- Mythbusting: Ayn Rand, Mommies, and Children by Rational Jenn. Jenn provides good answers to the standard misplaced criticisms.
- Why Can’t She Walk to School?: I’m floored by this NY Times article on how parents today won’t allow their children to walk even a few blocks to school due to totally overblown fears of abduction. I knew that norms had changed for the worse, but I never imagined that they’d become so completely stifling.
- Let Me Explain: Internet humor is reaching new heights. It’s not just transcribed jokes any longer; it’s increasingly capitalizing on the distinctive features of the medium — in this case, on Craig’s List.
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Atlas Shrugged Relevant for Modern Times: An op-ed by Ari Armstrong on the relevance of Ayn Rand’s novel, published in the Longmont newspaper. It mentions Front Range Objectivism’s upcoming Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups.
Sep 152009
Sep 142009
- Denver 9/12 Rally: Freedom Forever: Ari Armstrong posts his interviews from the 9/12 Tea Party in Denver.
- Charles Darwin film ‘too controversial for religious America’: “A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.” Wow.
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Ted Kennedy’s Soviet Gambit by Peter Robinson. Wow, wow, wow, and more wow.
Sep 072009
- The Media and the First Amendment, a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Institute for Justice attorneys Bert Gall and Steve Simpson defending free speech on principle. (Yikes! I meant to post that in July. Alas, better late than never!)
- Lawn Chair Wars: Man battles crazy neighbor. Hysterical, whether true or not.
- Normandy Before and After: An amazing series of photographs of Normandy during World War 2 and now.
- Squirrel Photobomb: Undoubtedly, this squirrel is the best photobomber ever.
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Arkansas Fire Chief Shot… by police in court hearing over traffic tickets. Seriously. It’s a crazy case of corruption.
(I’m pretty sure that I got all these links except the first from The Agitator.)
Mar 122009
- Broken Picture Telephone is not merely entertaining. It also illustrates a serious epistemological point about just how much more information is conveyed by just a few concepts as opposed to mere percepts. Granted, those percepts are often amazingly badly drawn. That’s part of the humor. (Via The Hoodat Report.)
- WOW: “It may be tough to get financing for a new car these days, but in Detroit you can buy a house with a credit card. The median price of a home sold in Detroit in December was $7,500, according to Realcomp, a listing service. Not $75,000. Remove a zero—it’s seven thousand five hundred dollars, substantially less than the lowest-price car on the new-car market.” (Via The Agitator.)
- Can some teenager please verify that they can hear this sound? I can’t hear a damn thing!
- Uh, what part of Obama’s body is this blond chick holding on to? (Yes, it is safe for work — and damn funny.)
- Rational Jenn on The Art of War for Parents and On Siblings. Good stuff.
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25 Really Unromantic Album Covers. Heh.
Mar 072009
- Stephan of Whole Health Source looks at Dietary Fiber and Mineral Availability. Oh, and here’s an earlier post from Stephan on How to Eat Grains. As usual, it’s very good stuff.
- Rational Jenn on peanut and other food allergies.
- The Heart Scan Doc discusses some of the interesting health effects of Vitamin D that he has seen.
- Monica of Spark A Synapse summarizes the latest data on BPA, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes. There is good reason for some concern, I think.
- Do you need an extra layer of fat? Try the vegetarian diet the Roman gladiators. Heh.
Feb 212009
- Dumb scare-mongering headline of the day, supported by a total non-story: How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer.
- Dr. Eades on the ethics of eating animals: A better way to die? As I said in a comment I posted, I’d really like to investigate this issue more. I trust Dr. Eades reports, but they’re rather old. Today’s accounts are too often driven by some kind of partisan agenda. So I’d like to know what might have changed for better or worse over the last 30 years. Undoubtedly, federal regulations and subsidies have exerted a major influence over farming in that time — e.g. subsidizing corn-feeding of livestock and the clean up of large confinement operations, pushing small farmers out of business by eating up their profits with burdensome regulations, forcing the closure of a large number of slaughterhouses by federal certification requirements, and so on. I want facts — and for that, I’ll likely have investigate for myself.
- Stephan of the always-interesting Whole Health Source analyzes a recent study showing some rapid health improvements from eating a “paleo” diet: Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials Part III. The study was small, and the diet wasn’t fully paleo. But the results were very suggestive:
Participants, on average, saw large improvements in nearly every meaningful measure of health in just 10 days on the “paleolithic” diet. Remember, these people were supposedly healthy to begin with. Total cholesterol and LDL dropped, if you care about that. Triglycerides decreased by 35%. Fasting insulin plummeted by 68%. HOMA-IR, a measure of insulin resistance, decreased by 72%. Blood pressure decreased and blood vessel distensibility (a measure of vessel elasticity) increased. It’s interesting to note that measures of glucose metabolism improved dramatically despite no change in carbohydrate intake. Some of these results were statistically significant, but not all of them. However, the authors note that:
In all these measured variables, either eight or all nine participants had identical directional responses when switched to paleolithic type diet, that is, near consistently improved status of circulatory, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism/physiology.
Translation: everyone improved. That’s a very meaningful point, because even if the average improves, in many studies a certain percentage of people get worse. This study adds to the evidence that no matter what your gender or genetic background, a diet roughly consistent with our evolutionary past can bring major health benefits. Here’s another way to say it: ditching certain modern foods can be immensely beneficial to health, even in people who already appear healthy. This is true regardless of whether or not one loses weight.
The lesson: don’t suppose that a change in your diet won’t do your body good just because you’re not fat — or not yet fat. Stephan has some more interesting comments; I recommend reading his whole post.
- Cheeseslave on How to Make Lobster Stock. Yummy!
Feb 142009
- 15 Tips for Cooking Real Food for Beginngers from CheeseSlave. (I love that name!) I haven’t yet tried coconut flour, as I just haven’t done much baking in the last six months. However, I’ve nearly run out of the slew of mason jars I bought this fall with all the homemade stock I’ve been preparing and freezing lately.
- What Is Attractive? by Fitness Fail. Or: Why look like a skin-and-bones model when you can look like a CrossFit girl? The linked video of the women competitors from the 2008 CrossFit Games is awesome!
- Beware your olive oil. According to this fascinating New Yorker article, it’s often adulterated with cheap, rancid vegetable oils for the sake of a quick buck. I’m not sure whether the fridge test discussed by CheeseSlave is reliable. Whole Foods says not — and that they rigorously test their store-label brands for purity. Another alternative is to choose a boutique source like Bariani or Adam’s Ranch.
Personally, I don’t use much olive oil. I’m not much of a salad eater, so I don’t use it for to make dressing. (And yes, I would make my own, as everything store-bought consists largely of industrial vegetable oil.) I use animal fats or coconut oil for cooking. I very much like the flavor they add to foods — and they’re more stable at high heats. From what I’ve read, olive oil ought not be used for high heat cooking. (For more on fats, see this post from Life Spotlight and this detailed article from the Weston A. Price Foundation.)
- Yes, I do plan to make the bacon explosion at some point.
- Canadian farmers should have the right to sell raw milk to their willing customers! RealMilk.com has a lengthy background article on the Michael Schmidt, the farmer brought up on charges for selling raw milk via a cowshare program. You can read his testimony at his trial. I’m not sure about the current status of his case — perhaps it’s still pending?
- Are you looking for a source of raw milk? Check out these tips for evaluating the farm.
Feb 062009
- Ari Armstrong says Free Our Beer from the inanity of government-imposed “choice” in an op-ed in the Colorado Daily. Here’s my favorite bits:
The point of the free market is not to maximize choices in beer or any other item, but to protect liberty. If having the most beers available was the goal, the state could force all liquor stores to carry every single beer brewed throughout the world. State law could also force existing brewers to expand tenfold the styles of beer they produce. …
Free markets do offer consumers vast choices by protecting their right to exchange on mutually agreeable terms. People naturally seek a wide variety of goods and services. When politicians attempt to ensure “choice” by forcibly intervening in trade, they destroy people’s choice to buy and sell as they see fit.
Choice does not justify force. For example, we have fewer choices today in horse-drawn buggies, hand-sewn clothing and pet rocks. If politicians tried to force us to buy more of those things, they would undermine our choice to shop for other goods.
- I have no idea what to say about this new book: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton–and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers–and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen’s classic novel to new legions of fans.
Um, okay. (Via Neatorama.)
- Very clever-funny: the Pac Man pain chart.
Feb 052009
- No Snickering: The story of offensively-named English towns. Some were so bad that they couldn’t be printed in the NY Times.
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More Moscow Murder: The subtitle of the editorial says much: “Two critics of Vladimir Putin take bullets in the head.” These two dissidents — seeming defenders of individual rights against government power — were shot in the head in broad daylight on busy city streets in the heart of Moscow. They’re two more victims of eight years of President Bush’s faith-based foreign policy. In case you’ve forgotten, here’s what Bush said about Putin after a 2001 meeting:
I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul. He’s a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that’s the beginning of a very constructive relationship.
In fact, as the editorial says, “What is indisputable is that Russians live in a political climate in which those who criticize Mr. Putin or the human rights violations of his government can be murdered with impunity.”
- How inane are the security procedures at American airports? Read this article from The Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg and weep: The Things He Carried.
Feb 022009
- CNN Money had a nice write-up of BB&T Bank Chairman John Allison’s talk at the Ayn Rand Center in Washington last week.
- John Stossel recently published a good op-ed on the college scam. He makes a good point, but the problem is not just that college is a waste of time and money: the whole educational system is seriously dysfunctional. Students should get a liberal arts education sufficient for a thoughtful and productive life via primary and secondary education. (That’s possible now, for all students — as the example of Colorado’s own Ridgeview Classical Schools shows.) Instead, particularly in government schools, students are physically warehoused, intellectually stunted, and psychologically crushed. After 12 years of schooling, students have not been equipped for life.
I see the results in my own teaching at CU Boulder. Semester after semester, only about three students in a class of thirty can write competently. The rest are not stupid: CU Boulder is the best university in the state. Rather, they just haven’t been taught the basics of reading, writing, or thinking. It’s enormously frustrating for me: I want to teach philosophy, not remedial writing. The situation should be inexcusable to parents — but most willingly accept it.
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Inside the Belly of the Beast: Do Policymakers Listen to Pundits? by C. August of Titanic Deck Chairs. It’s a fascinating — and frightening — look at the way modus operandi of the policy makers federal government, namely frantic, range-of-the-moment pragmatism.
