This seems like pretty good stuff to me

EARN YOUR FORTUNE IN
FINDER'S FEES
The Easiest Money You'll Ever Make!
by: J.F. (Jim) Straw
Would you like to earn $75,000 per month for 5 years?

One Finder did. He saw an item in a newsletter offering 10,000 barrels of Crude Oil per day for 5 years. Putting that seller together with a buyer at a small refinery, he earned a fee of only 25¢ per barrel, and collected his fee of $75,000 every month for 5 years.

How about trading less than $1 in postage and a couple hours easy work for $100?

Not a big fee but it was so easy another Finder couldn't pass it up. Reading a "collectors" magazine, he came across an ad seeking some college memorabilia from a college near his home. He made some local telephone calls, located the items wanted, wrote a letter, and earned an easy $100.

Do Fast-Food Franchises interest you?

More than one Finder makes staggering fees each year by just finding "locations" for fast-food franchises. Others earn smaller, but consistent fees, finding locations for Vending Machines and Coin Operated Games. It takes some research, time, and an eye for consumer buying habits, but some of the fees would boggle your mind.

Two Finders - Two Fees!

One Finder had a "seller" offering a warehouse full of closeout & surplus inventory. The other Finder had a "buyer" looking for closeout & surplus inventory. They saw each other's listings in the same newsletter. After a few telephone calls and letters, they earned over $25,000 each.

Did you know there are firms in this country who "manage" hotels, mobile home parks, apartment buildings, etc., for the absentee owners?

Those firms often pay substantial Finder's Fees if you can find properties for them to manage.

Would you believe over $50,000 per year by just matching Newspaper Classified Ads with the Telephone Book Yellow Pages?

One Finder makes that much and more each year by just matching-up the wants & availables in Newspaper Classified Ads from neighboring areas with the Yellow Pages in his town and other Classified Ads from other newspapers.

If you can think creatively, you might be able to pull-off one like this!

A company had been trying to dump a huge volume of lead weights for ages. They couldn't find a buyer. Then a creative Finder figured out that those weights could be used in the commercial fishing industry. His creative thinking was rewarded with a substantial Finder's Fee.

Television Advertising pays big bucks to Finders, too!

NO! You don't have to run any TV advertising. Just find people who need TV advertising and connect them with TV stations who will run their ads. Of course, first you have to strike a deal for "dead" air time.

It would take a couple hundred pages to tell you about all of the Finder's Fees earned in machinery & equipment deals.

As you probably know, there are literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of pieces of machinery & equipment setting around, in almost any industry you can name. Find a buyer. Earn a fee.

If a product or service can be sold or bought, there is a potential Finder's Fee just waiting for a Finder with the "know-how" to earn it. There are Finder's Fees to be earned in every small town or big city, in every state and country. All you need to do is match-up the buyers and sellers, put them together, sit-back and collect your fees.

And...you can start your own Finder's Fee business for less than it would cost you for a good meal at a fine restaurant. - All you really need is a typewriter, business letterhead, and a telephone to get started.

"Why would any company pay a Finder's Fee?"

There are over 240,000,000 people in this country -- and millions of businesses (small, medium & large). Can any business know of ALL of the sources of supply, potential buyers, or providers of necessary services? -- Not on your life!

Why should a company spend thousands of dollars, and tie up essential employees to do nothing but research the existence of these suppliers, buyers, and providers -- when they can easily let a Finder go to the trouble of locating the contacts they need. And, those fees are considerably less than what they would have spent if they had done the research themselves.

Finders EARN their fees by weeding-through the unqualified leads and flakes; by following all of the dead-end paths; and eventually putting their hands on a real, honest-to-goodness source, buyer, or whatever. -- THAT is what a Finder gets paid for doing.

A company, or individual, who pays a Finder's Fee, pays it so they won't have to chase down all of those unqualified leads, blind alleys, and dead-ends.

It is really far easier than you might imagine...but...if you don't know how to do it (and do it right), you may chase down all the blind alleys without ever finding a profitable match. - That's what happens to most amateur finders - a lot of blind alleys but NO Fees!!

I've spent over 30 years of my life as a finder - gathering facts and doing the things that you need to do to be a professional finder. Starting with a $42 unemployment check, I became a multi-millionaire.

During those 30-plus years, I made every mistake ever made by amateur finders - until I learned how to do it right. -- I have earned Finder's Fees for locating everything from a World War II bayonet (for a collector) to buyers for Oil Field Equipment.

Over the past 10 years, I have watched as literally thousands of men, and women, have tried to become Finders. - Most of them don't even know, for sure, what a Finder's Fee is, or how a Finder earns those fees.

The real tragedy of this situation is that there are literally millions, upon millions, of dollars out there just waiting to be claimed by someone who can "find" the buyer, or seller, needed to complete the transaction.

What Is A FINDER?

Unfortunately, most people...even many of those who call themselves "finders".....don't really know "what" a finder is, or how to start earning Finder's Fees.

In order to define what a Finder "is," let's first point out what a Finder "is not."

A FINDER is NOT a PRE-SELLER -- Pre-sellers accept a selling price from a product source, add-on what they feel to be a fair margin of profit, and sell the item. After they make a sale, they then buy the product and ship it to the buyer.

A FINDER is NOT a DEALER -- Dealers take-on a product, or service, for continuing promotion and sales. They are responsible for the distribution of a product, or service, from the prime source to the end user.

A FINDER is NOT a REPRESENTATIVE or AGENT for either the buyer or seller. -- Representatives & Agents are empowered by their clients to negotiate the purchase, or sale, of specific products or services. They can legally sign documents obligating their clients.

Too many "supposed" Finders are not really Finders at all -- they are Salesmen, Agents, Representatives, and/or Pre-sellers.

A Finder is nothing more than a "match-maker" for a fee. The professional Finder simply matches QUALIFIED buyers with QUALIFIED sellers, or vice versa - "FOR A FEE!"


Finders DO NOT sell anything; except their knowledge.
Finders DO NOT negotiate anything; except their own fees.
Finders DO NOT add-on their profits.

"Contacts Are A Finder's Stock in Trade"
"Contacts" are the bread and butter of the professional finder. All he is really selling is names & addresses of QUALIFIED contacts.

The following are the most important points to remember:


(1) Be a FINDER; not an Agent, Representative, Salesman, or Pre-seller. DO NOT try to sell anything; simply offer QUALIFIED contacts to your clients who offer a Finder's Fee. Nothing more.

(2) As a FINDER, let your contact and your client negotiate their own deal; once you have brought them together.

(3) Use the finest materials (letterheads & envelopes) available, and maintain the most professional business approach in all of your dealings.

(4) Furnish only QUALIFIED contacts to your client. UNqualified contacts only come from UNqualified "amateur" finders.

(5) NEVER give your client the name & address of another Finder. When you do, you start a Daisy Chain, and are not entitled to any form of Finder's Fees.

(6) READ...READ...READ...ever increasing the number and quality of your contacts.

(7) Keep chronological and complete files of all of your correspondence (even telephone calls) with both your contacts and your clients.

(8) Always FIND IT FIRST, before contacting a potential client. This one action, alone, will save you a lot of money in paper that doesn't go into the waste basket.

(9) If you don't get a response from the potential client, DO NOT do what childish amateurs do ­ DO NOT blame the advertiser; blame yourself. You probably didn't offer the potential client what he wanted; so, try again, or give up, on that particular finding opportunity.
NOTE: If one advertiser doesn't respond to your contact offer, you should keep your eyes open for a similar Finder's Fee opportunity; to which you can make the same offer. - BE SURE to re-confirm your contact.


(10) The "key" word in being a successful finder is PATIENCE. The reason most amateur finders never earn their first fee is because they push for a fast close. They try to negotiate the deal for the principals. DO NOT do it!! Let your principals close their own deal, in their own time. A "right" deal will close itself. A "wrong" deal will never close; no matter how hard you push and shove.
As a finder, you can work anywhere you want, at any time you want - just by keeping your eyes & ears open. Even an offhand comment overheard on the street can lead to a finder's fee.

Whether you live in Podunk, or Metropolitan New York City, you can earn constant, and sizable, Finder's Fees all year, every year.

Your family, friends, business associates, and local merchants (as well as people all over the nation, and around the world) can make you a fortune -- if you know who will pay you a Finder's Fee for information you hear and see every day.

Using the information in this report, you can be well on your way to earning your fortune in Finder's Fees.

This report was excerpted from the complete, master course, "Finder's Fees - The Easiest Money You'll Ever Make" by J.F. (Jim) Straw; the only professional finder to ever write on the subject. The complete, master course has been the bible of professional finders since 1978. -- Available in our Power Tools for Entrepreneurs.



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J.F. (Jim) Straw
204 Wildflower Way
Dalton, GA 30720-8029
jfstraw@businesslyceum.com
Be sure to mention you saw it in the Business Lyceum.
Copyright - 2006, J.F. (Jim) Straw. All rights reserved.

Oops!

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I was trimming my hair today, when the guard fell off. So the only option I could see was to do this.

Oh, well. It was on my list of things to do before I die.

Don't worry. My daughter still looks like this:


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I need to thank Rosie when I get home

for all her help this morning. My wife had to get up and head out early today for work and I had to get the kids up and out alone.

I was up late typing up some papers, so I was having a heck of a time getting out of bed. Rosie saw that and got Lena up and dressed and made sure she went potty. Hopefully, they both ate something. I had a glass of milk, but I just realized I didn't check into whether they had anything.

Anyway, I couldn't have done it without her, and I'm grateful. I'm afraid I was mostly gruff and grumpy at the time. She did a good thing and deserves something special for it.

David Broza

is the greatest genius of our age.

OK, he's got serious competition from Tiger Woods. But I, personally, get more joy from music and this guy puts an extraordinary amount of joy into his music and gets back what he puts in. Maybe more.

Is it bourgeois to be passionate about great jazz? Maybe not, but Broza transcends labels and styles and classes with his jazz. He stands on the shoulders of giants, no doubt. But he's on top.

He was born in Haifa, Israel, son of the first folk singer to sing in Hebrew, met many world famous musicians who made pilgrimages to the Holy Land and came to see her, then they moved to Spain, where he learned their styles and songs, and America, where he learned our jazz and rock-n-roll.

You can see it all in the PBS special: David Broza at Masada: The Sunrise Concert. I'm especially enamored of the Israeli singer (I'll probably misspell this) Kelee; a gorgeous woman with a magnificent voice. And the Jamaican water drum player, Sujya(?), who beat with his hand on a Kerr jar that he dipped in a tub of water, to marvelous musical results. And the Hebrew/Arabic duet he did with a Palastinian band leader who so joyfully sang with David and the child chorus their song of peace and love. Though I understood not a word, I raised my hands to heaven during that song. From their lips to God's ear.

What they showed on PBS had one flaw: it was only one hour. I could have stood another three or four.

Awesome!

My daughter's just like me.

I guess this goes here. I try to do things about my bourgeois lifestyle here. I know I promised to do a better review of the new production of My Fair Lady today, but I've been rather busy since I made that promise. It rates every positive thing that can be said about it, I kept finding myself grinning during the performance - it may well be the best musical ever, and these guys really do it brilliantly.

Maybe that's as much as I need to say. But back to my daughter:

We're talkin' the older one. Tonight we were talking about her homework project, somehow the subject turned to geology and she ran up to get a library book she checked out today to show me what the MOHS scale is. That's the same rock hardness scale I learned in junior high, but I didn't know the name. Apparently there's another scale for minerals that I wasn't aware of. I should have asked about that.

I tested her personality at INFP, which is pretty similar to my INTP, but I keep in mind that I'm not a professional, and I have to wonder if that personality type might be more common among children. It strikes me as an immature way to think to me, but then all you bastards look childish to me. You're all getting worked up over some insignificant BS.

The thing about INTPs is that we're as close to Spock as humanity has to offer. We think like him, but we keep finding ourselves freaking out over some damn thing.

Here's a homely topic

My four year old daughter just took care of the whole pooping issue all by herself. It fell to me to check her work, and it appears that she did everything perfectly.

I exclaimed, "You're a Big Girl now!"

You can understand my excitement, I'm sure. Hangin' around poop...well, that's not where I want to be. Poop is yucky.

But, it occurred to me to wonder, what are the other major signs (or whatever) of growth?

I'd especially be interested in what milestone I should work to pass next.

So, the Giants won

And, since my last post, that applies to both the NFC Championships against my Packers and the Superbowl.

And, guess what? I'm one of the guys who dissed them both times. They look like a team that can't handle what they're going to go up against until the game ends. I mean, how can a team that barely eaks out a win in every game keep that up through the Superbowl, where they faced the best offense anybody's ever seen?!

[Here's a great recap.]

Answer: the Giants' defense is better than any we've ever seen. They make great offenses look like amateurs.

If they can do that to the Patriots, it makes me feel a helluva lot better about my Packers. In fact, since the Pack took them into overtime, it makes me think that "we" [yeah, like I had a hand in it somehow] might have beaten the Patriots. Favre seemed to be pretty well protected in the NFC Championship game. The Giants' D were all over Tom Brady.

If only there weren't this other team out there.

Hey! It's absolutely THE Cinderella Story that every American kid dreams about when he's out in the yard tossing a football to himself. With 2 minutes and 30-something seconds to go in the game, the Giants get the ball back deep in their own territory and Eli Manning engineers an 83-yard drive - in the face of fierce opposition - with two major completions to David Tyree...well, I guess the NFL frowns on unauthorized published descriptions of their games, but it ended with an easy-looking TD completion to Burress with just over 30 seconds left.

It would have taken a miracle for Brady to pull it out at that point. Brady tried his best to provide that miracle, and nobody would have put it past him, but the Giants' D wasn't allowing any miracles yesterday.

[OMG! You didn't see that screw-up, did you? If you did, well, I confused Tyree with Moss in the last two drives. ACH!]

I tend to notice things like blocking and pass protection when I'm watching games, and both defenses were tearing the O-lines up, so when I see a defensive struggle it takes a while for me to figure out what went wrong. It looked like incompetence... but I was focussing on the wrong side of the ball.

"TERENCE, this is stupid stuff..."

is the first line of my favorite poem of all time. It's by A.E. Housman, and I think he put it at the end of his collection (linked to the title above), A Shropshire Lad, because he saw it as I do - as a kind of dessert after eating the meat and vegetables of the rest of the book. Unfortunately, it's Baked Alaska following plain (but healthful) fare.

It's difficult to say anything about Housman's poetry in general, or A Shropshire Lad in particular, that he doesn't say himself in "Terence." Although, one thing he doesn't say, in any of his writings, is that the darkness of them may have been the result of the fact that he was a gay man in Victorian and Edwardian England. And abstinance didn't make him as happy as he could have been.

"Terence" is Housman's justification of the dark subjects he usually wrote about. And even knowing that - how uninspiring it sounds - I love it because it's such a personal story, with a clear moral (though without sacrificing the story, or forcing the rhyme-scheme) and a wonderful ancient history lesson to boot.

The thing's kind of a mini-epic - and it's funny, informative and sobering.

I...OMG! The Packers are playing today!!

OK! The game's tied 14-14! You can say I haven't missed anything.

Snowin' hard at Lambeau Field! Awesome.

Fumble...the Pack's got it!

I'm not gonna do a play by play ... Favre lobs a TD!
.......

Oh, isn't that fun? Blogger just wiped out my brilliant description of Favre's escape from the sackers and the shovel pass for first and goal that set up an easy three yard run for touchdown.

The Pack has now tied the team record for first half points in the playoffs with 28.

Seattle scored a Field Goal. Score now 28-17.
.........
OK, after all that crap, the score is now 42-20. A new Packers record for post-season points.

The Packers finally have to punt. Crap!
.......
Special Secret Double Delux Bistro Burger!

Wait to buy it until the owner gets back in charge.
......
Nobody's able to move the ball in this weather.
........
Seattle pulls a couple running plays and the game's over!

Favre 173 yards, 3 TDs. And my daughter was impressed by the announcer's mention of the snowball.

What I saw of the Oklahoma ice storm

On the way down to my Uncle Bill's funeral I ran into freezing drizzle, starting south of Des Moines. The defroster, while it was heating the cab to about 100°, couldn't keep the ice off the windshield. I had to slow way down to give it a chance to keep up. When I got down to 35 mph, and had stopped for the third time to scrape it clear (and Liina said, "I gotta go potty!"), I decided we'd just take a motel for the night.

So we stopped at the Super 8 in Bethany, Missouri. I had seriously considered stopping at The Sundowner Motel in Cameron, because it was the first motel I ever stayed in, and I was almost overcome by nostalgia for it. But, finally, I was convinced that the temperature was going to continue to drop faster than I could head south, so I'd never get ahead of the weather...another thing that worried me, was that somebody with more of an angle to their windshield, and, therefore, less trouble seeing through it, would be driving overconfidently and rear-end me...and "I gotta go potty" was the last straw.

The next morning the drizzle continued, but with warmer temps, the defroster could keep up. The roads were always okay - their ice treatment, Iowa's and Missouri's seems to be very effective, though, even so, I had to be careful to stay in the ruts as I neared Carthage, Mo.

So that was the experience that told me not to try to drive home on Tuesday.

Here are the pix I took Sunday, after things had been sitting for several hours in warmer weather.

All right, that's nothing like my Mom's pix of the Ferris coming through the Duluth Entrance about the same time of year after a storm in the mid-70's (or my buddy Dutch's mom's pix of his dad's boat, the McCurdy, which came in right behind the Ferris - both of 'em looked like they were made of icicles).

I want to reiterate, this is the worst that Muskogee saw. Tulsa and Oklahoma City got the full brunt of the big storm. (Though Muskogee was hit by one equally as bad last year, though more localized.) I took these pix of my Mom's yard on Sunday:

Sorry about the scrap lumber. It wouldn't be there if it were my place. And it wasn't when Mom was ambulatory, either. I need to spend some time there next summer. I need to go down there with my list of things to do.

Here's the front yard:


Muskogee wasn't hit at all by the big storm, thank God.

My boss wasn't sounding very sympathetic when I call and told her that I wasn't going to drive up through it. Though, when I talked to her today, she told me that, after she talked to me she listened to the news and found out that it was, indeed, a big deal. As I hinted, I wouldn't have thought of it as much of a deal, myself, if I hadn't tried to drive through a minor precursor of it a couple days before.

Packers 34, Vikings 0

Awesome!

I want to know how San Diego did, though. I was thinking that, after the Vikes womped them last week, the Packers were in for some $#!# this week. But nope. The Vikes absolutely rolled over and let Favre and the boys have their way with them. Of course, I had to watch every minute of it. Hadda make sure they'd hold the shut-out. They tried to give up a TD toward the end of the fourth, but Bollinger decided to toss the capper to our guy.

Here's what else we've been up to this weekend:




I bagged up about half that pile.

One more?

Hazlitt's One Lesson

The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

Nine-tenths of the economic fallacies that are working such dreadful harm in the world today are the result of ignoring this lesson. Those fallacies all stem from one of two central fallacies, or both: that of looking only at the immediate consequences of an act or proposal, and that of looking at the consequences only for a particular group to the neglect of other groups.

It is true, of course, that the opposite error is possible. In considering a policy we ought not to concentrate only on its long-run results to the community as a whole. This is the error often made by the classical economists. It resulted in a certain callousness toward the fate of groups that were immediately hurt by policies or developments which proved to be beneficial on net balance and in the long run.

But comparatively few people today make this error; and those few consist mainly of professional economists. The most frequent fallacy by far today, the fallacy that emerges again and again in nearly every conversation that touches on economic affairs, the error of a thousand political speeches, the central sophism of the "new" economics, is to concentrate on the short-run effects of policies on special groups and to ignore or belittle the long-run effects on the community as a whole.

The "new" economists flatter themselves that this is a great, almost a revolutionary advance over the methods of the "classical" or "orthodox" economists, because the former take into consideration short-run effects which the latter often ignored. But in themselves ignoring or slighting the long-run effects, they are making the far more serious error. They overlook the woods in their precise and minute examination of particular trees. Their methods and conclusions are often profoundly reactionary. They are sometimes surprised to find themselves in accord with 17th-century mercantilism. They fall, in fact, into all the ancient errors (or would, if they were not so inconsistent) that the classical economists, we had hoped, had once for all got rid of.

It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the good economists present their truths. It is often complained that demagogues can be more plausible in putting forward economic nonsense from the platform than the honest men who try to show what is wrong with it. But the basic reason for this ought not to be mysterious. The reason is that the demagogues and bad economists are presenting half-truths. They are speaking only of the immediate effect of a proposed policy or its effect upon a single group. As far as they go they may often be right. In these cases the answer consists in showing that the proposed policy would also have longer and less desirable effects, or that it could benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The answer consists in supplementing and correcting the half-truth with the other half. But to consider all the chief effects of a proposed course on everybody often requires a long, complicated, and dull chain of reasoning. Most of the audience finds this chain of reasoning difficult to follow and soon becomes bored and inattentive. The bad economists rationalize this intellectual debility and laziness by assuring the audience that it need not even attempt to follow the reasoning or judge it on its merits because it is only "classicism" or "laissez faire" or "capitalist apologetics" or whatever other term of abuse may happen to strike them as effective.

Aliina said, "I really like you, Daddy!"

Well! I had to answer, "I really like you, 'Liina!"

So she raised me, "I love you, Daddy!"

I called, "I love you, 'Liina!"

She laid her cards on the table, "We love each other!"
We had to split the pot.

At least, I think I got my fair share. Did she ask me to do something? I'm sure I did it! What do you need, dear?

Happy Birthday Jon, Denise and Heather!

All those people were in my classroom in, I think, first, fourth and fifth grades. Denise was in the grade ahead, so we had to have a combined class for that to work.

Denise, my cousin, is the oldest, you would think, "obviously," but Jon is a full year older than Heather. I don't know why they let Heather into our class - I suppose, because she could already read, or something - but she fit in just fine. Somehow or other, by fifth grade, we were all part of a clique, along with Bonnie, Tim and, sometimes, Jane.

It's funny, but I don't remember any of us being particularly introverted back in those days. I know I had episodes of wallowing in self-pity, but only a couple.

Ugh! Trying to write in spare moments doesn't work. I'll get back to ya.

A few words on my latest readings

I've been reading the Jack Reacher stories by Lee Child. Action/Mystery stories. Good stuff. Keep ya up all night. Reacher, the almost larger than life hero, is a "liberal" but his sense of justice is spot on and he acts directly, but wisely.

I read Aladdin and the Magic Lamp to Rosie. Quite a bit different from the Disney movie. Sindbad the Sailor was in the same book. It too is quite different from the movie Sinbad the Sailor that I saw in a seedy theater once.

Rosie gave up on Oliver Twist as hopeless. It's certainly not a laugh a minute, like The Pickwick Papers. We also read Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception. Next is Robert Silverberg's Gilgamesh The King. Be gettin' to that in a minute.

Now I'm reading That Hideous Strength, by C.S. Lewis, after having read Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra - all on The Probligo's recommendation. Very enlightening stuff: pretty deep theology, delivered entertainingly. Since I'm not done with the last book of the series, I'm still not sure where there's a vision of a utopia that I'd actually want to aim for in them.

And I'm also working on The Betrayal of the American Right, by Murray Rothbard and Freedomnomics, by John Lott. I'll get links for those after I put the kids to bed.

The White Man's Burden

by Rudyard Kipling.

Like it or not, you should know it.

Take up the White man's burden --
Send forth the best ye breed --
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild --
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden --
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times mad plain.
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden --
The savage wars of peace --
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hope to nought.

Take up the White Man's burden --
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper --
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go make them with your living,
And mark them with your dead!

Take up the White man's burden --
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard --
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light: --
"Why brought ye us from bondage,
"Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden --
Ye dare not stoop to less --
Nor call too loud on freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden --
Have done with childish days --
The lightly proffered laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!

Seems to me that, as Kipling presents the matter here, the value gained is insufficient to justify the price paid.

Not to mention the assumption that White Men should be doing these things.

This fellow has other thoughts on the matter.

Well, I ran 18.6 miles yesterday.

I didn't exactly burn up the roads (and trails). Took me 3 hours and 39 minutes. I was stopped by traffic a number of times, I stopped at a convenience store for 5 or so minutes to buy an energy drink (I wonder what the lady thought of me dripping all over the place, or if she got it that it wasn't all rainwater), and a couple times I just needed to stop and reset, I was draggin' my ass so bad.

By the way, 18.6 miles is a full 30K. The important thing was to go the distance. Once again, I ran the first half too fast and couldn't maintain the pace after that. When I checked it out on MapMyRun I found out I had my mental mile-markers in the wrong places.

Ah, well. Same route next weekend, plus another 1.4 miles.

I got this important bit of trivia from ETR

"[T]he largest lake on an island in a lake on an island is Crater Lake on Vulcano Island in Lake Taal on the island of Luzon in the Philippines."

I can't figure out where to put the link to a picture of all that, so I'll put it here.

And, since it's a volcano, it's not unlikely that there may one day be an island in that lake too.

Post #100! I have to celebrate family values.

Here's my daughter as the Grinch:

We're going to have to make sure she pays attention in Sunday School.

She's getting taller:


Finally I caught her twice in a row when she wasn't smiling. She's a very smiley girl. But I'm not going to try to prove it right now. Usually I post a pic of the older girl's dance recital this time of year. Well, I expended all my photographic efforts videoing the thing this year, but here's a picture of the aftermath:


So those are the loves of my life. Minus the gal who isn't interested in being made famous via the Blogosphere.

Here's something I want to remember

The brain and the memory work awesomely fast; they also work best for comparatively short periods of time. The more you can do during that time, the more likely you are to retain it. Time and again, our experience shows that it is not necessarily the people who take the longest over a task who do it best, but those who approach it with energy, enjoyment and a brisk clarity of purpose.

Brain Train: Studying for Success, by Richard Palmer. I'm reading it free on Questia. He's defending speed reading. Hopefully he'll tell me how to do it pretty soon. I don't have all day.

Name That Tune!

A work in progress:

Physiocrats are posers as libertar-EE-ans
Objectivists hate us 'cuz we let in cretins
Conservatives hate us too for the same thing
Liberals think we're all of the Right Wing

Once you get the hang of it, feel free to try to lend a hand.

Have a quote or two from Randolph Bourne:

Under the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, any person knowing about a man’s unlawful detention may apply for a writ ordering the jailer to “have at the Royal Courts of Justice the body of” the prisoner.

Whoops! That's a good quote, but it comes from Habeas Corpus to the Rescue, a rather gripping account of the salvation of a Polish defector to Britain in 1956, by Alexander T. Jordan, British journalist. Emphasis mine.

Here's a paragraph of Bourne's The State:

Government is obviously composed of common and unsanctified men, and is thus a legitimate object of criticism and even contempt. If your own party is in power, things may be assumed to be moving safely enough; but if the opposition is in, then clearly all safety and honor have fled the State. Yet you do not put it to yourself in quite that way. What you think is only that there are rascals to be turned out of a very practical machinery of offices and functions which you take for granted. When we say that Americans are lawless, we usually mean that they are less conscious than other peoples of the august majesty of the institution of the State as it stands behind the objective government of men and laws which we see. In a republic the men who hold office are indistinguishable from the mass. Very few of them possess the slightest personal dignity with which they could endow their political role; even if they ever thought of such a thing. And they have no class distinction to give them glamour. In a republic the Government is obeyed grumblingly, because it has no bedazzlements or sanctities to gild it. If you are a good old-fashioned democrat, you rejoice at this fact, you glory in the plainness of a system where every citizen has become a king. If you are more sophisticated you bemoan the passing of dignity and honor from affairs of State. But in practice, the democrat does not in the least treat his elected citizen with the respect due to a king, nor does the sophisticated citizen pay tribute to the dignity even when he finds it. The republican State has almost no trappings to appeal to the common man’s emotions. What it has are of military origin, and in an unmilitary era such as we have passed through since the Civil War, even military trappings have been scarcely seen. In such an era the sense of the State almost fades out of the consciousness of men.

[Bourne died in the flu pandemic of 1918; he starts talking about WWI in the next paragraph.]

Here is the opening salvo of The War and The Intellectuals:

To those of us who still retain an irreconcilable animus against war, it has been a bitter experience to see the unanimity with which the American intellectuals have thrown their support to the use of war-technique in the crisis in which America found herself. Socialists, college professors, publicists, new-republicans, practitioners of literature, have vied with each other in confirming with their intellectual faith the collapse of neutrality and the riveting of the war-mind on a hundred million more of the world's people. And the intellectuals are not content with confirming our belligerent posture. They are now complacently asserting that it was they who effectively willed it, against the hesitation and dim perceptions of the American democratic masses. A war made deliberately by the intellectuals! A calm moral verdict, arrived at after a penetrating study of inexorable facts! Sluggish masses, too remote from the world-conflict to be stirred, too lacking in intellect to perceive their danger! An alert intellectual class, saving the people in spite of themselves, biding their time with Fabian strategy until the nation could be moved into war without serious resistance! An intellectual class, gently guiding a nation through sheer force of ideas into what the other nations entered only through predatory craft or popular hysteria or militarist madness! A war free from any taint of self-seeking, a war that will secure the triumph of democracy and internationalize the world! This is the picture which the more self-conscious intellectuals have formed of themselves, and which they are slowly impressing upon a population which is being led no man knows whither by an indubitably intellectualized President. And they are right, in that the war certainly did not spring from either the ideals or the prejudices, from the national ambitions or hysterias, of the American people, however acquiescent the masses prove to be, and however clearly the intellectuals prove their putative intuition.

And, from A War Diary:

The kind of war which we are conducting is an enterprise which the American government does not have to carry on with the hearty cooperation of the American people but only with their acquiescence. And that acquiescence seems sufficient to float an indefinitely protracted war for vague or even largely uncomprehended and unaccepted purposes. Our resources in men and materials are vast enough to organize the war-technique without enlisting more than a fraction of the people's conscious energy. Many men will not like being sucked into the actual fighting organism, but as the war goes on they will be sucked in as individuals and they will yield. There is likely to be no element in the country with the effective will to help them resist. They are not likely to resist of themselves concertedly. They will be licked grudgingly into military shape, and their lack of enthusiasm will in no way unfit them for use in the hecatombs necessary for the military decision upon which Allied political wisdom still apparently insists. It is unlikely that enough men will be taken from the potentially revolting classes seriously to embitter their spirit. Losses in the well-to-do classes will be sustained by a sense of duty and of reputable sacrifice. From the point of view of the worker, it will make little difference whether his work contributes to annihilation overseas or to construction at home. Temporarily, his condition is better if it contributes to the former. We of the middle classes will be progressively poorer than we should otherwise have been. Our lives will be slowly drained by clumsily levied taxes and the robberies of imperfectly controlled private enterprises. But this will not cause us to revolt. There are not likely to be enough hungry stomachs to make a revolution. The materials seem generally absent from the country, and as long as a government wants to use the war-technique in its realization of great ideas, it can count serenely on the human resources of the country, regardless of popular mandate or understanding.

Oh, I forgot to mention that all these links came from Foundation for Economic Education President Sheldon Richman's article Illiberal Means, Illiberal Ends, now also linked in the title bar here. Read that. And when you've finished that, read the Ralph Raico pdf that he links.

V for Vendetta: preliminary notes for a review

Wikipedia article. Actually belies, somewhat, the notion that the Norsefire regime is intended as a direct outgrowth from the Thatcher government.

I prefer Spooner and the early Herbert Spencer to Bakunin. Hell, I prefer Nietzsche and Stirner to Bakunin.

I like what Moore says about the movie, "[The movie] has been "turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country.... It's a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives—which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England."

I haven't read the graphic novel. I think I will.

Update Mon. 5/21/07: Got it Saturday, read it by 5:00 Sunday - it is illuminating. Moore is right. It seems hard to believe that the movie is actually a milk-toast (must I use a "que"?) version of the story, but, yeah, it does cut out the harder edges of the fascism and anarchism in the movie. And in doing so in the case of the latter, eliminates the need for V's important distinction of the difference between anarchy and chaos.

As I say, I'm not sanguine with the Bakuninist idea that the current society must be destroyed before we can rebuild a better world, but in the case of a totally fascist world, as presented in V, I can see it.

One of the funny ironies is that they show the decapitation of a fascist state. Where have we seen that before? If you're going to be wishy-washy about it, you wind up in Iraq.

The flaw in the Bush invasions, is that the rebuilding has been undertaken using collectivist, centralized control methods. I'd like to think that they were trying not to make the mistakes in privatizing that were made in the former Soviet Union, but simply retaining centralized control of Iraq's resources hasn't proven too efficient either. Any more than it did for the Soviet Union.

A Moral, by God!

Ooh! I wish I had more hay to make out of a title like that. If you think you can, go to it! Consider it an assignment.

No, I'm just basking in the afterglow of a Donald Hamilton novella published as a serial in Collier's in Dec. 1953-Jan. 54, called "Smoky Valley," which can be downloaded in four parts (pdf) for free here. I hope I'm not causing any trouble for Mr. Martinez by publicizing the fact in my small way here.

The moral may be found in this passage, which I don't think is too much of a spoiler:

He had destroyed a way of life, and he would have to build another in its place. He had no enthusiasm for the task, but he knew that it was his. A man could not meddle with human lives without taking responsibility for the result.

People online like to use "[snip]" to indicate what I'm doing here.

He said, "I know no gentle way of fighting, Miss Wilkison. I tried to make that clear at the start, but no one would lesten. I couldn't risk my men's lives by being choosy in my methods, or in the people I asked for help....

Whoops! A bit too much of a spoiler right here. Back to the moral.

"For the most part, Miss Wilkison," he said, "those are decent people who want no more than to be let alone. I'll have no trouble with them, or they with me, Miss Wilkison."

There's never been a clearer expression of The Cowboy Way.

Donald Hamilton taught me to speak "English, not gobbledygook." If I can convert one person into a fellow fan of his, I would feel that I have repaid him a debt I feel deeply. For instance, it would make me very happy if someone could tell me where that "gobbledygook" quote is from. And, yes, I doubt if Hamilton ever ended a sentence with a preposition. Somebody else taught me that. "The best writers of the English language have been ending sentences with prepositions since time immemorial." I quote that from memory, so it may be a little off. Too bad I don't remember who said that.

I think I'll lard up a post with pictures.

Not sure if Image Shack with appreciate me at all, but hey!

Here's a hint of the weather a week ago, on Easter:


Speaking of Easter, what do you make of this?


I think we're going to have to do some reprogramming.

Anyway, Thursday we get:


You can't see it, but the little one was holding that umbrella for good reason. It was snowing to beat the band.

Then Friday:

She wants me to fix the snowman, naturally. We did eventually find enough snow around the yard to stand him upright again, but...

Yesterday (No, that's not the same snowman):


Today I was out in shorts and a T-shirt sliding down the slide with Lina and teaching Rosie how to throw a football. I didn't bother with the camera though, sorry.

April in Minnesota.

I hear they got the real thing in Kansas yesterday, but we sure didn't. It must have something to do with the elevation there. We're at about 1000 ft here, they're about 4500 ft. It looks flat as a board from here to there. Go figure.

slug·ging percentage (slŭg'ĭng)

n. Baseball.
A player's total number of bases reached on hits divided by official times at bat, expressed as a three-digit decimal and used as a measure of batting power. Also called slugging average.

I can never keep that in my head.

Wait! Walks are completely excluded? So it's a completely different stat from on base percentage which includes walks and is divided by plate appearances rather than at-bats.

Ho ho! I love baseball!

Poetry that doesn't rhyme!?

What kind of a philistine are you?!

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

7. When I read the Book

WHEN I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man’s life?
And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life;
Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real life;
Only a few hints—a few diffused, faint clues and indirections,
I seek, for my own use, to trace out here.)

Oh, go "find" yourself!

People have been begging to know what my favorite song is.

The one I find myself singing or whistling the most often is:

Here Comes The Sun
(George Harrison)

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right
Little darlin' it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darlin' it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right
Little darlin' the smiles returning to their faces
Little darlin' it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes
Little darlin' I feel the ice is slowly meltin'
Little darlin' it seems like years since it's been clear
Here come the sun, here comes the sun
And I say it's all right
Here come the sun, here comes the sun
It's all right, it's all right

©1980 Southern Music/Northern Songs.

From the album "Flaming Schoolgirls"

Oh, whoops! I didn't notice I was on Joan Jett.com. Oh well, I like Joan Jett, too. Not as much as I like George Harrison. Though I'd probably refuse to sleep with George if he asked me to.

Especially these days.

I'm still reading Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism

The title bar links to it.

It's wonderful to read a summary of everything I've been studying for the past ten years. He treats the major figures of Libertarianism fairly and honestly, dealing in depth with the ideas and personalities of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard and Milton Friedman and also covers Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, Leonard Read, F.A. (Baldy) Harper and a ton of other interesting characters.

When I'm done with this book it'll take a special place on my shelf with Charles Sprading's Liberty and the Great Libertarians [see FEE's review here] and Jim Powell's The Triumph of Liberty, the books that show the growth and development of the ideals of individual freedom from ancient times to today. If I had Gibbon and Macauley and Rothbard's histories, they'd be up their too. (I read Macauley's History of England online, and people I respect push the others.)

Doherty may well be the best writer of the lot, though. He breaks up the heavy going philosophical and economic theory with an occasional, well-chosen anecdote.

Since Omni pushed me into it, I'll share a couple paragraphs from the book. The first describes the "prickliness" of libertarians, but isn't properly an anecdote. The second shows the principle in action (anecdotally).

P. 19:

Like obscenity, libertarianism is something I know when I see, and other libertarians feel the same way. Many a movement libertarian's favorite pastime is reading others out of the movement for various perceived ideological crimes. As Fred Smith, head of the libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, says, "When two libertarians find themselves agreeing on something, each knows the other has sold out." Libertarians are a contentious lot, in many cases delighting in staking ground and refusing to move on the farthest frontiers of applying the principles of noncoercion and nonaggression; resolutely finding the most outrageous and obnoxious position you could take that is theoretically compatible with libertarianism and challenging anyone to disagree. If they are not of the movement, then you can enjoy having shocked them with your purism and dedication to principle; if they are of the movement, you can gleefully read them out of it. Libertarians (not all libertarians, certainly, and not even many) have advocated on libertarian principle private ownership of nuclear weapons; the right of parents to starve their children; and that, if you fell off a building and grabbed onto a flagpole and didn't have the explicit permission of the person who owned the balcony, you ought to let yourself fall rather than violate their property rights by crawling to safety.

Actually, I suppose those illustrative vignettes are almost anecdotes. I think that passage of the book is destined to become the most famous.

The anecdote I had in mind to illustrate the claim made above isn't nearly as funny as the passage, so, since I closed the book on it accidently and opened on a better anecdote, I'll give you that one (it doesn't illustrate that point):

P. 255:

The Circle Bastiat boys [Murray Rothbard, Leonard Liggio, Ralph Raico and a couple others in the 1950s] were also pranksters who liked to disrupt other people's realities for their own amusement and occasionally for moments of libertarian Zen wisdom. When talking to young socialists, they enjoyed turning some of the socialists' predictable rhetoric back on them, for example, soberly explaining that socialism might have been all right in the primitive conditions of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. But in today's complex, modern machine era, surely they could see that we must have laissez-faire--it's just the irresistable motion of history, the inevitable wave of the future, no point in fighting it.

And they had more of the right of it in saying that, as well.

Doherty puts this breezy facility with words to work (so you don't have to) in his explanations of Rand's epistemology and Austrian economics, and his portrayal of Friedman brought me to read him back into the movement. (See page 300.) I think Doherty's like me, he loves Libertarianism and libertarians (not to mention Liberty), and hates hate; knows that we can't "all just get along," but prefers to present forgivable humans rather than demons to destroy. The real demons are bad policies, not the people who come up with them.

I just found myself compelled to say one of those

things that could only come out of the mouth of a parent: "No biting the xylophone!"

Go ahead! See if you can work that one into your next conversation! I'll bet you have to cheat.

Want to see my snowbanks?



And here's a picture I call Bunny and Moomoo:

Time Will Run Back, a couple excerpts

"But I'm still bothered, chief, and I'm sure most people are still bothered, by the huge profits made by a few enterprisers. Surely such huge profits aren't necessary in order to get them to produce the right goods!"

"Your trouble, Adams, and the trouble of these people you speak of, is that you and they still persist in looking only at the winners of the biggest prizes. You assume these to be typical; you forget about the offsetting losses of the losers. Let's look at a lottery. Let's say that the man who runs the lottery sells 1,000,000 goldgrams worth of tickets, and hands out 900,000 goldgrams in prizes, keeping 100,000 goldgrams for himself."

"Very reasonable of him," said Adams sarcastically.

"I'm not interested in him for the moment," continued Peter. "I'm talking about the subscribers to the lottery. Collectively they must lose money."

"Collectively they lose 100,000 goldgrams."

"Right, Adams. But each individual who subscribes dismisses this collective result from his mind, if it ever occurs to him. He subscribes precisely because he hopes that he, individually, will be a winner. He is not interested in the fate of the other subscribers. Now if the people outside of the lottery looked only at the winners of the huge prizes and thought these were typical, and forgot about the huge mass of losers, and if they began to talk as if these winnings were made at their - the outsiders' - expense, they would be talking the same way you are talking about profits under our new free enterprise system."

"But aren't these big profits, chief, at the expense of workers?"

"You will usually find, Adams, that the enterprisers who make the biggest profits pay the highest wages. If the profits of the successful enterprisers are at the 'expense' of anybody, I should say that they were mainly at the expense of the unsuccessful enterprisers who made the poor guesses and misdirected labor and capital....And why should you assume that the high profits of the successful enterprisers are any more at the expense of their own workers than at the expense of the owners of their borrowed capital, or of the consumers?"

Adams seemed lost in thought.

...
These two quotes come from different conversations. I felt the need to mention that. BTW, Adams is uncomfortable with calling Peter Uldanov, dictator of Wonworld, by his first name, as but he feels comfortable with "chief." Once you've read the book, you can point out how the previous sentence is inaccurate, but then you'll also know why. Shh.

"...Then it wouldn't be very accurate, chief, to call your new system a 'profit' system?"

"Certainly not in a declining or even in a stationary economy. It is of course, a profit-seeking system. But then I suppose there is a sense in which all of us are seeking 'profit' under any conceivable system. We speak. We speak of spending a 'profitable' evening when we mean merely that we have enjoyed ourselves. We say that reading a book has been 'profitable' when we mean that we have been instructed by it. 'Profitable' action of any sort is merely action that achieves, or partly achieves, the end we are seeking, regardless of whether that end is self-regarding or not.... I can't understand this unpopularity of 'profit' except as envy of the successful. Why should there be any more stigma attached to the word 'profit' than to the word 'wage' or salary'? Why should one form of income be considered less honorable than another? Why should the people who are afraid to take risks begrudge the rewards of those who have taken them successfully?"
...

I mentioned that you can download the book for free from Mises.org, and that I'd tell you how to buy a copy after the excerpts. Actually, I forgot that I can make the title into a link on this blog, so that's what I've done.

I don't suppose the boys would mind if I posted the blurb from the Mises Print on Demand Store:

A novel by Henry Hazlitt, first published in 1951 and revised in 1966. The plot line explores the economic theories of capitalism and socialism. It begins in a fully socialist society in which the new leader begins to rethink the economic basis of the system. Slowly, piece by piece, he dismantles central planning and replaces it with a market system. All the while, the characters engaged in a Socratic-style discussion about the implications of money, exchange, ownership, markets, entrepreneurship, and more. Hazlitt was well equipped to be a fiction writer. He was literary editor of The Nation for 3 years and the successor to H.L. Mencken at the American Mercury. This novel is an excellent introduction to the problems of economic systems, and can be a great benefit to young people who are curious about the meaning of economic analysis. It is, in fact, suitable for all ages.

There was one other bit that I thought was awesome. Let's see if I can find it...

Oh, here! From page 290-1 of the pdf:

"Precisely, Adams. We must absolutely forbid coercive monopoly. Perhaps that was the central evil of state socialism. The state's monopoly of power, and its monopoly of production. But we must do more than fight monopoly and encourage competition. We must draft our laws in such a way as to raise the level of competition. We must so draft them that a man who seeks his personal profit cannot attain that selfish goal except by promoting the public welfare."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"We must forbid him, Adams, to do anything that injures the public welfare. Therefore we must forbid theft, fraud, deceit and all misrepresentation of goods. We must illegalize every form of force violence, extortion, intimidation, coercion. We must compel men to keep their contractual promises, to pay their just obligations and to fulfill their contracts. The corollary to private property is private responsibility. We must not allow a private industry to thrive at the cost of killing or maiming its workers, or injuring consumers of its products, or menacing the public health, or polluting public streams, or polluting the air, or smudging whole communities with the residue of smoke. We must force every industry to pay the costs of the injury it inflicts on the person or property of others."

That's actually the earliest of the excerpts. Perhaps it would be better salesmanship on my part to place that one first. But I'm just too lazy.

How to exorcise a ghost

A taste of The Pickwick Papers:

'What strange things these are you tell us of, Sir,' said Mr. Pickwick, minutely scanning the old man's countenance, by the aid of his glasses.

'Strange!' said the little old man. 'Nonsense; you think them strange, because you know nothing about it. They are funny, but not uncommon.'

'Funny!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick involuntarily.

'Yes, funny, are they not?' replied the little old man, with a diabolical leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he continued--

'I knew another man--let me see--forty years ago now--who took an old, damp, rotten set of chambers, in one of the most ancient inns, that had been shut up and empty for years and years before. There were lots of old women's stories about the place, and it certainly was very far from being a cheerful one; but he was poor, and the rooms were cheap, and that would have been quite a sufficient reason for him, if they had been ten times worse than they really were. He was obliged to take some mouldering fixtures that were on the place, and, among the rest, was a great lumbering wooden press for papers, with large glass doors, and a green curtain inside; a pretty useless thing for him, for he had no papers to put in it; and as to his clothes, he carried them about with him, and that wasn't very hard work, either. Well, he had moved in all his furniture--it wasn't quite a truck- full--and had sprinkled it about the room, so as to make the four chairs look as much like a dozen as possible, and was sitting down before the fire at night, drinking the first glass of two gallons of whisky he had ordered on credit, wondering whether it would ever be paid for, and if so, in how many years' time, when his eyes encountered the glass doors of the wooden press. "Ah," says he, "if I hadn't been obliged to take that ugly article at the old broker's valuation, I might have got something comfortable for the money. I'll tell you what it is, old fellow," he said, speaking aloud to the press, having nothing else to speak to, "if it wouldn't cost more to break up your old carcass, than it would ever be worth afterward, I'd have a fire out of you in less than no time." He had hardly spoken the words, when a sound resembling a faint groan, appeared to issue from the interior of the case. It startled him at first, but thinking, on a moment's reflection, that it must be some young fellow in the next chamber, who had been dining out, he put his feet on the fender, and raised the poker to stir the fire. At that moment, the sound was repeated; and one of the glass doors slowly opening, disclosed a pale and emaciated figure in soiled and worn apparel, standing erect in the press. The figure was tall and thin, and the countenance expressive of care and anxiety; but there was something in the hue of the skin, and gaunt and unearthly appearance of the whole form, which no being of this world was ever seen to wear. "Who are you?" said the new tenant, turning very pale; poising the poker in his hand, however, and taking a very decent aim at the countenance of the figure. "Who are you?" "Don't throw that poker at me," replied the form; "if you hurled it with ever so sure an aim, it would pass through me, without resistance, and expend its force on the wood behind. I am a spirit." "And pray, what do you want here?" faltered the tenant. "In this room," replied the apparition, "my worldly ruin was worked, and I and my children beggared. In this press, the papers in a long, long suit, which accumulated for years, were deposited. In this room, when I had died of grief, and long-deferred hope, two wily harpies divided the wealth for which I had contested during a wretched existence, and of which, at last, not one farthing was left for my unhappy descendants. I terrified them from the spot, and since that day have prowled by night--the only period at which I can revisit the earth--about the scenes of my long-protracted misery. This apartment is mine: leave it to me." "If you insist upon making your appearance here," said the tenant, who had had time to collect his presence of mind during this prosy statement of the ghost's, "I shall give up possession with the greatest pleasure; but I should like to ask you one question, if you will allow me." "Say on," said the apparition sternly. "Well," said the tenant, "I don't apply the observation personally to you, because it is equally applicable to most of the ghosts I ever heard of; but it does appear to me somewhat inconsistent, that when you have an opportunity of visiting the fairest spots of earth--for I suppose space is nothing to you-- you should always return exactly to the very places where you have been most miserable." "Egad, that's very true; I never thought of that before," said the ghost. "You see, Sir," pursued the tenant, "this is a very uncomfortable room. From the appearance of that press, I should be disposed to say that it is not wholly free from bugs; and I really think you might find much more comfortable quarters: to say nothing of the climate of London, which is extremely disagreeable." "You are very right, Sir," said the ghost politely, "it never struck me till now; I'll try change of air directly"--and, in fact, he began to vanish as he spoke; his legs, indeed, had quite disappeared. "And if, Sir," said the tenant, calling after him, "if you WOULD have the goodness to suggest to the other ladies and gentlemen who are now engaged in haunting old empty houses, that they might be much more comfortable elsewhere, you will confer a very great benefit on society." "I will," replied the ghost; "we must be dull fellows-- very dull fellows, indeed; I can't imagine how we can have been so stupid." With these words, the spirit disappeared; and what is rather remarkable,' added the old man, with a shrewd look round the table, 'he never came back again.'

'That ain't bad, if it's true,' said the man in the Mosaic studs, lighting a fresh cigar.

Apparently Dickens hated paragraph breaks, but he was a hell of a storyteller anyway. And he provides practical advice, too.

Interesting article

Christianity and Modern Economics, by John B. Clark.

Click the first page link offered, and the "Next Page" button to continue reading.

I believe I'll try to translate these two paragraphs

from Mises' review of Rothbard's Man, Economy and State into non-technical English. Primarily for the benefit of my own understanding, and secondarily for the benefit of anyone else who happens by.

For the casual reader, Word gave me this summary which you might read instead and skip the two 'graphs:

Mathematical equations, says Rothbard, are appropriate and useful where there are constant quantitative relations among unmotivated variables; they are inappropriate in the field of conscious behavior. In a few brilliant lines he demolishes the main device of mathematical economists, viz., the fallacious idea of substituting the concepts of mutual determination and equilibrium for the allegedly outdated concept of cause and effect. The positivist slogan, "science is measurement," in no way refers to the sciences of human action; the claims of "econometrics" are vain.

Let the machine do what it can do, says I.

As long as I'm doing that, I see we've got a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level of 16.0. I'll try to knock it down to around 10.0.

The mathematical economist attempts to ignore the difference between physical phenomena, on the one hand, the emergence and consummation of which man is unable to see the operation of any final causes and which can be studied scientifically only because there prevails a perceptible regularity in their concatenation and succession, and praxeological phenomena, on the other hand, that lack such a regularity but are conceivable to the human mind as the outcomes of purposeful aiming at definite ends chosen. Mathematical equations, says Rothbard, are appropriate and useful where there are constant quantitative relations among unmotivated variables; they are inappropriate in the field of conscious behavior. In a few brilliant lines he demolishes the main device of mathematical economists, viz., the fallacious idea of substituting the concepts of mutual determination and equilibrium for the allegedly outdated concept of cause and effect. And he shows that the concepts of equilibrium and the evenly rotating economy do not refer to reality; although indispensable for any economic inquiry, they are merely auxiliary mental tools to aid us in the analysis of real action.

The equations of physics describe a process through time, while those of economics do not describe a process at all, but merely the final equilibrium point, a hypothetical situation that is outside of time and will never be reached in reality. Furthermore, they cannot say anything about the path by which the economy moves in the direction of the final equilibrium position. As there are no constant relations between any of the elements which the science of action studies, there is no measurement possible and all numerical data available have merely an historical character; they belong to economic history and not to economics as such. The positivist slogan, "science is measurement," in no way refers to the sciences of human action; the claims of "econometrics" are vain.

The first thing I need to do is chop up these long, Germanic sentences. Then do something about the vocab...

Philistine Philosophy from Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Actually, it's bourgeois philosophy, but I like the aliteration. Sorry I let this blog sit so long. This is from Hoppe's introduction to Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty (which is also available online here):

Rothbard sought and found support for his contention regarding the possibility of a rational ethic and the reintegration of ethics and economics based on the notion of private property in the works of the late Scholastics and, in their footsteps, such "modern" natural-rights theorists as Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke. Building upon their work, in The Ethics of Liberty Rothbard gives the following answer to the question of what I am justified doing here and now: every person owns his own physical body as well as all nature-given goods which he puts to use with the help of his body before anyone else does; this ownership implies his right to employ these resources as one sees fit so long as one does not thereby uninvitedly change the physical integrity of another's property or delimit another's control over it without his consent. In particular, once a good has been first appropriated or homesteaded by "mixing one's labor" with it (Locke's phrase), then ownership of it can only be acquired by means of a voluntary (contractual) transfer of its property title from a previous to a later owner. These rights are absolute. Any infringement on them is subject to lawful prosecution by the victim of this infringement or his agent, and is actionable in accordance with the principles of strict liability and the proportionality of punishment.

It's much later, but if I add this things will be clearer:

Inspired in particular by the nineteenth-century American anarchist political theorists Lysander Spooner and Benjamin Tucker and the Belgian economist Gustave de Molinari, from the outset Rothbard's anarchism took it for granted that there will always be murderers, thieves, thugs, con artists, etc., and that life in society would be impossible if they were not punished by physical force. As a reflection of this fundamental realism — anti-utopianism — of his private-property anarchism, Rothbard, unlike most contemporary political philosophers, accorded central importance to the subject of punishment. For him, private property and the right to physical defense were inseparable. No one can be said to be the owner of something if he is not permitted to defend his property by physical violence against invaders and invasions. "Would," Rothbard asked, "somebody be allowed to 'take the law into his own hands'? Would the victim, or a friend of the victim, be allowed to exact justice personally on the criminal?" and he answered, "of course, Yes, since all rights of punishment derive from the victim's right of self-defense" (p. 90). Hence, the question is not whether or not evil and aggression exist, but how to deal with its existence justly and efficiently, and it is only in the answer to this question that Rothbard reaches conclusions which qualify him as an anarchist.

The classical liberal answer, from the American Declaration of Independence to Mises, was to assign the indispensable task of protecting life, liberty, and property to government as its sole function. Rothbard rejected this conclusion as a non sequitur (if government was defined by its power to tax and ultimate decision-making [territorial monopoly of jurisdiction]). Private-property ownership, as the result of acts of original appropriation, production, or exchange from prior to later owner, implies the owner's right to exclusive jurisdiction regarding his property. In fact, it is the very purpose of private property to establish physically separate domains of exclusive jurisdiction (so as to avoid possible conflicts concerning the use of scarce resources). No private-property owner can possibly surrender his right to ultimate jurisdiction over and physical defense of his property to someone else — unless he sold or otherwise transferred his property (in which case someone else would have exclusive jurisdiction over it).

There have been some things missing from the Classical Liberal answers I've been studying. This book promises to provide them.

But I think I'll have to stop quoting from Mr. Hoppe's brilliant summation, lest I tread upon his copyright. The link is the title bar.

I urge you to read it.

I'm just here to destroy some comment spam.

Don't mind me.

The Gospel According to Clayton Makepeace

I’m amazed that so many folks have a hard time admitting they like money. I love money. In fact, I believe the guy who first translated I Timothy 6:10 needed glasses: I’m sure it should have read, “The LACK of money is the root of all evil.”

If money is evil, time is evil … freedom is evil … your very life is evil. Because all money is, is a physical manifestation of time.

You’ve got two choices of how to spend each day. You can spend it doing what you want to do, or doing what someone else – a client, for example – wants you to do.

So when you work, you’re selling your scarcest resource: Chunks of your life. You only have so many minutes on this planet and you’ve agreed to trade some of them in return for money.

Now, you can sell your life for peanuts if you want. Me? I’m looking for the highest bidder. That means making sure every minute I spend working brings me the maximum number of simoleans possible.

That lets me provide a great life for my wife, kids and grandkids. It lets me donate to charity. It lets me BUY BACK chunks of my life later on and have the freedom to do whatever I please. It means when I’m 96 years old and pooping in a diaper, I won’t be a burden to anyone.

Awesome! Genius!

Oh, before anybody goes off on me, let me include his next paragraph:

So my goal list has only one item on it: Make more money. So long as I’m not violating a personal ethic, or a law, or a regulation, or hurting someone else, I’m going for the moolah.

Kinda reminds me of "...And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

I'm really looking forward to that lightening bolt, aren't I?

I just turned Comment Moderation back on.

I was getting a flood of spam comments. I won't require you to verify that you're real, I'll do that myself. The system will notify me when you've commented so I'll get to it quickly.

Apparently I can't go back and delete those comments, so if anybody needs any Viagra there's a link around here somewhere for you.

I just finished reading Little Men to my daughter.

It's definitely bourgeois, but if anyone calls it philistinish, why I'll... I'll... Well, I don't know what.

Actually, I suppose the Avant Garde would call it philistinish. It's the height of Victorian literature.

My daughter could read Alcott's books herself, of course, but I think we get much more out of it this way.

If you want to inculcate good family values in your children, you can't do better than read Luisa May Alcott to them. She does a wonderful job of making old-fashioned morals interesting and entertaining.

This passage, which loses its poignancy by being ripped from its context, almost makes me question Ethical Egoism (though, I assure you, I could reinterpret things to suit my favored system). It's an impromptu eulogy given for a beloved character:

"Let me tell you a little about John Brooke, and you will see why men honor him, and why he was satisfied to be good rather than rich or famous. He simply did his duty in all things, and did it so cheerfully, so faithfully, that it kept him patient and brave, and happy through poverty and loneliness and years of hard work. He was a good son, and gave up his own plans to stay and live with his mother while she needed him. He was a good friend, and taught Laurie much beside his Greek and Latin, did it unconsciously, perhaps, by showing him an example of an upright man. He was a faithful servant, and made himself so valuable to those who employed him that they will find it hard to fill his place. He was a good husband and father, so tender, wise, and thoughtful, that Laurie and I learned much of him, and only knew how well he loved his family, when we discovered all he had done for them, unsuspected and unassisted."

Mr. Bhaer stopped a minute, and the boys sat like statues in the moonlight until he went on again, in a subdued, but earnest voice: "As he lay dying, I said to him, 'Have no care for Meg and the little ones; I will see that they never want.' Then he smiled and pressed my hand, and answered, in his cheerful way, 'No need of that; I have cared for them.' And so he had, for when we looked among his papers, all was in order, not a debt remained; and safely put away was enough to keep Meg comfortable and independent. Then we knew why he had lived so plainly, denied himself so many pleasures, except that of charity, and worked so hard that I fear he shortened his good life. He never asked help for himself, though often for others, but bore his own burden and worked out his own task bravely and quietly. No one can say a word of complaint against him, so just and generous and kind was he; and now, when he is gone, all find so much to love and praise and honor, that I am proud to have been his friend, and would rather leave my children the legacy he leaves his than the largest fortune ever made. Yes! Simple, generous goodness is the best capital to found the business of this life upon. It lasts when fame and money fail, and is the only riches we can take out of this world with us. Remember that, my boys; and if you want to earn respect and confidence and love follow in the footsteps of John Brooke."

This suffers terribly from the lack of context and looks like heavy-handed moralism, but is there anybody who could condemn the way this man led his life? It's definitely the sort of thing I'd tell my kids about a friend in the same situation. I hope not to have to, I know a couple guys who live by their principles to the same degree.

Come to think of it, they're both my brothers-in-law, as Mr. Brooke was to Father Bhaer, the eulogist here.

And I had a hand in fixing both of them up with my sisters. So I have one thing to be proud of, at least. (Though the guy I directly fixed up with the younger sister was quite the diamond-in-the-rough when I did it.)

[I still need to find a guy for the third sister. But I didn't do the first two on purpose, so I can't let that weigh on me or the magic won't work.]

Anyway, Ms. Alcott is every bit as engaging a storyteller as the other authors we've read, L.M. Montgomery, C.S. Lewis, J.K.Rowling [It's the initial thing, must be! We'll have to read J.R.R. Tolkien next.], Rose Wilder Lane and her mother Laura Ingalls Wilder (Roger MacBride has convinced me that Laura didn't do it alone).

Basic Knowledge of Knowledge

All abstract knowledge of reality begins with our only direct point of contact with reality: perceptual observation. For example, the first concepts formed by a child are those formed directly from perceptual data; they are what philosopher Ayn Rand, the first philosopher to fully identify the hierarchical nature of knowledge, called “first-level concepts.” A child looks out at the world, perceives entities, and integrates his perceptions into these first-level concepts—concepts such as “cat,” “dog,” and “horse.”

Using these first-level concepts, a child is able to form simple generalizations such as “cats meow” or “dogs bark.” From these early concepts and generalizations, and with further observation, he is then able to form more abstract concepts (concepts further removed from the perceptual level) and to make more abstract generalizations. For example, noting the essential similarities between cats, dogs, and horses, he is able to form the concept “animal.” He does not look at the world and see “animals”; he looks and sees cats and dogs and the like—from which observations he is able to form the corresponding first-level concepts. Then, having formed these abstractions, he is able to form the broader abstraction of “animal.” Eventually, having made countless observations, and having grasped a complex range of concepts and relationships on various levels of abstraction, he is able to form generalizations such as: “All animals are mortal.”

A concept or generalization is more or less abstract according to its cognitive distance from the perceptual level. Concepts and generalization exist in a hierarchy, from the perceptual level to the highest level abstractions.

Highly abstract concepts presuppose a very long chain of prior conceptualizations. This is why, for example, so much knowledge must be gained for students to learn calculus.

There's more and more to come from her on this. The title bar is a link, btw.

All right, Omni. You win.

Comments are now reopened to the general public.

Spammers will be deleted.

Mundanity of mundanities!

All is mundanity!

I spent the day picking up a shed from Menard's. Then I had to make a perfectly level spot to put it in. As the sun was setting I was screwing in the last screws in the floor.

Oh, no! That's just the first step. Now I have to put the shed on top of it.

I got my exercise loading the shed into the truck alone, hauling it from the truck to the back yard alone, loading 30 50# (approx. 44 KG* for my friends overseas) bags of gravel into my truck back at the store - this time I had help (funny, they promised to help with the shed and no one showed up, while for the gravel nobody promised me anything and there they were), and I hauled that from the truck to the back of the back yard. Alone again. (Naturally).

After that it was just nitpicky stuff - fitting the pieces together, and mastering the art of screwing their cheap-@$$ screws in without breaking them. I can't claim to be there yet.

They claim that one man can put up the shed in four hours. They neglected to mention any of what I spent my whole day doing.

My back is killing me.

*Correction in comments.

Wisdom for entrepreneurs from Mises and Masterson

Mises quote from The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, an exerpt of which may be found on the Mises Blog:

...[T]he human mind has always been deluded by the image of an unchangeable existence. The avowed aim of all utopian movements is to put an end to history and to establish a final and permanent calm.

The psychological reasons for this tendency are obvious. Every change alters the external conditions of life and well-being and forces people to adjust themselves anew to the modification of their environments. It hurts vested interests and threatens traditional ways of production and consumption. It annoys all those who are intellectually inert and shrink from revising their modes of thinking.

Conservatism is contrary to the very nature of human acting.
...
The moral corruption, the licentiousness and the intellectual sterility of a class of lewd would-be authors and artists is the ransom mankind must pay lest the creative pioneers be prevented from accomplishing their work. Freedom must be granted to all, even to base people, lest the few who can use it for the benefit of mankind be hindered.

Amen, brother.

And Michael Masterson, from his ETR article, "My Door Is Open, But Nobody's Coming In," "Yes, you can succeed by doing it alone ... but why bother?"

Ah! C****! I had something important to say,

but I just had to go run and fish the toddler out of the toilet. Of course, my contribution was laughter. Next time remind me to grab the camera.

She forgot to ask someone to put the baby seat on the potty.

Traumatized for life, I'm sure.

I'll just put this here.

You Have a Phlegmatic Temperament

Mild mannered and laid back, you take life at a slow pace. You are very consistent - both in emotions and actions. You tend to absorb set backs easily. You are cool and collected. It is difficult to offend you. You can remain composed and unemotional. You are a great friend and lover. You don't demand much of others. While you are quiet, you have a subtle wit that your friends know well. At your worst, you are lazy and unwilling to work at anything. You often get stuck in a rut, without aspirations or dreams. You can get too dependent on others, setting yourself up for abandonment.

What Temperment Are You?

I took this test twice. I swear I gave the same answers both times, but I got Melancholic the first time. I like that one better.

Thanks, Blue.

Oh yeah! Compare my calves to previous pix.

In Which I Earn My Title

Here's some free advice I got in the Pathway to Prosperity eCourse [don't forget the link, Al]:

When we contemplate the fact that the universe is abounding in all good things, material as well as spiritual, and compare it with man's blind eagerness to secure a few gold coins, or a few acres of dirt, it is then that we realize how dark and ignorant selfishness is; it is then that we know that self-seeking is self-destruction.

Nature gives all, without reservation, and loses nothing; man, grasping all, loses everything.

Yeah, so we can all just lie down on the lawn and let nature take its course.

Look, I don't need to be inspired to sit around mooning all day. I'm way too given to that already. More than anybody I know! [Except my sister, she's worse than me.] I need to be convinced that it's worth my while to get off my damn duff and do some damn work!

I already know the pathway to internal peace, I found that decades ago: climb a tree in the woods and listen to the birds sing. First rule of Peace is "shut up."

Now, let me deal with the strawman, "man's blind eagerness to secure a few gold coins, or a few acres of dirt."

A few acres of dirt? How about a few acres of wheat, or strawberries, flowers or apple trees? Human eyes see the prize. Dirt is more than just dirt. And so is money more than dirt.

I forget who said it, but someone advised a young man, many years ago, to strive to be a millionaire, not just for the sake of aquiring money, but for the virtues it would teach him. Let me try to list them: patience, persuasion, cooperation, prudence in saving and investing, judging character in potential partners. Hard work. Honesty.

Even Mafia dons exercise these virtues more than their opposite vices. If they didn't they would be ousted (and/or killed) and replaced.

Butterflies, Birds, Flowers, Rainbows and Hot-Air Balloons

My top five favorite things to look at. The order varies moment to moment.

Butterflies
Birds
Flowers
Rainbows
Hot-Air Balloons

I also like knots (oddly enough, they don't teach you how to tie a net, which is what I was looking for).

I'm also "right partial" to babies and good-lookin' women, but those go without saying. Try not to treat the latter like the former. Full grown (and even half-grown) women don't let just anyone check their diapers, for instance.

WOW!! Look at this!!

Treasure Island was my favorite book when I was a young teen. I've said that my youth was spent in a tree (one tree or other, mostly either a white pine or an oak) out in the woods. The fact is, I brought along with me the fabulous adventure stories of Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain.

Although, I have to admit, I've never gotten beyond my beloved Treasure Island, as far as Stevenson is concerned. When I think about it, I have trouble believing that anything else matters. We own Kidknapped, but I haven't read it.

AM1500 just got the Twins for next year. Dave Thompson is talking about his favorite Twins memories.

I have to agree with him... Hell, I'm happy to announce that he agrees with me, that Jack Morris' performance in the 7th game of the '91 World Series is the greatest sports performance that I will ever witness.

God bless Jack Morris!

Guess who said, "What the Hell! It's only a game!" Hint: that's in reference to the aformentioned Game 7. He emphasized and repeated it because the reporters didn't seem to get it, but I agree with him that it was funny.