Earth Day vs human ingenuity

Apparently some folk turned their lights off voluntarily on Saturday night in an attempt to emulate the plight of the dirt-poor North Koreans.

North Koreans endure the darkness due to their devotion to Marxism and to the death-worshipping dictatoriat  of the Kim family.  Which means, for most North Koreans, they have no direct choice about living in darkness.

But the fools turning their lights off on Saturday night were doing it by choice. They were doing it in the name of “sustainability.” Which as Craig Biddle points out, is fatuous nonsense.

The idea behind so-called sustainability is that if we humans consume too many raw materials (or “natural resources”) we will reach a point of unsustainability, where there is not enough left for us or for future generations and thus we or they will die. Accordingly, the argument goes, we must stop people from using so many “natural resources”; we must curb our predilection to consume; we must embrace a policy of “sustainability.” Hence the various drives: We must periodically “turn out the lights” or “use less gas” or in some other way make do with less.
    This notion, however, is nonsense, and we can see that it is if we identify the context that the environmentalists drop in order to get people to buy in to their nonsense.
    The notion that we need a policy of “sustainability” assumes that man is merely a consumer and that raw materials are “limited.” But neither of these assumptions is true.
    Man is not merely a consumer; he is also, and more fundamentally, a thinker and a producer who can take raw materials from nature—whether dirt, berries, petroleum, or atoms—and transform them into the requirements of his life—bricks, food, energy, and weapons. And when man is free to act on his judgment, he can continually discover and implement new ways to use raw materials for his benefit.
    Nor are raw materials “limited”—at least not in any meaningful sense of the term. Of course there is a finite amount of aluminium, petroleum, and the like in the earth. But Earth is nothing but raw materials—of which we’ve tapped only a minuscule fraction of a infinitesimal portion—and the rest of the universe is nothing but a whole lot more. Petroleum used to be just goo you didn’t want to get on your feet or crops; now man uses it to fuel industrial civilization, to make heart valves, to manufacture Kindles, and so on. Sand used to be good for nothing but sunbathing and sandcastles; now man uses it to make eyeglasses and fiber-optic cables. Uranium used to be just a toxic metal you’d want nothing to do with; now man uses it to create inexpensive electricity... And on and on. There is no telling what uses man will discover for other raw materials in the future.

The point to grasp here is that resources are not so much found as they are discovered; and not so much discovered as they are created—created by human ingenuity applied to human needs: identifying stuff within the infinity of the universe that can be made to meet that need and to be gainfully brought into a causal connection with that need.   So as long as we remain free to create and produce new resources, the only limit to “our” resources is our ingenuity.

As long as we do remain free to produce. Which is precisely what the Luddites wish to shut down.

Some advice for the “powerful” Rick Giles

Here’s some advice from Ayn Rand to ACT’s “powerful” Rick Giles :

   “Today, most people are acutely aware of our cultural-ideological vacuum; they are anxious, confused, and groping for answers. Are you able to enlighten them? Can you answer their questions? Can you offer them a consistent case? Do you know how to correct their errors? . . .
    “If you want to influence a country's intellectual trend, the first step is to bring order to your own ideas and integrate them into a consistent case, to the best of your knowledge and ability…
    “When or if your convictions are in your conscious, orderly control, you will be able to communicate them to others.
    “If you like condensations…I will say: when you ask ‘What can one do?’—the answer is ‘SPEAK’ (provided you know what you are saying).
             - Ayn Rand, from ‘What Can One Do?’ in Philosophy: Who Needs It

It’s advice not just for Master Giles. Yes, with some exceptions the interviewers whom you will encounter will mostly be execrable (a function of what Lindsay Perigo calls “the demise of the art of interviewing”), but if you want to influence this country’s intellectual trend, then SPEAK UP for sure—but, to repeat, make sure when you do that you’ve first brought some order to your ideas.

In other words, make sure you know what you’re talking about.

Otherwise, you require your erstwhile allies to always be checking their own feet for bullet holes.

Scorched Earth Hour [update 3]

It seems the wowsers’ Earth Hour this year was a bust, with few if any people, places or cities taking it seriously. That’s progress.

Mind you, Earth Hour in North Korea was a stunning success once again.

Dr Richard McGrath sent me pictures of his own efforts to beat back the darkness.  He calls it ‘Scorched Earth Hour.’

Anyone else got any decent pics of their own Power Hour celebrations?

UPDATE 1:  Dave Mann has sent some pics of his Power Hour celebrations on Saturday, saying:

    “We ran all our house lights on Earth Night as well as illuminating every outside security light and the deck, where we ate a delicious dinner with the stereo going. Outside in the drive we had 2 cars running with the headlights on full and the hazard lights going. Every 10 minutes or so we headed down to them and blasted the horns (2 horns are better than one because the resonance set up by the two different frequencies really carries). It was a great celebration of human achievement.”

Great stuff.

UPDATE 2: Dinther sent me these photos of his contribution to brightening the planet:

    “For this [he says]I switched on 23 separate lights and added 3 500w halogen lights. I even turned up the brightness on my computer monitors screens. Just to celebrate power hour to the max I also turned on all entertainment appliances. TV's computers and stereo's. Like others invest in more Christmas lights every year, I may just keep an eye on Halogen lights on sale for next year. I did inquire to the cost of renting these big aircraft search lights to light up the Waitakere Ranges but the cost was just a tad too much. Maybe we can organise something for next year.”

A great idea! I think he was meaning something like this, which another punter used to keep the luddites at bay.

Unfortunately however, he gets points off for having a shamefully dark carport, and at least one bedroom without lights on at all.  Shame.

UPDATE 3:  Writing from Australia, where Earth Hour started, environmentalist Sara Phillips sees the light (so to speak).  Writing at the spiritual home of warmism, the ABC, she opines:

    “Sitting in the dark is hardly sustainable behaviour - what happens when you want to read a book? Or cook dinner? If it's such a great “first step” surely we should try to do it all the time. But of course, that's not feasible.
    “Sitting in the dark is not sustainable for more than a symbolic hour. And if anyone is going to understand the concept of sustainability it ought to be the green groups.”  [Hat tip Andrew Bolt]

FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: The No-David-Bain issue [updated]

Welcome to another ramble round things and places that caught this liberty-lover’s eye this week . . . without any mention of David Bain. Apart from this one.

• Never mind bloody Earth Hour this weekend.  Auckland’s Racket Bar is holding a Power Hour tomorrow night, featuring the world's longest multi-box chain, coal-fired air-conditioning and a light show visible from outer space.!  Cool.
  Plus: BRING IN YOUR OWN ELECTRICAL APPLIANCE AND RECEIVE A FREE TIGER BEER!
  Sounds like a place to be.
  --> Power Hour at the Racket Bar  
• And Libertarianz leader Richard McGrath encourages all New Zealanders to turn on all their lights during Earth Hour this Saturday night.
  “The Dark Ages were a grim chapter in human history. I don’t feel the need to relive those times.”
  --> Light Up The Country This Earth Hour, Say Libz
• “The symbolic message that Earth Hour sends is deceptive and destructive.”
  --> “Earth Hour” Symbolizes the Renunciation of Industrial Civilization
• Another carbon tax domino falls—Nicholas Sarkozy has given in to reality and to political pressure, and pulled his country’s much feted carbon tax scheme.
  So if he can see sense . . .
  --> France backs down on plans for carbon tax
• It’s a bit early to crack down on beneficiaries, says Peter Osborne.  There’s a few things that need to be done first . . .
  --> At Least Do the Job Properly Paula
• For instance . . .
  --> Why not just scrap WFF Bill?
• One would hope that those who parade the “neutrality” of Radio NZ journalists might give some thought to John Stossel’s consideration of government-paid journalists.
          “That journalists are supposed to be the watchdogs, not lapdogs of government
      doesn't resonate with many on the Left. …
          “ Journalists shouldn’t get government funds. Using NPR and PBS [and Radio NZ] as
      a defense reminds me of the child who killed his parents then pleaded for mercy because
      he was an orphan. “
  --> Journalism's Parasites [hat tip Thrutch]
• Yet another economist is getting “sick of reports that talk about these massive benefits of government spending without actually looking at them in context with, you know, opportunity cost.” Matt Nolan lets rip.
  --> I’m sick of this …
• Speaking of political economy, Labour’s David Cunliffe reckons at the Red Alert blog that "Keynes is alive and well." That Keynes "rescued" 2 Depressions. I comment. Could be the start of a good debate.
  --> The Turning Point (III): The Keynesian Resurgence
• A “frustrating” Massey University survey on abortion etc. shows far too many busybodies far too interested in what women choose to do with their bodies.
  --> Frustrating abortion survey out
• No smell-o-vision yet (thank goodness) but 4-dimensional cinema has arrived!  Eat your heart out Avatar.
  --> Too much realism
• Speaking of Avatar, director James “Dickhead” Cameron politely calls for a debate with climate skeptics.  On the behalf of “boneheads” everywhere, Anne McElhinny accepts. “It appears some negative comments about the nonsensical politics of Avatar by me and others did not go unnoticed by the richest man in Hollywood who described the criticism as ‘ranting.’  So, James Cameron I accept your invitation.”
  I almost feel sorry for the over-precious poseur.
  --> James Cameron – I Accept
• “The front page story in the Dominion-Post [yesterday] is about disabled woman Margaret Page. She wants to die, and so is refusing food and water, effectively starving herself to death. The hospice she is in, St John of Godhome, is refusing to intervene.
  And so they should be. This is fundamentally a question of autonomy. Our lives belong to us, not to someone's Invisible Sky Fairy, and certainly not to the state.”
  Bravo!  If only Idiot/Savant would follow that principle consistently himself!
  --> The right to die
• The Family’s Commission CEO offers “a heaven-sent opportunity” to close the bloody place down.
  “Blend the bloody thing in somewhere and give it six months to wither and die as the departmental CEO redirects its funds to something useful,” says Adolf.
  --> Now Get Rid Of It
• “A guy phoned up who worked for NASA who was interested in how we took the pictures,” Mr Harrison told The Times. 
  “He wanted to know how the hell we did it. He thought we used a rocket. They said it would have cost them millions of dollars.”
  But not when you use a balloon, a camera and a roll of duct tape.
  --> Journey into space with a balloon and duct tape
• Lisa Van Damme’s Van Damme Academy offers a unique curriculum for students, and “Director’s Teas” where parents themselves get to experience it.
  Check out, for example, this masterful art appreciation class with “Mr Travis.”  It starts unusually, but you’ll be amazed what – in just twenty minutes -- he can show you in what you thought was a simple painting.
  --> The VDA Art Curriculum - Part 3 of 8 [Click through for the full lecture]
  
  
  

 

• Rodbeater has been trolling again—so excerpts of his trash have been posted to his Redbaiter’s Bile blog.
  Head along and “enjoy” some edited samples of his invective—and get a clue why this idiot is banned.
  --> Redbaiter’s Bile
• The argument is over, and the liberals have won. But Matthew Yglesias reckons ObamaCare is their high tide.  Sounds like wishful thinking-but a lot are buying that Kool-Aid.
  --> The End of Big Government Liberalism
•     “You need a way to maintain your morale—to counter the effects of dispiriting circumstances. In short you need a solid basis to expect a better future.  What can provide it when the news headlines fill you with revulsion?
      “The virtue of optimism.  .. But [by this I mean] a very particular type of optimism. It is not wishful thinking..  It is confidence in one's own potency, and it has to be maintained and fought for like any virtue.....”
  --> Tom Minchin - Hope is Dead - Long Live Optimism
• Who are "the forgotten men and women of American health care”?
  The doctors, of course.  How many have heard from them?
  --> Who cares about the doctors?
• A quote now for every time someone calls you anti-health care or anti-education…

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the
distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every
time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists
conclude that we object to its being done at all.”
– Frédéric Bastiat

• Here’s something to ponder for fans of “efficient markets.” Buyers of bonds now rate Berkshire Hathaway’s bonds safer than those peddled by the US Government. Which means, as Bloomber reports, “The bond market is now saying that it’s safer to lend to Warren Buffett than Barack Obama.”
  --> A Fiscal Train Wreck
• “A sudden drop-off in investor demand for U.S. Treasury notes is raising questions about whether interest rates will finally begin a march higher—a climb that would jack up the government's borrowing costs and spell trouble for the fragile housing market.” And not just for the housing market.  This is the beginning of the end for that school of economists who maintain that government debt is the basis on which currency is organised.
  --> Hoping for a rich uncle, part two
• “AsMargaret Thatcher once said, "the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." Michael Barone reports, “in recent weeks U.S. Treasury bonds have lost their status as the world's safest investment…”
  --> Obama, Meet Reality aka The Bond Market
• Does NZ really need a Productivity Commission anyway?  Paul Walker doesn’t think so.
  --> Productivity commission, Why?
• On better things . . . Rachel Miner “shares some tools which have added much joy for me by helping me capture the precious moments of parenting. There are so many experiences that are both easy to forget and worthy of remembering."
  --> Tool: Capturing the Precious Times
• Jo Kellard offers a guide for how to start thinking about potential careers and career choices.
  --> Did Students Heed My Career Advice?
• The title says it all:
  --> The Nature of Consciousness Vs. Religious concepts
• "We may have lost the first round in the health care battle,” says Paul Hsieh. “But if we follow these principles,the final victory can still be ours."
  --> "ObamaCare: The Coming Battles"
• Earth doesn’t care whether our lights are on or not; if we’re producing or not; which Korea is starving, or free, or not.  The night lights of Korea tell the story of man’s emergence from slavery into freedom.
  For in the slave state that is North Korea, “Earth Hour” is for life.
  --> Earth doesn’t care about our lights, our electricity
  
• "Amazing! A company that provides really great food allergy information that is NOT coerced by the government! Why in the world would they do such a crazy thing?"
  --> Now THAT'S What I Call a Food Allergy-Friendly Company
• A list of psychological disorders.  Some of them are genuine.  All are bogus.
  --> Take the DSM-5 disorder quiz! 
• Guess who’s against medical marijuana in California?
  That’s right.  The growers.
  --> Baptists, Bootleggers & Vidalia Onions
• “The new anti-"Zionism" - or anti-Semitism for many - has gone mainstream in a deadly serious way.”
  --> The betrayal of Israel
• “The great green paradox of the Coromandel is that the place celebrates its mining heyday at every turn.”
  --> Coromandel can bear more mining
• New book Genetic Roulette purports to take apart genetic engineering, detailing “65 separate claims that the technology causes harm in a variety of ways.”  The Academics Review website dismantles every one of them.
  Science is the winner.
  --> Genetic Roulette
  

“Music,” by Theo van Oostrom

• If you’re somebody who only reads Penthouse for the articles, then you’ll have already seen this: Penthouse magazine taking down Al Gore. “Al Gore and his pals in the science establishment want us to totally change our lives because of a theory that might not even be true. Have the sacred cows of global warming been gored beyond repair?”
  --> An Inconvenient Fraud?
• This is worth digesting: Doug Casey’s Special Report on the state of the world economy.  Twenty pages of charts and stats that tell you the story in pictures that so many wish to deny.
  --> The Good, Bad, and Ugly: “Outlook for the Economy” [pdf]
• Scott de Salvo suggests Objectivists should get behind Ron Paul.  Hmmm.
  --> Why Ron Paul Is THE Objectivist Moral Imperative
• David Harriman’s Logical Leap: Induction in Physics won’t be available for purchase until this summer. But his ‘Periodic Table of the Sciences’ is available now.
          “The Periodic Table of the Sciences is a graphical
       description of  .. science education. Within each
       column, the table shows the stages of development
       (from bottom to top) of the five major theories that
      are essential to a basic education in science. The order
       of the columns (from left to right) reflects the fact that each theory is a prerequisite
      for the next.
          “The concepts of science have a necessary order. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion
      must come before Newton’s law of universal gravitation, electric charge before atomic
      theory, and atomic theory before modern biology. This logical order is shown in the table—
      vertically in the development of each theory and horizontally in the progression from one
      theory to the next. Thus, the Periodic Table of the Sciences captures the integration and the
      hierarchy of scientific knowledge.
          “For students and teachers, the table serves as a reference that demands an answer to two
      crucial questions: what previous knowledge does an idea rest on, and where does the new
      knowledge lead?”
  --> Periodic Table of the Sciences 
  --> For a more in-depth analysis, see Harriman’s articles in The Objective Standard
• It’s amazing what’s now available on the internet. 
  Philosopher Stephen Hicks has put his entire 15-lecture Philosophy of Education course online, in video.  Normally you’d pay thousands of dollars for this . . . but it’s yours for the price of your internet connection.
  My bet is most of you will head straight to the ‘Big Bang’ and ‘The Creation Story’  in Lecture 2.  Me, I might head straight for what he has to say about Post-Modernism in Lecture 14.
  --> Philosophy of Education: An Introductory Course
• Nancy Pelosi a constitutionalist?  No, I didn’t think so either.
  --> Nancy Pelosi vs. the Founding Fathers
• This is “must-see TV” says Tim Blair. “A couple of things about the BBC’s excellent Generation Jihad investigation:
      “One, baby jihadis born and raised in the West are driven entirely by ideology (says one British extremist, previously jailed for terrorism offences: “I’ve never been a victim of poverty or any kind of family break-up or anything like that").
      “And two, these jihadis are a serious menace, despite – paradoxically – being complete losers.”
  
  

• Eric Crampton talks about the hoped-for rise of “The Ninny State.” Apparently you and I are being mocked, and we didn’t even know!
  -->  Ninny state?
• Life is rough for warmists right now. “In Britain, the 'Climate Change Museum' has been forced to change its name to the 'Climate Science Museum' and in Russia, the country's top climatologist has come out and said that: ‘The winter of 2009-10 was one of the most severe in the European part of Russia for more than 30 years and in Siberia it was perhaps the record-breaking coldest ever.’
      “And, as a result of all this contrary data, the global warming theorists are now threatening violence. “
  --> Ian O'Doherty: Don't tase me, bro
• Greenpeace isn’t just paid by the government to lobby them—taking money straight out f taxpayers’ pockets--it also steals directly from its members’ bank accounts.
  But it should be no surprise: greenies are less honest than the rest of us.  We knew it just by watching Al Gore’s and Paul Watson’s lips moving, but turns out research shows it too!
  --> Watchdog warns Greenpeace donors
  --> Goodies behaving badly
• Must be hard hating technology.  It means you’d have to hate people who are so good at celebrating it … like the genius who designs Apple’s retail stores.
  -- > Meet the Genius Behind Apple's Beautiful Retail Stores

   To suppose all consumers to be dupes, and all merchants and
manufacturers to be cheats, has the effect of authorising them
to be so, and of degrading all the working members of the community.”
                               - ARJ Turgot (1727-1781)

• There’s less private healthcare in the States than you think, and more government-run healthcare than you’d expect—and guess where it’s already going going wrong. 
  But it’s not hard to fix, says Liberty Scott, iff you did the opposite of what Obama’s doing.
  --> Why Obama's health reforms are quite wrong 
• Jeff Perren does important work.
  --> Surveying The Progressive Fantasy World
• Eric Crampton just spent time at Canterbury Uni with forty or so folk who “seemed broadly supportive of ending the war on drugs.”  And you can’t say that every day.
  --> Misuse of Drugs Act Panel Discussion
• I’ve started to load up content on my Organon Architecture blog.  Hopefully, before very long, I’ll have  most of what I want up there, but there’s still a fair way to go. Still, it’s looking pretty good already.  But then, I would say that, wouldn’t I.
  --> Organon Architecture Blog
• Remember that discussion we had a while back about art and the holocaust?  About Munch’s ‘Scream,' which was painted long before the Holocaust, but which some of you felt evoked it anyway by its feeling of total despair.
  Contrast that with Henryck Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, a piece of musical art which was written about the Holocaust, but which has the opposite feeling altogether.
  Think about that, and we’ll talk about it next week.
  
  
  --> Henyrk Górecki - Symphony No. 3, Op. 36 – YOUTUBE
  --> 'Who Needs Great Art?' – Comments – NOT PC

• And finally, something completely different. Specially for Helen Simpson, a Telephone Call From Istanbul . . .
  
  

Enjoy your weekend!

Friday Morning Ramble (March 19): The Prostitutes & ObamaCare Edition

Just when you thought it was a slow news week . . .

• At $200 per hour, blowing $3.4 million on prostitutes (if you’ll forgive the pun) works out at 17,000 hours--or around 5 hours a day for 9 years.
  Blame Bernard Hickey for the arithmetic.  Blame Steven Versalko for the thieving. And blame Cactus Kate for wondering whether Versalko’s wife should ditch him now, or after the lesser of 6 years or $3.4 million is paid back by his hookers.
• Productivity, productivity, productivity. “Ultimately, the idea of productivity is essential – and yet the statistics of it are not so useful.”  Time to bring on a “Productivity Commission” then? Um…
  Productivity problems
• Education standards are still a political football, here and elsewhere.
  Andrew Coulson explains why all age-based standards are bad:
  The False Premise of National Education Standards
  And Neil McLuskey explains:
  You Always Lose with Top-Down Standards
• Meanwhile, over in the lucky country, “’health and welfare’ jobs have just overtaken the retail sector in terms of employment. Currently 1 in 9 jobs is in health and social assistance…"It will keep getting bigger," says labour market specialist Mark Wooden…”
  Astonishing claim
• An interesting anecdote about the iPredict market on Roger Douglas's Private Member's Bill allowing the youth minimum wage shows just how good insider trading is at letting the market know the information it needs in a timely—almost instant—fashion.
  Markets and information aggregation
• Remember all that kerfuffle a week or so back about a Ministry of Women's Affairs paper on salary gaps, about which press releases were issued telling us that it would tell us that all women are underpaid. Now that the paper is available, and the media has moved on, we find however that it doesn’t tell us that at all.
  Reporting on pay gaps
• When did bad choices become “addictions”? About the time everyone wanted an excuse for evading responsibility.  More evidence here that the bad habits people like to call “addiction” are a choice, not a disease, from “a research psychologist at McLean Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard [who] mounts a devastating assault on the brain-based model of addiction”:
  Satel on Addiction
• There was more evidence of the following thesis just this week, wasn’t there:
  Conservatives Hate Trial by Jury
• Andrew Sullivan, and many other Atlantic readers and writers I’ll be bound, gets schooled in Israel’s history by means of some scurrilous maps.
  Andrew Sullivan Revises History (Again)
• And historian Scott Powell reminds us just how big small Israel is.  No wonder the Arab World is complaining!
  No Wonder the Arabs Are So Angry!
• Meanwhile, from the Department of Good News comes this:
  CIA chief Leon Panetta says “more than half of al-Qa’ida’s top 20 commanders, and hundreds of militants, had been killed in Pakistan military operations and targeted attacks on the region over recent months.”
  Which, as Andrew Bolt observes, is “good if true.”
• Peter Schiff takes on a point-by-point fisking of Paul Krugman.  Magic.
  
  

• And in ObamaCare Week, Leonard Peikoff schools us once again on a basic fact:
  Leonard Peikoff: Health Care is Not a Right
• Paul Hsieh points out that government-run health systems—any government-run health system, not just ObamaCare—necessarily pits doctors against their Hippocratic Oath. It “places your doctor’s medical conscience directly on a collision course with government bureaucrats.”
  ObamaCare vs. the Hippocratic Oat
• Now that the Democrats’ have gone post-modern, with plans to simply “deem” Obamacare into law without even bothering to hold a vote on it, it’s clear enough, says Ed Cline, from the suicidal abuse of power that Obamacare is “not just about health care. It’s about power. It’s about tyranny. It’s about destroying America.”
  Of Tom Hanks, the “Slaughter House,“ Polar Bears, and Bronx Cheers – RULE OF REASON 
• “This whole idea of passing a bill 'without explicitly voting for it' is the greatest evasion of legislative responsibility, the most blatant expression of contempt for the public, that I have ever seen from Congress."
  Robert Tracinski: "Now It's Up to the Bear"
• “Krugman is right about one thing: this takeover is the culmination of decades of US government intervention in healthcare.”
  Reversing the takeover
• Quin Hillyer says “I told you so.”
      “[Back in 2008] I warned about how if the Obamites couldn't win under the current rules, they would just change the rules or otherwise break them. The latest idea, the "Slaughter Solution," is just one such example.”
  Didn't I Warn About Alinsky?
• Michael Hurd writes a letter to the editor:

      Under the Constitution, two houses of Congress are required to pass a bill into law so that the President may sign it. Under the Pelosi Congress, the House merely needs to “deem” a bill into law without even being concerned about the Constitution. What’s the underlying premise here, aside from a desire to institute socialism and fascism at any cost? It’s the death of rationality as applied to our government. The United States Constitution was a document whose primary purpose was to put an objective check on men through elevating objective laws above the will of any one man (or woman). That Congress and the President are even considering such a proposal as “deeming” something into law – whether they ultimately get away with it or not – shows how far our nation has tumbled from any standard of rationality and objectivity.
      “What’s at stake here is not merely politics, but philosophy. Philosophy refers to more fundamental concerns such as the nature of reality and the means by which we assess reality. Do we require facts and proof to make our claims? Or do we merely wish or “deem” to be true whatever we feel to be true? Philosophy answers these questions. And philosophy sets the terms for the kind of government we will have. Once people give in to the notion that reality is whatever anyone feels they want it to be, the way is paved for dictatorship. A philosophy based on objective reality and reason gave rise to the original American concept of freedom and individual rights; the demise of rationality means the fall of our government as we once knew it. This goes well beyond the disastrous consequences of socialized medicine. Pelosi’s law of arbitrary will is now the law of the land. The law of the land is no longer the law of objective justice; it’s the law of sheer will and power.”

• Duke Ellington’s 1927 masterpiece ‘Creole Love Call’ expresses the whole of love—from the sacred to the profane.  Only jazz can do this. Here it is sung by Priscilla Baskerville for the movie Cotton Club.
  
  
  
  
• Where did all that gold go?  Turns out China is buying its own.
  China Buys its Own Gold 
• And watch out. China has one of the world’s two big economic bubbles right now, says investor Jim Rogers. (And Rogers is always worth listening to.)
  Jim Rogers Sizes Up Two Global Bubbles
• The Krazy Economy blogger continues his basic series explaining “how the Fed works to expand bank credit, the Fed’s massive expansion of Member Reserve Deposits, and the steady decline in bank loans.”
  Good stuff to get you up to speed with what’s going on.
  Fed and the Money Supply: Details
• Some people equate warmist science with the science on evolution.  Some insist you’d have to be a moron not to believe in both (I’m looking at you, Pharyngula.)  Whereas others insist you’re going to hell if you believe in either (we’re all looking at you, Garth George.)
  Fact is,
  Evolutionary Theory and the Global Warming Hypothesis are a World (of Evidence) Apart
• Where did all that warming go?  Here’s how National Geographic presented mid-century temps before warming became fashionable. Now, of course, alleged scientists have become more adept at hiding the subsequent decline.
   How did that cooling get massaged away?
  
• You can kill off the warmist hockey stick as many times as you like, but they still show up every time a warmist meets the press.
  IPCC's John Houghton about ecofanatics: annotated version
• Perhaps this will help exterminate the thing permanently:
  Hockey Stick Illusion: “Shut-eyed Denial”
  It “deserves to win prizes” says Matt Ridley.
  The case against the hockey
• According to M. Mitchell Waldrop, editorial page editor for Nature, “global-warming deniers . . . are sowing doubts about the fundamental [climate change] science.” Further, Waldrop argues in his op-ed “Climate of Fear, “scientists’ reputations have taken a hit.” Ignore the snarky reference to “deniers” and ask: is science and are scientists under attack? The answer is Yes.
  But who’s to blame?
  What Real Scientists Do: Global Warming Science vs. Global Whining Scientists
• “The Global Warming/Climate Change charade is falling apart faster than the Democrats 2010 electoral fortunes. Falsified data, omitted relevant data, unreliable sources – the most prestigious propagators of the global warming case are beset with scandal after scandal.”
  Here are a few highlights from
  The Wreckage of the “Climate Consensus”
•     “The death rattle of the climate campaign will be deafening. It has too much political momentum and fanatical devotion to go quietly. The climate campaigners have been fond of warning of catastrophic “tipping points” for years. Well, a tipping point has indeed arrived​–just not the one the climate campaigners expected.
      “The lingering question is whether the collapse of the climate campaign is also a sign of a broader collapse in public enthusiasm for environmentalism in general. Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, two of the more thoughtful and independent-minded figures in the environmental movement, have been warning their green friends that the public has reached the point of “apocalypse fatigue.” They’ve been met with denunciations from the climate campaign enforcers for their heresy. The climate campaign has no idea that it is on the cusp of becoming as ludicrous and forlorn as the World -Esperanto Association.”
  In Denial
• I do believe I’ve found my next Screen Saver/Desktop, courtesy of Despair.Com.
  
•      “On the surface, the US economy is recovering. Well, not even. It is stabilizing… Economists who never expected trouble, reacted to it in a predictably moronic way - they rushed to the rescue with more debt…. But here's the interesting point: by failing to address the real causes of the crisis, the feds only allowed those undercurrents to grow more powerful and more dangerous.
      “Economists can't tell a government job from a private sector job...and can't tell $1 of government spending from a dollar spent by the private sector...and can't tell a dollar's worth of GDP from a dollar's worth of real prosperity...which means, they can't tell the difference between what's happening on the surface to what's happening underneath.”
  Discuss.
  Who Can Blame Consumers for Being More Ready to Spend Money?
• All the economists who either never saw the economic collapse coming or who actually helped to make it happen (these two groups overlap quite a lot, you understand) are still in there trying to “fix” what they never knew about anyway.
  They seem to think that business cycles come out of the blue, like earthquakes or cyclones.  Not so.  Not so.  They’re entirely man-made, and entirely easy to understand.
  Business Cycles, Not Our Fault
• “The question of whether we are headed into an inflationary or deflationary environment is probably one of the most important, complex and difficult questions to answer right now. For investors, getting this call right or at least thinking about the potential possibilities is absolutely crucial…So where are we? Ahhh...if only it were that easy.”
  Inflation or Deflation?
• Did someone say that China hasn’t been stimulating?
  China’s Currency Manipulation is a Form of Economic Stimulus
• More news on the GDP delusion:
  Economic recovery: don’t trust the GDP figures
• Free-riders? Who cares about them, says Yaron Brook, when “positive externalities” are so enormous.
  
  
  
  
• Amy Mossoff talks about the experience of starting an Objectivist discussion group at her place, and the selfish value to her of doing it.
      "I started thinking about this project when I realized that the most important thing I get from my friends is intellectual stimulation.  I noticed that when Adam and I have friends over – friends who share our philosophical views and take ideas seriously – the conversations we have make me feel great for days.  Sometimes I learn something new from the content of the discussion, but more often than not, the important thing is that the exercise of my mind refuels me and puts me into a more active-minded mode than I would normally be in.  After these visits, I feel charged up, energetic, and on my game.  Everything I do is more intense, and I enjoy my routine much more.”
  There’s good stuff in the comments as well.
  My New Hobby
• A few websites around the place  have just discovered what was released in Ayn Rand’s journals back in 1996: that when the twenty-two year old Rand first arrived in the US from Bolshevik Russia, she planned a novel (which she never completed) based on a cold-hearted killer.  Apparently that’s okay when you’re Truman Capote or Dostoyevsky, but not for Ayn Rand.
  Find the truth about the story here:
  Smearing Ayn: Rand, Nietzsche and the Purposeless Monster
  Rand's views on murderer William Hickman
• I’ve just finished John Lewis’ magnificent book Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History, with lessons from history from Sparta to Hiroshima; from Sherman’s burning of Atlanta to the failure of pre-war appeasement of Hitler.  Here he is talking on the lessons of that book for today.
      “With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, America has accepted a permanent, institutionalized state of siege on its own soil. But is this the correct strategy? In this lecture Dr. John Lewis examines several examples from history—including Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome—in which great nations, facing attack, have acted defensively rather than with bold offense. The results are clear: such a policy is suicidal. Rather than bracing against further attacks at home or spreading “democracy” abroad, America should destroy her enemies.
      “But this strategic lesson needs a moral foundation….”
  WATCH HERE: The Failure of the Homeland Defense: The Lessons from History [66:41 min.]
• The integrator of the whole of economics is . . . Say’s Law! (Well done there at the back.)   The estimable Steven Kates (who, as it happens, sits on Australia’s Productivity Commission) explains how Say’s Law integrates the whole of economics; and how John Maynard Keynes never even understood, let alone refuted it.  And look just how underhanded Keynes was . . .
  Watch Why Your Grandfather’s Economics Was Better Than Yours [57:00 min.]
  
  
  
• And good news: Kates’ classic book Say’s Law & the Keynesian Revolution has been re-released in paperback.  One of the best explanations around of economics’ most basic law.
  BOOK REVIEW: Say's Law and the Keynesian Revolution: How Macroeconomic Theory Lost Its Way
• Samizdata reports that “Western Australia has a population of 2.2 million people, and occupies an area of just over 2.6 million square kilometres. Just for reference, that is seven and a half times the size of Germany or alternatively ten times the size of Texas.
      “However, average house prices are amongst the highest in the world, as there is a shortage of land.”
  And wouldn’t you know it, there is: and it’s those same “smart-growth” arseholes that have made every other housing market so expensive who’ve done the same job in WA.
  It's time misguided land starvation was stopped
• Here’s a neat idea for American history buffs—or for those who’d like to be.  The project is called PatriotCast, and aims to be a “a real-time, online reenactment of the American Revolution. Or perhaps the best way to describe it would be a ‘Twit-enactment’.”
  Cool!
      “That’s right, PatriotCast will be using the increasing popular mini-blog/ social networking site as its platform to provide real-time, daily updates on the events that shaped this nation’s beginning.
      “Another way to think of it would be as if ‘Twitter’ were around during the 18th century and perhaps a large news corporation using twitter was following the politics and actions in America between the years of 1775 and 1783.
      “PatriotCast will reenact and in a way mirror those years between the years of 2010 and 2017, with tweets coming usually everyday (often multiple tweets per day) corresponding with the historical date.    The tentative start date for the Twitter feed to activate will be April 1st of 2010 which would correspond with the historical date April 1st 1775, and so on for eight years.”
  Sounds like it’s worth signing up!
  PatriotCast Project
  PatriotCast at Twitter
• Trey Givens takes on one of those difficult problems in modern manners:
  Who Pays on Guy-Guy Dates? 
• From JazzOnTheTube: Chick Corea tells the story of the great 1930s cabaret pianist Fats Waller acknowledging Art Tatum as he entered the club one night. He announced to the crowd, "I am just a piano player, but tonight God is in the house." 
  Born blind, it’s said that friends tricked him when he was a learning piano by buying a piano duet on disc and telling him it was played one-handed—which is how he went on to learn it.
  Here’s Art Tatum with ‘Willow Weep For Me.’
  
  

• And for something completely different . . . here’s Daniel Barenboim with the world’s best-known piano sonata [hat tip Lindsay Perigo]:
  
  

• And finally, a cogent thought for the weekend—and, frankly, for any other time  [hat tip Luke Setzer]:
  
  

Enjoy your weekend!
PC

PS: Don’t know about you, but I can’t wait until AFL starts next weekend.  It’s in a league of its own:

 

It’s the greatest sport in the world … even if they have to play AC bloody DC all through their bloody ads to help prove it.

Content is copyright PC.BlogSpot.Com © Please contact author for permission to republish: (organon at ihug.co.nz)

Content is copyright PC.BlogSpot.Com © Please contact author for permission to republish: (organon at ihug.co.nz)

Celebrate Human Achievement Hour!

On March 28h, 2009, between 8:30pm and 9:30pm lights around the world are supposed to go out to ‘celebrate’ Why On Earth Hour.’  That is, unless we Celebrate Human Achievement Hour instead!

As the saying goes, Exploit the Earth or Die!

Man-haters hour coming up

You are strongly encouraged to head over and read what John Ansell accurately calls Poneke’s Case For the Human Race:  “a trenchant attack on the greenwashing exercise that is Earth Hour.”  It’s magnificent. It begins:

    Earth Hour” a pathetic attempt for publicity by flat-earthers who hate everything that is good about humanity   
    “We humans are not a pestilence on this planet. We should be proud of our achievements – art and science, jet aircraft and vaccination, space travel, computers, electricity, great civilisations, the lifting from poverty of billions of people. We live in the greatest age in human history.
    “Yet, we are told daily by the media, by the flat-earthers of the “green” movement, by doom-mongers such as the high priests of the global warming industry, that we have destroyed our planet, that we are a plague on the Earth, that we must repent and beg forgiveness by some kind of mix of returning to the caves from which we came millennia ago while simultaneously paying trillions in indulgences to the Russian mafia. Forgive me Father Gaia, for I have flown.

Ansell makes the point that

    It’s good to have a clean planet, but exaggerating the problem is having an  immense cost, which ordinary New Zealand families will soon be needlessly paying.
    “Millions of Africans have already died for the green religion, as food crops are used for biofuel, causing food prices to double.
    “And the greenies have the cheek to claim their (futile) efforts to cool the planet comes at no cost to those who live on it.”

Final word to Poneke:

     At 8.30pm on Saturday March 27, we are ordered by WWF – the organisation that fabricated the IPCC’s “peer reviewed” claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 – to turn off the lights that make our nights so bright and liveable.”

Tell them to go to hell.

As the saying goes, the choice for humans is simple: Exploit the Earth or Die!