and literature encouraged a special attention to satire, that form of literature which is most directly concerned with addressing public issues with a strong didactic intention. In one way or another, most of the greatest writers in English literature for the next century (Dryden, Pope, Swift, Defoe, Johnson, among others, up to and including Bryron) directed some of their considerable energies into writing satires. And this age following the Restoration until the early nineteenth century produced some of the greatest satires ever written. In many respects, the great satiric tradition launched by Dryden at the Restoration ends with Lord Byron.

You could also check out this book.

Looking back on good news

Some positive notes from Christmases past, according to the 2005 Freedom Calendar produced by the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

1989 - Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu and his wife shot

1991 - Dissolution of the Soviet Union, ending 72 years of Communist terror

I remember seeing the news from Romania on televsion that Christmas, but I'd forgotten that the USSR died on a Christmas Day as well. But it seems appropriate to me.

UPDATE: You know what? I remember being happy at the news that Ceausescu and his wife were shot. I remember the television images of the two of them -- humbled, confused, frightened -- and I felt no mercy, nor do I now. I'm glad they were shot as they were, and I'd have been happy to pull the triggers myself.

And no, I'm not Romanian, nor have I ever even been there. But I can be happy for those people to have been delivered from such evil.

An EPIC tale, as the New York Times goes offline

Just how will Google, Blogger, Amazon.com, Microsoft, and the U.S. Supreme Court influence the course of American media over the next ten years?

Here's one possibility, from Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. A bit snobby/socialistic for my taste, but certainly credible.

(Hat tip: Steven Horwitz at Liberty and Power.)

No identity crisis here...

Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. You are old school. Fat
Sheriff Deputies fancy you. Reliable but not
too practical.


What handgun are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Hat tip: Daniel Schwartz)

Announcing the Season

My Christmas Eve column is up at the Atlasphere.

A Blue Christmas?

Yep: IF you know enough to tune in to the Friday Night Blues Christmas Extravaganza, via streaming audio.

Stealing Your Computer...

...while leaving it on your desk. Bastards.

It's called "browser hijacking," among other things, and you need to learn a new term: "malware." Yeah, you do. Sorry, but there's more than just spam out there.

Spam is bad enough, and before spam we had viruses and worms and Trojan horses and whatnot. But now we have all of those things, plus software which installs itself on your system without so much as a by-your-leave, and then takes control of parts of that system. Now, practical and moral proposals have been suggested for dealing with spammers, and I have publicly supported the more rational of those, but we need to be more (to employ I "word" I dislike) proactive in protecting our systems from malefactors.

Because, gentle readers, I'm sorry, but those motherfucking assholes malefactors are out there.

Now, not all computer systems are the same, are they? Nope.

Now, I don't use Linux, so I have nothing to offer Linux users. Well, in this area, anyway. And my use of other Unix flavors is pretty limited, so I'll self-limit myself and not go into that.

That leaves two mainstream systems of note: Windows and Macintosh.

I do use both of those systems: in fact, on a normal day, I use both of them for hours at a time. Frankly, on the Mac I've had so few external problems that I have no third-party defense systems employed. Between the outstanding security offered by Mac OS X -- which is, after all, a flavor of BSD Unix -- and the tiny market share "enjoyed" by the Mac, I've simply not experienced any hijacking, to my knowledge.

My Windows experience is a different story. I use Windows in my corporate persona, and on business travel I use Windows exclusively. Now, as a confirmed Mac lover, I must say this: I do not hate Windows, and I never have. In fact, I've praised Windows XP by saying that it's quite Maclike. Beyond that, there are aspects of Windows XP that should be replicated in the Macuser experience. But I've been hit, on an important business trip -- and all of my business trips are important, dear clients -- with an impossible case of browser hijacking, one not solved until I returned to my homebase in beloved El Paso, Texas, home of the Friday Night Blues.

So...well, you should read this story, and this one as well.

For the record, I use Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition and Spy Bot Search and Destroy, and I've been very happy with both.

I have also been very happy with Friday Night Blues, which, while it may hijack your mind, due to the quality upon which Norma consistently insists, has never hijacked my radio (at 88.5 FM) nor any of my computer systems. If you aren't in the El Paso area, tune in here.

More metrics

Hey, what won't technology do for us?

(Hat tip: The Out of Lascaux Return Committee)

Tendentiousness: The Christmas Spirit

Few days late responding to this one, but it's funny. Not sure why she mentioned the Inner English Major, though. Inner journalism major, maybe. Inner sociology major, sure.

I mean, hey, I was an English major...

Still pretty good, though.

(Hat tip: those engineering the return of Out of Lascaux.

In Which I Am Revealed as a Rocket Scientist

Yep. It's true.

Tonight, all on my own, I figured out how to use the treadmill in the exercise room of my hotel. Many of the buttons were quite responsive indeed, after I plugged the damn thing into an electrical outlet.

Tomorrow I check out of this hotel -- not out of any dissatisfaction with the treadmill or with the hotel itself, but because my work here with the Banshees (Alpha Company, 2/4 Aviation here at Fort Hood) is finished and I'm returning home to El Paso. And yes, I'd have linked to the Banshees --, but they appear to have no web presence. Cool patch, though -- I'll have to post a picture when I get back to the digital camera at the hacienda.

I do have other opportunities for rocket science in El Paso: I have an Olympic bar, plates, a bench, and everything.

Second-Hand Rose

It figures.

Well, it's in accord with the judgment of all the women in my life, anyway, but here's an internet quiz which announces for all the world to see/hear/read/digest/integrate, that

I am the number 2 I am friendly _

what number are you?

this quiz by orsa

(Hat tip, with some grumbling. to Bigwig at Silflay Hraka)

Of Snails and Wines and Occasional Showers

I do owe Charles for this one.

I already share the general blogosphere envy of his mastery of the art of writing a snappy blog headline, and I willingly, publicly revere his knowledge of American popular music of a certain era of great interest to me ('though his critical judgment re: The Beatles is a bit wobbly).

But for pointing me to this -- I shall offer only the sample of Silflay Hraka's bit on American involvement in World War I -- Charles, my friend, I simply am not worthy:

Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like to not only sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." Sadly, widespread use of condoms by American forces forestalls any improvement in the French bloodline.

My god...and the title of the piece -- which found me slapping my thighs, standing up, and laughing out loud -- is even better.

Literacy and Fun

Take a look at Literatim, brought to you by the tasteful proprietress of the popular culture blog Out of Lascaux -- which, according to rumor, is due to return from hiatus soon after the New Year. Another blogger scoop brought to you by the hardworking staff at The Anger of Compassion...

I especially like the Twain quote. No, I didn't suggest it.

(Disclaimer: I am the brilliant venture capitalist behind Literatim. No, the original venture wasn't my idea. Why do you ask? No, I didn't get to select the Twain quote, either. Can't I get a break here?)

The Great Firewall of China

That title would be funny if it weren't so true.

Lynn Sislo points to this story about blogging in China. They share, with their brother bloggers in Iran, some, er, difficulties.

By January 2003, China had about 2000 bloggers when, without warning, the Chinese government blocked all access to blogspot.com, the server that hosts all blogs registered on blogger.com.

The net police do not make the reasons for such actions public, but Chinese bloggers point out that DynaWeb, an anti-censorship service run by overseas Chinese, had been using a blog on blogspot.com to publish proxy server addresses that allowed users to get around the Great Firewall. The authorities’ blanket blockade affected all China’s bloggers, leaving them suddenly unable to reach their journals.

Heh. Do yourself a favor and read the article in order to see what ingenious means were employed to circumvent that blockade.

But consider the language, the terms employed: "banned." "Blockade." "Net police." "Arrests." "Shut down." Think about it: who do the Chinese authorities think they are?

The Brits?

The FCC?

Meanwhile blogging seems set to grow as a national hobby for the younger generation. Providers of China’s 300 million mobile phones are beginning to provide “moblogging” services, with which users can send text and photos directly from their phones to their blogs. For now, most blogs are personal, but their potential for building networks of people and disseminating news cannot be underestimated.

Hmm...I hope so. I just don't know...

I mean, it's great if it happens, but how can Western well-wishers support them? Blogging's not a money-making activity in the US, so it sure as hell won't be one in China, so that doesn't seem to be an option. Prayers? Please. And supporting them by going to their blogs seems almost counterproductive, since high traffic would probably get them noticed and possibly arrested.

Still, it's pretty obvious that China (and Iran) needs more blogs. And probably more iPods.

Something like a First Amendment might help, although I doubt it. It hasn't been 100% effective here, after all.

The classical is the indecent

Alert Eric Scheie. This is just fucking ridiculous.

Beyond ridiculous. It's disgusting.

Yes, my dears, please, please, please color me a First Amendment absolutist. No exceptions.

Consider: the Federal Communications Commission has cost Americans, this year alone, a network broadcast of Saving Private Ryan and the broadcast entertainment services of Howard Stern. Now, perhaps you are no admirer of either one -- but millions of Americans are, and these options are available to them no longer.

Is there a legitimate moral reason for the FCC to exist? No. The "airwaves" are not owned by the public, which did not invent them nor exploit them in any way other than to receive the transmissions made available thereby.

Is there a legal justification for the FCC? Clearly, no...and the entire organization is in fact illegally constituted: the Constitution very clearly and adamantly establishes a separation of powers (executive, legislative, and judicial), and bands of moralizing thugs agencies such as the FCC, which combine all three, are clearly violations of that idea.
.

What an indecent situation.

(Hat tip: Jeff Taylor at Hit & Run.)

Aural Sex

Staying in a hotel lately (in Killeen, Texas, if you care), and music has meant whatever classical and opera stuff I've put on my iPod Mini. Tends to be Beethoven or Chopin, or anything sung by Maria Callas.

But hey, it also helps to have friends, and my newest friend introduced me to live365.com.

I listen to a program called "Chillout 2 New York." No, I don't know what it means. But it plays music described as "chillout," "dub," "downtempo," and "trip hop." And no, except for "dub," which I discovered through The Clash more than twenty years ago, I don't know what any of those terms mean (although, apparently, Nina Simone and Sarah Vaughan are included). I just like the sound of it all.

Checking out the Eurosphere

Glenn Reynolds points to an interesting column about European bloggers. Check it out.

Some of the weblogs that could be considered European are in fact run by American expats living abroad; they brought the concept with them early on and have built a following. A growing number, though, are homegrown and bringing new insight to European politics, challenging traditional media in a similar fashion to their American counterparts.

By the way, one of those Americans is Adam Curry, former MTV personality, who moved to Europe, became a blogger, and returned to America with a new idea of his own: podcasting. Definitely worth checking out: follow all the links.

Also, make sure you check out The European Weblog Review.

(Hat tip on podcasting story: Nick Gillespie at Hit & Run)

Rowan Atkinson: Free Speech Hero

I am convinced that Britain covets the title of World's Most Politically Correct Nation (and they have their work cut out for them, what with Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands as competition), and as part of their effort they are flirting with the quite Soviet idea of thought crimes. Under a proposed bill, insulting a religion could possibly result in seven years' imprisonment.

Standing in their way is Rowan Atkinson.

According to this Telegraph story, Atkinson, of Blacadder and Mr. Bean fame, strongly opposes the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, which includes the provisions against "incitement to religious hatred."

Rowan Atkinson defended the right of comedians to poke fun at other people's religion last night as he joined the campaign against Government plans to create a new offence of incitement to religious hatred.

The star of the BBC's Blackadder television series lined up with leading barristers, writers and politicians to oppose the proposed law.

'There should be no subject about which you cannot make jokes'

Ministers say the Bill will protect faith groups - particularly Muslims.

Ah yes, those poor, put upon Muslims. They've got it so bad in Western Europe and here in the US, as well. Remember all of those vicious anti-Muslim attacks and riots across the US right after the September 11, 2001 horror?

You don't remember that wave of anti-Muslim violence? Neither do I: it never happened. What did happen in the days following the WTC/Pentagon attacks was that a few thousand extra funerals were conducted.

A Home Office spokesman defended the Bill, insisting that it would not interfere with the right to free speech. She said: "There is a clear difference between criticism of a religion and the act of inciting hatred against members of a religious group.

"The incitement offences have a high criminal threshold and prosecutions require the consent of the Attorney General."

Ah, a "high criminal threshold." That oughtta provide enough protection, especially given that the "consent of the Attorney General" would be required. The problem is, these thresholds and consents would be measured and judged in a nation where self-defense has been effectively outlawed.

Speaking at a press conference in the House of Commons, Atkinson said the proposals would destroy one of society's fundamental freedoms - the right to cause offence.

It would also threaten the livelihoods of all those whose job it is "to question, to analyse and to satirise". These included authors, academics, writers, actors, politicians and comedians.

There was a "fundamental difference" between cracking a joke about someone's religion and being offensive about their race which was, rightly, already an offence, he said.

"To criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous but to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom," he said.

"The freedom to criticise ideas - any ideas even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.

"And the law which attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.

"It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended.

"The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression."

The bill is opposed by the Liberal Democrats and by the Conservatives. I am not impressed, nor hopeful: the Liberal Democrats are a pretty small minority, the Conservatives are hopeless, and Labour enjoys a huge majority of seats in Parliament (well over a hundred seats, I think). I'm no expert on the British legal system, nor on British politics, but I suspect the Brits are royally screwed on this one.

Still, I'll let Atkinson have the (George Carlin-like) last word:

Mr Atkinson said comedians should be able to make jokes about whatever they wanted. If they went over the top, people would not find their jokes funny. "There should be no subject about which you cannot make jokes."

(Hat tip: Sasha Castel)

Fact and ...?

Unpleasant stuff -- I got it from Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, who got it from 2Blowhards, who in turn got it from The Economist:

In rural Peru, 24% of young women say they lost their virginity to a rapist. In rural Uttar Pradesh (in India), 83% of married women surveyed said that before they moved in with their husbands, they didn't know how women become pregnant.

Those are pretty unnerving numbers, from the horrific rape statistic of rural Peru to the flat-earth-like ignorance of rural India. Unnerving, but unsurprising: what passes for life in most parts of the world is physically and spiritually grim. Not just Peru or India -- which are probably improving, anyway -- but North Korea, anyone? Algeria? Afghanistan? Not to sound like an uncompromising advocate of reason and capitalism or anything, but isn't it obvious that most of these countries have a few things in common? Like, things they lack? Without reason and freedom and markets and the rule of law, a society is pretty close to a state of nature -- and life in that state is, as Hobbes reminds us, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Some places are worse than others, as the BBC shows us in this series of photos from Chechnya.

And yet, think of public discourse in this country: "serious" debates on same-sex marriage, "privatizing" Social Security, prescription drug "benefits" for "seniors," politicians and commentators shedding crocodile tears over the non-scandal of steroids in sports, FCC actions to protect "decency" in broadcasting. Garbage, all of it garbage, and most of it hypocritical garbage at that. Back in 1944, Hayek could dedicate his Road to Serfom to "the socialists in all parties," and get away with it because collectivism was all the rage in the UK at the time. It's worse in today's United Kingdom, and in today's United States.

Still, the US and the UK are the bright spots, aren't they? Think back on those numbers from Peru and from India. Think on what it must be like to live in Cuba, or parts of China, or Chechnya, or absolutely anywhere for most of human history. What are most of our public intellectuals and leaders and commentators advocating, especially when they wax idealistic?

Blogs as Mainstream Media?

Maybe.

There's an article at Business Week Online which bears the title "The Business of Blogging:"

Now advertisers are realizing there is a market emerging in the blogosphere. Already, the growth in regular online advertising, estimated to be about 35% this year, will far outpace the spending increases for any other sector of the media world. Add to all this the fact that about 11% of Internet users today are inveterate blog readers, and the blogging scene starts to get mighty compelling for marketers.

Don't expect a repeat of the dot-com rush that inflated the Web bubble of the late 1990s. "This is a long game, with lots of ebbs and flows," says Henry Copeland, founder of media-buying firm BlogAds. Blogging isn't about to lead to vast wealth anytime soon, says Copeland, but he does expect "more money to [flow to] more authors as smart advertisers bypass publishers and pay authors directly for their audiences." BlogAds is placing ads on 50 to 100 blogs a day for up to 20 advertisers, including Sharp Electronics Corp. and Walt Disney Co. Just six months ago, the firm served 20 blogs for about 10 advertisers.

35%? 11%? Now those are eye-catching figures. It will be interesting, of course, to see which bloggers, and which kinds of bloggers, make real money this way. But it will be even more interesting to see who becomes the next David Ogilvy, the next John Caples, the next Claude Hopkins... from the blogosphere.

(Hat tip: Martin Lindeskog at Ego.)

Offering Education Rationally

Another Joshua Zader project, the Atlasphere, is running an interview with homeschooling pioneer Manfred Smith. A taste:

TA: Do you think your children have had a sufficient social life while being homeschooled?

Smith: Let’s put it this way: If anybody ever pressed me to give one reason why you should not want to send your kids to a school, that reason would be “socialization.”

If you want your children to become peer-dependent, if you want them to operate by group-think, if you want them to be like everybody else, if you want them to learn how to become the lowest-common-denominator, if — from an Objectivist point of view — you want them to become Peter Keatings, then keep sending them to schools. The school system does a good job of that.

In another column at the same site, Walter Williams discusses the decline of higher education:

A Zogby survey was commissioned by the National Association of Scholars (NAS) to compare the general cultural knowledge of today's college seniors to that of yesteryear's high school graduates. The questions for the survey were drawn from those asked by the Gallup organization in 1955 covering literature, music, science, geography and history.

The results were reported in a NAS publication titled "Today's College Students and Yesteryear's High School Grads." It concludes that "Contemporary college seniors scored on average little or no higher than the high-school graduates of a half-century ago on a battery of 15 questions assessing general cultural knowledge."

A 1990 Gallup survey for the National Endowment of the Humanities, given to a representative sample of 700 college seniors, found that 25 percent did not know that Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere before the year 1500, 42 percent could not place the Civil War in the correct half-century, and 31 percent thought Reconstruction came after World War II.

In 1993, a Department of Education survey found that, among college graduates, 50 percent of whites and more than 80 percent of blacks couldn't state in writing the argument made in a newspaper column or use a bus schedule to get on the right bus, 56 percent could not calculate the right tip, 57 percent could not figure out how much change they should get back after putting down $3 to pay for a 60-cent bowl of soup and a $1.95 sandwich, and over 90 percent could not use a calculator to find the cost of carpeting a room.

But not to worry. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni's 1999 survey of seniors at the nation's top 55 liberal arts colleges and universities found that 98 percent could identify rap artist Snoop Doggy Dogg and Beavis and Butt-Head, but only 34 percent knew George Washington was the general at the battle of Yorktown.

Culturally scary, yes, but unfortunately, Dr. Williams doesn't really address any fundamental reasons, beyond the higher incidence of Democrats over Republicans at most academic faculties. I don't think that aggressively hiring Republican academics -- and certainly not "conservatives" -- will do much if anything to improve this state of affairs. The far greater, and more fundamental, problem is the cultural lack of respect for reason and rationality, for which Republicans and conservatives in general share the blame.

Morality and the Manhattan Project

I'm a bit late in blogging this, but Joshua Zader is posting an interview, over at Mudita Journal, with physicist Leo Szilard, conducted in 1960 by U.S. News & World Report. Originally entitled "President Truman Did Not Understand," it makes for some pretty interesting reading.

I don't think, though, that Szilard had thought his visions of morality all the way through, certainly not consistently. I have trouble granting legitimacy to this argument -- that is, if I can even understand it:

Q Would a demonstration have been feasible?

A It is easy to see, at least in retrospect, how an effective demonstration could have been staged. We could have communicated with Japan through regular diplomatic channels - say, through Switzerland - and explained to the Japanese that we didn't want to kill anybody, and therefore proposed that one city - say, Hiroshima - be evacuated. Then one single bomber would come and drop one single bomb.

But again, I don't believe this staging a demonstration was the real issue, and in a sense it is just as immoral to force a sudden ending of a war by threatening violence as by using violence. My point is that violence would not have been necessary if we had been willing to negotiate. After all, Japan was suing for peace.

"Just as immoral to force a sudden ending of a war by threatening violence as by using violence"?? What a misunderstanding of both violence and morality, and it seems to me an absolute inversion of morality.

Laughter as a public service

Courtesy of bloggers, of course. Where else...?

First one was found via Dean Esmay: John Scalzi's ten least successful holiday specials of all time:

An Algonquin Round Table Christmas (1927)

Alexander Woolcott, Franklin Pierce Adams, George Kaufman, Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker were the stars of this 1927 NBC Red radio network special, one of the earliest Christmas specials ever performed. Unfortunately the principals, lured to the table for an unusual evening gathering by the promise of free drinks and pirogies, appeared unaware they were live and on the air, avoiding witty seasonal banter to concentrate on trashing absent Round Tabler Edna Ferber's latest novel, Mother Knows Best, and complaining, in progressively drunken fashion, about their lack of sex lives. Seasonal material of a sort finally appears in the 23rd minute when Dorothy Parker, already on her fifth drink, can be heard to remark, "one more of these and I'll be sliding down Santa's chimney." The feed was cut shortly thereafter. NBC Red's 1928 holiday special "Christmas with the Fitzgeralds" was similarly unsuccessful.

After you've selected your favorite, you can then check out what I can only imagine must be the Darwin Awards junior varsity team, courtesy of Alexandra (at the hibernating Out of Lascaux): StupidVideos.com.

"The moose was furious..."

I wasn't furious, when I learned, at Liberty & Power, that I'd missed Woody Allen's birthday. But miss it I did.

Allen -- "And so I approached Miss Kelly's gravitational field and could feel my strings vibrating. All I knew was that I wanted to wrap my weak-gauge bosons around her gluons, slip through a wormhole, and do some quantum tunnelling." -- is a comic genius, an appreciation I expressed here.

People Enjoy Tasty Animals

There aren't many Objectivist vegetarians, although there are a few. But if you're interested in some of the moral arguments about vegetarianism -- from a non-mystical perspective -- then check out Diana Hsieh's take on it. Here's a teaser:

So what human-centered reasons do we have to refrain from abusing animals? Let's start by considering two easy cases. Case 1: I cause pain to my dog in the course of cleaning out an infected wound. Case 2: I cause pain to my dog either arbitrarily (for no reason at all), sadistically (for the pleasure of watching her suffer), or furiously (in an out of control rage). Even though the pain experienced is the same (let's say), why is the first a moral course of action, whereas the second is not?