The Rational Mind

LMAO: “We Are Morons: a quick look at the Win2k source.”

Interesting: Commercial software aided reboot on Mars.

The video you are about to watch is a rap video designed to inspire people to take up jihad against the West. Posted on a radical Islamic website based out of the United Kingdom, the video is undeniably entertaining, as professionally produced as any video you might see on MTV. Consider the irony: radical fundamentalism, sworn to destroy Western culture and beliefs, uses that culture to market its hate. Paralleling the same deception, the Islamic organization that produced and marketed this video claims to be an Islamic “human rights” group but in reality is a group sworn to support the killing of Jews, Christians and moderate Muslims.

Check out Charles Krauthammer’s awesome speech: “Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World”. This is definitely one of the best and most insightful foreign policy talks I’ve ever read.

Harvard University voted yesterday to approve a student-run magazine that will feature nude pictures of Harvard undergraduates and articles about sexual issues.

At this point, I could write a brilliant philosophical rant on how the vote was a liberal echo of the FCC’s “anti-indecency” jihad, ultimately stemming from a corruption of the concept of “censorship” by both sides, but uh, where do I send for my subscription??

In 1970, John Kerry shed his pacifist front, and revealed his altruist ideology:

Kerry said that the United Nations should have control over most of our foreign military operations. “I’m an internationalist. I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”

On other issues, Kerry wants “to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care.” He also favors a negative income tax and keeping unemployment at a very low level, “even if it means selective economic controls.”

Kerry seems to favor worldwide military interventionism – but only if it’s not in America’s interest. Not surprisingly, he’s also in favor of increasing the welfare state, and Nixon-era price and wage controls. Bush certainly deserves to be taken to task for his lackluster response to terrorism and runaway spending – but coming from this guy, it’s the pot calling the kettle black.

Leading challengers to Putin’s re-election are quietly disappearing, with murder investigations being shut down by the Kremlin, and the state media keeping mum. Putin has already silenced and nationalized the media, secretely shot opposition politicians in cold blood, and all but assumed his former KGB role. Anyone doubting that Putin is capable of any of these things should remember that the KGB (now FSB) had no qualms about killing 30 million people in the gulags, by starvation, and outright — and no reason to behave now, especially now that it firmly controls the media. The Russians themselves are united in supporting a return of dictatorship, and their opposition to liberal (as in pro-liberty) candidates .
Despite the dark path to a return of Soviet-era tyranny, there remain major differences between today’s Russia and the Soviets: with communism discredited worldwide, the new tyrants lack an ideology to excuse their power grab, and have no “noble experiment” they can use to solicit sanction and aid from the rest of the world. Not that the Russians arren’t eager to accept a new religion – here are the current “science” headlines on the Pravda website, the former official Party paper:
“A Girl with an X-ray vision”
“Remedy for Evil”
“Soviet Army fought UFOs”
“Are Dragons for real?”
For more, I highly recommend visiting the Center for the Future of Russia.
Update: Rybkin says he was drugged and kidnapped.

One of the fads going around the blogosphere is to list a dozen or so of the songs you’re listening to. Interesting idea, but I don’t think one’s music preferences really say much about a person. So instead, I decided to post a photo of my bookshelf. Obviously, this is just a fraction of my collection, but it contains the books that impacted my life the most.

Orkut is a brand new online community begun by a Google employee. It’s fast, easy to use (there are communities for every imaginable interest – I’m in 40 or so) and it makes it very easy to meet people for friendship, business or dating. It’s invitation-only, so contact me if you would like an invitation.

Ever wonder what would happen if you used handwashing detergent in place of dishwashing detergent?

Due my recent hosting problems, I’ve discovered that my david (at) freecapitalists.org address has lost a ton of email. If you’ve sent me anything during the last week(s) and I didn’t reply, please send it again, and CC it to capt_david (at) hotmail.com just in case. Hopefully, things should be back to normal soon.