Holy Bazookas!

When I logged on to my Gmail account today, I saw this: “You are currently using 0 MB (0%) of your 1000000 MB.” That’s ONE TERABYTE of space!!! Apparently, I’m not the only one in for a shoker.

I am switching my blog to WordPress. The new design wont go up until I finish the theme, but you can take a peek at what I'm cooking up.

Books in print double in a decade

According to USA Today, the number of books in print more than doubled from 1993 to 2003. While part of the trend is due to economic growth, I think a major part of the trend is due to the Internet and the ease with which new authors can promote and research their ideas. The music industry would do well to take note of the Internet’s potential as a promotion and distribution medium rather than a threat.

After Mrs. Gandhi told senior party leaders Tuesday that she would not accept the top slot, party activists publicly pleaded in front of her home for a change of heart. One distraught Congress worker put a pistol to his head and threatened to commit suicide unless Gandhi reconsidered...One BJP minister resigned at the prospect of a Gandhi-led government; another threatened to cut off her own hair.

Gee, I’d be nice if we could get that kind of excitement for election in America..

20 greatest Americans

To follow up on my original post, here is my version of the 20 greatest figures in American history. I selected the candidates according to their virtues as Americans – and to do that, I had to derive the essence of Americanism. I selected three characteristics: love of freedom, individual rights, and the creation of wealth. Several vocations met these traits: statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, inventors and entrepreneurs.
Here goes:

22-15.) Ronald Reagan, Ludwig von Mises, Martin Luther King Jr, Abraham Lincoln, Bill Gates, Alexander Graham Bell, Mark Twain, Douglas MacArthur

Speakers and Writers:
14.) Frederick Douglass
13.) Thomas Paine
Generals:
11.) Ulysses S. Grant
10.) George S. Patton
Inventors & Businessmen:
9.) Thomas Edison
8.) Henry Ford
7.) Orville & Wilbur Wright
Philosophers and Statesmen:
6.) Ayn Rand
12.) Alexander Hamilton
5.) John Adams
4.) James Madison
3.) Benjamin Franklin
2.) Thomas Jefferson
1.) George Washington

No Comment

A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex ..."We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate."

Just what did they do for eight years?

Stocks Plunge in India

Sonja Ghandi recently won elections in India. She is the latest incantation of the socialist ruling family that mired India in decades of poverty. Shortly after her victory, she appealed to the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (there’s a difference?) to form the ruling coalition. In response, “India's stock market took the biggest one-day drop in its 129-year history” until regulators shut down the markets in a (futile) response to halt it.

I believe that the drop was motivated by two factors: the potential for the reversal of 13 years of economic liberalization and uncertainty over how a socialist/Communist coalition can reconcile its ideology with a commitment “to the orderly and healthy development of financial markets that reflect the fundamentals of the economy" and a policy that "will be pro growth, pro-investment, pro-savings and pro-employment."

It is of course impossible to reconcile a socialist ideology with a market economy. The response of the new finance minister is pragmatism: "We are not pursuing privatization as an ideology…wherever privatization is necessary in the national interest it will be carried forward.” In other words, the idea is to reap the benefits of a free market, while not actually allowing any economic freedom – or to have one’s cake and eat it too.

It’s interesting to note that the practical value of liberalism has been almost universally recognized, especially since the end of the cold war, even by socialist and communist parties. This is significant because the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is opposed to the very notion of freedom. The prerequisite of individual rights however, is still universally ignored. Until the moral case for freedom replaces “national interest” as the basis for a market economy, endemic global economic instability will remind us of the consequences of a mixed economy.

LOL: Know Thy Enemy: North Koreans

20 worst figures in American history

RightWingNews ran two surveys to create a right wing and a leftist version of the “20 worst figures in American history.”
I decided to make my own list, shown below. My take on the top 20 greatest Americans is coming next.

The list is biased towards more recent history due to my limited knowledge of U.S. history, but here goes:

14-20:
John Dewey, Michael Moore, Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Noam Chomsky, Jane Fonda, Lee Harvey Oswald
13.) Jesse Jackson
12.) Hillary Clinton
11.) Jimmy Carter
10.) Lyndon Johnson
9.) J. Edgar Hoover
8.) Timothy McVeigh
7.) Alger Hiss
6.) Aldrich Ames
5.) Benedict Arnold
4.) Richard Nixon
3.) Aaron Burr
2.) Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1.) Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

Name Change

I have decided to rename my blog to “Truth, Justice, and the American way.” Why? To borrow from a certain novelist, it has to be said: the world is perishing from an orgy of irrationality, injustice, and Anti-Americanism. While the title was inspired by Superman's character, the change was motivated by the media treatment of the “prisoner abuse" scandal. When American papers publish fake “atrocity” photos and delight in American deaths, the world is desperate need of intellectual heroes who can fight evil ideas with the same dedication, invulnerability, and moral certainty as Superman fought bad guys.

This is from Ayn Rand's 1967 essay "The Wreckage of the Consensus":

A country at war often resorts to smearing its enemy by spreading atrocity stories--a practice which a free, civilized country need not and should not resort to. A civilized country, with a free press, can let the facts speak for themselves. But what is the moral-intellectual state of a country that spreads smears and atrocity stories about itself...?

(Thanks to HBL for the story and quote.)

P.S.: Is the second comma needed in “Truth, Justice, and the American Way”?

A Real Hero

Did you ever see this in the news:

"By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of heavy enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, 1st Lt. Chontosh reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."

The Medal of Honor is the highest military award.

While leading his platoon north on Highway 1 toward Ad Diwaniyah, Chontosh's platoon moved into a coordinated ambush of mortars, rocket propelled grenades and automatic weapons fire. With coalitions tanks blocking the road ahead, he realized his platoon was caught in a kill zone.

He had his driver move the vehicle through a breach along his flank, where he was immediately taken under fire from an entrenched machine gun. Without hesitation, Chontosh ordered the driver to advanced directly at the enemy position enabling his .50 caliber machine gunner to silence the enemy.

He then directed his driver into the enemy trench, where he exited his vehicle and began to clear the trench with an M16A2 service rifle and 9 millimeter pistol. His ammunition depleted, Chontosh, with complete disregard for his safety, twice picked up discarded enemy rifles and continued his ferocious attack.

When a Marine following him found an enemy rocket propelled grenade launcher, Chontosh used it to destroy yet another group of enemy soldiers.

When his audacious attack ended, he had cleared over 200 meters of the enemy trench, killing more than 20 enemy soldiers and wounding several others.

Thanks, Keenan.

Nick Gaetano's Covers on Quent Cordair

Nick Gaetano has designed covers for Ayn Rand's fiction and non-fiction for the last decade. Quent Cordair now has all the covers available as giclee prints on their website. Check them out!

Buy My Shirts!

"Galt's Pledge" Ash Grey T-Shirt $14.99

Jr. Raglan $17.99

"My Philosophy" Baseball Jersey $16.99

View more designs. Let me know if you would like a particular item/design combination. If you have your own design you'd like to see on a shirt, let me know!

What I'm Up To

Last Monday, I finished my semester, and the last classes needed for my degree. I have to complete my internship before I graduate, but that is all that is standing between me and the "real world." That is unexpected, because I will be able to finish my MIS degree much earlier than I expected. I have not blogged very much this week because I have been thinking about my past and future plans. Here is what I want to accomplish between now and August:

Finish Master's degree.
• Finish the project for my university job.
• Buy a car.
• Learn to drive (again)
• Find a new place to live.
• Move to San Antonio.
• Learn Java.
• Code Java like a pro at my internship.
• Find a sweet job.

New MT Version

I have updated the Movable Type install for this blog to 3.0. Let me know if everything is working ok. I'll set it up to require TypeKey registration once the final version is released and I have the kinks in the templates worked out. I am still offering free blogging from my domain, but I may have to switch to another blog because of the licensing changes for Movable Type.

I also signed up for an account with Gmail, Google's new email service that offers 1GB of storage space. The storage space is certainly handy, though I miss some of the features Hotmail's advanced features. My new email address is heroic at gmail.com

"Bullshit!" on Showtime

Check out the Showtime show "Bullshit!" Now in its second season, this show by �confirmed skeptics and pro-science atheists� Penn and Teller makes beefsteak out of sacred cows. Be sure to check out the list of topics they debunk the hell out of.

Check out the interview with Drs. Brook and Ghate on IRC. Any ideas for the next chat? I'm all ears.

"National Prayer Day?" What the hell? Since when is faith and humbleness the mark of a proud nation based on reason and individual rights? This sounds like something they do in Iran or Saudi Arabia. For a truly American holiday, how about a National Day of Reason instead?

Censorship in China

After attempting to shut down or censor most of its cyber caf�s, China has launched another effort to shut down cybercafes �because of fears that the Net could corrupt the minds of youngsters....�

"We must take utmost resolutions and make utmost efforts in the clean-up campaign to achieve our anticipated goal, for Internet cafe management has an important bearing on the healthy growing of juveniles."
�
As if to prove a point, Xinhuanet cites the tragic case of two youths who were crushed to death by a train when they fell asleep on a railway track after spending 48 hours in a cybercafe.
...
He cites the case of a 19-year old who, after surfing the next for five to six hours everyday for five years who had come to believe that �invisible pairs of eyes in cyber-space were peeping at him and examining him all the time�

Of course the real reason China bans uncensored internet access is obvious:

"They have brought great harm to the mental health of teenagers and interfered with the school teaching, which has aroused strong reactions from the public."

Translated from newspeak, that means ��interfered with the indoctrination of communist propaganda, which arouses strong fear within the Communist Party.�

Google Ads

As you may have noticed, I have added Google Ads to my blog. I earn a few cents for each click, so please consider sponsoring my site :-) (Note: the ads seem to be showing only intermittently due to low click-through rates. Feel free to remedy this!)

Austin is one of the very few places in Texas where this kind of thing could happen:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Partygoers apparently hoping to catch a glimpse of nude sunbathers crowded on one side of a floating barge, prompting the ship to capsize and dump all 60 people into Lake Travis.

American Sci/Tech Slipping?

The NYT has a scare-piece that claims that the United States has started to lose its dominance in critical areas of science and innovation. I think the reality is that the spread of capitalism has spread and accelerated scientific and technological achievement to nations that formerly had neither the freedom nor the money to afford it. Advancements in science and technology are a benefit to everyone, regardless of which country they happen in.

Re: Pat Tillman

Conservatives say some stupid things every now and then, but it�s leftists who really make me sick.

Regarding the �torture� of Iraqi prisoners: admittedly, it�s unprofessional behavior for a soldier, but where is the media outrage over the bastards who brutally tortured, dismembered, and burned U.S. soldiers and civillians? Whatever happened to photos like this?

U.S. Government Censorship

The U.S. government concocted a brilliant plan a few years ago: Why not give Internet surfers in China and Iran the ability to bypass their nations' notoriously restrictive blocks on Web sites? ... But an independent report released Monday reveals that the U.S. government also censors what Chinese and Iranian citizens can see online. Technology used by the IBB, which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents them from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords. The list includes "ass" (which inadvertently bans usembassy.state.gov), "breast" (breastcancer.com), "hot" (hotmail.com and hotels.com), "pic" (epic.noaa.gov) and "teen" (teens.drugabuse.gov). ... That's the sad irony in the OpenNet Initiative's findings: A government agency charged with fighting Internet censorship is quietly censoring the Web itself.

Should the US government be involved in circumventing foreign censorship at all? If it is in fact important to our national security, why not just support the many private groups already doing this?

Blog Icons

If you want blog icons like the ones you see on the left of this page, I have a collection of 100+ here.