Gus Van Horn blog

A very good John Stossel piece on fracking has just come out. The piece stands out both for debunking the absurd claims environmentalists have begun making about fracking and for making apparent the anti-industrial animus of the environmentalist movement. Setting aside the validity of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, one would think, as Stossel indicates, that environmentalists would support fracking. They do not. The Stossel piece is a timely reminder that environmentalism is not fundamentally in favor of such things as clean air, but is instead against man's excercise of reason to improve his own environment. This is a point Keith Lockitch of the Ayn Rand Institute made a few years ago in a column titled, "It's not Easy Being Green." He noted then, "that whenever there is a conflict between the goals of 'preserving nature' and pursuing some actual human value, environmentalists always side with nature against man." Since any actual human goal involves us interacting with nature, it clearly follows that no matter how "green" something might look, the greens will always be able to find or invent a problem with it. See also nuclear power. -- CAV Link to Original

Statistician John Cook made an interesting observation some time back regarding certain instances of the ad hominem fallacy: "A statement isn't necessarily false because it comes from an unreliable source, though it is more likely to be false [bold in original]." Cook elaborates: Nobody knows everything, and our division-of-labor society makes the use of guesses about the knowledge level of others unavoidable. On top of that, gathering additional data takes time and effort. (This last might help explain why ad hominem attacks often succeed.) While one cannot necessarily gather additional data every time a stranger makes a point or offers unsolicited advice, one can make the most of the data he already has by attempting to see how some proposition fits in with the rest of his knowledge. Part of this is considering whether the person has offered any kind of a sound basis for, or means of checking his argument. What to do, though, when what you are hearing comes from out of the blue and is offered arbitrarily or on some patently absurd basis? Even a parrot can make sounds resembling true statements. I ignore such advice until and unless I hear it coming from another, better source. (One could say that the fact that the person indulged in the arbitrary was sufficient data regarding the person, but that the new source may offer additional data on the point he raised.) Regarding such claims, Ayn Rand put it best when she stated, "Since an arbitrary statement has no connection to man's means of knowledge or his grasp of reality, cognitively speaking such a statement must be treated as though nothing had been said." Some individuals habitually make arbitrary statements. While dismissing everything they say is not good formal logic, generally ignoring them can save enormous amounts of time and mental energy. -- CAV Link to Original

Sam Harris, in an attempt to "give you some sense of what we are up against whenever we confront religion", writes of what he calls "the fireplace delusion": I personally have no trouble with the idea that a wood fire belches out toxic smoke, but then I don't subscribe to the popular dogma, common in some circles, of "natural good, man-made bad" (as if man is somehow not a part of nature). I'd like to elaborate on an issue Harris has raised. When someone accepts something as fact on an arbitrary basis, he is pretending that certainty can be achieved without good evidence or sound argument. Hearing such a "truth" put to question will immediately put such a person on the defensive in the same way that hearing heresy will upset a religious person. Why? Because a bluff to oneself is being called and, on some deep, disturbing level, that person knows it. So far, so good, but I take issue with Harris's closing sentence (See also postscript.): If Harris is including the kind of people who bristle at any suggestion that fire smoke might be harmful as part of the "we" who are "up against" religion, he is wrong to do so. Traditional religion is just one manifestation of irrationality. Harris's fireplace cult is another. There is no room, in a fight to uphold reason, to allow anyone who permits himself to indulge in the arbitrary to masquerade as an ally. Harris's attempt to shame irrational people into shaping up will fail in most cases. While people can change, the process of evasion that predisposes some people to accept the arbitrary in the first place usually becomes so entrenched that genuine introspectionbecomes nearly impossible. The fireplace delusion strikes me as less a teachable moment and more a diagnostic tool -- a warning that the person one is dealing with is not necessarily rational. (This is not to say that initial resistance to a new idea always portends the worst: There can be other reasons a person finds an opposing view disturbing the very first time he hears it.) Harris does have a point, though I strongly suspect a bigger one than he realizes: Religion isn't the only thing an advocate of reason is up against. -- CAV P.S.: I also take issue with his assertion elsewhere in the piece that the recreational use of fire should be banned, but that is beyond the scope of this post. Link to Original

<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="1"></a><b>McArdle on the Chavez Legacy</b><br /><br />I didn't find the opening of Megan McArdle's <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/07/why-hugo-chavez-was-bad-for-venezuela.html">article</a> on Hugo Chavez's legacy to Venezuela particularly promising, but I read on anyway. I found the piece to be a good catalogue of the ways Chavez harmed Venezuela, a sort of primer for people who need to hear something other than the standard leftist line, and smears against his detractors. She includes a particularly good excerpt from another piece about how Chavez rigged elections without rigging them. Read the whole thing.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="2"></a><b>Weekend Reading</b><br /><br />"Saying what you feel before employing rational thought is like expecting to buy something for nothing." -- <b>Michael Hurd</b>, in "<a href="http://www.drhurd.com/index.php/Life-s-a-Beach/Published-Columns/Think-before-you-speak-Delaware-Wave.html">Think Before You Speak</a>", in <i>The Delaware Wave</i><br /><br />"Do you really want to be in the good graces of somebody who feels that your time and property just don't matter all that much?" -- <b>Michael Hurd</b>, in "<a href="http://www.drhurd.com/index.php/Life-s-a-Beach/Published-Columns/Your-time-is-your-property-DE-Coast-Press.html">Your Time is Your Property</a>", in <i>The Delaware Coast Press</i><br /><br />"Breaking bad laws to build a better life is not dishonorable; it is admirable, provided breaking the law involves no use of force" -- <b>Harry Binswanger</b>, in "<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/03/04/amnesty-for-illegal-immigrants-is-not-enough-they-deserve-an-apology/">Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants is not Enough, They Deserve an Apology</a>", in <i>Forbes</i><br /><br />"If we truly want to encourage innovation in the beer market, we ought to pursue ways to liberate small brewers and wholesalers rather than thwart the growth of larger breweries." -- <b>Michelle Minton</b>, in "<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/26/beer-market-needs-liberty-not-lawsuits/">Beer Market Needs Liberty, not Lawsuits</a>" at <i>The Daily Caller</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="3"></a><b>My Two Cents</b><br /><br />The Binswanger piece is the best demolition of the whole notion of "securing our borders" as an excuse for making bad laws I have ever seen.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="4"></a><b>The "Near Beer" Monopoly</b><br /><br />This beer snob was amused by an unintentional pun in the Minton piece. Near beer monopoly -- or "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_beer">near beer</a>" monopoly? (Think in terms of an <a href="http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/02/27/is-american-beer-like-sex-in-a-canoe/">old Monty Python joke about American beer</a>.) When I was young, American lager was just about the only game in town in terms of beer. I couldn't see the point in drinking it, so I wasn't a beer drinker. And then I spent a semester in Europe and had, as I put it then, "the real thing". Once I became aware of the growing presence of imports and craft brews, I became a beer customer.<br /><br />--CAV Link to Original

<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="1"></a><b>1</b>. My daughter has developed a new interest: dress-up. This started one Saturday when she found some hats in a box of clothes. She had me put one on her, and then pointed to my head and said, "Hat."<br /><br />It was suddenly crystal clear to me that I had a glaring sartorial deficiency. Needless to say, I corrected it immediately. Pretty soon, Momma Van Horn, too, was wearing a hat. Pumpkin has had me put shoes and clothes on teddy bears, too. Most recently, inspired by her mother's purchase of a box of hair ribbons, she has taken to pointing to our heads and saying, "Bow." <br /><br />Who knew that fatherhood would come with manhood initiation rites, such as your daughter basically asking, "<b>Are you man enough to wear a bow in your hair?</b>" Of course I am, much to the amusement of my father-in-law, after he heard about this. This week, he asked me over the phone, "What color ribbon did the baby make you wear today?"<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="2"></a><b>2</b>. Fatherhood also comes with numerous small moments of amazement. (When you see what not having instincts -- what having to learn <i>everything</i> -- <a href="http://gusvanhorn.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-first-fathers-day.html">means</a> on a concrete level, you gain a priceless new sense of wonder.)<br /><br />My daughter has colors down pretty well now and is <b>becoming aware of numbers</b>, or at least the idea of quantity. So far -- although she has also used the words, "one" and "three" correctly a few times -- she seems to use "two" to mean either <i>two</i> or <i>many</i>. Ask her "how many" of something there is and she'll usually say, "Two!" and sound very pleased with herself. I jokingly call two her favorite number -- and know in no uncertain terms that white is her favorite color. (She was even reaching for the white crayon first, for a while.) It is really amazing what she has figured out or picked up in less than two years of being alive and starting from scratch.<br /><br class="mceContentBody " id="tinymce" /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="3"></a><b>3</b>. One evening this week, with my wife at work very late, I was entertaining the baby and turned away for a moment to straighten out some toys. I soon felt Pumpkin climbing onto my back. She has very good coordination, so I eased myself onto all fours. She sat up well enough that I felt comfortable giving her <b>her first "Daddy-Horse" ride</b>. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="4"></a><b>4</b>. <b>My daughter has started using the phrase "Bye-bye!" to very amusing effect</b>. She sometimes uses it in the sense of "Go away!" <br /><br />Usually, this is during diaper changes, which she has grown to hate. A few years back, there had been a wave of saying, "Bye-bye" (as "BUH-bye") sarcastically, and my daughter coincidentally says it almost the same way. I sympathize with the hatred of diaper changes, but it is sometimes almost impossible not to laugh when she does this.<br /><br class="mceContentBody " id="tinymce" />-- CAV Link to Original

The leaders of a town in Georgia are demonstrating a remarkable degree of obliviousness, not to mention an astounding failure to understand what the proper purpose of government is. They are poised to make gun ownership a legal requirement. I hardly know where to begin. Our law enforcement apparatus is inadequate to stop real crime, so we're going to invent even more crimes? We're basically useless, so we're going to force everyone to do what they would have to do if there were no government at all? We're going to address the potentialproblem of someone becoming a crime victim because they didn't have the foresight to arm themselves -- by guaranteeing that their rights are violated en masse? What's wrong with crime is that the victim is harmed or forced to act against his judgment. How is this different than someone who deems (reasonably or not) owning a handgun to be unnecessary, troublesome, or expensive, being made to spend his time and money on a gun purchase he otherwise wouldn't have made? (The law also paves the way for the government to tell citizens what to do in other ways, even if, in this case, they would buy guns or already own them.) A wrong decision about gun ownership in this situation does not harm or directly threaten anyone else. The article quotes one citizen who hopes to see all Americans forced to own guns, but a voice of reason, that of Lamar Kellett, gets the last word: "This is big government at its worst. Government mandating what a free individual can and will have in his home." (I'd say improper government, rather than big government, but his objection remains on the money.) -- CAV Link to Original

Word is that Venezuela's chief kleptocrat has croaked, as an old friend would put it, and to address the issue with the proper degree of respect. By way of understatement, it is interesting to consider the scope and scale of this man's looting by considering just the off-the-books portion that he and his cronies skimmed off the top of what the state took. Nobody else is going to say this, so I will: What's wrong here isn't that these people took the money for themselves. It's that they stole at all. This goes for everything that Chavez did officially, too. As staggering as the larceny reported above is, it is nothing compared to the looting of Venezuela's economy represented by the socialization of its major industries. Chavez was not an imperfect saint or someone who chose associates badly: He was a criminal, and a remarkably destructive one at that. It's too bad that stealing something is regarded by almost everyone as moral so long as it is done by a government for the stated intention of aiding the poor. This fact will cause people the world over to fail to realize that an evil man is gone, and it will mean that his removal will not necessarily enable Venezuela to become freer and more prosperous. Indeed, all it means is that the millions who voted for him will look for a substitute until and unless his opponents fight and defeat the ethical and politicalnotions that made his ascent to power possible in the first place. -- CAV Link to Original

An article about "Green Fatigue" ends by illustrating perfectly a mistaken assumption very common among conservatives: There is no such upside if (1) people are not generally aware that there is a practical alternative to central planning or (2) people do not also regard that alternative as moral. Put another way, being poor does not deterministicallyshape someone's views on the proper role of government. (Contra the above writer's "upside", see Venezuela, and countless other nations that have freely elected redistributionist despots.) The Democrats may well succeed in annoying most of their constituency with prophecies of environmental doom, but if enough people are convinced that government programs can keep them fed and housed, that will not make a difference, since the Democrats advocate those things as well. Counting on the Democrats to screw up is foolish. People need to understand why central planning (for any purpose) is detrimental to their liberty and lives. The Democrats always have and always will helpfully provide the dots, but voters will often need help connecting them. -- CAV Link to Original

A writer calling himself "Articulate" poses an interesting question in communication, provides a couple of examples of bad solutions, and offers a better way to solve the problem. The question: "What to do when your non-technical boss is just plain wrong?" The bad solutions were exemplified by the behaviors of a programmer and his manager, who appear on the surface to be making opposite errors. First, we have Arpan, a programmer who caves in very easily at meetings: Second, we have Arpan's boss, whose tendency to fight over everything had made him something of an office pariah: Articulate correctly sees that neither of these men knows how to stand up for himself properly, and suggests a different approach, which he calls "diplomacy". I think a more cumbersome -- but also more accurate -- label is in order: helping one's manager place technical considerations in their proper context. (This would include not making the boss look like a fool in front of his subordinates by smacking him down during a meeting.) Neither of these men were doing this, each implicitly, but wrongly assuming that the value of his point was obvious. The problem Articulate addresses is the often unavoidable friction between the generalist and the specialist. How can the specialist best help the generalist see the importance of some technical detail? The generalist has a broader array of concerns than the specialist, and cannot have as good a command over the area in which the specialist is focused. He probably is not as interested in that area, either. This is where "diplomacy" comes in. Articulate is helping specialists learn how to help generalists integrate their broad interests and important issues in the area of the specialist's expertise. Normally, a boss is not going to be keen on developing an inferior product, but he needs help from his specialized subordinates to create the best product possible. Failing to stand one's ground at all, as well as doing so in an adversarial manner both deprive the boss of the feedback he is paying them to deliver. One can firmly and politely say, "You are wrong," if one knows how to do it in a way that focuses the other person on the value of being correct. This is what Articulate helps his readers learn to do. -- CAV Link to Original

1. I do most of my web browsing on Firefox, but I will have to give serious thought to making the switch to Chrome since a noisy tab indicator is in the works: Since one of the hazards of blogging in the wee hours in the room next to where my baby sleeps is waking her up, I might even test drive the build of Chrome mentioned in an update to the post linked above: It already has a preliminary version of this feature. 2. Speaking of my baby girl, we had a few inches of snow a week or so ago. Naturally, she wanted to play in it at every opportunity. To signal this, she'd walk over to the door, point to it, and say her very cute version of the word outside, which comes out something like, "Hahsh-eye", with the accent on the first syllable. 3. Miniaturization has reached a new milestone: computers you can swallow. 4. John Cook's listof geeky consulting company names is a hoot. My favorite? "Zeno Consulting: We'll get you arbitrarily close to where you want to be." -- CAV Link to Original

While the contrast is not as stark as that between East and West Berlin during the days of the iron curtain, it is still dramatic: Joel Kotkin compares the economic malaise of the left-dominated blue states with the vigor of the "red state growth corridors" in The Wall Street Journal: I am not fond of the idea that our fifty states are "laboratories of democracy" since it glosses over the fact that such "experiments" often entail some or all of the states being compared grossly violating individual rights. (And that's after we set aside the fact that the United States isn't a democracy, anyway.) That said, Kotkin's article does show the practical benefits of even relatively lower looting of businesses and meddling in the economy. While there is looting and meddling going on, we might as well salvage the lesson. -- CAV Link to Original

Daniel Lemire takes a look at an argument that leftists and conservatives like to pitch at each other when he questions whether government funding of academic research fuels economic growth. He cites several recent studies, but I find the historical evidence to be both the most interesting and the most convincing. I agree with Lemire, although, to make an ironclad case, I think he would need to delve further into causes and account for the fact that highly theoretical advances might quite frequently take some time to cause economic growth as their practical applications only slowly become evident. That is, practical application drives economic growth in the short-term, and it is quite possible that politicians and voters will take the wrong lesson, and simply misdirect research funding into areas that almost anyone can see could lead to new technology. (It may, for a time, spur some economic growth, but in terms of fostering the Next Big Advance, this is already too late!) Lemire's question also should not be asked apart from other considerations, such as the fact that central planning (either in the form of actively encouraging economic growth or of directing scientific research) is not a proper function of government. As corollaries to this fact (as well as positive feedback to the lack of economic growth Lemire sees with government-funded science), this inappropriate use of government also results in the misallocation of funds that could be used for other purposes, a lowering of standards, distortions of risk assessment, and even outright politicization of science. These things are all in addition to the violation of individual rights that both confiscation of wealth and central planning represent. Central planning, in whatever guise, is immoral and impractical. -- CAV Link to Original

Bryn Williams, who holds a doctorate in anthropology, recently wrote an interesting negative review of Jared Diamond's The World Until Yesterday, which he decries for not including footnotes. I am not an anthropologist and haven't read Diamond's book. I am in no position to tell whether this review is a hatchet job or whether a few other people, learned in areas complementary to Williams, would have the same general reactions to the book that Williams did. I would also caution that copious footnotes in a book aimed at a general audience do not guarantee rigor, although Williams does not imply that. At the very least, Diamond's choice not to document his work has left him open to the charge that he has failed to consider or address the strongest counterarguments to the various conclusions he draws. -- CAV Link to Original

Writing at Smaggle, Carly Jacobs offers a valuable insight that almost any young person in a difficult situation can use. (Come to think of it, her blog post could also serve as a gentle reminder to a reader of almost any age.) The title of the post encapsulates the lesson in a way that the kind of person who could use the advice would appreciate: "Why Hating Your Shitty Job Only Makes It Worse." She concludes an instructive anecdote about an encounter with an obviously unhappy sales assistant as follows: Offhand, I see two reasons for this perceptible change in attitude: First, when the sales assistant began focusing on his work, he stopped thinking (if only for a small part of his "lost" day) about those "thousand other things" he'd rather be doing. That is, the sales assistant stopped regretting being where he was. Second. his immediate reward for focusing on his work was an increased feeling of efficacy. In addition to these points, Jacobs brings up other, less apparent reasons for "embracing the suck" and presents the whole in a way that would engage such a person. Furthermore, by discussing someone else, she does so in a non-threatening way. I admire both the insight and the writing. Read the whole thing. -- CAV Link to Original

Medicaid Expansion Slowed Dick Morris notes that the states are reducing the reach of ObamaCare by opting not to expand their Medicaid programs: This may well be good news, but it would be a grave mistake to play into the hands of the proponents of ObamaCare by treating 100% medical insurance coverage as a legitmate goal of government. Weekend Reading "Once such unenforceable laws are on the books, there are serious negative consequences, including ... ncreasing contempt by otherwise honest citizens for the central government." -- Paul Hsieh, in "Would New Gun Laws Spark Widespread Civil Disobedience?" at PJ Media "To force or intimidate someone into 'change' will never truly change them." -- Michael Hurd, in "Crazy? Not So Fast." at The Delaware Wave "You can try to influence all you want, but in the end, it's ideas and the willingness to think that determine the actions a person will ultimately take." -- Michael Hurd, in "The A-B-C of Change" at The Delaware Coast Press My Two Cents Paul Hsieh's point about unenforceable laws eroding respect for the government applies equally well to blatantly stupid laws, such as absurdly low speed limits. All About Rooster Sauce If you enjoy Sriracha sauce as much as I do, you'll enjoy learning about the man behind the magic and the story of how his product became a household name: The article mentions a Matthew Inman Oatmeal comic about the sauce. I credit him with helping me discover this "delicious blessing flavored with the incandescent glow of a thousand dying suns." --CAV Link to Original

1. A Polish man who woke from a coma after nearly twenty years offered his countrymen the following dose of perspective a few years ago: 2. Some time back, I expressed mild exasperation that some tech companies get away with selling things like expensive adapters (that are useless with similar products made by other brands). This probably made me enjoy the crack about Apple making "the coolest adapters" in a Samsung ad lampooning iPhone lines more than most. 3. Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco made me smile a couple of times with his remarks in a Fox Sports piece. First, regarding his doubters: Second, he plans to "beat on [the owner's] desk and really put it to him" in his upcoming contract talks. 4. Ubuntu for on tablets sounds like something that could really unleash the potential that tablets have -- and cause me to finally buy one. The ad is geared towards corporate IT departments and tablet manufacturers. Nevertheless, I like the general approach of looking at tablets as simply another kind of computer, and not like magical toys or just media consumption devices. Oddly enough, I did have to correct myself from writing, "Ubuntu for tablets." -- CAV Link to Original

Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic quotes Clarence Thomas on why he publishes his legal opinions in simple language: As Friedersdorf noted in his blog post, the above quote comes from an hour-long appearance Justice Thomas made recently at Harvard Law School. I agree with him that the whole is worthwhile: I was able to listen to it yesterday afternoon while I was doing some less-than-demanding work. I particularly enjoyed Thomas describe his maternal grandfather (starting at 45:00), whom he described as one of his greatest personal heroes. Thomas keeps a bust of him in his office inscribed with one of his favorite sayings: "Old Man Can’t is dead: I helped bury him." (Thomas mentioned at another point that, while his grandfather discouraged sports, which he regarded as a waste of time, he always encouraged the young Clarence Thomas to spend time at the library.) Friedersdorf says of Thomas that, "His priorities were presumably shaped in part by his upbringing." This is true, but it verges on being a gross understatement. Thomas saw first hand during his upbringing that good, rational people are not always highly educated. His editorial policy reflects that knowledge, and in that way, it is a moving, daily tribute to a heroic man and an act of justice towards those who are like him. -- CAV Link to Original

Investor's Business Daily recently interviewed John Allison (HT: HBL) on the financial crisis. Allison, the former CEO of BB&amp;T and now the head of the Cato Institute, made it clear that it was government regulation of banking -- and not greed or deregulation -- that caused the crisis. Here is a sample: I'm glad to see the truth about this mess coming to light, especially in the form of Allison's new book on the subject, which the article mentions: The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure. (See last fall's Objective Standard for a review by Ari Armstrong.) -- CAV Link to Original

Through a Hacker News link to a post on work-life balance, I have had the good fortune to become acquainted with the thoughts of Matt Might on the subject of productivity (Search that word on the page until it comes up as a heading.). I haven't had a chance to read much of what he has written, but what I have seen so far has impressed me. Might starts off his postings at a general level and then offers more specific advice, often supplemented by further insights and advice from his readers. As an example of why I'll spend some more time at Might's blog, consider his thoughts on the subject of avoiding the kinds of artificial scarcities that can waste time and hamper productivity. Might starts off with the principle: Might soon follows with specific examples. It is worth noting that his thinking is, properly, guided by the principle as applied to a particular person's context: At the risk of sounding like I am patting myself on the back, I reached similar conclusions to Might regarding laptop power adapters, as well as staging certain things in multiple locations to save time. That said, I still had not explicitly thought of these in the more general terms of avoiding artificial scarcity. Accordingly, I had not come up with some of the applications of the principle he has. For example, his idea of keeping a small toolbox of frequently-used items, like scissors and screwdrivers on each level of a multistory home is somethng I'll implement soon. Might has, at the very least, helped me reach his level of generalization (thereby increasing the number of opportunities for me to save time) sooner than I might have otherwise. Do yourself a favor and take a look at his ideas on productivity as soon as you can. -- CAV Link to Original

Venture capitalist Chris Dixon provides us with a pretty dramatic example of the difference between setting one's own goals and falling into the default of living according to the conventional wisdom: Dixon adds, "Credentials can open doors. But don't let them become an end in themselves." Just as predictive models can fail for completely unanticipated reasons, so can success in uncharted territory arise from what almost everyone might regard as disaster. -- CAV Link to Original

Yesterday's Jobs ... Tomorrow David Harsanyi delivers the following stinging assessment of the manufacturing utopia Barack Obama promised in his State of the Union address: Harsanyi mentions elsewhere in his editorial that Obama sees wealth as a fixed quantity that increases for one individual only at the expense of another. Our President, who has never put in an honest day's work in his life, is indeed a man who utterly fails to understand the nature or value of productiveness. Clue: It is not limited to physical labor. Weekend Reading "Instead of merely tinkering with license laws to grant moderately expanded scopes of practice for non-physicians, the whole system of licensing laws should be dismantled." -- Amesh Adalja, in "Sometimes The Best Medical Care Is Provided By Those Who Aren't M.D.s" at Forbes "It is virtually impossible to get a point across to anyone who feels that you're meddling in something that's none of your business." -- Michael Hurd, in "The Magic 'C' Word for Relationships" at The Delaware Wave "Depression can also be the psychological consequence of thinking and acting in self-defeating ways -- day after day, year after year." -- Michael Hurd, in "Thoughts That Defeat Yourself" at The Delaware Coast Press My Two Cents Dr. Hurd's point about the ineffectiveness of communicating to others in a way that screams, "I'm a busybody!" is relevant not just to communications with loved ones, but also directly applies to cultural activism. The activist faces a quandary: He understands that his quality of life can suffer when others -- often aided by improper government meddling -- act in accordance with mistaken philosophical ideas. Obviously, he needs to convince anyone open to rational argument of the need to adopt correct philosophical ideas. Simply showing that his ideas are correct, although a often a formidable task, is not enough. He needs to help others see why they should consider changing their minds. A big part of doing this is showing that his self-interest and that of his audience coincide. Self-Exile in the Taiga A long article in Smithsonian Magazine gives the story of a family that escaped religious persecution by Russia's communist government by fleeing to one of the harshest imaginable places on earth. I find the story mostly fascinating, but there are also aspects that I can only term pitiful, such as when members of the family reject certain modern conveniences on religious grounds. Who needs a five-year-plan when he can concoct a deity that won't allow even a modicum of comfort or convenience? --CAV Link to Original

<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="1"></a><b>1</b>. My daughter has been fascinated by the moon ever since one night just before we left Boston: One evening, I saw a full moon and realized that, for all these books and nursery rhymes I'd been reading to her that mentioned "the moon", I'd never actually <i>shown</i> it to her! Now, our evenings often include a trip outside to see the moon, any planets that are out, and the stars. (It seems that I am not alone among parents of children my age in having a sky map installed on my phone for just this purpose.)<br /><br /><div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/H-G02cmqtZM?feature=player_detailpage" width="480" wmode="transparent"></iframe></div><br />She also loves music, so I often play CDs in the mornings I am taking care of her. Naturally, these two things led me one morning to recall the above title track from an album I bought years ago in Houston. <b>Deborah Cox starts singing "Destination Moon"</b> around the two minute mark in the news clip above.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="2"></a><b>2</b>. Continuing in an astronomical vein for a bit longer, let me recommend taking a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/03/magazine/look-stars.html">gander</a> at what <b>large cities</b> could look like <b>against the starrier backdrop</b> of the night skies of more rural areas.<br /><br /><b>3</b>. Over at <i>IP Watchdog</i> is a <a href="http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2013/02/11/all-time-best-corporate-character-mascots/id=34384/">list</a> of the <b>best corporate character mascots</b> of all time, along with brief histories of each. You'll have to scroll <i>way </i>down to see <a href="http://gusvanhorn.blogspot.com/2010/08/jimmy-carters-legacy.html">my favorite</a>, since they saved the best for last.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8839412" name="4"></a><b>4</b>. My daughter is only closing in on 20 months, but I can already appreciate the <a href="http://www.inc.com/jeff-hoffman/innovative-leadership-power-of-childlike-wonder.html">merits</a> of making an effort to <b>look at things through the eyes of a five-year-old</b>.<br /><br />-- CAV Link to Original

This morning, I came across a link to the life story so far of a North Korean man who describes himself as "a political prisoner at birth". The story sounds like something straight out of an Ayn Rand novel -- not Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead, but We the Living or Anthem. When it is not describing inhuman brutality, most of the account is very sad, like the below description of one of Shin In-kun's good days. Just try to imagine a bad day compared to this. You probably can't, which is why the article is worth reading. You may well be merely lucky not to be able to imagine this. You may want to take luck out of the equation. For example, it might be helpful to start by asking yourself, after reading the whole thing, why our leaders think they can accomplish anything by negotiating with a regime populated by figures such as the ones in this story who make such misery possible. The story of Shin In-kun's escape underscores how miserable life under a totalitarian regime can be for anyone who thinks for himself (or happens to be related to someone who does): This story appears at the web site of a Japan-based NGO I had never heard of until this morning: Life Funds for North Korean Refugees. I don't know enough about the group to endorse it, but I will say that it has done the world a great service by bringing this story to light, -- CAV Link to Original

Blogging at The Washington Post, civics teacher Valerie Strauss delivers the following damning indictment of the widespread misuse of standardized testing throughout our government-run educational system: I disagree with some aspects of her analysis. For one thing, "teaching to the test" would not be as big a deal if so many other things weren't already wrong. Nevertheless, Strauss provides a valuable, up-to-date snapshot of the state of education in America a decade after doomed Bush-era "reform" attempts. It is interesting to note that the system cheats students twice: first, by entrenching poor pedagogical methods, and second, by frustrating better teachers to the point that many quit. -- CAV Link to Original

Reader Snedcat sends me a link to an article by Henry I. Miller of the Hoover Institution about government funding of bad science. I think that the government's role in funding scientific research should be far more limited than the Miller does, but I do agree that, if the government is going to fund scientific research at all, it should at least make sure that what is being funded is science. If, for the sake of argument, we accept the premise that the government should be funding scientific research, we can see that the article offers value on several fronts. First, the piece takes a needed look at both indiscriminate critics who are too ready to condemn practically all research that receives government funding and Pollyannas who are too ready to sweep under the rug the real problem of government waste in the name of science. The former category is epitomized by Sarah Palin, who "didn't know what she didn't know" when she ridiculed fruit fly research. The latter category includes a group of congressmen who present "Golden Goose Awards" to scientists whose "valuable federally funded research project may sound funny, but [whose] purpose is no laughing matter." These politcians are guilty of a formal fallacy, asserting the consequent. Regarding any criticism of government funding of science, it is important to realize that, while the government has not yet succeeded in destroying science, it is, in fact, (and among other things) spending money that could be used more productively on things ranging from duplicated effort to pseudoscience and even fraud. Second, the piece gives several reasons why the government can't be in charge of overall scientific funding, although I think the author would call them something like "obstacles to good funding policy". (Miller, to my knowledge, doesn't advocate getting the government almost entirely out of science, as I do.) Some of these problems are cultural and educational, like the surprising degree of ignorance among the general public about such matters as the Earth revolving around the Sun each year, or what a molecule is. Others are more intractable, such as the problem of "rational ignorance": If that sounds familiar, I discussed it here (although not specifically about science) years ago, but I never had a good name for the phenomenon. Finally, the article provides examples. I'll quote my favorite, which is about what you'd expect when breeding the welfare state with the wisdom of the crowd: Miller doesn't say this, so I will: Since the government can force you to abide by its policies, even when they are wrong, to formulate policy this way would be like being accosted by someone with a gun on your way to the doctor's office for a medical consultation -- and being made to listen to (and follow!) the medical opinion of some waitress, instead. In addition to examples of bad science getting funds, Miller provides some dollar figures regarding the amount of money that the government is most obviously mis-allocating. Miller's article is quite valuable, and arguably more so than he realizes himself. -- CAV Link to Original