This is stupid.
And I say that as someone who uses only fluorescent bulbs - other than in a few places where the bulbs are on a dimmer or recessed (i.e. where the fluorescent bulbs say that should not be used, although I suppose dimmable and recessed-lighting safe fluorescent bulbs will probably soon be widelty available)* and for my Christmas decorations (I'll probably eventually switch to LEDs, after my current crop of bulbs dies out).
That is all.
*I have dimmable fluorescent bulbs for a lamp, but I don't know of any dimmable bulbs with traditional connectors.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Issues with a Co-Ed Military
Pregnancy, for one.
Yhis type of report indicates, if nothing else, that sexual integration of the military has not been as consequence-free as people would like to make it seem; which would tend to suggest that accepting open homosexuals into the military might also not be as consequence-free as its advocates claim.
That is all.
Yhis type of report indicates, if nothing else, that sexual integration of the military has not been as consequence-free as people would like to make it seem; which would tend to suggest that accepting open homosexuals into the military might also not be as consequence-free as its advocates claim.
That is all.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Tea Party Still Going
2 more hours.
Paul is at $5.2 million. Just a million more and we beat Hillary for one-day fundraising!
I donated $38.00. (On top of 4 previous donations for the 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, Guy Fawkes Day, and a small donation to get some bumper stickers totaling - let's just say well past reportable levels).
If you haven't given yet, dig deep! (You can also call 1-703-248-9115).
That is all.
Paul is at $5.2 million. Just a million more and we beat Hillary for one-day fundraising!
I donated $38.00. (On top of 4 previous donations for the 2nd quarter, 3rd quarter, Guy Fawkes Day, and a small donation to get some bumper stickers totaling - let's just say well past reportable levels).
If you haven't given yet, dig deep! (You can also call 1-703-248-9115).
That is all.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Tea Party
Dear readers:
Remember to donate to Ron Paul on Dec. 16 (Sunday) in order to help make the "Tea Party of 2007" the most successful fundraising day ever.
So far, more than 30,000 have pledged to donate $100 - if everyone of the pledgers does this, that would be $3 million.
Pledge or don't pledge, donate what you can on Sunday, either online or by phone using a credit or debit card (check donations can't be guaranteed to come in on a certain day, they are welcome, but they won't cause the same amount of buzz as a "moneybomb").
Sad to say, but I won't be able to donate too much this time around. I have had a number of bills come due and am too tapped out to give more than $10.00 or $20.00. However, I have alraedy donated enough to Paul that my donations will have to be reported to the FEC (I'll be no more specific than that), so I don't think that my asking others to donate can reasonably be seen as "do as I say, not as I do."
That is all.
Remember to donate to Ron Paul on Dec. 16 (Sunday) in order to help make the "Tea Party of 2007" the most successful fundraising day ever.
So far, more than 30,000 have pledged to donate $100 - if everyone of the pledgers does this, that would be $3 million.
Pledge or don't pledge, donate what you can on Sunday, either online or by phone using a credit or debit card (check donations can't be guaranteed to come in on a certain day, they are welcome, but they won't cause the same amount of buzz as a "moneybomb").
Sad to say, but I won't be able to donate too much this time around. I have had a number of bills come due and am too tapped out to give more than $10.00 or $20.00. However, I have alraedy donated enough to Paul that my donations will have to be reported to the FEC (I'll be no more specific than that), so I don't think that my asking others to donate can reasonably be seen as "do as I say, not as I do."
That is all.
On the Latest GOP Presidential Debate
James Wolcott:
Ron Paul, whose answers are concise, emphatic, and deviate from the establishment orthodoxy regarding the ever expanding reach of American Empire. His devotion to the Constitution has the spike of authenticity, whereas you can imagine Giuliani treating it like a Chinese menu, picking and choosing which articles he's willing to abide by.
Even leftists are impressed by Ron.
(I know I found this post of Wolcott's through a link, as I don't read him generally, but I cannot remember or retrieve the linking website, so thanx and a tip o' the hat to somebody).
That is all.
Ron Paul, whose answers are concise, emphatic, and deviate from the establishment orthodoxy regarding the ever expanding reach of American Empire. His devotion to the Constitution has the spike of authenticity, whereas you can imagine Giuliani treating it like a Chinese menu, picking and choosing which articles he's willing to abide by.
Even leftists are impressed by Ron.
(I know I found this post of Wolcott's through a link, as I don't read him generally, but I cannot remember or retrieve the linking website, so thanx and a tip o' the hat to somebody).
That is all.
Iraqi Refugees Returning - Mixed News
Refugees are returning as things get more peaceful, but some of the returns are due less to homesickness than to the increasing unfriendliness in the refugees' host countries.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings.
That is all.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings.
That is all.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Alas, We're Morons
More fun from Alas, a Blog, specifically Rachel s.:
Disclaimer: I think racial DNA tests are absurd, and are based primarily on social notions of race, not actual distinct genetic and biological human categories.
Yes, because DNA tests measure social notions, and not biology.
So apparently it has not been discovered that he has 16 times as many black-origin genes as other whites, but has 16 times as much "social notion" as other whites.
On the other hand, Steve Sailer has a good reason to be skeptical of the test results: at the individual level, these tests are less reliable than when combining the tests of a group, because there is so much more "noise" the smaller the sample size.
Too bad, I was hoping Watson might be able to reclaim the term "octoroon" for his people.
That is all.
Disclaimer: I think racial DNA tests are absurd, and are based primarily on social notions of race, not actual distinct genetic and biological human categories.
Yes, because DNA tests measure social notions, and not biology.
So apparently it has not been discovered that he has 16 times as many black-origin genes as other whites, but has 16 times as much "social notion" as other whites.
On the other hand, Steve Sailer has a good reason to be skeptical of the test results: at the individual level, these tests are less reliable than when combining the tests of a group, because there is so much more "noise" the smaller the sample size.
Too bad, I was hoping Watson might be able to reclaim the term "octoroon" for his people.
That is all.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Empirical Questions are Best Resolved through Name-Calling
Mandolin at Alas, a Blog displays typical leftism.
As usual, anyone who dissents is banned, and they continually attempt to answer scientific questions by to their holy book.
Full disclosure: I do think that there is an a gap in average intelligence between people of African and people of European heritage, and that some of that gap is genetic. On the issue of a whether or not there is a correlation between pedophilia and homosexuality, I have no position, because I have never bothered to study it in any detail and because most of the proclamations that I have heard from either side of the debate come from people who were too biased one way or the other for me to trust them without looking into the matter myself.
That is all.
As usual, anyone who dissents is banned, and they continually attempt to answer scientific questions by to their holy book.
Full disclosure: I do think that there is an a gap in average intelligence between people of African and people of European heritage, and that some of that gap is genetic. On the issue of a whether or not there is a correlation between pedophilia and homosexuality, I have no position, because I have never bothered to study it in any detail and because most of the proclamations that I have heard from either side of the debate come from people who were too biased one way or the other for me to trust them without looking into the matter myself.
That is all.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
"Progressive" DoubleThink
I have an interesting debate with some liberals about the nature of freedom and of imposition.
From his answers, it is obvious that "Tankard" either is being deliberately dishonest, or else he doesn't seem to grasp what I am arguing about. He is apparently under the impression that the issue I am arguing is whether or not embryos are people, whereas what I am arguing about is whether or not forcing a taxpayer who believs embryos are people to fund embryonic stem cell research is forcing one's beliefs on the taxpayer. My argument, it should be noted, is not based on what the basis of the belief about the embryo is, or on whether or not the belief is correct, or on whether or not the person supporting federal funding is right or wrong to do so. I am just trying to et soemone to admit that forcing a person to fund something he doesn't believe in is imposing your beliefs on him, and these people are either so obtuse or so dishonest that they cannot admit this.
That is all.
From his answers, it is obvious that "Tankard" either is being deliberately dishonest, or else he doesn't seem to grasp what I am arguing about. He is apparently under the impression that the issue I am arguing is whether or not embryos are people, whereas what I am arguing about is whether or not forcing a taxpayer who believs embryos are people to fund embryonic stem cell research is forcing one's beliefs on the taxpayer. My argument, it should be noted, is not based on what the basis of the belief about the embryo is, or on whether or not the belief is correct, or on whether or not the person supporting federal funding is right or wrong to do so. I am just trying to et soemone to admit that forcing a person to fund something he doesn't believe in is imposing your beliefs on him, and these people are either so obtuse or so dishonest that they cannot admit this.
That is all.
The Greatest Poem of All Time
Outside of the Bible, that is.
I vote for The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling.
I really think that the five words would make a great book title or book series title:
"with terror and slaughter return."
That is all.
I vote for The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling.
I really think that the five words would make a great book title or book series title:
"with terror and slaughter return."
That is all.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Ron Paul's Next "MoneyBomb"
Sunday, December 16.
As I understand it, the other reported "Ron Paul Day," Saturday, December 15 (Bill of Rights Day), is a rally, not a moneybomb, so if you want your donations concentrated on one day, for the maximum media impact, donate the next day instead.
That is all.
As I understand it, the other reported "Ron Paul Day," Saturday, December 15 (Bill of Rights Day), is a rally, not a moneybomb, so if you want your donations concentrated on one day, for the maximum media impact, donate the next day instead.
That is all.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Sorry for Absence
I was a home (w/o internet access) from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving until the Wednesday after, and on Friday (that is, yesterday, not the Friday after Thanksgiving) I had lithotripsy (they broke up kidney stone using soundwaves, what I like to call a "sonic laser"), and I am still recovering. So probably no or very light posting until sometime in the middle of next week.
That is all.
That is all.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
The Key to Ron Paul's Success
While there is a tendency for Ron Paul supportes to argue that his amazing statistics in terms of money-raised, and his recent surge in the polls (which is impressive given his initial status as a third-tier candidate) is just that he has a good message, it is, I think, more complicated than that.
The fact of the matter is, despite the de-centralized nature of the Ron Paul for President campaign (i.e. including the informal campaign, not just just the official one), it did not come out of nowhere.
The idea that Ron Paul simply spoke truth and suddenly people listened, while attractive, and not entiurely false, is not the whole picture.
Yes, Paul has good, attractive, ideas (I would argue that 90% or better of the time he has the right ideas), and that is what has attracted people to him and is the ultimate source of the enthusiasm for him. However, the idea that without any infrastructure, formal or informal, that he could have had the single biggest internet fundraising day of any candidate (or the bigges one-day fundraiser of any sort for a Republican if you count only actual donations and not pledges) is simply incorrect and, if you think about it, ludicrous.
What it comes down to is that the infrastructure for the Paul campaign has been building since at least 1999, when LewRockwell.com went online. Or perhaps even earlier in the mid-1990s when Antiwar.com was created. Or maybe in 1982 when the Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded.
The point is that for a long time, people have been working to build up a movement for Austrian economics and against foreign interventionism. This movement has slowly built up the infrastructure needed to support a movement toward freer markets, sound money, and non-interventionism abroad. We (by late 2000.early 2001 I had become one of them) already had enough infrastructure in place by 9/11/01 to be able to provide a counterbalance to the pro-statist forces that dominated the debate over the next year, and we were poised to strike at the arguments for the Iraq War and to critique the war in real time when it happened. (Not that I am happy for the Iraq War as a chance to pimp my political positions; but given that the war was going to occur, it was good that we were ready when the time came to disseminate our critiques of the policy).
Pat Buchanan's presidential runs, to some extent, and the founding of The American Conservative, came from a similar persuasion, at least on foreign policy, and wound up overlapping with much of the movement by the time TAC got off the ground. Definitely TAC is one of the more prominent publishers of paleolibertarians, and can be thought of as containing part of the extended infrastructure of the Austro-libertarian movement.
The point is, by the time that Ron Paul decided to run for the 2008 presidential election, there was already a large infrastructure (yes, I like to use that term) of supporters for the types of policies he espouses. These people were well-connected by the internet, and many of them were looking for someone to lead the movement or to run for president to try and make their ideas policy (and ultimately of course, we were/are looking for people to run for other political offices as well). To some extent, this grass-roots campaign selected PPaul as their standard-bearer and are the ones who encouraged him to run.
So what Paul has done to a large extent is tapped into the grass-roots infrastructure that already exists to support his ideas. Yes, he did this largely simply by expressing his ideas, which the grassroots agreed with. But, ultimately, were Austro-libertarians not already connected and semi-organized through the efforts of Llewellyn Rockwell, were anti-interventionist conservatives not united by The American Conservative, were both anti-interentionist libertarians not gathered by Antiwar.com, were not a thousand other similar sites up, all interconnected into a community, he could have railed all day against the Fed, the income tax, and the war and virtually no one would have noticed.
What does this prove, in the end? Well, if Paul's campaign wins the nomination, or even just does incredibly well in the process, it shows that organizing a grassroots movement around ideas, even "fringe" ideas with little following, can pay off - big time. So don't be discouraged if you fight for what you believe is right and it seems lonely. It seemed lonely for the Austro-libertarians at one time. But not anymore.
That is all.
The fact of the matter is, despite the de-centralized nature of the Ron Paul for President campaign (i.e. including the informal campaign, not just just the official one), it did not come out of nowhere.
The idea that Ron Paul simply spoke truth and suddenly people listened, while attractive, and not entiurely false, is not the whole picture.
Yes, Paul has good, attractive, ideas (I would argue that 90% or better of the time he has the right ideas), and that is what has attracted people to him and is the ultimate source of the enthusiasm for him. However, the idea that without any infrastructure, formal or informal, that he could have had the single biggest internet fundraising day of any candidate (or the bigges one-day fundraiser of any sort for a Republican if you count only actual donations and not pledges) is simply incorrect and, if you think about it, ludicrous.
What it comes down to is that the infrastructure for the Paul campaign has been building since at least 1999, when LewRockwell.com went online. Or perhaps even earlier in the mid-1990s when Antiwar.com was created. Or maybe in 1982 when the Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded.
The point is that for a long time, people have been working to build up a movement for Austrian economics and against foreign interventionism. This movement has slowly built up the infrastructure needed to support a movement toward freer markets, sound money, and non-interventionism abroad. We (by late 2000.early 2001 I had become one of them) already had enough infrastructure in place by 9/11/01 to be able to provide a counterbalance to the pro-statist forces that dominated the debate over the next year, and we were poised to strike at the arguments for the Iraq War and to critique the war in real time when it happened. (Not that I am happy for the Iraq War as a chance to pimp my political positions; but given that the war was going to occur, it was good that we were ready when the time came to disseminate our critiques of the policy).
Pat Buchanan's presidential runs, to some extent, and the founding of The American Conservative, came from a similar persuasion, at least on foreign policy, and wound up overlapping with much of the movement by the time TAC got off the ground. Definitely TAC is one of the more prominent publishers of paleolibertarians, and can be thought of as containing part of the extended infrastructure of the Austro-libertarian movement.
The point is, by the time that Ron Paul decided to run for the 2008 presidential election, there was already a large infrastructure (yes, I like to use that term) of supporters for the types of policies he espouses. These people were well-connected by the internet, and many of them were looking for someone to lead the movement or to run for president to try and make their ideas policy (and ultimately of course, we were/are looking for people to run for other political offices as well). To some extent, this grass-roots campaign selected PPaul as their standard-bearer and are the ones who encouraged him to run.
So what Paul has done to a large extent is tapped into the grass-roots infrastructure that already exists to support his ideas. Yes, he did this largely simply by expressing his ideas, which the grassroots agreed with. But, ultimately, were Austro-libertarians not already connected and semi-organized through the efforts of Llewellyn Rockwell, were anti-interventionist conservatives not united by The American Conservative, were both anti-interentionist libertarians not gathered by Antiwar.com, were not a thousand other similar sites up, all interconnected into a community, he could have railed all day against the Fed, the income tax, and the war and virtually no one would have noticed.
What does this prove, in the end? Well, if Paul's campaign wins the nomination, or even just does incredibly well in the process, it shows that organizing a grassroots movement around ideas, even "fringe" ideas with little following, can pay off - big time. So don't be discouraged if you fight for what you believe is right and it seems lonely. It seemed lonely for the Austro-libertarians at one time. But not anymore.
That is all.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Some Paul Proposals Too Good to be True?
Michael Dobbs questions the feasibility of Paul's income tax proposals.
This is a real concern. Not that I think that Paul is being dishonest, but he may have been using erroneous statistics initially and his actual budget plans may not have been formulated completely yet. However, if he does well enough in the coming weeks to become a real contender in Iowa and New Hampshire, I am confident that this type of thing will come up enough that he will become more specific.
In any case, I am still supporting Paul and have confidence that as he has more exposure his positions will, of necessity, get more polished and specific.
And none of this negates the great work he has done getting his issues (non-interventionism, sound money) a hearing that they would otherwise not get.
Added: And as some of the commenters in the thread pointed out, Paul would work toward the gradual reduction (moving toward elimination) of government health care spending and presumably a reduction of our military outside of the narrow issue of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Granted, I don't think that we could get rid of the income tax during one or even two Paul terms, unless of course we raised other taxes greatly, and I do not think that we could eliminate all income-based taxes (e.g. Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes) without some increase in our customs, tariffs, and excises, but I think that Paul would push us in the right direction.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Andrew Sullivan.
That is all.
This is a real concern. Not that I think that Paul is being dishonest, but he may have been using erroneous statistics initially and his actual budget plans may not have been formulated completely yet. However, if he does well enough in the coming weeks to become a real contender in Iowa and New Hampshire, I am confident that this type of thing will come up enough that he will become more specific.
In any case, I am still supporting Paul and have confidence that as he has more exposure his positions will, of necessity, get more polished and specific.
And none of this negates the great work he has done getting his issues (non-interventionism, sound money) a hearing that they would otherwise not get.
Added: And as some of the commenters in the thread pointed out, Paul would work toward the gradual reduction (moving toward elimination) of government health care spending and presumably a reduction of our military outside of the narrow issue of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Granted, I don't think that we could get rid of the income tax during one or even two Paul terms, unless of course we raised other taxes greatly, and I do not think that we could eliminate all income-based taxes (e.g. Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes) without some increase in our customs, tariffs, and excises, but I think that Paul would push us in the right direction.
Thanx and a tip o' the hat to Andrew Sullivan.
That is all.
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