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| Comments Posted on Monday, January 5, 2009 |
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 | Condom Commercials
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 17:43:20 mst
Name: Jim May
E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com
I was so expecting to see that infamous "Je veux des bonbons!!!!" French spot... mercifully, no.
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| Hamas: The Big Bully on the Playground
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 13:35:31 mst
Name: Freddy Ben-Zeev
E-mail: benzeev(at)comcast(dot)net
If anything, Israel is bending over backwards in its attempt to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza. Even when they bombed the home of wanted senior Hamas leader Nizar Rayan (which was also used as command center and weapons storage) Israel warned him and his neighbours before the attack (he ignored the warning with his wives and children and was was killed).
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 13:23:40 mst
Name: Freddy Ben-Zeev
E-mail: benzeev(at)comcast(dot)net
Michael Labeit, you wrote "Hamas has been firing ... for months". Actually the Hamas (and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza strip) have been firing on and off into Israel for almost eight years already (since May 2001).
IchorFigure, the Hamas is using mostly homemade Qassam rockets with a range of about 10km (6 miles), and some Chinese made Grad rockets (supplied probably by Iran) with a range of about 40km (25 miles). About 800,000-1,000,000 Israeli civilians live in the range covered by these rockets from Gaza.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 13:15:37 mst
Name: Jeff
In science, a priori knowledge refers to knowledge based upon previously validated principles. So, in this sense, the principle that force is proportional to acceleration, differing only by a constant called mass, has been validated from myriad experiments. So anything deduced from this principle would be a priori knowledge. If this deduction was checked with reference to new sense data, then it would be a posteriori knowledge.
I think, however, in the philosophic sense Sascha is right.
To KPO'M,
Thanks for the explanation regarding inflation and interest rates.
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| Hamas: The Big Bully on the Playground
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 12:40:21 mst
Name: Elisheva Levin
E-mail: elisheva(at)unm.edu
URL: http://ragamuffinstudies.blogspot.com
Thanks.
I have noticed that of all the responses to Israel (finally!) getting fed up and doing something to protect her citizens, the first supportive ones were from Objectivists.
I am one Jew that appreciates that!
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| Hamas: The Big Bully on the Playground
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 11:05:26 mst
Name: Ted Coxhead
E-mail: tedcoxhead(at)yahoo.co.uk
KPO'M, your link to the Chicago Tribune has this: "They suggest that his refusal to speak out on Gazaâ€"where at least 460 Palestinians have died, compared with four Israeli deaths from the rocketsâ€"implies indifference to the plight of Palestinians or even complicity with Israel." It puts it in a nutshell doesn't it? The outrage is about how "disproportionate" the Israeli response is. Like, if 4 Israeli's were killed then it would be legitimate to kill between 2 and 6 Palestinians, but 460 is totally unjustified!
It needs a Grant or Sherman to explain that even if you kill or maim just one of us, then whatever our response is and how ever many of the enemy are killed, the moral responsibility is entirely theirs.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 9:48:57 mst
Name: Sascha Settegast
E-mail: sascha.settegast(at)gmx.de
Michael,
my dictionary of philosophical terms refers to a priori knowledge as knowledge independent from experience, i.e. sensory perception. And as far as I remember from my lectures and from reading Kant, that is exactly what is meant -- knowledge that does not need any reduction to observation for proof, but is certain and evident in and by itself, or logically deduced from such self-evidencies.
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| Hamas: The Big Bully on the Playground
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 9:27:38 mst
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
Ted, Obama is playing the "we have one president at a time" line until he figures out a response (he only has two more weeks to use that excuse, but perhaps by then it will be clearer how serious Israel is about fighting this to a win, unlike last year's incursion into Lebanon). Apparently that isn't playing well with the pro-Hamas crowd:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-gaza-obama_slyja ...
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| Health Link-O-Rama
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 9:17:34 mst
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
Steve Jobs has come forth with some additional information about his health:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6a1e37a6-db34-11dd-be53-000077b07658.html
I'm curious as to whether that vegan diet is contributing at all, although perhaps it's a residual effect of the pancreatic cancern or treatment.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 6:52:06 mst
Name: brian0918
Monica: actually I just copied and pasted from that link :)
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| Hamas: The Big Bully on the Playground
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 3:49:46 mst
Name: Ted Coxhead
E-mail: tedcoxhead(at)yahoo.co.uk
According to reports in the British media, Hamas was expecting some kind of response for breaching the cease-fire, but not THIS response. What seems to enrage the media most is that some Israeli politicians have come close to using the V ( for Victory )word that has been so carefully expunged from the military and ethical lexicon. It is to be hoped though that after the upcoming Israeli elections are decided, that the Israeli's will be able to resist the calls to soft peddle. I doubt it.
Has Obama yet spoken? I think, not accidentally, the Israeli's have given him a testing inaugural gift. He comes to power with Israel IN ACTION against Islamic totalitarianism. This is quite different to Israel simply being the victim of a broken ceasefire on his accession. Also, of course, Israel has started to neutralize one of its borders that would need to be neutralized in the event of a strike against Iran.
I have just finished "Personal Memoirs of U S Grant", in the Appendix to which is quoted his report of the United States Armies (1865). Speaking of the Rebellion, he says: "I therefore determined, first, to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the armed force of the enemy..........Second, to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him but an equal submission....."
Obama will not find these words, but let us hope that Israel will be able to find them for him, because as the ARC says, quoted by Gina Ligget, "If they succeed in destroying Israel, they will turn their full attention to the United States."
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| Hamas: The Big Bully on the Playground
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 2:14:00 mst
Name: Michael Labeit
E-mail: logician169(at)yahoo.com
URL: http://unit-perspective.blogspot.com
Along with "moral" condemnation, the pro-Hamas protesters in Manhattan and around the world are appealing to the old Just War Theory arguments against Israel, most notably the proportionality and discrimination claims.
It is, we are told, wrong for Israeli airmen and armoured crewmembers to inadvertantly kill civilians in the act of targeting known Hamas positions. What I think is missing is the principle discussed in Dr. Brook's JWT v. US self-defense essay: that the moral responsibility for all deaths, casualties, and destruction in conflict lies exclusively with the aggressor. If people recognized this, the anti-Israel statements cited by Ms. Liggett would not have been made.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Monday, January 5, 2009 at 0:07:53 mst
Name: Monica
E-mail: monicabeth10(at)gmail.com
URL: http://fa-rm.org
Brian -- thanks for looking that all up and typing it all out!
Very interesting. I really have no idea, your guess is as good as mine. heir diet definitely seems higher in sugar and starch than most of the other groups Price studied, to my recollection.
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| Comments Posted on Sunday, January 4, 2009 |
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 23:27:58 mst
Name: SarahG
E-mail: sarah.gelberg(at)att.net
Another thought on O'ist support for Israel: a number of people have commented that there seem to be an unusually large percentage of people from Jewish backgrounds in Objectivism, including Rand herself. I don't think this is an accident--my father's family is Jewish and I've found that Jewish families in general tend to value education, reading, logic, and rationality in general more than families of other faiths. I remember growing up that there was always a strong respect for reading and thinking and literacy in general. This makes me think that it's a shorter intellectual "journey" to objectivism for Jews than for people raised in other faiths that are more "faith-based" for lack of a better word. Jewish-ness is much less tied up in what you personally believe than other faiths--you're much freer in general to believe whatever you want. (This obviously doesn't apply to Orthodox families, but there are far fewer of them, at least in my experience.) I know quite a number of Objectivists who are perfectly comfortable calling themselves Jews for this reason--it's much more of an ethnicity than a creed. Despite years of atheism and having attended synagogue exactly three times in my life (a bar mitzvah, a bat mitzvah, and a funeral), I've had complete strangers approach me on the street and start speaking Hebrew to me because they thought I "looked Jewish". I'm not sure what to make of that except that the qualities that tend to mark me as nominally "Jewish" may be the same that made me receptive to Objectivism.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 23:09:12 mst
Name: SarahG
E-mail: sarah.gelberg(at)att.net
Re: the Heller biography--the Random House description that includes "the rise and fall of the cult surrounding her" gives it away as at best a dishonest hatchet job as previously mentioned. Without reading the book itself, I do know, having interned at a publishing house years ago, that although such descriptions can play somewhat fast and loose with the content, it would be seriously dishonest to talk about the rise and fall of something that is debunked in the book.
I've heard and read enough about Rand and the supposed cult that I'm satisfied that there was no cult except in the minds of those Rand disassociated herself from. Anyone seeks to document said cult and does not come away with the conclusion that it didn't (and doesn't) exist is dishonest enough that I have no further interest in their work. If Heller has not done the necessary intellectual and investigative legwork to discover the truth, then in my opinion, her book is without value.
On the topic of objective biographies, Shoshana Milgram has a biography of Rand's pre-Atlas years in the works that I'm extremely excited about reading when it comes out.
Re: pro-Israel-ism among Objectivists: Israel is essentially a western (read: civilized) nation in the middle of a sea of barbarity, and for most of its history, it defended itself decisively and without compromise. For that, it has deserved all the American support it can get, and in my opinion, is the closest analogy to America--two nations deliberately founded for very specific philosophical purposes: freedom from force of all kinds. It was founded by educated westerners for the purpose of providing a homeland for persecuted jews. The fact that Israel has in recent years turned more towards "peace talks" with thugs who do not want peace and do not know what peace requires is in large part due to American pressure, because of our own shift in foreign policy away from principles and toward pragmatism. Yaron Brook has given several talks on the extensive similarities between Israel and America that bear listening to if you haven't already.
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| A Question About Egg Whites
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 22:35:16 mst
Name: SarahG
E-mail: sarah.gelberg(at)att.net
Re: what happens to small/medium eggs--I read somewhere that eggs that don't meet grocery-grade standards for going into cartons are sorted into commercial applications--used in processed foods of whatever kind. There's nothing nutritionally wrong with them, they're just smaller than the standard sizes or irregularly shaped or have cosmetic blemishes on the shells or whatever.
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| My One-And-Out Colts
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 22:04:17 mst
Name: Kevin McAllister
E-mail: kevin(at)mcallister.ws
URL: http://logicaldisconnect.org/
And I couldn't be happier with my Eagles! Brian Dawkins over the past 6 games has shown why he may be my favorite player of all time.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 21:56:07 mst
Name: Michael Labeit
E-mail: logician169(at)yahoo.com
URL: http://unit-perspective.blogspot.com
Thanks to Rowland and Reed for your answers.
I ask about "a priori" because many of the so-called "continental rationalists" did not deny the necessity of the senses and simultaneously affirmed the legitimacy of "a priori." I don't believe many of them actually believed that knowledge could be possess in the complete absence of all sense perception. Leibniz, for one, recognized the importance of the senses in a quote I can't recall fully. This is why I think that few rationalists actually interpreted "a priori knowledge" to refer to knowledge gained in the complete absence of sense perception. I find it hard to believe that most continentals believed that knowledge could be gained by individuals with no eyes, ears, or feeling capacity.
IchorFigure,
From what I've heard, Hamas and Hezbollah use Katyusha rockets. You may have heard of them before; they were manufactured and used by the Soviets during WW2 against the German army on the infamous Eastern Front. Apparently, they have been exported far and wide.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 21:38:00 mst
Name: Michael Labeit
E-mail: logician169(at)yahoo.com
URL: http://unit-perspective.blogspot.com
Thanks to Rowland and Reed for your answers.
I ask about "a priori" because many of the so-called "continental rationalists" did not deny the necessity of the senses and simultaneously affirmed the legitimacy of "a priori." I don't believe many of them actually believed that knowledge could be possess in the complete absence of all sense perception. Leibniz, for one, recognized the importance of the senses in a quote I can't recall fully. This is why I think that few rationalists actually interpreted "a priori knowledge" to refer to knowledge gained in the complete absence of sense perception. I find it hard to believe that most continentals believed that knowledge could be gained by individuals with no eyes, ears, or feeling capacity.
IchorFigure,
From what I've heard, Hamas and Hezbollah use Katyusha rockets. You may have heard of them before; they were manufactured and used by the Soviets during WW2 against the German army on the infamous Eastern Front. Apparently, they have been exported far and wide.
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| "Rights" of the Obese
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 20:38:35 mst
Name: Diana Hsieh
E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com
URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog
Anime -- I do not judge whether a part of town is bad or not based on the skin color of the people who inhabit it. At the very least, that would be most unhelpful, as thugs come in every possible color. Other factors -- like known criminal activity, people's dress and demeanor, and upkeep of the houses -- tells me loud and clear whether to be extra cautious or not.
I do not pre-judge people based on the color of their skin. I don't take kindly to people who do, and I'm not going to apologize for that. So, by all means, go take your eyeballs -- and potshots at me and Objectivism -- elsewhere.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 20:15:41 mst
Name: brian0918
E-mail: my handle, through gmail
Monica,
A book on the Seminole from 1884 lists the following on their food:
"Read the bill of fare from which the Florida Indians may select, and compare with that the scanty supplies within reach of the North Carolina Cherokee or the Lake Superior Chippewa. Here is a list of their meats: Of flesh, at any time venison, often opossum, sometimes rabbit and squirrel, occasionally bear, and a land terrapin, called the “gopher,” and pork whenever they wish it. Of wild fowl, duck, quail, and turkey in abundance. Of home reared fowl, chickens, more than they are willing to use. Of fish, they can catch myriads of the many kinds which teem in the inland waters of Florida, especially of the large bass, called “trout” by the whites of the State, while on the seashore they can get many forms of edible marine life, especially turtles and oysters. Equally well off are these Indians in respect to grains, vegetables, roots, and fruits. They grow maize in considerable quantity, and from it make hominy and flour, and all the rice they need they gather from the swamps. Their vegetables are chiefly sweet potatoes, large and much praised melons and pumpkins, and, if I may classify it with vegetables, the tender new growth of the tree called the cabbage palmetto. Among roots, there is the great dependence of these Indians, the abounding Koonti; also the wild potato, a small tuber found in black swamp land, and peanuts in great quantities. Of fruits, the Seminole family may supply itself with bananas, oranges (sour and sweet), limes, lemons, guavas, pineapples, grapes (black and red), cocoa nuts, cocoa plums, sea grapes, and wild plums. And with even this enumeration the bill of fare is not exhausted. The Seminole, living in a perennial summer, is never at a loss when he seeks something, and something good, to eat. I have omitted from the above list honey and the sugar cane juice and syrup, nor have I referred to the purchases the Indians now and then make from the white man, of salt pork, wheat flour, coffee, and salt, and of the various canned delicacies, whose attractive labels catch their eyes."
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19155
Could it be the sweet fruits, maize, sugar cane syrup, honey, etc?
... or maybe something they were getting "now and then from the white man"?
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| "Rights" of the Obese
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 20:03:02 mst
Name: Anime'
Diana, as I have seen you do to several other posters here, you are on a high horse, you seem to get pissed off easily, and you seem to delight in being nasty and condescending as often as possible.
Have you ever tried to walk or even drive through a bad section of town--say, Watts? South Central L.A.? East L.A. (barrio land)? Did you lock your windows? Did you proceed with more caution than usual? I bet you would be more cautious, if you had been there.
If Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Alan Keyes, Larry Elder, Ken Hamblin, or people like them, were my neighbors, I'd rejoice. However, they are not (and I repeat NOT) the same as the ghetto boys I see in the town where I live. We have some nasty customers who moved up here from South Central L.A. to be near their incarcerated family members.
I won't bother wasting my time perusing your blog anymore. Frankly, I've got better things to do with my time. You're already one of the laughingstocks of the so-called Objectivist movement.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 19:31:10 mst
Name: Mark Wickens
E-mail: noodlefood(at)wickens.ca
URL: http://randex.org/
"Impenetrable," that is.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 19:28:55 mst
Name: Mark Wickens
E-mail: noodlefood(at)wickens.ca
URL: http://randex.org/
To KPO'M:
Thanks for digging up the campaign contribution info. It does look like it will be bad. James Valliant: Ready to write another book? :-)
I did see the "cult" reference in the book description, but I don't know if authors have control over them. (Andy Bernstein's latest book description describes AR's ideas as "impenetratable." I assume he's not responsible for that!)
MW
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| "Rights" of the Obese
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 19:15:35 mst
Name: Richard Nikoley
E-mail: rnikoley(at)gmail.com
URL: http://www.freetheanimal.com
Ted:
Well, I stand convinced, then, that you've indeed read it. That renders your approach even more mysterious to me. However, for the accusation -- to my mind -- you stand wronged and I stand wrong.
I apologize.
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| My One-And-Out Colts
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 18:59:40 mst
Name: Thomas Shoebotham
E-mail: celloshoe(at)yahoo.com
That punter was amazing! I know Sproles was important with all his offense, but without all those punts that pinned the Colts way back, especially that last one, I think the game has a different outcome.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 16:19:48 mst
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
Jeff, the reason that doesn't work is that the Fed inflates the currency precisely by manipulating interest rates downward. If they go and buy up billions of dollars of bonds, that reduces the supply of bonds, which pushes the prices up and the interest rates down. Banks can't simply raise the interest rates they pay because the Fed's actions have reduced the rates of return they can receive on the investments that they purchase with the proceeds of the debt issuances.
Perhaps, if commercial banks, money market funds, and other financial intermediaries acted in concert to try to thwart the Fed's moves, they could have some impact. However, the Fed has the advantage of an unlimited supply of money (they can create it at will), its direct regulatory authority over bank holding companies (the universe of which is expanding), and its government-backed authority to "stabilize" markets by setting reserve requirements.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 16:01:09 mst
Name: Monica Hughes
E-mail: monicabeth10(at)gmail.com
URL: http://fa-rm.org
Kevin, it's very funny you should say that, because he is in fact referred to as "the Charles Darwin of nutrition."
I don't agree with all of his conclusions in the book, particularly as diet pertains to human behavior (I think some of these points in later chapters have actually been discredited now, not for dishonesty reason but because of other causal explanations having more proof), but he was amazingly perceptive and published much of this work in highly reputable journals. Reading it changed my life in a way that only one other book ever has -- Atlas Shrugged.
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| Why the New Atheists Can’t Even Beat D’Souza: The Best and Worst in Human History
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 15:47:09 mst
Name: Elisheva Levin
E-mail: elisheva(at)unm.edu
URL: http://ragamuffinstudies.blogspot.com
A couple of thoughts:
First, one can argue that the progress made in societies dominated by faith rather than reason was made at the expense of those who had the ideas: for example the beginnings of a scientific understanding of motion was made by Copernicus and Galileo, both of whom were made to suffer for their ideas.
Second, I was taken by this line: "Take scientists, for example: necessarily focused on reason and reality, they resolve their scientific disputes with logic and by reference to facts. We don't find them fragmenting into sects and breaking out into violence over their disagreements. Indeed, just the opposite happens: the body of scientific knowledge converges over time as disagreements are sorted out and facts are acknowledged. Their successes and this convergence don't come from the use of guns and clubs, but from a commitment to reason and reality, facts and logic."
This is exactly why Galileo recanted when presented with the instruments of torture. If his idea was true (and it was, although Newton did clear up the statements) then there was no need to suffer for it. The truth did out eventually. Science has no need of martyrs.
Overall, I think your article cuts to the heart of the New Athiests problems, although I suspect that in some forums (such as talk radio) they comes off particularly badly because of editing manipulations and host microphone control.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 15:44:27 mst
Name: Jeff
To KPO'M
You said, "Inflation rewards borrowers at the expense of savers." If inflation rates are known, then would not banks simply increase interest rates correspondingly? I guess my question is, does inflation reward borrowers at the expense of savers because inflation rates are not known (and indeed cannot be) or does it do it by some other means?
Say I have 10,000 dollars in the bank with a known annual inflation of 3%. The nominal interest rate would be say 3%, so would not the banks offer an interest rate of 6%? The devaluation of the currency is thus countered by the increased interest rates.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 15:30:45 mst
Name: Kevin Clark
Monica,
From reading about Weston Price and his world-wide travels and his scientific methodology, I am struck by how much he resembles Charles Darwin. Price might very well go down as the Darwin of nutrition. Thank you for bringing him to my attention.
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| "Rights" of the Obese
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 15:19:30 mst
Name: Ted Coxhead
E-mail: tedcoxhead(at)yahoo.co.uk
"To Ted Coxhead: For the record, I never believed for one second that you actually read Good Calories, Bad Calories (Diet Delusion in the UK, I believe), as you claimed. In other words, I think you lied about that."
I have my copy of the Taubes book in front of me as I type. It is the GCBC title, hardback, published by Knopf, New York. I purchased it after seeing it referred to I think on HBL by a contributor there ( I may have the HBL reference wrong, but apart from here I don't go to many other sites apart from Dr Peikoff and ARI - and it wasn't one of them. Also I do not visit foodie sites ). I bought it, and read it, Mr Nikoley, before I saw it referenced on Diana's blog. I also read, at about the same time, Kendrick's work attacking the cholesterol hypothesis and "Panic Nation" by Feldman and Marks.
You should not interpret disagreement as a personal attack, although I am aware that diet protagonists like you do exhibit a degree of zeal. In deference to Diana, I shall take up Option 2 of her ultimatum and simply not post comments on your diet discussions and recipe swaps.
Whilst I can tolerate your manners in previously calling me full of shit, and I can tolerate Monica calling me a moron, you have absolutely no right to call me a liar.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 15:18:53 mst
Name: Tom Rowland
E-mail: trowland08(at)gmail.com
Michael-
The short answer is "no" but rather than simply leave it at that, I want to suggest that you be absolutely clear about what "a priori knowledge" means. The sentence you give as an example is the conclusion of a fairly long deductive argument that starts with identifying definitions of 'Socialism,' 'production,''discourage,'rational,''consumption,' etc, all of which are far from being perceptual. And VERY far from being self-evident. If they were self-evident we would be living in a far different world than we are now, and Mises would have wasted his time. You use the phrase "empirical testing" which means to me that you have been taught or you believe that the validation of the proposition requires that we set up a live experiment of some kind with a control population, etc. so that we might see it in practice first, thus making the proposition 'a posteriori.' But such a test is not necessary because it is possible to support it with reference to earlier concepts which can be reduced to percepts. What is self-evident is that the issue of the possibility of a priori knowledge is illegitimate, since the answer to any question of fact(in this case whether there is such a thing as knowledge 'a priori') rests on the assmption that all knowledge is an identification of facts in evidence, i.e, 'a posteriori.' A good place to start is Peikoff's essay on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy in "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.'
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 15:11:34 mst
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
Something I have noticed among most groups of self-professed Objectivists that I have encountered is that support for Israel invariably is very strong. My questions to the posters here are why do you think that is the case, do you share that support, and do you think our government has a valuable interest in active philosophical, political, and/or military support for Israel?
While I respect the rights of their citizens and government to defend themselves (and that includes shelling Hamas), I'm not sure I view them much differently from other countries around the world. If it is primarily a matter of a fellow mixed-economy country fighting Islamic extremism, then why is there not the same degree of public support for other countries in the same situation (the Philippines, for example, or to a lesser extent India and even Turkey)? Are there other factors that warrant more active support of Israel vs. other countries (e.g. something about them in particular that makes them more worthy of our support)?
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 14:52:02 mst
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
To Mark Wickens:
Judging solely by the cover and the description at Amazon and Random House, it looks like a hatchet job to me. The "rise and fall of the cult surrounding her" doesn't sound very flattering. That said, if she has some original research or anything else not previously released, perhaps she could offer some factual insight.
If this is the same biographer, it looks like she's a big contributor to Obama, among others.
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/anne-heller.as ...
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 14:01:32 mst
Name: William H Stoddard
E-mail: whswhs(at)mindspring.com
URL: http://whswhs.livejournal.com/profile
I've followed Adam's recommendation to google "Heilbroner socialism," but it's not obvious to me why the results are a basis for contextual certainty.
Heilbroner did admit that capitalism was economically workable and socialism was not, and that Mises, Hayek, and Friedman had been right. But his comments don't seem to go beyond treating this as a brute historical fact, in the sense in which a rock might be a brute geological fact. An explorer might note that a certain rock was found in a certain location. A geologist could tell you how the mineral the rock is made of was formed, how it came to be a certain shape, how it arrived at that location, and what this told us about the larger geological processes in the region; in other words, he could integrate the rock with a broader range of knowledge from which the specific observed facts about the rock could be explained. His knowledge of that specific rock would attain a more higher level of contextual certainty. And Heilbroner doesn't seem to have any such broader theoretical perspective from which to explain the failure of socialist economies.
But such a perspective was certainly available: Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard, among others, all offered explanations of the failure of socialism. And Mises arrived at his explanation not by looking at the concrete facts about specific socialist economies, but by understanding how capitalist economies works and what happened when you removed certain essential elements. The whole topic is addressed very clearly in Steele's "From Marx to Mises." Heilbroner doesn't seem to have ever grasped Mises' theoretical perspective, or attained the real understanding of how economies work that Mises offered. Of course, he was handicapped by his socialist starting point, but the British science fiction writer Ken MacLeod, who started out as a Trotskyite, seems to have grasped Mises' critique of socialism at a conceptual level and decided that it was compellingâ€"so such an understanding is attainable. I would think that Heilbroner is not as good a basis for the contextual certainty Adam is looking for as Mises.
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| Fantasy Playoffs
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 13:57:29 mst
Name: Brian
E-mail: brianreich(at)verizon.net
Man, that Colts loss hurt. I had 4 of them on my team. Go Philly!
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 13:51:31 mst
Name: JMartin
E-mail: jemartinsen(at)gmail.com
Mark,
I know very little about her, but judging by this she was a speaker at the "50th Anniversary of Atlas Shrugged", hosted by the Atlas Society.
http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=8760&SectionName=& ...
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 13:06:12 mst
Name: IchorFigure
In all the news articles regarding Israel's ongoing attack on Gaza, the weapons being fired by Hamas into Israel are referred to as "rockets". The word "rocket" sounds very plain, and almost innocuous, but I've so far been unable to discover exactly what type of rockets they are using. I'm curious because I'd like a better idea of what they're dealing with. Can anyone offer further details on what these weapons are and their capabilities?
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| "Rights" of the Obese
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 12:55:43 mst
Name: Richard Nikoley
E-mail: rnikoley(at)gmail.com
URL: http://www.freetheanimal.com
A note to add regarding obesity, diet, intense exercise, and fasting.
Someone wrote early on in the thread:
"Study after study after study has shown that diet is nearly irrelevant when it comes to keeping weight off. People can make even radical changes in their diet and still hit a "plateau" of weight loss well above their goal weight. You can't' lose weight through diet alone. The scientific literature is virtually consistent on the point that the key is *exercise*. This is not to say that proper nutrition isn't important, but anyone who studies the literature can see that it's lack of exercise, not change in diet, as the primary reason for increasing obesity."
Absolutely false. It's about 80% diet. Exercise alone is a very poor way to recompose your body, lose fat, gain muscle. Moreover, this has an awful lot to do with leptin resistance which hasn't been mentioned.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/12/leptin-resistance-and ...
More:
http://www.jci.org/articles/view/17953
http://www.neuroanatomy.wisc.edu/selflearn/leptin.pdf
http://www.neuroendo.org.uk/content/view/8/11/
Here's a 400 pounder that figured out the leptin issue on his own and here's the result:
http://www.jongabriel.com.au/weightloss/
http://nourishedmagazine.com.au/blog/articles/weight-loss-without-d ...
Fortunately, a paleo-like diet will automatically restore leptin sensitivity naturally. I and other paleo eaters have often noted that gradually, after a few months, you realize you're never hungry anymore, at least in the sense most people recognize. It's difficult to explain, but nothing like the kind of gnawing, nauseated feeling that cane come only hours after the last meal. If on fasts of 36 hour duration where I truly do get hungry, it's of a nature that's substantially less trying than in the old days even 4-5 hours after a high-carb meal like pasta or pizza, of a meal where lots of bread and potatoes were consumed.
To Ted Coxhead: For the record, I never believed for one second that you actually read Good Calories, Bad Calories (Diet Delusion in the UK, I believe), as you claimed. In other words, I think you lied about that. I have no idea of your motivation, but it's clear to me that you actively don't want I, Diana, Monica and others who've seen tremendous results (remember Greg Perkins, too) to continue to achieve them, report them, and motivate others to try similar approaches.
You're projecting something. I just don't know what it is.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 12:47:22 mst
Name: Mark Wickens
E-mail: noodlefood(at)wickens.ca
URL: http://randex.org/
Does anyone know who Anne Heller is? She's the author of what looks to be a well-promoted biography of Ayn Rand, _Ayn Rand and the World She Made_, due in October. See the bottom of this page:
http://www.randomhouse.com/nanatalese/titlescoming.html
and Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Ayn-Rand-World-She-Made/dp/0385513992
Mark
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 12:41:27 mst
Name: Monica Hughes
E-mail: monicabeth10(at)gmail.com
URL: http://fa-rm.org
By the way, Weston A Price searched for over 10 years traveling the world looking for a dietary basis for human health. He searched long and hard for any vegetarian groups that might be healthy. He found none. He did discover some vegetarian tribes in Africa. The lowest level of cavities was around 20% of teeth in these groups.
Humans enjoy vibrant health when occupying the right ecological niche -- just like any other animal. The difference is that we unfortunately do not have instincts to tell us what to eat. We have to look at evolutionary history and examine those foods with modern science.
Both rrlv-frsh and Richard are correct: the macronutrient content can vary widely, with carbohydrate intake being high, and people can still be very healthy, even optimally healthy. But the type of carbohydrates are critical. I'm convinced that grains are not necessary and they're most certainly not optimal for the vast majority of people, even those of European descent. Unfortunately, we will never be able to do studies of the primitive Swiss or Gaelic to see whether an elimination of grains would have improved their dental health -- there are very few such groups in existence today. However, there is remarkable evidence in Price's book that supplementation with fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K2 can often completely resolve cavities. The demand for D in the human body, which is strongly linked to bone and dental health, is increased when one goes on a grain-based diet. I believe that this explains the slightly less healthy teeth in the primitive Gaelic and Swiss.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 12:36:00 mst
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
Jeff,
Price indices are subject to lots of manipulation. The CPI is based on a "basket of goods" that is adjusted ostensibly to account for changes in technology and consumer preferences (it might have made sense to have a typewriter in the basket in 1980 but not in 2009). Of course, that also subjects it to political manipulation.
However, the larger issue of inflation is that it is based on the concept of fiat money. Unlike in the past, when we had a gold standard or used physical goods (e.g. tobacco, other metals) as media for exchange, today we use pieces of paper and electrons created and destroyed at the whims of central bankers. If the Fed wants to create money, they just buy bonds with money created out of thin air. What happens is that the value of money becomes divorced from the value of the goods and services that it is supposed to represent. It isn't a one-for-one impact, but generally speaking, the more money out there, the more units of currency it takes to purchase any good or service. Inflation rewards borrowers at the expense of savers.
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| A Question About Egg Whites
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 12:34:00 mst
Name: Frank
E-mail: frankiedahamma(at)aol.com
William,
Turkey-quinoa meatballs sounds interesting would you mind posting the recipe?
Thanks,
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 12:27:49 mst
Name: Monica Hughes
E-mail: monicabeth10(at)gmail.com
URL: http://fa-rm.org
"I consider the basic facts of human development through hunter-gatherer, agrarian, nomadic and mixing stages to have some logical merit with respect to suitable diet. That is, I cannot conclude that the Paleo diet (hunter-gatherer) is necessarily a best diet for the non-O blood types. Some hold that the Paleo diet applies to all people, but I suspect that claim is too sweeping."
I agree in part. My personal diet is not "paleo". I drink milk, but I don't think it's optimal for everyone. However, I think there's still some good evidence that *grains* are particularly problematic -- even for European people eating them in their original tribal groups that would have been exposed to grains for a relatively long time period, as indicated above. I'm extremely skeptical that grains are an ideal or necessary food for ANY human, regardless of their heritage and regardless of whether that grain is not wheat. (Just FYI, pulses also have a variety of toxins that require special processing.)
Here is why.
Weston A Price actually presents some data on this. Here are the figures of the percentage of teeth attacked by cavities in various racial groups. Usually at least 100 people were studied, but it was often several hundred. The first number is the percent of teeth attached by cavities in the isolated primitive group. The second number is the percent cavities in teeth in the same race of people that had gone onto the western diet (flours, canned goods, sweets):
Swiss 4.6 29.8
Gaelic 1.2 30.0
Eskimos 0.09 13.0
Northern Indians 0.16 21.5
Seminole Indians 4.00 40.0
Melanesians 0.38 29.0
Polynesians 0.32 21.9
Africans 0.2 6.8
Australian Aborigines 0.00 (!) 70.9
New Zealand Maori 0.01 55.3
Malays 0.09 20.6
Coastal Peruvians 0.04 40.0+
High Andes Indians 0.00 40.0+
Amazon Jungle Indians 0.00 40.0+
Data from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, p. 441
OK -- which cultures were eating grains in their primitive tribal groups? There were two, to my knowledge. The Swiss and the Gaelics, 2 of the three groups having the highest level of cavities while eating primitive foods. The Swiss ate sprouted rye bread and the Gaelics ate soaked oatmeal. Of course, the outlier here are the Seminole Indians. I searched Nutrition and Physical Degeneration to try to discover what was in the diet of the Seminoles -- unfortunately Price doesn't say, but does indicate that they were the most secretive group he came into contact with. There's a possibility he simply wasn't able to discover all that they were eating, but I'll have a look into this and report back. It would be good to know if something they were eating was correlated with slightly inferior dental health.
As far as the differences in dental health between primitive and modern foods, the evidence is abundant when comparing the two experimental "treatments" controlling for genetics. If chi square tests were done on comparisons of primitive vs. modern in each tribe it would be highly, highly significant in every case.
But back to the grains. The level of cavities in 2 of the three tribes, the only two that were probably eating grains, is slightly more than 3- to 460-fold higher than the other groups, excluding the Seminoles. At such low numbers one may question whether that's really biologically significant. But let's convert this to absolute numbers. For the Swiss, this would be about one cavity in every person. For the New Zealand Maori it would be about one cavity in every 500 people, if my rough calculations are correct.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 11:57:56 mst
Name: Jeff
I have a question regarding inflation...
The price indexes simply measure the variation in the purchasing power of money. So if prices are to be viewed as the ratio of the monetary value to the value of the thing purchased, then the ratio can change either by a change in the value of the monetary unit or the thing purchased. This means that the exact amount of monetary inflation as opposed to the increased valuation of a consumer good can never be ascertained, meaning inflation can never be accurately predicted and therefore can not be guarded against by a corresponding interest rate increase. Is this the source of the destruction caused by inflation, or does it have some other (or additional) source?
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 11:23:04 mst
Name: Richard
E-mail: rbramwell(at)sympatico.ca
@ brian0918 (#6),
The problem is the reporting of statistics prior to 1900. They may be indicative, but often research with reliable results was just not possible.
An interesting, though with a somewhat suspect method and thesis, is "Eat Right for Your Blood Type" by Peter J. D'Adamo. Adamo and his father had studied the evolution of blood types from different regions in the world.
To simplify:
* - The O-type was ubiquitous by the late hunter-gatherer stage of human progress, meat being a dominant food.
* - A-type became common where an agrarian lifestyle was adopted; it is pulse & grain (not wheat) oriented.
* - B-type developed in the Urals and Himalayan steppe regions and was spread by the Mongols; it favors dairy foods.
* - AB-type is recent (within the last ~1000 yrs) & uncommon, occurs in only 5% of humans & is a blend of A & B. Foods favorable to the AB-type require individual experimentation, though Adamo reports certain standards as OK.
Adamo tested the reaction of the major blood types to small quantities of dissolved foods, by adding the latter to a well slide containing a drop of blood. He claims each blood type had its own characteristic reaction for each food tested, presuming (my word) that clumping of cells indicated 'incompatibility'. The variety and number of foods the author tested is astonishing.
I am an A-type, and found that focusing on more of A-type foods, removing certain of which I knew I was allergic to, worked quite well for me. I had a clearer head and was generally more invigorated. I found the recommendations to markedly reduce wheat (unless sprouted) and dairy was particularly beneficial. My father is an O-type, and had been avoiding meat. My Mum increased his meat portions and reduced grains and rice proportionately and he was noticeably happier and more active.
Even if Adamo's Blood Type approach is not 100% reasonable, I consider the basic facts of human development through hunter-gatherer, agrarian, nomadic and mixing stages to have some logical merit with respect to suitable diet. That is, I cannot conclude that the Paleo diet (hunter-gatherer) is necessarily a best diet for the non-O blood types. Some hold that the Paleo diet applies to all people, but I suspect that claim is too sweeping.
Perhaps, in due course, nutritionists will become capable of identifying individual dietary pros and cons. As babies, we will be started out on a dietary routine suited to our particular constitution, and continue through life making any necessary changes that will ensure greater health, happiness and longevity.
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 11:15:31 mst
Name: Richard
E-mail: rbramwell(at)sympatico.ca
To Labeit's comment (#3) to Sajid, let's add that Greenspan kept interest rates at 1%!!
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| Sunday Open Thread #30
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 11:15:30 mst
Name: Monica Hughes
E-mail: monicabeth10(at)gmail.com
URL: http://fa-rm.org
"The sweet, yellow banana, for example, didn't come about until 1836. Maybe in that same regard, people began preparing grain-based foods in different ways, or breeding those grains for different features."
Brian, that's interesting on the banana. You raise some insightful possibilities re: grains. One of them is true.
I'm not aware of any research that plant breeding of grains resulted in anything more than higher yields per plant. That, of course, has been the main focus of plant breeding and it's been wildly successful, increasing grain yields per acre by about 10 fold in the past century. I have seen no evidence that the nutritional content of grains has not really changed, though. I know for certain that this is not the focus of modern genetic engineering, except for one example (golden rice engineered to contain beta carotene, which in my opinion is not actually going to be very helpful to those with vitamin A deficiencies). As such, most flours are still fortified with a variety of B vitamins, including niacin, thiamine and folic acid -- and iron -- because they're so devoid of nutritional content. My guess is that most people today would show severe vitamin deficiencies, on the order of what was observed in earlier decades and centuries, if flour was not fortified -- particularly since flour is comprising a larger portion of the western diet than ever before.
There are other differences in processing grain products that have also led to modern problems, as you suggest. Sourdough fermentation, which breaks down gluten and was widely used in the 1800s, has almost completely been replaced with quick rise techniques and yeasts. Sourdough bread can and should take anywhere from a day to four days to make, during which time the flour is fermented (I've personally done this). I don't think it's any surprise that 1% of the population manifest seemingly "new" conditions such as full blown celiac disease, probably partly as a result of this processing change on the part of bakeries everywhere. Another 10% of the population shows gluten intolerance as well, though not full-blown celiac. I don't know enough about the epidemiology of celiac disease to say whether it was equally prevalent 100 years ago, but my guess is not. It's still a very insufficient food source without modern supplementation, nutritionally speaking.
That doesn't mean one can't enjoy bread now and then -- but it's not something I personally choose to take my chances on every day. I ate bread regularly all my life until 6 months ago. Here are some excellent posts on the matter: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/celiac
As for the co-evolutionary history of grains with humans, I can't help but reproduce a large portion of this excellent post: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/grains-and-human-evol ... (Just FYI, ancient methods of processing foods -- both grains, vegetables, and dairy -- that may make them more digestible is heavily discussed in Nourishing Traditions, the cookbook by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig of the Weston A Price Foundation).
"The story is more complicated than the dates suggest, however. Although wheat had its origin 11,500 years ago, it didn't become widespread in Western Europe for another 4,500 years. So if you're of European descent, your ancestors have been eating grains for roughly 7,000 years. Corn was domesticated 9,000 years ago, but according to the carbon ratios of human teeth, it didn't become a major source of calories until about 1,200 years ago! Many American groups did not adopt a grain-based diet until 100-300 years ago, and in a few cases they still have not. If you are of African descent, your ancestors have been eating grains for 9,000 to 0 years, depending on your heritage. The change to grains was accompanied by a marked decrease in dental health that shows up clearly in the archaeological record.
"Practically every plant food contains some kind of toxin, but grains produce a number of nasty ones that humans are not well adapted to. Grains contain a large amount of phytic acid for example, which strongly inhibits the absorption of a number of important minerals. Tubers, which were our main carbohydrate source for about 1.5 million years before agriculture, contain less of it. This may have been a major reason why stature decreased when humans adopted grain-based agriculture. There are a number of toxins that occur in grains but not in tubers, such as certain heat-resistant lectins.
"Non-industrial cultures often treated their seeds, including grains, differently than we do today. They used soaking, sprouting and long fermentation to decrease the amount of toxins found in grains, making them more nutritious and digestible. Most grain staples are not treated in this way today, and so we bear the brunt of their toxins even more than our ancestors did.
"From an evolutionary standpoint, even 11,500 years is the blink of an eye. Add to that the fact that many people descend from groups that have been eating grains for far less time than that, and you begin to see the problem. There is no doubt that we have begun adapting genetically to grains. All you have to do to understand this is look back at the archaeological record, to see the severe selective pressure (read: disease) that grains placed on its early adopters. But the question is, have we had time to adapt sufficiently to make it a healthy food? I would argue the answer is no.
"There are a few genetic adaptations I'm aware of that might pertain to grains: the duplication of the salivary amylase gene, and polymorphisms in the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) and apolipoprotein B genes. Some groups duplicated a gene that secretes the enzyme amylase into the saliva, increasing its production. Amylase breaks down starch, indicating a possible increase in its consumption. The problem is that we were getting starch from tubers before we got it from grains, so it doesn't really argue for either side in my opinion. The ACE and apolipoprotein B genes may be more pertinent, because they relate to blood pressure and LDL cholesterol. Blood pressure and blood cholesterol are both factors that respond well to low-carbohydrate (and thus low-grain) diets, suggesting that the polymorphisms may be a protective adaptation against the cardiovascular effects of grains.
"The fact that up to 1% of people of European descent may have full-blown celiac disease attests to the fact that 7,000 years have not been enough time to fully adapt to wheat on a population level. Add to that the fact that nearly half of genetic Europeans carry genes that are associated with celiac, and you can see that we haven't been weeded out thoroughly enough to tolerate wheat, the oldest grain!
"Based on my reading, discussions and observations, I believe that rice is the least problematic grain, wheat is the worst, and everything else is somewhere in between. If you want to eat grains, it's best to soak, sprout or ferment them. This activates enzymes that break down most of the toxins. You can soak rice, barley and other grains overnight before cooking them. Sourdough bread is better than normal white bread. Unfermented, unsprouted whole wheat bread may actually be the worst of all.
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| IOS/TOC/TAS Death Watch
Sunday, January 4, 2009 at 10:48:40 mst
Name: Dismuke
E-mail: dismukemail(at)yahoo.com
URL: http://RadioDismuke.com
I just went back and reread my comments regarding the Alexa.com traffic rankings of various Objectivist and pseudo-Objectivist websites. I should have been a bit more clear on what the numbers mentioned mean. They are NOT the number of visitors a site has had but rather their ranking in terms of popularity verses other sites. Thus a SMALLER number means more visitors, a larger number means less.
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