Snowshoe Walk

These photos are from a short walk I took Friday at Matthews/Winters, using snowshoes. It was quite a workout lifting my feet out of a foot and a half of snow with each step, with who-knows-what underneath. The "trail" is straight ahead.


This park is near Red Rocks, so it has... red rocks.

The Smiling Bear, Matthews/Winters Park

I noticed this rock formation one day while walking on a trail west of Denver. It looked to me like a stylized bear lifting its nose in the air and smiling, so that's what I call it: The Smiling Bear.


This photo was taken near the south end of the Red Rocks trail, at Matthews/Winters Park.

Ducks With Toupees?

Are these birds members of Feather Club For Ducks? Maybe they just had nest head because they hadn't showered yet. Are they are fans of Lyle Lovett? Maybe they are sporting their winter hats.

During my investigatory Interweb search, I found that I'm not the only person who finds fancy ducks photo-worthy. However, I did not find a definitive answer to the burning title question. I suspect they are former pets or descendents thereof. In other words: fugitives!

This was taken at Lake Arbor in Arvada, CO, which for some reason has a high percentage of unusual ducks. I see the same ones repeatedly, so they must hang out at a given location for a while. I'll see if they're still around in the Spring.

Weather Contrast

We are in the middle of a multi-day snow storm in the Denver area, so this photo I took at Majestic View Park in Arvada during lunch on Monday:


...seems like a distant memory compared to what I see outdoors now, with 12 inches of snow and counting:


The storm is stationary over the Front Range area and is just dumping snow hour after hour.

Arapahoe Basin Ski And Hike Day

This Sunday the skiing was at Arapahoe Basin (A-Basin), and the hiking was in Breckenridge. I started out the day by skiing a few turns at A-Basin, but only managed to get in three short runs before tiring of the 20-minute wait for the chair lift. Holy cow!


A-Basin can be a lot of fun once the whole place is open, but it's also one of the ski resorts on the popular Colorado Pass from Vail Resorts, so it gets mobbed during the early season because it's one of the first to open, along with Loveland. Due the high traffic, the snow surface also tends to get scraped smooth. If you go, get there early or go on a weekday, and bring skis/board with good edge grip!

It was a bit chilly waiting in line, so when I got to the top of the chair lift, I grabbed a cup of coffee in the upper lodge, petted the ski patrol dogs (they escaped before I got a picture), and warmed up while I enjoyed the scenery. The lodge is at 11,600 feet elevation in an alpine bowl, and the views of the surrounding peaks are great:


No worries about the long lines, because I knew it was going to be a short ski day, and that meant I could do two activities for the day! Later in the day, I ended up hiking the trail system that leads from Carter Park right in Breckenridge, up the hills east of town and up towards Bald Mountain. There are many trails to choose from, leading up through pine woods in the relative seclusion of forest between the homes and condos. I parked in front of the North Face store on Main and hiked to Baldy Road, about 1/3 of the way up Bald Mountain:


There was already snow in the woods, and before long, it began to snow more. Snow in the woods is an amazing thing, quiet and beautiful. As I mentioned yesterday, the trail often opened up to expansive views. However, such snowy paths also can have the more intimate quality of being in beautiful Gothic church: the trees have the soaring lines of columns, and sounds are hushed by the snow, as if the space awaits your silent prayer. But hiking is the only form of worship this atheist will be engaging in ;)


Unfortunately, the drive home was the first nasty drive of the season -- on only my second ski day. Here is the scene as I started out from Breckenridge, with 70 miles of driving to go:


There were quite a few cars off the road, since the snow was at that stage where tires tend to press it into a nice slippery mess. Trips like this are why I use snow tires from October to June (I only get two seasons out of them). Thankfully, the snow turned to drizzle and wet roads after about 20 miles, and after one more accident that blocked I-70 near Denver, I was home free.

Storm Brewing Over Peaks

As I was climbing a path above Breckenridge, CO the pine woods opened up occasionally and would afford views of the Tenmile Range across the valley, on which the ski resort resides. In a matter of an hour it turned from partly sunny to overcast with heavy clouds, and snow began to fall. I was glad I had a good waterproof shell on.

Dowdy Draw Near Sunset

Taken on the Dowdy Draw trail south of Boulder, CO. It was May, and the remnants of recent snowfall were still visible on the mountains.

Comments On FRONTLINE's The Warning

PBS is very popular, as is the show FRONTLINE, so there are quite a few online comments now regarding their show The Warning. Although there are dissenting voices in favor of capitalism, it is the pro-statist comments that illustrate how much work remains to change the culture into a more rational environment.

Imagine attempting a rational debate with someone who says:

Big government is scary, but big business is truly terrifying and what is even more terrifying is the US government is simply a subsidiary of corporate America. The people in charge (Government and Wall Street) epitomize pure evil.

or the following:

Where are the consequences for the arrogant males who decided they would not only refuse to listen to Born--they would ruin her! Now we see that she was correct all along, while those "good ole boys" had their own free feed. Why have they not been fully investigated, brought to trial and had THEIR millions confiscated? The least that should happen to them is that they should go to prison for a very long time.

Who should go to prison? By what standard should this be determined? It is likely that instances of genuine fraud are already being prosectuted. Are we to also prosecute those who participated in deriviatives markets simply because they collapsed? Such critical questions are lost in the din of angry pronouncements.

Ayn Rand once described the protests of the hippie movement and (as I remember) attributed it to irrationality and the consequent inability to understand the world. We are still feeling the effects of the Anti-Principle Revolution in the desperate calls for enslavement (which is what oppressive economic laws amount to) constantly heard from the Left. It is like a lynch mob going after Frankenstein's monster, in which the monster is the remnants of capitalism, pieced together from parts of various ideologies and scarcely resembling its proper form. Such anger is dangerous and destructive, since it is directed at the wrong target. What we have is not capitalism, and the enemy is not freedom.

There is nothing inherently wrong with commercial transactions occurring under the radar of government, and it is only today's anti-business climate that makes such opinions commonplace. Private transactions are the essence of free trade.

At the same time, protection against fraudulent activity is an absolute requirement of capitalism. Trade itself cannot exist without contracts, and contracts are meaningless without objective statements of truth and without both parties living up to the terms described by such statements. Fraud constitutes a violation of individual rights, by undercutting the basis of voluntary interaction: knowledge.

Alan Greenspan positions himself against Brooksley Born and regulation when he says -- during an introductory meeting with her -- that fraud should not be prosecuted, and that "I think the market will figure it out". It should be noted that this information is offered second-hand in the documentary, since neither Born nor Greenspan would speak on the record about that particular conversation (starting at 15:45 in the program).

If true, this statement by Greenspan sounds very close to anarchy, so I'm hesitant to attribute it to him as presented. In other words, there is a big difference between objecting to the CFTC's particular proposal for monitoring fraud, and saying that fraud should be left to markets entirely. That sounds like the libertarian "competing governments" theory (which is actually anarchy) more than capitalism.

We cannot simply have no laws against fraud, and hope that market participants will avoid those who have committed fraud in the past. Fraud is not a market phenomenon; it is contrary to the very essence of trade. Capitalism requires fraud protection, but it must be done in a way that does not violate individual rights. Regulatory agencies violate our rights when they coerce disclosures to customers by law, or impose other such requirements for action prior to any violation occurring. This amounts to an assumption of guilt, and we must find another way.

Due to the way this issue was presented in the show, the viewer is left with the false impression that the alternative is either A) accept anything regulatory agencies want to do or B) do nothing and have no protection against fraud. That choice is itself fraudulent. Every citizen must be protected against fraud, however it must be done in a way that preserves freedom to act and to engage in private voluntary agreements with others. In fact, it is an essential part of such agreements.

On the issue of how this should be implemented, i.e. whether the CFTC has a legitimate purpose, and what form fraud protection should take, I cannot say, because I am unable to find any suitable examples. However, the principle is clear: as with violent crime, individuals -- and the businesses they form -- must be left free to act until a violation has actually occurred. In my opinion this was the issue at the heart of the documentary, and unfortunately it was an issue that was not discussed.

FRONTLINE: The Warning

Wednesday evening I watched a video online produced by the PBS show FRONTLINE, which is about how regulator Brooksley Born warned the government about the derivatives markets and their possible negative impact on the financial system.

I have to give it two big thumbs down.

I don't think my admittedly harsh comments made the cut* (they are moderated), but here is what I posted:

Although I found some of the interviews interesting, I found the show drastically lacking from an analytical point of view.

With regard to derivatives, there was absolutely no analysis of what contract and fraud law should be, or whether it might be perfectly acceptable for companies to not notify the government of every contract they engage in. The derivatives market was presented as an immense evil conspiracy, as if nobody could possibly conceive of businesses engaging in voluntarily activity without the involvement of government or without being criminals.

Now, if there was fraud, that was wrong and could be prosecuted. However, my understanding is that the way fraud ought to be handled in a free country is by lawsuit from an injured party, not as part of snoopy oversight by an all-knowing government. The show actually did mention that a company filed a lawsuit over the derivatives, but it was mentioned in passing as if it had no significance whatsoever, i.e. that it might be a possible answer to how to handle such markets. The only important point was -- gasp! how could we let people act freely without government knowing what they are doing!

Think of it this way: imagine if we treated private citizens as badly as we treat business. Imagine if you had to file a form with the CFTC to go grocery shopping, because you are not to be trusted and you might commit a crime while you are outside your home. Nobody would stand for it. Yet we treat business worse than criminals, as guilty until proven innocent.

Artistically, although the show was well put together, you could take video of a toddler crawling across a living room floor, and set it to the ominous music you used throughout your show, and you'd think it was going to grow up to be Hitler. Please spare us the melodrama and replace it with more critical thinking outside the "big government" box.

And please read a good book on capitalism, such as Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

(hyperlink and formatting added in this version)

The documentary was pure Kool-Aid all the way; it accepted the view that proactive enforcement aided by disclosure laws is proper in a free country, and that free actions like derivative product purchases are a destructive and illegal rogue market that helped bring down the economy (their fall may have contributed, but it cannot be a fundamental cause).

What I thought was most striking about this was the view that totally private actions are suspect. A comment was made to the effect that the derivatives market was (I am paraphrasing here) "just a bunch of contracts in lawyers filing cabinets". It's startling how deep we have sunk when private business transactions are regarded as inherently suspect.

*UPDATE - I finally found my comments about 2/3 down page what is currently page 1. Many of the other comments are quite angry and scary, and directed towards the wrong target: freedom. They do not understand, or to not care to understand, that fraud needs to be distinguised from legitimate free action, and enforced selectively.

Statue Of Jayne Cobb In Idaho Springs?

When I came up behind this statue of in Idaho Springs CO, I thought I was walking up behind a statue of Jayne Cobb from one of the most amusing Firefly episodes:


However, the front side and the caption in front belied my initial impression. It's a statue of Steve Canyon.

The citizens of Idaho Springs still await their box of money from the sky.

Precarious Cliff Perch

Hikers resting near the top of the Mount Royal Trail:

Review - Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns

I just finished reading Jennifer Burns' book Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, and I enjoyed it very much.

I say this as someone who has done a lot of cringing over years due to thoughtless criticisms of Rand and Objectivism. Goddess of the Market was therefore a breath of fresh air, since Burns obviously took pains to try to produce an objective and comprehensive biography of an author whose history is still the subject of controversy and public conflict. As an Objectivist, I may find details on which to differ with her, but overall I found it to be an authoritative and engrossing biography.

Unexpected Details

The book is also an intellectual/political history of the movements that Ayn Rand created and/or influenced. The latter is a topic about which I knew something, but her activism was far more extensive than I realized.

For example, she was actively involved in various conservative political organizations starting in her Hollywood years, developing extensive relationships with conservative advocacy organizations, the Willkie and Goldwater campaigns, businessmen and business advocacy organizations, and sundry capitalist-friendly political groups. She was a sought-after speaker and writer well before her mature political ideas were formed and before she began writing the non-fiction that most of us know today, such as the essays in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. I found this fascinating.

Also interesting was the discussion of her friendships with people who were to become major influences on her, such as Isabel Paterson. In this case, both women had strong personalities and the relationship was rocky at times, finally breaking under the stresses of conflict. However, the mutual respect was clear, and the influence of Paterson on Rand's thinking is evident.

Something Burns did very well in general is to show the progression of Rand's thought throughout her life. Some people may give short shrift to the early stages of her thinking, but it is actually a very interesting window into her mind and psychology.

Before her mature ideas had developed, she found inspiration in the poetic individualism of Friedrich Nietzsche and even in the defiant antisocial attitude of a murderer: William Hickman, a fact that will no doubt be cherished by her enemies. These things speak more to the fact that she was an artist looking for material, than to the content of her mature thought. She found these sources at a time when she was just beginning to define how she was different, and what subjects she wanted to write about. She later repudiated Nietzsche, and her student Leonard Peikoff wrote The Ominous Parallels, which implicated him as one of the intellectual influences on the Third Reich. As Rand matured, she gradually recognized that reason was the bedrock of her system, and rejected Nietzsche's subjectivism.

Burns details how Ayn Rand's life and ideas appears to have affected the stylistic content of her fiction. For example, the relatively sunny optimism of Roark at the quarries gave way to the embattled struggles of Atlas Shrugged, which takes place in an eleventh-hour world of economic entropy only occasionally shot through with the bracing strength and optimism of its heroes and heroines. Galt's Gulch and other select scenes are some of the few unrestrained bright spots in the novel. In the interim between those novels, Rand had faced significant setbacks in the area of intellectual and political activism, and this may have influenced her outlook and her work.

Burns also makes an interesting case for the issue of elitism having such an impact. For example, she contends that Nietzsche's superman is much more like the earlier hero Howard Roark than the later self-imprisoned Hank Rearden or the noble everymen who worked modest jobs on the railroad. As Rand's philosophy matured, she seems to have shifted away from a more isolated individualism to one that at least provided room for common values at different levels of ability and intelligence. This mix of egalitarianism (moral, not economic) with hero-worship is another thing critics seem to ignore in their quest to tar and feather the writer.

I also enjoyed reading the last few sections of the book starting with "Acknowledgments", including a discussion of source material for the book, in the section titled "Essay on Sources". Although this has been noticed before, I found it very disturbing that Burns found published material on Rand where the author's original words had been altered without notice, such as The Journals of Ayn Rand. When dealing with matters of historical record, I can see no justification for this, and in my opinion, the books should be re-issued either with notes indicating the changes, or with the complete original text.

Negatives About Rand

Unfortunately, history has not always been as kind to Ayn Rand as I would like, and these negative topics enter the picture in any comprehensive portrayal of the author. However, it speaks to my trust of Burns' work and the believability of the historical accounts presented, that I include them here as worthy of consideration.

Some people may take issue with the veracity of this or that person's account, but during the unfolding of the book a solid overview of her life emerged, and with regard to the putative negative aspects, here are some of my thoughts:

• Although Ayn Rand had good relationships with many people over the years, she does seem to have had difficulty maintaining relationships when her ideas were concerned. I think this goes beyond defense of the ideas themselves and speaks to a difficulty negotiating the pros and cons of personal and business connections. Even before the Branden years, she burned quite a few bridges.
• She also seems to have been naive about dealings with the professional intellectual establishment. Again, this goes beyond the obvious cases where academia mindlessly and unjustly rejected her meritorious ideas without consideration, to a simple lack of familiarity with protocol and the benefits of maintaining long-term relations. Her relationship with John Hospers, who was very much in her corner and could have been an important ally, is a good example of this. I fear that there were many opportunities lost as a result.
• Rand seems to have used amphetamines for years, initially as a way to keep up her work pace under publisher deadlines. Even a cursory look at the psychological effects of this drug is eye-opening, because it reads like a laundry list of behaviors for which she has been criticized (even by former supporters).
• When I look at the full sweep of her life in terms of people, the main negative influence is apparent: Nathaniel Branden. The high-altitude picture is that on balance Ayn Rand was at her worst while Branden was in her life, and in my opinion, his negativity stuck with her. His effect at the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI) was chilling and dictatorial, and I suspect it was his psychological ideas combined with his personality that were the cause. There are enough first-hand accounts to support the idea that Rand also adopted negative attitudes and practices, but any latent negativity seems to have been amplified by Branden. Positive contributions made by his Institute were rendered moot by his negative influence on her and others associated with NBI.
• I am still at a loss as to how to make sense of her romantic relationship with Branden. The way it was handled seems odd and cruel to the spouses. I hope that someday someone can enlighten me on what to make of this whole episode.

It should be noted that the focus of Goddess of the Market is Ayn Rand's intellectual development and therefore the book centers only on certain aspects of her social and public life. This may leave one with a more negative impression of Rand as a person than is warranted. An example of an alternative, and more sanguine, account of her personality can be found in other sources such as the excellent and engaging Facets of Ayn Rand by Charles and Mary Ann Sures. I do not think the purpose of Burn's book was merely to provide a portrayal of Rand as a person, so I would not take it as such. Read it for what it is: a biography with a focus on intellectual history.

And now for happier subjects.

The Good

Burns' history of Ayn Rand's ideas and their influence is accurate, measured, and without the negative connotations and judgments to which her thought is often subjected. She does not condescend by using the oft-heard "shallow but popular" defense of Rand. She gives credit where credit is due, and that credit is the portrayal of a deep, lasting influence based on significant intellectual contributions. Other than the enjoyment of reading about a heroine's life, hearing confirmation of Ayn Rand's importance as a thinker is my favorite aspect of the book.

With the exception of a few issues (noted below), I would say Burns delivers an unusually accurate and engaging picture of Ayn Rand's intellectual influence both in terms of substance and in terms of degree. It has been common for pundits, going back to the time of Whittaker Chambers, to dismiss Rand as an unimportant crank with nothing to say. This is far from the truth, and Burns was successful in recording the extent of Rand's true philosophical legacy.

For example, the libertarian movement itself owes much to Rand, and even though she was a constant critic of libertarians, they count her as an important intellectual influence. I was surprised to hear about the synthesis of hippie culture and libertarianism in the 60s. This topic dovetails perfectly with my own experience at what was billed as an "Objectivist" meeting in college. The meeting was monopolized by a verbose, hirsute anarchist who certainly seemed to have far more in common with Woodstock hippies than the Apollo Program, Rand's example of man's rational best. It was my last Objectivist meeting for years, and I can certainly understand Rand's reaction to the same sort of people.

Where I Differ

The main differences I had with Burns' account were in certain subtleties of analysis. I am not privy to the historical archive materials so I take any information gleaned from them at face value. However, there are certain things that are available to anyone who can read Rand's public work, and therein lie some of my disagreements.

For instance, I had the opposite reaction to Burns regarding Rand's treatment of so-called ordinary men and women in Atlas Shrugged vs. The Fountainhead. Burns suggests on page 173 that a certain elitism is evident in Atlas Shrugged and that

...Rand entirely drops the populism and egalitarianism that characterized her earlier work...

I find Rand's portrayal of the railroad workers and similar people throughout Atlas Shrugged to be just the opposite. Take the crew that accompanied Hank and Dagny on the inaugural trip of the John Galt Line, which is a celebratory high point and an example of the essence of what people should aspire to. She could have ignored the engineer, brakemen and other lesser characters, but instead she chose to celebrate them by having them share in the event, each contributing to the best of their own ability. In fact, this type of treatment is one of the things that I took special note of while reading the novel.

Another area is Rand's view of emotion. The following passage is on page 225, where Burns is discussing Nathaniel Branden:

Nathan's problems were compounded by his development of Objectivist psychology, which denied the autonomy and importance of emotions... In For the New Intellectual [Rand] declared, "Emotions are not tools of cognition," a statement that would resurface repeatedly in all Objectivist writing. To Rand an emotion "tells you nothing about reality" and could never be "proof" of anything.

The only problem is, Rand's statement is correct: emotions are not tools of cognition, they are subconscious responses, rather than a form of awareness. This is not to say they should be suppressed or ignored, in fact Rand regarded emotion as a vital check on one's beliefs, and on our success or failure in choosing the right courses of action and values. They are not the standard by which to judge those actions, but are powerful indicators to reinforce the validity of rational ideas, or suggest avenues for possible introspection, if the emotional responses are inappropriate.

Yet another issue is that of social activity. On page 209 Burns says:

Her vision of society was atomistic, not organic. Rand's ideal society was made up of traders, offering value for value, whose relationships spanned only the length of any given transaction.

I don't want to read too much into this passage, but it seems to imply the common misconception that Rand condemns social activity and cooperation. There is nothing in Rand's view of society or capitalism -- rightly understood -- that specifies a limit on the extent or duration of social relations. The reason is that Rand's position was that most political philosophers' notion of social interaction is not social at all, but coercive barbarism. To claim that social life consists of chaining individuals together towards some unchosen societal end (which is what many collectivist plans amount to) is a tragically ironic and subversive use of the term, and it is this factual and moral distortion that Rand was opposing. In the end, it is actually the alleged advocates of "community" who are antisocial, and Rand who encourages social activity, because only free citizens can engage in non-sacrificial, mutually beneficial relationships.

Although such philosophical points are important, they also constitute some of the main subtleties of Objectivism, and are a common source of difficulty for those studying Rand's work. I found them to be relatively minor deviations from the overall accuracy and insightfulness of Burns' book from an Objectivist point of view. They are also counterbalanced by the many cases in which Burns gets Rand right where others have failed, and she deserves a great deal of credit for having maintained such an impressive level of accuracy throughout the book. Ayn Rand is a complex subject, so that is no small feat.

Conclusion

In the end, Goddess of the Market is a valuable contribution to the personal and intellectual history of Ayn Rand. Burns' account belies the widespread view that Rand was without deep significance, and replaces that belief with solid research and details concerning her passion, originality, and her extensive and growing impact. The book was informative, enjoyable, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about the life and ideas of this important American thinker.

Edits after posting: Changed "apparent" to "available". Added 1 paragraph at the end of the section "Negatives About Rand" starting with "It should be noted...".

Gnarled Pine, Mount Royal Trail

This tree was at the top of the Mount Royal trail I hiked the other day. What struck me was the normal trunk on the right, and the twisted and miniaturized branches on the left, almost as if it had sprouted a forest of Bonzai trees from its side.

Skiing And Hiking Day

Saturday I enjoyed a day of mixed activities: I skied a few turns at Loveland Ski Area in the morning, then spent the rest of the day in Summit County taking advantage of the summer-like weather, and hiked the Mount Royal trail near Frisco.

Loveland opened for the ski season a little over a week ago. They now have five trails open (Catwalk, Spillway, Richard's Run, Mambo, Home Run) which comprise two main routes downhill, covered with some natural snow augmented by snowmaking. I recorded my ski visit on a GPS receiver, and found I skied 18 laps in 3 hours, for 32,000 feet of downhill (yes I am a data junkie).


The track recording seems to have skipped around on the lower part of the trail, but clearly shows the lift ride up (left side) and various trips down the two main routes downhill (right side). Although the trail selection is limited this early in the season, it's fun to be on the snow again.

For early season, conditions were excellent. The snow was well groomed, soft, and consistent all the way down. Spillway trail got a bit scraped by mid-morning because it is relatively steep, but it softened up after the sun hit the slopes and the air became warmer. Here is the view over Spillway towards the Continental Divide.


Afterwards I headed to Frisco for lunch and to hike a trail I had passed many times and was curious about: Mount Royal (or Royal Mountain depending on the map). This mountain is the first prominence on the north end of the Tenmile Range, and towers over the Main Street area of Frisco. The trailhead is off the bike path near the end of Aspen Drive:


I started jogging up (because I can rarely resist running) but my winter boots, recent lunch, injured toe, and the overall steepness convinced me to hike it instead. Views of Mount Guyot and Bald Mountain along the way were great:


The trail passes old mining sites, and then winds steeply up a valley to the summit ridge, where you can see down into the canyon to I-70, Officer's Gulch, and the Gore Range. Here is a view over the other side, to the west:


With the help of momentum, I managed to run down in boots, not the best tools for the task, but still fun. The temperature was around 55 and sunny, which made it warm when there was no wind, but still pleasant with a breeze. The weather is a nice break from the recent cold snap, and something to savor before snowier weather sets in for good.

Brief Comment About Health Care

Here's a short comment I left on CNN about health care.

Government intrusion never helps markets, and it should remove itself from health care so we can have better products in this industry. The only proper role for government is to enforce contracts and prevent fraud.

Pick a market that has booms, busts, and doesn't work, and I'll show you a heavily regulated market. Pick an industry with great products, innovation, and falling prices, and I guarantee there's no Czar in charge of it.

The plans currently being proposed will strangle health care and bring higher prices, rationing, less care and lesser quality care. Only free people can create innovative products. Markets cannot be coerced into doing what we want.

What we need is to remove the barriers that are choking this supposedly "free" industry now: barriers to interstate competition, mandates, tax laws that warp the market, regulations that restrict what companies can do what, etc. To do otherwise would be to throw gasoline on the fire.

Such comments are not always perfect (I'm constantly tuning them, and I'll tweak this one), but I manage to generate about 100 short comments a year online. I then keep the text stored by date and a short title, along with the link to the original article. Providing links to further information helps, too.

Fall Sky At Dusk

We're starting to get into cooler weather, and it's the time of year for great sunsets. This was taken in early November at Matthews/Winters Park in Morrison, CO, which is right on the west edge of the Denver metro area.


The trails at this park lead up a hogback ridge, which has great views and interesting, rugged terrain.

Do Not Bend - FAIL - #2

Yesterday my copy of the Fall 2009 issue of The Objective Standard arrived:


Hmm, this looks familiar. LOL. Actually, the journal can be put into the mail box diagonally without bending, so it wasn't as drastic as the last time when there was more mail and this could not be done. Still funny, because the "DO NOT BEND" is the first thing I see when I pull it out and unbend it.

OK, I'm done with this topic now :)

Baucus Bill Vote - Action Needed!

Today the Senate Finance Committee may vote on whether to release the America's Healthy Future Act (the "Baucus bill") to the full Senate for a vote. It may be the last chance to call/write/email/fax committee members to stop the bill in committee. Some crucial committee members are:

• Olympia Snowe (ME) - (202) 224-5344 Tel. / (202) 224-1946 Fax
• Jay Rockefeller (WV) - (202) 224-6472 Tel. / (202) 224-7665 Fax
• Ron Wyden (OR) - (202) 224-5244 Tel. / (202) 228-2717 Fax
• Blanche L. Lincoln (AR) - (202) 224-4843 Tel. / (202) 228-1371 Fax

The U.S. Senate site has a convenient link for emailing legislators.

There is also a Grassfire.org fax line which will fax your letter to various legislators for a fee starting at $15.

UPDATE - Although this passed yesterday, with a 14-9 vote for socialism, these resources will come in handy to express opinions during the upcoming months.

Ferns In Snow

This photo was taken Sunday on the Mesa Trail in Boulder Mountain Park. You can almost feel the delicate fern resisting the feather weight of the accumulated snowflakes. This particular bend in the trail is rich with green in the summertime:

Silver Forest

This photo was taken Sunday on the Mesa Trail at Boulder Mountain Park using my SD1100's black and white mode. The higher I got, the snowier it was, until all could hear was the twittering of birds and the scraping of their claws on branches and the ground. In places I could hear a very faint whisper of traffic down in the valley in Boulder, and somehwere, a jet passing overhead.

FTC Blog Review Disclosure - Comments

The decision by the FTC to require disclosure of compensation for product reviews is indeed depressing for advocates of free speech.

These days, few people properly understand the issue of free speech, there is widespread anti-commercialism in our culture, and many do not recognize or apply the abstract principles involved. They may defend free speech in one area, but relinquish it in another, because they do not see the two as being related in terms of fundamental principles. This adds up to a passive or positive response to a ruling that is bad for all of us.

Examples of blogs with posts that are neutral-to-sanguine about the ruling:

• iLounge
• Moving at the Speed of Creativity
• Chris Brogan

I have no particular judgment regarding these blogs' general content, I'm only listing them with regard to opinions on this ruling. My point is that this is extremely unfortunate, since the rulings represents a significant erosion of free speech rights that are enjoyed by all blogs. We all need to be aware of those rights and fight for them, or they will gradually disappear. Understanding the principles involved is essential to this fight.

I was able to post this comment at Chris Brogan's site. I attempted to post at Speed of Creativity twice, but the comment has not appeared. In addition, based on the ad hominem and comment deletions to which Mark Wickens was apparently subjected at iLounge, I'm uncertain my comments will be posted there. It would be beyond ironic if Mark's comments in favor of free speech were intentionally censored!

Regarding these new regulations, which will go into effect December 1, 2009, I said:

This is great news, if we don't want free speech or individual rights.

It has come to a point where few people understand the line between freedom and protection, on the one hand, and government overstepping its bounds and violating our rights, on the other. Without this understanding, free speech is doomed and so are the rest of our rights.

If someone makes a statement in an online review regarding a product and fails to disclose payment from a third party it does not violate my rights, because I am free to make up my mind either way based on the information that *is* provided. Failing to provide information is not a falsehood, nor does it necessarily constitute fraud, which is the only legitimate reason to investigate it. I can simply not accept it, if I choose.

If I want to ask the blogger about their relation to the companies involved I can do that, and they can tell the truth, not answer, or answer falsely which would be fraud and could be prosecuted.

It is not a journalist's duty to provide information that I need to make a decision simply because they choose to blog on a topic; to impose this sort of positive obligation on media outlets is to make them a veritable slave to others. If the government steps over this line and forces media to provide information, it is government that has committed a transgression, not the blogger. In such a case, government has used force against a citizen who was not violating anyone's rights. That is the definition of the violation of freedom and of individual rights: unprovoked use of force.

The line in the sand that is becoming obscured is that individuals should be free to say as little or as much as they wish, provide they do not make fraudulent claims. Otherwise, government should have no say and take no action whatsoever. Once this line is crossed, there is literally no significant principle standing in the way of government with regard to written content. Anything the public does not like, and tells government they should have, can be forced out of us.

What if regulators think that political writers should be forced to disclose their membership to past political organizations, because the public "needs" that information to make an informed decision?

What if regulators think scientific publications should be forced to provide alternative theories, because the public "needs" all the facts to make a decision?

What if regulators decide that companies need to be forced to provide information against the products they are marketing, so that we can make a "balanced" decision. Oh, wait, they already have to do that ;)

Please, learn about individual rights, free speech, and fight for it. Free speech in electronic media is at stake.

See:
Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_topic_freespeech*

I would further embellish on this, and say that such free speech violations open the door to other rights violations, not merely those regarding free speech. For example, what is the limit on actions that the government may require in order to protect this alleged "right" to information? Virtually anything is possible, provided it can somehow be related to facilitating this "right". That's because free speech is not really a distinct type of right, it is merely the application of individual rights to a certain type of activity. In the end, it's all a matter of freedom, regardless of the activity. If one freedom is endgangered, they all are.

UPDATE - On the plus side, Michael Masnick at TechDirt wrote an article that is critical of the ruling, and was able to post my supportive comment. Go, freedom!

* Note: Compared to the original comment, I changed "*" to italics, added the word "be" in the second-to-last paragraph, and turned the references at the bottom into links.

Fall Colors In The Park

This was taken on a lunch break, at Memorial Park in Arvada, CO. This park is along the Ralston Creek trail system.

Snowflakes On Leaves

New snow in the Denver area this morning. I'm getting new snow tires put on as I write this (Goodyear Ultra Grip Ice)

No, I don't get any money from Goodyear for this. God, I hope I didn't fail to file the necessary forms. OK, I know the new disclosure rules don't go into place until December 1st, but I need to practice being a mindless slave, and my readers need to practice being passive non-independent-fact-checkers who are helpless and need the government to oversee their every earthly activity ;)

The Ironic Obama Peace Prize

I think the Nobel Committee has a different definition of peace than I do. The ironies include:

• Obama advocates a foreign policy of appeasement, which increases the chance, and likely severity, of violent conflict.
• He advocates moral altruism, which involves the sacrifice of some men to others, in this case by using to the powers of government to coerce us.
• He advocates thwarting peaceful, voluntary activity in the economic sphere, by forcing us to use our money and conduct business in certain ways not determined by the voluntary choice of all parties.
• He advocates heavy government intervention in medicine, where he proposes to force us to pursue certain medical care polices, and force doctors and insurers to offer treatments determined by government, on terms dictated by government.

Obama stands squarely, consciously on the side of unprovoked coercion against his own country's citizens, not peace. The morality of altruism is the modern equivalent of ritual sacrifice, and Obama is a fervent advocate of it.

This Nobel Peace Prize is an obvious fraud.

Colorado Open For Skiing

Loveland Ski Area in Colorado opened for skiing on Wednesday. And I noticed this morning that Arapahoe Basin has opened too. Pretty crazy, huh? At this point the one or two trails that are open have been covered largely with man-made snow. However, things were looking very wintry here this week: cold, with snow brewing in the weather forecast. Time to put the snow tires on.

Here's one of my favorite pictures of Loveland, taken to the right of Chair 8 in early March.


I was traversing through the pines looking for a few hundred feet of untracked snow. I takes some effort to get over here, but as you can see from the tracks, I wasn't the only one. On a powder day, it's only a matter of time before it's all gone.

Paging Dr. Spaceman

One of my favorite parts of 30 Rock is Dr. Spaceman, and partly just for the name. I can start laughing in the middle of the day just by pronouncing it.

It's a perfect name, really. The doctor himself (played by Chris Parnell) pronounces it "spuh-chemmun", whereas Tracey Jordan (played by Tracey Morgan) pronounces the name "space man". Since Tracey is prone to psychotic episodes, when he says it he seems slightly crazy, as if he's accustomed to talking about space aliens. The doctor is a quack, and the way he pronounces it sounds like he's just making a name up out of thin air. Very funny. But then, the whole show and everyone on it is funny.

There are a couple of jokes I would have left out of this video (i.e. "When is modern science going to find a cure for a woman's mouth?"), but overall it's funny.

Canon SD1100 Happy Ending

Well, after my third try with Canon factory repair related to problems mentioned earlier during my tests of the SD1200, a replacement optical assembly allows my camera to shoot clear images once again. It's not quite as good as my first SD1100, but it's acceptable compared to what I've seen from new models in retail stores, so I'm quitting while I'm ahead! In addition, the repair was free.

Here is a set of images I took when I got my camera back from the repair center the first time. In the left image, I framed the tree near the lower left corner in the image area, and on the right, I centered it. When the camera is in good working condition, the entire frame is in focus:


Note that I typically do my tests with all objects in the same focal plane, so it's not simply a matter of focusing on one object and not another.

Here is an image from the repaired camera. If you zoom in you can see some blurriness in the very corners, most noticeably in the lower left. If you're not looking for it, you might never notice it.


Much better! I'm still convinced the lens manufacturing process has slipped in quality somewhat in the last couple of years. It may be coincidence, but I looked back on my old cameras and they are made in Japan. The newer ones are made in China. I've heard people report that Canon claims this makes no difference, but I'm not ready to accept that based on what I've seen.

Then again, because of my troubles, I'm also more observant of differences in clarity. I also may be ready to step up to a higher grade of camera. Running with a DSLR in my backpack is probably not in the cards, but I can still hike it in :)

Do Not Bend FAIL

Since the latest issue of the excellent Objective Standard is on its way, I thought I'd post this picture of a past issue of the journal as it arrived in my mailbox.

Gary Valle's Photography On The Run

The Photography On The Run site has been in my sidebar for quite some time, but I thought it deserved mention simply because it's in keeping with the trail running aspect of my own blog.

Gary seems to have a similar sensibility to my own regarding trail running and shares an interest in photography, though with a different style. The shots are excellent and his accounts are filled with great details. After all, the ever-changing backdrop and the poetic beauty of it all makes running on trails continually energizing and enriching.

The runs look pretty challenging, too. There are a lot of 20+ milers and some ultras in the mix. I'm getting there slowly, but that's still on a higher level. He's also posted Google Earth images and .kmz files of runs.

If you like running or outdoor photography, check it out!

A Review of Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story"

Michael Moore released a new film to the public on Friday, for the alleged purpose of showing us what is wrong with capitalism and what we should do instead. As an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, I had to overcome my loathing of giving Michael Moore money in order to see the film on its public opening night. However, see it I did.

Being the good capitalist that I am, I judged that the payoff in first-hand information and analysis would outweigh the value of the precious $8 I parted with. In addition, my efforts may allow others to use the same $8 and two hours of their lives doing something more enjoyable.

That is not to say the experience was totally without entertainment value. Moore does have a sense of humor when he is busy not trying to enslave me for the sake of the public good. There were the typical bits of Moore dubbing the voices from vintage movie soundtracks, resulting in Jesus recommending the profit motive to his disciples, and telling a sick person in need of his healing powers that he cannot treat a pre-existing condition. OK, I chuckled. At one point Moore is standing on Wall Street trying to collar financial workers coming out of a building, and he keeps asking them for advice. Someone shouts: "Don't make any more movies!" Now that's funny!

What Is Capitalism?

Unlike Michael Moore and most critics of capitalism, I am going to define my terms up front. The Ayn Rand Lexicon lists the following definition of capitalism:

Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.

This definition is vintage Rand: concise, deceptively simple, but in fact very powerful. The meaning is nicely distilled into a precise definition by essentials, those of protecting individual rights (implying equal protection for all individuals) and private ownership. Armed with that definition, let us proceed.

Is The Movie Really About Capitalism?

Let me start by giving the ideological punch line from the end of the film, and go from there, because it will properly set the context for the rest of my review. The following quote sums up Moore's viewpoint:

Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy.

The only problem is, very little that is shown in the movie is actually capitalism.

The bulk of the movie consists of enumerating the various unholy alliances between government and business. However that is not capitalism . It is government overstepping its bounds in favor of business, which means a mixed economy, or an emerging form of fascism.

As per the definition above, capitalism entails private ownership, and full ownership requires freedom to do what you choose with your property. Citizens do not truly own their property if the government taxes it, if there are laws telling you how you may use or trade it, if you must influence the government simply to conduct normal business, or if you can buy off the government to crush your competitors. Individual rights means the same rights for all; not rights for some businesses and not others, or rights for business and not individuals.

The degree of government intrusion into the economy that we currently have makes private ownership impossible. Under private ownership, business would not need to become involved in politics, because politics would have no say in the matter, except to enforce contracts, prosecute fraud, and protect us from violent criminals.

The issue of business using government to obtain favors is the one area in which I can agree with Moore; unfortunately, we have radically different solutions.

Rather than perpetuating the government influence, the capitalist solution is to eliminate this connection. Just as it is wrong for business to dominate the individual through law, it is wrong for government to dominate business in the name of the individual or social needs. Moore's solution, however, is to take the same corrupting government influence and try to harness it in the service of different ends. Instead of condemning the principle of government influence in the economy, he merely condemns the current dominators. His people would be better. It does not work that way, Mr. Moore. Government influence will be even more destructive and oppressive in the service of liberal goals than in the service of Wall Street plutocrats. At least pro-business forces ostensibly want to keep economic production going, even if they rig the system in their favor.

Here are some of the examples of "capitalism" provided in the film:

• Former Wall Street executives working at Treasury and influencing the bailouts
• PA Child Care, a corrupt company that influenced local politicians and a judge to channel juvenile offenders into their prison, from which they profited
• Countrywide Financial giving special loans for FOA (Friends of Angelo), referring to Angelo Mozilo, the C.E.O. Recipients included politicians who were in a position to vote on issues important to the industry
• The suggestion that the success of America's postwar was due to eliminating the competition through war
• The nearly constant references to business influence of government through Ronald Reagan, Donald Regan, Dick Cheney, former finance executives, etc.
• The recent housing bubble and consequent collapse, which was caused by government policy, not freedom

None of these things represent -- or are caused by -- capitalism properly understood.

Are The Capitalist Activities Portrayed Really Wrong?

On the other side of the coin, there are examples in the film that are capitalism but should not be condemned, even if they involve the misfortune of some individuals. Examples include:

• Home evictions, provided there was a clear legal contract and the borrower did not live up to its terms
• Companies taking out life insurance on their employees, which is a totally legitimate voluntary activity by the company (one wonders why the individuals in the film did not do this themselves)
• Derivatives, provided these instruments are free arrangements among private parties and do not consist of fraud or violate contracts
• So-called "foreclosure vultures", who buy up foreclosed homes and re-sell them, thus serving a useful purpose of getting people back in the homes and adjusting the prices to a more realistic value

One of the responsibilities of living in a free society is being willing to tolerate things we may not necessarily like (including others having more money) for the sake of the freedom of all. I do not want to see white supremacists marching down main street, but to apply the principle of freedom of speech for all requires that we allow it. The same applies to economic practices that one finds objectionable, but which involve voluntary acts between two parties. We simply have no moral right to interfere, because to do so would violate their individual rights.

Those who want to suppress Nazis in spite of their free speech rights are no different from those who want to suppress certain "unwanted" economic activity; in both case, it results from a lack of thinking in principles. If it is right for one person, it is right for everyone. Hence the term "individual rights" rather than "popular persons' rights". To paraphrase a common Christian refrain: a society ought to be judged by how we treat those who are least popular. Or, more properly, how we treat the smallest minority of all: the individual.

With regard to the morality of capitalism, Moore interviews Catholic priests, and we hear that capitalism is "evil", "radically evil", and contrary to Jesus. However, if I am looking for advice on earthly matters, the Vatican is the last place I would look. It is no secret that the Pope hates capitalism.

To defend rational self-interest and individual rights fully on a factual and moral basis is beyond the scope of this review, but I recommend reading Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue Of Selfishness. If you have never read these books, I guarantee that you will find out that capitalism and self-interest are not what you have been told. Pay special attention to the definitions and Rand's usage of them; she weeds out some of the common contradictory meanings in favor of definitions by essentials.

Is Capitalism The Cause Of Our Problems?

On this count, Moore scarcely weighs in. This is partly because, as I pointed out above, he does not analyze capitalism, he analyzes a mixed economy. Therefore, it is not possible to examine whether capitalism is the cause of anything, because he does not seem to know what it is. However, it is also because Moore evaluates the causal forces involved in our economy incorrectly.

An example is his assertion that the financial crisis is the result of too much freedom. As per the link above, this is incorrect. Imagine, if you will, a man who neglects maintenance on his car; he lets the brakes go to seed, lets the windshield become dirty and hard to see through, never wears his seat belt, and then one night he drives home drunk in a rain storm. A deer crosses the road, which the man cannot see, and he skids off the road, cannot brake in time before he hits a tree, and is ejected from the car and dies. Would we say it is the deer's fault?

It is the same with the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve is an arm of the government formed in 1913 (notably, prior to the crash of '29), to replace the free market banking system. The Fed, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the CRA and various regulatory pressures were all wielded in the service of "affordable housing" to keep rates low, resulting in an artificial housing boom that should never have existed. To blame the finance industry, which is merely trying to operate within this warped environment, is the height of injustice, regardless of how much money you see being made. It is the deer that stepped out into the road.

There are other examples of incorrect causal analysis in the film:

• The idea that US prospered after the war because we eliminated our enemies in WW2
• Corporate greed caused late 20th century economic problems
• The idea of the financial industry as a destructive industry
• The idea that business takes from a common "pie" rather than creating value, thus leaving less for the rest of us

All of these premises are false. Most are addressed by a good book on economics or capitalism, but I want to address the issue of "greed", which we hear so often.

Greed is a motive, it does not speak to the means used to satisfy it. For example are we to believe that greed levels magically spiked in the American populace (specifically, those located in the New York City area working on Wall Street) during the housing boom, to give rise to our current problems? Does greed magically wane again, causing a healthy economy? It is trivially obvious that greed cannot be a prime mover in what has happened. What is required is a causal enabler; all the greed in the world means nothing, without a means to put it into action. I would love to have a million dollars right now, but that is meaningless without a means to achieve it.

In the case of the housing boom, the causal enabler was the sum of government influences that I described above. It is the same for everything else one ascribes to greed; it is not the real cause, something else is.

Moore says that democracy is what we need in place of capitalism, but democracy also does not define the content of law; it merely describes how citizens provide input to government, such as by voting for elected officials. Absolute democracy would entail the tyranny of the majority, if individual rights were not also protected.

Conclusion

Similar to Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story strives to evoke our sympathy to enlist us in the war against capitalism. Moore can be very effective at stirring emotion; we can certainly sympathize with the people he interviews, who are always well chosen for their tales of trouble. I cannot imagine having my home seized by the bank; it must be awful.

However, like in Sicko, Moore also displays no understanding of the underlying causal issues involved, or what it will take to improve society. Ironically, it is his economic and moral principles that are the cause of our troubles.

There is an interesting bit in the movie where one of the Catholic priests defines propaganda as being taught to advocate ideas that are in fact victimizing you. If that is the case, then Moore's movie is anti-propaganda: he rails against the very idea -- capitalism -- that is saving us all from economic devastation.

In the end, the movie fails in its mission to discredit capitalism, because it barely mentions true capitalism, and because it incorrectly identifies the causes of our economic troubles. A better title would be Fascism: A Love Story. This movie does not help to clarify the debate on what economic system we should have; it only obscures it.

Snow Leopard And Vista

An update to my previous problems trying to run Vista on a MacBook: I purchased Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). It was only $29.95 and I wanted to see if it helped some of the issues I've had trying to run Vista.

It does not help the DTC latency issues, which in my case make iTunes unusable. I did not notice any difference in fan behavior; the machine still runs hot under Vista and the fan does not spin up like it would for the same temp under Mac OS.

The jury is out on whether it affects crashes, because I did not keep it running long enough. I'm sticking with XP, and when I need to upgrade I'll just have to buy a different laptop.

BTW, I tried the Windows 7 beta, and it does not make any difference in iTunes or fan behavior. I did not have any crashes during my short test periods.

Photo of King's Crown

As you can see on this page, King's Crown comes in different colors. Actually, the dark purple is more common in my experience, and it's such an unusual color it grabs my attention. Then, I saw this pink version along a high mountain stream.

Vail Trail Run

This run was 14.6 miles, with a starting elevation of 8,200 feet, a maximum of 11,200 feet, and a total gain of 3,500 feet (including ups/downs). If you've skied at Vail, it was from the main base area up to Buffalo's, the lodge at the top of Vail Mountain where lifts 4, 5 and 11 meet.


I struck gold in more ways than one during this outing: it was a perfect 65-70 degrees in Vail, with cloudless blue skies, and the aspens were midway through their conversion from green to gold. In fact, I could barely keep running because I had to stop and look, and ended up taking 271 photos! As a result I took 2.5 hours to get to the top.


Access to the hiking trails is free in the summer, and so is the parking garage (instead of the $25 I pay during ski season -- ouch!). This is typical of resorts in the summer, and it's a great bargain outing.

The trails themselves are nicely surfaced but were challenging due to the nearly constant uphill; even with a 5% grade, there was barely any relief in the 7.3 mile ascent. However, the surface was great, and consisted mostly of dirt through pine woods


combined with open traverses of the ski slopes:


It's fun to see this environment in a different season, with the whole place practically to myself; I only saw 4 groups of hikers all afternoon. Vail employees were doing maintenance, zooming around on the dirt roads in trucks, running the lifts, and servicing the chair lift towers. Along the way was this fleet of snowmobiles on their summer break:


As I ascended, the terrain changed from aspen to pine, and at around 10,500 feet, I started to see snow in the woods and in the shadows. I'm relishing the last bits of summer, but I'll embrace winter whenever it arrives. Time to take the skis for a tune!


At the top are sweeping views of the Gore Range to the north, the Vail Back Bowls to the south, and if you maneuver around the woods, the Mount of the Holy Cross area to the southwest. That's the Gore Range in the background:


I've enjoyed the mountains' namesake brewery in Edwards on several occasions.

Below is China Bowl, where I've had more fun that I can describe. Coming from the east where there really wasn't powder to speak of, I learned to ski deep snow mostly at Vail and Loveland. On a powder day here, I go until the very last chair lift, worrying if I'm going to get stuck after the lift closes so that I have to hike out by myself :) I don't want it to end.


The only other person up high on the mountain was a lone worker manning the chair lift, which would periodically move a bit so that workers on the chairs could access the next lift tower.

I was only half done at this point, so after a short snack I hit the trails again and made a fairly quick descent, minus time for more photos. When I passed through the aspens in the middle of the mountain, my pace slowed to a crawl since I was so distracted. The late afternoon light from the cloudless sky was lighting up the aspen leaves like stained glass. If you've walked through an autumn forest you know that it fills your surroundings with a colored glow. I'm lucky I didn't take a header into a tree as I was gawking at the colors while trying to run. Here's a photo for the road: