High-Speed Gene Sequencing

It really feels like we're starting to live in the future:



Full article here.

Nations of the World

In my attempt to post something that won’t require a huge expense of effort (and subsequently decrease the importance of this blog), here is Wacko singing the nations of the world:



Yeah I know; this song needs some updating (as some of the countries don’t exist anymore.) Still a fun song.

And for all my German readers, here is the song in Deutsch.

“Do Not Vote”

Whoever posts at Monopoly on Reason has some very interesting reasons why he will not vote in this coming election (or any one in the foreseeable future, for that matter.)

How the Tax System Works

I love a good metaphor; and Doug Reach has a particularly good one at The Rational Capitalist concerning the tax code, called Barstool Economics.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

It gets even more entertaining after that.

Mental ‘bandwagoning’

I have never been a big fan of Howard Stern (I have nothing against the man, just never listen to him) but I think this experiment is pretty interesting. His co-host asked several people who they supported in the next presidential race, and why, and then asked if they supported certain policies; the twist is that he switched the policies of the candidates.

A women was asked who she supported, she said “Obama”; she was then asked if she supported Obama’s pro-life, pro-Iraq war stance; the women said “yes”; she was then asked if she didn’t mind Sarah Palin for Vice President; the women didn’t mind at all. He did the same thing with a man who supported McCain; But don’t take my word for it:

(WARNING: some Language and Crudeness.)



A longer version is here.

To be fair, a good social engineer can get people to answer questions they know are false; people, when nervous and on-the-spot, will often say silly things; people who conduct polls have been doing this for years. None-the-less, this still demonstrates the “mental bandwagoning” that politics seems to inspire (and yes, I am fully aware that is not a word.)

It’s funny, very few feel qualified (or for that matter, interested) to talk about issues of philosophy or science, but nearly all feel qualified to talk about politics; a field of philosophy which is theoretically complex, and even more complex in practice.

How many people actually spend the time to research their own opinions, to critically examine their ideas? Wouldn’t a truly honest person want not only an opinion, but a correct opinion? This becomes even more bizarre when you look at the passions that follow politics; the passions seem to go far beyond the intellect.

It seems everybody wants an opinion, but next to nobody seems to want to work for a good one.

Scientific Method and Video Games

Who says video games are making people stupid? According to one Clive Thompson at Wired News, many video games encourage the use of the scientific method, even if the gamers don’t know it.

I knew all the hours I dedicated to World of Warcraft would pay off somehow.

Rational Debate

I wish I knew about this website before today; it is a brilliant mix of debate and argumentation that avoids the messy and un-intellectual nature of most internet debates (I’m looking at you, youtube.) According to the website: Opposing Views is, “real experts, going head to head on issue you care about.” All arguments are posted by people who are recognized authorities on the matter, as well as all counter-arguments.

The layout is brilliant, and so is the idea, anybody interested in ideas should spend a good deal of time there. This site deserves, and will be, a permanent part of my links list.

“In Defense of the Rich”

A great article by Larry Elder talks about the ideas and reality behind hurting the rich. Here are a few snippets:

The top 5 percent (those making more than $153,542 — the group whose taxes Obama seeks to raise) pay 60 percent of all federal income taxes. The rich (aka the top 1 percent of income earners, those making more than $388,806 a year), according to the IRS, pay 40 percent of all federal income taxes.

He then starts applying the real data to people's preconceptions:

Now, what do people think the rich pay? The IBD/TIPP poll found that 36 percent of those polled thought the rich contribute 10 percent or less of all federal income taxes. Another 15 percent thought the rich pay between 10 and 20 percent, while another 10 percent thought the rich’s share is between 20 and 30 percent.

He goes on to say:

Let’s try this another way. A U.S. News & World Report blogger went to the Democratic National Convention in Denver and conducted an informal poll of 24 DNC delegates. He asked them, “What should ‘the rich’ pay in income taxes?” Half the respondents said “25 percent”; 25 percent said “20 percent”; 12 percent said “30 percent”; and another 12 percent said “35 percent.”

The average DNC delegate wanted the rich to pay 25.6 percent, which is lower than what the rich pay now — both by share of taxes and by tax rate!

The article says far more, very much worth reading.

Go Jon Stossel!

This is a scathing review of politicians and their promises:



Also be sure to watch the rest. Here is part two, part three, part four, part five, and part six.

A Test

Here’s a test for you. First, look at these two pieces of art:

Now, one of these pieces of art was created by a human, and one by a chimpanzee; can you definitively name which is which?

And for the record, I like “modern art” when it can create interesting aesthetic images (it works especially well in accenting interior design or architecture) but I can’t stand the silliness and arrogance behind the ‘modern art’ world.

(Answer:The first piece of work is by Scott Draves, the second by Cheeta, from the Tarzan movies.)

The Joe Factor

I don’t like Obama, and I don’t like McCain, but I do like Joe. I relate to Joe; a good, hardworking person that doesn’t want to become a serf to thugs in Washington. Sure, he made a few mistakes in interpreting tax law (and you can’t really blame him, current tax law being so needlessly complicated and convoluted) but he still feels what most people feel: that theft is wrong, and government theft is no exception.

Read this, for a good little article on Joe; and spread the word, the 'Joe's' of the world must be heard.

"We’ve Seen Worse"

Richard M. Salsmen talks very rationally about the current financial panic, effectively arguing that we have seen much worse, even within recent history.

The current credit and financial turmoil was inevitable, as long as the U.S. government persisted in massively subsidizing and regulating the financial sector; and the current turmoil is no more severe than what U.S. markets suffered in 1990-1991, when junk bonds crashed and the savings-and-loan industry virtually disappeared due to similarly reckless practices. Not even the housing sector’s current troubles can be said to match those seen in the 1974-75 recession.

In the near-term, the dollar will weaken and commodity prices (especially gold) will rise, due to fears of the Treasury plan being inflationary; but in the coming quarters and years the dollar should strengthen again as commodity prices decline.

He goes on to say:

….all the scare-mongering about a potential “systemic catastrophe” or “financial cataclysm,” should a major financial institution fail, is just that: scare-mongering. These unproven (and unprovable) assertions are made by those who don’t understand the financial system, or stand on the wrong side of trades or are eager to see still more socialist power accumulate in Washington.

I wish everybody could be so level-headed.

Fun with Sticky Notes

I love creative people.

Art = Painkiller

As it turns out, art can serve as a kind of painkiller. According to a study carried out by the University of Bali, people report feeling less pain when viewing art they considered beautiful.

Looking at a beautiful piece of art has long been said to have the power to heal emotional wounds but the new research also claims it offers a distraction from physical pain.

The research….could help vindicate hospitals who are accused of wasting money on art and decor as it suggests a pleasant environment helps patients overcome discomfort and pain.

The article goes on to say:

They were then asked to contemplate either the beautiful paintings, or the ugly painting, or a blank panel while the team zapped a short laser pulse at their hand, creating a sensation as if they had been pricked by a pin. The subjects rated the pain as being a third less intense while they were viewing the beautiful paintings, compared with when contemplating the ugly paintings or the blank panel.

Electrodes measuring the brain's electrical activity also confirmed a reduced response to the pain when the subject looked at beautiful paintings.

This is all very interesting; not just because it enhances the importance to art, but also its implications on how the brain processes information in various circumstances (not to mention the relationship between the mind and the brain.)

Aesthetics is an interesting field; why the human brain is so affected by it remains one of the most mysterious questions science has yet to completely answer.

Cell Video

This is an incredible time-lapse video of some zebrafish embryos:

More Links

While our candidates are busy throwing ad hominem attacks at each other (ironical, at the same time there busy agreeing with each other on nearly everything) I was gathering up a couple more good bits of information and articles on the bailout and financial panic.

Here is one by John Stossel, in which he rightly criticizes Obama and McCain on their continued support of government intervention.

And Thomas Sowell talks very eloquently and clearly on the irony that the Democrats are benefiting from the financial crisis.

Here is a short but sweat article on the mindset of the bailout; it’s deeper philosophical underpinnings and mistakes.

Another P.H.D in economics, Walter Williams, talks here about the history of the Community Reinvestment Act and how unsound political policies led to what is happening now.

Some very sharp analysis of the problem can be found at TCS Daily. This one is not by a straight free-marketer. Neither is this piece of work, but it is intelligent none-the-less. This, this, this, this, and this are also good.

There are plenty of good resources to get information on the current panic; there are honest voices from nearly any political philosophies. I beg anybody that happens upon this post, just do some research.

I will post more articles as long as I read them

The Bailout Passed

Unfortunately, it’s true.

I have to say I am somewhat ashamed of my government right now. I could accept the existence of the bailout if it was based on some mistaken principles; but principle had nothing to do with this. The bailout was padded with almost a 100-billon more dollars (on top of the 700 billion) for things that had nothing to do with the financial sector, to buy off dissenting representatives.

Shameful. It almost makes me wish the first bill passed. Not that it would make much difference.

I will follow this story as long as it is possible to (and the effects of the bill before it gets lost in natural economic confusion.) For those still interested, keep doing research, and maybe in the future history won’t repeat itself. I implore all of you to do think, debate, and apply logic (and if you interested, look at the Swedish banking crisis in 1991 or the real-estate crises in Japan at around the same time; both have a great deal to say about what's happening right now.)

“Reason and Emotion”

Wartime propaganda cartoons are an interesting thing; from an artistic perspective, there actually not all that bad (Keep in mind that many of these cartoons where showed before movies, and where intended to reach kids and adults alike.) The biggest studies that made these kind of cartoons where: Disney and Warner Brothers. Of the two, Warner Brothers attempted to be more frantic and comic, often dropping Bugs Bunny or Daffy into war zones (the shows where also incredibly racist, but that’s a different story.) Disney, on the other hand, created more quite and thought-out pieces of work. Like this one:



I suppose it’s too much to ask for a Disney cartoon from the 1940's to be philosophically perfect. Still, there is actually some good stuff there (though the film rather explicitly upholds the reason/emotion dichotomy.) It is surprising to find something so pro-reason, especially in wartime cartoons, which tended to appeal heavily to emotions. Disney was more positive then that, and made films that even today the company can be proud of (unlike Warner Brothers, which tries to hide much of their wartime propaganda.)

Though I do have one major complaint: why does ‘reason’ have to be a balding, scrawny guy in his mid-to-late forties?

SpaceX: Falcon I Launch

With the election in full swing, and the current financial crisis (and its political ramifications) it is easy to lose sight of what is really happening in the world; especially when it comes to developments in science, or in this case, technology.

In a soaring step forward for privatized space exploration, the Falcon I rocket has made it into space (after a few failures.) This is all aimed at the goal to, “make spaceflight ten times cheaper then it is now.”


This, of course, follows in the footsteps of the incredible achievements of SpaceshipOne and Virgin Galactic; a company more aimed towards space tourism.

There is an obvious industry for communication in space, which is now being exploited, after long years of being held down by silly government mandates (like the law against advertising on your space-craft, or how NASA works at a loss to lift satellites.) Despite the incredible achievements made by government space agencies, the first real push into space (and eventual colonization) will come from private ventures.

Though there are many issues that need to be panned out first. Ownership of other worlds like Mars and even the Moon; drilling and exploitation rights on objects like meteorites; who handles threats like meteorites and comets when it comes to Earth’s safety; and just what can a person do and not do in space?

In my humble opinion, many of these issues can be dealt with before they actually come up; and governmental forces will need to get involved. Property rights on distant worlds can be decided beforehand (and will actually create powerful incentives for exploration.) Large scale (Earth-wide) threats like comets and meteorites will require government; and certain codes and laws for transporting possibly contaminated material from space will also need to be created.

But for now, let’s just enjoy the achievements of companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic; the ones just beginning to bring us into a new age of spaceflight and exploration; the first real Space Age has not even been born yet; but thanks to them, it might happen sooner then we think.

Tremendous Foresight

Back in 2000, a man named Howard Husock wrote an article on the possible ramifications of the Community Reinvestment Act; how it was structured and what it would do. Considering what is now happing in the financial sector, I wish he was listened to:

The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities

"The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee
chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.

The CRA's premise sounds unassailable: helping the poor buy and keep homes will stabilize and rebuild city neighborhoods. As enforced today, though, the law portends just the opposite, threatening to undermine the efforts of the upwardly mobile poor by saddling them with neighbors more than usually likely to depress property values by not maintaining their homes adequately or by losing them to foreclosure. The CRA's logic also helps to ensure that inner-city neighborhoods stay poor by discouraging the kinds of investment that might make them better off."

And here is one more article from CNN politics , here is a U.S. senator talking about it, and here is a Forbes article on where that ‘700’ billon figure come from; if what I have been posting is not enough for you.

A Couple More for the Crusade

In my ongoing quest to get the word out about the bailout and the financial “crisis”; I am posting two more good articles I found on another blog (Café Hayek, if you’re interested):

Why the Bailout is Bad for America, by Daniel Mitchell

Dear comrades: Let's do nothing

This really is a crucial time for debate and rational inquiry. So do research, get educated, and get the word out. Public opinion means a great deal to legislators, so don't let up.