Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Most excellent essay by Bulldog over at Maggie’s Farm.
Even if you make the assumption that I got there with the help of others and/or the government, there is an implicit understanding that I did things, or provided payment and services, in return for that help. I must have paid some fees, taxes, or bartered something for these benefits I received. Very few things in life are truly free. Perhaps these benefits were subsidized, let’s call that a ‘gift’ from the government. Even so, what then allows the government to make further claims on me once I’ve become successful? As Professor Boudreaux points out, Amazon’s success is almost entirely reliant on the infrastructure of FedEx. Even if FedEx provided discounts and subsidies to Amazon early on to help them become successful, out of the goodness of their heart, unless a contract exists that stipulates further remuneration would occur upon this ‘success’ of Amazon, the relationship is based on a pecuniary exchange for goods and services, not a promise to pay more later.
Warren and Obama’s issue with this is, most likely, that the ‘social contract’ demands this future payment. Warren more or less demands it, saying that successful people should ‘pay it forward’. But who is she to say this? Who is anyone?
:
It remains a truth, as Hayek pointed out, that you can treat all people equally. But it is something else entirely to try and make them equal. Warren and Obama are on the wrong side of history but are so convinced of their moral superiority they are incapable of seeing the truth, because the only truth they see is their own power and how they can use it to force people to do what they believe is ‘just’.
From working in technology for…oh, about as long as anyone else I know — I’ve been often befuddled by the presence of those who obsess to excess over making sure everyone does everything the way it’s always been done. It starts out innocently enough, often with a respectable understanding of the problems and pitfalls involved in doing things in strange, unorthodox ways, and how the recommended and accepted process provides a countermeasure or remedy. It looks like good, vigilant, responsible technology stewardship. It often is.
But, the Morgan Rule of Technology eventually emerges: A definition more than a rule, really, since the rule is nothing more than a statement of what technology really is. It’s the opposite of doing everything the same way the other guy’s doing it. You can use other words, you can dress it up so it’s more appealing, like “learn to do more with less.” But that’s just semantics. At the end of it all, if you’re acting out a dedication to keep doing things the same way — or, if the process ever does change down the road, making sure it’s someone else’s idea so you don’t have to take responsibility — you’re not doing technology. Tack on another year or two to that timeline, and you end up being just another frazzled bureaucrat scrambling for ways to dodge the next layoff. Who deserves, on some level, not to be able to.
The common theme permeating throughout all of this, like a bad stink? Fear of the extraordinary. Fear of perceiving it, fear of association with it, fear of becoming it, fear of aspiring toward it. That is what Obama and Warren are acting-out with the “You Didn’t Build That” mania. That is them, and that is their constituency: Villagers who never want to leave the village, determined to lock the mighty gates behind whoever dares to venture outside of them, to ostracize whoever wanders afield. They think they’re building something great and grand, but can’t say what it is they’re trying to build, not nearly as easily or as clearly as they can say what they’re trying to destroy. There’s a reason for that. They’re destroyers, and they’re not builders.
Update: This, too, is most excellent. Take heart, nerds!
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