I dream of living in ... a World Without Dictators! I'm a Libertarian Paternalist in Slovakia - Freedom with Responsibility - 10% of income into your own Pension; Tax Loans for education, health, housing; now supporting Employment Maximizing Companies!

blog posts on immigration at The Truth Laid Bear

I love my wife

Megan writes that she is NOT desparate. 

But ... SHE IS.

If you're not desperate now, you should at least know WHEN you WILL be desperate.  At 38? 41?

GOD himself has given women the joy of child bearing -- and the bio-clock.

If you WERE desperate, what would you be doing differently?  Don't you know any women who ARE desperate, and have advice on what they SHOULD have done, a few years ago?  And are you following your own advice?

I'd guess not.


I'm sorry love is so hard.  But commitment to another INDIVIDUAL means ... giving up some, A LOT, of your own desires and replacing them with desires to make your partner/ spouse happy.

It's a little "family socialism" thing.

I'm so happy with my own wife (Bryan Adams' song about loving a woman, and seeing your future children in her eyes...) but so many Libertarian folk are too individualistic to find the partners they can happily love.  Forever.

Will Wilkinson writes on how optimism about the future might be why Americans breed so many more white people than Europe.

Oh No -- Megan has another, even more honest desperate post.

Posted by: TomGrey at 04/29/07 02:06 | link | comments
blogs

Increase peaceful employment

Jeffrey Sachs is very important, as the near-embodiment of good intentioned postive-action against poverty do-good economist.  Much of his advice has been fine since the Wall fell in 1989.

Focussing on a community is OK  (reported by Marginal Revolution)-- I would prefer he focus on many small private companies.  What all poor countries need are more entrepreneurs trying to make money (=create wealth) peacefully and honestly. 

Sachs should be measuring how many folks in the watched community are in new private (=peaceful) jobs.  That he's watching any metric (malarial infant mortality) is an improvement.  The economic debate should be over which metrics are the best to watch, and which ONE should be the focus, if there is only one.

Private sector employment should be that watched metric.

Posted by: TomGrey at 04/29/07 01:15 | link | comments
economics

Quick ideas - Duke stripper a "nappy headed ho?"

Is the lying, Duke accusing stripper, a nappy headed ho?
Where ho is black slang short for whore -- one who sells her body for money?  I think most strippers could be called "ho" without it being too inaccurate, though some who don't have sex for money might object.  I wonder how many that really is, and suspect it's a very small (less than 5%) amount.

"Nappy headed" is a new phrase for African Americans.  Not yet politically incorrect, I thought.  But probably soon.  It's no surprise to me that so many famous black women, like Janet Jackson and Condi Rice, have straight hair -- which I believe is straightened.

The Imus silliness, versus the Duke rape seriousness, and the hypocrisy involved, is striking.
Here's a relevant foto.

In Darfur, the nappy headed victims who are being raped and murdered are mostly ignored.

Don Surber has lots of good notes, including the fact that Bush won 16% of the Black vote in Ohio (helping him win the election). Could the Dems lose the Blacks?

I don't think "lose", but from 90% down to 80% is possible.

Ron Paul is running for President -- I hope all anti-war Republicans vote for him. The Politico has an interview with him, but it's too short.  He remains very Libertarian.

Posted by: TomGrey at 04/23/07 04:26 | link | comments
blogs, free press

Some ME thoughts

On my blog, I CAN be an intellectual bully!  But one shouldn't be such on a forum, like Frih.

I think an intellectual bully can be roughly judged by the number and length of posts they make on a forum -- somewhere above 10% of the last 100 posts, and they become candidates for being judged bullies.

I'm trying to avoid being one on Frih, without being unresponsive.

Chris, a fine link to B'T selem, but you forgot the most relevant statistic, stories available [url]http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties_Data.asp?Category=25[/url] here == how many Palestinians killed by Palestinians for collaboration with Israel?  118

I strongly suspect this number is under-reported, but it should accompany a column, How many Israelis killed by Israelis for collaboration with Palestinians?  ??? (at least Rabin...)

The Palestinians are choosing war, instead of peace, with Israel -- and murdering any Palestinians who want peace.  That's the Palestinian problem.


That 4000+ Palestinians have been killed in the Palestinian chosen war, seems like too few recorded.  But if it is so few, it's no wonder that the Palestinians don't feel like the Israelis are really winning; 500/ year, 10 per week  "in war" is so few that the need to surrender, to stop fighting, is not so great.  Not when the Palestinians can count on the West to feel guilty for the Palestinians who suffer for their bad choice of refusing to accept Israeli's existence.

The reality is that the Palestinians, like the Syrian Arabs who decided in 1948 not to recognize Israel AND do not have maps with Israel on them -- they have chosen to keep fighting. 

What the Palestinians write about relegious freedom is less important that facts on the ground.  Bethlehem, for instance, is rapidly losing its Christian population.  This is not because of Israeli pressure, but because of increasing intollerance by the majority Muslims.

And it is the unwritten, but enforced on-the-ground rules, that determine what the "real law" is. 

Bru states:[url]
The only group who murder in the Israel / Occupied Territories area with the endorsement of their elected leaders was the IDF until recently.[/url]

It's not so much a question of logic, as one of facts.  Was Yasser Arafat elected? [...yes]  Did he approve of the "intifada"? [...yes]  Was there targeting and killing of Israeli civilians part of the intifada, I & II? [...yes]

If you have other facts, they would be interesting to read.

Israel is NOT going to agree to let the Palestinians who left Israel in 1948, and their millions of descendents, "return" to Israel.  How many Palestinians need to be killed before Palestinians accept this?
I don't find this completely "just" by the Israelis, but the 1947 refusal of Arabs to recognize both Israel and Palestine as two state was primarily an Arab injustice.  I recognize Israel's political decision not to accept any right of return, and accept that level of injustice.  For wars to end, some injustice needs to be accepted -- otherwise the war continues in a fruitless search of mutual justice where both sides feel the other side requires injustice.  I'd certainly be interested in any examples you have of where a war has ended in "full justice" without injustice.

On the economy,
Chris notes the World Bank 10p summary:
[quote]
Palestinian unemployment is around 40%. This is largely due to Israeli restrictions on movement and closure of workplaces. [/quote]

But let's see a bit more from that report:[quote]
After having experienced a modest recovery in 2003–05, the Palestinian economy suffered
another decline in 2006, as a result of the domestic and international political difficulties.
Although hard data are scarce, real GDP is estimated to have fallen within a range of 5 to
10 percent in 2006, less than initially had been feared, but still leaving average real per
capita GDP at almost 40 percent below its 1999 level. Stronger-than-expected official and
private inflows have helped prevent a much sharper decline in incomes and consumption
in 2006, thus cushioning the overall contraction. But with a larger decline in investment,
from an already low level, this also signals a further hollowing out of the Palestinian
economy and an increase in its dependency on foreign aid.[/quote]

"Domestic and international political difficulties" -- a euphamism for Hamas rejecting Israel, and not finding much EU / US cash for that position.

From WB:[quote]
Internally, tensions
repeatedly flared up between various Palestinian factions, as did tensions with Israel,
culminating in June with the re-entry of the Israeli military into Gaza in response to the
kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.[/quote]

Surprise, surprise -- those poor Palestinians just HAD to go and kidnap an Israeli soldier, didn't they?  It was really the Jew's fault, wasn't it?  In fact, everything bad any Arab has done since WW II has really been the fault of the Jews, hasn't it?

Bah.

In 1999, the econ baseline, Arafat could have gotten a peace agreement if he had wanted it from the Israelis (although he might well have been assassinated after that). [An agreement without refugees back into Israel]

He wanted more war, instead.  His choice, and the Palestinian people's tragic choice, but a choice they decided -- and they kill those who disagree or "collaborate" with Israel.

Look up whether Lebanon allows its people the freedom to travel into Israel [they don't].  I don't think Syria does either.

The Israeli occupation is being done poorly, but the Palestinian refusal to accept the Israeli state is the main issue -- return of the refugees is a significant part of that refusal.

I think Israel should offer to let them return to the post-67 occupied settlement areas, and relocate all settlers back into Israel (into new, nice housing -- perhaps built by Palestinian laborers) -- but this seems an unlikely scenario.

Posted by: TomGrey at 04/23/07 02:42 | link | comments
israel palestine

The Best Blogger Won

Michael J Totten won the Best Blogger of the Year.  So I praised him, effusively and deservedly, in his comments.

I wish I could write as well as he.

Posted by: TomGrey at 04/15/07 00:19 | link | comments
blogs

Political and Personal Culture

Kevin Schmiesing at Acton, which won a Templeton Price, discusses with Bryan Caplan Culture issues.

As a current Free Market Christian and Libertarian Paternalist, and former secular Libertarian, let me suggest that far too many "L"-Libertarians are smart but sexually frustrated men, who really don't know how to relate to women as different people (much less as being from Venus).

Whether it is the free sex - equal love on Heinlien's Moon (is a Harsh Mistriss), or the irresistible love/lust semi-rapes of Ayn Rand's characters, the secularists have a problem with sexual=personal commitment.

Bryan makes an excellent point about punishment vs shame in his post about this:
"Is it better to live in a country where corruption is mildly punished, but perceived to be shameful, or a country where corruption is harshly punished, but not perceived to be shameful?"

Consider, on a personal level, the commitment to remain married and faithful.  Cheating is personal corruption.  Too many Libs accept personal cheating.


There is also the democracy issue of "voting for a benefit" of Other People's Money -- if it's generally OK for popular benefit (education, health, farm, industry), why not for a bureaucrat's personal benefit?

Posted by: TomGrey at 04/08/07 15:06 | link | comments
corruption, christianity

Michael Yon in Iraq

Michael Yon is doing incredible, good work.  Independently. In Iraq.
What he sees, good, bad, ugly. He explains how he got there, what it's like now.

Posted by: TomGrey at 04/07/07 06:08 | link | comments
iraq, media

Amazon and Archangel

We saw a short documentary about the assimilation issues of a primitive, stone age type Amazon tribe, as their tribal ways disappear and they become "civilized".  Including 30% death due to disease.

Two old survivors, only one of whom had learned very poor Portuguese, were living in a shack and told the sad tale.  They did recall some memories of happiness.  Like when they murdered some white setlers in defense of their territory, by shooting them with poisoned darts and then burning them.  The two old warriors were alive then, and became alive in the retelling of the tale.

Now most young men of the tribe learn Portuguese and want to leave.


Archangel is a city in the North of Russia, with a great name.  The movie was about a young girl who went to serve Stalin, then came home pregnant.  With Stalin Jr.  And the fictionalized modern politics around such a possibility.  Quite interesting, especially the grandmother (mother of the girl), whose daughter "died" very suddenly and soon after the birth of the unacknowledged boy.  The acto who is now James Bond is in it.  Many Russians remember Stalin with fondness.


Funny how memory is -- I like the 80s music I have on tape.

Posted by: TomGrey at 04/07/07 05:41 | link | comments
hearts and minds