Sep 29, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
A new quarterly journal -- The Objective Standard -- has been launched, with the following announcement:
The Objective Standard is a quarterly journal of culture and politics written from the perspective that man's life on earth is the proper standard of morality. According to this principle, that which supports or promotes an individual's life is good, that which retards or destroys it is evil. The purpose of the journal is to analyze and evaluate ideas, trends, events, and policies with respect to this standard.
The Objective Standard provides a rational, principled alternative to the ideas of both liberalism and conservatism. Whereas liberals hold that morality is subjective (i.e., feeling-based), that majority opinion is the standard of value, that sacrifice for the common good is noble, and that rights are social conventions; and whereas conservatives hold that morality is grounded in religion (i.e., faith-based), that God's will is the standard of value, that sacrifice in obedience to His commands is good, and that rights are divine decrees; we hold that morality is grounded in the objective requirements of human life (i.e., reason-based), that man's life is the standard of value, that the selfish pursuit of one's life-serving goals is good, and that individual rights are moral principles defining the basic requirements of a civilized society. Ours is a philosophy of reason, egoism, and laissez-faire capitalism. In a word, we advocate Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and we apply this philosophy to the cultural and political issues of the day.
Contributing writers include Craig Biddle, Yaron Brook, Alex Epstein, Elan Journo, John Lewis, Keith Lockitch, Larry Salzman, and Lisa VanDamme.
Sep 28, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
Imagine and visualize yourself as your psychological ideal. Then strive to live up to that ideal each day, but don't expect to be there all at once. Build that ideal one brick at a time, with the confidence that as you get better and better and the motivation goes up, you'll speed up and pile on many bricks at one time.Sep 27, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
I saw a bumper sticker the other day. It read something like, "The Proud Parent of an Autistic Child." The word AUTISTIC was in all caps.
I have to be honest here. Is it any more rational to be proud of the fact that your child is autistic than it is to be ashamed? As I understand it, autism is an inherited condition. It's nobody's fault, and nobody created the condition on purpose. So why be proud of it? Pride, like shame, applies to something that you chose, or allowed to happen, or are in some way responsible for.
The deeper problem here is political correctness. We've gone from a society dominated by individuals who hide in shame from things they shouldn't be ashamed of, to a society consisting of people who exclaim with pride their various conditions and neuroses. I don't like this sort of cultural attitude any more than the one that preceded it.Sep 26, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From Reporters Without Borders:
Reporters Without Borders voiced deep shock today at the public beating which pro-government paramilitaries gave Guillermo Fariñas, the editor of the independent Cubanacán Press agency, in the central city of Santa Clara on 16 September after he took part in a protest against the arrest of a dissident. "This extremely violent attack on Fariñas shows that Cuban independent journalists are not just under threat from the government but also from ultra-revolutionaries, who in this case vented their anger on Fariñas as the political police looked on," the press freedom organisation said. The attack came after Fariñas and some 15 other government opponents demonstrated outside a police station to demand the release of Noelia Pedraza Jiménez, a fellow dissident who had just been arrested. About 100 paramilitaries watched the demonstration.After announcing to the demonstrators that Pedraza would shortly be released pending trial, Vladimir Méndez Mauad, a captain with the state security department, offered to drive Fariña home as he currently has to use crutches because of a disability and, until recently, had to use a wheelchair. However, as Fariñas left the police station, a police officer warned him that whatever happened to him outside at the hands of the paramilitaries "will be your problem."
According to Fariñas, the approximately 60 paramilitaries armed with clubs who were still outside then challenged him, asking him if he had the courage to repeat to them what he had said on Radio Martí (the Miami-based Cuban exile radio station). Kneeling and with his hands behind his head, Fariñas replied : "Why do you listen to Radio Martí if you are revolutionaries ?" After Fariñas refused to say, "Long live Fidel Castro," they began to insult him and hit him with their clubs until one of them call a halt, fearing that they would kill him in public. Political instructors with the ruling Communist Party of Cuba then drove him to a deserted spot 23 km outside the city and dumped him there. Fariñas told Reporters Without Borders his arms and hands are so swollen from the beating that he can no longer write or use a computer keyboard. He added that he thought he was now top of the list of people to be arrested in "the next crackdown."
Sep 23, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
You can view an online video or a transcript of Andrew Bernstein (author of the Capitalist Mainfesto) on the Abrams Report on the moral and practical reasons against price controls on gasoline during an emergency (Hat Tip: Jim Woods).
"One is the moral point and that is if somebody owns property that I don't own, they have a right to ask any price for what they want just as I have the right to refuse that price. Also, the practical point is that on a free market when the price rises, what that does is enables the producer to make more profit giving them more motivation... to increase the supply."--Andrew Bernstein
Also worth reading: "Price Gouging" in Florida by Thomas Sowell which talks about why prices should rise during hurricanes if the market demands it.Sep 22, 2005 | Dollars & Crosses
From a Space.com news item on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft:
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft has spotted new gullies and a fresh crater – in astronomical terms – etched into the red planet's surface, mission scientists said Tuesday. Now in its eighth year in orbit around Mars, the MGS spacecraft found the new gullies cutting through a sand dune, as well as numerous other signs that the planet is far from a static, unchanging world. "[The gullies] are probably not the result of water action on the sand dune," said Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera aboard MGS, during teleconference with reporters. "What we think is going on here is that carbon dioxide snow has been incorporated into the sand dune." As the snow melts and evaporates into gas, it allows the sand around it to fluidize and run down the dune slope, Malin added.
[..] The spacecraft also observed a gradual evaporation of carbon dioxide ice in one of Mars' polar caps, pointing to a slowly changing Mars climate. "They way these polar pits are retreating is absolutely astounding," Mustard said. But like the rockfalls, researchers were unable to account for the gradual climate change. "Why is Mars warmer today that it was in the past, we really have no way of knowing why," Malin said. ["Mars Probe Finds New Gullies, Crater at Red Planet"]
Could this be global warming caused by the Martians use of man-made fossil fuels?
Comments blogger Ewan Coley at Brain Terminal:
Let's see:- Earth getting warmer.
- Mars getting warmer.
- Increased solar activity.
Gotta be those fossil fuels.
