Philosophical Detective

The War of Northern Agression

Richard Nikoley over at Honestylog has a very interesting post about Rothbard's view of the American civil war that I highly recommend.  Follow the link to Rothbard's full article, it's worth the read.

Even better are the comments on Richard's post.  The perspicacity of Richard and his commenters adds a great deal to the original article.  After reading through them I ended up agreeing with Richard.  The point is not that the South was an ideal state, the point is that the aggression was unjust.  That may or may not have been what Rothbard was aiming for but, either way, his article was instrumental in bringing me to this conclusion.

Damn Funny

Over at The Beast is a fun list of the 50 Worst People of 2007.  Quite entertaining but the opening line of #1 made me laugh the most:

Is it a civil rights milestone to have a retarded president?

Damn funny!

H.T Honesty Log

Man of the Year

So, Time Magazine puts Putin on its cover as "Man of the Year".  Sorry, that's "Person of the Year".

The same Putin who used to work for the murderous KGB and who has installed his old work buddies in the Kremlin.  The Putin who murders political opponents.  The Putin who has journalists shot or poisoned.  The Putin who just made himself dictator for life.  The Putin who views the fall of the USSR as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century"

I mean, really.  Do I need to comment on this?  Time magazine sees itself as a serious news organization.  One of those that has started floating trial balloons for the registration of all journalists to stop us amateurs spreading unseemly rumors.

On a related note, have you seen the UNICEF photo of the year?  It's of an eleven year old girl who was sold off to a forty year old muslim.  Don't worry.  It's not pedophilia.  It's just a different culture, see?  Don't you go judging other cultures, you racist, oppressive Westerner!

How are these related?  Well, Bush looked into the eyes of Putin and declared him a good man.  He also looked at the rubble of the world trade center and declared Islam a religion of peace.

They should put Bush on the cover as Man of the Times.  Don't go fooling yourself into thinking that one of the clowns in the latest competition would do anything differently.

Freedomain Radio

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of the state recently.  I've reached the conclusion that "rule of law" vs. "rule of man" is a false dichotomy but I need to do a lot more thinking on the subject before I'm done.

Thankfully I've got the help of a few intellectual guides.  One of these is Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio.

I just watched the video entitled "Ron Paul and Personal Liberty" that left me wanting to stand up and shout "hallelujah brother!"

I'd love to spend a night talking to this guy.  I love to find minds like this and just talk and talk with them until the sun comes up and my brain starts to fade from the effort.  Marvelous stuff.  I'll have to get together with this man one day.   In fact, that's true of most of the folks on my blog-roll.

I got lost here.  It's 1:40am Monday and I've just finished watching this:

Wow, again!  Fantastic stuff.  I found myself laughing until I cried and cheering at the screen.  You should check it out.

...

OK, it's approaching 3am and I've got work to do in the morning.  I'll have to catch up with these later.

Enjoy.

As Heard In My Office

I just got spam in my Google.

This would not have existed 10 years ago as a sentence possibility.

Comedy Gold

I hesitated before writing this post because one's sense of humor is so very personal.  But then I remembered that just about everything in a blog is inappropriately personal so I thought, "what the hell?"

Kenneth Williams was in all the "Carry On" movies that I loved so much as a kid.  These were a series of about 29 movies with the same cast and pretty much the same script that every Brit over the age of 30 grew up with.  I haven't dared try these movies as an adult because I think they would be so bad they'd scare me but I always remembered liking Williams in other things so I went rooting around on U-Tube to see what I could find.

This is a clip of him being interviewed by Parkinson (my favorite interviewer).  It shows Williams' wit and great talent for impersonations.

At the other end of the scale is Les Dawson.  He was from a small town in the North of England (about 5 miles from where I grew up) and I always liked his gruff, deadpan manner.  One of his running gags was to play the piano very badly and it still makes me laugh to this day.  Here he is making Shirley Bassey cry with laughter.

As I said, taste in humor is as personal as music so take it or leave it...

P.S.

While Googling "Carry On" to hyper-link the above reference I found this:

I remember seeing a very old Stanley Unwin when I was young.  He was one of those WWII era comedians that always made me think that humor was a recent invention.  On further reflection (and seeing a comment on the link) I think he'd make an excellent politician.  The words he uses sound like English but they just don't add up.

Priceless

Is it possible for something to be a parody of a parody?

What brought this question to mind was the discovery of this year's Turner Prize winner, Mark Wallinger.  Seems he dressed in a bear suit and wandered around a Berlin art gallery for a few nights.

Wallinger, a Briton in a foreign city, disguises himself as a bear - the heraldic emblem of Berlin - an appropriation in which he becomes both ‘bear’ and simultaneously not ‘bear’.

Just try the artist's explanation of his masterwork:

Wallinger has described how the idea of a divided realm exists within his subconscious, shaped by a German fairy tale in which a prince is transformed into a bear. In Sleeper the Marxist dictum in which history returns first as tragedy then as farce is wryly expressed. Allegory, the repression of memory, and the mutability of national identity combine to offer a meditative exploration of the language of representation, as well as an examination of the nature of perception itself.

My brain hurts!

H.T The Devil's Advocate

State of Perpetual Emergency

There's a breakroom here at Widget Corp that has a TV tuned into Fox News.  Whenever I go to get a cup of tea I stop and stare at it a bit.  It's always like watching a train wreck; it's disgusting and bloody but also strangely compelling.

Anyway, this break's tidbit was the announcement of a State Of Emergency™ in Missouri, I think, because, well, it got cold.  In December.

I'm guessing these code words are a signal to Washington to send lots of other people's money to the area.

I remember similar signals coming from California when they had this year's wild fires.

I would have thought that cold weather in December in Missouri and hot, dry weather in Summer in Southern California would be normal events but I must be wrong because they keep declaring emergencies, see?

On The Declaration

Frustrated whenever you hear someone claim that this is a religious country because of the word "creator" appearing in the Declaration of Independence?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Then you need to read Myrhaf's post, Mitt Romney vs America.  Good stuff.  He shows how the focus by the Right on that one word is wrong because it goes against the spirit of the rest of the document.

Just like the Right claim that the Left are wrong for focusing on the "general welfare" bit of the Constitution's preamble while ignoring the spirit of the rest of it.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Go have a read.

Fascism

From the Ayn Rand Lexicon

Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership.

Today we see this in action as Bush, the "conservative", pushes to dictate what a mortgage company will be allowed to charge customers.

It's not for all customers though.  Just those stupid enough to not consider the consequences of their choices.  So, I guess that makes it more like socialism as the cost for all this will be felt by everyone who does consider the future.  He even calls it a five year plan.

I'm actually starting to find all this stuff funny.  I wonder if that means I'm at the edge of sanity or it's just so ridiculous that laughter is the only possible response.