Nokia "Morph" Concept

reason.tv

I just learned that comedian and actor Drew Carry is a libertarian. I like it that there are more and more celebrities coming to the cause of liberty and reason (Penn and Teller are another great example of this.) I don’t agree with some things that libertarians say; but a pro-liberty, pro-free market, pro-reason movement is certainly a good thing.

Click here, to see some short video editorials hosted by Drew Carry on a variety of subjects; including eminent domain, property rights, the status of the middle class, and traffic.

I, Pencil

Yeah this is old, but still just as relevant today as when it was written.

This wonderful little monologue explains, in a simply way, why centralized control of any activity will not work; even the seemingly simple pencil is unbelievably complex.

Any economy is vast, but simply stating that dosen’t do it justice; it’s like saying ‘universe’, the word can’t match the scale of the thing. The economy is so vast, that no person has ever gotten a clear look at it; nobody can ever see it for what it truly is, even if a person manages to absorbed the information of a particular moment, change is rapid. Understanding this scale and a person begins to realize the utter arrogance and foolishness that underlie most statist policies.

Needless to say, this is explained much more eloquently in Leonard E. Reads Paper:

So read the entire thing here.

An Inspiring Guy

I usually not one to enjoy Oprah, but this one struck a cord with me:

I'm Family Friendly

Turns out I am a rather wholesome person (I hope that dosen't make me boring.)

If you want to rate your blog, go Here.

Thank you Dithyramb for finding this site.

More Milton

Here is some more Milton Freidman. It is incredible to me how clearly and concisely he can explain economic laws and consequences, it ways that were nearly impossible to deny:

Batman: Gotham Knights

I usually don’t let my inner geekiness’ on to this blog, but I couldn’t resist with these last two posts.

INDIANA JONES: AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Why is a Government Monopoly Acceptable?

Here’s a fact: Monopolies are generally bad at providing goods and services; a single payer health system is a monopoly, the worst kind of all, one that is enforced with guns.

Here’s another fact: Free markets have a tendency to produce diversity; diversity has a tendency to produce the best services and goods, and thus, the happiest costumers.

The economic justifications for Universal Health Care and Socialized Medicine are nonexistent; the superiority of free-markets is well established. Instead, proponents of socialization relay on old slogans (about the ‘rights’ of the sick), broad statements that are wrong and mean nothing (about how ‘nobody’ can afford care), substituting antidotes for evidence (‘my father got horrible care in America, then he went to Canada and was fine’.)

But most dangerous of all, is handing out irrelevant data as evidence; such as saying, ‘Canadians live two years longer then Americans, so their health care is better.’ In industrialized countries, the amount of healthcare received has little to do with the length of ones life, lifestyle and habits mean far more. Priests in the middle ages could live well into their seventies; often, a parish would have a life expectancy greater then America’s is today (the church kept very good records.) Are we to assume that the Middle Ages had a better health care system then today? Of coarse not; the priests lived that long because they lived isolated lives and avoided illness, they worked enough to keep them healthy but never were strained from physical labor, and they ate enough not to be hungry, but not enough to cause problems (such as obesity, diabetes, and so on.)

The only data one should consider are the objective measurements of a health systems wellbeing: Such as the time it takes to get treatment and tests, to see a specialist; the availability of drugs; the satisfaction of costumers; most of all, one should consider actual healthcare received.

In all objective categories, freer markets win out.

But the Michael Moore’s and Hillary Clinton’s never mention this, and that is what is so telling about there missions. If socialism is truly a superior alternative, then all evidence should support that fact; if so, then why haven’t they mentioned any of it? Why then, do they revert to the evasive debating tactics mentioned above?

I’ll end this post with an antidote:

America’s Health industry is already about half socialized; this includes the FDA, Medicade and Medicare, HMO’s, insurance restrictions, and thousands of other little things; about half of all medical bills are paid by the government. Because of this, there have been some very predictable shortages, raising costs in insurance, and a universal slowing of growth and progress.

All except one field of medicine: cosmetics.

The actual services provided by cosmetic surgeons in not significantly different then other medical fields, neither is the education required in by the surgeons. And yet, year by year, cosmetic surgery has decreased in price (a lower income person can now get a nose job), increased in quality (cosmetic surgery has the highest rating of costumer satisfaction), the fastest growth in innovative technologies, and the best business plans (which results in lower costs.)

As I said, there is no significant difference between cosmetic surgery and other medical fields; except for one thing: government involvement. Compared to other fields of medicine, cosmetic medicine has nearly no government involvement in its business.

The conclusions drawn from this are simple; governments (and all monopolies) are bad at allocating goods and services, that has been proven over and over again in thousands of fields, medicine is no different.

Keep in mind that this is not just an argument about our health; it is for our very freedoms. Our right to get care where we choose, our doctors rights to provide care in a way they wish, an insurers right to provide a service, and my right to purchase it.

The ramifications on freedom are great; it is this issues above all others that should be the focus of this debate.

The fact that it’s not makes my usually optimistic self worry about the future of this county, and those that live in it.


I found this at Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

Meet King Joe

I had to watch these in animation class, and it just so happens that a person on a forum I frequent posted them. They explain, in a very simple way, the fundamentals of some economic concepts.

I love these videos, there simple and eloquent; if a bit outdated (there are some scenes some might find sexist or mildly racist.)

The link to the website that hosts these videos is here. Below is a sample, called Meet Joe King:


Here are some easier to watch youtube videos:

Why Play Leap Frog

Going Places

Make Mine Freedom

In which I learn how to photograph stars, and ponder the definition of ‘travel.’

First I have to establish one thing: How far do I have to be from home before I consider it travel?

Is it distance, time spent moving from place to place, is it an emotional state of being ‘far from home, or something else all together? How about one-hundred yards? Because that is the distance I was from my home when I took these pictures.

Well, this is my fist post on my own travels, so I suppose I could start with baby steps; really tiny baby steps, granted, but baby steps none-the-less.

Oh, and for those of you who are reading my blog (which according to my hit counter, is no one) I will tell you how to take these photos.

Take your camera, which must have ‘bulbus’ mode, outside (as there are many more stars out-of-doors); it better if you do this at night, but I won’t boss your around.

A tripod is absolutely necessary. Its best to use a 50mm lens if you have one, though a zoom will work just fine, just pull back a little. Turn off any autofocus features. Put the Camera in Manual mode (M.) Now, turn the speed of the camera to ISO 400, and then set the aperture to the lowest f-number (there is usually a little wheel on the camera that controls this, just spin it until the display says ‘bulb’.) Though it is not necessary, if your camera has long-exposure noise reduction, turn it on. With these settings, the camera will expose a shot for as long as you hold down the exposure.

From there, just point the camera at the stars, make sure they are focused, and snap; a five second exposure is about right for this.

I use a digital camera, I think film would work to, though I hear it is hard to get high-enough quality prints.

By the way, I find that the amount of stars that I can see with the naked eye has little to do with the quality of pictures I get; the best time to shot seems to be between 12:00am and 3:00am.

Well, this wasn’t the most groundbreaking of first posts, but hey, it was something. I’m sure Marco Polo, or Columbus, or Sir Francis Drake started slow to.

P.S. – With these same camera settings, a person can do some fun things. For instance, write their name in thin air. Just take a small light (LED works great) get in a dark or semi dark place, and start exposure, write whatever you want, and then stop exposing the picture; when it comes out, there should be a light show of wherever that light was during exposure.

These setting are also good for things like night traffic, and running water.

Port City

By: Michael Anissimov