libertarianlunatic

On Bureaucrats

2005-08-02T02:19:00.000-07:00

I propose a new rule to deal with bureaucrats. When I use that word, I speak not only of government officials, but anyone who is paid to ensure that the amount of paperwork needed is inversely proportional to the actual impact of the change you wish to make. Bureaucrats, in this broad sense, consist of a populace almost uniformly lacking in intellect, having a low self-opinion, and sharing a need to judge their worth by just how much time they are able to steal from hardworking individuals and how much misery they can add to the world of functioning human beings.

Bureaucrats, essentially, are bullies. Lacking as they do the normal virtues of a bully including something resembling a spine, a superiority in some ability, whether it's pounding people with their fists or in debate, and an ability to actually instill fear in people, bureaucrats make every single thing even vaguely under their jurisdiction harder to do than it should be.

I propose that we deal with them in the same fashion as paternal figures have been urging us to do with others of their ilk for centuries: stand up to them. Browbeat them.

And I don't just mean with words or gestures. Pickup that stapler, see if you can leave a matching indent in their skull. Remind bureaucrats that they are not the world's highest lifeform, and that their power only exists so long as we deign to humor them. Put them in their place, along with the other pale, slimy things under rocks and in damp dark corners.

On Buddhism

2005-07-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

To understand the nature of Buddhism, and the purpose of Buddha's life itself, one has to understand why God himself would come to Earth in mortal form, for the express purpose of telling people NOT to pray to Him.

Buddhism is a much misunderstood religion, often the biggest perpetrators of it of misinformation are Buddhists themselves.

The New Testament is like a ship floating aimlessly in the sea without the anchor of the Old Testament: You can't understand Christianity without a basic knowledge of Judaism.

The same is true, even moreso, for Buddhism with regard to Hinduism. In fact, Buddhism is not a religion of its own so much as a sect of Hinduism. To understand this, we might as well start at Buddha's birth.

There's a whole lot about dreams and gigantic white elephants with 6 tusks gruesomely impaling pregnant queens in their dreams, but at the end of it all, a baby boy is born: Siddhartha Gautama. He's the crown prince, lives it up for a number of years, and at the end of a gigantic hallucinogen-filled orgy with his concubines in his late 20's/early 30's, realizes he's a punkass and a half. The next morning he kisses his wife and son goodbye and sits underneath a tree (a bodhi tree to be specific) and doesn't move for 8 years.

He comes back from his trance, enlightened. Now it is revealed that he is Vishnu incarnate. Other vishnu incarnations you might be familiar with include Rama and Krishna (as in Hare Krishna cultists...those dirty dirty bastardizers). Buddha didn't actually say anything new. But then again, Krishna didn't really in the Bhagavad Gita. Buddha's contribution was to remind us of the soul of Hinduism.

Hinduism had become (and is becoming again today) an empty religion of prayer for things-- rather than guidance--and ceremonies whose symbolism was lost. To rectify this, Vishnu came down as Buddha, and preached the same central message that had been present in Hinduism since before the Vedas had been assembled.

Vishnu (as Buddha) reminded us of the central fact that you do not reach salvation through devotion to God. You reach it by living according to your dharma, your duty. Which isn't given to you by god, but through obeisance to the Vedas. The Vedas were not God's (or God's earthly incarnation's) words to us; they were an explanation of the world around us (epistemology), and an elucidation of man's place in it (ethics). Hinduism, at its core, is about man living as a part of nature, respecting nature, and interacting with others and the environment according to the precepts of natural law.

Buddha did this through the expedient of declaring that the question of God's existence is irrelevant. It isn't that you don't believe in god, or believe wholeheartedly in Him, it's that said belief doesn't change how you should live. It is a godless, but far from soul-less sect. Buddhism wasn't the first agnostic Hindu sect, but it was originally the most widely practiced...until ideas of God, prayer, and ceremony invaded Buddha's central tenets some years later.

Buddha once again espoused the ideas of karma (what goes around comes around), ahimsa (not harming other living creatures more than necessary), dharma (duty), reincarnation, and release from the endless cycle of birth death and rebirth through the attainment of perfect harmony with the natural laws(nirvana). But he did so in simpler terms, leaving God out of the picture, and thus making sure the meaning of God was not perverted by the selfish actions of what we in Hinduism have termed Rajasics (or those who pray in order to achieve their desires).
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To be a Buddhist then, one is faced with the paradoxical belief structure of admitting the existence of God, yet having a religion in which God plays the most minimal role possible. Brahma still created the universe, and Vishnu, in his incarnation Kalki, will still destroy it at the conclusion of the Kala Yuga (the current age). Buddha himself was an incarnation of Vishnu. In adhering to Buddhist tenets you are obeying the word of God. But Buddha is to be thought of as a messenger, enlightening us on natural law, rather than dictating it. One of his many titles was The Teacher. And it is in this capacity we must accept him.

When a Buddhist prays or meditates, seeking enlightenment, he is not asking for the answer of an omnipotent God, but asking for the counsel of his sagacious Guru, his all-knowing Teacher.

When I pray, or attempt to meditate, it is not to ask Buddha for the answer, but for guidance in how to solve the problem.

Myself.

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I hope this clears up some of the misconceptions about Buddhism, and explains somethign of the differences between the Buddhist sect of Hinduism and other religions. It isn't that this way is the only way, just that, so long as you remember the above lessons, it is incorruptible. If you live as a Christian, a Jew, whatever, so long as you, yourself are uncorrupted, the Hindu Gods really won't give a damn which path you took to get there.

Bombs in London

2005-07-07T15:09:00.000-07:00

First off, I'd like to thank everyone who got ahold of me to see if I was ok today. I was really touched by just how many of my friends, acquaintances, and even people i'd lost touch with for years contacted me to see how I was after you woke up. Thank you all. And now for a tasteless joke:

I can't remember the last time so many people wanted to talk to me.

Next yeah, the blasts were close to me. I was in Russel Square yesterday. Everytime I take the tube, I pass through King's Cross. I walk by it everyday anyway. And Tavistock Square? Just south of my school. Bus 205, which I think is the bus that got hit, is my second most used bus. I screamed at my phone so loud i woke up the guy on the floor above me cuz the lines were locked up and i couldn't get in touch with my parents. And then I threatened to strangle a squirrel outside my window with his own entrails. I've calmed down now.

I'm not going to point fingers on why this happened, although I'm sure most could anticipate my opinions on that subject. But, I will engage in a Churchfill quotefest. England stands at a crossroads today, and I'm not being melodramatic when I say that this may be the biggest decision its ever faced. This is more than just about the War on Terror but also a decision on how English they wish to remain. England's always been a different from the Continent, partially because of the channel, and partially because of their Anglo-Saxon roots as well as a heavy Scandinavian influence. That difference has rapidly disappeared since World War II. First with the adoption of the European 'Social Model' and then with the adoption of their postmodern, nihilistic, relativistic worldview.

I was astonished when I came here that the Brits I'd read about in my turn of the century novels, in my Wodehouse, and in my World War I and World War II history books had simply disappeared. They'd been replaced by Europeans with posh Brit accents. I did manage to find a small holdout of them in their NRA Highpower association (a few of us are goin out shootin' Saturday), but they're a dyin breed.

Their youth have turned European, so has their domestic policy. But their foreign policy doesn't have to. They can go Spain's route, pull out their soldiers, and give the moral victory to the Islamos. They can go France's route, break out the big brass band and escort the terrorists down the Thames and make England the second Islam Lite Republic in Europe. Or they can do what both Germany and France are guilty of, dealing in weapons and tech to the very terrorists they pretend to poopoo in public.
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To switch gears for a second, one of my major reasons for coming to the UK this year was that I've always said that I needed to live in a place that either had history or was close to the great outdoors. London fit that bill nicely. The facades still stand, King Harald (the guy who William the Conqueror killed in 1066) lies in a tomb in a small chapel up in Walthamstow, Old ST. Pancras Church, a continual site of Christian worship since roughly 300 AD is a bare mile from my house, and there's all the other stuff everyone's familiar with. But I'm hoping, for their own good, the Brits remember their much more recent history: That of the Nazi appeasement debacle:

I believe it is peace for our time . . . peace with honour.--The words of Neville Chamberlain, then Prime Minister in England. Speaking of the Nazis...in 1937.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile--hoping it will eat him last--Winston Churchill, critiquing Chamberlain as he inherited a seemingly unstoppable war with Germany.

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.--More Churchill.

We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the tools and we will finish the job.--Churchill in 1941.

Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.--Again in 1941.

I beg of the country that once enraptured me so much I faced a staggeringly bad exchange rate, hostile deans anxious to get another 40,000 dollars tuition out of me, and the condescension of medical schools all over the nation at studyin monkeys for a year, to remember your history lessons. To not utter the same idiotic words already spoken by Chamberlain more than half a century. Not to give in to the French, the Germans, or the Spanish, who tread down that same past, heedless of the past's admonition.

The spectacle looming before you is not so different than that presented by the Nazis. Like them, these people don't really want to live with you in peace. They don't want to live with you at all. Like them, they hate not just the jews, but anything different. And like them, they have no respect for you. Why should you give any to them? They are Churchill's crocodile and nothing more.

Remember that past you are so proud of. Remember its lessons. God bless you, and I hope you find your way to the truth.

Atheistic Humanism is a Religion

2005-07-06T15:07:00.000-07:00

I'm really getting sick and tired of the atheists picking on Christians. Yeah there are some bad eggs out there, I won't deny it. But bad people are bad people, regardless of what creed they follow. You mock them as irrational, illogical, and hopelessly 'backward'. You'll even call them weak for having faith. Foaming at the mouth, you scream "There is no proof of a god; your entire religion is a sham." You know, that may be (I'm an agnostic myself, but have the ability to appreciate things I don't perfectly understand--like faith in a higher power), but your philosophy isn't exactly on the most stable of foundations.

Humanism, whether derived from the principle of an innate human-ness or an extrinsically-derived human condition a la Sartre, posits essentially that "Man is the measure of all things," to quote Protagoras, an early contributor to this school of thought. From the wiki definition, we get a concise and workable list of this school of thought's salient points:

Humanism is an active ethical and philosphical approach to life focusing on human solutions to human issues through rational arguments with or without recourse to a god, gods, sacred texts or religious creeds.

In context, this asserted that people are the ultimate determiners of value and morality— not objective or absolutist codices.

It's important to note that humanism essentially replaces God with Man. Humanists, though, pride themselves on their logical ability. If they are to use Man in such a capacity, they must

Liberals and their Illogical Support of 'International Organizations'

2005-07-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

Round about 2002, a hoax email went out with fabricated IQ data purporting to show that Gore states were smarter than Bush states. Of course, since every liberal likes to believe they're smarter, it was quickly picked up by such Bush-bashing publications as the Economist (scroll down...middle of page), who later had to retract it. And you know what they say: Once Bitten, Twice Shy. Nope! Not the liberals, same hoax was trotted out again in 2004, and their raging egos took the bait once again.

This resulted in an interesting change of pace in what had formerly been an amiable conversation between two Americans in London at a Soho bar. He'd made the assumption that any guy who'd pick up off to 'forn parts' for a year couldn't possibly be so benighted as to be conservative. That night I was reminded once again just how bigotted and closed-minded liberals can be. But I digress...

The amazing thing to me is that for all they claim to be the more intelligent side of the debate, liberals evidently have not even a rudimentary knowledge of statistics, nor common sense. The false data had Connecticut's (Democrat) average IQ at 113. This mean's the entire state's average is 13% higher than that of the nation as a whole. Now, I'm usually up there trumpeting the differences between the red states and blue states, but America is a little bit more homogenous than that. The likelihood of such a difference, even accounting for things like income, etc, is just so vanishingly small I won't bother to dignify it with a number.

While I'd like to claim that liberals are naturally stupider than conservatives, I would be doing myself and my education a dishonesty. I think your political affiliation has very little to do with your IQ, and everything to do with your worldview (should be no surprise there). If you are swayed by the Declaration, the Constitution, the words of our Founding Fathers, you will turn out conservative. If instead your eye is turned to TH Green's Theory of Positive Freedom (see Julian Baggini's column here for a more lucid explanation of a theory that essentially posits that freedom=comfort), or by the classist writings of Karl Marx, then, well you'll probably become a liberal. It would be easy for me to insult the intelligence of anyone who can't see that 'positive freedom' isn't freedom at all, but I won't. Anyway I'm so off topic now I should be shot for rambling just to hear the sound of my own fingers typing, a charge I won't bother to deny.

My point was that liberals pride themselves on their reason; in fact, it was a common enough response of theirs to me and my ilk at debates and demonstrations: "Why can't you just listen to reason? Why can't you see the truth?" But I see no reason or logic in their treatment of things like the UN, ACLU, World Bank, and Amnesty International. What I see is them temporizing and confusing a group's purpose for the group itself, using a group's mission as a justification for the group's existence. They are two separate entities, a cause can be just while its champion can be the most despicable human being to ever walk the planet.

I'm writing a short story right now about a man who goes on an eco-terrorist rampage. Killing poachers in Africa, harrassing illegal loggers in Amazonia and the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, sabotaging dam-work in India. His goals are noble; few could reproach him for wanting to preserve what's left of the natural world. His methods, however, should engender little sympathy. The whole point of the story is the tension between protecting something that's almost holy and the inhuman acts perpetrated in the name of that ideal. I'm now thinking my potential audience has been halved.

When I criticize the UN's policies and efficacy in front of my British classmates, god bless their idealistic souls, their typical response is: "But the UN is a good idea, where else can world leaders talk and negotiate and solve problems before violence erupts?" "Umm, has the UN actually solved any problems recently? Have they stopped violence? Or, failing that, used those silly cornflower blue helmets to keep the peace?". Heh, no answer. Skeptical as I am of 'world peace' and the ability of vastly different nations to ever have an amiable existence, I'll take it on face-value that an international forum of countries is a good idea. But don't ask me to support the UN simply because it claims to do that.

Then there's the ACLU, who were busy following around our patriotic Minutemen during their recent work on the border, ready to call a press conference to report 'civil rights' abuses. I guess the civil liberties of the area's inhabitants, who face violence and destroyed property every day because of the spectre of mass illegal immigration, just aren't important. I guess the 7 million unemployed citizens and legal residents are less important than the 11-15 million illegals who artificially depress wages and saturate the job markets. Washington DC, NY, CA, and Chicago have been assaulting a certain civil right we like to call the 2nd ammendment for nigh on 30 years. Did ACLU speak out about that? Affirmative Action holds down Asians (proven, i'll link later) in the interest of the more 'politically expedient' minorities, yet is there a peep out of them over this insidious racist policy? Civil liberties are damned important. And there should be a watchdog organization to help us make our voices heard when the government attempts to trample them. The ACLU picks and chooses its battles based on a political platform. It is ineffectual, and I refuse to support it simply because it's 'for a good cause.'

Ah, Amnesty International, beautiful AI. Where would we be without them? Calling Gitmo a gulag, fueling Islamofascist passion and rage, only to admit they have absolutely no basis for the claim. In fact, a former Gulag(the real thing) prisoner decried Amnesty International's characterization:

Words are important. When Amnesty spokesmen use the word "gulag" to describe U.S. human rights violations, they allow the Bush administration to dismiss justified criticism and undermine Amnesty's credibility. Amnesty International is too valuable to let it be hijacked by politically biased leaders.

Damn. Well, anything else I'd say would be redundant.

A cause and an institution that support it are not the same thing. You can support one and not the other. In fact, when the organization proves to be a politically-biased, corrupt, or otherwise ineffectual steward of an ideal, it is morally reprehensible to continue supporting it. To do so would be to prevent the effective achievement of your goal. The Constitution, a document that remains unchallenged as the pinnacle of government foundation, would not be here today if the Founding Fathers hadn't had the chutzpah to throw out the flawed Articles of Confederation that preceded it. The United Nations is actually the successor of an even more ineffectual--if you can believe it--international ruling body known as the League of Nations. I realize it's hard to justify the existence of any of the three groups, but that's alright. This may be a sign that we need to pick up and start over. Like I said, it isn't the group that's important, it's the goal. If you really care, about piece, about liberty, then, do us all a favor, and help us put a new, better group where an old, flawed and corrupt one stands, taking up room, influence, and money.

Optimism on the Fourth of July

2005-07-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

A lot of conservative bloggers seem to be wearing black and mourning the death of America today. Truth be told, I was too as I went to bed last night, prepared to make a sob-filled eulogy to the dying ideal of the Land of the Free. But depression doesn't come naturally to me...it usually transmutes itself to burning anger within a few hours. And that's how I feel today: angry. Not just angry at the misguided people that undermine the constitution everyday in all three branches of the government. Not just angry with the idiots who shepherd them into office, chasing a dream of the European ideal...a land where they never figured out how not to be subjects. But angry with myself for getting depressed in the first place.

On this day a Call to Fight came from the colonial caucus, magnificently penned by Thomas Jefferson. 229 years later, it is still a call to fight, albeit against a far more insidious enemy. July 4th in 1776 was a challenge, to the maddened King George, and to the wave upon wave of red coats and muskets that would soon come by the boatload. On that day, our forefathers said "Come and get it. We're waiting for you. We will stand our ground." Today our enemy comes from within, but, like those British soldiers, they are simply taking orders. Their orders come from their education, and from their lack of introspection. Today we are called to arms, not to raise our swords upon the field of battle, but to raise our pens and our voices, to win possession not of bloody battlefields but of hearts and minds.

Heinlein, that preternaturally brilliant political commentator, remarked that a people who forget their history will have no future. And that is the very essence of the problem. We simply aren't taught our history well enough. We learn dates, we learn places, and we learn names. But that's the least important part of history. It didn't matter then what day of the week or the year that Patrick Henry spoke his famous words. It doesn't matter what the Federalist Papers were called, or even who wrote them. That Ben Franklin invented bifocals, who really gives a shit?

The importance of our founding fathers lay in what they said and what they did. Of the lessons they imparted to posterity. Of the struggles they fought for 7 long years. Of the failure of the Articles of Confederation, and from its ashes the Phoenix of the Constitution which arose with such glory no better governing document has been written. This is the history that's important, and it is precisely this history that isn't taught.

This country's laws and institutions aren't something to be discussed, agreed upon, and decided by Democrats and Repubicans. That was already done for us with the birth of the Constitution. Our framers were polymaths, accomplished economists, historians, and philosphers; The constitution is approximately as outdated as this post, possibly less. They were also some of the most paranoid and far-thinking individuals the world has ever seen. They created a document that did not really have to change with the times, at least as far as its central ideas go. The Constitution should no more change with the times than the Bible, Buddha's words, or Shakespeare. Our framers' very intent was to create an ahistoric document. One that it doesn't matter when you gave it a glance, the words are timeless. On the 150th anniversary of July 4th, Calvin Coolidge said as much about the Declaration (hat tip powerline ):

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

Not progress, reactionary. These days no Republican is untainted by assault on certain principles of our founding document, but the entire 'progressive' movement is a reaction against the Constitution. They are not progressive, they are regressive. They are Statist. Individual liberty is not the goal, but individual comfort. By such stuff are subjects and sheep made. Their power lies in speaking to the fears and the emotions of their minions. That is not the life I want to live, to take counsel of my fears (to quote churchill) before deciding my course of action (except insects...i'm still afraid of insects) Our message is clear, it is invincible, the only thing that remains is to speak that message. To remind people of what it means to be American, to believe in freedom, and the sacrosanct individual. To remind them that the government is our plaything, not the other way around.

A few days ago I mentioned the Gadsden Flag. It's flying today in my mind and in my heart. It neatly encapsulates everything we stood for on the field of battle and in the writing of our great foundation. Years ago it was flown by the most belligerent of the belligerent Revolutionary War soldiers. Today, it's resurrected, flown by one of the most belligerent conservatives I know: me. They stood there ready to die for their cause. No one will ask that of me, or of you; we have no excuse for walking out on this fight.

Kelo depressed me. It made me question whether America really was better than Europe. I dont know how the country got to that point, but no more. Melancholy has given way to the much more comfortable rage. Rage I can do, rage is familiar to me. I can do it all my life and not blink an eye. I think I will. It all ends now. The statists fought a war of attrition for 200 long years, but their day ends now. I will shout, I will fight, I will debate, I will write. I will do everything in my power to win that ground back. My country isn't dead yet, but she is sick, in danger of dying. The erosion of the constitution may lead to its utter destruction, but like Hawkeye on MASH, all I'll say is NOT ON MY WATCH!

Monetary Aid to Africa...Still a Bad Idea

2005-07-03T19:42:00.000-07:00

When a certain someone demanded I blog this, at first I was infuriated at their presumption at thinking they could control me. And then I started feeling a bit like a kid in a candy store. There were so many ways of attacking the ridiculousness of live aid, the G8 BS, and Mandela's comments...especially this gem from Bob Geldof to the leaders at G8:

In an open letter to the G-8 leaders, which appeared in several British newspapers Saturday, Geldof said the summit will disappoint the world if it fails to deliver an extra $25 billion in aid to Africa.

Monetary aid is such a moronic idea on so many levels that I just don't know where to start: personally, economically, ecologically, common sense? I'll leave the economics and ecology for a later post. It's boring technical stuff. But I'll speak from my own experience and involvement in service organizations today.

A fire breaks out somewhere in the barn...the hay got too dry. Everyone on the farm breaks as fast as they can for the buckets, forming a chain from the cattle watering trough to the barn. The bucket is filled, and as it gets passed from one peson to the next--Quickly, quickly now--a little bit of the water sloshes out. By the time it gets to Poppa, who's closest to the fire, it's only halfway full. Dousing the growing conflagration, he's surprised when instead of sizzling, it explodes with tinges of blue, bigger and hotter than ever. That wasn't the cattle trough, but JimBob's corn whiskey still. As everyone begins to flail around in panic, you realize they're only fanning the flames...

An acquaintance from Africa said something to me today (loosely paraphrased): "When you think about how poor these warlords are when they come into power, how much poorer the country gets under them, how much aid pours in, and how rich the gangleaders get in such a short time, you begin to realize where all the money's going."

Money, in my experience, is one of the worst things you can give to a charitable cause. The problem lies in money's intangibility and universality. Like the water sloshing out of the bucket everytime it's passed, money too easily falls through the cracks...and into crooked hands...simply too intangible to keep track of through the many transactions that must take place to turn money into food, clothing, or shelter. And then there's that universality. Money can be used by anyone for anything. It doesn't matter if the G8 earmarked it for AIDS drugs, or education programs, or food. Money is money, and until it is converted into something more tangible, it remains nearly as easy to lose as your dignity.

Give a charity 50 dollars to buy toilet paper, and I bet you everything in my bank account that 50 dollars doesn't get entirely spent on toilet paper. Give that same charity 50 dollars worth of toilet paper...and it stays toilet paper. I know this cuz I've worked in charities, handling both money and tangible goods. That money you gave 'to the kids' might get spent on full-time supervisors' salaries, the banquet the board of directors throws for themselves, or it might just disappear into a volunteer's pocket. But the account you opened for us at the food bank, or the toys you donated, well I've never seen those become anything but lunch and entertainment for the kids.

Another thing people don't realize is that your time is often far more valuable than your money. If I'd been able to find a job in the heavy recession of the summer of 2002, I probably would've pulled 6-10 dollars an hour. My work as a volunteer was often worth more than 80 dollars a day. Not because I was particularly skilled, but simply because most people are overqualified for a minimum wage job. If you can turn a screwdriver, you can save them the cost of calling out a carpenter for a minor issue like a broken fence latch or you can assemble DIY furniture for them, saving the money a pre-built piece would've cost. You can cook the meals, or you can help out in any number of ways that just about anybody can.

Heck, in the VA a high-school age volunteer can essentially increase the number of nursing staff by 1, simply by being able to read a name off a chart, put on a velcro cuff, push a button, and then when the machine beeps, walk the patient down to the right exam room. And if they're capable of wearing latex gloves and learning the diference between an army/navy whatchamacallit, a scalpel, and an artery clamp thingy (looks like a pair of pliers, sorta), they can even help out in surgery.

I'll end this incoherent ramble with reminding you about your high school days. You all knew the kid with the rich educated parents who basically ignored him. But threw money at him. How'd that kid turn out? I knew a few. Two are full out druggies. Two committed suicide. The rest have just...dropped off the radar.

You also know a kid whose parents maybe didn't have a lot of money, but they did the right things for her, and raised her right, and put effort where they coudlnt' afford to put material things. How'd she turn out? Pretty well, eh?

Money's no different from JimBob's corn whiskey. It sure as hell looks like it'll put that fire out. But give it a quick whiff...and you'll find yourself trying not to pass out from the stench. Money, like bootleg alcohol, just turns bad way too easy. Methanol contamination made plenty of speakeasy goers in the 1920's go blind. Corruption has allowed aid money to become the warchests of dictators. Aid money in a very large sense was the seed of the exploding poverty all around the 'dark continent'. Are you going to fuel that fire? or put it out?

p.s.Feel free to add a few trite aphorisms here like 'the road to hell is paved wtih good intentions', and 'give a man a fish, and he eats for a day...' blah blah blah.

Works That Should've Been Influential in Your Life

2005-07-02T04:55:00.000-07:00

...but came after you'd already become it...

Probably the most striking example for me is Rudyard Kipling's poem 'If'. John Ringo's Empire of Man series is liberally interwoven with quotes from the poem, spoken by the sort-of father figure of the protagonist. Nas' music video for 'Made You Look' ends with an excerpt. For all his colonial British racism, what with the doctrine of 'White Man's Burden' and all, I've been completely unable to hate Kipling or his work. In the past year or so, the poem's practically wallpapered the three rooms I've lived in, got quoted in my med school admissions essay, and is linked to liberally in AIM conversations. Here it is:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

That right there is me...what I want to be. I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm there yet, but that's been the direction I've been aiming at since I was 16 or so. The poem didn't really change the way I thought about anything, but it summarized it so succinctly it's stuck by me.
--------------

Another work that should've been influential in both my personal philosophy and the way I think about the world and Man's place in it is Bill McKibben's Enough. I must admit, I haven't actually read the entire way through it. More than a year and a half after I first picked it up, I'm not much further than the prologue. Everytime I read more than a page, I go into a sympathetic fit of rage and fling the book across the room...I actually need a new copy. You see, human philosophy for too long has been about separated the way we think from the physical...hence the word metaphysics. That pisses me off. A human isn't some disembodied mind or spirit, but a living breathing, immanently physical being. McKibben's introduction is all about how, never an athlete, he trained for his first marathon as he rapidly approached middle age. About how the experience and ultimately he himself are so tied to that physical body, the aching joints punished by countless impacts upon the pavement, the lactic acid buidup in muscles having depleted their oxygen supply, the exhaustion. About how if nanotech or genetic tinkering ever become common and accepted, this integral human experience would lose all meaning, simply disappear. He probes deeper in the book; the snatches I've been able to read before I had to go punish myself on the heavy bag were about how much of being human is dependent on the external physical world, the natural world, and how every increasing bit of artificiality and separation we interpose ourselves and our origin results in humanity becoming ultimately smaller, and less meaningful. For those who know me, nothing more needs to be said about how strikingly this reflects my cultural history and personal life.
------------------

Moving on to the scientific, there's The Nature of Natural History by Marston Bates (free online). Bates was an ecologist and natural historian who worked extensively in South America and the western hemisphere in general. He also wrote extensively on how ecology could inform the way we think about ourselves...A goal I'd already been working at some 6 months before I ever ran into this book in the bargain bin.

To go further, I've unfortunately gotta go a bit into the history of biology and into some of the nitty gritty of evolution. In order for Darwinian evolution to work, there has to be some constant thing that the offspring can inherit from the parents. Darwin didn't know what this was, but 40 or so years later, Gregor Mendel had laid the groundwork for genetics with his studies of pea plants. By the 1930's genetics was in full swing as a biological subject, even though it wouldn't be until the mid 1940's that Franklin, Wilkins, Watson, and Crick had elucidated the actual structure of DNA. Without genes there can be no evolution; they are the core of every livin thing's history and existence.

Naturally, population geneticists began to crow that evolution could be reduced to a simple study of gene frequencies, mutations, and heritability. A lot of biologists attempted to patiently remind them that there's a lot that goes on between a gene and its expression in an individual. And there's a lot of external forces that don't act directly on those genes, but on the individual. Genes are the core, sure, but there's a lot of slop surrounding it. These days, proponents of the importance of the individual organism rather than the parts that make it up (including myself) are an increasingly small and voiceless minority in biology's external and internal perception. "You morons can't see the forest for the trees, dumbasses," we scream. They snort in derision, exclaiming that "Trees are the core of forests, without trees you can't have forests, so screw you. We're going to study individual trees, and that's all we need to study." It's pretty retarded, nevertheless it remains they who get the attention while we get shepherded off to musty offices, relegated to smaller funding bodies, and decreasing relevance in today's society.

Population genetics was born in the 1920's with the work of Sewall Wright, who was followed up by Theodosius Dobhzansky. They remain the only two population genetecists aware of the limitations of a gene-dominated perspective, and the only two I respect as scientists. Of course, being dead, they're even more easily ignored today than they were during their lifetimes. Bates wrote Nature in 1950. 33 years before I was born and 52 years before I decided to care about this kinda thing. Nevertheless he predicted, amazingly, and depressingly, accurately what was to come. Bates was among the first of us Natural Historians to attempt to stem the flow of idiocy emanating from the geneticists. He failed, but not for lack of trying. 55 years ago, he said everything I intend to say on the subject. The words will be different, I'll use a few analogies he didn't, and I'll fail just as miserably as he did, but nothing much will have changed:

One dictionary that I consulted remarks that "natural history" now commonly means the study of animals and plants "in a popular and superficial way," meaning popular and superficial to be equally damning adjectives.

He rankles his nose in distaste at being called superficial and starts his defense:

The world of organisms, of animals and plants, is built up of individuals. I like to think, then, of natural history as the study of life at the level of the individual...Other biological sciences take up the study at other levels of organization: dissecting the individual into organs and tissues and seeing how these work together, as in physiology; reaching down still further to the level of cells, as in cytology; and reaching the final biological level with the study of living molecules and their interactions, as in biochemistry.

No one of these levels can be considered as more important than any other. The phenomena at each level are different, and we must try to get an understanding of each. A cell is something more than an aggregate of molecules; an individual more than an aggregate of organs. A population or community, for that matter, is something more than an accumulation of individuals.

He emphasizes the individual:

I am an individual; so are you; so is my dog and the oak tree on my lawn. What makes us act the way we do? How do we get along with each other--the oak tree, the dog and the man? How did we come to get this way?

And a statement of (so far) misplaced hope:

The explanation of these things furnishes us with an objective; one that at times seems hopelessly remote. But whether we ever get to the objective or not, we keep finding interesting things along the way so that the going, however difficult, never seems tedious.

Nothing really left for me to say. I'm in the middle of my master's thesis right now. If I'm lucky (knock on wood), it'll become a publication or two. My scientific career hasn't even started, and yet...the interesting things that brought me into this field, they're simply not enough joy to prevent me feeling the tedium, the sisiphyean nature of fighting against the idiots in lab coats...
-------------------------------------
And finally, politically. I could never understand the lack of logic inherent in liberalism. They simultaneously preached the inner 'dignity' and 'worth' of every individual human being, while proposing laws that are expressly designed to control, limit, and expurgate greed, violence, and utter evil of men. How can you be dignified and worthy if the law assumes you're a petty, vengeful bastard? As I've said before, I started Republican. Fiscally extremely conservative, socially rather far right in that department as well. Over time I realized that while I personally lived an extremely conservative life in the social department, I didn't actually believe that all of it needed to be legislated, and a coy flirtation with libertarianism continues to this day. In other words, I'm obviously about to say:

HEINLEIN HEINLEIN HEINLEIN!!!!

Truth be told, I've only read a book or two of his, but have run into countless quotes in more modern scifi work. Heinlein's the least perfect fit of any work so far discussed. Like I said, i'm a socially conservative person, even if my politics are more liberal. His characters decidedly are...not. But he's a good fit, best out there I've encountered. Although John Ringo and Linda Evans' Road to Damascus is possibly better, it simply doesn't have the depth or breadth of the Heinlein body of work.

That about sums me up, 4 authors I never read until I'd already formed those position, but whose stuff is remarkably good at describing me. All I can think is "Why the hell didn't I find this stuff five years ago, when it could've saved me the trouble...dammit."

Yeah it was long, sue me...

DOUBLESPEAK PISSES ME OFF

2005-07-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

And so does the lack of international furor over Japan's bald faced lie.

'Research Whaling' is right up there with 'Indigenous Palestinian' and 'Iraqi Insurgent' as far as causing an RCOB moment (Red Curtain Of Blood...kimdutoit.com term).

There's no such thing as an indigenous Palestinian. Before the 1930's/1940's they were all expatriate or itinerant citizens of other islamic countries. Not until their former nations saw a political purpose in revoking citizenship (the destruction of Israel) was it even possible to describe yourself as Palestinian. Every one of my grandparents, including the one who's not even 70, is older than the term 'Palestinian'. Doublespeak bullshit.

Iraqi Insurgent. Yeah, a small percentage of them are Iraqi. But the majority of them are Saudi, with the rest coming from bordering countries like Syria and Kuwait. (i'll post links when i'm less angry). So, they aren't Iraqi. Insurgency implies rebellion from within. These guys aren't from within. They're islamofascist invaders. Second, insurgents are generally supposed to be on the 'side of hte people'. In a country that posted higher voter participation in its first democratic election than we did back in November, it's hard to countenance the belief that the Iraqi people are against democratic reform. Neither insurgents nor Iraqi. More doublespeak bullshit.

And now 'Research Whaling'. 935 Minke Whales, 50 Humpback, 50 Fin. What research is being done? Quick googling resulted in nothing. So did a jump on Athens (UK science journal database). I'll look some more, because I'm curious. I have no idea what conservation or ecological research actually requires you to kill. And even wtih small animals like mice or birds, where it's feasible, i've never heard of a single lab killing 1000 in a year for the purpose of a non-medical study.

Japan's quota used to be 440 whales, all Minke. They've been doing it for a number of years, and I have yet to see any 'research' come out of it. Now, without any known results, they want to expand up to 1000. INterestingly enough, after being 'studied' these whale carcasses are then sold commercially and are served as a delicacy in Japanese restaurants. I'm a lazy bum, but i'd like to see one of those hardcore investigative bloggers find a link between the 'researchers' and those who serve or supply whale meat at markets and restaurants.

It's not research, it's exploitation of one of the most fragile links in ocean ecology for gross profit and even more gross feeding habits. These are the same people that defend the practice of cutting off a shark's fin and then throwing the rest of the shark back into the ocean...to die in misery. So they can put the fin in soup. I'm a meat eater myself and will be until I can afford vegetable protein in the amounts I need. But if you're gonna kill the damn thing, have the respect to eat more than its goddamn fin! And kill it cleanly. Just like an American outdoorsman would.

This isn't 'research' and although Japan chooses to perpetrate the charade, no one should acknowledge it. Call it what it is. Commercial whaling essentially condoned by the IWC. Americans don't agree with Kyoto, for good reason (expect a post on its idiocy later), but at least we didn't sign it and then state that we weren't going to cut emissions at all under the guise of 'research polluting'. Rank, disgusting filth. Quit yer bitching about an idiotic and mindless Kyoto Protocol and look instead to Japan, to Africa, to China, and all the other places where the wildlife itself is greedily exploited with not a care for International scrutiny.

What's in a name?

2005-06-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

Ended up on skippy the bush kangaroo's little place through the vagaries of link-jumping across the blogosphere and saw a bit I just had to quote:

"while trying madly to reach a million hits for our third blogiversary (yes! talkleft coined that phrase!) we stumbled upon a truly conservative blog called cynical nation .

now, by "truly" conservative, we don't mean way more conservative than lgf (that would be nigh impossible). no, we mean "conservative" in the literal, old school definition of the term: wanting to conserve (budget, environment, values); a real-life libertarian, not a wannabe who likes shouting for the sake of shouting."

I typically call myself a small-l libertarian, because it's probably the best fit out there for me, but it ain't perfect. What is, however, is skippy's characterization of truly conservative. Conserving the budget, the environment, and values. He even got the order right in my case. Skippy's pretty firmly left, but the blog, from what I've read today, is rather thoughtful, and capable of incisive comments like the above that any conservative would be proud to make.

Truly conservative is a damned good way to describe myself. I just wish it were in common usage. I'm in a no man's land i'd bet was shared by a large proportion, if not a majority, of fiscal conservatives. I'm not quite socially liberal enough to be a Libertarian but I'm a bit too socially liberal to be a good republican. And although I have a bible, I ain't Christian. Which, since 2000 has meant that I'm automatically ineligible for party membership anyway.

There've been a lot of terms thrown out there to describe us: conservative, libertarian, minarchist, right-leaning, whatever. And i'm tired of having to pick a label depending on the situation. If I'm defending a republican policy I agree with, i'm conservative, to show a union between me and the republicans. If I'm attacking a republican policy I become a libertarian. If i'm yelling at liberals, i'm typically denounced as a yahoo who can't think straight. Screw it. I'm a conservative. And I'm adopting Skippy's definition.

Who says we're incapable of listening to the other side? Skippy, my heartfelt thanks for putting succinctly into words what I couldn't manage in 3000 or more.

Amnesty International is RACIST!

2005-06-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

Since they like to make off-the-cuff remarks about Gitmo being equivalent to Indonesia's killing fields, Stalin's Gulags, and Hitler's Concentration camps, which they admit they have no proof for, I'd like to make a characterization about them. And this one is done with more proof and justification than they used: Amnesty Internation is a racist organization pandering to whites and only whites.

A peculiar thing about London is that charity and advocacy groups campaign up and down the major streets around universities. They do so using individual student volunteers standing 20-40 meters apart, wearing t-shirts or jackets proclaiming their affiliation. These kids hold clipboards to take down bank account numbers of willing contributors to deduct monthly contributions in a method not too different from direct debit billpaying. Today the AI kids were out in force, stopping any college-age kid who didn't seem to be in a hurry...except me. I ambled up and down Tottenham Court Road for 30 minutes, clearly not in a hurry, and equally clearly a student, laptop and library book in hand, hoping to be stopped by one of them. They would simply look my way before turning around to accost another student, usually unsuccessfully, before studiously ignoring me some more. For 30 minutes the only people they approached were whites, despite the plethora of people similarly pigmentally gifted as me. The cause of this could only be racism, rank and disgusting prejudice.

Finally tiring, I directly approached one of them, introduced myself, and asked what their latest 'cause' was. "Oh nothing, just general fundraising," he told me. "Since you don't have a UK bank account, I can't sign you up, but you can when you're back in the US."

"Well, you see I'm a bit annoyed with the US dept. right now. You see, they implied that some of my best friends are no better than concentration camp workers." To his credit, the kid put on a credible display of shock. "I had no idea," he said...

"Don't get me wrong, I support your noble goals. We should be working to end injustice globally. But the spokesman for AI is making crass characterizations of our brave soldiers, and they admit they have no backing for these statements. They have actually publicly said this, and that this was merely a publicity stunt. Meanwhile they ignore abuses in China, they ignore the islamofascists in Lebanaon, and they ignore Africa, one of the biggest human rights violators in the world." Ahhh, i got him here.

"Yeah, i'm from Zimbabwe myself," he said. "Oh god, the Mugabe mess and everything," I interjected. "Yeah 1 million homeless because of him. I talked to a person at headquarters and asked what they were doing about it. She said she didn't know. I asked when they were gonna get around to it. She didn't know that either."

"So you work for a sham organization."
"No I wouldn't say that."
"Well, then, what are they doing of consequence?"
"Oh shit, we went on break and no one told me...well nice meeting you, have a good stay in UK."

So what've we learned today? There is solid proof of AI's racism, yet none of their biggest claim this year. We've also learned that even headquarters admits they don't care about the Zimbabwe situation, where peopel are persecuted for either being white or politically opposing Mugabe's communist totalitarian regime.

AI is shit.

We Need A New Flag...

2005-06-29T01:44:00.000-07:00

Actually an old one. And i'm not talking replacing 'Old Glory', but supplementing it. Back during the Revolutionary War, although there was kind of a general pattern to flags, different incarnations of it abounded. Groups, states, admirals, generals, all had variations on the theme they favored in battle. You can see some of them here.

Why do we need a new flag? Because the only place where Originalists are still alive in National politics is in the Supreme Court. There too, they're simply not enough to turn the tide against the 'progressives'. Clarence Thomas is the last nationally relevant man in power I hold in high regard, with the other 3 (sometimes 4) getting varying amounts of grudging admiration, depending on the issue and where they feel like standing that day.

Leftists call the Constitution a 'dead and outdated document'--they want a 'living' constitution that changes with the times, a document that would become meaningless, dependent on the Winds of Change for its definition...imagine Shakespeare if every ten years the lingo was revised to reflect current speech: "Hoisted by his own petard" would become either 'Pushed upward by his own fart' or 'Pulled a suicide-bomber', depending on your translation...Doesn't scan in iambic pentameter, and loses just a touch of un certain je ne sais quoi, don't it?

The Neocons at least pretend to be Originalist--until it conflicts whatever arena they're looking to grab power in.

Both ways suck, but at least the neocons pay slightly more reverence to what I believe are the important parts of the document. As I pointed out the other day, the Constitution reflects what we will allow the government to do. It is not an enumeration but a deeply circumscribed boundary. Those who understand and believe this are mortified by the growth of the fed and the continued erosion of state, local, and personal rights, privileges, and obligations.

Neocons and at least some liberals love this country (I'm being charitable in the latter case). Many of them fly the American flag either permanently or at prominent national Holidays. There will definitely be a profusion of them in a few days when July 4 rolls around. They support and care about this country. I won't challenge that. But they don't support or respect our constitution.

We need a symbol to fly that shows our embrace not only of patriotism, but of what the Consitution reallystood for, i.e. the restriction of government. The American Flag, while a worthy symbol, would fail to broadcast such intention.

I'm currently using the Confederate Flag in that role. It's pretty popular among Texans and our close ideological relatives of the Old South. To us it's now a symbol of states' rights and a differentiation from the liberal North. But the symbol is simply too loaded and too regional, not to mention historically about rejecting the constitution. I'm a dark brown male, I can fly said flag and no one would be able to easily level the charge of racism at me. But the same can't be said of my friends and those who agree with me on this issue. Although they do call me 'nigger' just about every chance they get, they aren't racist. The flag would have them perceived as such. And what to do about Originalist Northerners? There simply is no connection between them and the crossed stars.

So we need a new symbol. I don't want new though. Like I said, this is about Originalism, it's about respecting, understanding, and returning to our historical past. As I mentioned, there were hundreds of variations of the American flag flown in the years between 1776 and 1785 or so. We need something that'll actively convey our distaste for government intrusion while at the same time hearkening back to the remembrance of what our forefathers fought and died for...the Gadsden Flag at the top of the page is my choice.

Here is some history about the flag including a cool little note on the symbolism of the rattler itself. Here's a page by the same guy devoted entirely to the so-called Gadsden Flag (where I got the picture from. Give this guy a big fat thumbup for some interesting historical material). It's simple. Don't intrude on me or my freedom. I won't start the fight (Rattler's dont...that's the entire point of the rattle...a warning), but I won't hesitate to end it (quite painfully usually). Don't fuck with me, and I won't do a damn thing. These words spoken not to the British, as they were over 200 years ago, but to the Gubbermint and to any other Statist entity.

Those who read this, post up a comment about the flag you've got in mind. I'd like to hear what others think about this idea.

More Kelo Ranting

2005-06-27T23:27:00.000-07:00

Short and sweet today. Any mention of Kelo, anywhere, in any form, sends me reaching across my room for my cowboy hat. 3 Doors Down - Life of my Own finds its way onto the mp3 player and I snarl at the words: "Kiss me while i'm still alive/kill me while I kiss the sky/Let my die on my own terms...Freedom carries sacrifice/Remember when this was my life". My hands absently stroke the imaginary 12 guage shotgun of my mind and the confederate flag on my wall gets a glance or three. I snarl softly (it's 4am and the walls are thin) "Come and get it you dicks."

Lots of famous dead people have said that private property ownership is key in an enlightened society. Madison said it somewhere in the Federalist Papers. PA's constitution says it, so do most other states. I've even heard a diry liberal say it, for chrissakes. How can you call yourself free when you can't own the very house you live in?

Heinlein once said that a "generation that ignores history has no past and no future." The American Dream used to be to own a house and to fill it with things like a loving wife, 2.3 kids, and an assortment of smelly pets. From this day forth, no one will ever live it in the good ole US of A. Not only have we forgotten about that dream, we've forgotten the very basis of it: the context in which our consitution was written. In US History we learn about anything and everything, but all too often, the great debates, the Federalist Papers, the original writings of Franklin, Jefferson, Madison et al are forgotten, BUT on the upside, we learn that George Washington Carver made over 400 industrial products from the peanut. We learn the names and the actions, but we never learn the thoughts behind them. This, my friends, is a crime.

As many famous dead (and live) people have also pointed out, the Constitution is not so much a document enumerating the powers of the government but actually an article of delegation. Its intent was not to establish the government's authority but rather its limits. "This is what 'We the people' will allow you to do. This, right here, is what you can't do." Somewhere along the way, probably with the invention of the career politician, we lost sight of that. Rather than the people limiting the government, the government now circumscribes our participation in every sphere. Somewhere along the way Democracy (always in danger of mob rule), became a sham. There developed a ruling class, a class that manipulated and used the people to entrench themselves ever more firmly in power by getting the people to shamefully' delegate ever more to them.

Yes, i'm still depressed over the Kelo decision. And the burning rage of a young man who just watched his beloved country die continues to grow deep within my breast. What bothers me more than anything is the seeming lack of rage in others. The conservative bloggers up in arms (quite literally in the RKBA sect). A few of the more intelligent liberals are as well. But by and large the erosion of what has always been claimed to be the foundation of personal autonomy has not had the effect it should have.

On his deathbed, Dylan Thomas's father heard these words whispered into his ear:

Do not go gentle into that good night...

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

That dying light is freedom, the night a slow freefall into Statism, where Big Brother knows best. William Wallace said it, Washington said it, and many others in between and after. Freedom or death. Back in 2nd grade, when we first learned all about the Patrick Henry speech and the letter opener trick we all ran around the classroom, at recess, at home. Standing on a chair, a desk, or a swing, we'd shout it "Give me liberty...or give me death," before shoving a pen into our armpits. I missed with the pen once and stabbed myself square in the chest. I still have the scar. And the memory of that innocent youthful fervor. The choice is ours, do we go gentle? Yoke ourselves to a burden our forefathers fought tooth and nail to separate ourselves from230 years ago? Or do we rage, do we scream, do we fight, for the freedom that was given us by the sacrifices of good men for a future many of them would never see?

I've made my choice.

So I punched myself in the face last night....and then I got called a terrorist

2005-06-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

No it wasn't on purpose. I'm sitting there, reading over something i wrote with my cheek resting on my fist, when all of a sudden a moth flies into my window and flies straight into my forehead with an audible *thwack*. Now, don't ask me why, but insects scare the piss out of me. I've poked rattlesnakes with sticks, teased Patas monkeys with 4" long canines, gone crab fishing with my bare hands, but put a flying insect in the room with me and you'll see me do an award-winning performance of Krumping while I try to flee a butterfly with a 3" wingspan. So anyway, insect, forehead, I start flailing. The hand my head's resting on shoots straight up into the air, connecting with my nose on the way up. At least the boxing classes paid off, it was a clean uppercut...just about a foot too close in.
----
To make matters worse, today I'm stumping around Camden High Street, looking for a cheap belt since my ass appears to have evaporated away and my pants keep falling down, and I'm already in a bad mood cuz i'm surrounded by a mass of humanity. This guy in an orange robe and a Hare Krishna sign calls me over. God I love the people all over London pestering you for handouts. "Are you a tourist or a terrorist?" I'm dumbfounded, "say again?" He repeats it. I let it soak in for a second, and then I scream "I'm a FUCKING HINDU you retard. You know, the real kind. Not some stupid fake cultist with even stupider chants!!" I wasn't able to find a belt either, so I walked through half of london holding my pants up with a thumb through my belt loop.
----
But then I get a good phonecall. Four years after I stop playing instruments/singing with any regularity, I get my first paycheck as a musician. 120 dollars. Some dude's gonna stick my head in an fMRI coil and make me listen to music. I'm excited.

Kelo and the Death of a Country

2005-06-25T04:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not even gonna bother linking to anything. The 5 people who actually visit will all know what I'm talking about. Anyone who cares about this country will know what I'm talking about. I'm pretty impassioned about American politics. I scream at the TV and at my monitor. I 'passionately debate' (read: scream as spittle flies from my mouth) anything from abortion to gun rights to conservation as often as I have opportunity. I've been angry, I've been happy, I've been annoyed. Today, I was depressed. For the first time in my life, politics actually made me depressed.

You see, living in England for the past 8 months, I realized that the difference between Europeans and Americans is that while we are citizens, they have never thrown off the ideological yoke of being subjects. In England, that's a literal truth; even their passports read "Subject of the Queen of England." As much as they claim to be free-thinking individuals what all Europeans really want is to be coddled and controlled by an overarching government. Subjects, not constituents.

Today, I actually contemplated whether America really was better than Europe or not, for the first time in my life. Today, we became subjects. The court (the liberal justices anyway) ruled that 'Government Knows Best.' The essence of their position is that city officials know more than their constituents about 'what's best for the city'. Might as well just call it the Divine Right of Kinghood. In their scathing dissent, Supreme Court Justices (to paraphrase Clarence Thomas) succintly said that if A can potentially pay more taxes than the current occupant B, the govt is justified and siezing B's property to give to A. The government just became an evil corporation, concerned with only the bottom line. At the hands of liberal justices, i'm at pains to remind you.

Every American's personal autonomy has just been destroyed. We have become serfs on the feudal lord's estate. He has allowed us to work it, to live on it, even to call it our own, just as Serfs did in the Middle Ages. And just like those peasants, we are subjects. Subject to the whim of a government who can evict us on the premise that our houses and our small businesses don't give it enough money. The guys in New London must feel a lot like Jonas the peasant farmer way back in 1382...

Jonas worked, and he worked hard, but one day into the Lord's keep waltzed Bailey, the ambitious barrel-maker, "Sir Stealsalot, Jonas made you merely 50 florins with his flax and wheat crop. If you give me his land, I can make you 100 doubloons." "Jonas. Pack up your 8 kids and get the hell out of here. You are of no more use to me!" shouted Sir Stealsalot.

The guys who settled out West went there for one reason and one reason only; the prospect of owning their own land. A place to call their own. They rode the Oregon Trail, they turned the barren soil of the Dust Bowl into something of a breadbasket. They lived, they sacrificed, they died to call a place their very own. All that work was shat on today by the Supreme Court, who today told us that our land and our property is only ours as long as the government decides not to snatch it from us. This isn't all that different from England, where Queen Elizabeth II allows her subjects to engage in a parliamentary government...at least until she gets bored of it and decides to assert her sovereignty.

Today I am no longer an American citizen...Today I became a subject. For me, at least, there's hope. As the son of two native-born Indians, I'm eligible for citizenship in a country where the word may still mean something.

Religion of Intolerance beheads Buddhist couple

2005-06-24T23:57:00.000-07:00

what can I say but click the link while I cry softly to myself?

720 beheadings in 17 months...Note the country. Note the people. Not an indigenous religion, killing people for belonging to an indigenous religion. They threatened to do the same to worshippers on Hindu holy days back in South India, something that failed and will continue to fail to make news in Europe or America. They target my spiritual kin now. And i'm supposed to care about so-called abuse of the Koran?

Religion of misogyny

2005-06-23T08:46:00.000-07:00

"The 15-year-old girl, who is a Madison Heights Lamphere High junior, suffered a broken back in the beating, according to court documents. The trial to determine whether parental custody rights should be terminated is set for Thursday before Oakland Circuit Judge Joan Young.
The girl's brother, Ahmad Abdelmomen, 21, is charged with aggravated assault in the April 29 incident at their home in Madison Heights. Abdelmomen is free on bond pending a July 13 preliminary hearing before Madison Heights 43rd District Judge Robert J. Turner.

"She complained of the injury to her parents, but they didn't take her to a doctor because they condoned the punishment her brother gave her," said Robert Zivian, an assistant Oakland County prosecuting attorney assigned to the neglect case."

Now you'll forgive me, I ain't no fancy city boy. Just a backward hick from the sticks. I don't rightly understand words like 'postmodern'. How can you be postmodern unless you live in the future? It might be a bit simple-minded of me to see a single truth, but that's the way my world works. I can't quite see what possesses parents to allow their child to be beaten because the guy she dated was the wrong religion.

I was taught to respect women, to treat them with dignity, not as some second-class ovary maintenance system, so you'll forgive me for failing to be happy with this religion's extremist sects making their way to my country. If you can find a more misogynistic religion claiming to be modern, please, oh please enlighten me with your high-faluting cultural relativist bullshit.

Don't conflate liberalism with evolution

2005-06-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

In my last post, I mentioned how the whole debate about whether evolution should be taught is really our fault. I stand by that. Somewhere in the past 150 years, we sorta forgot to do what disciples of Newton, Euclid, Pythagoras, etc have done for hundreds of years. A debate about knowledge renews itself every year, every time a new student enters the halls of knowledge. It is our duty and ours alone to show them why they must ascribe to that theory. We must show them the evidence, starting from Lyell's gradualism and ending with the work of Sewall Wright and Dobhzansky, who were the last two population geneticists worth a damn. We must show them the patterns elucidated by Cuvier, by Horner, by the Leakeys, by Eldridge and Gould. Demonstrate why evolution. Such is the methodology of science education. It is not enough to tell them "Let it be so." No other science discipline forgets this. We do.

And in another fit of egotism and shortsightedness I'm watching two otherwise very fine blogs make the mistake of alienation once again. From Evolution Blog we hear that 'The Conservative Assault on Evolution Continues'. Way to tar and feather the whole bunch of us. Pharyngula, another daily visit of mine, often has posts criticizing the Bush administration on the same page as diatribes about the ID scandals. Darksyd writes some of the best evolutionary histories I've seen. SHort, sweet, to the point, well illustrated. All in all masterpieces. At least his criticisms of Bush and the new 'conservatives' (who scare me as well to be honest) are more logical, and less demagogue-ish; I often agree with many of them.

But once again, these have the (intended or not) consequence of conflating liberalism with evolution. Now, I realize that most of the ID/Creation pushers tend to lie on the right end of the scale. But, first thing, lets use our great brains for a bit. Does conservatism naturally lead you to be anti-evolution? Hmmm, economic theories that are almost identical to behavioral ecological ones. Nope, not there. Personal responsibility? Survival of the fittest? Nope, no conflict there. Looking through the basic tenets of the conservative movement, at least fiscally as well as a considerable amont of social stuff, I can only find strong ties and similarities between Evolution and Ecology and the Conservative worldview.

So what is actually causing the fuss? Oh, there we go, hardline Christianity. So does being christian automatically make you conservative? Not according to Howard Dean et al. With their "well if you believe in helping the poor, you'd be a democrat," spiel. So looks like it's time to use those great big brains of ours that allow us to 'see the truth'. Correlation does not imply causation. Remember that little lesson reiterated in pretty much every course in science or statistics you ever took? There's a correlation between being Christian, creationist/ID, and conservative, sure. But is there a logical link between them? Not especially.

But with so many of our fine Evolutionists unable to spot the difference between correlation and causation, should we really expect those on the other side of the debate to? You post bits of liberal politicking alongside bits on evolution. They see the correlation. They may start to think "Hmm, causation?" If evolution becomes in their minds a 'liberal' idea, then they'll be EVEN more averse to it. Doesn't agree with their religion OR their politics? Better to continue to fight against it then.

As those in evo so often do, we can look to Darwin's own words for advice yet again:

Upon reading Origin, Karl Marx asked dear Charles if he would endorse the Communist Manifesto (or Das Kapital, I forget). Darwin replied that while he was honored by the invitation, he'd rather not have his name or his work associated with such an inflammatory political piece.

I wish some of you would think about that for a bit. Myself, i'm as fiscally conservative as they come, and while I live a socially conservative life, I'm fairly liberal in that respect on a lot of issues. Enough that "small l" libertarian is a better title for me than Republican, and enough that I refused to vote for Bush. I'd go so far to say that my fully evolutionary outlook not only encouraged that stance, but continues to reinforce and support it day in and day out. Once again I can't overstate that we're in this quandary because we're bad at our jobs. We never presented the evidence to the Christians, never gave them a reason to believe us other than the fancy letters after our names (well i don't have any yet, but you get the idea). We alienate them, and then we confuse them by continually presenting weird links between liberalism and evolution/ecology that on the face of them don't make much sense. I'll confront that issue in another post though.

Evolutionists...whose fault is it?

2005-06-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

I'm one of those avowed evolutionists. E.O. Wilson is one of the extremists of evolution's applicability. In his popular nonfiction work Consilience, he laid the groundwork for how evolutionary theory could singlehandedly unify the social with the pure sciences. I'm if anything every bit as extreme as he is, contending that all of Western philosophy has been completely crippled by the development of evolutionary theory. Kant, Nietzsche, Heigel, Sartre, all need to be replaced by a unifying Evolutionary epistemology and ethics.

But i've been steeped in the saga of evolution for a long, long time. Disregarding my youth, in college I took more classes in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology than any other single discipline (somewhere between 5 and 8 depending on how you count things). The master's degree I"m working on is the evolutionary-oriented discipline of bioanthropology, including two courses on human evolution, early hominid archaeology, and evolutionary medicine. My thesis specifically concerns the evolution of social systems in south american primates. Despite those two degrees, i am still not an evolutionary biologist. When I graduate, I will have neither a BA nor an MS in the subject, despite all that coursework.

That's right, evolutionary biologists take even more than I did...considerably more in most cases. In contrast, my AP biology textbook from 5 years ago had a single chapter--roughly 30 pages--dedicated to the topic of evolutionary theory. We spent less than a week on it in an AP curriculum class. To graduate as a biology major from my alma mater, you only needed a single course in evolutionary biology. That class itself said very little about evolutionary theory as a whole, spending most of its time on issues in inheritance and population genetics.

We as evolutionists take the theory for granted. Many, like me, never stopped loving the dinosaur books we loved as toddlers, and just kept on at it, reading Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates and Age of Reptiles, liberally interspersed wtih Wilson's Sociobiology. All of us have been trained nearly from the outset of our post-secondary careers in the subject, reading everything from Dobhzansky to Mayr, and its taken for granted that we had already read Darwin before choosing our major.

I tend to openly mock and dismiss the social sciences like anthropoloy and sociology, but one thing stuck with me from my intro course in cultural anthropology: We are the product of our experiences. It was at that point that I realized that I was, in a sense, pre-adapted to become an evolutionist. Not because of my inherent logical abilities or greater intellect (although those were important =P), but because of things almost totally out of my control. From the day my family first started to tell me stories about elephant-headed Ganesh, the monkey god Hanuman, the bear general Jambavan, my fate was more or less sealed.

Hinduism is blessed with three important things in this regard: 1. An inane, preposterous, and vague creation story 2. An irreverence for our own scripture that's practically encouraged by our priests. 3. A distinctly ecological representation of man's place in nature. Below is a paraphrase of one of my favorite verses from the Upanishads:
"Teacher, how should I treat the animals?" the disciple asks...
"Why, you should treat them as you would a child, for what is the difference between the monkey, the horse, the jackal, and a child?"

Hinduism preached about a web of life, about all living beings (man included) being related, and about the inherent similarities between us and the animals of the forest. What scientific theory better fitted these basic ideas than evolution? none. Lucy and the other australopithecines were basically proportioned like upright chimpanzees; they could neither walk nor run like we can. But the fact that they were upright undoubtedly allowed us to develop into the able bipedal runners we are today. This is what we mean by the term pre-adaptation. That upright stance was the springboard to our modern body proportions and all that entails.

Like it or not, Americans as a whole are *not* pre-adapted to evolution. Atheists will accept the simplest explanation, which is, quite obviously, evolution. Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Shinto, all are not only attracted to evolution for that simplicity, but also because it inherently jibes with their spiritual view of the world.

It is important for me to stress that this is *not* a fault of christianity. Having read the bible myself, and having many devout friends, I can't really say that being raised christian is a priori a bad thing. It remains one of the best ways to teach a sense of right and wrong to children, to imbue them with the principles that will make them into good people. In fact, there are few better texts on morality I can think of offhand than the New Testament.

It does mean that, just as I was pre-adapted to become an evolutionist, your average christian is inherently biased against it. And, just as it was stressed in social anthropology, this is neither a good nor a bad thing, it simply is.

The blame for the Kansas debacle lies not with the undermining and blatantly untruthful Intelligent Design 'scientists', nor does it lie with the American Public, or the school board. It lies on our shoulders. What we face in this this country is the result of our own arrogance and complacence.

We each took turns as Preacher and Choir, revelling in the beauty and simplicity of our theory and telling each other that no logical person would ever disbelieve it when presented with all the evidence...We then promptly forgot to actually present the evidence to people. We give them those 30 pages in high school, and a select few get a course in population genetics masquerading as evolutionary theory. An even smaller group goes on to study evolution in depth. But nowhere in formal education from high school all the way through postdoctoral work is evolutionary theory actually properly presented, the way Darwin did to his naysayers, the way Huxley ardently defended it in lecture theaters across England.

In math classes, the basic proofs underlying geometry and calculus are taught to us: Our teachers show us why it works. In physics, we actually watch demonstrations of the very same experiments that were conducted by the pioneers: Galileo's gravity experiments, Foucault's pendulum, and others. Nowhere in formal biology education is the work of Darwin ever properly presented. We dont' learn about Uniformitarianism, about his experiments in artificial selection, none of it.

To draw a parallel, anyone with a semester or more of physics know that planets don't circle the sun in circular, but elliptical, orbits. If you haven't had that exposure to the work of Keppler and Brahe, there is no reason to think that orbits aren't circular. Likewise, there is no reason to believe that evolution is more right than creationism unless you're actually exposed to the groundwork behind the theory.

If we want to put this whole debate behind us, it's up to us to educate people, to show them why evolution really is the best theory to explain our origins. To do it any other way is to be just as inanely dogmatic as the creationists.

Desecration and Abominations

2005-06-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

So muslims all over the world are in screaming fits about the 3 Korans that were desecrated by the American troops at Guantanamo. I'd just like to point out that more Muslims in those camps tore, kicked, and flushed Korans than Americans did.

If they don't respect their own books, ripping, urinating, and attempting to flush them (yes it was a detainee, not a guard, that did that), then why should we apologize? Why should we shut down a camp full of TERRORISTS in violation of the Geneva convention?

Their rights according to UN treaties are to be shot, hanged, or summarily executed for fighting without uniforms. There is nowhere stating that we need to take prisoners. And having done so, nothing about providing them religious texts of their choice. Yet we did so. GITMO is a living testament to our mercy.

Furthermore, I'd like to tell you about my one, and hopefully my only visit to North India. I'd been to India many times before, to our area on the southeast coast. Figured it was time to see the Taj Mahal and everything else up there. Qutub MInar is one of those monuments. It's a fluted column. Lord Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square pales by comparison...I was suitably impressed...

Then a tour guide offered to show us around the courtyard and tell us a bit about the place. So we paid him 80 rupees, about two dollars. The atrium surrounding the monument is a series of smaller columns that would've held up rushes for shade. I noticed what looked like an elephant man on one or two of them, and the image of a voluptuous dancing woman on many many more. These are traditional hindu symbols, and I was wondering what they were doing on a muslim monument.

Our guide proudly informed us that 27 Hindu temples had been torn down and their columns and masonry reused to make this monument. Now, i'm a live and let live kind of guy, this happened in a region of India my family had never lived in...ever. But the pride in his voice, the lack of remorse. That was a bit much for me.

So now i hear about a ripped koran or too. ANd keep in mind in my religion desecrating a Koran, even though it's not one of our holy books, is still a sin. And, you'll excuse me if ti's hard to care.

You see, I stood there. I went to Delhi. I could have seen 27 ancient Hindu temples, my heritage, my lifeblood. But instead I saw a monument built on the backs of an enslaved race. I don't think the Minar should be torn down, i don't think we should try to put back those temples because the Minar is historically important. And it is incredibly impressive. I'm still floored by the thought of it, bigger around than any redwood and almost as tall.

But having my tourguide proudly rub my face in what was destroyed to make it...I felt a little bit like a Jew might feel at Auschwitz if the German tourguide proudly pointed out the mechanisms of the poison showers and said, gleefully "This is where we killed your people".

Given that, I'll hope you'll forgive me for not giving a goddamn about a book or two.

To Pro-Lifers...Be Secular

2005-06-04T07:51:00.000-07:00

There's no denying that a good chunk of pro-life activists are devout Christians. Probably a majority. And there's no denying that your belief in the sanctity of life is born from your religion. My pro-life stance is definitely profoundly influenced by my upbringing as a Hindu. But religion is a *horrible* way to argue your stance. Back in college I was a member, debater, and occasionally a screaming maniac for our Coalition For Life. One of the things that attracted me to this group is that we were (and are) a strictly secular group drawing people from all walks and all religions. I won't say we were god's gift to the pro-life movement, but I will say that one of the reasons we were so effective in debates and demonstrations was because we did not resort to using phrases that included the word 'God'. There are 3 basic reasons why *all* who seek to end the barbaric practices of late term abortions should use secular means:

1) Separation of Church and State.
2)The complexity of arguing a religion-based position to a non-Christian.
3)Secular arguments are in reality far more simple, and thus more unassailable.

1)One of the tenets this country was founded on is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." What this means is that our founders intentionally created a 'godless institution.' Like it or not (the latter for many of you), that is the reality of the US and what it hopefully always will be. This means that the argument that abortion should be made illegal on the basis of scripture is unconstitutional. This makes a religion-based argument completely moot. I once saw Santorum debating the merits of a Partial Birth Abortion Ban on CSpan (give me a break, it was accidental, and there was nothing good on). As many of you know, he is a devout Christian and makes no effort to hide it. But up there at the podium, he did not mention his religion or beliefs once. Instead, he orated as a doctor, and a logical human being, on why PBA's are murder. It was powerful, and even though he ultimately failed to sway the votes, even pro-choicers had to sit up and listen, instead of dismissing his arguments out of hand.

2)Like it or not, this country is not universally Christian. And many self-described Christians are nevertheless pro-choice. This means that arguing a pro-life position from a Christian standpoint isn't actually a pro-life argument, but a pro-Christianity argument followed by a theological debate. Confronting an atheist, an agnostic, a Jew, Hindu, Muslim, or someone who just doesn't give a damn about religion with your arguments, all they have to say to neutralize you is "I'm not Christian." Your argument would then have to resort to *why* Jesus's teachings are the one true way, followed by why Christians should believe that abortion is murder if the baby hasn't taken a breath yet. This'll have the effect of turning off nearly everyone you spout off at. Trust me. As a Pro-lifer myself, I'd probably have to be restrained from breaking your face (and indeed that happened when an unnamed individual at CCFL tried to suggest we use theological grounds in our debate).

3)A secular argument is in reality much, much simpler. Instead of a theological preface and supporting quotes from scripture, all you have to say is "Murder is wrong, we all agree with that. I believe abortion is murder, therefore it should be outlawed." And then you back it up, quite illustratively. My favorite examples are premature babies, the age in weeks when a fetus/baby's heart starts beating, and graphic illustrations, such as those used by the Genocide Awareness Project. I'm the guy in the bright blue sweater in the 4th picture. We raised quite a stir, and got more than a few people to admit that taking a baby's life is murder.

By wearing your christian-ness on your sleeve, you are effectively painting yourself as an 'outsider' and an 'extremist'. You self-segregate, whether you intend to or not, and diminish your target audience by hundreds of millions of Americans. To use a rather trite phrase, you end up preaching to the choir, because they are the only ones who'll sit around and listen. When you start to piss off fellow pro-life activists, it's time to sit up and rethink your strategy.

Cornell Coalition For Life
Libertarians For Life

2005-06-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Fuck You AMA, Part II

2005-06-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

Intro:
Now in the interest of not being a dumbass, as I've already mentioned, I'm not a doctor, and so my forthcoming analysis shouldn't be taken as such. I'm somewhere between. Got the undergrad degree with a few different concentrations in different areas of Bio. I should be working on my Master's thesis right now in Dead People and Monkey Science, instead of writing this. And I'll officially be a medical student in 2.5 months. Like I said, somewhere in between. No i probably couldn't get what I'm about to write published in a medical journal, but I'll be using the foundations of the same techniques they use. Which puts it at roughly eleventybillion times more 'professional' an analysis than the AMA or CDC use in this shit.

A lot of vaccines are actually made up of the offending virus or bacteria. We weaken or kill it, and then inject it into you. Your body develops the antibodies and whatnot against it. Sometimes it's not weak enough, or dead enough. That's why that pesky flu vaccine really can give you the flu. Just like that, guns can be the source of violence, and they can protect you against it. We'll be studying the potential for guns to help you versus their potential to harm you, just like in that flu vaccine example I used last installment. We'll also review how to limit that risk: we'll analyze who actually gets killed by guns, and how effective various proposals would be at reducing those numbers. If people actually read this shit, I'll do it with all injuries included as well someday.

The 4 classes of people mentioned last time will be limited to 3 in this case. The way the CDC records injuries and fatalities makes it impractable to tease apart Class 2 (Successful treatment, side effects) from Class 4 (Unsuccessful treatment, side effects). This has the effect of inflating Class 4 for the purpose of analysis, but I hope the effect would be small, at any rate, i'm not getting paid for this so fucking deal.

Now, i have to change my terminology, which blows for all of us, but once again, deal bitches. Category A will be those who actually end up using their firearm (almost always a handgun) defensively (successful treatment). Category B will be those who are killed by guns. Category C are the ones guns, medically speaking, are transparent to: They neither prevent their death/injury, nor are killed by guns.

Rough Numbers:

Category A: The landmark study by Florida State Researchers Kleck and Gertz found that defensive handgun uses exceeded 2.5 million per year (Handguns representing 2million of these). Their research was not only accepted, but lauded, by a prominent pro-gun control researcher who found no flaws in methodology. Clinton Administration goons who were hired to debunk the study, ended up admitting that if anything, Kleck and Gertz lowballed it, saying that handguns were used defensively up to 4.7 million times per year. Let's stick with 2.5 for now.

Category B: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/ According to the CDC, in 2002 a total of 30,242 were killed by a firearm. This includes the following actual causes: Honest-to-god homicide, Gun suicide, accidental gun discharge, Cop-fired gun, and gun-related terrorism. Of course, including gun suicides in that statistic is a bit like including those who intentionally overdose on OxyContin (or any other drug) in an assessment of its risks. Cop-fired guns tend to be as a result of something you were doing, a little like calling State-administered lethal injection medical malpractice. You also can't see the actual breakdown without wading in to the non-public-friendly part of CDC's database. More on that later.

Category C: According to a National Institute of Justice survey, 44 million adults own guns. The General Social Surveys found that guns are present in roughly 40% of homes, representing access to 120 million people. DGUs (Defensive Gun Uses) reduce the numbers to 41.5 million and 117.5 million respectively. Category B numbers do not significantly affect these numbers one way or the other (that right there should be an indication of how relatively minor gun deaths are in the scheme of things. I can't even represent it as a percentage).

Initial Analysis:
Efficacy: So just by our raw numbers we have 2.5-4.7 MILLION times a gun prevents death/injury. For gun owners, that means there's 5.5-11% chance that their gun 'vaccine' will actually be put to use. In contrast, Hepatitis B/C, the vaccination that fucked me up royally, strikes only about 50,000 american per year. Anyone who goes into the health profession is pretty much required to get it, and it's 'recommended' to EVERYONE. What this tells us is that, medically speaking, the value of the Concealed Handgun License is immense, and several orders of magnitude greater than the medical value of hte Hepatitis vaccine (Hep C causes lifethreatening situations only in rougly 10% of those infected).

Harmful Side Effects: By the most pessimistic estimation, the side effects of widespread guns are very limited, affecting .01% of the population, or 1/10,000 negatively. Like I said though, that still includes things equivalent to overdoses and nonmedical causes.

Extended Analysis of Side Effects (from 2002 CDC data):
Gun death by suicide: 17,108 (you'll notice that's over half of all gun deaths)
Gun death through police intervention: 300
Accidental gun death: 762
Intentional homicide: 11,829 (this would be the real 'do it for the children' number)

First up is suicide. Gun availability does not have any link to suicide. No one has shown that gun-owning homes have higher rates of suicide. And very few people would go spend 200 dollar minimum plus the hassle of buying a handgun, just to off themself. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in an oven to do it (good riddance). I grew up in West Texas, which, as you can imagine, is a high-ownership area, and among my classmates, it saddens me to say that three of them committed suicide. One drug overdosed, one hanged (yes it's hanged, not hung) himself, and the other, a gun was involved this time. At my alma mater, we used to joke that the administration promoted suicide (I'm joking), as it proved we were rigorous. There were 5 in my second year of college, NONE of them in my three years there involved a gun. A couple jumps off cliffs, a couple OD's, a couple hangings (one found by one of my friends, a week after the fact), and a couple wrists slit. No guns. Japan, for instance, has one of the highest suicide rates of developed nations, yet one of the lowest rates of gun ownership (very strict gun rules there). If you're such a pussy you'll off yourself, you'll do it whatever way you can, to escape the 'horror' of living.

Gun death through police intervention, non issue, obviously. Even in GFW-filled (Gun Fearing Wussy...shout out to www.kimdutoit.com and his Nation Of Riflemen forum, where I picked up the term) England, where i currently live, cops shoot criminals, sometimes.

Accidental gun death. This affects any household where guns are kept, or 120 million people. Those probabilities are so vanishingly small, i'm not even going to compute it.

Intentional Homicide: This is the doozie, the real side effect. 11,829 deaths a year, out of 300 million people. According to the Department of Transportation, there were 42,850 vehicle-related deaths in 2002 (same year as the gun stats). No medical professional is calling for a ban of all cars like they call unilaterally for a gun ban, yet the risk of death caused by motor vehicles is close to 4 times as large as that for firearms.

Prevention:
This is the how the AMA, DAHI, PSR, and even the CDC try to make gun bans a medical issue; prevention. So we should actually take a look at what's behind the homicides, just as doctors understand risk factors for side effects of medication and vaccines.

Stimulants (like speed) are effective medication for a variety of illnesses (not ADHD, see the endnote from last installment) including narcolepsy and others. However, if a doctor were to prescripe one of those medications to a fat out of shape guy with a weak heart, who was then overtaxed and died from a heart attack, it wouldn't reduce the efficacy of that medication, rather it would limit who it was applicable to as a treatment. That same medication in an athlete, or even a moderately healthy person, would be both effective and relatively free of side effects. Guns effectively save 2.5-4.7 million lives a year, or 10% of those who have the prescription (license). Over the course of a decade, potentially EVERY person so equipped will have direct use for it. It's as effective as any medication out there at saving lives.

As my non-native-english speaker mother might say "Dont' count your chickens in the bathwater."...I think she meant don't throw the baby out...

Drugs and gangs are estimated to be involved in 60-70% of those 11,000 gun murders. Drugs and gangs are fat men with weak hearts. Letting guns get into their hands is like giving speed to a heart patient. While the AMA wouldn't have admitted what I said about guns saving lives, I do agree with them on this latter point. Now i'll remind them to be doctors, and instead of getting rid of the medication, working on keeping it out of the wrong hands.

Gun bans don't work. What they do is keep the legal firearm owners from owning those weapons. Druggies and gangbangers don't go to gun stores to buy their weapons, they don't do it at gun shows either. Most druggies and gangbangers couldn't pass the NCIC criminal record check in the first place; they would also look rather out of place at your average gun store, and raise red flags all over the place in the proprietor's eyes. While there are no background checks at gun shows, I don't think it's a big deal. I've been to the odd gun show, and lemme tell you, there aren't a whole lot of people sporting their colors, 'repping their hood', or scratching at the imaginary spiders because it's been too long since their last fix rolling around

If a full gun ban were to go into effect, those 2.5-4.7 million defensive uses would become CDC statistics, this would be a net loss to the medical community, by about 2.488000-4.688000 million. Medical utilitarianism. The greatest good to the greatest number of people. EVEN IF WE COULD NOT REDUCE THOSE 11,000 BY ONE PERSON, EASY GUN OWNERSHIP REMAINS A MEDICALLY SOUND PROPOSITION.

The AMA advocating a gun ban also advocates a net increase in injury and death; a political proposition not a medical one. I want you to remember that, dwell on that. As I said earlier, how do we get the guns out of druggie and gang member hands? They don't buy legally, they get stolen and smuggled guns. Thus, we go after stolen and smuggled guns.

One of the proposed methods was to go after the gun makers themselves, hold them responsible. I'm being medical, not legal, so I won't get into the illegallity of that. Those multimillion dollar lawsuits wouldn't be paid by the corporation, they'd get passed on to the legit consumer, the person who gets a medical benefit from a gun. This would decrease the ability of legal owners to arm themselves, and once again increase the number of injuries suffered.

Another method would be to actually police our borders, again, unpalatable to politicians on both sides eager to cater to the immigrant vote. A final method would be to provide a disincentive to those legit consumers to allow their guns to be stolent. A fine for a stolen gun. Fine by me.

But the truth is the best way to do this is to destroy drug and gang culture. Outreach, rehab, stiffer penalties, whatever it takes. Interestingly, the only 'medical' solution I've ever seen trotted out has been by a cultural anthropologist by the name of Abigail A Kohn. As a Biological Anthropologist myself, i'm more of an ecologist/evolutionary biologist. Our little group tends to mock those silly liberal arts people, the 'other anthropologists'. After reading something about her views and her positions, I have to say that she's changed my opinion of the entire batch of them. Not only is she insightful and gives the gun culture (of which i proudly consider myself a member-in-training) a fair hearing, but she actually seems to admire us. This takes no small amount of courage in a field known for its moonbat leanings. Ms. Kohn has also proven herself a much better medical and public health analyst than the venerable AMA.has managed to yet produce.

Conclusion:
The AMA is full of shit. The CDC disseminates by listing more than 17,000 suicides a year in the same category as Firearm homicides. DAHI and PSR are talking heads with no medical weight. The only medical public interest group using sound methodology with regard to firearms is Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws. The only overarching medical organization that supports such logic is the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons.

Doctors must weigh costs and benefits. 12,000 homicides is a regrettable cost. 60-70% of those are not a direct result of guns but rather external circumstances of drug and gang culture. These can be drastically reduced if not eliminated. 2.5-4.7 million lives are saved every year by guns. Taking them out of the hands of citizens would cause a net increase in injury and death in this country. Medical professionals must acknowledge that no vaccine is without side effects, and the remaining 3-4000 harder-to-prevent homicides are acceptable in light of the gains. The risk, in truth is not that much greater than that of the weapons of fighting disease. And those homicides, while regrettable, are acceptable risks, just as I and the many other people adversely affected by vaccines were and remain acceptable in the fight against preventable disease.

Fuck You AMA

2005-05-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

Fuck You AMA

You pissed me off with your bullshit pseudo-science in all fields of medicine already. You pissed me off again by not backing down, endangering the health of children, by, instead of admitting a flaw in prescribing healthy children stimulants, covering it up by telling half-truths in your research procedures.* And you've finished the job by taking the wrong stance on gun control. Your numbers are shrinking, you're a dying institution, and as a medical student starting this fall, I will do everything in my power to encourage fellow students not to join either.

Like any good Organized Crime establishment, the AMA has several fronts, including DAHI (Doctors Against Handgun Injuries), PSR (Physicians for Social Responsibility), and others. Through these various 'organizations' they disseminate blatant leftist political posturing bereft of any actual medical reasoning. Although they are quick to use the term Doctor or Physician in their title, they do not pontificate in their capacity as medical professionals but just as any other leftist talking head, and no more credence should be given to their arguments than any other because of their day jobs. The stethoscopes were not worn during such position taking.

I'm not going to rant about the fact that the AMA took a political stance on gun control, because that'd be entirely too hypocritical of me. I'm extensively political, and my personal philosophy, even as it pertains to medicine, is inextricably linked with my political philosophy. I'd challenge any doctor to honestly tell me that the same is not true for them. It's certainly true of every doctor or biomedical researcher I've ever met, and it's pretty easy to tell a doctor's political stance based on their professional philosophy alone. Personal responsibility (what silly liberal psychologists call 'empowerment') is the cornerstone of my developing professional philosophy toward Psychiatry, the field I intend to practice. Without looking at my URL, could you guess my political leaning? Yeah, it's just as blatant for most. What bothers me is the AMA's rhetoric with regard to guns and gunshot wounds. It resorts to emotive universalities like 'horrid effects' and 'should never be tolerated'.

Contrary to popular opinion, "First do no harm" appears nowhere within the Hippocratic Oath. With good reason. If a doctor were to follow that, they'd be pretty useless. The truth is that the medical practice is full of tradeoffs, of procedures that you know may harm your patient or definitely will. Yet the AMA in their anti-gun position and reports have failed to look at the tradeoffs involved in the legal use and ownership of guns, instead focusing on the horrific injuries (I won't deny it) caused by guns and their incidence. Nowhere in their reports do you find mentioned the number of rapes, murders, and assaults prevented through the judicious use of a legally owned firearm. They don't mention the number of outdoorsmen (and women) who've saved themselves from snake bites, bear attacks, and other risks of wild america through the liberal application of 12 guage shot or .357magnum to their dangerous targets. Furthermore, the AMA did nothing to evaluate the validity or efficacy of handgun bans (their proposed solution) in limiting gun violence. The AMA's reports on gun violence were not medical inquiries or scientific investigations into the impact of firearms on public health but a thinly veiled political diatribe. A puff piece with the authority of the long white coat and stethoscope that their political allies could wave around as 'justification' for their position. What follows is a closer look at how the medical field actually works, and how a non-hypocritical medical report would analyze gun ownership, crime, and proposed solutions (treatments) for reducing the prevalence of victims.

The pain and anguish of a child on chemotherapy is not a pretty thing to behold. While volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House I saw more than a few of them. The sickness, the weakness, the pure helplessness, purposely inflicted upon the patient that they may live to see as many birthdays as their more healthy peers. Harm to cure. It's actually one of the easier tradeoff decisions a doctor makes, believe it or not. Chemo and radiation therapies are last ditch efforts. It's that or death. And the side effects suck, but not breathing is much much worse. But in many other forms of therapy, from lifestyle to drugs and surgery, doctors play a numbers game. Few treatments have a 100% efficacy, with 0% risk of side effects. In fact, I couldn't think of any. A quick call to mom, a doctor for close to 20 years, yielded none either. At first we both shouted "Penicillin!!" across the Atlantic at each other, but no. Even within our immediate family, Dad's allergic. With any treatment either of us could think of, there are four basic classes of responses you get: 1) Successful treatment, no side effects 2) Unsuccessful treatment, no side effects 3) Successful treatment, side effects 4) Unsuccessful treatment, side effects.

"I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.--From the real Modern Hippocratic Oath, penned by Dr. Louis Lasagna in 1964.

A medication makes it past the FDA, a surgical procedure used, a lifestyle modification recommended, because the number of people who fall into class 3 and 4 are far outweighed by the number of people who fall into classes 1 and 2. Medical utilitarianism, greatest improvement in prognosis for the greatest number of people. Doctors knowingly cause harm to their patients, a percentage of whom they know will have class 3 and 4 responses. They walk that tightrope Dr. Lasagna alluded to, between overtreatment and nihilism. Doctors have to play the numbers game if they're going to do their job effectively. Again, it's a cross they all bear because, ultimately, it's the only way to get results. Personally I'd rather save 90% of my patients than lose 100% of them. Even if I signed the prescription that hastened the death of that remaining 10%.

"I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure." Another quote from Lasagna's widespread version of the Hippocratic.

The AMA's stance on gun control lies under the domain of preventative medicine. Their goals are honorable, to prevent the death and horrible physical trauma of children and innocent adults. I applaud that, it's a noble goal that I believe most second amendment supporters share with them. But they fail to abide by their own established methods of scientific inquiry and risk analysis with regard to this particular issue, as I've already mentioned above.

Preventative medicine is even more speculative than responsive therapy. In the latter case, you have a patient with a medical problem, whom you have the potential to either cure or possibly hurt even more; you play the odds and hope for the best. In the former case, you have a healthy patient, and you have a disease or condition that might possibly affect them at some point in the future. Here you don't work with cures but with vaccines. Vaccines, like other treatments have known risks of side effects. Here, a doctor or public health official, in addition to balancing the potential for cure (prevention or successful immunization in this case) with the potential for side effect, as well as the individual's likelihood for contracting the illness in the first place.

Those who've had the flu vaccine are particularly well-informed about this form of medicine. Here you have a choice in the matter. You and your physician weigh your risk factors of contracting the flu (age, immune health, risk of exposure) to the risk factor of the vaccine (namely getting the flu from it). A lot of people get the flu from the vaccine as a side effect, up to 1/3 get a mild fever, 10% get a high fever. Guys like me, who typically get it once if at all during season, forego the vaccine. There's little point in it since it has a high enough probability of inducing that limited period of sickness. For people who have compromised immune systems, are very young or very old, or work in the health profession, the likelihood of being sick for a long time and/or multiple times is high enough that the risk of getting the flu from the vaccine (which is typically less severe) is worth it.

The AMA reports didn't cover both risks of the gun 'vaccine'. Guns kill, wound, or cripple innocent adults and children (some 12,000 people in the year 2000, according to the anti-gun CDC), like the flu, or hepatitis. But as 2nd Amendment supporters point out everyday that the gun is a valid tool of self-defense, and proves itself literally thousands of times a day (between 5000 and 7000 times daily according a study done at Florida State) as a prophylactic against Extraneous Orifice Distribution. 12,000 (deaths)/2,000,000 (lives saved) = .6% That's some pretty good odds. there. Even my pessimist ass would take those numbers. In my second installment, you'll see the odds get even better when proper medical and scientific process are applied.

Vaccines can make you sick, cripple, or even kill you. Yet where was the AMA report banning vaccines? Guns, like diseases you can be vaccinated against, cause medical problems. But guns can also be viewed as effective vaccines, and like all vaccines, they can potentially have regrettable side effects (namely those homicides and accidents).

Instead of looking at their positive side, the AMA resorted to grabbing sound bites from sobbing ER surgeons who tell you about 8 year old Little Abby, who'll never walk again. With tears in their eyes they'll ask why we let the madness continue, why we knowingly do this to children when its in our power to ban those evil black weapons of destruction forever.

I am Little Abby, crippled not at the hand of a maniac with a gun but by the decree of public health researchers and officials. I was 14 at the time, and a state-qualified swimmer. I was hit by what's known as Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome, type II. The disorder is actually known to be triggered by vaccination. It's an atrophic nerve disorder. The pain that started in my triceps (the site of injection) soon spread down my arm and up to my neck. A little over 7 years later it's working it's way down to my lower back, where it will eventually quit, giving me a lovely case of early arthritis to go along with the nerve and muscle pain.

Those self-righteous doctors of the AMA who penned that stance on gun control spoke in ultimatums and outright condemnation: "Not one child injured by gun violence should be tolerated." I want you to dwell on that for a bit. Where was the outcry when the needle-wielding white-coated morons crippled me at the ripe old age of 14? There was none--because they cripple and kill children in similar ways every damn day--the incidence of CRPS remains 'within parameters'. To this day the only tears I've seen shed by doctors over my illness have been from my mom and her sister. And certainly not in their capacity as health professionals. Doctors knew, not that I personally, but that some of their patients, would develop this atrophic nerve disorder and other known side effects of vaccinations. Those who approved the widespread use of this vaccine willingly accepted that they'd cause a number of individuals intense pain everyday of the rest of their lives. To boot, we aren't even sure the vaccination took. That's right, I may still be able to contract Hepatitis...I'm a Class 4, the ugliest kind. Apparently a white coat abrogates ones responsibility toward the 'Not one child' mantra.

That rather personal illustrative example wasn't meant to demonize doctors or their decisions regarding widespread use of potentially harmful preventative medicine. When their coats are on and their 'mother figure' emotions removed, Mom and Aunty still support the Hepatitis Vaccine. Truth be told, I do to. I am 'acceptable collateral damage', 'friendly fire', or 'necessary loss'. I understand that, and as I've said before, I support such logic in the field of medicine. I'd like to see the medical establishment treat guns and their legislation with the same callous (a nonpejorative in this case) playing of the numbers game. They don't use one-sided statistics looking only at the side effects of preventative treatment, they don't look only at who'll contract disease, and they certainly don't trot out anecdotal 'Little Abby' stories as either proof, corroboration, or persuasive elements.

"I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm."--Another line from the Modern Hippocratic...another part of their oath they evidently forgot.

The AMA started out with a political position when they wrote their position on gun control, and then they worked outside the scientific method to form support for their stance. They ignored that medicine, at its roots, is a scientific and statistical endeavor (this means unbiased), that its ultimately a utilitarian pursuit in which costs and benefits must be accurately assessed and then a decision made. In short, they ignored the BA, MD, and MPH (masters of public health) on their wall while they were writing this statement, then tacked those titles on at the end to add an air of (empty) authority to a report that was neither medical,nor scientific, nor about public health. They exploited our trust in them, and for that they have lost what little respect any of us should have had for them.

This will be continued with a true scientific and medical analysis of guns in the US and the efficacy of proposed measures to end gun violence.

Endnotes:
*(see also the neurologist Dr. Frank Baughman's site as well as the words of psychiatrist Ron Leifer, and another psychiatrist Thomas Szasz...these men are my honest to god heros)

Schroedinger's Baby

2005-05-06T01:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a piece that just got picked up by alma mater's pro-life group, called Schroedinger's Baby. And no I didn't ask them for permission. First of all, I wrote the damn thing. Second of all, I'm across the Atlantic. And third of all, I'm bigger than they are:

Schroedinger's Baby

Most of you are familiar with dear old Erwin's famous thought experiment involving a rather put-upon cat. He stuck the poor thing in a box, attached it to a poison gas canister that would randomly activate and asked the world if it was alive or dead. It might be alive, it might be dead. And we'd never know. It's usually taught as an example of the behavior of quantum particles. But that ignores Schroedinger's point. The brilliant physicist and avid amateur philosopher wanted to make the point that tn an empirical world you might think of an electron as having the potential to be half in one state, half in the other, but this simply cannot translate up to a living, breathing thing. At any point in time, a cat can be either alive or dead, but not both, end of story.

The scary thing is that we make the mistake he tried to prevent when it comes to the lives of unborn babies. According to current law, a fetus, in and of itself, has no definition. Or, rather, it has two, depending upon who actually commits the crime of snuffing out its burgeoning life. If mommy decides to walk into planned parenthood and have an abortion, the fetus was a choice. No crime was committed. However, if mommy is savagely beaten, and loses her unborn child as a result, the fetus suddenly becomes a human life, and a murder was just committed. Half choice, half child. Neither one thing nor the other. A little beating heart, a nervous system that can feel pain, a tiny but perfectly formed body. Apparently none of these things have any bearing on what a fetus actually is; the only thing of import is what the mother chooses to term it. But just as Schroedinger's cat must be either alive or dead, a fetus must also either be a choice or a baby.

I was born several weeks premature, a consequence of being a gigantic baby in a mother only a shade over five feet tall. Aside from the continuing crick in my neck that resulted from being so cramped up in there, I came out perfectly healthy. When the doctor slapped me on the ass and I started breathing, all sorts of interesting things happened, portal veins closed as my circulatory system rerouted itself, blood started to fill my unused lungs, and I started producing a different type of red blood cell to prepare for life away from the umbilical cord. And only then did I become what the law would define as a baby. 15 minutes before, while I was still enveloped in amniotic fluid, I was very much capable of all of this, and yet, at that point I was simply a choice. Most women continue to be pregnant several weeks longer than my mother. Most babies are still in the womb, and still technically choices, at a time when I was filling up diapers and keeping my parents awake. That seems more than a tad inconsistent to me.

Mine was a happy story. But there are others that drive this point home just as clearly. Ellie, a good friend of mine, had a miscarriage. She lost her little girl, Natalie, 4 months into her pregnancy. Ellie's pain is real, all the tears she's shed are real. And the little grave for Natalie is real. Natalie was a baby. And every pro-choice person I've ever discussed the issue with has felt the same way. They've empathized with Ellie the same way i do, and they truly feel for the loss of her baby. And this is where the pro-choice argument shows another inconsistency. The cold logic says one thing, while the heart says another. The argument states that Natalie wasn't yet a life, and wouldn't have been unless Ellie chose not to terminate the pregnancy for another 5 months. On that day, when Natalie took her first breath, only then would she have been a baby. Ellie, apparently, is grieving over nothing.

The pro-choice argument depends on Schroedinger's Baby. It can only function if a fetus is truly seen as a choice, hidden in away in the little black box of the womb. ½ life and ½ choice embodied, its true identity to be determined by the random decision of a mother whether to be kept or thrown away like so much leftovers. In 9 months, if a kicking screaming thing emerged, then and only then would the baby become fully defined. The pro-choice person then must, if they are to be true to their philosophy, have the ability to go up to Ellie. To look into the eyes that will never fully hide the hurt. And tell her that she didn't lose a baby. Tell her that she lost a potentiality, that Natalie didn't exist. If you can do that, well, then I'm afraid you'll have closed up every hole in your rhetorical argument. But I think you need to read the first paragraph again; you seem to have missed Schroedinger's point.

What it Means to Be the Libertarian Lunatic

2005-04-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

I used to be Republican. Born and raised that way in fact. It was likely a combination of growing up in West Texas and having parents that took personal responsibility VERY seriously. Eventually I wised up, early in college, when I found out what a libertarian was. Personal Responsibility and Freedom; possibly the two most important things in my life. I was a changed man.

Now there is one thing a libertarian isn't, and that's an anarchist. We believe in MINIMAL government interference, not NO government. What minimal is, of course, is subject to debate. There are a few basics that we all agree on like outlawing murder, theft, rape, etc. Crimes against the person. Then there are a few things we believe the government is damned useful for: Certain aspects of basic infrastructure, military and border defense, basic currency, etc. Things that as separate individuals, groups, and corporations, we'd have trouble standardizing and working together with.

And then there are things that we patently don't want the government involved in. Social welfare, here, would be the biggest thing. Also, any form of restriction on defending oneself, expressing oneself, or property rights. No religion-based doctrine either. That is the nature of freedom. To be allowed to live one's life without the government either repressing you or enabling you. A good government is completely transparent to the likelihood of success to you as an individual.

Well, with that out of the way, I might as well bring up my individual quirks, since I'm pretty adamant about them. I am pro-life. Yes, a pro-life libertarian. There are a lot of us apparently. Here's a link: Libertarians for Life

Libertarians are for freedom, and that means freedom of choice for women to do with their bodies whatever they want. No way. In four years as a secular pro-life activist, I've never once heard someone say that to me...never. Remember what I said about us not being anarchists? I do think murder is a crime, and both my head and my heart agree. However, as a rational individual I'm quite aware of where my scientific logic ends and my belief begins. And I'm...not happy, but willing to...set a limit on abortion based on when the majority of fetuses can sustain life outside the womb with minimal medical intervention (limited or no surgery...no serious lifelong medical problems as a result of early birth). Currently, statistics from the National Institutes of Health put that point at the end of the fifth month. Now Take Note because you won't see me do this very often (if ever), but I find this particularly interesting because similar methods are precisely the way that various European governments define the point at which abortion is no longer legal. As always, I'll throw in the various considerations for (physiological, not mental) health of mother and baby, rape, and incest. You can expect several pieces, well supported with statistics and sources, on this issue.

The environment: I think it's the duty of every individual to ensure that what's left of the natural world is carefully husbanded and prevented from further degradation. I am not a tree-hugging, whale-saving, feral-housecat-hunt-decrying environmentalist but a conservationist I approach the matter of the maintenance of our natural heritage as a trained biologist and ecologist; you won't see any call to ban hunting from me. Self interested individuals acting selfishly will always degrade the natural world until there's nothing left. Garret Hardin explained this phenomenon in his seminal work: Tragedy of the Commons, more than 40 years ago. A noted ecologist, Hardin was also flamboyantly libertarian. He made constant mention of the fact that it is impossible to reconcile protection of what silly liberals like to call 'economic freedom' with the maintenance of the natural world. Consequently the Green Party can suck my big toe, the left on preferably.

Doesn't that degrade property rights and freedom? Yes, yes it does. And again, I'm not an anarchist but a libertarian. I've already acknowledged the failings of individuals to work together on a national scale without some kind of heirarchy. Our natural resources I consider as vital a part of infrastructure as roads, water, and electricity, again for valid scientific reasons. Protecting the environment is a duty of every single person living within our borders, a duty that is best manifested in a stable overarching control of an organized national government. My position on such an issue is what distinguishes the libertarian belief of limiting government to what is necessary versus the anarchist belief of eliminating government. Again, expect to see several rants from me on these pages...critical of both Bush and the moonbat environmentalists for failing to see the big picture.

Finally schooling. And I don't mean the traditional method of "throw money at it", but the commitment to providing solid public school education and affordable state universities accessible to all. This doesn't mean Affirmative Action or the continuing trend against merit-based scholarships in favor of 'need-based' ones. Not everyone needs to go to the ivy league, and it's quite alright if for monetary reasons you can't go there. Accountability, affordabilty (of state universities), and accessibility. Whether you choose to take those opportunities is up to you.

Finally, I'm a pragmatist. I don't see the Libertarian Party becoming a force in politics for a little while longer. I'll continue to side with Republicans in demonstrations, write columns in support of them, and belong to Republican groups. As long as I live in a Red State (and pray that I do), I will continue to vote Libertarian, conscious of the fact that the next best thing (and a distant second it is), will be in office.