I love this one from Infowars:

She makes a great point, actually…. buuuuut… science by definition must be falsifiable – i.e., you have to be able to disprove it.

So what exactly WOULD disprove “Global Warming”?

Well… NOTHING WOULD!

And that’s why, Rachel, “Global Warming” is NOT science!

Recently I wrote a quick post about the FDA in relation to a TV show on Animal Planet called I’m Alive. I received a couple of comments, but one of them requires a little more explanation so I’ve decided to answer it as a post.

First, the title of that article is “Yet another example of why the FDA ought to be abolished” and it is really yet another. It is certainly not the most compelling. Government agencies like the FDA violate ethical and political theory and as a consequence they result in negative outcomes. Understanding theory requires time and effort so it is generally these consequences that get people’s attention. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that they are consequences, i.e., concretes, where the argument requires abstraction.

A thorough discussion of the ideal in government is really a subject for a book. It requires strictly defining terms and discussing why central planning in general is unethical. In this post, though, I might be able to elucidate a bit for those who are new to the subject by revealing the true purpose of an agency like the FDA.

Any government agency has two purposes, an ostensible purpose, the one that the people buy into, and the real purpose, the one that those in control want to achieve. (See my post A Spoonful of Sugar for more on this). Let’s just take the FDA, DEA and USDA as examples (you can do this with pretty much any government agency and rather than repeat myself, I’ll let you do some of that. Go ahead and post some in the comments section if you like.)

As you can see, government is particularly useful for preventing business competition. If you doubt this is the real purpose of these agencies, below is a list of books which will teach you a little about the history of government interference with the market economy.

I will elaborate a bit on the arguments the people generally believe (it is these beliefs that a discussion of ideal government would dispel). For those who worry about “snake oil salesman” it is important to note that there already exists within a proper system of justice protection from them – it is the law against fraud.

Now some may argue that the law against fraud is not enough because it doesn’t protect people before the crime. But no legitimate law can punish crime before it happens. The law serves to protect people by making an example of those who commit crime. In fact, protecting people from making mistakes leads over time to a population that is particularly vulnerable to such mistakes and this of course plays right into the hands of the real snake-oil salesman – the one who wrests control of the apparatus of government. An analogous situation might be the infant whose immune system remains unchallenged. He never builds up an immunity to disease while he is young and so remains particularly vulnerable.

Now, do these agencies sometimes do what people think they are supposed to do? Yes, sometimes they are successful in preventing a dangerous drug from making it to the market – after all, not everyone working as a cog in the wheel is aware of the real reason the agency exists – some people actually believe they are working for the benefit of individuals. But it’s important to realize that this function can be served in better ways – ways that do not impact the freedom of individuals to behave ethically and therefore do not have the negative consequences associated with these agencies.

I hope this clarifies somewhat my position on the FDA. For those who wish to do some studying on their own I highly recommend the following books.

The Myth of the Robber Barons by Burton Folsom (good for beginner)
The Case Against the Fed by Murray Rothbard
The Law by Frederick Bastiat
The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand (ethical theory)

My friend Richard died this year in January. Shortly after his death I submitted a paper he had written for publication in a scientific journal called Bioscience Hypotheses. The editors were interested, but they had questions. As I had contributed somewhat to Richard’s ideas, I was familiar with them and I felt I could refine the article for the editors. This I did and the paper was accepted for publication in late January. The article has finally been officially published at the journal and is available online here: Honey bee colony collapse disorder is possibly caused by a dietary pyrethrum deficiency and also on Richard’s personal website.

This paper presents a hypothesis regarding the possible cause of Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, but the inspiration for it actually came from consideration regarding the controversial cancer treatment laetrile and a general principle of economics known as the Law of Returns.

The Law of Returns was first made explicit for me after studying Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action. Mises discusses the law in relation to economics, but it is in fact a universal law which holds for any goal-oriented action. In essence it states that: if for the realization of goal G, a given system S requires ingredient I, then for I there exists an optimum; i.e., there is a “too much”, a “too little” and a “just right”. Aristotle boiled it down to a simple rule: “everything in moderation, nothing to excess.”

Put that way, it seems a little obvious. But despite most people having an implicit understanding of it, the lack of an explicit one leads people very often to violate it. They seem to say “If a little is good, then a lot will be even better!” The reverse is also popular: “If a lot is bad, none is best!” Hence, one can always find violations in the current news; a woman, for example, who died after drinking too much water, or the off-hand rejection of a treatment for cancer because the molecule includes a cyanide group.

Thankfully, our bodies can handle small deviations one way or the other fairly well, either by filtering out when we take in too much or by breaking down the least necessary of our tissues to reuse what we don’t take in enough of (this second principle is also discussed by Mises in relation to economic science, it’s known as the Law of Marginal Utility.) Still, our explicit understanding of the law can mean the difference between health and disease. After all, just what qualifies as a “toxin” or a “nutrient”? For the woman who drank too much water, the water was clearly toxic. But for the bee that consumes pyrethrum, a natural insecticide, the trade off may be resistance to parasites. The answer is not as easy as we might first think and is affected in no small part by the Law of Returns.

So I’ve been sick for a few days (swine flu?) and have been staying home and going stir crazy. Lack of exercise and the general misery of being sick have meant a lot of late night TV for me. Last night, for the first time, I got a chance to see the new Animal Planet show I’m Alive.

There are actually three incarnations of this show – two are on Discovery networks and one is on the A&E network Biography (survival in general is an extremely popular theme of late). I’m Alive deals mainly with surviving animal attacks. The other two are the original I Shouldn’t be Alive which deals with surviving excursions into the wilderness or onto the ocean, and I Survived, which in general deals with surviving crime, but not always.

One of the benefits of this particular type of show is that it makes evident to people just how dependent they are on a properly functioning civilization. My hope is that at least a few people are making this connection (and making it properly, i.e., not equating civilization with socialism). Nevertheless, the episode I saw last night (actually the first of the series) of I’m Alive serves as a nice reminder.

A teenage boy, Mike Makens, is bitten by a black widow spider that had been hiding in his sock. His family rushes him to the hospital only to discover that there is no FDA approved antivenin available. Mike is having an unusually bad reaction to the spider venom, is in excruciating pain, and is in danger of suffering permanent nerve damage. The only treatment available in the US could kill him.

Mike’s parents are obviously intelligent people and they are unwilling to risk Mike’s life on a dangerous treatment. And they discover, via the internet, that a non-toxic antivenin exists and is available in Mexico. Mike’s step-father makes the decision to go to Mexico and smuggle the three needed vials of antivenin into the US to save Mike’s life. He recounts the harrowing story of smuggling the antivenin vials out of Mexico, carrying them onto the plane despite warnings that no liquids are allowed, and then into the US, where the antivenin is potentially illegal, all the while realizing that his son is only hours away from permanent nerve damage.

As luck would have it, he is not accosted by customs on either side of the border, who simply fail to check the open manila envelope carrying the antivenin vials (oh well, so much for the no liquids on a plane rule). But Mike is not out of the woods. The hospital has refused to treat Mike with the Mexican antivenin, fearing retaliation from the US government for using a non FDA-approved substance. Only after some pleading does Mike’s family manage to convince a doctor to help them administer the antivenin to him.

Throughout this episode, mind you, Mike’s step-father is shown wearing a shirt the same color orange as a typical prison jumpsuit. I don’t think this is a coincidence. But Animal Planet is sure to include a note which points out that a “loophole” in the law would have allowed the importation and administration of the drug, but only because there is no antivenin at all available in the US. How this importation was to have happened legally is another question.

Now, how many of you knew that if you were ever bitten by a black widow spider, a pretty damn ubiquitous spider in the US, that there would be no FDA-approved antivenin for you? This despite the fact that said antivenin exists in the world?

If this story does not sound familiar to you, you should familiarize yourself with the story of laetrile. Now, who wants to argue that antivenin is dangerous?

On the path to enlightenment there are a lot of people who, for whatever reason, want to keep you from the truth and they have a few ingenious techniques for doing so. One of these goes like this:

Present a little bit of truth along with a lot of falsehood and the truth will easily be ignored.

Present a little bit of falsehood along with a lot of truth and the falsehood will easily be accepted.

A spoonful of sugar…

An example of something like this would be to combine the true history of an elite banker class with the absurd notion that the world’s political leaders are not really human beings, but are a species of reptilian alien. See how beautifully that works? If a single person is spouting both of those ideas, you will likely imagine that you can safely ignore both. This device relegates all discussion regarding the elites and their plans for a New World Order to the New Age section in the bookstore, where everything is assumed to be pseudoscience and no self-respecting college graduate would be caught dead.

A very similar method is used in the development of political parties. It goes like this:

Package a position on issues of emotional importance to the common man, but of little political importance, with the politically important, but likely to be ignored, doctrine that you wish to bring to pass.

Package the opposite position on those emotional issues of importance to the common man, but of little political importance, with the VERY SAME politically important, but likely to be ignored, doctrine that you wish to bring to pass.

Pit these two against one another and you will pass the doctrine you wish to pass with the blessings of the masses.

Examples of this would be the abortion issue, the gay marriage issue and of course the ever-present ”science” of global warming, which, fraught as it is with so much nonsense, is easily swallowed by those who attach to it all the truths that science has ever uncovered.

Together the principles are part of a kind of dialectic which is really just a fuzzy equivocal term (another important technique for confusing people) for the fallacy of false alternative. These are, among others, some of the tools used by the “sagacious lawgiver” to ensure his particular rules will be followed. Speaking of equivocation, which I discussed in a previous post, if you are going to use the above techniques, make sure that whatever doctrine you wish to pass is named using words that evoke positive emotions, but mean precisely the opposite of whatever you are doing. This gets people used to using these words in conjunction with your ideas and prevents anyone from using them with their true meanings. You know, freedom is slavery, war is peace, and liberals are people who want more government (and hence less freedom).

With these techniques in mind, you’re well on your way to despotism.

From my high school years to the years I spent at Rutgers University studying biology, I have been told that “evolution has no direction.” At first, I accepted this notion, although I always felt that there was something wrong with it. While it’s true that beings do not evolve to a specific end, they most certainly tend in a direction. No creatures can ever be said to “devolve”. A single celled organism evolves to a multi-celled organism – the reverse never happens. But it is not simply complexity that increases over time. Complexity could theoretically be lost – if such complexity did not increase the organism’s overall power. Certain powers may be lost, too, but such losses will always be matched by a gain elsewhere. This is my reasoning, anyway, for believing that despite the depressing assumptions that everywhere entropy is increasing – life in the universe in fact tends towards supreme beings.

I have not read the article depicted on the cover of the latest issue of The New Individualist. However, I did think that the image chosen for the cover and the title were interesting when compared with an earlier issue.

The Discovery networks are really becoming ridiculous.  This even aside from the gratuitous references to “global warming” and “climate change” with the not-so-hidden message that people are the plague of the earth. I’ve gotten somewhat used to that message, really. And if you can stomach the backwards values, the shows can sometimes still provide interesting facts. Occasionally, if a more naive viewer is paying attention, he may note that a fact mentioned in connection with “global warming” provides evidence for the other side. In a recent Science Channel show about creatures that live in the mid-ocean depths, scientists were shown studying how jelly-like organisms consumed plankton and then passed droppings that would fall to the deep ocean, nourishing the creatures that lived there. The narrator couldn’t help but mention how this could “help us combat global warming” by fixing carbon in the oceans. In fact, this little piece of information serves as evidence for one of the opposing viewpoints: that Earth warms FIRST and only THEN does carbon dioxide increase in Earth’s atmosphere – after all they just explained to you that carbon is already being fixed in the ocean.

Slowly building toward the violence necessary to rid the world of those who do not share the religion, there’s Animal Planet’s Whale Wars, where fools put themselves in ridiculously dangerous situations engaging in war games with commercial whalers while soulful music plays to their horrified and melancholy faces. Now, let it be known, I love animals. It is very obvious to me that they are conscious beings deserving of respect and I am glad that there are others who agree. I am all for educating people on the subject. What appalls me is the underlying message of this show, that the best way to save animals is to risk the lives of people by engaging in physical confrontation. And this is clearly the purpose – to attract young people to stupid ways of risking their lives – and/or killing others.

And this is where it starts to get particularly egregious. For example, The Learning Channel (that’s right TLC, the network with the double-meaning of learning and tender loving care) has a new show called Police Women of Broward County. In the coming attractions for the show one of the women is heard saying this priceless gem: “There’s always a good time to use a taser.” Watch it here:

Oh yeah, she’s a “sweet old fashioned girl” alright. And I’ve no doubt this will have the desired effect – convincing the multitudes of insecure women that they don’t want to be the “sweet old fashioned girl”, they want to be the modern and tough “police” woman. The goal seems to be getting the girls interested in joining the military and police forces just like their male counterparts so they can become menaces to the rest of us. I suspect the targeting of women has to do with their relative naiveté with regard to political matters. But, note how these women treat people. In the past when I have stooped to watch one of these “real life” police shows, the male officers have tended to behave well (unlike their fictional counterparts in shows like CSI). These women have no such restraint. Perhaps their purpose is to perform those services which the men are too politically savvy to perform. I suppose you could say the female cop/soldier is also part of the socialist cliché.

On yet another Discovery network, the Science Channel, I recently came across a show discussing the desertification of northern China near Shanghai. This type of show is popular lately and I must admit they are of interest to me as I have lately taken to educating myself further in the areas of geology and geography. But, I have to watch while guarding myself against the horrid propaganda.

Northern China suffers terrible sandstorms and the intent of this show is to draw a parallel between them and the Dust Bowl in the US in the 1930’s – taking advantage of economic parallels while at the same time supporting the religion of environmentalism. In the 1930’s farmers, ignorant of the soil conservation methods necessary for farming on the semi-arid plains, loosened the soil such that when a 10 year drought hit the region, the bulk of the soil simply blew away in enormous “black blizzards” which were also particularly deadly because of the fine structure of the soil. I think it’s important to realize that the blizzards did not cause the drought. The drought, together with the poor farming methods, caused the blizzards.

In China, the situation seems to me to be somewhat different and perhaps after some study I will venture my own speculations on the matter. For now, whatever the cause of the drought, the purpose of programs such as these is to show how ignorant, stupid, and in need of government control the average farmer is. But the best was yet to come. At the very end, the producers decided to leave you with what they could only have considered the most important message of their piece. A Chinese farmer speaks in Chinese with subtitles running beneath his rugged face. He says “The problem isn’t the sand, it’s the people.”

And that about says it all, now doesn’t it?

This is very well done and it will definitely get you thinking about our place in the universe. I have no doubt there are civilizations galore out there. To me this is simple statistics. Seeing all of these galaxies out there is very humbling and I think it serves well as a step in the process of beginning to think outside the current paradigm. There is so very much we have yet to discover. What we do know is but a scratch on an all but infinite surface.

Ever noticed that a lot of non-American book publishers print their book spines upside down?

Those of you who read books published by both American and foreign publishers may have noticed that many foreign book spines are upside down. No offense, but they ARE upside down. One would expect that when books are stacked on a table face up, their spines would be right side up. While they are not always upside down (note Angeli e Demoni is upright with respect to the book cover, and Loriano Macchiavelli’s Delitti di gente qualunque is correct, the other three (publishers from Mexico, Germany, and Italy) are all upside down. This is not particularly important,  I realize. I just thought it was an interesting convention. What’s with that?

A lot of foreign language publishers print their book spines upside down

This is such a positively priceless blunder, one has to wonder… can it really be a coincidence?

For those of you who might not get it, here is the relevant scene from the Matrix. It’s true, you have to see it for yourself.

USA Today is featuring this nice Presidential Approval Tracker that lets  you compare the approval ratings of various presidents during their time in office. I’m not much for polls and approval ratings. I tend to think there is way too much leeway there for propaganda. Nevertheless, it’s sometimes worthwhile to check out just what they want you to think – and I think they want you to be scared.

Check out this comparison between Obama and Bush:

Kind of makes you wonder what the plan is...

Hmmm…. I wonder what the plan is for boosting Obama’s ratings in the fall….

Women's Shape Ups

I really love these sneakers.

There was a time when I enjoyed working out in the gym, but these days, I prefer being outdoors. For that reason, and because I am lucky enough to live within walking distance of nearly everywhere I would need to go, I get most of my daily exercise by walking. Walking is a comfortable low impact activity, too, which allows for a lot of thinking, nature watching, chatting, language study, and so on, to be done at the same time. You also save money on gas.

So, I like walking.

About a month ago I decided I needed a new pair of shoes. I wanted something lightweight, slipper-like, good for hot weather. But when I got to the store, I was suddenly faced with a whole other need.

In general, I have been a fan of Skechers brand shoes for a while now. I find them to be reasonable priced, they last me a good long time, they’re confortable (I’ve never really had to “break-in” a pair), and they’re stylish, too. Many of their comfortable sneaker styles are stylish enough to wear to the office. But these particular sneakers, at first glance, looked a little strange to me. I figured the sole was some kind of trendy thing, which generally doesn’t appeal to me. But then it became clear that the sole had a purpose other than looking cool. And with that in mind, I realized they just might do what they say they do.

They’re called Shape-Ups and the idea is to making walking on pavement kind of like walking in soft sand, where your heel sinks down into the sand forcing you to carry through the full range of motion from heal to toe. Sand, however, slips against itself, making it difficult to walk comfortably, but with these sneakers, you get the full range of motion, without the loss of traction. As faddish as it might sound, they really do increase the workout of a walk.

Men's Shape-Ups

As you would expect, walking in these sneakers is very much a workout for the calf muscles. It is similar to what you might get from standing on the edge of a step with your heel hanging over and repeatedly lifting yourself up. What you might not expect is that walking in these sneakers will also strengthen your back muscles and abdominals. After walking around in them for a few days I noticed a soreness in my upper abdominals that surprised me. But it makes sense when you consider that the shape of the sole of the shoe causes a change in in your posture while you walk. My walks have indeed become a better workout for me thanks to these sneakers. They’re pretty, too.

The Shape-Ups didn’t require a ‘break-in’ period, but they did require a day or two of getting used to. The strangeness is rather slight though, and I was able to walk a full mile and a half the very first day I put them on.

You can read more about Shape-Ups by clicking the link below. (To watch the video follow the white “Click Here” text)

Yes, spring is here and since I had a post on the first cherry blossoms, I figured why not post on the first babies? Here they are – all eleven of them… and they don’t seem the least bit concerned about global warming! Really this post is just to remind you to take a break and don’t get so involved in all that depressing market stuff that you lose sight of the fun. Damn… I really should have gone fishing today…

This mother mallard has eleven healthy ducklings

Mother mallard and ducklings out for mid morning meal