Category: Uncategorized

What’s next, glory holes?

Peep shows are now art:

National Gallery invites ‘voyeurs’ to peek through keyhole at naked woman in bath

Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Wallinger took to Twitter to find six women, all called Diana, willing to take turns to be spied upon by the public while they sit naked in a mocked-up bathroom. The work, also called Diana, is inspired by three paintings by Titian which form the centrepiece of the exhibition and features scenes from Greek mythology.

This is obviously an indication that one of the prizes for winning the Turner Prize should be an immediate death sentence. And any artist who voluntarily applies for public funding should be taken out and shot. I’m sure someone can figure out a way to do it artistically and thereby justify federal involvement in the arts.

Seriously, even bankers and pedophiles contribute more constructively to society.

Eternal Warriors ebooks released today

I’m pleased to announce that the three Eternal Warriors ebooks are now available for purchase. The War in Heaven, The World in Shadow, and The Wrath of Angels are all priced at $2.99 for Kindle at Amazon.

If you have a Nook or Kobo, the ebooks can also be purchased in EPUB format from Barnes and Noble: War, World, and Wrath. Special thanks to Markku, who reformatted them from the original text, to JartStar, who created a new cover for Shadow and created a new typography to eliminate the dichotomy between the Rowena covers and the Pocket covers, and to the Original Cyberpunk, who actually got them out the door. Also, thanks to the eagle-eyed proofreaders, who did a much better job than Pocket’s line-editors in spotting over 100 typos across the three books. Please let me know, Jamsco, Peter, and the others who participated, if you would like copies of the final epubs. And if you can resist the temptation to send me any new discoveries for at least a week, I would appreciate that….

WND column

Who Killed Capitalism?

“For each separate calculation of the particular branches of one and the same enterprise depends exclusively on the fact that is precisely in market dealings that market prices to be taken as the bases of calculation are formed for all kinds of goods and labor employed. Where there is no free market, there is no pricing mechanism; without a pricing mechanism, there is no economic calculation.”,
– “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,” Ludwig von Mises, 1920

Ludwig von Mises conceptually destroyed socialism in his famous paper titled, “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth.” He did so by pointing out the central importance of prices to economic activity, which, as Adam Smith famously demonstrated, were the means by which market supply intersected with market demand. Due to the way it eliminated the natural operations of supply and demand, socialism necessarily precluded the production of price information, and thereby rendered the economic calculations required to make decisions about how many goods to produce or what price they should be sold totally inoperable.

Scientists are still stupid

It is truly remarkable how few supposedly intelligent science majors intending to pursue doctoral degrees and careers in science understand the concept of supply and demand or the significance of price information:

Michelle Amaral wanted to be a brain scientist to help cure diseases. She planned a traditional academic science career: PhD, university professorship and, eventually, her own lab.

But three years after earning a doctorate in neuroscience, she gave up trying to find a permanent job in her field. Dropping her dream, she took an administrative position at her university, experiencing firsthand an economic reality that, at first look, is counterintuitive: There are too many laboratory scientists for too few jobs.

That reality runs counter to messages sent by President Obama and the National Science Foundation and other influential groups, who in recent years have called for U.S. universities to churn out more scientists. Obama has made science education a priority, launching a White House science fair to get young people interested in the field.

The ironic thing is that many scientists and science students simultaneously complain about science pay being too low while calling for more science education. So, not only are they ignoring the information being provided by the price – the low pay signifies that there are too many scientists – but they are actually seeking to make the problem worse by increasing the already glutted supply!

Forget permitting these clueless wonders to run society as per the scientific technocracy of their utopian dreams, I find it astounding that we even let them vote. As for the politicians, we already know they don’t grasp the link between price and supply or they wouldn’t be so intent on immigration amnesty, among other things.

Landmark tennis

I’m not a big tennis fan, but I used to play it competitively when I was young before I switched to track, so with the exception of the exceedingly boring Sampras era, I’ve always enjoyed Wimbledon. It’s both amusing and a little sad to watch the British coverage of the Murray-Federer final. Murray is a good player, and he’s playing his heart out, but I just don’t think he’s good enough to beat the Swiss master. They’re on a rain delay now while they put the roof up and they’re even at one set apiece, but I don’t see how Murray wins this.

Federer has already committed more unforced errors than he usually does in a match, but Murray has needed all of them just to stay even. Federer has also had Murray running all around the court and right before the delay it looked as if Murray was running out of steam. While the delay has given Murray a much-needed break, I’d be surprised to see him take another set, much less win the match. He’s playing well, but I think he’s already blown too many set points to take very seriously.

AD arrested

And suddenly, a certain NWA song starts going through my mind….

A source with knowledge of the situation tells PFT that the incident culminating in Peterson’s arrest was captured by one or more surveillance cameras. Multiple persons also witnessed the event.

According to the source, Peterson, his girlfriend, and some family members were at a nightclub in Houston. At closing time, a group of police officers entered the club, and they began instructing the remaining patrons to leave.

Peterson wanted to get some water before he left, but an officer told Peterson that he needed to leave. Some words apparently were exchanged, but Peterson eventually walked to the exit with one of the club’s bouncers.

It’s believed that one of the officers then jumped on Peterson’s back from behind and tried to take him down. (Key word: “tried.”) Other officers then joined the fray and completed the arrest.

Now, it’s remotely possible that AD was drunk or acting belligerent, but that’s entirely out of keeping with his personality and his reputation. And considering we know what cowardly bullies most policemen are, I won’t be surprised if AD isn’t ever charged.

Does this mean we can cancel the Olympics?

In which the fundamentally fraudulent nature of the Olympic Games is revealed:

In what some might consider a predictable incident, the Olympic flame was extinguished today as the torch relay took to the water on a raft through the canoe slalom venue in Essex. Day 50 was a difficult one for the torch relay, after a crash between two motorcycles earlier forced a delay and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s turn carrying the flame was marred by pouring rain. In the first setback for the day, the torch convoy was held up for 20 minutes after two motorbike riders collided near Chelmsford around 7.40am,and had to be rushed to hospital with suspected broken bones….

It isn’t the first time the Olympic flame has gone out as it makes its way through the UK. Back on May 21, just three days into the relay, the flame on a torch attached to para-badminton star David Follett’s wheelchair burned out while in Devon. In another early hitch to proceedings, the flame was blown out by a gust of wind as it was being lit for the first time in Greece. It had to be relit before being handed to a torchbearer.

Symbols and traditions are important and worthy of respect, but the Olympic symbolism is simply fake through and through. It’s a pity the torch isn’t genuinely some sort of augury, or we could hope that the games would be cancelled as a result of all these bad omens.

Girls are crazy, patriarchy blamed

This series of “school poisonings” would appear to be a cogent and ironic argument in favor of the Taliban’s position:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) working with the Afghan government has investigated attacks for more than three years but found “no conclusive evidence of deliberate poisoning”.

Thousands of girls have been taken ill at schools in that time, in incidents of mass fainting and vomiting. Pressure has mounted on Hamid Karzai’s government to stop the apparent attacks as their frequency has increased in recent months. Pictures of girls being carried to ambulances, or hooked up to drips in provincial hospitals, have become an increasingly common sight. The symptoms are always short-lived.

The incidents have been widely interpreted as a campaign by the Taliban or other insurgent hardliners to crackdown on girls’ education.

In other words, the Taliban had nothing to do with what is simply an example of mass female hysteria. I’m sure this incident has gone a long way towards hardening the position of the hardliners. They’re already highly skeptical of democracy and female education, can you imagine what this does to their opinion of female suffrage?

“Let’s see, they’re blaming us for stuff we said we didn’t do even though we quite happily take credit for beheading people and blowing them up, and these girls are all quite literally crazy, so yeah, let’s definitely give them a voice in government!”

The amazing thing about feminism is that it regularly makes 7th century cretins look sane by comparison.

FreeFascistThoughtBlogs

The funniest thing about all of this isn’t the irony that FreeThoughtBlogs doesn’t support actual free thought. For all that atheists have attempted, with some success, to steal the concept, joch sint iedoch gedanke frî was, in fact, not only a Christian concept but a Catholic one. But the atheist “freethinker” supports genuine freedom of thought about as sincerely as the American liberal supports genuine liberalism. What is actually funny is the idea that despite all of the copious evidence readily available on the Internet, there are still a few people who believe that PZ Myers has any integrity at all, academic or otherwise.

And what was his thoughtcrime? Pointing out that Skepchick is a lunatic and that hundreds of atheists are not, in fact, attempting to rape her every time she attends an atheist conference. Or something to that effect, I couldn’t care less. But I stand corrected. The funniest part of this kerfluffle, at least so far, is when Thunderfoot not only succinctly describes PZ’s customary method of argument, but actually expresses surprise at it.

1. The pointless use of invective.
2. The extensive use of strawmen.
3. The lack of any actual attempt to engage with the argument made.

Needless to say, longtime readers know that I’ve been pointing this sort of thing out ever since I was under the impression that PZ was a girl bitching about my WND columns. He’s always been a liar, he’s always been an inept polemicist, and it’s simply astonishing how long it has taken many atheists to realize this.

It’s also informative to read the shamelessly dishonest attempts of the Pharyngulans to defend PZ while completely missing the point. Of course FreeThoughtBlogs has the right to police the content being posted by its bloggers. That’s not the problem, the problem is that PZ promised that he would not do that. And then he did precisely what he promised he would not do. Which is what makes him a liar and is the reason this Thunderfoot is correctly accusing him of lacking integrity.

Mailvox: I couldn’t possibly say

JH makes a prediction:

Vox,

I know you love predictions, so I will predict that your views will more and more trend with Wilhelm Roepke over the coming years. While you got me started down the Austrian path years ago with the Mises AGD book study, the moralist and idealist (and perhaps wishful thinker) in me settled on Roepke. I have read a couple of his books, but I like the essay linked here, and it shares many of your recent themes:

Freedom, in other words, means being less dependent on the highly unstable modern economy as much as it does being less dependent on government. This is the point missed by many conservatives: they fail to see that decentralizing the economy is as vital as decentralizing the govern­ment. Dependency is indivisi­ble: dependency on an unstable market naturally leads to dependency on government when market difficulties arise (e.g., from the downside of the business cycle). Government is sought as a substitute, not simply for the market but more specifically for stability.

and

Roepke acknowledges that because the pursuit of self-interest does not always lead to harmony government intervention in the econo­my is sometimes needed. Here Roepke makes the important contribution of distinguishing between “compatible” and “incompatible” interventions. The former intervenes in the market in such a way as not to freeze the price mechanism and thus allows the forces of the market to adjust to the intervention. A protective tariff would be one example of such an intervention.

and

Roepke is not opposed to all forms of technical innovation. What he bemoans, however, is the indis­criminate application of these same tech­niques where they are inappropriate (as in agriculture) or where the social costs outweigh the immediate econom­ic benefits.

and finally

But Roepke is not a “dogmatic democratist,” recog­nizing not only that democracies have their weaknesses but can sometimes be the most despotic form of govern­ment. More important than the particu­lar form of government and narrow consideration of political rules is the (meta-governmental) spirit which informs and controls it. That spirit must be liberal in the properly understood sense. There is a distinction between a liberal order and its opposite, “collectivism.” The latter is the tendency to destroy those healthy forms of society and government identified above. It must recognize the proper spheres and limits of government, of the economy, and other institutions. It is entirely possible, and there are historical examples of this, for a government to be “democratic” but not “liberal.” … The opposite of collectivism is not democracy …

Me: Is it “pie in the sky” thinking to envision a hierarchical society where people have a sense of common purpose, have a physical connection to the land and production of their food, work in small to medium sized businesses producing high-quality or innovative items that fuel not just the spirit of consumption and competition but the (entrepreneurial) spirit of creativity and pride also? Sure, especially in our “multicultural wonderland,” as you (validly but too often) like to point out. But still, I like Roepke’s nuance, passion, conviction, and clarity. And as the cliche goes, you can’t hit a goal/target that you can’t see, Roepke’s vision of a “third way” would serve as a good goal.

Back to my prediction – I have seen you back off or fight the hard line libertarian dogma when you see its faults because you are great at reason and logic, and not wedded to ideology but right/wrong. As fragile as Roepke’s vision is, it seems to agree with you, albeit it may be too “nice” and “pretty” for you. 😉

I don’t know, since I’ve never actually read Roepke, although I remember Congressman McCotter speaking well of his ideas when I interviewed him the first time. But one thing that some people have a tough time grasping is that the libertarian goal of maximizing human liberty not only doesn’t necessarily mean embracing the principles of the American Libertarian Party, but also does not mean maximizing the permissible range of human behavior.

This concept should not be difficult if you understand that maximum tax revenues do not usually coincide with maximal tax rates. In the same way, maximal human liberty is unlikely to coincide with a complete absence of law… even though we acknowledge that the law, as it exists in the USA and most other states, is a transparent fiction to which the elite no longer even pretend to subscribe.