agrippa1

I should have made that the Nobush Piece Prize for Paris and Roman.

Maybe they should change the name to the Nobush Peace Prize. on edit: Though if they do that, next year it'll go to either Paris Hilton or... (wait for it...) Roman Polanski (...rim shot...) (oops!)

I find it continually amazing, and frankly frustrating, that in the context of what is going on in America, i.e., the precipitous collapse into socialist totalitarianism predicted continuously by Ayn Rand throughout her final two decades, Objectivists would be stuck in the mud again, arguing about the religious views of one of the major media's staunchest defenders of capitalism and individual freedom. Even Rand, while recognizing the extreme shortfalls of the yes, religious, Right, recognized them as the best chance against the far greater evil of socialist and yes, atheistic Left. One does not rationally take from that that she supported religion; that she was "appeasing," to continue the misuse of that term, the "Religious" Right. How much more clear examples must one see than the communist, explicitly atheist Soviet Union of the mid 20th century, and the capitalist, explicitly religious United States of the same era, to recognize that religious belief is a non-essential in the major philosophical struggle of our time? If we get to a capitalist, individualist society, then, by all means, let's make the case against religion and mysticism. But for God's sake (snicker), can we agree that the one, single, blazing issue of free market capitalism v. centrally-controlled socialism is a dividing line by which we can rationally align ourselves for the coming philosophical conflict? Beck has done more than anyone else in the major media to expose the extreme communist connections (see the firing of Van Jones), corrupt collectivist affiliates (see the firing of ACORN), and outright totalitarian actions (see the firing of Yosi Sargent) of the Obama Administration. Each of these stories might have been confused with paranoia, until the subjects were fired. As they say, you're only paranoid if you're wrong, and so far, Beck's been right on a lot of issues that no one else had the, uh, paranoid delusions (?) to take on. BTW, this defense of Beck is not a defense of his religious beliefs. It is a defense of his effectiveness in combating the widely unseen trend towards totalitarianism, perpetrated by both parties (and, yes, he does go after both, for those who get their Beck exposure in 0:34 Youtube snippets.), but especially and explicitly by this Administration.

What I want to know is why Oppenheimer never received the Nobel Prize for Peace. No, not Robert. Jess Oppenheimer. You know, Jess Oppenheimer, producer of I Love Lucy, and renowned inventor.

He's a regular columnist at theatlasphere.com.

Not so fast... This is pattern recognition, with the impressive addition of pattern generation. A new object is observed, the robot captures views of it to create a new pattern. It stores several views of the object, perhaps even generates and stores a 3-D model of the object. When it is shown the same object later, it compares views of that object to stored views using cross-correlation algorithms. When it registers a spike - meaning, when it finds a view in its memory that correlates closely with the current view - it "recognizes" that object. On a very basic level, this is done by normalizing the histogram of the objects being compared - scaling them and centering their pixel values at zero. Then each pixel of the seen object is multiplied by the pixel in the stored object and all pixel products are summed. If a pixel correlates in both objects, it will have either a positive value in both or a negative value. Multiplying them together gives a positive value if they're correlated, a negative value if they're not. If a large number of pixels are correlated, then the output of the algorithm produces a positive sum "spike." This can be done iteratively starting at a low resolution to choose the views the compare, but you get the idea. If the robot can produce distance vectors using stereoscopic vision algorithms, then the distances, rather than pixel values, can be correlated, but the idea is the same. The chair trick is completely subjective and obviously rigged to produce the desired result. The robot sees a wooden chair and later associates it with a backless stool. Would you have made the same "conceptual" connection between the two, given that no one ever sat in either object? If he had brought out a small end table, would the robot have dismissed it, or connected it based on size and height of the horizontal plane? How about a short table lamp with a picture frame balanced on top? I've seen enough demos to know that they are invariably rigged ... optimized, to the specific objects or scenarios given. Had the observer been invited to bring his own object, would the robot have succeeded? Had he held the toy upside down the second time would the robot have succeeded? If he had held it up in front of a mirror? etc. What we are seeing here is not the recognition of an entity, an identification of that entity or an integration of two different entities based on common characteristics. We are seeing simple pattern correlation algorithms based on hard-coded rules, possibly in 3-D, definitely adjusted for size. It's a step, possibly, in the right direction. Very impressive, but not necessarily a quantum leap over target recognition capabilities that have been around for at least a couple of decades.

Unionism falls apart when you take away the coercive element. Your example of understanding safety issues might have held true in the past, but information technology makes it simple to get the word out widely on safety risks involved with industries and particular workplaces. OSHA would be replaced by safejob.org, or some other organization providing this info for fee (I made that up, but it happens to be a site that does something similar today, though publicly funded). The bargaining to alleviate some elements of danger would take place at wage negotiations, where the individual would weigh the risk against the benefits and require higher pay for more dangerous jobs. The employer would weigh the higher cost of labor against the cost of eliminating dangers and choose accordingly. As long as the dangers are well understood and communicated, this is the most efficient way to make those decisions. If the employer hides risks from employees, then he is committing fraud. Once discovered, the legal system can extract compensation after the fact. As SN points out, the only time that unions can have any effect, without coercion, is when the higher value workers are willing to sacrifice some of their benefit to lower value workers. The effect would be similar if those high-value workers simply gave some of their wages to low-value workers. The difference is that with unionism, high-value workers become average-value workers when their wages are limited to the average, and overall productivity, profitability, employment and wealth are all reduced for all levels of worker.

You have heard of the FCC, right? And you've heard of truancy laws, too, right? So if the government has control over the content of broadcasts over public airwaves, and the mandatory attendance of children in public schools, where exactly does that leave your argument? The floating abstractions listed in this passage aren't picked out of thin air. Each of them represents a specific area of Obama's radical ideology. What does "fighting poverty" mean to Obama the communist, other than taking wealth from the producers by force, and spreading (some of) it around to those who produce nothing? What does "fighting homelessness" mean to Obama the ACORN activist, other than strong-arming banks into giving home loans to the unqualified under the auspices of the Community Reinvestment Act? What does "making our nation more fair" mean to Obama the "social justice" champion other than putting people at the front or back of all lines based primarily on the color of their skin? What does "making our nation more free" mean to Obama the black liberation theologist, other than taking wealth and opportunity from whites guilty (or not) of historical slavery and giving it as reparations to the blacks descended (or not) from slaves? If someone delivers poison to your kids, you don't defend him by pointing out the wholesome food and drink in which he secreted the poison.

Okay, I can see that any argument I make here would have to evade the profit motive. Clearly a rational property owner would do the "best" thing with the water, in order to maximize value, far better than a gov't planner would do. I assume that you draw a line at contaminating what water you do let flow downstream?

Is this a Turing Test???

I'm speaking of more than the area covered by the new lake. All owners of property through which the river runs will be impacted in some way by the building of the dam. Those downstream will see a reduction in water flow (the Colorado disappeared for six years while Lake Mead was filling), and end to land-enriching silt, disruption of fishing, etc. If their land loses value due to the building of your dam, you have taken value from them, just as surely as if you dumped poisonous waste into the water. We are talking property owners, here, right? So it's not a person who likes to fish at a (presumably public?) spot, but an owner of a portion of the river where fish are plentiful. If your dam has the potential to reduce the value of his land, do you have a responsibility to compensate him? and - how much? No, but he does have the right to be protected against the actions of other men, whether or not the consequences of those actions are intended. If you built a dam that later collapsed and washed my belongings down the river, that is not an unexpected action of nature, that is the failure of a man-made construction. That's not gaming; that's letting supply and demand of a widely available resource (homes) set the price for that particular home. The buyers are setting a price for the home in relation to all other suitable, available homes. On the other hand, a holdout holds a legal monopoly on the supply of lake land, and can charge whatever he wants. No one can offer the same piece of land at a lower price to break his monopoly, as other homeowners can and do, in your scenario. By gaming the system I mean holding out for a price far above the value of the land to him, or the amount for which he would gladly move out. Knowing that he is the last holdout, that an enormous amount of money has already been invested in the dam, and that if he were to refuse to sell, the dam-builder would incur a huge loss, the holdout holds out for far more than the land is worth to him. The value to the dam-builder of that particular parcel is not so great, until it becomes a linchpin to the entire project. There are ways around this for the dam-builder, for instance by securing a legal option to buy before he starts investing in the project, but that just mitigates, and moves the same scenario up to a point before the dam-builder starts investing. - i.e., the "holdout" could be the last one to sign an option to buy. Remember, I'm not arguing against a man's right to game the system, I'm arguing that the potential for holdouts makes it difficult if not impossible to project the actual cost of building the dam. Without that cost to estimate his ROI, a rational man will not move ahead with the project. Probably still lowering your electric bills, though. Now, one last set of questions. Assuming you've bought the land and built the dam, do you own the water now, since it's on your land? Do you have the right to divert some or all of it, now that you've raised the water level to a point where you can reach laterally with aquaducts to buyers on adjacent land, or even to an adjacent river system that is willing to pay for "your" water? Do you have the right then to put "your" water up for the highest bidder, and divert it or split it to maximize your profit? If so, do I have the right to purchase a narrow tract of land adjacent to your lake, including a parcel around the river just upstream from your dam, and divert the river onto my property to bypass your dam? Is private ownership of the river what we are aiming for, in a perfect society? Or is water a legitimate shared resource? (edit: typo)

Pedantry.

My least favorite antonym for judgment is "nullification." Thanks, OJ. Apathy implies a passive lack of consideration for an issue. Evasion implies an active unwillingness to even consider the issue to be judged. Equivocation implies inability to come to a judgment as an issue is considered. Tergiversation implies inability to stand firmly on a (single) judgment of an issue. (Merci, Roget) on edit: I believe "forbearance" implies a considered decision not to offer a judgment. It does not necessarily imply the lack of judgment. OFE: I believe each of these addresses a different facet of what we consider the process of judgment: Concern, consideration, decision, articulation, and persistence.

How do you determine which property owners are impacted by such a construction? The Grand Coulee Dam extinguished salmon spawning in the upper reaches of the Columbia, to the estimated tune of 1,000,000 fish a year. I'm not a salmon expert, but if this impacted open water fishermen, would you have to buy their consent as well? How do you deal with unintended consequences, such as an heretofore-unknown eco-system link, broken by the dam, that extinguishes crops or animals in nearby properties? Will you be forced to compensate those landowners impacted, or would their ignorance (or yours?) of the impact shield you? Would you be forced to do due diligence (essentially the EPA's job) prior to determining the list of impacted property owners? How far out do you need to determine the impacts of a huge development like a dam? The Columbia is over 1200 miles long and FDR lake covers 125 square miles of previously lush forest area. That's a lot of property to canvass, and a lot of hypothetical guesswork on local impacts. How do you prevent the final holdouts from gaming the system to extract a large fraction of the dam's ROI in payment for their last remaining parcels of land? This is where I see the prospect of private development of shared resources blow up. A dam is a huge undertaking requiring significant resources just to determine feasibility. If the risks of the above occurring are too great, and if the payoff isn't large enough to justify the gamble, then the project would end before it began. I'm not arguing here that the government building a dam is necessarily a good thing, just that it might not be feasible without government coercion. That leaves us (me) with the question of whether we are better off with or without those dams. The lives and property saved from occasional flooding is a strong argument supporting the building of dams. Is it strong enough to justify the government's coercive role, assuming the dam would have been improbable through private funding? on edit: My inclination is that large dams would be unfeasible because of the tremendous impacts and risks, but that scaling down to a series of smaller dams, with appropriate protection of water-borne resources (e.g., fish) could be feasible for private development. If a series of dams shared the load normally taken by a single large dam, they could provide the same benefit at a more manageable scale, and the replacement of dams as technology increased (e.g., hydroelectric technology) would make them more efficient over the long run.

So I visited the Hoover Dam last week and I'm in the dark on how O'ism would approach building a dam. First, a river is a shared resource, flowing through many properties from fountainhead to sea. It brings benefits to each property, but also costs, including occasional floods. O'ism, I believe, states that an individual property owner does not have the right to do with the water flowing through his property as he wishes - he is limited by consideration of damage to those downstream and upstream (correct me if I got this wrong). So how do you go about building a dam on your property? Do you not have to consider the potential damage done to those down/upstream, including elimination of yearly field silt from floods, potential devastation from the dam busting, interference with fish migration, upstream flooding of land, etc. Do you need permission from all others sharing the river? Can one holdout keep you from building the dam? It seems that in the absence of unanimous consent, you would never be able to dam a river, and that a government would be the only way to get a dam built. (by allowing the use of force - i.e., the costs incurred - against the holdouts) Would O'ism hold against building a dam, even if all but one resource-user wants it built? Or would you just build the dam and pay back the adjudicated "loss" to the holdout?

Christianity does not specifically oppose abortion, unless you wish to make the claim that the central governing body of less than a third of American Christians programs the opinions of all. Christianity in the U.S. is primarily Protestantism. Think for just a few seconds about what that term means, and what it tells you about the fundamental difference between modern Christianity, historical Christianity, and Islam past and present. Context is an important thing. You are using the present tense here. Is that a typo? Christianity apparently gave us everything bad done by Christians, but nothing good done by Christians. Or am I missing something? "Christian apostasy has long been a crime" ????? Where "has it long been a crime?" In the US? In what country are Christians stoned or decapitated or shot for turning away from Christianity? Tell me you are not conflating the entire history of the adherents of a religion into the reality of current adherents. The act of a lone person is "exactly the same" as the policies of the accepted leadership of a group (and therefore of the group)? because the "causes are the same?" So if an atheist goes out and kills a Christian because he has delusions that Christians are somehow a threat to him, that makes atheism "exactly the same" as Islam and Christianity? Wow. Here's your evidence: Muslim is Arabic for "one who submits" which is a hell of a lot more PC translation than "slave." One who submits takes orders from those to whom he submits. Read the koran and try to distill the essence of Islam ("submission" in arabic). It is submission to the will of God, through submission to the will of Muhammed, through submission to the will of the clerics, through submission to the will of Imams, through submission to the husband, for instance. Sound familiar? That's a classic fascist hierarchy, with disobedience commonly punishable by death, and always by force. Apostasy is commonly and openly punishable by death, as supported by mainstream Islamic leaders in the Middle East. This isn't a chapter in a history book, this is what Islam is. Today. This is what Muslims everywhere, if they are what they claim to be, i.e. followers of the teachings of Muhammed, believe. If Islam did want to take over the world (just... hypothetically), would it serve their purpose to demonstrate loudly for the forced enslavement of all Americans? Or do you think that might tip their hand and wake up Americans to what they really wanted. Muslims don't need to do anything but be in a nation for their leaders to gain gradual control of that nation. It is a gradual process, not of wholesale demographic shifting, but of pocketing and pooling into Islamic strongholds, imposition of sharia in limited areas, growing those areas slowly, gradually. It is happening in Europe, yes, largely in response to the weakness of western socialism, but happening just the same. You need to read fewer history books about the evils of Christianity, and start reading the newspaper, and the demographic data of western states. I'll try: An increase in Muslims to a majority in a nation will allow that ideology to elect a controlling regime. They will use that power to do what Islam has always called for, the forced conversion of infidels to Islam. You seem to be reasoning that a democratic process can not lead to a coercive state. Are you assuming that Muslims would not willfully give up their rights? Then your assumption is based on a disregard of what Muslims are. They are, by definition, submitters.

define "perfection"

Anyone here ever read the koran? It's very consistent. No contradictions there, by gum! The difference being the Bible was a collection of writings from many disparate sources, a clumsy attempt by Jews to capture the history of the world and Jewry from the beginning times mythology to the prophecies of the end times. The New testament is a clumsy attempt by Romans to document the life of Christ using different accounts, as well as letters written by some of Christ's followers after his death. If they had been trying to avoid contradictions, they would've used one source, one story and that'd be the end of it. They didn't. They chose four different sources, each of them telling the story from a different perspective, and thus necessarily contradictory. The Koran, on the other hand was written by one man, not to capture the history of anything, but to prescribe the rules by which all men would (eventually) live. If you haven't already, go into your local Borders or B&N and pick up a copy of the Koran, turn to a random page and read one paragraph. I'll bet you better than even odds you will find a reference to the punishment awaiting the infidel, if not a call to punish the infidel. It is all very consistent and all very straightforward: Either you believe that muhammed is the prophet of allah, and that his word is to be obeyed, or you will be killed, either by a muslim or by allah himself. Muslim is the arabic word commonly translated to "one who submits." Funny, I thought we had an English word capturing this concept, but it seems "slave" is not a politically correct translation. Not to be a muslim-basher here, but honestly, I fail to find the reason in attacking Christianity, specifically, on these pages, while letting the other religions get lumped into the "almost/just as bad" category. I've read the bible and I find many of Christ's messages to be useful, rational, and, dare I say it, consistent with Objectivism (though certainly not all, or even most). The message (from the horse's mouth, mind you, not fourth/fifth hand) from muhammed, on the other hand, leaves me with no alternative but to view islam as a vicious, fascist ideology masquerading as a religion.

James Taranto, who writes the Best of the Web column for The Wall Street Journal, often slips in references from Objectivist philosophy. Today he linked to the story about Farrah Fawcett and Ayn Rand (posted elsewhere on this site), and provides some comments about Rand as well as a link to the Ayn Rand Lexicon.

The leader of the free world is practicing what he preaches. He tells us that America is hypocritical because, while we preach freedom and individual rights, we have failed to perfectly reach those ideals. Those nations which do not promote freedom, but also fail to reach the ideals are pragmatic, "consistent in word and action." America, no better than Iran, in this view, because neither has reached perfection, is actually worse than Iran because we pretend to stand for freedom. Obama and his ilk find sophistication in this worldview. They fail to understand that a hypocrite at least has a chance to make his actions consistent with his words and thereby attain his ideals. That is the virtue of hypocrisy. The rotter who admits and accepts he's a rotter may be consistent, but he will always be a rotter. Obama, by not condemning Iran, has legitimized their actions. But worse, he has laid bare his true feelings about the status of the individual vs. the state.

If by "in control" you mean in control of whether or not the individual miner converts his gold into money, then you are correct. If you're implying that "they" act as one to increase or decrease the value of money by converting or not converting gold, or by mining or not mining it, then you run into a problem. The value of gold on the market, aside from its value as money, derives partially from the value individuals place on it for its usefulness in electronics, ornamentation, medicine, etc. That is the demand for gold. It also derives partially from the cost of mining and refining, which is the supply. The price of gold at any given time derives from the combination of these, being the equilibrium point where the demand just equals supply. If the price rises above that point, temporarily, due to increased demand, then gold mines will find it profitable to mine more difficult to reach/refine ores, until the supply increase drives down the price to the point where the return on mining effort does not justify additional mining. (edit: ) If, on the other hand, the cost of producing gold goes down, as it did in the late 1800's when the cyanide process was created, the supply of gold will increase significantly driving down its price. Of course, at the time, money was measured in gold, so the "price" of gold did not go down, but the dollar price of all other goods went up, reflecting the lower "real" value of gold and dollars from the increase in supply, which resulted from the decrease in cost of production. The owners, by definition, make all of the "profit," which is the difference between the price paid them by the banks, and the cost required to produce the gold, including equipment, labor, etc. They would spend it on whatever returns the most value to them, but I would guess: Food, housing, transportation, medicine, luxuries, etc. Can you define "wealth?" Do you include real estate as wealth? Cars? Stocks? Bonds? Or only cash? Cash is a store of wealth, useful for the efficient exchange of value. Not the store of wealth. Remind me never to ask you for change.

Has anyone here read Manias, Panics and Crashes by Kindleberger? Just wondering what your take on his theory of credit expansion is. The way it is laid out, credit expansion would happen regardless of money supply changes by gov't. The lending of money expands in times of asset bubbles, as the recent trend in returns from increases in asset value becomes the dominant consideration (as opposed to expected return from future production of those assets). This increase in credit, whether it comes from banks using collateral asset values to justify lower fractional reserves, or from plain old investors trading their cash for CD's, bonds and stocks, results in a self-supporting expansion of money, until the return from asset growth falls below the cost of credit, at which point a massive exit from the asset causes its value to plummet, leaving many investments (or bank accounts, in the casee of FRB) worthless, or at least greatly devalued. Monetary expansion kicks in at this point to "save the credit system" and prevent an economic collapse, with the result of increases in the monetary base, and a blunting of the perceived risks of future asset bubbles. It seems reasonable that even without government getting into the "lender of last resort" business, expansion of credit due to high short term returns on asset values would lead to occasional asset bubbles and consequent busts. What am I missing?

Gold was refined and brought to the bank in return for money, that is, minted gold or silver coins and/or gold-backed paper. If the miner brought gold to the bank in return for gold coin, he exchanged gold for money, not gold for gold. The difference is in the explicit valuation of the gold coins, which can then be used in explicit exchanges of gold value for other goods offered at a coin price. The miner would pay a seigniorage charge for the conversion of raw gold, or bullion, for gold coin. The price he paid for that conversion was less than the additional value gained by having a widely accepted store of value, so the miner gained from the transaction, as did the bank. The gold coin moved from the "producers" hands, not to "the people," but to the producers of other goods. Those producers were willing to exchange their goods for gold coin because of the inherent value that gold held as an efficient store of value and means of exchange. To say that exchanging gold for gold (coin) constitutes zero exchange is like saying that paying five dollars for five dollars worth of bread constitutes zero exchange. (My point is that gold is not the same as gold coin or money, because gold coin adds the benefit of explicitly marked valuation.)

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1 Do you suppose they found the trunk rotted away and hollow inside?

Any chance of getting a link? As a dog owner (he prefers "host"), I'm a wolf buff. thx