Books that have influenced me the most

Adding my part to the meme that has been going around, though my list surely pales in comparison. Anyhow...

Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Boxcar Children - First "real" book, age 5
Holy Bible (NIV) - Literal fundamentalism shaped fifteen years of my life, especially Corinthians and Ephesians.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring - First "adult" book, age 8
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game - Of the vast amounts of young adult science fiction I devoured as a kid, this always stood out the most. I generally cite it as my favorite single work of fiction.
Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Revealed there were people in the world with a disposition much like mine.
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World - Had to read this for school and still muse about it fairly often.
Linus Torvalds, Just for Fun - I picked this up as an anti-Microsoft fanboy. Oddly, the first chapter's banter on the theory of life is what sparked my interest in philosophy.
Simon Blackburn, Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy
John Stewart Mill, On Liberty and Utilitarianism - JSM was amazingly right about so many important things

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers 
Robert Wright, The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and The Evolution of God - Wright's three works have crystallized my world view with incisive detail. If you're going to read anything on this list, read him.

Libertarian purity test

Har dee har, I scored 70 out of 160:

51-90 points: You are a medium-core libertarian, probably self-consciously so. Your friends probably encourage you to quit talking about your views so much.

Sounds about right.

Quality down

You may have noticed posting has gotten more sparse and whiny over the past month.

For what it's worth, my apologies...I've been busy elsewhere.

Here's a chart of my reader feed that's tagged "Must read":

Blue are total posts coming in per day, orange is the number I actually read.

In times past, I'd read every single one (yes, over 1200/day occasionally...) Alas, I don't have that kind of free time and dedication anymore.

Heads up

I'll be guest blogging at Library Grape while Metavirus is on vacation.

(Reader feed here)

A more interesting take on Sanford

From the left, he's a "globetrotting nutjob".

From the right, a "bastard" and "disgrace".

From me, why should we care?

But Kathleen Parker actually read his love letters and sees "the kind of tragic, heart-swelling tale that storybook romances are made of."

She concludes:

..this much we know without admitting: If this really were a movie, we’d be pulling for the Argentine.

Ah, but that is fiction.

Well I'm not afraid to admit it nor do I need to hide behind "but that is fiction". If asked, I'd recommend Sanford beg his wife for an amicable divorce and go live his love.

But Sanford doesn't know me and has no interest in my opinion. That makes his affair none of my business.

Bloggy personality traits

Via Andrew:

The results of two studies indicate that people who are high in openness to new experience and high in neuroticism are likely to be bloggers. Additionally, neuroticism was moderated by gender indicating that women who are high in neuroticism are more likely to be bloggers... The results indicate that personality factors impact the likelihood of being a blogger and have implications for understanding those who blog.

I'm pretty confident I qualify as extremely open to new experience. Like, 95th percentile.

I wasn't as sure about neuroticism, so I took this little quiz and got 78%.

Update: Tried the openness to experience, 97%.

On vacation

I have internet, but I'm spending my time doing things other than browsing news and blogs, so posting will be lite-to-none for a week or two.

I don't have much of a readership and don't expect to be missed much—this being more of a personal journal/rantspace than anything else.

But feel free to say 'hey!' in the comments.

Computer engineering is serious business

Cell phone picture of me in a university computer lab, with a hat some Civil Engineer left behind.

The dangers of ideology

Daniel Larison:

one of the attractions of ideology is that it seems to offer “a schema for predicting the consequences of events.” I would emphasize that ideology only seems to do this, because one of the key features of any ideology is its horrific powers of oversimplification and its impressively narrow perspective on historical events. That is, ideology will not reliably predict consequences of events, but it will condition the mind to force every event into the mold provided by the ideology. If a person approaches the world with an ideological frame of mind, whatever events dominate the historical memory of his fellow ideologues are perceived as constantly recurring again and again as part of a progressive narrative of successive triumphs, each one more important than the last. The simple framing, the certainty of victory and the quick and easy interchangeability of extremely different groups as different faces of the same enemy are all very useful for purposes of propaganda and the acquisition and exercise of power.

This is one reason why so many ideologues express great confidence that History will judge their endeavors to have been worthwhile and why they always avoid accountability for the consequences of their own policies and actions: their grasp of historical contingency is poor, and their knowledge of history is usually limited to a narrow range of approved opinions about major events.

I think everyone is guilty of this to some degree, not just idealogues.  Grappling with opposing views and giving them a fair hearing takes a lot of discipline -- especially, in my view, when one is accustomed to reaching for the intellectual clarity of libertarian principles.

One reason I started this blag rather than just writing a private journal and bookmarking crap that amuses me was to hold my opinions and thinking up to some scrutiny.

If I can persuade you to agree with me about things that's great — but now that the number of people reading this appears to exceed a single digit I'm also itching for countervailing views.

So if you click a post title, you can use its comment box. It's free! =]

25 most commonly misspelled words

Apparently it's supposed to be a tough quiz...

Your score is: 27 points out of a possible 27
That is 100 % -- Excellent!

Beat that ;-> (ht Mankiw)

You know...

One of Andrew's readers:

After reading the stories of people's recession on your blog these past few months I can't help but feel really blessed lately. I'm a software engineer that grew up in a trailer in Arizona, just like the movie Raising Arizona, except without a dad to steal for me and about 4 more babies. I graduated college at the height of the dot com boom just in time to get a sweet job and then get laid off, so I've been planning for something similar ever since. Work has not let up at all faor me this year. In fact there's more of it with tighter deadlines.

I have no debt (other than a mortgage that I'm closing in on), no credit cards and a very high paying job that I love and that has given me the opportunity to have worked on websites and built applications for companies that I'm sure 90% of your readers would know about. I work from home, so gas prices really only affect my groceries. Naturally I buy in bulk as much as possible. If work dries up I still have a small recurring income from internet ventures I've started over the years that would pay most of the bills each month.

My main investments over the past years has been fine wine and my house. It just made sense from my perspective that I invest in something I can consume. It's never been a better time to purchase wines for investment. If it's the end of the world as we know it my fiance and I plan to get on the roof, smoke a joint and get drunk because that's how the song goes.

I've always had a budget and a plan for as long as I can remember. A small part of that is to meant to make forays into the stock market and last week when Citi was down just above a dollar I bought 10k shares of it. Yesterday I sold when Citi was around 2.50. Profits will go toward my mortgage. Barring complete economic meltdown I should be able to completely own my house before the end of the year. I'm 31 years old and the prospect of not having any debt makes me as ambitious as ever.

While I'm better than most financially I'm not immune to what's going on around the country. Most of my friends have been keeping up with the Jones' for years and I've had to watch them lose their jobs and self respect over the last few months. It's heart breaking to my fiance, but for me I've very apathetic. One of my friends actually hosted us at a nice dinner (that they probably couldn't afford), presumably to get us liquored and then to ask to borrow money. I didn't and now he blames me as much as anything for them having to go into bankruptcy. I can see it in his eyes when he talks to me.

All the sad stories makes me feel blessed for having the struggles I've had. My mother raised 5 kids by her self. We were poor because there were a lot of us, not because she was bad with money. None of my siblings are struggling at this moment either. While I'm apathetic and wouldn't trade positions with those that got overextended I'm still the poor kid who is jealous that others have something that I don't, so I go back to work because this is America and anything is possible. To struggle can be a beautiful thing.

...that's kind of how I see myself in 10 years. We'll see.

The logician in me just needs to replace "anything is possible" with "many things are possible"

Local news

The Washington Post site recognized this humble place as part of the Right:



Though it's a bit odd to see the below post on political romance getting linked under "trench warfare", no?

One of these four is not like the others

Using the Political Spectrum Quiz, I compared myself to self-identified US Democrats, Republicans, and my age group.

Gherald's Foreign Policy Views Score: -6.35	Gherald's Culture War Stance Score: -5.42
Key: United States, US - Democratic (3,696) United States, Age 18 to 29 (4,961) United States, US - Republican (1,634) Gherald's views

Annals of voter fraud

Matthew Yglesias gives his anecdote on moving but being unable to register. He's therefore voting at his old polling place.

Myself, I'm registered to vote at a place where I've never lived. I registered years ago with a friend who (falsely) vouched for my living at her address, since it was easier than getting a copy of my lease or utility bill. I have since voted there in 3 elections, and will keep doing so since it's easier than moving registration to my current address, the polling station of which is actually more distant.

This is why things like the Ohio Republican party's attempt to sue the Secretary of State to match voter addresses with DMV records is such a transparent attempt to disenfranchise voters. Heck, I haven't lived at my driver's license's address for six years. Which I figure should be fine, since I don't drive.

Obama fundraising email

I get at least a couple of these a week, asking me for $25 in various creative ways, but this latest one actually made me tad proud:

Gherald --

You were one of the first 100,000 people to own a piece of this campaign. You provided the strength needed to build a movement.

Back then, few pundits or insiders thought we had a chance. But thanks to you, we overcame steep odds. Twenty months later, millions of Americans all across the country have joined you, working for change.

But in these final three weeks, our opponents are signaling they will do whatever they can to distract voters and distort the truth, so we need to redouble our efforts

One of the first 100,000 of 3 million! Twenty months ago... should I feel special?

Heh. Sorry sirs -- I was glad to help against Hillary in the primaries, but I think you folks have got McCain beat and are outspending him 3-1; you don't need my chump change. Nice try though.

Cherio

I spoke with a Palinite on the phone just now, and the absence of rational thought made me groan. Every one of Obama-Biden's flaws (of which there are plenty, as with all politicians) is magnified out of proportion as a Very Serious Issue, and those of McCain-Palin are ignored or dismissed as being just as bad as the Dems. Even when there's no comparison or the comparison is lopsided.

Basically they plan to vote for McCain-Palin because they identify with Palin as a fellow evangelical fundie, but they won't admit this and instead come up with all sorts of other reasons to excuse this and to demonize the Dems.

For instance, apparently the excesses of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are reasons to be against Barack Obama's candidacy. But the gross excesses of the likes of Bill Frist and Tom Delay, who've been running this country for 8 of the last 10 years -- as well as whatever passes for the current Republican leadership -- count for nothing against McCain-Palin. Apparently. I guess they're really "mavericky".

Also, the "many" reports of Democrats voting twice or registering dead people to vote are a reason to be against them. Republicans trying to disenfranchise people because their houses were foreclosed or threatening them with arrest at the polls for outstanding warrants and tickets count for nothing. Apparently.

I could dig up links to such things, but why bother? There's plenty of dirt to go around in politics. What bothers me is when people harp on the problems with one side while ignoring equal or worse problems with the other and due to their ideology seem to wallow in this ignorance no matter how hard you try to inform them.

People don't seem to understand just how badly their identification with Palin reflects on them.

I get Palin, she's a politician doing what she thinks she has to do even though she's not particularly bright at it. What I don't get is otherwise informed people actually falling for this nonsense...

Sigh...I needed something to cheer me up. Behold the power of a random video.

SanAhn comments:

Dugg for not being about Politics and Palin.

Oh, and for the stop motion love story.

Wish I had written this

Sullivan posts an email:

Long time reader. Years now, back before Time and Atlantic. First time commenter.

I've followed your Sarah Palin discussion with interest here recently, including your Real Time appearance. You're right. She's an absolute joke, but a dangerous joke at that. Everything with her and even now McCain is secrecy and deception. It's really tragic because I once believed John McCain could nearly do no wrong. Back in 2000, I remember how badly I wanted McCain to defeat Bush in the Primary. No more.

McCain, largely because of the Palin pick and the aftermath, has lost my respect. He hasn't had my support since Obama announced, but I'm sorry to have to say that I can no longer respect him. I never thought I'd be able to say that about him of all politicians. I'm actually sad about that. As a mid-20s conservative independent, I feel I must support Obama because I want a return to adult, rational governance.

I have a business degree and own my own small business. The Republican Party needs people like me for its future survival, yet we are the exact people pushed away by these petty games. I'm not a Christianist, so I'm not welcome in their Tent anymore. Bottom line.

As for the attacks against you from some on the Right, I think it's obvious. The Emperor (or Empress in Palin's case) has no clothes, and most of your critics are either blinded by sheer partisanship or know you're right but do not have the intellectual honesty to admit it. Either way, they want to attack you to shut you up. Kudos to you for standing strong and not giving into them.

Don't let the bastards get you down. They're on their last legs. I truly believe that.

I am in full agreement.

Weep for small-government conservatism. The Republican party as championed by Bush, McCain, and the neocons has killed it for a generation.

The good news is we're getting Obama instead of HRC, for which I am truly grateful. Dynastic succession of "Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton" would have been intolerable, and the Clintons are almost as cynical as those running McCain's campaign. As the reader says, Obama's government will be more rational and adult. It's why we support him.

It's too bad Ron Paul is so old and extreme. We need someone like David Cameron to right the ship. The sad thing is, the most partisan Republicans think Sarah Palin will be up to this task. They are incredibly deluded.

UPDATE, a friend comments:

that email was a bit spewtastic and therefore boring

I suppose...sorry for boring, but it fits my thoughts on the matter.

Financial journalism

Yglesias is amazed, and not in a good way.

Personally I just set my compass by Megan McArdle, whose writing seems very well informed and has a good level of skepticism. I always feel smarter after reading there, even though I know I'm not.

Faith in office and an atheist's manifesto

Sullivan with two timely posts:

Oliver Kamm, an atheist, differs from Dawkins on the topic of secularism in politics:

The cause of secularism is politically vital. But there is no political case for atheism. (I do believe, as a pragmatic point, that society would be better off if there were more atheists around; but I also believe that society would be better off if moderate religion, accommodating itself to secular government and education, supplanted religious absolutism. A consistent secularist would be indifferent between these possibilities.) Dawkins, by contrast, maintains (p. 44): "American atheists far outnumber religious Jews, yet the Jewish lobby is notoriously one of the most formidably influential in Washington. What might American atheists achieve if they organised themselves properly?"

Leave aside the tendentious first sentence of that statement. (American Jewry is not "formidably influential" in forming public policy, even with regard to US policy in the Middle East; it genuinely isn't.) The second strikes me as a thoroughly bad idea. I do not wish to see, and will not sign up to, an organised interest group of atheists, because atheism is a private belief, of no civic significance. So is religious belief. The task of defending state neutrality between those positions is what we, and the President of the French Fifth Republic, should defend.

Steven Weinberg returns to the old debate about religion and science. One choice paragraph:

The problem for religious belief is not just that science has explained a lot of odds and ends about the world. There is a second source of tension: that these explanations have cast increasing doubt on the special role of man, as an actor created by God to play a starring part in a great cosmic drama of sin and salvation.

We have had to accept that our home, the earth, is just another planet circling the sun; our sun is just one of a hundred billion stars in a galaxy that is just one of billions of visible galaxies; and it may be that the whole expanding cloud of galaxies is just a small part of a much larger multiverse, most of whose parts are utterly inhospitable to life. As Richard Feynman has said, "The theory that it's all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate."

For myself, that inadequacy and sense that man is not special are what lead me to reject most religious notions years ago.

But I very much appreciate Kamm's point about consistent secularism being indifferent to moderate religion, and cannot stress this enough. Absolutists and Dominionists like Alan Keyes are those that I take grave exception to.

Safe to look back?

Today I find myself thinking about the spirit of the campaign during the close primaries months ago, and despite its cheesy aspects I think this independently-created video captures it:



I'll not soon forget seeing it for the first time while standing in the middle of an indoor sporting rink, and shaking Barack's hand after the stump.

guardian.co.uk, 9 January:

"We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change," he urged the crowd.

Pledging to ignore the "chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come," Obama launched a new theme for his campaign, rousing supporters with the refrain "Yes we can".