Month: November 2003

Looks like the FBI is finally prosecuting eco-terrorist organizations for being the criminal conspiracies they are.

I was browsing the web, when I came across the “Kabbalah Centre.” It’s basically Madonna’s attempt to make some money from the New Age movement. I was sure that this was a new age deal when the first thing the video on the homepage said is “Kabbalah is NOT a New Age movement.” The web site is actually very well designed, and sells all sort of neat stuff, like a $36 piece of string (“The Red String protects us from the influences of the Evil Eye”) and $20 t-shirt with mystical “ego-conquering” powers (“Simply focus your eyes on the letters, then visualize destroying your ego.”)
Anyway, Rabbi Madonna has some advice for doctors:

A patient was rushed into the ER with a heart attack. …. I asked that he be taken to the lab, and his heart actually stopped twice on the way. As it turned out, his right coronary artery was completely blocked. We worked on him for about 30 minutes, but nothing was helping. Whatever we tried failed. I felt so helpless. My last option was to start meditating intensely upon the healing sequence..Out of nowhere, the blocked artery opened!And even for network administrators:

Hebrew letters transmit spiritual signals. In the language of the Internet, they do it in broadband. Consider them T3 lines. Faster than DSL. Quicker than cable modems. They’re like fiber optic lines carrying the full spectrum of cosmic energy. I gotta get some of that kabbalaic T3 ego-conquering power, baby, yeah!

Police on Friday removed the corpse of a man believed to have hanged himself at least a year ago after builders and students at Budapest’s University of Arts had initially mistaken it for a modern sculpture.

The Bush administration is getting a lot of heat for the steel tariffs Bush agreed to impose on foreign steel importers, and rightly so. In granting the tariffs, Bush betrayed his alleged free-trade principles in a pragmatic move that is costing him much more than he bargained for. I hope not only for Bush’s sake, but much more for the sake of the economy that my income depends on, that he sticks to his principles on free trade. (And on national security, if that’s not asking too much.)

While the case against steel tariffs should be obvious, the bigger lesson is lost on the nations and organizations (such as WTO) threatening “retaliatory” tariffs. Their assumption is that trade is a zero-sum game, where the tariffs of one nation somehow “steal” the wealth of another. In retaliation, they threaten their own tariffs, won’t return the stolen wealth, but are supposed to put a stop to the leakage of any more. This is mercantilist nonsense, of course. Just like trade between any two individuals within a country, international trade is a case of voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. Tariffs imposed by any nation harm the producers of foreign exports in addition to the consumers within that nation. This applies equally to “first-strike” tariffs as well as to retaliatory tariffs. While retaliatory tariffs are a politically effective move because they can be targeted at politically nimble exporters to generate opposition within the “enemy” nation, the proper policy of any free country is to establish unconditional, unilateral, and permanent free trade. (With the exception of countries that pose a military threat, that is.)

As an aside, it is often argued that American steel manufacturers should get special treatment because European steel manufacturers get massive aid from the government. People fail to realize that European taxpayers are in effect paying for a large chunk of the steel we import from Europe. High American tariffs on imported steel are in effect a wealth transfer directly from the pockets of European taxpayers into the vault of the U.S. treasury dept, which has gained $650 million of hard-earned European money from imported steel tariffs since March 2002. On the down side, $680 million has been lost by American consumers due to the higher price of steel at home.

In a related note, check out Bruce Bartlett’s latest article, which explains why “the existence of a surplus or deficit may tell us exactly the opposite of what the mercantilists believed. Deficits may be a sign of strength, while surpluses are a sign of weakness.”

Much debate has been raised recently about the wisdom of online and electronic voting. Much of it has been confused by ignorance and fear of technology. As an “amateur expert” in computer technology and information security, I can say with confidence that electronic voting systems are inherently more secure, accurate, and less tolerant of tampering than any paper-based system could ever be.

Let’s examine some arguments against online voting, as the most commonly attacked version of electronic voting:
Continue reading Why Online Voting is a Good Idea

Mike has published an editorial in the Batt deriding the proposed tax on Internet sales. His argument is that “if the government break[s] the barrier of taxation into the realm of the Internet, there is no reason for them to stop… Rather than seek new areas to tax or increase old ones, the government needs to cut back its current spending and programs.”

Mike fails to point out that consumers already pay taxes on the Internet whenever purchasing from online vendors based in state. (Or at least they are legally required to.) However, the bigger hole in his argument is that there is no essential difference between online and traditional sales. Any argument for or against sales taxes applies equally to both traditional and online sales. Given this fact, any attempt to carve out an exception for online taxes is bound to fail in the long run, just as any attempt to defend hunting on the grounds that they animals don’t suffer when they die is bound to fall apart.
The fatal flaw in both cases is that in arguing that the Internet should be *excluded* from sales taxes one implicitly acknowledges that there is nothing wrong with sales taxes per se. This turns the question of taxation into merely a question whether online commerce deserves any special treatment over traditional commerce. It does not.

Excluding online sales from taxation in effect amounts to giving special favors to a particular industry, and as such, is unjustified. Its exactly equivalent to giving tax breaks to politically nimble industries. In fact, that is exactly what is happening. Online-based companies are lining politician’s pockets and lobbying Washington in a hopeless attempt to carve out an exception for their industry. Because there is no rational reason why the tax law should apply to one group and not another, their effort is bound to fail. Besides, income taxes collected by the IRS, not sales taxes or the state tax agencies actually represent the most heinous and destructive form of taxation.

I say this as a partner of a web hosting service that has a lot to lose by the imposition of e-taxes – the service has a very low margin, and I’d rather close our doors than pay the accounting costs of charging taxes for the tiny transactions we deal with, since our current business is entirely under the table. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of similar micro – e-tailers who exist only because running a small business on the internet carries little or no bureaucratic overhead. Even a 1% tax would carry enough regulatory baggage to either shut them down, or discourage new ventures from ever starting up.

In short, if any protest against taxation is going to succeed, it will not be by carving out exclusions to popular or powerful industries. One must attack the root of the disease – the collectivist premise that theft is justified for the “common good.” If you wish to keep more of what you make, I suggest that you start by questioning the moral premise of taxation, not by jumping on the libertarian “less” or republican “more efficient” government bandwagons.

The Drexel U. philosophy club’s campaign against Objectivism is just getting started. Check out this masterpiece of modern philosophy:

I realized that my JavaScript quote include had some debug code that broke it. It should now work. In fact, you can see it in action @ Keenan’s new blog AbsoluteReason.com

You can still submit your favorite quotes to my database. I’ve only gotten one good quote and a few dozen insults so far. I get the distinct impression that most of my readers absolutely loath my views, which is somewhat puzzling. Don’t you people have an anti-war or Howard Dean rally to attend? I think this may be explained by the 80/20 rule.

If you have a Movable Type blog, there is a high probability that you have been hit with a recent deluge of comment spam. To keep those spammers out, I highly recommend MT-Blacklist as a simple and effective solution. I understand that spammers are actively avoiding even trying to post to blogs with this plugin in order to avoid being blacklisted (the plugin can share your blacklist with other enabled blogs.)

(If you are hosting a Movable Type blog at one of my domains, and have ever given me your MT password, your blogs have already been immunized and deloused.)

Mmmm, naked sushi. Eating sushing and eating..err, uh enjoying the company of women — two of my favorite activities– combined!