2016 Olympics

Well, after hearing about Chicago's unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Olympics, I can't say I'm too saddened by the result.

Watching on Fox News, Chicago's presentation seemed very politically correct. If Glenn Beck's figures are anything to go by, the Olympics would've cost Chicago taxpayers a fortune over the next seven years (and for years to go afterward).

A Rio Olympics will be a lot more interesting than Olympics in any other cities that put in bids - after all, the Brazilians are known to put on a party! Of course, there would be downsides to the Rio Olympics: crime, and trying to get tourists to avoid the infamous favalas.

But the real test for Rio will be to see if they can pull it off without excessive bureaucratic pen-pushing. If they can, I might have to pack my bags!

Videos on the Stimulus

(Hat tip Not PC and Shane Pleasance for links)

Now that the TARP (Toxic Assets Relief Programme) in the US has cost over $27 trillion (according to the inspector-general for the programme), now seems a good time to post some videos on the subject -they often explain more than many essays.

Here's what 1 trillion (let alone 27 trillion) can buy (sorry for the size):



Here's how the thing started in the first place (although it probably doesn't stress the governmental role as much as it should:

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Ben Bernanke's superb foresight:



And last but not least, Ron Paul in the US Senate, who's currently trying to pass a bill to audit the Federal Reserve.

Skyscrapers: American International Building

Few people know of the American International Building -one of New York's tallest skyscrapers. Yet as well as being one of the foremost Gothic skyscrapers in New York the American International Building (AIB, for short) underwent fierce competition in the early 1930s to gain the title of New York's tallest with the Chrysler Building (only for both to be outdone by the Empire State Building, which was completed in record time. The AIB was the last skyscraper in New York to be completed before the Second World War, and was the tallest in downtown Manhattan until the completion of the World Trade Center in the 1970s. Since 9/11, it has regained that title.


The AIB is 290 metres tall, or 952 feet, and contains 66 floors, with 36 elevators. It was one of the first buildings in the world that was built with double-decker elevators, but due to low popularity these were scraped by the building's owners. Although originally owned by the Cities Service Company, the building is now owned by AIG and is in the process of being sold again.

One Year On

Finally, something good comes out of Washington DC: just one year after District of Columbia vs. Heller, DC homicides are on track to reach their lowest levels since 1964 -before the ban came into effect.

The Washington Post reports that DC had 66 homicides during the first half of the year, down from over 80 this time last year. If the trend continues, DC should report about 130-135 homicides for the year - well down from 189 last year, as well as the 494 back in 1991.

Perhaps, critics may argue that it is too early to tell if Heller vs. District of Columbia has finally turned DC's murder rate on its head. Nevertheless, the early signs do look promising.

A Culture of Fear

Much to the annoyance of the many conservative bloggers on the Kiwi blogosphere, most libertarian commentators on the internet on this side of the ditch have been out in full force protesting the Drug War. Of course, it makes sense given how the murder of a policeman, shooting of three other people, and 50-hour siege in Napier started, after all, in a "routine drug bust". But one can rant forever on the drug war -it's much deeper than just who's selling what to whom.

Now, in true benefit-of-the-doubt fashion (something akin to "Who is John Galt?"), most people will shrug it off as an isolated incident; after all, this guy did try to shoot 21 people, and opened fire at a friend's house four years ago. The more politically motivated will talk about gun control -we already hear reports about the number of unlicensed guns in New Zealand, and guns being sold freely over the internet. But no one will address the truly pressing concern in New Zealand, and indeed all of Western Society, that led to this siege: the culture of fear -and the accompanying culture of hopelessness- that has penetrated New Zealand society, and how it all leads to tragedies like this. This fear isn't about foreign wars and natural disasters; this is fear of friends, fear of neighbours, fear of government.

The culture of fear has always been present in dictatorships, the Soviet Union being the greatest example. If a neighbour didn't like you, he could simply denounce you -you would be dead soon. If you were caught saying something totally insignificant that the Party didn't like, you would meet a similar fate, and you always had to watch your back.

However, it has always been a rarity throughout the fundamentally optimistic Western World, and New Zealand has never, until recently, had any symptoms of a culture of fear. Similarly, a culture of fear has developed in the United States -observe that a recent cop shooting was over a fear that Obama was going to take away people's guns- Britain and France (riots, and all). To trace the development of the culture of fear seeping through Western society, we need to look at recent political developments.

Let's take Britain, as an example. At the end of WWII and into the 50s and 60s, Britain was hailed as a model society -a society in which you knew your neighbours and would always be happy to help. Its crime rates were some of the world's lowest. At the end of WWII, Lee Kuan Yew, of Singapore went to Britain to find out how they managed to create such a polite society, to try to recreate that culture in Singapore. Nowadays the opposite is true: Britain's crime rates are some of the highest in the Western World, and broken families abound.

In the United States, much the same occurred. In the words of Walter Williams:

"During the 1940s and '50s, I grew up in North Philadelphia where many of today's murders occur. It was a time when blacks were much poorer, there was far more racial discrimination, and fewer employment opportunities and other opportunities for upward socioeconomic mobility were available. There was nowhere near the level of crime and wanton destruction that exists today. Behavior accepted today wasn't accepted then by either black adults or policemen." Indeed, according to a recent documentary,* among the victims of many violent crimes, they will not tell who is was that shot, stabbed or assaulted them!

The same is now occurring in New Zealand. With the exponential growth in government powers in all three countries, a culture of fear is taking flight. So what happened in these last fifty years?
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In philosophy, we saw a much greater emphasis being placed on the "common good"* through the rise of political correctness, and a move away from an objective, independent reality to the primacy of consciousness -observe how art devolved from being based on human interpretations of an objective, proper reality (romanticism through to art deco), to negating such an idea, putting all emphasis on "feeling" (expressionism through to post-modernism). By therefore negating man's existence into inexplicable feelings, modern philosophy helped to destroy the idea of self esteem, and a moral existence.

This had profound implications on society. What would be the result if human actions were based, not out of value seeking rational individuals basing their actions on production, but out of people who believed that no such thing as a rational individual could exist, and that freedom meant freedom from reality, to be administered, by force, from the producers of the world? The idea of a human became one who survives only by short term actions against one another.

Indeed, modern liberalism bases its ideas on the principle that, as men have to be rational producers to survive, no such thing as total liberty (from force and fraud) exists, and that producers have a duty to feed the non-productive.

The outcome has been, and continues to be, the breakdown of human relations. Men can only live in harmony when they deal with each other as rational beings, through the paradigm of values. At this point, liberals will talk about how the welfare state** and "working together" is the antidote to the culture of fear; conservatives will discuss religion and community. Both will say that selfishness is the cause of the culture of fear, propose collectivist solutions, and call for the heads of the productive to roll.
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Political developments have reflected this trend in attitude. In centuries past, it would have been completely unthinkable that government should have as much control over private affairs, citizen's money and business that it does today. According to the US Libertarian Party, in 1950 the total money collected by all forms of government was 2% of total income. Nowadays, it is often an entire year's salary for a working family. There are over four million security cameras in Britain (all of which seem hopeless in preventing Islamist attacks, somehow).

When a government subscribes to the culture of fear, it does not trust its citizens with their lives or money. People must be controlled.

These developments in turn isolate the citizenry from those assigned to protect their rights -that's where Jan Molenaar, the man behind the Napier siege, comes in. A culture of hopelessness, increases in crime, and a dramatic decrease in living standards, has always been the result of a culture of fear - often followed by dictatorship, either of the proletariat, the Aryan Race, or some form of supreme leader.

And that, I fear, is where we're heading.
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Notes:

*Many people say that there was actually less emphasis on the individual in the old British Empire than now. However, times of war aside, subjects of the Empire were very astute as to their individual rights which were considered sacrosanct -in effect, going to War, as an example, was to safeguard these rights -not for some purely collectivist reason such as an arbitrary idea of "Britain is good". For a further discussion of this idea, refer to Ayn Rand's essay "Philosophy: Who Needs It".

**Many leftists claim that the reforms of the 1980s and 9os are the cause of the culture of fear. However, economic reforms come and are now going, and the culture of fear can be traced far back before the 1980s. Institutions and cultures are two different things, and capitalism works with a culture of entrepreneurship to accompany it -not a culture of fear.

References:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4770
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5012
http://www.lp.org/issues/family-budget
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6108496.stm“Killadelphia”; Narrator: Louis Theroux
The Economist
A further discussion of the ideas of art discussed here and their philosophical meaning can be found on Not PC, or other Objectivist websites and blogs.

Has Your Country Caught Chicago Fever?

I'm getting so fed up with constant chatter, on all news channels, about the Swine Flu epidemic that has killed, according to the WHO's revised figures, seven people.

To highlight the absurdity, let's focus on something else: Last year, the city of Chicago recorded 510 murders, up from roughly 430-40 every year over the last half decade. So, it would seem that you're far more likely to get killed in Chicago than die from Swine Flu. Indeed, if the entire world were infected by Chicago Fever, once a year approximately 1,219,400 million people will die from it*. Yet, we do not hear the WHO issuing warnings travelers to keep away from Chicago, and certainly no country has temporarily banned all flights into Chicago.

And why should they? Chicago is a fine city -one of the best, in many respects. But the numbers involved in the Swine Flu hysteria are so minuscule, that although certain procedures may be warranted, the amount of time it gets on TV is utterly ridiculous. Yet over 800,000 attended tea parties all over the US two weeks ago, with virtually no coverage in comparison.

Journalism these days!

*To get the sums: Chicago has approximately 2.8 million residents, so dividing 510 by 2.8 gets you 182. The population of the world is approximately 6.7 billion, so dividing 6.7 billion by 1 million gets you 6700. Multiplying 182 by 6700 gets you 1,219,400.

Thank God For Secularism

Three recent items from the news/blogosphere tie in nicely today:

Lindsay Perigo's recent PR "Obama Gets One Right" two days before a Woman claiming she was the "anti-Christ" kills herself and her son, a week after a new survey revealed New Zealanders were more likely to believe fortune tellers than have no doubt God exists.

That isn't to say that religion is always a bad thing; indeed the development of Protestantism during and after the Reformation helped to build a base (along with, most importantly, the re-discovery of ancient Greek thought in the Renaissance) upon which the modern, post-Enlightenment world rests. I certainly don't think much of fortune tellers, either.

However, more often than not religion is used as an excuse, justified or not, to commit horrible acts (9/11, for instance). So, a redeeming feature about New Zealand is that, certainly in public affairs, religion takes a "back seat" to more pressing issues.

That doesn't mean we're all anti-religious people; knowing many religious people myself, the great majority of them are good people, and live good lives. What it means is that religion doesn't have to come first all the time, and doesn't dominate politics.

Which (and take note) is the full and final outcome of the Reformation: by stressing the personal relationship with God, Protestantism allowed for the development of classical liberalism, and the development of the true tolerance and freedom which allowed ideas and thoughts to thrive. So while America didn't develop as a direct result of Christianity, the predominant version of Christianity in the US did allow for the Enlightenment ideals on which America is founded.

A Foolish Mistake Repeats

On his big tour of Europe Barack Obama has landed in Prague, touting much the same message as the anti-nuclear protests in the 1980s did. You know, the refusal to allow a nuclear submarine into port that got us kicked out of ANZUS.

Now, I'm all for disarmament -when Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea also disarm! The fact of the matter is that America (and the European nations with a-bombs) has the right to defend itself against foreign aggressors, and that does mean the possession of nuclear bombs, if necessary (which it is). The sorry state of Western powers means that defense of non-aggressive and non-totalitarian nations rests almost entirely on US action.

I'm sick of the claim that America is an Empire -if that were so, immediately after the fall of Iraq in 2005 the nation would've been annexed by the US, and any form of self-governance banned. Instead, we saw that the Americans had no strategy after the fall of Saddam, and left Iraq in a state of anarchy for two years before peace could be restored by the troop surge. Similarly, when countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iran display an interest in the complete annihilation of Israel -the Middle East's only western democracy- they are only victims, somehow, of Western Civilisation.

That is absurd. Obama, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into.

Yet More Stimulus News

On the subject of the latest Obama stimulus (only a few days ago he injected US$1,000,000,000,000 into the US economy) fellow libertarian Paul van Dinther has produced a Google Earth image showing how much area would be taken up by US$100 bills if they were all laid out side by side to make US$1,000,000,000,000.

The result just boggles the mind. (N.B.: Google Earth needed for this to work)

Racial Progress in Europe?

While the NAACP in the US is claiming that banks unfairly targeted black home-buyers with easy credit, a new study conducted in Germany and Eastern Europe has found that fully 5% of German 15 year olds is a neo-Nazi, with larger numbers in the far-right of German politics.

This is why I hate the detractors of America pointing to Europe as an example of racial equality: beneath the clean exterior of European statism, a huge amount of social tension still exists in the continent. In parts of Britain and France, huge numbers of Muslim immigrants live in huge ghettos that the police won't go into, where Islamic violence spreads -almost all Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe are carried out by Muslims who've lived there their whole lives in the countries they hate. In Germany and Eastern Europe, neo-Nazism is on the rise amongst teenagers and young adults, with the accompanying crimes*. In Russia, the situation in Chechnya is all the proof of racial tension in Putin's new USSR.

With racial tensions as bad as they are in Europe, perhaps race relations have in fact improved the most in that most racist of nations, the USA?

*from the article: "Government figures have shown anti-Semitic crimes rose at the end of last year."

A Tale of Two Stories

Over the last 24 hours there have been two shooting sprees, one in Alabama in which ten people died and another in Germany, in which 16 school students died.

Both are horrific. But it's interesting to see how The Dominion Post, Wellington's daily newspaper (for foreigners) reports the stories.

For the shootings in Alabama: a good half of the front cover of the "World" section taken up by this story, including three photos of the crime scenes, eyewitness accounts and detail of the events and perpetrator.

For the shootings in Germany: 10cm of one column used for this story, some of which was used for discussing previous school shootings in Germany. Although 9 people had died when the shootings had occurred and the story was newer, the German shooting spree was far more brutal.

It would seem that this is just an attempt to make the US seem worse.

President Teleprompter

Barack Obama has a new title: President Teleprompter.*

According to the New York Times, Barack Obama has been making clever use of teleprompters at his press conferences, with the teleprompters being placed behind the audience and the TV cameras, to make it look as though he's looking at the crowd.

A rather cheeky tactic, but to be expected in the age when it's all about appearances.

*Hat tip Not PC

How Worse Will It Get?

As expected Obama and Pelosi's 1000 page stimulus package has passed both the US House of Representatives and the Senate, to be signed into law by Obama ASAP.

Let's go over some aspects of it: the bill is some +700 billions dollars of spending in various areas. First off, where will this money come from? They can take it directly from taxes -which the populace will notice directly, and not be happy about. Better to print money instead, and only notice it over a long period of time -when over stimulus can be passed. Glenn Beck shows the increase in the US money supply:



Secondly, what will the money be spent on? Rebuilding American infrastructure, economically, sounds like a good idea. But what's the point of building infrastructure if no one's going to use it? Infrastructure is built to facilitate economic growth now, when it is cost-effective. The sorry state of US infrastructure now is the result of over-enthusiastic government infrastructure building in the 50s and 60s, which couldn't all be maintained at once. Government planning in those days also centred around the suburbs, leading to unnecessary infrastructure projects.

Thirdly, is it moral to take money from those who still have it to use for projects that won't be used? To distort market signals leading to another collapse? Is it wise to take money from the producers who, like Atlas, hold up the American -and World- economy and give it to people whose only business is consuming without producing?

The answer to all these questions is a resounding: NO!

Skyscrapers: Gateway Arch

Although not technically a skyscraper, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis is one of the most iconic American structures. Standing 192 metres above the Mississippi River, The Gateway Arch is one of the best examples of post-war architecture.

At the top of the Arch is a small viewing platform over St. Louis and the surrounding countryside, which can only be access through a "tram" (or more accurately, a small pod) running to the viewing platform from underground.

The arch was constructed between 1963 and 1965, and was designed in 1947. It is a designated National Historical Landmark.

Stimulus V.2

Obama's new US$825b stimulus package passed through the House of Representatives today. Not good news.

He obviously hasn't learnt anything from the Bush US$700b (and now uncounable trillions) bailout, then!

Four More Years of Statism

The hype around Barack Obama reached new highs yesterday during the inauguration, when hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of Washington to see their new President. Now, after the glamourous celebrations, reality is going to start to bite.

During his campaign, instead of outlining policies backed by evidence to tackle the current economic crisis, Barack Obama raved on about "change we can believe in", that we need to get through it "together", etc. Instead of appealling to reason, he simply used a good speaking voice to great effect, appealling to emotion.

Unfortunately for him, he's now the person people look to for leadership and guidance, and expectations are incredibly high. What happens when a man with no clue of how to lead, no rational policies and principles based on "feeling", has his finger on the button?

He cashed on the failure of Bush to extremes -he made himself look like a new hope, a new way forward by simply using the word "change". What he's been advocating is more government regulation, based on collectivism. Bush was one of the biggest spenders in US history, so where's the "change" in advocating big government?

Then of course, there's the race issue. Leftists intellectuals have been raving on about how Obama's election victory is proof of "post-racial America". They're forgeting something -a "post-racial America" would not care about race!

Barack Obama won the Presidency through appeals to emotion, not reason. Given expectations, I expect the next four years to be... hilarious, if not outright scary.

Skyscrapers: Comcast Center

The Comcast Center is the tallest building in Philadelphia. Completed in early 2008, the Comcast Center rises 297 meters over the skyscrapers of Center City, 10 meters taller than 1 Liberty Place, the second tallest building in the city. It contains 57 floors, and 118,000 square metres of floor space.



In an effort to improve Philadelphia's sporting record, a statue of William Penn was constructed at the top of the tower; the "curse of William Penn" states that unless a statue of William Penn is the highest object in the city (as was the case until 1987 with the Philadelphia City Hall), Philadelphia will not win any sporting championship. The statue was built, and the World Series a few months afterwards was won by Philadelphia. Perhaps it's not a curse, so much as a dampner on morale.

US$5b for Breast Transplants

With the entire economy of America lined up in Washington to get handed free money from the Feds, few stories can be as downright bizarre as this: the US porn industry is seeking a US$5 billion bailout.

Larry Flynt, a spokesman for the industry, said

"The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine."

Actually Larry, no American should be forced to pay for breast implants and AO videos. He went on to say:

"It's time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly."

Umm, why, to both? Last time I checked, only a bed was required!

If all these bailouts are not showing Americans that their economy has been wrecked by the popular fiscal policy and quiet Keynesianism of the past half-century, I don't know what will.

"Deep Throat" Dies

Mark Felt, otherwise known as "Deep Throat", has passed away today at the grand old age of 95. Felt was integral in revealing the Watergate scandal in 1974, which led to the resignation of President Nixon.

Felt kept his secret until 2005. At the time of Watergate, he was working in a high position in the FBI.

For the uninformed, Watergate was the name given to the scandal that developed when men acting on orders direct from President Nixon broke into the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC, stealing a tape from the office of the Democratic National Committee. Over time, more scandals were revealed, which led up to Nixon's 1974 resignation. More detail can be found at Wikipedia.

Full Story

Skyscrapers: Columbia Center

With an imposing presence in the city, the Columbia Center rises 285 metres (937ft) above the streets of downtown Seattle, in Washington State. The Columbia Center encompasses 76 floors, the 73rd of which contains an observation deck, and over 140,000 square metres of floor space.

When opened in 1984, the building was originally called the Columbia Center. It then changed to Columbia Seafirst Center, then Bank of America Tower in 1999. It changed again in 2005 back to its original name. Until the completion of LA's US Bank Tower (or Library Tower) in 1993, it was the tallest American building west of the Mississippi.