Monday 28 September 2009

A Monday Morning Ramble: Welcome to a new week!

Been a busy weekend for Geelong supporters.  So busy I forgot to post your regular Friday Ramble on Friday – so here you go with Friday’s news on Monday – the news and sites I’ve liked over the last week.

  • Roman Polanski finally gets locked up -- 32 years after being found guilty.
    http://bit.ly/1VdHb3 
    Can’t say I’m too sympathetic myself.  He only admitted he was “wrong” three years ago.
    But if you’re at all inclined to be sympathetic to his “plight,” then read the reports and the March, 1977 Grand Jury Testimony of Polanski's victim.

  • What would a rational Objectivist society look like? 1-stop shopping for Principles Of A Free Society: http://principlesofafreesociety.com.  Add it to your bookmarks now.

  • PrinciplesOfAFreeSociety: What makes a society free? What does it mean for an individual to be free?
    http://tinyurl.com/ydnnbbe
  • The only UN speech this week that was worth a damn? It was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling the gathered thugs, dictators and power-lusters how much Ahmadinejad is worth – and what a disgrace the UN is for hosting that species of vermin.  Watch hm on PJTV from 1:40. http://tinyurl.com/ydlyazx
    (And the full speech here: http://tinyurl.com/y9cmv2j )

  • At the Explaining Postmodernism page, Chapter Five of my book is now available online. The chapter traces the evolution of socialism from classical Marxism in the mid-nineteenth century through the post-World War II crisis of socialism that helped set the stage for postmodernism.
    Chapter Five: The Crisis of Socialism [pdf]
  • "The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason": Chapter 3 of Stephen Hicks’s  Explaining Postmodernism is now online:
    ”This chapter covers Martin Heidegger’s integration of the two main lines of Continental philosophy, the origins and eventual collapse of Logical Positivism, and the resulting mid-20th-century epistemological void that enabled postmodernism.”
    Chapter Three: The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [pdf]

  • The Cats get the cream. Just thought you’d like to know.  :-)
    http://bit.ly/49anR3
  • While I was otherwise engaged over the weekend, two blogs took exception at me banning the Rodbeater’s rantings from this one --- something they’ve only noticed months after the event. Adolf gets angry here lecturing me on “blog etiquette,” and again here .  Poor chap, you’d think there’d be more important things to do over the weekend?!  And the Rodbeater does his best to sound lucid here. Wonder how long that ruse will last . . .
  • CafeHayek: "Part of Keynes is compelling. What is not so compelling is the idea that consumption creates growth." There’s lots more error well summarised here.
     http://bit.ly/enx0

  • Tom Woods' book 'Meltdown' is "the single best analysis of the current recession out there."
    http://bit.ly/4e400y Sure is, Every rational home deserves a copy.
  • The latest Objectivist Round Up is here! http://bit.ly/AQy5w Don't miss it!

  • Bernanke is wrong again, says Peter Schiff ! The US economy is getting worse, not better ...
    http://bit.ly/2aFuD0

  • NoodleFood Link-O-Rama
    http://bit.ly/3kvKif

  • "The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason": Chapter Two of Stephen Hicks’s Explaining Postmodernism now online:
    “This chapter traces the decline of epistemology from Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” to the dominance of speculation and irrationalism in the nineteenth-century, setting the stage for the collapse of reason in the twentieth century, which is the subject of Chapter Three.”
    Chapter Two: The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason [pdf]

  • "Glibertarian—a portmanteau of glib and libertarian, a person who affects libertarianism when it’s convenient." And who’s its prime exponent?
     http://tinyurl.com/y9nt9dc

  • Very good piece here on VSM by Mr Farrar. Read it.
    http://bit.ly/W4L2L
  • Why do some people find dating "traumatic?" Dustin Wax draws an entertaining analogy between dating and life.
    http://tinyurl.com/l72xje

  • Who needs zoning laws? Well, no-one -- apart from busybody planners justifying their jobs. http://tinyurl.com/mu9vt6
  • More ideas on making planners unemployed:
    How Zoning Rules Would Work in A Free Society.
  • A Dream House for the Masses?  We almost had such a thing once: and they’re still scattered all across NZ’s city fringes -- brought to you by Arts and Crafts out of capitalism.
    Read A Dream House for the Masses
  • Everyone now gets their news from Jay Leno, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert – and that might be all the world’s news they get.  Has the rise of political humour been altogether healthy?
    Read The Jay Leno Show and the rise of political humor

  • Tired of government bailing out banks? Get ready for this: officials may soon ask banks to bail out the government
    http://tinyurl.com/mpb6zd

  • Inflation os on the way back.Free market economists debate the prospects ...:
    http://bit.ly/13AIoL

  • Zambesi founder says maybe the media ought to report on scientists with as much fervor as they do fashion.
    http://blog.simonpound.com/...

  • Great quote: “I love doing it. Every building is like a person. Single and unrepeatable.” http://tinyurl.com/lgdcp8

  • "Seize the moment. Remember all those...on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart."~ Erma Bombeck
  • Fascinating meditation on social media. Should the MySpace mess scare Twitter?
    http://j.mp/1RJ6Zj [Fascinating!]
  • In Foreign Affairs Obama's now delivering "Change you can scarcely believe in" http://www.powerlineblog.co...

  • Stephen Hicks interviews Tim Sandefur on political versus market entrepreneurs:
    Interview with Timothy Sandefur

  • Free Speech still under attack, says Yaron Brook.
    http://online.wsj.com/artic...

  • Great quote from Craig Biddle: “Capitalism is the only social system that makes moral (ie self-interested) action legal.”

  • A new cry for a new century: No blood for carbon!
    http://bit.ly/imKV6
  • Read Australian PM Kevin Rudd's uncensored f***ing speech to Copenhagen -- a Joe Hidebrand exclusive.  (And read some of the po-faced comments!)
    http://tinyurl.com/me5g42

  • Peter Schiff: "What we've got now is not stimulus, but sedative."
    http://bit.ly/NLwc7

  • US's real economic crisis is not in its past, but in its future, says Peter Schiff.
    http://bit.ly/NLwc7

  • Awful and unintended consequences: sex offender registration legislation coupled with expansive definitions of 'sex offender' = disaster.
     http://tinyurl.com/kjefgb

  • Full "Free to Choose" Milton Friedman series now online – set your bookmarks and settle down to watch the TV series that inspired a generation of capitalists.
    http://tinyurl.com/kjefgb

  • "Kiwi house prices now only 1.4% below their peak of November 2007." And people are saying that like it’s a good thing!  Yes, we really have learned nothing.
    http://tinyurl.com/kke9o8

  • Jim Treacher does the long overdue rewrite the sad sack Midnight Oil song:
    "The time has come
    To say dumb's dumb
    To stop this crap
    Our ears are numb
    The time has come
    A joke's a joke
    Now we're onto you
    So shut it, bloke
  • How can we put up with warmist dreaming?
    How can we see when his skull's so gleaming . . .
    "
    Hilarious!
    http://tinyurl.com/mmd5p8

  • Fascism in America, Part XXXVIII: "Fed plans to approve banking salaries"
    http://bit.ly/3XmywC

  • On the 40th anniversary of the Internet, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC tells the story of the effect it is having on our society as seen through the eyes of the greatest Internet pioneer you’ve never heard of.
    Watch: We Live In Public – Trailer
  • Stephen Hicks wonders whether The Fountainhead's Gordon Prescott Heidegger's disciple? Just posted at my site:
    The Fountainhead’s Gordon Prescott—Heidegger’s disciple?

  • Re-reading David McGregor’s "In Gold We Trust" report reminds me how volatile the current economic situation is:
    http://bit.ly/s8gsn
  • This isn’t an economic crisis; it’s not a financial crisis – this we’re living through now is a monetary crisis. Tom Woods links to four different solutions to how to return the worlds economies to gold.
    How to Return to Gold

  • Pondering Objectivist successes & plans to literally change the world, it dawns on TheRationalCapitalist that we could win this thing . . .
    A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Socialism
  • And finally, two songs I can’t get out my head.  Listen from 4:19 when it comes alive, and you’ll be bitten too . . .
  • And speaking about being bitten (with apologies to Georges Bizet)

    Cheers.
    PC

    PS: Can’t resist posting this – the lat five minutes of the Grand Final, from when scores were tied at 67-67 (just skip past the ads at 1:17):

    7 comments:

    B Whitehead said...

    Brilliant game, virtually non stop!

    John Donohue said...

    if you can't keep that aria out of your head....I dare you to listen to this one.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_lbJ1MaDeo

    John Donohue
    Pasadena, CA

    Julian said...

    PC

    A great bunch of links there. Thanks.

    I watched the full speech of Israel's PM at the UN. It was brilliant. This is someone who understands what is at stake in the world with an Iran attempting to get nuclear weapons. The best speech all week at the UN since the lives of the Jewish people is at stake, and he knows it.

    Click here to watch the first part on YouTube.

    Julian

    Clunking Fist said...

    I thought it was only me that thought Roman Polanski got "sympathetic" coverage in the mejia. A ped is a ped, even if he is considered to be a fine film maker.

    LGM said...

    Ah, Roman Polanski!

    It is interesting to contrast this with the case of Mr. Veitch. Veitch and the woman he booted came to a private arrangement between themselves. She was not to complain to the Police or go public. In return he paid her "compensation". There was the argument that even when the story became public, it was not the business of the Police to start an investigation or to charge Mr. Veitch. After all both the original parties involved had come to an understanding.

    Now, in the Polanski case it is well known that the victim publically forgave him for what he did to her. She is on the record as saying to leave him alone. She has no interest in having him pursued or punished any further. She says everyone should forget about this occurnace and move on with life. So the argument can be made that this is not business of the Police or Prosecutor's Office or government.

    I'm interested in what you reckon about this.


    LGM

    Sus said...

    "So the argument can be made that this is not business of .. (the) government."

    That bit's not true, LG. Polanski is still technically a fugitive, absconding as he did.

    And while I agree that it would be vile for his victim, now aged 45, to have her identity publicly paraded once again for goodness knows how long, the fact is that he drugged and sexually attacked a 13 year old.

    It's been suggested that his virtual career boycott by US producers for the last 30 years has punished him.

    But has it really, for a crime of that magnitude? (And yes, I believe he settled with his victim in 1993 -- and I respect that her current wishes should be acknowledged).

    In spite of all that, though, he *is* still a fugitive.

    LGM said...

    Sus
    Actually, that bit is true. The argument can be made (indeed, the victim made it already). A similar argument was made on behalf of Mr Veitch.

    In this case the victim has withdrawn her complaint and forgiven Polanski. How do we justify continued pursuit?

    LGM