Thursday, January 9, 2014
new place to collect my links.....
I've stopped posting to this blog, which I consider my personal on-line scrapbook, and now collect all links at delicious.com.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Harnessing the Powers of the Universe
"No one can go against the Laws of Nature. It’s not possible to break these Laws. Try as you might, you will only end up breaking yourself against these Laws. It cannot be. Never. Ever. No matter how much you try. However much I try. The only way available for us to harness this tremendous power and enable them to work for us, instead of against us, is to be in harmony with the Universe. There is no other way.
Just as the strong warrior cannot fight against darkness, but can only shed light. Just as the skillful sailor cannot go against the roaring waves and strong sea winds, but can only adjust his sails. Just as the brilliant investor/trader cannot forestall the volatility of the stock market, but resolve to make it an ally and ride the waves to profit." *was posted to Facebook w/o reference to original source
Social Experiment
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Socialist's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less. The ones who studied hard decided they also wanted a free ride. They reduced their study time.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the focus of the class shifted from learning to arguing. Bickering, blaming and name-calling took the place of learning. Harboring hard feelings towards one another, no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED. The professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail. When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great. When model of governance takes all the reward away, there is no incentive to work hard because success is a pre-determined outcome.
These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Can you think of a reason for not sharing this? Neither could I.
Monday, November 12, 2012
IJ's McNamara Defends Rights of Cab Companies to do Business
"McNamara also explained how IJ’s litigation involving taxis relates to the organization’s broader mission of defending economic liberty."
Accessed @ The Objective Standard
Accessed @ The Objective Standard
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
A Letter to Mitt Romney
Hello Mr. Romney.
My name is Debra Contreras, and I am writing to you about the 47% of people in America who did not pay taxes and are on government assistance. You think that those people view themselves as victims and feel entitled to handouts. You also stated that it is not your job to worry about those people. Unfortunately, you have to rely on them voting for you to get the job you are seeking. Hopefully you can fix the possible breach of trust that those statements may have created. However, I have another reason for writing, and that is to satisfy my curiosity. I have some questions that perhaps you can answer for me.
For starters, I wonder if you know the details behind the numbers of who is on government assistance, and why. Based on the views you expressed about them, I don’t think you know much more than the fact they are on assistance of some sort or another without knowing why. Here are some things that I think you should know about people who are poor enough to be on assistance.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
10.04.12
By JEFF ZELENY and JIM RUTENBERG Accessed @ www.nytimes.com
"...for all of the anticipation, and with less than five weeks remaining until Election Day, the 90-minute debate unfolded much like a seminar by a business consultant and a college professor. Both men argued that their policies would improve the lives of the middle class, but their discussion often dipped deep into the weeds, and they talked over each other without connecting their ideas to voters."
Art Databases: Goya & Rembrandt
"The Museo del Prado in Madrid has just launched a Web site, Goya en el Prado, which makes over 1,000 works by the late 18th- and early 19th-century Spanish master available for online viewing, along with his correspondence and other documents....
"Two venerable Dutch art institutions–the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) and the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis have joined forces to create The Rembrandt Database, a resource that brings together materials from research institutions around the world, including the National Gallery of London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Accessed @ www.openculture.com
AMANDA PALMER’S ACCIDENTAL EXPERIMENT WITH REAL COMMUNISM
By Joshua Clover Accessed @ The New Yorker Online
"Amanda Palmer, the singer who raised a spectacular sum on Kickstarter to fund her new solo album and then asked for volunteers to play with her for no pay when she went on tour with her band, Grand Theft Orchestra, a few months later, is the Internet’s villain of the month.* ... Beneath that, however, is an interesting set of problems about art and work in an age when the mechanisms for valuing them have broken down....
"...What happens to art, be it Amanda Palmer’s or Azealia Banks’s (or Thomas Pynchon’s or Kathryn Bigelow’s), when people can get it for free without facing arrest? Or, to put it more starkly, what is the fate of art after private property is done away with? Will people keep making it? Will they keep reproducing, marketing, and distributing it?
"...Workers must be paid enough to buy life’s necessaries; if they didn’t need a wage to acquire such things, they would hardly show up. Amanda Palmer’s cynical scheme, behind its own back, offers an anything-but-cynical vision: art supported by interested communities, workers who can show up for some reason other than pure need. The whole affair resembles an accidental experiment with real communism."
How Mitt Romney’s Luck Ran Out
More recently, however, Romney’s luck has turned. His campaign has been star-crossed, veering from one minor disaster to another. The latest example is the emergence of Romney’s covertly recorded observation at a Florida fundraiser that the 47% of Americans who pay no federal income taxes will never vote for him because they “believe they are victims” entitled to endless government support and, by the way, will never “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” Not to generalize or anything. This, just days after Romney’s rash statement late on the night of Sept. 11 suggesting that the Obama Administration sympathized with the violent mobs in Cairo and Benghazi. (This Pew poll tells the story of how that went over.)
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