Check out the Objectivist Roundup

We've got a new host this week, The Secular Foxhole. Check it out!

The Stairway, She Is Finis

It's done. As I was afraid of, our oldest dog just couldn't handle the slippery stairs so installing a runner became a high priority. I went to Lowe's on Saturday, haggled with the manager to let me buy 30' from a roll that was to be discontinued and was wrapped up on a palette in the back, and went to work.

The straight run of stairs was very easy, but the wedge-shaped stairs were not. To put it mildly. In order to handle the turn, I decided to do what the pros do and make mitered cuts in the runner and bind the seams together to make the turn. I don't have photos of that, but you can see what examples I used here. With some projects, I finish up and think, "This would actually be a fun job to have. I wouldn't mind being a carpenter/mason/landscaper/etc." Not this job. Laying carpet would rank up there with plumber in my book of terrible professions.

Here is the before--from when we went on the home inspection in August, 2005--followed by the after.




When I look at these, I wonder what the hell I was thinking in doing this project. It looked fine before. But then I recall how much I despised--yes, despised--that skinny newel post. It was wrong. It was an abomination. And the carpet was dull, dingy, and getting worn out. That carpet went up onto the second floor landing, which I ripped up when I gutted and reconfigured the landing and hallways. You can see the flooring-in-progress in the first photo of this post. So, it was necessary after all. And it does look better now.

The Stair Project -- An End is in Sight

The ongoing saga of my staircase is (almost) over. Just under a year ago, I posted a detailed account of the installation of a new custom-made newel post. Make sure to check it out for reference photos. Soon after that, I stained and varnished it, but made some mistakes in the finish that needed to be fixed. And there it sat until this weekend.

My wife took the kids to visit her parents in PA and they return tomorrow, so I took the holiday weekend plus a vacation day yesterday to get as much done as possible. My tasks were to

1. Repair the finish on the newel post and railing
2. Construct and install a curved stair, and replace missing cove molding under some stairs
   
3. Paint the stairs, trim, and balusters

The staining and varnishing went off without a hitch. I then added to my project when I realized that I should strip and repaint the trim on the stained glass window in the stairwell. This led to getting out a ladder and reglazing one of the panes that nearly popped out while scraping the flaked paint. Sigh.

The curved stair was quite a project. Contrary to popular belief, inch-thick pine boards don't bend easily. To make the curved riser, I had to use the table saw to painstakingly cut 30+ kerfs in the back of the board which allow it to bend. To make the curve on the tread, I just used a jigsaw, but then had to buy a new router bit to match the bullnose profile of the rest of the tread. And finally, I needed curved 5/8" x 3/4" cove molding for under the overhang of the tread.

I called all over eastern MA to find someone that carried flexible molding, but no one did. I tried cutting kerfs in pine molding like I used on the other stairs, but because of the cove profile I couldn't take off enough material to make it flexible. Thus, I had to custom make my own cove molding from a 1" x 10". I cut out the outer edge of the curve with the jigsaw, bought a cove bit for the router, cut the cove profile, and then jigsawed out the inside edge. I popped it on and it fit perfectly! All told, the molding was much easier than I anticipated.

After all that, and then coat after coat of paint, this was the result (it's a phone photo, so the quality isn't great. Also, don't forget to check out my previous post for "before" pictures.)

One thing I learned this weekend is that painting balusters is a royal pain. If I never have to do it again it will be too soon. I'm glad I looked up tips for doing it, though. The tip I read said that using a paint brush is a bad way to go--it takes forever and the results aren't good--and instead one should use a painting pad. I just happened to have an old one that I cut in half, and it really did work quite well.

The last phase of the project--one which I will have to do in the next week--is installing a carpet runner on the stairs. The high gloss paint is rather slippery for man and dog alike, so this one can't wait a year.

What Does "Ungovernable" Really Mean?

As the Obama agenda crashes up against the rocks of the last tattered vestiges of the American sense of life, the left is frantically scrambling to point figures and lay blame. As usual, the "party of the people" shows its ultimate scorn for "the people," as aptly summarized today by Peter Wehner in the WSJ. He writes of three ways the left is now characterizing the American people and the ways in which they are "ungovernable":

1. According to Joe Klein of Time, "the American people are too stupid to govern. . . .Klein, who, in criticizing public opposition to the president's stimulus package on Jan. 25, referred to us as a "nation of dodos."
   
2. The Republicans are obstructionist just for the sake of it, bordering on nihilistic (hello pot? It's the kettle. You're black.) "Newsweek's Michael Cohen summed up this view when he wrote, 'Perhaps the greatest hindrance to good governance today is the Republican Party, which has adopted an agenda of pure nihilism for naked political gain.'"
3. The filibuster is broken. "The third iteration of the America-is-ungovernable view is represented by the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who calls the Senate 'ominously dysfunctional' and insists that the way it works is 'no longer consistent with a functioning government.'"

The playground bully has encountered some unforeseen opposition, and now is furiously petulant that his plans for domination are being thwarted. What the left is upset about is not that Americans are ungovernable or that the separation of powers makes it impossible to govern. The left is incensed that the American people seem unruleable.

Note the difference. The left desires an active governance by which their will is imposed regardless of the rights or wishes of the people. They want to rule. When they don't get their way, their true colors come out as they call names, ridicule, bully, pout, whine, and generally make fools of themselves. And while the target of their bile is most often the Republican establishment, that isn't what is making them so furious. They are so flabbergasted that a few crazy "teabaggers" could wield so much influence that they are becoming unhinged.

Wehner posits that Obama's troubles show both a failure of the left, and the strength of the right. He thinks that the right actually has something constructive to offer, and that the issue is that Obama is simply a weak president and is too liberal.

The trouble is, both sides are wrong in all of this. As I mentioned at the start, it is the American sense of life, as tired and worn as it is, that is standing in the way of the left, and very few truly understand why that is, including the Tea Partiers. And this is a crucial, and very unfortunate point.

Despite the American sense of life, that visceral respect for freedom and individual rights and a mistrust of government, the past 100 years have shown that we are all too willing to be not only governed, but also ruled. Majorities of voters routinely clamor for more programs, more handouts, more regulations. We docilely accept outrage after outrage as if it's the proper way of things. The left had a reasonable expectation that we would accept their rule, or at the very least show so little opposition that it wouldn't matter. Perhaps that is part of the reason they are so flummoxed now.

Whatever the causes of the current flare up in pro-individualism and anti-government sentiment -- and there are many -- it is just a sentiment for most, without fundamental principles to ground it. People sense "something" is wrong, but they can only look to received wisdom -- the Bible, the Constitution, etc. -- and say "see? We're moving away from our roots!" The minute a populist Republican starts placating them, they'll go back to being eminently governable.

The best this situation can do right now is buy us more time. The longer the government is in gridlock, the better chance we have to promote reason, egoism, laissez-faire capitalism, objective law, individual rights, and all the other ideas that will bring this society back from the brink of what John Edwards really meant by his "Two Americas" shtick: the rulers and the ruled.

Objectivist Roundup #135

Welcome to the February 11, 2010 edition of the Objectivist Roundup, your weekly dose of intellectual fuel and ammunition.

This roundup features posts by blog authors who are students and advocates of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. She called it a "philosophy for living on earth" and further described it:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

"About the Author," Atlas Shrugged, Appendix.

Considering the events of the day you may notice that most of the posts below deal with politics. But note that they all share a common philosophical grounding in Objectivism, and consistently promote individual rights and the socio-economic system of laissez-faire capitalism to protect those rights. Such is the value of this roundup—weekly commentary on crucial issues from a rational, individual rights perspective.

And with that, I am pleased to present Objectivist Roundup #135!

---

1. Rachel Miner presents The idiom dictionary posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "A fun tool that helps brings the use of idioms into a child's grasp. I've been impressed with how often the lessons or component parts of idioms can be used as reference tools for a variety of otherwise unrelated explanations."


2. C.W. presents Social Security, Medicare Update: Problems Start Now posted at Krazy Economy, saying, "Now both Social Security and Medicare are drawing on their "Trust Funds", years before expectation. The recession has many consequences!"


3. Jared Rhoads presents Health insurance reform posted at The Lucidicus Project, saying, "Vote for health insurance reform... real health insurance reform!"


4. Tod presents How to Decide What You Should Do With Your Life posted at A Blog by Tod, saying, "With Ayn Rand's Benevolent Universe premise as a starting point, I discuss various ways to answer one of the tough questions: What Should I Do With My Life?"


5. Miranda Barzey presents Rewards of Baby Signs posted at Ramen & Rand, saying, "A quick summary and defense of using sign language with young hearing children to improve vocabulary and communication with parents. Includes a 15 starter sign tutorial by yours truly!"


6. Andy Clarkson presents Free Beer! posted at The Charlotte Capitalist, saying, "No, the title doesn't mean that I'm buying. Rather, it is a call for economic and political freedom in the beer industry. That is, it should be free of any political help or hindrance. That is the mostly implicit, but occasionally explicit message of the film "Beer Wars" on Netflix Watch Instantly."


7. Rob Abiera presents My LTE in the Tulsa World posted at The Morality War, saying, "This was my response to a local religious leader's claim that the "pioneer spirit" was the product of faith."


8. Cogito presents SEE: Introducing the Science, Engineering, and Epistemology Podcast (Plus Statistics!) posted at Cogito's Thoughts, saying, "This is the first episode of my new podcast, SEE. I introduce the podcast, and then I talk about the epistemological underpinnings of hypothesis testing with statistics."


9. Sandi Trixx presents Greenspan Denies His Role in Financial Crisis posted at Sandi Trixx, saying, "When I first read Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal in 1999 I was struck by the name of one of the contributors: Alan Greenspan."


10. Ifat Glassman presents Good looks as a rational value posted at Psychology of Selfishness, saying, "A physical beauty to match a beautiful character reflects spiritual perfection in physical form and integrates them (as I explain in the essay in more detail). This integration between the spiritual and the physical is a cognitive need that comes from the nature of our mind as holding knowledge abstractly.
    Investing in one's good looks is a way to celebrate one's value with others."


11. Diana Hsieh presents Science Contaminated by Government posted at NoodleFood, saying, "The objectivity of science is corrupted by government involvement, leaving ordinary people with no idea of what's dogma and what's truth."


12. Mike Zemack presents In Defense of Special Interests - and the Constitution posted at Principled Perspectives, saying, "The recent Supreme Court decision upholding the free speech "rights" of "special interests" (corporations and unions) was really a blow for individual rights."


13. Sandi Trixx presents Israel Blamed for Defending Itself posted at Sandi Trixx, saying, "All blood shed in war is on the hands of the aggressor."


14. Paul Hsieh presents Filibuster For Me But Not For Thee posted at We Stand FIRM, saying, "The so-called "paralysis" caused by the filibuster is not a bug, it's a *feature*."


15. Alyssa Smudzin presents Music and the Mind posted at Sanguinity.


16. Kelly Elmore presents Update on my Progress: Connection Before Correction posted at Reepicheep's Coracle, saying, "Here is an update on how my resolve to use "Connection Before Correction" went."


17. Jason Stotts presents Dr. Tiller Was Murdered posted at Erosophia, saying, "A brief analysis of the Dr. Tiller murder trial and some thoughts on abortion."


18. Rational Jenn presents The X Factor in Parenting posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "The problem with viewing the role of parents as primarily one of "molding" the child is that sometimes the "clay" has other ideas, due to temperament traits and free will. Sometimes I need to remind myself about that!"


19. Ari Armstrong presents Free Liquor Stores from Prohibition-Era Rules posted at Free Colorado, saying, "By CO law, liquor stores are forbidden from opening chains, selling food, etc."


20. Julia Campbell presents Broccoli, Cheddar, & Garlic Quiche posted at the crankin' kitchen!, saying, "A yummy quiche recipe, continuing to be Paleo-friendly!"


21. Tod presents Who Does Your Thinking? posted at A Blog by Tod.

---

That concludes Objectivist Roundup #135. Next week's host will be Lynne at 3 Ring Binder. Submit your blog article to the Objectivist Roundup using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Less Than Human

Jason just posted about a set of newly released photos of 9/11, but the real kicker is what he has to say about the significance of 9/11 itself.

The lesson of 9/11 is not that there are people in the Middle East that hate us, it is not that terrorists smote the "great Satan" by knocking down the towers, it is not that Islam is a religion of violence (although it is), it is that faith is absolutely anathema to human life.

The destruction of the Towers is the result of faith: because without reason and evidence, anything can be justified. It does not matter if you are a christian, muslim, scientologist, marxist, ad nauseum: to the extent to which you operate by faith you are less than human and a great danger to human life and civilized society.

Those who may think his words are too extreme, that "surely you don't really believe that faith is that bad, do you?". . . just look at the damn pictures. It's not that bad. It's worse.

A Bossy and Power-hungry Lot

James Lakely at Breitbart's BigGovernment writes up some of the proceedings at recent environmental conference (Keith Lockitch presented as one of a small minority of "deniers"). In such a conference, it seems that views in contrast to the accepted wisdom were not well received:

The 13th Annual Energy & Environment Conference, held in Phoenix Feb. 1-3, isn’t the sort of place where global warming “deniers” are exactly welcome. In fact, by my observations, the skeptical caucus at the event consisted entirely of: James M. Taylor, a senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute; Keith Lockitch, a fellow of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights; and me. All the other attendees spent their time discussing how the U.S. government — or, even better, a “global government” — needs to compel us all to live “greener” lives through schemes like cap-and-trade. Environmentalists are a bossy and power-hungry lot. [links dropped, bold added]

The surprise of Lakely's post is his description of the speech of one William Sprigg, prominent global warming proponet, who shockingly told the gathered scientists that they should actually act like scientists. Lakely wrote:

In his 24-minute lecture, Sprigg also:

• warned of a growing perception that “the IPCC is biased, conflicted, [and] pushing political agendas.”;

• called for a new climate research agency supported not entirely by the government, but in conjunction with the private sector;

• and declared: “We need to stick to our scientific principles,” and “improve our peer preview process, and expand the stakeholders’ role to keep us all honest.”

Recalling the parallels to climate science discussed in previous posts about nutrition science, here is a relevant quote from Good Calories, Bad Calories, in which Taubes discusses Richard Feynman (p. 82-82):

In 1964, when the physicist Richard Feynman presented what would become a renowned series of lectures at Cornell University, he observed that it was a natural condition of scientists to be biased or prejudiced toward their beliefs. That bias, Feynman said, would ultimately make no difference, "because if your bias is wrong a perpetual accumulation of experiments will perpetually annoy you until they cannot be disregarded any longer." They could be disregarded, he said, only if "you are absolutely sure ahead of time" what the answer must be.

The other way the perpetually annoying accumulation of evidence could be disregarded is if you're in the "bossy and power-hungry lot" and your need for funding and desire for prestige and acceptance outweighs your adherence to scientific method, reason, and reality.

Squeezing Gas from a Stone

Via Mark Perry at CARPE DIEM,

By marrying and perfecting two processes into a technology called horizontal fracking, engineering has virtually created, from nothing, new natural gas resources, previously regarded as inaccessibly locked in useless shale deposits. Suddenly, the mammoth shale formations in Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, North Dakota, and elsewhere have the potential to produce abundant amounts of gas for decades to come.

Human ingenuity has turned theoretical gas reserves — too costly ever to be exploited — into practical resources. [bold added]

Prior to this innovation, the natural gas in the shale could not technically be termed a resource. It was just gunk in some useless stone, as far as human benefit goes; human benefit being essential to the very definition of a resource.

This all sounds rather familiar. Does anyone know which industrialist or engineer is our real-life Ellis Wyatt?

When hypocrisy isn't

Head over to Myrhaf's blog to find out why calling the seemingly hypocritical actions of our powerful "public servants" are nothing of the sort. Do you think Nancy Pelosi's use of millions of dollars of Air Force flights and lavish bar tabs at taxpayer expense is hypocrisy? Myrhaf says of our elected Platonists:

Instead of calling it hypocrisy, I think it would be better to point out that our rulers' actions are perfectly moral by their premises. They get to live by their own special rules. That's the way statism works, and that's the way it will be until we restore freedom in America.

Read the whole thing, and don't miss the last line. Damn, that's a good summation of the issue.

Quiz Answer: Bad Science Is as Bad Science Does

It seems that yesterday's quiz may have been a bit too easy, as both Jason and Rational Jenn nailed it immediately: in the mid- to late-70's, the government, lead by George McGovern and backed by Ted Kennedy among others, issued a document called Dietary Guidelines that recommended that the entire country adopt a low fat, low cholesterol, high carb diet. After a short, loaded debate, the full force of the various federal agencies got behind it, and soon we had all sorts of bureaucrats urging us to eat more carbs and fewer saturated fats.

The quotes came from Good Calories, Bad Calories*, by Gary Taubes, and in chapter three, he details how the real scientific evidence to support such a diet for the purposes of decreasing heart disease was essentially nonexistent. Badly designed studies were willfully misinterpreted and misrepresented for the sole purpose of toeing the "established" and increasingly buzzworthy dogma about the American diet. Conflicting studies were ignored. Dissenting scientific opinions were stigmatized. The heavy hand of government then politicized the debate and turned a contentious, barely credible conclusion into a consensus. With next to no hard evidence to back it up, the science was nevertheless settled, despite many conflicting studies with better scientific support to show that the opposite was in fact true, and that such a diet was actually harmful.

As I read this book, and as Taubes piles example upon example of how myopic--if not downright malicious--scientists continue to push pet theories regardless of conflicting evidence, how government interferes to not only tip the scale but to knock the damn thing over in favor of those pet theories by throwing funding at the researchers and countless programs, initiatives, policies, and laws to advance them, while a fawning, sycophantic press shouts it all from the rooftops. . .well, it all reminds me of a somewhat more recent phenomenon.

As Jenn mentioned in her comment, this is a dead ringer for the global warming debate. I'm constantly struck by the parallels in the way established, politically connected scientific opinion blithely forges ahead in spite of contradictory evidence, and is used to steer public policy and public opinion toward politically favored stances. The nutritionists used shoddy epidemiological practices, poor scientific controls, elaborately creative statistics, and cherry picked evidence, and then used all of this to state forcefully that the science was settled.

Global warming alarmists use laughable computer models that can't even model current conditions to predict decades in the future, they distort temperature records, fudge evidence, blacklist dissenters, use magical statistics, and cherry pick evidence, and then use all of this to state forcefully that the science is settled.

In the first case, the government pushes a diet that is not just nutritionally neutral, but actively harmful, and most assuredly, many people have died because of it. In the second case, the government has already enacted policies that hamper the economy, and wants desperately to do much more, which most assuredly has diminished the standard of living in this country and will only get worse.

The full scope of the dastardly mess that makes up the history of nutrition science and policy in the last half century is something that is new to me. I wonder how many other areas of government interference in science -- and its predictably disastrous results -- are out there?


--------------
*Note to the jack-booted thugs: I bought Taubes' book with my own money, and the only thing I'm receiving in compensation is the satisfaction of attacking government power and stupidity.

QUIZ: Name the Destructive Mix of Science and Politics

I'm reading a book right now that details the disastrous mix of bad science backed by a political agenda (and government funds) in a particular scientific realm. Dear readers, see if you can guess the general area of scientific research described by the following quote. I'll post the answer tomorrow.

[The release of a document/policy/recommendation/program] was the first time that any government institution (as opposed to private groups like the ___) had told Americans they could improve ___ by ___. In so doing, [the doc/policy/etc.] sparked a chain reaction of. . .advice from government agencies and the press that reverberates still. It is hard to overestimate its impact. [The doc/policy/etc.] took a grab bag of ambiguous studies and speculation, acknowledged that the claims were scientifically contentious, and then officially bestowed on one interpretation the aura of established fact.

Other groups tried to counter this politicization of science by releasing papers that questioned the conclusions, the science, and all other aspects, but they were excoriated by government agencies and a complicit press amid, among other things, claims of conflict of interest because of ties to industry. A prominent scientist who, over his career, had received "perhaps $10 million in grants from" the government, and "$250,000 from industry," and had served on government boards for years, because "he now disagreed with the [doc/policy] publicly, he was accused of being bought."

Scientists were believed to be free of conflicts if their only source of funding was a federal agency, but all . . . knew that if their research failed to support the government position on a particular subject, the funding would go instead to someone whose research did. "To be a dissenter was to be unfunded because the peer-review system rewards conformity and excludes criticism," [wrote one scientist.] The [government] expert panels that decide funding represent the orthodoxy and will tend to perceive research interpreted in a contrarian manner as unworthy of funding.

So, what area of science, industry, and politics is this concerning? Post your ideas in the comments.