Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Today’s blog comes from my post on the ASC forum

Voting by definition is a process that involves forcing your will on others. Some actions of government (or its agents) are clearly coercive in that they limit your liberty directly, while others don’t involve initiating force, but rather define just what the initiation of force [...]

I can’t believe I haven’t head about this, but apparently, in 1996, Alan Sokal, a physicist at NYU, wrote an article titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”, in which he parodied cultural studies, postmodernism, and so on, writing a paper full of gibberish using dozens of Marxist, Socialist and other [...]

As this Reuters story reports, scientists are developing a way to “recreate the sense of touch” over the Internet.
Says Reuters:
“Pushing on the pen sends data representing forces through the Internet that can be interpreted by a phantom and therefore felt on the other end,” said Mel Slater, Professor of Computer Science at University [...]

For my econometrics class, I am comparing the relationship between economic freedom and prosperity, and I just got my first regression results for 2001 for 155 nations. The results are very preliminary, but the evidence is clear: there is an extremely high correlation between economic freedom and prosperity, explaining over 73% of the [...]

Reports MSNBC: “Calls for the U.S. government to be more forthcoming on what it knows about UFOs increased following the release of the poll results. That RoperASW study, sponsored by the SCI FI Channel, shows that 72% of Americans believe the government is not telling the public everything it knows about UFO activity.”

I’m inclined to [...]

From MSNBC: “The Iraqi government is upset about foreign reporting of an anti-government demonstration outside the Iraqi Information Ministry in Baghdad earlier this week, said Eason Jordan, CNN president of newsgathering.”
Demonstrations??? But I thought the vote was 100% Mr Hussein? Why would anyone want to protest?? Oh well, the’ve probably been shot by [...]

I came across this line in the Touchstone, Texas A&M’s local liberal loony paper:
“Greedy capitalists will not likely relinquish their firm grip on the currency. The future therefore looks bleak.”
I appreciate the compliment, but there is a small error in this logic: the government is actually in control of the currency, not “greedy capitalists.” [...]

In response to the ridiculous claims by Democrats that Bush in effect pushing seniors of a cliff by “privatizing” social security, the RNC has released an even more ridiculous cartoon about Bush “saving” social security, as if this Ponzi scheme of the ages can (or should) be saved:

The Republicans also reassure us that Bush’s scheme [...]

Dante said in the Divine Comedy that “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in time of great moral crisis.” For those of us who understand the dangers of collectivism and its growth in America during the 20th century and especially now, the time of great moral crisis is [...]

In other Axis news, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein won re-election for another six years by – get this – 100%. No, not 99.7% like last time, a full 11,445,638 to ZERO vote of the ENTIRE ELECTORATE. Never mind that there are active Kurdish rebel movements in the country, and many remote areas are [...]

If you read my blog from August, you’d know that I suspected that some of that expertise the U.S. is putting into building North Korea a nuclear reactor might not just be used for peaceful purposes. Not surprisingly, N. Korea just admitted to having an active nuclear weapons development program, rejected its previous anti-nuclear [...]

I’ve written a new essay on Free Will vs Determinism. Check it out!
(There are a few more new ones on my essay page.)

Nothing exciting happening lately…but Tim’s kitten is pretty cute:

Update: I forgot all about my b-day, which I really didn’t do much on, though I got some nice presents ($)

“The key to professionalism, it is argued, is the sense of pride that involvement in the discipline generates. It is claimed that price advertising will bring about commercialization, which will undermine the attorney’s sense of dignity and self-worth. The hustle of the marketplace will adversely affect the profession’s service orientation, and irreparably damage the delicate [...]

I remember a bully from my childhood who liked to beat up smart kids because he had no confidence in his academic ability, and violence was the only way that he could dominate his classmates. However, the bully was not the only person who had trouble keeping up: I constantly struggled to do [...]

I just finished watching the 1998 Disney movie “A Bug Life” and despite my hopes to the contrary, I was reminded how pervasive socialist ideology has become in absolutely everything Disney produces. I have come to expect collectivist overtones from Disney’s regular programming, but the extent to which its animated films are full of socialist [...]

A flash movie on the DNC website shows Bush pushing a senior off a cliff—the consequence of privatizing social security. Apparently, letting people decide what to do with their own money is the same thing as murder to liberals.

I would remind the sane reader that social security is in fact much more insecure that [...]

In yet another example of censorship by so-called liberals, an order of ARI fliers titled In Moral Defense of Israel sent to the University of Toronto Objectivist Club for a speech have been denied by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, which claimed “The following goods [the pamphlets] have been detained for a determination of [...]

In case you missed it, USA Today had a cover story on Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged, which was not all positive (it fell into the typical Attila vs Mother Theresa dichotomy) shows the growing influence AR has on the world.
Check it out!

“Just days after a spelling error-ridden memo outlining Barbra Streisand’s political views on the pending Iraq war is faxed to congressional leaders, the artist finds herself in another highly-embarrassing turn: Streisand recited made-up Shakespeare lines before thousands at Sunday’s National Democratic Gala in Hollywood…
..Streisand received a standing ovation before walking onstage at the Kodak Theater, [...]