Is-Ought GAP

New Website & Blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:02:00 +0000

Attention all my readers and subscribers - assuming I still have any after not posting for so long, heh :D - I have a new website and a new blog. The website url is still the same (www.veritasnoctis.net), though I've switched to using WordPress as my publishing platform. I'm still in the process of transferring content over and updating it. I'm now hosting my own blog though, so I will no longer be updating this one. All posts and comments have been copied over to it. The url for my new blog is www.veritasnoctis.net/blog. I recently set up Feedburner for it and I'm not sure if it's kicked in yet or working properly so please let me know if you have any problems and keep in mind that the rss feed may change in the near future.

Oughtism and Its Cure

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Fri, 29 May 2009 21:06:00 +0000

I decided to rename my blog "Is-Ought GAP: The Cure for Oughtism," simultaneously turning separate eristic jokes by Stephan Kinsella and another libertarian on their heads.*

The following are some excerpts from two sections of one chapter of Veatch's For an Ontology of Morals: A Critique of Contemporary Ethical Theory. Veatch calls the mentality he describes the proofreader's mentality because it allows him to make good use of an analogy (see below), but I think "scientistic mentality" is more appropriate and informative.

Veatch starts with the following quotation from Hume:

But can there be any difficulty in proving, that vice and virtue are not matters of fact,. . . Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object.

After quoting from the Trial of Socrates, and before that from Pride and Prejudice, as illustrations:

Now surely no one can consider this account which Socrates gives of his own behavior without recognizing that here was indeed a man of no ordinary worth - brave, but without being in the least ostentatious about it; and with a real sense of justice, from which he was not to be deterred by either threats or blandishments, be they from the Left or from the Right. How then could Hume possibly maintain that you have but to consider a man like Socrates, admitted to be virtuous, to examine his character and behavior in all lights, and you will find that his virtue entirely escapes you? Could it be that Hume was somehow strangely value-blind, or, perhaps, virtue-blind? Or must we not rather explain it by saying that when Hume claimed simply to look at the facts and to find no values in them, he was but displaying what we might call a sort of proofreader's mentality? It's as if he had so trained himself as to be able to read letters, words, and sentences, but without heeding the sense or meaning of what is being said at all. Not that such sense and meaning are not there; instead, it's just that the proofreader in reading an author has no particular eye for the sense, but only for the typographical errors. And so analogously, when Hume insists that, in examining an action admitted to be virtuous or vicious, such virtue and vice entirely escape him, this surely betokens no more than that Hume has no eye for values, not that such values are not really there in the facts at all.

And here's part of Veatch's explanation for the mentality (although something is being lost by my not quoting the entire section dealing with the explanation, or indeed the entire book):

The explanation is not far to seek, given the particular ontological account of nature and character of objects that we have here been putting forward. For the so-called properties of an object, in addition to being just what they are as such, are also actualities of prior potentialities in the object. Indeed, in this latter respect, they even have the character of "perfections" answering to that appetitus for completion and fulfillment that any potentiality simply is. Any particular property, 'a', in addition to being just itself, namely, 'a', is at the same time something desireable, when considered in its relation to the appetitus of a prior potentiality. But so also is it something intelligible when considered in relation to a possible knower or knowers. And no less is it an effect when considered in relation to the causes that produced it. Accordingly, all of these further features of 'a' that are, as it were, supervenient and characterize 'a', just insofar as it stands in relation to other things - to causes, to prior potentialities, to knowers, etc. - may, of course, be abstracted from 'a' so that 'a' may be considered just in itself.

Nevertheless, the mere fact that something may thus be considered in abstraction from certain of the features that pertain to it by no means implies that that thing can actually exist in abstraction from such supervenient aspects, or even that one can fail to see that the thing has these, the minute the thing is considered not in abstraction but in its concreteness. Right here, then, would appear to be the source of Hume's mistake and of his unfortunate blindness. For the mere fact that objective facts can be viewed in abstraction from the values and disvalues that pertain to them certainly does not mean either that they must be so viewed or that values and disvalues are not factual and objective.

(It should not be necessary to point out but will be pointed out anyway that Veatch does not take this to be a one-shot, knock-down argument against Hume; he has others. And these are, of course, merely excerpts from the full argument.)

This disorder, no offense to all those poor deficient souls who suffer from it, might also be called "oughtism" as a play on words with the disorder "autism."** Accordingly, "oughtism" may be defined as "a brain development, or just a mental, disorder characterized by an impaired ability to recognize and understand natural values/norms/oughts."

The cure for oughtism lies in developing an understanding of (neo-)Aristotelian philosophy. I may go into more detail on these issues in a later blogpost, but this should suffice to explain the blog title change. However, you are invited to read chapter 4 of my dissertation and the relevant sources I cite therein.

*No public links are available for the two jokes. Sorry.

**Hat tip to Jon Irenicus of the Mises.com forum for this twist on the "oughtism" joke. It's a far more fitting meaning than "belief in the existence of oughts" I think. :D

The US Post Office has got to go

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:42:00 +0000

I got a package in today. For the second time in two weeks, the third time since we've lived in Nebraska, and the fourth time I can remember while living in an apartment, the postman did not even bother making a first attempt at delivering the package to my door. I managed to get to the post office in time to pick up the package, barely. When I complained, for the second time in two weeks, some older lady working in the next stall mentioned that they don't deliver to apartments. WTF!?! They don't deliver packages - or is it just packages requiring signatures (as my three in NE have been) - to apartments? Since when? I remarked: "Why do you even bother putting the package on the truck then?" But what else could I do? They're a government monopoly. So with that I just took my package and left. Wasted half an hour of my day because they can't deliver to your door and make more than one attempt like the private companies. Now they want to take an extra day off from work and they're raising rates again in a couple weeks.

Return of the Website

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 02:08:00 +0000

My website is back up and running, now on DreamHost. Time to play around with WordPress.

Website Update

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:36:00 +0000

My website will be down for a while - hopefully not more than a day or two - while I switch hosts from DirectNIC to Dreamhost. After the transfer, I'm looking to move my blog, and maybe my website too, to WordPress, on my own hosted domain. I'd like my blog and website to be as integrated as possible, with the same theme, but with the website pages not looking tooooo blogy. Does anyone know of a good, clean theme that does that? David Louis Edelman's does it perfectly, although I might want a theme that has three columns and makes more complete use of the left and right margins. I don't have mad web design skills, so at best I can only muddle through minor tweaking of html and css code in the near future.

My dissertation is completed, approved and now online

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:01:00 +0000

Well, I finally finished my dissertation and now it's available online for anyone to read.

I actually defended it on December 2nd. My committee approved it under the condition that I make some revisions, which is not an unusual occurrence. They mainly wanted me to flesh out and clarify some things in chapters five and nine. So after some procrastination (a bad habit) over the holidays I got around to doing the revisions. My dissertation advisor quickly approved the revisions and then, for the final step, I mailed off a hard copy to the graduate school editor for approval of formatting and such. She approved my explicitly anti-statist dissertation for uploading to LSU's database on coronation day. :o) I'll be graduating in May.

And so, without further ado, you can download a pdf copy of my dissertation from my website (direct link) or LSU's Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Library.

Abstract

My dissertation builds on the recent work of Douglas Rasmussen, Douglas Den Uyl and Roderick Long in developing an Aristotelian liberalism. It is argued that a neo-Aristotelian form of liberalism has a sounder foundation than others and has the resources to answer traditional left-liberal, postmodern, communitarian and conservative challenges by avoiding certain Enlightenment pitfalls: the charges of atomism, an a-historical and a-contextual view of human nature, license, excessive normative neutrality, the impoverishment of ethics and the trivialization of rights. An Aristotelian theory of virtue ethics and natural rights is developed that allows for a robust conception of the good while fully protecting individual liberty and pluralism. It is further argued that there is an excessive focus on what the State can and should do for us; politics is reconceived as discourse and deliberation between equals in joint pursuit of eudaimonia (flourishing, well-being, happiness) and its focus is shifted to what we as members of society can and should do for ourselves and each other.

TOC

Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Eudaimonia and the Right to Liberty: Rights as Metanormative Principles
Chapter Three: Eudaimonia, Virtue and the Right to Liberty: Rights as Both Metanormative Principles and Interpersonal Normative Principles
Chapter Four: Eudaimonia and the Basic Goods and Virtues
Chapter Five: Liberal and Communitarian Conceptions of Society
Chapter Six: The New Left and Participatory Democracy
Chapter Seven: Immanent Politics and the Pursuit of Eudaimonia
Chapter Eight: Free Markets and Free Enterprise: Their Ethical and Cultural Principles and Foundations
Chapter Nine: Conclusion

My two master's theses are also available online:

M.A. Thesis in Philosophy (December 2006)

"Aristotelian-Liberal Autonomy" (It can also be found at LSU's Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Library.)

M.A. Thesis in Political Science (August 2004)

"Tyranny, Natural Law, and Secession" (My manifesto!...er, I mean Master's Thesis. It's long as theses go, but virtually guaranteed to blow your socks off unless you are already a radical libertarian. Can be found at LSU's Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Library.)

The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:12:00 +0000

My results:

Modern, Cool Nerd

52% Nerd, 52% Geek, 13% Dork
For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!

What are you?

John C. Wright's Austrian Anaylsis of the Financial Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 20:34:00 +0000

At least one science fiction author has a pretty sound grasp of economic theory and history, and of the current financial crisis.

Ludwig von Mises over half a century ago proved, beyond a shadow of doubt, that a little intervention in one sector of the economy creates an incentive for a lot of intervention in ever larger sections of the economy; and the government must forswear either the goals it has set as policy or the means selected to pursue them to resist, if ever, that incentive, and suffer the humiliation and financial loss of reversing long-standing policy. (A nice summary of his argument can be read here: http://mises.org/midroad.asp. A complete study of the underlying logic and epistemology can be read here: http://mises.org/resources/3250.)

Read the rest. He even mentions Bastiat.

There are two things he says that jumped out at me that I must disagree with, however.

Sadly, one cannot run a free market republic in a land where the citizens are ignorant of the basic scientific laws governing the market relations.

I agree wholeheartedly with this, except for the part about running a republic. We don't need anyone to be running any kind of republic. The state itself is an evil. We shouldn't settle for a free market republic. And no free market republic could ever remain free market for long anyway.

The other point of disagreement is that he seems to blame the financial crisis on the wealth-transferring "Dems," as in Democrats I assume, but the Republicans are guilty of wealth transfer from Main Street to Wall Street too. Precious few Republican politicians give more than lip service to the free market. McCain is no small government, free market man.

Pimp My Firefox: My Firefox Extensions and Setup

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:44:00 +0000

I've received a couple of requests for a list of the extensions that I use. See below for the list, a brief description of each, and brief commentary on how or why I used them.

My monitor isn't large or wide-screen so screen real estate is very important. I don't like to have extra toolbars or sidebars, especially the ones you can't toggle open and closed with a single button click. In addition to screen real estate methods I describe below, I save space on my browser by not using the following toolbar buttons: history, home, new tab, new window, cut, copy, paste. These can all be replaced by learning the easy keyboard shortcuts. I also have my toolbars set for small icons with no text. I do use the Bookmarks Toolbar for my favorite links.

Enabled Extensions: [62]

Adblock Filterset.G Updater 0.3.1.3 - "Synchronizes Adblock with Filterset.G."
Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5 - "Ads were yesterday!" Since I don't fiddle with it much and the status bar button has all the functionality I need, I just use it and not the toolbar button.
Add Bookmark Here ² 3.0.20080915 - "Add a menuitem "Add Bookmark Here..." to Bookmarks Menu."
Better Flickr 0.3 - "A compilation of the best Greasemonkey user scripts for Flickr. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information."
Better GCal 0.3 - "Enhances Google Calendar with a compilation of user scripts and styles. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information."
Better Gmail 2 0.6.1 - "Enhances Gmail with a compilation of user scripts and styles. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information."
Better GReader 0.4 - "Enhances Google Reader with a compilation of user scripts and styles."
Better YouTube 0.4.3 - "A compilation of useful Greasemonkey user scripts for YouTube. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information."
BugMeNot 2.0 - "Bypass compulsory web registration with the context menu via www.bugmenot.com." Accessed via the context menu.
Clippings 3.0.1 - "Save frequently-entered text for pasting later." I access it through a single small button on the right side of my status bar.
CoLT 2.4.1 - "Adds a Copy Link Text item to the browser's context menu."
Compact Menu 2 2.2.0 - "Duplicates the menubar on the toolbar as a menu of menus." What I did with this was replace all the text menus on the top left of the browser with a single button. I rarely use most of them anyway, so this saves a lot of space. If I need to access them, I just click on the button and a drop-down menu appears.
Copy Link Name 1.2.6 - "Copies the name (source anchor) of a link." Option accessed via the context menu.
Ctrl-Tab 0.19.3 - "Ctrl+Tab navigation for tabs similar to Alt+Tab on various operating systems. Shift+Ctrl+A / Shift+Cmd+A shows all tabs in a grid." Kind of like Firefox Showcase but better.
Custom Toolbar Buttons 0.5.0.5 - The regular Toolbar Buttons extension comes with far more than I need, but the creator also has an extension creating utility on his website that allows you make a custom extension with only the buttons you want. The main ones I absolutely have to have are buttons for directly opening my Profile folder, opening the Options window, the Extension window, and Bookmarks. I put these in the top left right next to the Compact Menu button.
CustomizeGoogle 0.75 - "Enhance Google search results and remove ads and spam."
Daily Dilbert 2.3 - "Shows Dilbert strip of the day." Accessed by a little button on the status bar.
Download Manager Tweak 0.7.2 - "A modification of the Firefox download manager that changes its appearance and allows it to be opened in a separate window, a new tab, or the sidebar." I have mine set to open the download window in a tab and automatically close it when the download is finished.
DownloadHelper 3.2.2 - "Download videos and images from many sites." Easy to use button on my top toolbar.
Extended Copy Menu 1.5 - "Provides the option to copy selection as plain text or html." The options show up in the context menu.
FireFTP 1.0.2 - "FTP Client for Mozilla Firefox." Toggled by a toolbar button.
Fission 1.0 - "Progress bar in the address bar (Safari style)." Allows me to just watch the address bar instead of the status bar for the progress meter of a loading page. I have it set to show destination urls when I mouse-over them too, so that's another thing I don't have to look down at the status bar for.
Forecastfox l10n 0.7.2008050801 - "Get international weather forecasts from weather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable extension." I have it at the far left side of my status bar, icons only except for current conditions.
FoxNotes 2.7.8 - "A Handy Note Taker." Nice utility. Easy access through a button on my top toolbar. I've got a lot of stuff on it. If I ever transfer it all over to Google Notebook though I might use Google Notebook exclusively.
GButts 1.5.8 - "Display all of your Google Services as buttons just next to your "Home" button or anywhere you like it!" You can pick and choose which buttons to display. I've got quite a few on my top toolbar above the toolbar that contains the address bar.
Gmail Notifier 0.6.3.8 - "A notifier for Gmail accounts." Very functional button. I keep it just to the left of my GButts toolbar, and to the right (with flexible spacing) of my Compact Menu and other menu buttons.
Google Calendar Notifier 2.5.3 - "This extension provides robust notifications and display of your Google Calendars for today, as well as showing any upcoming all day events for tomorrow." This one I keep on the right side of the status bar.
Google Gears 0.4.15.0 - "These are the gears that power the tubes! :-)"
Google Notebook 1.0.0.22 - "Allows notetaking while browsing." Adds nice in-browser functionality. Clicking on the button, which I keep on the right side of my status bar pops up an unobtrusive window that you can use to drag stuff to or edit your notes and manage your notebooks.
Greasemonkey 0.8.20080609.0 - "A User Script Manager for Firefox." Very versatle extension. Only takes up a small button on the right side of my status bar. Click to turn on or off. Right-click for options.
IE Tab 1.5.20080823 - "Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox." I keep this button just to the left of my address bar and to the right of the stop/reload button.
IE View Lite 1.3.3 - "Cut down version of IE View by Paul Roub." For when I want to actually open a page in IE rather than in IE within Firefox. I keep it between the IE Tab button and the address bar.
Image Zoom 0.3.1 - "Adds zoom functionality for images."
KeyScrambler 2.2.0 - "KeyScrambler protects you against keyloggers." Works automatically. Doesn't require any buttons.
Link Alert 0.8.2.1 - "Changes the cursor to indicate the target of a link." Better than Tarket Alert, in my opinion, because it doesn't clutter up webpages with icons indicating the nature of the target url. Instead, icons appear next to your curser when you mouse over them.
Linkification 1.3.5 - "Converts text links into genuine, clickable links."
Menu Editor 1.2.6 - "Customize application menus." Good for cleaning up messy menus, putting what you want where you want it.
MinimizeToTray 0.0.1.2006102615+ - "Minimizes Mozilla windows into the system tray."
MR Tech Toolkit (formerly Local Install) 6.0.1 - "MR Tech Toolkit power tools for all users. (en-US)" Very useful extension. I used it to create this extension list. It can also suppress version checking for extensions, so it can force (although not always without complications) compatibility of extensions that haven't been updated yet for the current version of Firefox or its nightly builds. It does other useful stuff too.
NoScript 1.8.1.3 - "Extra protection for your Firefox: NoScript allows JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site). This whitelist based pre-emptive blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even unknown!) with no loss of functionality… Experts will agree: Firefox is really safer with NoScript :-)" Iirc, the button for the upper toolbars has more functionality than the status bar button, plus I spend more time at the top of my browser than the bottom, so I use the toolbar button and suppress the status bar button.
Open IT Online 1.2.1 - "Open IT Online allows you to open your files online without the need of any software to be installed."
Password Exporter 1.1 - "Export and import your saved passwords." Useful, especially in conjunction with password managers like KeePass.
Print/Print Preview 0.6 - "Replace the default "Print" button with the Mozilla Suite style "Print/Print Preview" toolbar button/menu, with additional "Page setup" option. Adds new options to context menu as well." Get more functionality for less space.
Read it Later 0.9821 - "Save pages to read later, then bookmark." Adds a little checkmark within the address bar for marking items to be read later. Also adds a functional button on the toolbar; I keep it between the address bar and search bar.
Refractor for Prism 0.2.1 - "Create Prism applications directly in Firefox." I've been using Chrome to create desktop apps for Google webapps like Gmail, so I'm not sure if I'll be keeping this. It does the same thing though and if you're not a Chrome user, you might find it useful.
Remember The Milk for Gmail 1.0.3 - "Task management goodness." Enhances Gmail with RTM.
Screen grab! 0.95 - "Saves a web-page as an image." I prefer this to Fireshot. It's a much smaller extension because it lacks Fireshot's in-browser editing features (but you can just use an external image editor like GIMP) and because basic Fireshot is freeware but it comes with the Pro version, which you have to pay for, built in. I keep the button for it on the right side of my status bar.
ScribeFire 3.0.1 - "A full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog." Since it pops up a blogpost editor/writer on the bottom of my browser, I keep the button for it on the status bar.
Socialbrowse 0.5.9.0 - "The easiest way to share links." Ever since I started using SocialBrowse, I've almost completely stopped using StumbleUpon. It's just so much more fun and easy to use. No toolbar too, although it requires three buttons that have to be just to the right of the address bar, instead of StumbleUpon's one button. One SB button toggles a sidebar that contains a feed of all the items and comments shared by the people you're following. Another button toggles a pop-up comment window that appears in the top right of the webpage you're viewing. The last button you can click to share items; it drops down a menu of categories to choose from and also gives you the option of emailing or tweeting the page. You have the option of having items and comments shared by the people you're following pop-up in little windows in the bottom right of your browser for a few seconds too.
Stealther 1.0.6 - "Surf the web without leaving a trace in Firefox." Single, easy-to-use button I keep on my top toolbar.
Stop-or-Reload Button 0.2.2 - "Turns the stop and reload buttons into a single one. When you can stop, you have a Stop button, otherwise you have a Reload button. (Like Safari)" Space saver.
StumbleUpon 3.26 - "StumbleUpon Toolbar." Toolbar button toggles the toolbar open and closed. Nice space saver that. But I don't find StumbleUpon as fun and easy to use as SocialBrowse, so I'm contemplating dumping it.
Tab Mix Plus 0.3.7pre.080830 - "Tab browsing with an added boost." An absolute must-have extension for me. It's a major reason why I don't use the new tab and new window buttons. I have TMP set to automatically open most links into a new tab, including those opened through the address and search bars.
Tempomail 1.0.8 - "Create temporary email addresses to protect your mailbox against spam." Didn't like Trashmail so much, so I'm trying this one out. Accessed through the context menu.
TwitterFox 1.7 - "This extension lets you know twitter statuses." Very useful. Unlike the other Twitter FF extension, this one doesn't create a side bar. It's just an unobtrusive button that displays the number of unread tweets you have beside it. When you receive tweets they pop up in a little window for a few seconds. And you can click on the button to open up a bigger popup window to write and send tweets, read all your tweets and more.
Ubiquity 0.1.1 - "An extension that allows for the use of dynamic commands in Firefox." Very cool. Doesn't take up any space. Just hit Ctr-Space to open a pop-up window and enter commands.
United States English Dictionary 3.0.3 - "English United States (en-US) spellchecking dictionary."
Weave 0.2.6 - "Weave is the Mozilla Labs prototype for online services." Awesome extension: currently syncs the following between FF on each of your computers: bookmarks, browsing history, cookies, saved passwords, tabs, saved form data, and imput history. Syncing functionality for extensions, themes, search plugins and microformats is planned for the future. Button and, unfortunately, username appear on the status bar; click for options.
Web Search Pro 2.7.4.2 - "Search the web the way you like." Useful search bar which includes a resize search bar/address bar feature and drag-and-drop. Replaces the standard FF search bar but retains all the different search services. I don't use the WSP or DragnDropZones buttons though.
wundrbar 0.2.2.8 - "A next generation search bar." Has some similar functions to Ubiquity, but since the Wundrbar search service can be included in FF's search bar or Web Search Pro search bar, with much (not sure about all) functionality, and because this extension creates another search bar I don't have room for, and because Ubiquity can do more without taking up any space, I'm not sure I'll keep it.
Zotero 1.0.7 - "The Next-Generation Research Tool." Very useful. I keep the button on the right side of my status bar.

The New Apple iMissile

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:17:00 +0000

In recent news, Apple has joined the military-industrial complex. Get ready to say hello to the new iMissile. No offense, fanboys and girls.

It's my first LOLcat. Like it? :D

(I added just the Apple logo and the text, someone else had already put the cat in.)

I'm on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 18:09:00 +0000

Okay. I finally caved in and bit the bullet. Follow me if you're interested. I'm mainly following some libertarians and sci-fi/fantasy authors, editors and publishers at the moment. I also found Amazonmp3 on Twitter, posting daily specials, which I've already taken advantage of: Kiss's Greatest Hits - not my favorite band by any means but you can't beat 16 songs for a mere $1.99 (usually $7.99), several of them classics.

Recipe: Spiced Basmati Rice with Peanuts

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 02:21:00 +0000

Ingredients:

1 cup uncooked basmati rice
2 tbsp vegetable oil or ghee (clarified butter) or combination
2 14oz cans tomatoes (I prefer one can diced, the other petite cut/diced)
1/2 medium onion, diced
5 medium cloves garlic, diced
1 jalapeno, diced
1/2 cup Planter's cocktail peanuts
2 tsp cumin seed
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp coriander powder
1 tsp garam masaala (Indian spice blend)
2-3 tsp lemon juice
Some fresh ground black pepper, half dozen to a dozen twists of the pepper mill or so - I don't really keep count
1-2 tsp salt, or to taste
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped (optional, recommended)
1 carrot, diced (optional, for extra nutrition, doesn't alter flavor)
1/4 cup moong dal (optional, adds texture and nutrition)
1-2 tsp or more cayenne powder (optional, if you need more heat ;o) )

Substitutions: You can substitute curry powder (another spice blend, not the same thing as Indian curry) for some or all of the garam masaala, maybe for the coriander powder as well (haven't tried) but you probably shouldn't use as much curry powder as the recipe calls for of coriander powder. Jasmine rice may substitute for basmati rice; I haven't tried it. I tried half vegetable oil and half extra virgin olive oil (good for your health) today and it didn't change the flavor of the final product noticeably.

Notes: 1) If you live in or near a decent sized city, you can probably find a local Indian store that carries all the Indian-specific ingredients. 2) I prefer canned tomatoes because they're more consistently high quality than the fresh whole tomatoes you can get at a supermarket, tastier and they don't disintegrate while cooking. 3) I usually seed the whole jalapeno, or half of it. You never know whether you've got a strong one or a weak one. If it's a strong one, keeping the seeds (where most of the heat is) could make the dish too hot for you or your guests, and hard to eat. It's better to play it safe. You can always add cayenne pepper to taste later if it's not hot enough for you.

Penzey's Spices is a nice store with an online website from which you can order a wide variety of common and specialty, high quality spices, baking ingredients, etc.

Directions

1) Start boiling rice. A rice cooker or pressure cooker is easier and faster than a regular pot.

2) Dry roast the cumin seeds on medium-high heat until light brown and giving off wonderful aroma, then remove from heat and set aside. You can include them whole later (see below), but I don't like to bite into a whole cumin seed so I use a coffee grinder to grind them to powder. Warning! Don't use the same coffee grinder for grinding spices that you do for grinding coffee beans, or vice versa.

Optional: Moong dal. Rinse a few times. Soak in hot water for 10-15 minutes until softened enough that you can pinch them in half with your fingernail.

3) While the cumin is roasting and the moong dal soaking, dice the onion, garlic, jalapeno, and carrot (opt). Keep an eye on the cumin though. You don't want to burn it.

4) Heat a 9-12 inch saucepan/skillet on medium-high. Put in the oil/ghee. Then add the onion, garlic, jalapeno and carrot (opt). Cook until softened and onion is golden brown. Then add in the peanuts and moong dal (opt). Cook for a few minutes more. Stir occasionally throughout. Chop the cilantro sometime while all this is cooking; don't add yet.

5) Add the tomatoes. Lower heat to medium. Then add remaining ingredients (except rice). Cook until tomatoes are heated through, 5-10 min or so.

6) Add rice and mix well. Serve and enjoy!

Serves 4-6.

Criminals For Gun Control

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:39:00 +0000

Allowing citizens to own guns creates a hostile work evironment (for criminals).

Now This is Good Parenting

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Quality Time With The Kids - Watch more free videos

George Carlin: If you vote, you have no right to complain

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:45:00 +0000

Will IP be the death of the Watchmen movie?

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:02:00 +0000

Bad news, folks. Fox is attempting to use IP laws to kill Warner's upcoming Watchmen movie. No, they're not trying to get a share of the profits as is common practice. They're actually trying to block it. Bastards.

A Brief Note on Robbins, Rand, and Atheism

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:58:00 +0000

From Gary North's obituary for John Robbins:

Robbins first came to the attention of libertarians because of his self-published book, Answer to Ayn Rand (1974). He did not object to her defense of the free market. He objected to her epistemology, which rested on atheism.

I can see why he would think that, since for Christians God is at the level of metaphysics and ontology, in a sense prior to epistemology. However, while I can't speak for Rand herself, for me at least my epistemology does not rest on my atheism. Rather, it is more the other way around. My atheism rests in part on my epistemological views (which inform and are informed by my metaphysical views, to be sure), but I (and I think Rand too) do not first assume God doesn't exist and then develop my epistemology on that basis.

A People's History of American Empire by Howard Zinn

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:19:00 +0000

Morphing Machine Gun That Fits in Your Pocket

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:36:00 +0000

Awesome.

George Carlin on Global Warming

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:57:00 +0000

The Prick-Waving Theory of War

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 05:54:00 +0000

George Carlin (1937-2008), R.I.P.

The Anarchist Roundtable #1: Ron Paul

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:19:00 +0000

Dr. Bob Carter on Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:59:00 +0000

Immanent Politics, Participatory Democracy, and the Pursuit of Eudaimonia

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:04:00 +0000

This is the paper I presented at ASC, chapter 5 of my dissertation.
After much too much procrastination the rough draft is finally
finished and it's uploaded to my website. I'm sure it's in need of
revision so constructive comments, suggestions and criticisms are
welcome.

Hilarious American Dad Clip on Guns

noreply@blogger.com (Geoffrey Allan Plauche) — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:33:00 +0000