The Greedy Capitalist

Glow in the dark fish!

The next miracle of genetic engineering has arrived: glow in the dark fish!

Eco-freaks are already moaning:

"It's biological pollution," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the Center for Food Safety. He said that even if the GloFish was not dangerous, failure to regulate it would set a precedent allowing many other ornamental fish to enter the market unimpeded.

Affirmative action bake sale

Check out my photo blog of the YCT affirmative action bake sale.

Almost 60 percent of Europeans say that Israel is a larger threat to world peace than North Korea, Iran or Afghanistan, according to a poll scheduled to be made public Monday by the European Commission. Some 58 percent of those polled said the United Nations should manage the reconstruction of Iraq, compared with 44 percent who said the Iraqi provisional government should and 18 percent who said it was a job for the United States. But 65 percent said they thought the United States should pay for the rebuilding of Iraq. A majority of Europeans surveyed (54 percent) said they were not favorable to sending European peacekeepers to Iraq. And more than two-thirds said that the war in Iraq was not justified. By contrast, 41 percent of Americans said they sympathized with Israelis and only 13 percent with the Palestinians.

Flat Tax In Iraq

American administrator imposes flat tax in Iraq by a stroke of the pen.

Egypt won?

"30 Years Since Egypt’s Victory Over Israel:"

In the war of October 1973, Egypt crushed the Israeli army of occupation. They destroyed the Barlief Line that was described by military experts as unparalleled in military history and ended the lie that Israel had an invincible army. This year for the first time Egypt is celebrating its victory throughout the month of October rather than just on the day of victory.

And if you liked that, :

Israel was totally devastated even though the Egyptian forces didn’t advance into Palestine. Golda Meir saved Israel by sending out an SOS which was answered by the ever-biased American administration through the great Zionist himself, Henry Kissinger, then at the peak of power.

Here is what actually happened:

Thrown onto the defensive during the first two days of fighting, Israel mobilized its reserves and eventually repulsed the invaders and carried the war deep into Syria and Egypt. On October 22, the Security Council adopted Resolution 338 calling for "all parties to the present fighting to cease all firing and terminate all military activity immediately." The vote came on the day that Israeli forces cut off and isolated the Egyptian Third Army and were in a position to destroy it.

Hey Kids!

Perhaps in response to the widespread ban of “Jewish” Barbie dolls in Muslim countries, an American company has created Razanne, a Muslim Barbie. Um...no comment.

In related news, a survey by a evangelical Christian group claims that that 81% of American's believe in some sort of an afterlife, and 90% are open to the possibility, but only .5% believe that they are headed for hell. 48% of the younger generation believes that it is possible to talk to the dead, and 18% believe that they will be reincarnated. I wonder how many of them watch John Edwards, the “biggest douche in the universe?" No comment on this either, other than a favorite quote of mine from Thoma's Paine's "The Age of Reason":

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My mind is my own church.

Comments on the GLBTA/YCT Service Fee Debate

The university-funded “Gay Lesbian and Transgender Alliance” debated with the self-funded “Young Conservatives” tonight. Here are the comments I posted at a local forum:

The GLBTA president is a typical leftist. His sole argument was: "Students are not capable of deciding which groups they should support, so their money should be forcibly taken from them for their own good. This is justified because the free flow of ideas and my freedom of speech is limited if I can't forcibly take other people's money to promote views they oppose."

The president of the YCT replied: “Students should be able to decide which groups they support by choosing which organizations their money will go towards.” (Of course if they do this, they might as well support them by paying dues.)

What he should have added:
The right to free speech is solely the right not to have the government forcibly stop you from presenting your views to others, not the "right" to force others to support your views. Governmental coercion is the only valid meaning of the word "censorship."

I disagree with the conservatives because I think that universities should be able to limit what students can and cannot say on campus and where they can say it. The function of a university is to educate, not to provide a forum for different political views. While school-sponsored events like "Muslim Awareness Week" and “Coming Out Week” are thinly veiled attempts to brainwash students with leftist multicultural garbage, their conservative versions (school-sponsored religious groups, strict visitation rules, etc) are no more justified at a public university. While I believe that all education should be private, I think that private schools should implement the same guidelines.

NK Nukes

Steve sent me two interesting stories about nuclear proliferation in North Korea and the Middle East. I don't think there's any better way to sum up the matter than this.

In other news, a new poll says that 59% of Palestinians would support terrorist bombings of Israel even if Israel pulled out of West Band and Gaza, and a Palestinian state were formed.

Fifty-nine percent of Palestinians believe that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state is created, a new survey shows.

Similarly, 80 percent of Palestinians say that, under those circumstances, the Palestinians should not give up the “right of return.”
...
Nintey-six percent of Israeli Jews say the people who piloted the planes on September 11 were terrorists, while 37 percent of Palestinians share that view.

Slightly more than one in four - 26 percent - of Palestinians believe Israelis planned the 9-11 attacks.

Forty-two percent of Palestinians and 61 percent of Israeli-Arabs stated that they support the people who are attacking Americans in Iraq. Zero percent of Israeli Jews said they did.

judge raps out dismissal...

Here is the actual ruling handed down by a judge in the Eminem defamation case, quoted verbatim:

Mr Bailey complains that his rap is trash,/
so he's seeking compensation in the form of cash./
Bailey thinks he's entitled to some monetary gain,/
because Eminem used his name in vain./
The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact,/
they're an exaggeration of a childish act./
It is therefore this court's ultimate position,/
that Eminem is entitled to summary disposition.

More loony Brits...

Terrorists can have serious moral goals, says Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. Furthermore,

"Violence is not to be undertaken by private persons," he said. "If a state or administration acts without due and visible attention to agreed international process, it acts in a way analogous to a private person. It purports to be judge of its own interest."

Didn't Jesus eat fish?

Disney joins forces with pro-fish activists: "Fish are friends, not food!"
My favorite part:

What about Jesus and the fish? Didn't Jesus eat fish?
Probably not: There is strong evidence suggesting that Jesus was a vegetarian. The only stories depicting Jesus eating fish took place after the resurrection, and most Biblical scholars agree that they are very late additions to the Gospels. The scribes who added the stories were not, apparently, averse to eating fish. But since this is the only depiction anywhere in the Gospels of Jesus eating any animals at all, it seems that he was a vegetarian.

A whale of a story...

Environmentalists are trying to ban the Navy from using sonar because it's - get this - causing whales to die from the bends. There is no connection between the crucial tool of many naval vessels and whale death, but that didn’t stop environmental groups from protesting tests (which are costing the taxpayers $9 million) done in response to their claims.
While there is evidence that certain rare types of sonar harm marine life in close proximity, it is absolutely ridiculous to demand that our military give up a key part of our national defense for a few whales, and then protest tests done to verify those claims. This is just one example of how enviro-whackos don’t care for the facts, humans, or even whales, but merely want to destroy civilization – by wiping out the technology that makes it possible.

Kennedy To Receive Bush Public Service Award

What they hell are they thinking giving that pathetic, ignorant, lying, traitorous, drunken commie who recently accused our president of “fraud” and “bribery” a "George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service"??? Pathetic!

Update: Here is an editorial from the Wash Times. Nicholas at The Rule of Reason comments:

If we are defined by our heroes, one has to wonder what kind of man George H.W. really is to feel the need to honor Teddy Kennedy with his namesake award. Not one who cares about principles, it would seem.

ALF, the eco-terrorist group responsible for a long string of attacks made a slight miscalculation it its latest scheme: “Mink eat each other after animal rights break-in.”

The Gateses have created a foundation worth $25 billion, the largest in the world, and have pledged to give it most of the rest of their $41 billion fortune, derived largely from stock in Bill Gates’s company, Microsoft Corp.

Who is the bigger Apple?

This is getting ridiculous: The Beatles Sue Apple Computers Over iPod, iTunes
The purpose of trademark law is to prevent a business from mooching of another’s success by falsely representing it. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Apple Corps is using it for in this case.

Barbie dolls a threat to morality?

Saudi Arabia's religious police have declared Barbie dolls a threat to morality, complaining that the revealing clothes of the "Jewish" toy — already banned in the kingdom — are offensive to Islam.
For more on the story, see Cox and Forkum.

Canadians: Government pot not up to par.

Victims? I don't think so.

An MSNBC story reports on RIAA's suit against 261 music pirates:

The stories of the RIAA 261 are emerging across the country. Many defendants say they are surprised by the suits, that they were unaware that such song swapping could be illegal, or that they were ignorant of the activities of others using their computers, such as children.

More news of interest: Patriots for the Defense of America issued "America's Failing War Effort: A Report Card," girl of 12 settles with RIAA for $2,000, and faced with losing their precious pools, Germans are turning to (God forbid!) private enterprise to save their badekultur.
Also:Tim's article appears in today's Mises Daily Article. It's a decent story, but I don't get his obsession with capitalizing the word “State.” Like using too many exclamation marks, it rapidly loses effectiveness with overuse!

Interesting: Thomas Sowell makes a convincing case for voting for Arnold, and a man ships himself home in a wooden cargo crate.

If you're wondering where the real content is, I'm busy with my job, grad school, and a introduction to Objectivism that I'm writing for the meeting tomorrow. I’ll be sure to link it here when I’m done with it.

Two news stories that provide some interesting insight into the human mind and its potential: a 12-year-old begins medical school at the University of Chicago and a man's visision is restored after 43 years of blindness.

Mural Of Nude Eve Covered With Mock Crime Scene Tape

Mural Of Nude Eve Covered With Mock Crime Scene Tape

Free speech is not the issue, Mayor Pro Tem A.H. "Buddy" Wighaman said during a break at a Monday council meeting.
"It's nu-dity!" he blustered.
Asked if he thinks the mural lacks social value, he replied, "Did you not hear me? It's nu-dity!"

"Anatoly Chubais, chief executive of Russia's national power monopoly Unified Energy System, called the [NYC] blackout "the biggest accident in the history of world energy systems."
From personal experience, I can assure you that he's wrong. (Thanks, Jaboobie )

More evidence the world has not gone mad just quite yet...

Congress votes overwhelimingly to support Israel's response against the terrorists, and Microsoft gets a break. Meanwhile, the worlds oldest professional politician dies. I'd like to think that his switch from being a racist Dixiecrat to a Voting Rights Act supporting Republican had something to do with a change in his values, but I fear the change occured mainly in his constituency.

In the News..

Unless you've been living in a hole the last few months, you know that Iranian students are staging protests in support of democracy and against their fundamentalist regime. Perhaps becuase they have been unable to do anything exciting outside their homes, they have developed a very active blogging community hosted by "Persian" blog hosts like Persian Blog. (Did you know that the word "Iran" stems from "Aryan" as Persia (rather than Germany) is the actual home of the Aryan race? The swastika is actually an ancient Iranian symbol which Hitler borrowed along with the name for his crackpot theory. Many Iranians seems to be aware of this, as all the ones I've met in the U.S. say that they are from "Persia.")

Anyway, almost all these Persian sites are in farsi, which has hampered recent efforts by the blogging community to reach out in support of their movement. Fortunately, I found this list of Iranian blogs in English. Such blogs have become popular among westerners following "The Baghdad Blogger's" personal account of the war from Baghdad. There was much speculation about whether Salaam was even real, but few realized that he was (and still is) risking his life by criticizing the regime, Islamic fundamentalism, and openly talking about his homosexuality. I applaud his objective report on the situation (coming from me, that actually means something), but I have one big beef with his epigram: "the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do" -- while the media unflinchingly accepted this travesty, Raed fails to understand that it was precisely because of the superiority of it's ideas and values that the West is generally a nice place to live while the rest of the world is basically a big open sewer. Oh, speaking of crap, a judge declared rap a foreign language.

Thoughts on the new WTC Design.

Have you seen the design chosen to replace the twin towers? It's an atrocity: a bare skeleton where the building stood and a big hole in the ground where it fell. Apparently Mr. Libeskind has chosen to erect a giant tombstone as his tribute to the "resurgence of life." As a further insult, he has decided to place a garden atop the framework as "a constant affirmation of life." It seems that a few weeds are a better affirmation of "life" than the work of 100 thousand individuals. There are a number of groups that share my indignation at the chosen design: one group is hoping to rebuild the twin towers, while another is suing the port authority. It seems that neither the old nor the new WTC are subject to the building code imposed on private enterprises because they were/will be maintained by the Port Authority, which is immune to prosecution. I'm not qualified to speculate whether this made any difference on 9/11, but I have much more confidence in private construction that does not follow a building code than a public one that does. Since it was found out that Mr. Libeskind will not actually construct the new WTC, as he has never build a skyscraper before, there have been a number of alternative designs proposed. Most of them are impossible designs made by amateurs, but here is one I actually like.

One a side note, the skyscraper in general may be becoming an outdated relic. The rise of the Internet and intranets has greatly diminished the need for large numbers of people to work in the same place, allowing large, sprawling corporate campuses to become the new standard. As much as I love skyscrapers, they may soon join the sailing ship and biplane in my list of great symbols of man's mind surpassed by even greater inventions.

Interesting stuff from the news

CNN reports that a new television program called 'Meow TV' will consist of a tv show entirely for cats. This may be a clever marketing ploy, but does anyone actually buy this? Until cats start to do their own shopping, I think it will be a pretty stupid idea, but I'm glad to live in a country that can afford to market human-like food... and now television to animals. I remember how in Ukraine, everyone would make fun of Americans for buying food made especially for animals while bums starved in the streets. (Of course, no one starves in a rich country unless they want to, and even then nowadays some social worker will probably force feed you.)

SecurityFocus reports that the CIA may have "too much security" -- it has ancient software, restricts internet access and PDA's to analysts who need it, and generally fails to keep up with innovations in technology. The sad (and scary) result is that "analysts maintain informal networks of personal contacts within the agency just to track down the information they need to do their job." In a related story, my web host (but not my own servers, which are ironclad :-) ) was hacked this morning with the SSH crc32 compensation attack detector exploit. The damage was light, but if you are running SSH 2.2 or older, I strongly suggest that you upgrade ASAP! For you movie buffs, this may be the same exploit that was used in the new movie Matrix Reloaded.

Also, anyone want to buy an aircraft carrier? Only $4.5mil USD

This is great: Looting and

This is great: Looting and Food Fight at the U.N.

Also: A hate letter to Michael Moore that left me rolling on the floor.

Also: Will the real Hussein please stand up?