Funniest.Thread.Ever.

From Protein Wisdom, Conundrum presents:The incoherent Democratic message. Now that's comedy for the third millennium.

-Pedestrian in a time of Hovercars

He's still an objectivist
Alan Greenspan made an interesting speech on Columbus Day(via Michael Barone's econoblog):

We weathered a decline on October 19, 1987, of a fifth of the market value of U.S. equities with little evidence of subsequent macroeconomic stress--an episode that hinted at a change in adjustment dynamics. The credit crunch of the early 1990s and the bursting of the stock market bubble in 2000 were absorbed with the shallowest recessions in the post-World War II period. And the economic fallout from the tragic events of September 11, 2001, was moderated by market forces, with severe economic weakness evident for only a few weeks. Most recently, the flexibility of our market-driven economy has allowed us, thus far, to weather reasonably well the steep rise in spot and futures prices for oil and natural gas that we have experienced over the past two years. The consequence has been a far more stable economy.

Perhaps he's resigned to government intervention as a fact of life rather than a positive influence, but he's still got the old analysis going, with a nod to deregulation:

Starting in the 1970s, U.S. Presidents, supported by bipartisan majorities in the Congress, responded to the growing recognition of the distortions created by regulation, by deregulating large segments of the transportation, communications, energy, and financial services industries. The stated purpose of this deregulation was to enhance competition, which had come to be seen as a significant spur to productivity growth and elevated standards of living. Assisting in the dismantling of economic restraints was the persistent, albeit slow, lowering of barriers to cross-border trade and finance.

I wonder what Peikoff thought?

I don't seem to be able to get a comment to work on this post on Social Affairs Unit, but in response to this thought:

But the emotional climate that is happiness is not necessarily attractive. One reason for this is that happiness goes with a sense of completion; a sense of the end of struggle, of equilibrium, and the calm of a "happy ending". The Enlightenment was obviously drawn to calm and equilibrium, and it is not surprising that they made a cult of happiness. But the Romantic revolution had quite a different set of attractions. And we remain their heirs. Does everyone want a happy ending?

this is what I would say:

Perhaps happiness, undefined as it will probably ever remain, is not as important as the avoidance of unhappinesses - death, sickness, hunger, boredom, bad movies. Wealth allows one to avoid the most obvious and generally agreed-on unhappiness. Education, only possible through the possession of some wealth, allows one to avoid boredom and the feeling that other people know something you don't. For instance, I've always thought it must be intensely boring not to be able to read. But reading does not necessarily bring happiness. Stimulation, perhaps, but hardly cow-like contentment (Sorry, Elsie!) How pleasant the world seems when one is cut off from the daily deluge of small and large unhappinesses called the "news". But how colorless.

Ooh, car arson!

OK, Thanksgiving's over. Back to double-dipping comments and blogging. Eric Raymond, despite his oh-so-shameless self-promotion, had a good post on the car fires in France:

Yes, you read that correctly. 98 car-torchings a night is “normal” in the glorious Fifth Republic in 2005. Civil order in the banlieus has collapsed, but instead of addressing the breakdown the French response is to define it out of existence. (In other breaking news, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ol’ George Orwell is spinning in his grave.)

. Some of the other commenters were saying that a lot of these cars might be people having their cars burned for insurance reimbursements, which I believe is the favorite - perhaps the only - pastime of those who live in Lawrence, Massachusetts. This theory didn't seem to hold water for yours truly:

The phrase “98 cars torched” would seem to exclude the idea that owners were purposely burning cars for insurance purposes. So apples and oranges. Is it simplistic to assume that the previous totals of cars burned during the riots, by masked rioters, in defiance of the police, for rage-related purposes, excluded those burned by or on the orders of their owners for insurance reimbursements? Unless some sharp entrepreneurial arsonist had the happy thought, “Hey, I don’t have to take on the risk of burning these cars on my “to-do list” myself. I’ll just park them in front of Stalinist-looking apartment blocks and wait for darkness and riotousness!” ‘Tis an ill wind…

Hey, I might actually have home internet service today, dialup only. And I got the phone line without giving out my D/L number or SS #(I never did like the Stutz Staffeln, anyway). Thank you JJ Luna!

Darn islands again

A while ago I did this weekly search around the world by Google to find odd little islands. So I had to notice this. Somehow it popped up in my search for the real Yola in Nigeria. Google Earth keeps taking me to one Yola when I know the one where my sister lives is across the country from there. But these little sub-Antarctic islands don't have one thing Nigeria has:

Heard Island - 80% ice-covered, bleak and mountainous, dominated by a large massif (Big Ben) and an active volcano (Mawson Peak); McDonald Islands - small and rocky

Heat.

I noticed one thing: 0% arable land. Now if only global warming were true, that might change. The place might become a desirable vacation spot, with bathing beauties.

P.S. What does one make of this statement:

Legal system:

the laws of Australia, where applicable, apply

??

The thread kept a rollin' all night long

I've posted a 2nd comment to this post from yesterday:

Excellent thread, except for the Cheney Derangement Syndrome rant. As to IQ, it might be interesting to see what the facts are about immigration worldwide. It may be that most countries allow immigration of higher-IQ individuals and bar those with a lower average IQ than that of their own citizens. Charles Murray and Steve Sailer would doubtless have some ideas on this.

Again, I don't know how much good it does to toss in a comment 63 thoughts downstream, but at least it keeps me thinking. Now there's a project, for after my divorce is final and I get a business running = do a worldwide immigration analysis.

Full of galloping
Fighting corruption in Nigeria must always have seemed like trying to sweep back the tides with a toothbrush. But this article at least gives one hope:

But moments after judgment, Balogun, in an emotion-laden voice said: “I will serve the jail term. I will serve it. But all I know is that the permanent feature of life is that it is full of galloping. It is full of ups and downs, downs and ups. At a time, I was up the ladder. Now, it is the reverse. But I will bounce back. Hun..hun.. I say I will definitely bounce back.”

How many French former Inspectors-General of Police have ever been investigated, much less jailed, for corruption? And there's Vladimir Putin the head of Russia. Didn't he at one time have something to do with The Committee for State Security (KGB to some of us)? I guess he just bounced back.

Maybe it's silly to put a comment in a thread with hundreds of comments. Who's going to care? I've noticed that the longer threads get the less relevant to the original post the comments become, because commenters start addressing each others' arguments and forget what the heck the original post was about anyway. And heaven forbid anyone should actually read the article that the post linked to. But this thread (which I found via Gene Expression) appears to be an exception. Everyone's staying pretty much on topic, which was:

Are you OK with the fact that the U.S.'s population is growing much, much faster than it would without illegal immigration? Are you cool with the fact that the country's ethnic makeup is undergoing a drastic re-ordering? I'd be a much happier man than I am if I heard these questions being argued about openly. Hence my determination to continue raising these topics despite the risk of appearing to be a monomaniac. Let it never be said that it's possible to visit 2Blowhards without encountering the topic of migrations and immigration!

So I inserted my anecdotal two cents' worth:

If "open borders" and massive uncontrolled alien flows are good ideas, why doesn't Mexico have such a policy? Do they let any Guatemalan come in who wants to? I don't think so. Or any other country? If even illegal immigrants really contribute, many countries should not just be welcoming them but seeking them out. That doesn't happen. I was in Cairo in 2000 and remember my sister remarking on how many poor Ethiopians were trying to immigrate to Egypt. The Egyptian police would conduct massive sweeps late at night for illegals and deport them all immediately. Once again, the US is the sucker.

I really should look up all the immigration laws of the world that are available on the Net and find out if I'm right about all this. And I am aware that Australia periodically launches campaigns to get skilled workers and high producers to come to Oz. But that's not really relevant to the kind of illegal immigration and the sins of omission with regard to dealing with it that the US is experiencing today.

Ooh, Bill Quick is mad! I'm sooo scared!

All right, I know I'm acting like an idiot, but Quick won't even listen(see comments) to the facts about AIDS. He's got his facts and won't accept any argument. Some people have hot buttons and this is definitely one of them, like ID. I can't imagine being in that situation, though. Not even wanting to hear the basic arguments on a topic. I don't ever, ever want to hear anybody defend such a state of mind. And especially not you, Bill Quick! Hey, he could do like Esmay and write a book.

Bribery is a positive step

Bill Quick still doesn't think that Mideasterners can ever participate in a meaningful election:

The Big Pharaoh says that in Egypt, the current elections are a matter of mammon or Allah. Yet another reason why I think western notions of democracy will experience hard going in the entrenched medieval cultures of the middle east.

I assert that at least that day is closer:

The only important result of an election, of course, is how people feel about it. I think the fact that people will vote for 500LE shows there isn't that much determined and principled opposition to democracy in Egypt. If potential voters don't feel strongly enough that elections are evil and anti-Islamic to reject the payments, that gives those in favor of democracy some hope. It also shows how ineffective anti-voting terror has been - or maybe how the other side isn't willing to pay enough to get people NOT to vote.

Why does it seem to me these days I'm making the same points I've made many times before? Hey, wait a minute, didn't I say that before? Well, anyway, Bill Quick opined at some length about patriotism:

Patriotism isn't, or at least it shouldn't be, "My country right or wrong." If your country is wrong, you should work to fix the problem. But it is "My country..." first and foremost. Unfortunately, to observe the efforts of those of the antiwar left - most of them Democrats, even Democrats in high office, sad to say - to peddle lies about how we came to invade Iraq, lies about their own roles in supporting that invasion, and lies about the intelligence they themselves placed full credence in at the time - for the sole purpose of advancing their own political power - is to watch men and women who have forgotten about the well-being and safety of their country, who have forgotten that "My country" is "Their country" as well, who have forgotten what it means to be a patriot.

So I had to toss in a somewhat prissy-sounding reservation:

I don't regard patriotism as a good thing unless the country you are being patriotic about is a good country. I support America's actions in the war on terror because I believe they are right, not because they are America's. I don't support the war on drugs, even though it is official policy and probably supported by a majority of Americans, because I believe it's wrong, morally and practically. So what bothers me about the Dems' insanity is not the patriotism aspect, but their lack of good judgment.

New/Old Mexico
Bill Quick worries about Latino irredentism:

Would Congress or a Republican administration ever endorse irredentism? The White House and elements of congress already have. The disastrous Akaka Bill aims at creating a race-based, sovereign, territorially-endowed entity in Hawaii, and its precedent would threaten the mainland's cohesiveness. That Akaka stands a real chance of being enacted is proof Americans need to get a two-handed grip on Washington before the White House and Congress wreck our nation.

So I come up with a constructive if somewhat snarky suggestion:

Just as an experiment, we should give New Mexico, say, to the Mexican government and let them run it for a while. Most of the Anglos would leave immediately, but it wouldn't be long before Latinos would be flooding into Colorado, Arizona, even California because of the "economic conditions" in New/Old Mexico. At least the point would be made that it ain't not having enough land that keeps Mexico poor.

I've made this suggestion, only half-heartedly, before, and probably will again. The problem would be that the Mexicanos would say we didn't give them the right kind of land or everything was non-metric or it rained too little or some darn thing. But as a gedenkenexperiment it makes a point.

Froze-o Bozo

Eric Raymond thinks that "commons" language is disgusting, or at least vaguely icky:

My problem with the language of “the commons” is that to me it it sounds, at best, like idealistic blather. At worst, and far more usually, it sounds like an attempt to conceal all kinds of individual decisions about cooperation under a vague collectivist metaphor so the individuals who made those decisions can be propagandized and jerked around.

He was talking about the internet, but I brought up the annoying example I run into just about every day over on Park Street here in Tally:

Public libraries exemplify how a “common” resource can be destroyed - or at least made less usable - by too-enthusiastic deployment of “rights” language. Hobos (short for “homeless bozos”) have taken over most of them. So even though all the people “own” the library, no one can kick out the hobos from “their” libraries so they can read without stench and noise. Most people go to a library to get books. Hobos use it for entirely different reasons, as a social center and warm (or cool) place. And of course the hobos don’t pay anything for this “common” resource. A true commons would have to be supported by anyone who wanted to use it, like a video rental store.

Of course, this does have implications for the internet. The web, as visited selectively by individual users in their homes, has become the new public library, minus bozos and with beer and hot dogs easily available. Oddly enough, one of the most common uses of the public library these days is to go online. Even the hobos slip up and do that occasionally. I wonder if book usage has gone down since every public library installed dozens of computer stations. And why is it necessary to have everyone in a building all together just so they can play on the internet? The authorities will eventually give everyone free computers and broadband in their homes and close all the libraries. Uh-oh. I smell frozen bozos!

St. George's again

What is it about getting older that makes you think of your childhood? I've heard that happens, but maybe now at 57 I am experiencing it. A simple inquiry from Dean Esmay brought back a trivial day at St. George's School in Mill Hill, near London, when a little American boy in short trousers, facing the English educational system for the first time, was racking his brain trying to do well at his new school:

I remember using "bachelorette" as a response to the question, "What is the term for an unmarried older woman?" in a test in my first day at a school in England when I was nine years old (in the Fifties). I couldn't think of the word "spinster". I managed to convince the master that "bachelorette" was the received American usage, and he gave me credit. I rather like "bachelorette" but I get it confused with "majorette" and can't help thinking of happy unmarried women kicking up their heels in skimpy costumes while twirling batons and blowing whistles. "Old maid" is certainly most descriptive but perhaps "Auntie" is the cruelest.

I also sense more evidence that political correctness is running its obnoxious course. It can't be soon enough to get rid of monsters like "he/she" and "chairperson". (Well, which is it, a chair or a man or a woman or both?)

The important freedom

In response to a rather silly post by someone named Greg on Belgravia Dispatch, I had to belabor the obvious:

The right thing to spread is not "liberalism" or even democracy. It is capitalism, pure and simple. Most people everywhere want to be prosperous and to be able to keep the fruits of their labor. That's something everyone can understand. And that, not "neo-Wilsonianism" is in essence what America stands for. We have restored capitalism to Afghanistan and Iraq and it is prospering in China. Even in undemocratic venues like Pakistan and Singapore, capitalism is strong and serves the interests of most of the population. Freedom to start your own business and grow rich is the only freedom worth bothering about. America's interests lie in supporting capitalism wherever it exists.

This doesn't get said enough, though. We aren't, or shouldn't be, out to spread "good government" or "civic virtue". We won't truly be safe until everyone in the world is rich, through their own efforts.

Twofer
I haven't been to Eric Raymond's site for a while. But this post, cited on Dean Esmay, spurred me into action. Not only that, but I got to bring in the AIDS delusion:

I here register my extreme skepticism that the “Montreal Protocol” or any actions by man made any difference to the extent of ozone in the upper atmosphere, a “problem” that never existed. Well, those are always the easiest kind to fix, aren’t they, and the most pleasant if you’re part of the power structure whose power is enhanced by the “cure”? Oh, yes and what was the mechanism whereby chlorofluorocarbons actually got up to the stratosphere, again? Anybody actually figure that out? Must be hiding in the same database where they’re keeping the proof that the HIV causes any diseases. But I look forward to the imminent declaration that HIV/AIDS has been “cured” by some extremely expensive drug or vaccine. When the truth is no one ever died from HIV.

And this was on a post about Peak Oil! A "threefer"?

John D. Rockefeller or not?
On Dailypundit, I try to confuse the neocons AND the leftoids by implying that John D. Rockefeller is now a senator from West Virginia. Do I do a good job?:

Is this the John D. Rockefeller the leftists have been inveighing against since, oh, 1888? Rather old, isn't he? Aren't the leftoids at all surprised that John D. Rockefeller is being attacked by the "neocons" and capitalist brigands? Why doesn't John D. Rockefeller give away all his money to the poor and colonialized? Why is anyone surprised that John D. Rockefeller should give advice to another oil billionaire robber baron just because his name is Saddam?

I'm such a card. I must be getting money for this from someone rich like, oh, I don't know, JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER???

Jonathan Pearce on Samizdata.net bemoans the loss of at least some protection against double jeopardy in Great Britain. Pearce pointed out at least one bad consequence, perhaps the least of their troubles, "If people can be repeatedly tried for the same crime, it creates a potential very bad and unintended consequence: police and the Crown Prosecution Service will become lazy in the preparation of cases."
That reminded me of a TV show I saw:

I recall seeing a Law and Order episode that pointed out that the double jeopardy protection in the US constitution isn't absolute. The example was a trial where the judge was corrupt, I believe. That defendant could be tried again because he never had a "real" trial in the first place. This exception, however, just emphasized the unusual circumstances that have to occur to justify disregarding this protection. The "new and compelling evidence" standard that now appears to be in place in Britain sets a much lower hurdle. Sometimes there is such a thing as a "slippery slope".

Robert Bidinotto wrote an eloquent post on the despair that's affecting most libertarian-leaning objectivists such as myself. I don't seem to have been able to get my comment to post, but here's what it would have been:

I agree. The political sphere is useless, even counter-productive as an arena within which to fight for individual freedoms. Luckily, in the US, for now, we have another arena - the economy. I am abandoning politics and will from now on concentrate solely on economics, not just to get rich - though I hope that happens - but to reclaim my soul as a free man.

Now I know that makes the politicians tremble in their boots, but what I mean is I'm not going to worry about politics any more. It's something about the wisdom of Scooter Libby, that "all the aspens are connected at the roots" that has made me feel that rooting for any side in the political wars is a mug's game. So I'll read my Raymond Chandler book, watch Maigret and conspire to become prosperous in my old age.

Another invasion of private property rights is laid out in this post on Samizdata:

And why, just because a premises is open to the public, does the owner therefore lose all right to control who enters? He still owns it, his money is still at risk, he still pays taxes. Why are his preferences and his judgment of no value whatever? Under what collectivist theory is this valid or good?

That Euan Gray really gets my goat! He seems to think that every conventional cliched restriction on individual freedom is its own justification.