Like: This Article Absolutely Eviscerating Ayn Rand

I rarely do a quick blurb and link, but I couldn’t resist.

I’ve detailed my dislike of Libertarianism, Ayn Rand*, and even Slate before, but here is Johann Hari’s excellent and scathing evisceration of Ayn Rand based on two new biographies (props to Travis for the find).

Enjoy:

http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/

*I have since attempted to actually read Atlas Shrugged and get halfway through before giving up due to inherent nonsense. Meanwhile I have read all of the fountainhead in sort-of-skimming fashion.

Don’t Like: #5, Ayn Rand (on the list people, all of whom I would Punch if I saw them)

For a blog where I spend half the time bitching about stuff I don’t like, I do try to avoid careless internet asshatery and needless contrarian bullshit, and instead focus on some kind of minuate, or larger theoretical argument. Let’s be honest, often the internet descends into “I HATE YOU’RE YOUR FAVORITE THING!!!!!!!! RARRRRRRRRR! U R GAY!!!!”. I try to avoid that. But… Occasionally I indulge in my more base tendancies. So for this week:

Here’s a list of 5 people I would punch if I saw them.

#5, Ayn Rand

Reasons: For taking a rational counterpoint to extremism and countering it with a form of opposing extremism. For writing an extremely long and tedious book that makes the same point and over and over for no rational reason other than to make it. Then creating a bogus philosophical theory out of it. Or before it. Or whatever. She sucks.

Judgement: Basic logistical failures across the board.

Punishment: PUNCHED.

Difficulty: Deceased, mysogny.

Look at this asshole:

Don’t Like: Heroin, Black Tar, Golden Triangle, Ammonium Chloride, Poppy, Etc, Etc.

As I continue my massive research project, here’s a few tidbits about heroin’s chemical make-up, history and the golden triangle.

Chemistry: (Via Wiki)

Heroin (INN: diacetylmorphine, BAN: diamorphine) is a semi-synthetic opioid synthesized from morphine, a derivative of the opium poppy. It is the 3,6-diacetyl ester of morphine (hence diacetylmorphine). The white crystalline form is commonly the hydrochloride salt diacetylmorphine hydrochloride, however heroin freebase may also appear as a white powder.

As with other opiates, heroin is used both as a pain-killer and a recreational drug. Frequent administration quickly leads to tolerance and dependence and has a very high potential for addiction. If sustained use of heroin for as little as three days is stopped abruptly, withdrawal symptoms can appear. This is much quicker than other common opioids such as oxycodone and hydrocodone.^[1][2]

One of the most common methods of heroin use is via intravenous injection (colloquially termed “shooting up”). When taken orally, heroin undergoes extensive first-pass metabolism via deacetylation, making it a prodrug for the systemic delivery of morphine.^[3] When the drug is injected, however, it avoids this first-pass effect, very rapidly crossing the blood-brain barrier due to the presence of the acetyl groups, which render it much more lipid-soluble than morphine itself.^[4] Once in the brain, it is deacetylated into 3- and 6-monoacetylmorphine and morphine which bind to μ-opioid receptors, resulting in intense euphoria, decreased pain perception and anxiolytic effects (relief of anxiety).

Internationally, heroin is controlled under Schedules I and IV of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.^[5] It is illegal to manufacture, possess, or sell heroin in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, India, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom and Swaziland. However, under the name diamorphine, heroin is a legal prescription drug in the United Kingdom. In the Netherlands, heroin is available for prescription as the generic drug diacetylmorphine to long-term heroin addicts. Popular street names for heroin include black tar, junk, skag, horse, chiva, “H”, “Boy”, and others.

History:

The opium poppy was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia as long ago as 3400 BC.^[6] The chemical analysis of opium in the 19th century revealed that most of its activity could be ascribed to two ingredients, codeine and morphine.

Heroin was first synthesized in 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, an English chemist working at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, England. He had been experimenting with combining morphine with various acids. He boiled anhydrous morphine alkaloid with acetic anhydride over a stove for several hours and produced a more potent, acetylated form of morphine, now called diacetylmorphine. The compound was sent to F. M. Pierce of Owens College in Manchester for analysis, who reported the following to Wright:

Doses … were subcutaneously injected into young dogs and rabbits … with the following general results … great prostration, fear, and sleepiness speedily following the administration, the eyes being sensitive, and pupils constrict, considerable salivation being produced in dogs, and slight tendency to vomiting in some cases, but no actual emesis. Respiration was at first quickened, but subsequently reduced, and the heart’s action was diminished, and rendered irregular. Marked want of coordinating power over the muscular movements, and loss of power in the pelvis and hind limbs, together with a diminution of temperature in the rectum of about 4° (rectal failure).^[7]

Wright’s invention, however, did not lead to any further developments, and heroin only became popular after it was independently re-synthesized 23 years later by another chemist, Felix Hoffmann. Hoffmann, working at the Bayer pharmaceutical company in Elberfeld, Germany, was instructed by his supervisor Heinrich Dreser to acetylate morphine with the objective of producing codeine, a constituent of the opium poppy, similar to morphine pharmacologically but less potent and less addictive. But instead of producing codeine, the experiment produced an acetylated form of morphine that was actually 1.5-2 times more potent than morphine itself. Bayer would name the substance “heroin”, probably from the word heroisch, German for heroic, because in field studies people using the medicine felt “heroic”.^[8]

From 1898 through to 1910 heroin was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough suppressant. Bayer marketed heroin as a cure for morphine addiction before it was discovered that heroin is rapidly metabolized into morphine, and as such, “heroin” was basically only a quicker acting form of morphine. The company was somewhat embarrassed by this new finding and it became a historical blunder for Bayer.^[9]

As with aspirin, Bayer lost some of its trademark rights to heroin under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles following the German defeat in World War I.^[10]

In the U.S.A the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed in 1914 to control the sale and distribution of heroin and other opiates. The law did allow heroin to be prescribed and sold for medical purposes. In particular, recreational users could often still be legally supplied with heroin and use it. In 1924, the United States Congress passed additional legislation banning the sale, importation or manufacture of heroin in the United States. It is now a Schedule I substance, and is thus illegal in the United States.

Production and trafficking:

Manufacturing

Heroin is produced for the black market by refining opium. The first step of this process involves isolation of morphine from opium. This crude morphine is then acetylated by heating with acetic anhydride. Purification of the obtained crude heroin and conversion to the hydrochloride salt results in a water-soluble form of the drug that is a white or yellowish powder.

Crude opium is carefully dissolved in hot water but the resulting hot soup is not boiled. Mechanical impurities – twigs – are scooped together with the foam. The mixture is then made alkaline by gradual addition of lime. Lime causes a number of unwelcome components present in opium to precipitate out of the solution. (The impurities include inactive alkaloids, resins, proteins). The precipitate is removed by filtration through a cloth, washed with additional water and discarded. The filtrates containing the water-soluble calcium salt of morphine (calcium morphinate) are then acidified by careful addition of ammonium chloride. This causes freebase morphine to precipitate. The morphine precipitate is collected by filtration and dried before the next step. The crude morphine (which makes only about 10% of the weight of opium) is then heated together with acetic anhydride at 85 °C (185 °F) for six hours. The reaction mixture is then cooled, diluted with water, made alkaline with sodium carbonate, and the precipitated crude heroin is filtered and washed with water. This crude water-insoluble freebase product (which by itself is usable, for smoking) is further purified and decolourised by dissolution in hot alcohol, filtration with activated charcoal and concentration of the filtrates. The concentrated solution is then acidified with hydrochloric acid, diluted with ether, and the precipitated heroin hydrochloride is collected by filtration. This precipitate is the so-called “no. 4 heroin”, commonly known as “china white”. Heroin freebase cut with a small amount of caffeine (to help vaporise it more efficiently), typically brown in appearance, is known as called “no. 3 heroin”. These two forms of heroin are the standard products exported to the Western market. Heroin no. 3 predominates on the European market, where heroin no. 4 is relatively uncommon. Another form of heroin is “black tar” which is common in the western United States and is produced in Mexico.

The initial stage of opium refining—the isolation of morphine—is relatively easy to perform in rudimentary settings – even by substituting suitable fertilizers for pure chemical reagents. However, the later steps (acetylation, purification, and conversion to the hydrochloride salt) are more involved—they use large quantities of chemicals and solvents and they require both skill and patience. The final step is particularly tricky as the highly flammable ether can easily ignite during positive-pressure filtration (the explosion of vapor-air mixture can obliterate the refinery). If the ether does ignite, the result is a catastrophic explosion.

Don’t Like: 4th Wave Feminism (But It’s VERY Complicated)

Warning: This is a discussion of semantics.

I am a Feminist… I am a dude.

Understand I’m not trying undermine the notion of being a feminist. I know some women take issue with how liberally men are willing to label themselves as such and deeply respect that. I know this guy who considered himself a feminist and he was also a remarkable verbal abuser and one-time physical abuser.  But in his deranged head, he was “oh so feminist”. So one can understand the apprehension.

But… well, I’m going ahead and saying it anyway.

I’m doing it because feminism has a lot of different definitions, and most of them are pretty reasonable definitions. That’s what happens in a good discourse.

To be fair, 4th Wave Feminism isn’t even a thing. It’s a term some people kind of assigned to describe what’s happening right now in feminism. There were of course other real waves: 1st wave) suffrage. 2nd wave) women’s lib movement of 60’s-80’s. 3rd wave) early 90’s corrections to the “failures” ie women have the right to act like a man, earn the same wages/positions/etc. There’s more to third wave, but since there’s no singular defining trait/event, that’s an okay description.

So… 4th wave.

First off, let me state that I think that sexism is still such a huge problem in this country. HUGE.

Societal Problem #1- the mixed messages we’re sending young girls. We live in a culture with an increasing religious population which abhors both women’s sexuality, femininity, and homosexuality. At the same time, we have a secular society where sexuality is increasingly out in the open (some in a good way too, but mostly a bad way). Think about MTV/Reality shows. Hell, most everything on television is nuts. It’s not the “showing of the skin” it’s the unintelligent and crass way this sexuality is presented (HBO may be the most gritty but they deal with their subjects so intelligently it’s often to make a point… except Entourage but that show sucks).  With the two conflicting messages, every young girl is trying to fight between being a madonna and a whore. This conflict has always been an element to humanity no doubt, but within today’s culture there are a lot of new kinds of obstacles. (There was a great recent movie about this subject: “Towelhead” by Alan Ball.)

Societal Problem #2 – Frat culture – I’m not speaking ill of fraternities necessarily. I’m speaking ill of the associating stereotype of how “frat guys” behave. And we all know what I mean by that. Now going off that mentality, I have this dumb pseudo-pop-psychology theory and it goes something like following: Elementary school boys grow up and are afraid of girls. They want the approval of their guy friends and for those guys to think they’re totally awesome. They start to grow up and have problems relating to teenage girls and react by starting to get angry/misogynistic. It gets worse and worse and soon they’re just trying to score chicks so they can get high fives from their buddies. So they hate/resent women and only use them patriarchal status symbols…. And I think this is fucking 50% of the male population. I really do. I see it everywhere and it pretty much disgusts me. Don’t get me started on the college boys who put drugs in girls drinks at parties. To me there’s nothing more abhorrent than that kind of behavior. It’s a hate crime to me.

Societal Problem #3 – It was kind of always this way. These are not new problems for our society. It’s mostly just that sexual abuse is FINALLY starting to be reported with more frequency. And these aren’t the final numbers by a long shot. The amount of rural sexual abuse that goes unreported is simply stunning. Absolutely stunning… And historically it was even worse.

Societal Problem #4 – there’s no central concrete obstacle for feminism at the moment – the problems with the third wave feminism are only multiplied today because the perceived problems are all conceptual. With the advent of title 9, increased support for equal pay, etc. there are fewer and fewer concrete obstacles.  So why are things still so shitty? It’s because the attack is now on a thought system and that makes things, uh, rather difficult.

As a result, I think 4th wave feminism is pretty fractured. It’s somewhat like today’s music, it’s like there’s competing genres. Do you like emo or hip hop? Are you super indie Mr. Hipster or top 40? Feminism has similarities. There’s some more militant forms of feminism now, but since I tend not to like militant forms of pretty much anything, I won’t even get into that.  One the other side of the political spectrum, there’s the amazingly strange “feminists for life” group . The name does not imply they are feminists for the remainder of their living years, but instead being women who are intensely pro-life… that one’s… interesting. But most kinds of feminism today are now in the form of micro-analysis; the daily interaction of men and women, the subtexts of film and literature, and international comparison. It leads to a lot of fascinating stuff that I enjoy reading with vigor.

… It also leads to a lot of unfair stuff.

What’s specifically is unfair? Lots of stuff really, but one example of the negative aspects would be modern feminism as a game “of gotcha”. Now the dynamics of “gotcha” are now surprisingly popular in the era of Palin and her complaints of “gotcha” media tactics. The main difference is these journalists are trying to expose the woeful political ignorance of a candidate. Asking about the Bush Doctrine is not a gotcha question. Heck, if I know what the bush doctrine is it is NOT A GOTCHA question. Anycrap, I digress. Gotcha feminism is taking valid arguments and points and applying them to situations where they don’t necessarily apply.  It’s like (a) set up a valid point (b) apply point to a given situation that may not apply and (c) tear into it. Examples:

Example #1: The bechdel test

let’s go to wiki: The Bechdel test: The strip popularized what is now known as the Bechdel test, also known as the Bechdel/Wallace test, the Bechdel rule, Bechdel’s law, and the Mo Movie Measure. Bechdel credits her friend Liz Wallace for the test, which appears in a 1985 strip entitled “The Rule“, in which a character says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:

1. It has to have at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.^[4]

(ignore the boldness here, I’m have formatting problems, sorry) First off. I really love Bechdel rule. As a writer it helps me immensely. I also think it’s pretty obvious the point of the test is to really just point out how few movies actually do this… which is great. But following this test? My god. There’s so many great movies that say a heckuva lot of interesting things that do not pass this test in any way. AND there are a lot of shitty, pandering movies that say awful things about females and DO pass the test (I’m looking at you 27 Dresses). And yet I’m constantly surprised by how many people use the test as some kind of justification for a movie’s validity. (It all goes back to how most screenwriters are males who have no idea how to write female characters, that’s how simple it is).

Example #2 – Firefly is sexist!

Here is an excerpt from a feminist blog that got passed about the internet for awhile for it’s almost stunning over-reaction. It was in regards to Joss Whedon (a popular figure in the “girl power” arena) and his show Firefly. The author decided to tear into the show and expose it for the sexist piece of shit she thought it was:

“Aside from women being fuck toys, property and punching bags for the men, the women have very little importance in the series. I counted the amount of times women talk in the episode Serenity compared to the amount of times men talk. The result was unsurprising. Men: 458 Women: 175. So throughout the first episode men talk more than two and a half times as much as women do. And women talk mainly in questions whereas men talk in statements. Basically, this means that men direct the action and are active participants whereas women are merely observers and facilitators.“

That’s what we call gotcha tactic. The points she brings up have no real baring on whether a show is sexist or not. It simply can’t. It’s classic scientific conundrum of correllation and cause.  Add in the fact that most of the characters are male (especially all the evil baddies) and one of the female’s main character is crazy and only talks rarely, then well… it just seems even more irrelevant.

I really suggest giving this blog post a look http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html … the funny thing is the more I read the post the more I find bits of validity to her points… but it is such a strong reaction to something that doesn’t have nearly the kind of malice she is describing. Of course the show doesn’t stand up as the perfect model of feminism. That’s not what he’s trying to do in the slightest. The kinds of feminist issues in Buffy aren’t even on this show’s radar. And more importantly, they don’t have to be. Firefly is really about a universe that’s crumbling. It’s crumbling on a epic scale and they live in a stunningly depraved world. So a lot of bad, bad shit happens. On top of that, much of whedon’s “sexism” is coming from a critical view. Every one of them is a deeply flawed character, that I don’t think he even had a chance to scratch the surface with (look at the first season of buffy… and where it ended up going. That first season was crap in comparison). I’m inclined to think that he’s cognizant of the females and I think he’s hyper-aware of their feminist drawbacks. But oh yeah… the show happens to be pretty darn good.

I showed the blog post to my friend and he simply wrote back “here’s a list of things that do not fit in with my narrow world view”

Sure that’s a little curt (he did so for humor’s sake) but it gets at the very point I’m trying to make. It may seem like I’m just picking on these two examples but there are countless other instances that overwhelm my impression of the direction of feminism (at least on the collegiate level). Most forms of modern 4th wave feminism are just so darn limiting in their scope. Does “not feminist” = bad? It’s just an inherent question one has to ask themselves when participaing in “feminism”. By adopting any ideology do we limit the exceptions?

At one point in the blog the author digs into the interracial relationship in firefly and makes this comment:

“Let me just say now that I have never personally known of a healthy relationship between a white man and a woman of colour. I have known a black woman whose white husband would strangle and bash her while her young children watched. My white grandfather liked black women because they were ‘exotic’, and he did not, could not treat women, especially women of colour, like human beings. I grew up watching my great aunts, my aunty and my mother all treated like shit by their white husbands, the men they loved. So you will forgive me for believing that the character, Wash, is a rapist and an abuser, particularly considering that he treats Zoe like an object and possession. Joss Whedon does not share my view, of course, and he paints the relationship between Zoe and Wash as a perfectly happy, healthy union.“

First off, I’ve personally known healthy white male/black female relationships. That statement is wholly fucking ridiculous and maybe even racist. There can’t be? Really? That’s simply naive. The author may claim I’m naive because I’m being ignorant, but that’s horseshit and i’ll stand by it. And yes, OF COURSE the aforementioned racist exoctism is an issue in our society. But that doesn’t mean we have to rush out and make every interracial relationship ABOUT the problems of the interracial relationship. That’s ridiculous. She even goes onto bring up excellent films which deal with the subject of racial sexuality and says we should watch those instead. The movies she mentions are all excellent (like Rabbit Proof Fence). But, folks, wtf does that have to do with Firefly. That’s not the subject

As a result of this kind of feminist gotcha-ism, many males go on to make ridiculous conclusions about feminism on the whole… like this:

Needless to say, but that’s a dumb conclusion. Is it complete without merit? YES. That is a sentiment without any merit. It’s a sexist statement down to its very core. But what it does highlight is an unintended consequence to some of the 4th wave’s more unfair analysis. Now I’m not JUSTIFYING a reaction like this in the slightest. A sexist reaction is a sexist reaction. But in the wake of discourse, it awakens the notion of pragmatism in micro-analysis.

There it is… pragmatism. It seems like the biggest obstacle of the 4th wave is the limits of its structure. Does micro-analysis eliminate the scope of macro-analysis? Does feminism need to incorporate the human condition? Can feminism adapt to incorporate a wide range of definitions?

Most of the male/female relationships I know are pretty even handed, both economically, socially, and fundamentally.  But some of them definitely would run against the grain of someone’s differing notion of feminism. And once again, YES this even-handedness is CERTAINLY not the consensus on the whole of this country. How can it be? The 50% frat culture I mentioned before and religious sentiments make me nuts. Most pornography makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Those are the obvious battles and I’m talking about the more subtle ones that stem from battles over the things that shape our modern cultural landscape like Firefly and the Bechdel test.

With that, how does 4th wave feminism, in it’s current position, move forward?

There are still some public obstacles. The glass ceiling in the economic front. I think there needs to be some rebellion against the confines of the growing religious attitude, the confines of frat culture, and a global movement toward feminist aid in 3rd world countries where human life is worth less than an IPhone.

And heck I’ll say it… In some ways I think the American feminist experience is becoming much more about redefining the male role than ever before. How do men indeed become feminists while still owning, well, let’s just call it “the male mystique?” (to borrow a phrase). Yes, I’m sick of the “frat” culture. I’m sick of the blatent sexism… but how does feminsm combat that? I simply don’t see the trend of micro-analysis helping. I don’t know… Sometimes it does very well and I’ll read an article that pinpoints these exact problems in our daily life… but a lot of times I encounter the other stuff.

Maybe we’re just approaching a difficult time where the line between feminism and humanism is becoming blurred.

* Final note: I fully realize this whole post is dangerous. Please keep in mind It’s not a paper. It’s not well thought out. I only looked over it once.  It’s kind of a stream of consciousness tangent designed to bring up points. That’s all it is intended as. And I hope all it’s taken as. Thank you.

Don’t Like: Debates

Debates to put it simply, are just asinine.

I have so much trouble watching them. Some of it has to do with the lack of appropriation I mentioned in the post before. But mostly because they are so insanely predictable to the point of gouching out my eyes.

These are not debates. They’re a series of talking points where the candidates move toward the middle and dump buzzwords like an NFL running back dumps coke deals. (That doesn’t make sense I just think we have to mention that a popular RB last year was just busted for a freaking coke deal folks).

Anycrap, debates aren’t about politics. They’re about elections.

I find politics fascinating and I find elections mind-numbing. They have so amazingly little to do with politics it brings me to tears often, crying dejectedly in the shower a la The Crying Game.

So it’s like watching a little game between two people who are only going to talk about what they’re going to talk about. That’s not fun.

What’s more amazing to me is that no Democrat has the balls to stand up and say I’m a democrat.

My imaginary Biden point last night:

“Yes we believe in higher tax revenue and you know why? We need that fucking money. This country has been running on the equivalent of fumes for 7 1/2 years now. We’re stitched together with duct tape and false promises. The Republican philosophy on government is a ruse, a trick. They lower taxes. They cut crucial programs. They underpay firefighters, police, and teachers. They stop developing public transportation.  And then they tend to start amazingly expensive wars. To pay for them, we just borrow money like your crackhead brother. Would you trust anyone with the individual equivalent with a 10 Trillion dollar debt? And don’t give me that garbage that the debt doesn’t matter. It matters HUGELY. Hell, China just agreed not to lend us anymore money our financial situation is so bad. Guess what? We need to balance the budget. But we can’t cut domestic spending because that would utterly destroy an infrastructure on the verge of collapse. We need the money to do it. We’re democrats. This is what we do. And executive-ly speaking? We do it well. Post WW2, the stock market has always performed better under democratic leaders. The misery index is always much better. These aren’t talking points. These aren’t opinions. These are facts. And the American people can stand behind facts. We simply do it better. We don’t don’t run a fucking sham operation like the Republicans have.  And they HAVE. How can they be “for the environment” if they don’t fund it? How can they be “for schools and police” if they don’t fund them? How can they be “for alternative fuels” if they don’t fund them? We’re “for good health care” but you know, they don’t fund it. It’s a ridiculous notion. ‘Yeah we’re for those things, I mean we’re not going to pay for their development or anything, but yeah, you know’. God. It’s ridiculous. It’s a shame that after 7 years most Americans just seem to be waking up to it now. “*

*note: the above statement could never be made in an election. Why? Because it makes you sound like a dick… and in the game of electioneering, nothing turns off swing voters like being a self-righteous asshole. Even when you’re glaringly correct.**

**Yes, I’m aware this makes me sound like a dick too.***

***I’m okay with that.

Hate with the Passion of a Thousand Suns: That People Are Just Now Realizing That Borrowing Money From China For 7 Years To Float Our Economy Was A Horrible, Horrible Idea. Thanks W.

This.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSPEK16693720080925
Now what America? Good thing we’ve been building up a surplus the last few years to deal with these emergencies.

Wait. We didn’t?

We’ve been spending it on WHAT????????????????????

[looks down to ground]

Remember when everyone was making fun of Gore’s “lockbox”?

… yeah… this is what that was about.

Don’t Like: John McCain’s Wonderfully Enlightened Approach To Health Care

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/mccain-on-banking-and-health/

I mean really? I don’t understand this “healthy competition” line that the repubs keep pulling out. That’s not exactly how things work out these days especially when compainies are operating on national levels and the failure of a massive corporation is anything but “healthy.” Can someone please explain this to me? How in their right minds can they keep talking like this?

Especially since a free market economy is based on the tantamount of easy entrance/easy exit, similar quality of “goods”, and no coercion. Yet Republicans treat trans-global corporations just as if they’re any other business, where their collapse is just as meaningless as the fall of the corner store (which is also important, but more culturally). Never mind, that these institutions (ESPECIALLY banking, housing, and health care) have sooooooo many people and other organizations who are directly tied into their success, that the entire system starts collapsing when one goes down. But hey, fuck it! Healthy competition!

It’s ignorance at its most staggering. I’m no market socialist by any means, but just look at all the post-war administrations and the stock market AND misery indexes ALWAYS perform better under democratic leadership. It’s an un-debatable fact.

And yet the Republicans are “good” for the economy. Nope. They’re good for the alpha wolves every ten years or so and encourage top market growth, but when it goes unchecked for 7 years it leads to utter collapse. (The same exact thing happened in Reagan’s 7th year).

It’s absurd. It’s laughable. And yet people keep perpetuating it.

Damn I’m angry right now… sorry.

Don’t Like: People Telling Me I Have to Read Atlas Shrugged

Hint: I don’t.

For the uninitiated, Atlas Shrugged is a book by Ayn Rand. Let’s go to wiki: “first published in 1957 in the United States. It was Rand’s last work of fiction before concentrating her writings exclusively on philosophy, politics and cultural criticism. At over one thousand pages in length, she considered it her magnum opus.^[1] Also, at approximately 645,000 words, Atlas Shrugged is one of the longest novels ever written in any European language. The book explores a number of philosophical themes that Rand would subsequently develop into the philosophy of Objectivism.^[2][3]“

Now.

My problem with Atlas Shrugged is not its length. Not liking a book because it is long, is well, stupid. One of the Harry Potters is 800+ pages for pete’s sake.  So why don’t I like it? I’ve actually tried to read Atlas Shrugged before and I got about a third of the way before deciding the whole endeavor is a waste of my time.

But how can I have an opinion then? How hypocritical of me to lambaste a book I haven’t even fully read.

Really, it’s because of the whole Objectivism thing. My smart friend Kevin can articulate his feelings/disdain/what have you toward Objectivism much better than I can. I tend to lump it in with my feelings of disdain for libertarianism, but this is kind of it’s own special brand of dumb.  In short, it’s a philosophy that combines   metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics as a way of justifying why you don’t want to pay taxes.

Okay, not exactly what it ends up saying, but it kind of is the end result. To Rand’s credit, you have to be pretty intellectual to understand the whole affair. It’s tricky, but it’s basically a version of philosophical libertarianism that doesn’t have the courage to outright dismiss the collective concept and instead opts for a completely nonsensical reason for how acting selfish really is good for other people.

Whatever, Ayn. If that is your real name.

I could discuss this all in actual detail, but I’m going to got a read a book I like now.

Don’t Like: Using Models of Uncertainty to Produce Certainties

While it may seem obvious that doing such would be folly, it’s essentially become the very basis of our current “forecast first” economic model. A long time ago, the stock market was “reactive” and now we’re somehow both “anticipatory” and “reactive”… or maybe just reactive to our anticipations.

This guy makes it a lot more clear.

Here we are, another day, ANOTHER bailout.

Yet at the same time the whole black swan affair isn’t necessarily all that and a side salad. There’s a great mefi quote on the subject: “I’ve got this in the “broken swan is right twice a year” category. If you predict a lot of catastrophic failures, some of them will come true. That doesn’t make you good at predicting catastrophic failures.”

So what’s a national economy to do??? Oy!

Well… first we should re-establish and national infastructure and put cashmoney back into the transporation budget, just right that ship. The market woes? Sheesh. I don’t even know. There’s arguements for the bailouts, against the bailouts, for more regulation, for less regulation. It seems we really just need to find an organic way of curbing out of control prognostication… but how the hell do you do that? It’s become a facet of the system. Add to the fact that the true stability of our economy seems to have nothing to do with the DOW anymore and you got one hell of a situation.

… sigh.

I miss greenspan. He made it all so clear.

Bernake is known to lie just to “fuck with” reporters… Cause yeah, that doesn’t affect the economy or anything… ASS.

Like: Generic Asian Businessmen

Going off stereotypes alone, there’s just a lot to like: their dignity, the karaoke, the love of seafood,  their willingness to absorb new culture and highlight or expose their own, their ethical and high-paying treatment of prostitutes, and even the are they black or deep navy suits? Like I said, just a lot to like.