Ski Day Number Four - Alta

On the fourth and final day of our Utah ski trip, the skiers went to Alta and the two snowboarders in our group went to Snowbird, because Alta does not allow snowboards.

My take on the issue of skier vs. snowboarder: although I occasionally hear skiers trash-talking about snowboarders (usually they are older skiers), honestly I don't know what the big deal is. Partly it's a matter of adapting to the way things are; griping about boards is a recipe for frustration, since almost every resort allows them. I don't believe in setting myself up for pointless frustration. It's also that I refuse to be so inflexible that I won't adapt to something new. And partly it's the fact that I don't see that much difference on the slopes. There may be a slight tendency for beginning boarders to scrape the trails smooth in certain areas, but I saw the same thing at Alta even though it was only skiers. During my 30-40 ski days a year in Colorado, I have more trouble with thoughtless skiers buzzing me than boarders. So, moving on...

Equipment choices aside, we had yet another fine snow day while at Alta, and other than the fogginess, it was a great time. The snow drifted in all day long and kept the slopes nice and soft! This photo shows about the best visibility of the day:


Looking back at my photos, I realize I didn't take that many at Alta. Since it wasn't sunny, the light wasn't great, but also I really focused on the skiing and trying to get the most out of the last day.

We started out by skiing the Sugarloaf lift, and hit the rolling hills through the gate on skier's left coming down the main trail.

The ex-college ski racer in our party also tempted me to take a short hike up a hill and ski a small bowl called Keyhole Gulch, which had the deepest powder of the day. It was interesting. First, you hike about 50 feet up a small but steep hill, and then traverse to the front side on a short and curvy track that's two skis wide and has a steep chute on the right. If you fall, you will probably get hurt. Then, you ski 10 feet down at a 50-degree angle between two boulders (no turning) to get to the actual slope. There was also a 2-foot drop where the snowpack had split (ski patrol had checked it out), which both skiers in front us took a tumble on. However, once out on the slope, it was like bounding downhill on soft mattresses for ten turns, in a foot and a half of snow.

After lunch, we headed over to the Supreme lift, which was the better part of the day, in my opinion. Here is the view down from this chair lift (we didn't ski this exact part, but it was similar):


From the top, a catwalk makes long zigzags downhill and black runs drop off at regular intervals into soft bumps and widely-spaced trees. There are sort of three levels, so you ski one slope, cross an open area, descend the next set of slopes, ski the catwalk or a gully and then there's a third slope. We skied this area for a couple of hours and it was arguably the best skiing of the trip, even though I almost ate a bark sandwich from a pine tree limb growing across one of the paths through the trees. On this part of the mountain, I guess I found this rock to be the most photogenic sight, because I have several pictures of it ;)


This is the third slope, and like the other two, the snow was soft and easy to ski.

Due to the snow day, the drive back to Salt Lake was tedious stop-and-go traffic. Some were not prepared for the drive, such as the car in front of us, which even at 2 mph, managed to slide off the road. Two words: snow tires. We made sure they were OK, and then continued on our way.

Dinner was the traditional final-day-of-vacation dinner of whatever is left in the fridge. Due to the creative culinary powers of those other than me, the meal was quite good! There was leftover Indian, pizzas made from naan, and other goodies. And the Olympics on TV after dinner cleanup! An excellent last day.

Why I Am Mtnrunner2

A few years ago when I started to get into the online community, I had to choose a login for various sites that was not already being used. Using parts of my name was surprisingly difficult, since on large web sites, name-based logins seem to be the first ones taken. I had to create something simple and unique.

Because I like to run in the mountains, I started trying "mtnrunner".

However, I found that mtnrunner.com (note: music plays when you click the link) pointed to sites by Matt Carpenter, mountain runner extraordinaire. Matt has won the Pikes Peak marathon and can safely be called a running legend. He has occasionally passed me while running on or near the Barr Trail, which leads to Pikes Peak. Since I'm no kind of competitive runner, but simply a guy who likes to run in the mountains, I relinquished my attempt to be "mtnrunner", and happily deferred to the champion.

However, not wanting to totally give up the name, I simply added the number "2" to the end (an easy solution and probably the source of many easy-to-crack passwords).

In early Google searches, I found there is someone else who goes by "mtnrunner2" who has written about real-estate issues, which I also write about occasionally as part of my political activism. However, due to the volume of posts I've written, most of the search results now pertain to me.

All I wanted was a nick that's appropriate and somewhat unique, and "mtnrunner2" has worked out well. When I want to use my real name, I simply sign it at the end.

Stout Month At Southern Sun, Boulder CO

There are only a few days left of Stout Month (February) at Southern Sun, but it's still worth crowing about. It doesn't matter; their beer is always good no matter what month you visit. You've got to love a pub that A) has a Stout Month, and B) still has 9 other taps in addition to the 12 used to serve this week's stout selections:


Half of the twelve are guest taps, the others are brewed by the pub. For my money, nothing in Colorado beats Southern Sun. The beer is inventive in its variety, unfiltered and tasty, the food is excellent, and the atmosphere is friendly and mellow. It's also busy every hour it's open, so come early if you are trying for a table. I usually eat at the bar.

Since it's in Boulder, the Rocky Mountain equivalent of Berkeley, I also feel a bit like a spy when I'm there; an Objectivist interloper among green radicals and rabid liberals. Truth be told, Boulder is more mixed than it used to be, with the influx of outsiders and the business growth of the area, so there are probably even a few Ayn Rand fans living there by now. Boulder is still one of my favorite destinations in the Front Range.

P.S. - The listing above has been different every time I've been there this month!

Shadows Of Fencepost And Twigs

These are the shadows cast by wooden fence on a steep slope, with some covered animal tracks thrown in. The shadows on snow often bear little resemblance to the objects that cast them, which makes me think of Plato's Cave.


As an Objectivist, my reaction is that we would not notice this difference if our perception were not firmly rooted in objectivity, i.e. if we did not recognize the actual objects and form correctly, thus enabling us to contrast it with the altered perceptions.

If only humanity had taken this lesson from Plato, rather than his lesson of the mind's incapacity, we might be living better lives right now. Authoritarian governments through history have been based on the assumption that humans are incapable of thinking for themselves. This assumption is shared by some people today, who believe that we are helpless serfs who need government to make our decisions for us, and are thus pushing us towards socialism.

Olympic Women's Giant Slalom In Fog

After skiing in a whiteout last week at Snowbird, I was certainly sympathetic -- and amazed -- to watch the foggy GS races Wednesday, with unfortunate consequences for Lindsey Vonn (crash) and Julia Mancuso (had to restart because of Vonn's crash). This situation did not seem safe or fair to me, but at least run 2 was delayed until today (Julia Mancuso just finished 8th). Click on the link below to go to the NBC Olympics site for the video and commentary from yesterday:


World-class athletes are incredibly fearless and determined, and will forge ahead under the toughest conditions. However, I fear the 2010 Vancouver Olympics may be remembered as much for its difficult conditions and accidents as for its athletic triumphs.

Bipartisan Meeting on Health Reform LIVE

If you have a strong stomach, and can bear to watch your freedom slipping away right before your eyes, the White House is streaming the meeting on health reform right now:


I wish I could watch the whole thing, because I'm sure it will be instructive from a strategic standpoint. My prediction is there will be roughly zero speech in principled defense of individual rights from the speakers.

Burn Trail At Breckenridge

I started off a recent ski day at Breckenridge somewhat frustrated. There was 7" of new powder, but everyone else knew it too, and they descended on the resort like sharks for a feeding frenzy. The chair lifts leading to the upper powder slopes led to some fun powder, but there were 15-25 minute waits in line for 90 seconds of skiing. The lower slopes had some powder but were slippery and hard underneath due to the recent lack of snow. And groomed runs are not really my cup of tea.

Then I decided to explore a bit, and ended up on Peak 9, where most of the trails are black or double black, but with the fresh snow, they were totally skiable (even for not-yet-expert me) and it was just the ticket. Here's a shot of the upper part of the Burn trail:


Although I found the upper part pretty easy, the farther down I got the steeper it became, and some of the turns were about 10 vertical feet around trees where I could not always see the exit. I suppose that adds to the excitement, but it could also add to the hospital stay. I just zig-zagged down as necessary to get by some spots.

Anyway, the chair lift was much less crowded (probably because the trails were more difficult), the snow was soft, and I was elated to get away into some peaceful trees on beautiful expert slopes. I'm glad I tried something different; it saved my mood and made for a really fun day!

Ski Day Number Three - Snowbird

The third day of our recent ski trip, we had mostly clear skies and powder left over from the previous days. Since we hadn't been able to even see Mineral Basin on our first day at Snowbird due to clouds and blowing snow, we wanted to return to ski the bowl terrain on a powder day, especially a day with great visibility!

At the top of the mountain, there were still lingering clouds, a reminder of the prior day's storms:


However, once we were on the Mineral Basin side, it was all sunshine. To access the Mineral Basin bowl from the skier's right side, you have to traverse along the top of the slope on an path cut into the snow by nothing more than countless skis and boards, called Path to Paradise. You can see the traverse as a thin line on the mountainside in the background of this picture, which was taken after the descent. The tiny black dots in a row are people traversing:


The traverse was like a miniature ski/snowboard cross course of rolling ups and downs, and it can be a little exciting if you get going too fast or you hit an abrupt dip too hard. I like to joke that a similar area at Colorado's A-Basin (East Wall) is a double black diamond, whereas the actual trail below it is only a single diamond ;)

Here is a shot of that whole side of the basin from farther away. The traverse is in the shadows:


Back on the front side, there was a similar traverse called Road To Provo above another bowl, seen below. The crossing was not my favorite part of the mountain, since it was narrow, smooth and bumpy, and hard to control speed on. People were wiping out, including me when I caught an edge on a roller, lost a ski, and started sliding off the traverse towards the steep trail below. After that, I skied on the other side of the hill, where a narrow traverse was not required.

Incidentally, this is the path we took down while blinded by clouds and blowing snow on the first day. Yikes!


This is the view from just below the traverse:


By this point, my legs were really starting to run on empty after two and a half days of hard skiing. I also have not been running much this winter, so my endurance level was not what it usually is in the warmer months. I admire the dedication of Anton Krupicka, a nationally-ranked trail runner who has been running my beloved Boulder Mountain trails almost continuously through the winter. But spanning the cold and dark winter months as a trail runner is the subject of different post!

The photo below was taken near the Little Cloud chair lift, towards the end of the afternoon:


Last but not least, the next photo is the view from the deck at the base area. There are nice patios at both Snowbird base lodges, and this one has a nice mini bar serving a good selection of craft brews, such as those from Squatters.


Snow was to return for our fourth and final day of skiing and riding, which was at Alta (for the skiers in the group) and Snowbird (for the snowboarders). That's next.

Colorado To Throw Payday Lenders To The Wolves?

Lenders who charge high interest rates have often been likened to predators such as wolves, but in this case, the wolves would actually be the general public in Colorado, if we vote for a bill that may be on our state ballot.

There is a proposal afoot to let Coloradans like me vote on whether to limit interest rates on payday loans. Of course, as an advocate of freedom and justice, I would vote "No!"

Contrary to the claims of the measure's proponents, such a vote would render lenders and their customers unto the angry mob, rather than protect them with the rule of law.

By definition, laws interfering with trade violate our rights. The fact that two adults agree to enter a transaction means that both parties have agreed it is in their interest to proceed. Laws that prevent that transaction are unjust to both parties, who obviously desire the transaction.

Furthermore, the measure is in the ignoble tradition of abusing lenders for allegedly charging "excessive" interest rates, traditionally called usury. Here is an article that describes this history and sets the moral record straight.

Basically, there is no justification for laws against specific interest rates. It represents rule by brute force, and the tyranny of the majority. Instead, we should protect people's right to take out loans at whatever rate and on whatever terms they choose, guided by their rational choice and their judgment about what will make their life better.

Not everyone will succeed, but such is life. Such failures do not morally justify forcibly interfering with the successful decisions of others. Laws restricting interest rates should be rejected on the moral principle of individual rights, and never be placed on the ballot in the first place.

Stock Chart In Ice

During a lunch walk in Golden, CO, I strolled along the banks of Clear Creek, which runs through town. In the summer the creek is enjoyed by kayakers, people on inner tubes, and bystanders enjoying the sights and sounds that running water always provides.

In winter, large interestingly-shaped masses of ice cover the creek, cracking and rising over each other like arctic ice floes. Thin strips of rushing water and swirling pools suggest the power of the flowing water underneath. Along the edge, I found these delicate crystal formations.


I don't really follow the stock market since my only investments are for long-term purposes, but I still root for the markets in a general way. Go, economy!

Ski Day Number Two - Solitude

The second day of our recent ski trip to Utah was spent at Solitude, which is up Big Cottonwood Canyon east of Salt Lake City. It was another snowy day with sketchy visibility, but the benefits of the snow far outweighed the cost in visual clarity. The snow surface in the image below is virtually untracked snow about 10" deep:


Solitude is decidedly more low-key than Snowbird. It's like Colorado's Arapahoe Basin compared to say, Breckenridge. However, the lodge and bar were nice, and honestly I'm all about the skiing anyway, and Solitude delivered. I also like low-key resorts. It's one reason I like Winter Park/Mary Jane; it's a fairly big ski area that nonetheless retains a mellow Colorado mountain attitude.

To stay below the clouds, we gravitated towards the Powderhorn chair lift, which is roughly in the center of this map. We skied down the face to skier's left; mainly Concord, Paradise and Vertigo. Below is a view looking up at the slopes we skied/rode. Somehow, this photo does not properly reflect the steep and tiring nature of the slopes :) I found it pretty demanding and was glad I had my obSETHeds.


Below is a view from just below the top of the chair lift. The majority of the slope is past the trees on the right. There was soft boot-height powder at the top, followed by slightly firm powder bumps below, with a few easily-avoided (or not) cliff bands. I think we lapped this area for a couple of hours.


I stopped to take the following photo of some aspens, and got separated from the gang. Such is the cost of stopping to smell the flowers, so to speak. Actually, I took fewer photos than usual this trip, because I wanted to balance taking photos against making others wait. My solution was to ski fast so I could also take photos :)


Afterwards, we took a well-deserved break for a beer in the lodge (we had a minor with us, and he could not enter the bar). This makes a good segue to my rant against drinking while skiing. In this case it was the end of the day and I wasn't driving, so it was fine, but I never, ever drink on the slopes, because when I ski I need all my wits about me, and imbibing central nervous system depressants is not part of that plan. I just don't get drinking while skiing. Would I drink right before a trail run? Not!

This in turn provides a segue to a craft beer recommendation. We stopped at Squatter's brew pub for lunch when we arrived in Salt Lake, and I had their IPA in a bottle (I wish it had been on draft) and it was an excellent hoppy, well-rounded beer. The Captain Bastard's Oatmeal Stout (draft) was also excellent. Both the food and beer were tasty and I would definitely return -- for a third time :)

The Dollyrots - "Because I'm Awesome"

Don't bother watching this video unless you like rock music, and like it loud. If I listened to music while exercising (which I don't, because I'm usually in situations where I want to hear what's going on around me), I might listen to this to get pumped up.

Note: adjust your computer volume before you press "Play"!


The overt message of the campy video, namely poking fun at people who incorrectly think they are great when they are not, is contradicted by the emotional tone of the music, which is pure positive, self-boosting energy.

Steve Canyon Or Jayne Cobb?

The Denver airport has a big map of Colorado with quirky landmarks on it, which lo and behold has the Steve Canyon statue I likened to Jayne Cobb. No mention of the Firefly series, though :) I suppose the structures in the background are a little too nice for mudder dwellings.

Ski Day Number One - Snowbird

Here are a few quick photos of our first ski day at Snowbird last Friday.

We had come to Salt Lake City expecting no snow at all; a risk you take when planning months in advance. At home in Colorado, I ski wherever the snow falls, instead of planning in advance, so the apparent bad luck was bumming me out. However, the weather reports got worse as the vacation drew near, and we actually had a weak storm system over the Wasatch Range for the entire stay, resulting in about 21" of snow for the trip. Not epic, but more than enough to soften the bumps and make for some slow-motion steep skiing!

When we got off the tram at the top for our first run down the mountain, conditions were nasty! Below is the view on a second (misguided) trip down the same path, when the visibility was actually better!


The wind was whipping, the snow stung our faces, and visibility was only 10-30 feet. I remembered from prior trips that there were some unpleasant catwalks ahead and expert skiing all around. We followed each other carefully, a few feet apart; close enough to see the person in front, but far enough so that if they fell, we wouldn't run over them. At times, I was literally skiing down the run by feel alone. Not a good time.

Our strategy for the rest of the day was to stay lower on the mountain, below the clouds and wind. Here is a shot of a slope to skier's left of Little Cloud chair, which required a short traverse above the slope above. The powder was a bit stiff from the wind, but still fun:


Below are my k2 obSETHeds, which at 169 cm length and 105 mm width under foot (138 tip, 125 tail) were absolutely perfect for the trip. These are my every day Colorado skis, and they are a great combination of float on loose snow and maneuverability on uneven terrain. Very fun and easy to ski:


In the next photo, you can clearly see the clouds hovering over the mountains, and the flattening effect it has on the terrain; you can barely see variations on the snow surface. The sun is making a fleeting appearance in the valley below:


For about 5 minutes the sun broke through and shined on us as we neared the base area. Wow, I could see every bump and lump of snow! Amazing!


The upside of the cloudy conditions was that snow flurries fell all day, keeping slopes soft and preventing the trails from getting too scraped up. The snowy conditions suggested more good days were ahead.

The Objectivist Round Up Is... Up

This week's Objectivist Round Up is at Three Ring Binder. The Round Up features posts by bloggers who advocate Objectivism, the philosphy of Ayn Rand. Enjoy!

NY Times Misjudges The Stimulus

In a recent article, NY Times writer David Leonhardt takes on the task of appraising the government's stimulus package, and totally misses the point.

Contrary to the conclusions of the article, such a critique is related directly -- and only -- to the degree of political control used by the policies. To the extent that they facilitate freedom, they will be successful; i.e. they will allow economic players to be productive and will encourage economic productivity. To the extent policies initiate force against citizens, they will inhibit growth.

Unfortunately, the stimulus package contains more coercion than freedom.

The notion that pumping money into certain sectors of the economy will stimulate growth is an utter fraud based on ignoring negative effects and not understanding positive ones. Here is a sample statement from the article:

The last year has shown — just as economists have long said — that aid to states and cities may be the single most effective form of stimulus. Unlike road- or bridge-building, it can happen in a matter of weeks. And unlike tax cuts, state and local aid never languishes in a household’s savings account.

The ideal follow-up stimulus would start with that aid. It would then add on extended jobless benefits, which also tend to be spent, as well as tax credits carefully drafted to get businesses to hire and households to spend, like the cash-for-clunkers program.

Let me rephrase myself to fit this statement: any form of stimulus that involves the government moving money around cannot have a net positive effect on the economy. For example, jobless benefits amount to paying people be unemployed. While such insurance might exist in a more prosperous and truly free economy, it would be based on an individual's rational decision to buy such insurance (or they could simply save some of the money that is no longer taken from them). Today's unemployment benefits involve forcibly taking someone's income and using it against their judgment to pay others to not have a job. It subverts reason and rewards failure.

What this statement blithely ignores is the fact that rational judgment is the engine of economic growth, not simply spending money. Otherwise, we could drop the remaining pretenses at being free and simply have the government pay for everything, and we'd all be rich, right? Some people would probably love that.

The article ignores the cost of taking money from some people, who would have used it to increase its economic value by selling goods and services and making a profit. What about the economic growth that didn't happen because those people had their cash seized by the government? Whether the money is paid directly from taxes or by taking out a loan against future taxes, it removes money from rational uses and uses it for purposes that do not involve profit-making. Such uses beg the question of how prosperous our economy could have been if the government would have simply let people keep their income in the first place.

In essence, the idea of stimulus by government spending ignores the human mind's role in society and in economic prosperity. The question critics should be asking is not how should we spend government money, but whether we should do it. If it's growth we want, the answer is "no!"

Shock Wave Effects On A Jet Wing

I flew from Salt Lake City to Denver yesterday afternoon, after a lunch at the Red Iguana. Everything is so close together in SLC that it was only a few minutes’ drive to the airport. The short one-hour trip in the air was spent taking pictures and looking out the window.


In addition to the scenery below, I saw tiny visual distortions along the front edge of the wing, which I had never noticed before. You can see this as a vertical dark streak in the center of this detail image from a few minutes prior:


What I saw first-hand also contained smaller streaks and had a slightly jagged appearance. The streaks were somewhat static, but occasionally moved from left to right as the vertical bands of pressure variation shifted along the wing. The effect is similar to that described in this post, for example in the bottom images, in the letters on the wing and the leading edge.

Snowy Day At Alta

We came to Salt Lake City expecting no snow during our visit. Thankfully, the weather reports got "worse" and worse as the trip drew near, and in the end it snowed three out of four days we were in town. Monday was no exception, with 10" the prior 24 hours and flurries all day while we were at Alta. It was a great day. Here is a shot of a misty mountain from the trails below the Supreme lift:

Mineral Basin At Snowbird

Sunday was a sunny day after a solid 10" of snow for the prior 24 hours. The snow was a bit wind-packed, but still lots of fun, and the scenery was spectacular.

Salt Lake City From Snowbird

I'm on vacation for a few days, skiing, watching the Olympics, and relaxing with friends and family. We skied/rode at Snowbird the first day and got a steady trickle of snow that accumulated into 7". Here is a view from near the base of Snowbird:

Love Among the Flowers

One could feel like an intruder on this scene between two bugs on summer flowers, although embarrassment is hardly within their repertoire of emotions. But hey, if they wanted privacy, they should have gotten a leaf!

Objectivist Round Up

This week's Objectivist Round Up is at Titanic Deck Chairs. Topics include: a call to free the beer, the politics of tainted olive oil, a recipe for quiche, and other sundry issues by Objectivist bloggers.

Crags Of Eldorado Canyon

This looks like a 19th century Romantic style painting, but it's a photo of the entrance to Eldorado Canyon south of Boulder, CO. The state park located in the canyon is a popular climbing area, and some of my favorate trails are nearby.


Although I climbed a lot as a kid, and I dabble in some rock scrambling during my outings, but I've never gotten into the grown-up version. Something about the difference between climbing a tree 20 feet off the ground vs. climbing rock at 200 or 2000 feet, I guess.

Fog-Shrouded Mountain Near NCAR

This photo was taken in Boulder Mountain Park directly behind the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a.k.a. global warming central for the United States. I was amused to see a huge blower venting steam into the air, strategically placed out of sight behind the building ;)

The craggy hillsides below are the lower parts of small mountains that extend around 1,500 feet higher, but are covered by fog. Imagine walking out of your office and into this terrain all year long. It would make for some nice lunch-hour walks and trail runs.

Lessons Of The Pam Tebow Super Bowl Ad

This commentary by RedState.com is an example of why Objectivists must be wary of supporting supposedly pro-freedom conservative groups. While they are supposedly advocating freedom, they are also denying it in the area of so-called reproductive rights. Nonetheless it is instructive to meditate on this ad and the issue of religious faith that surrounds it. For those of you missed it on the day of its airing (like me) here is the ad:


In terms of overt content, the ad is unassailable; it is Pam Tebow expressing love and protectiveness for her son.

Then there are the underlying putative reasons for airing the ad, which are the real point since the ad is for Focus on the Family. One such idea is that you should give life every chance possible in the face of medical problems (which is the secular interpretation of the story told by Pam Tebow). This message -- in principle -- is also unassailable. Anyone purporting to support life, and this includes pro-choice advocates, ought to value life enough to try to save it.

What that actually means in practice, however, is the point of divergence between pro-choice and "pro-life". Pro-choice advocates regard it as acceptable to weigh the life of the mother and her values against the potential life of the unborn child. "Pro-life" advocates regard the life of the unborn child as inviolate, life of the mother be damned.

There are also many possible reasons for making such a choice. One is a hope that everything will turn out OK, which can be entirely rational provided sufficient evidence exists to support it. Another is rejecting abortion because of faith or prayer, rather than rational evidence. According to a Gainesville Sun article, this appears to be the choice made by Pam Tebow:

Her treatment required a series of strong medications. As a result of those medications, doctors told Pam the fetus had been irreversibly damaged, and they strongly advised her to have an abortion.

She refused because of her faith, she said.

This is where I think it gets tricky. I totally reject the notion of faith on principle, as a rejection of reason and therefore as a rejection of living your life in concert with the facts of reality. It is the exact opposite of reason: it means accepting an idea despite rational evidence to the contrary or without any evidence whatsoever. The tricky part is in deciding when this is actually someone's motivation.

Because thoughts cannot be made out of nothing, and I hold that God does not exist, the mental content of faith must be filled in with content from real, secular thoughts and emotions. In this manner, faith piggy-backs on secularism. The simplest example of this is the anthropomorphizing of God into an old man with a beard, which takes ideas from real life and projects them onto something that does not exist. A more subtle example is the notion of faith itself, with its mixture of hope and confidence on one hand (secular in origin) and blind adherence on the other (faith).

I am perfectly willing to accept Pam Tebow's version of the story, and to believe that she made her choice entirely on faith. The idea of "putting your life in God's hands" is an example of total submission to irrationalism, and I fully believe that many Christians do this and accept it as right. However, if she had hope that her son would live, that is a real emotion that is typically tied to some real-world expectation, and is the emotional estimate of an expected positive outcome. Even emotions that are tied to religious goals, such as entering heaven, while baseless in nature, still rely on the mind's secular mechanism of motivation. The sheer luck of the story is that everything turned out OK, Tim Tebow and his mother both lived, and she lived to be faithful another day. It could just as easily turned out the other way, and she could have died. What then?

The real message of this story is not faith, but the fact that doctors as human beings are not infallible. Although faith is not a sufficient reason to act (it is not even a reason), the belief that there is a chance that a doctor's negative prognosis is wrong, and that the life can survive, could be a rational reason for carrying a pregnancy through to term. I'm not saying that was Pam's reason, or that it is right in every case, but only that it could have been a reason.

In this manner, the religious message rides on the coattails of a possible rational reason for Pam's actions. It relies on the audience's response to Pam's real, secular love for her son and the fact that he turned out fine. Just as religious emotions rely on secular content in the mind to take form, so the message of faith relies on people's secular hope for life's future possibilities. In this manner the ad utterly failed in its purpose, because faith is not a reason to try to save a life, but rational hope is.

Sunrise Near Berthoud Pass

Needless to say, I had to pull over and take a photo of this sunrise while ascending US-40 towards Berthoud Pass and Winter Park on Saturday. It's nice living on a planet where we can see events like this for free :)


In the darkeness below, you can see cars heading up to the resort even at 7:00 A.M (the mountain doesn't open for skiing until 8:30). Such is skiing in Colorado: start early, or drive in traffic.

This beautiful sunrise was part and parcel of the unsettled weather Saturday, with scattered low clouds covering the mountains; clouds that eventually produced flurries while I was skiing. As always, Mary Jane delivered good snow and a mellow, fun ski day.

India Leaves The IPCC

It is difficult to discern the full reasoning behind India's decision to leave the IPCC, especially since they are to establish their own National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology at home, which rules out the notion that they are simply opposed to the idea that science might be warped by massive amounts of funding and frantic pro-environmentalist policy. Regardless, it is a good thing any time someone lessens the wind in the IPCC's sails.

Here is an interesting article from the NY Times about the Himalayan glaciers in question.

The eminently quotable statement by India's environment minister Jairam Ramesh:

There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism... I am for climate science.

Ouch :) Although I don't think the line is all that fine. Any time you use stolen money (taxes) to fund something, you rob the providers of their right to choose whether to fund the project or not, thus literally wiping out human reason from the equation. This gives ideas a backing they would not have had on their own, in a "free market" of ideas where convincing others is the primary method, rather than using them as unwilling beasts of burden. Such funding is a slap in the face to the citizens of any country that does it.

Via RedState.com, which has some good info, but which is also largely Christian conservative and therefore does not respect the separation of church and state.

Ski School Ski Lineup

At lunch Saturday, when a group of kids attending Winter Park ski school went inside to eat, they left their candy-colored skis neatly lined up in a row outside the Mary Jane lodge. They were maybe 5 or 6 years old, and I don't know if they were asked to line their skis up, or they were simply following each other's lead.


Ski school's fun for the kids, and fun for the parents, who can then escape for some quality time on the mountain with their spouse and/or friends :)

Little Ball Of Pain

This nascent barrel cactus is of the miniature variety I see here in Colorado. Though small (roughly 3" across), it is not to be messed with, as you can see from the thorns. One day I bushwacked through some harmless-looking grass in my running shoes, and ended up with a thorn through the thick plastic on the side of the shoe. Man, that hurt.

NASA's High-Altitude Sun Room

Wow. I'm trying to think of what I'd give to hang out on the space station and sit at this window once it's installed:

Above: An artist's concept of the Cupola. Credit: NASA
Here is an article from NPR about this cool new feature. Since it's public radio, you've partially funded this article with your tax money, so you may as well enjoy it ;)

The space shuttle will launch in a couple of days to deliver the new cupola; a launch is another thing I'd like to see in person some day. Leave it to nerds to schedule a shuttle launch on Super Bowl Sunday.

The Tea Parties And Poujadism

This NY Times published this article recently on the supposed parallels between the Tea Party movement and the Poujadist movement in France in the 1950s. This is a case of comparison by non-essential characteristics, and is indicative of a wider state of confusion concerning the meaning of the American protests.

Named after Frenchman Pierre Poujade, the Poujadist movement began as a series of protests by local shopkeepers against certain government policies, including taxes. However, the overall outlook of the two movements is very different. Regarding Poujade:

The real France, he insisted, was found not in Paris, but in small towns and on farms. It was certainly not found in the person of France's most promising politician, Pierre Mendès-France, who as prime minister had acted on many of his campaign promises for meaningful economic and political change. For Poujade, the young and cerebral Mendès-France, a Sephardic Jew whose family had lived in France for several generations, was and would always be a foreigner.

And:

By Jan. 24, 1955, when the shopkeepers' group staged its huge rally in Paris, the movement's nostalgic longing for a simpler time had veered toward violent anti-parliamentarianism. There were also overtones of anti-Americanism (rumors flew that Coca-Cola had bought Notre-Dame with the intention of turning its western façade into a billboard) and anti-Semitism. The group's rallying cry — Sortez les sortants! ("Throw the bums out!") — challenged the right as well as the left.

This is simple provincialism, with little aim other than a rejection of outsiders and their policies. The Poujadists resented large companies that threatened their way of life, and saw America as an enemy. What does this say about their stand on political freedom? This was a long way from Liberty leading the people; this was old-school reactionaries trying to keep the commercial future at bay, by any means necessary.

The Poujadist movement ended in turmoil because their agenda was ultimately nihilistic and undoubtedly, when given the opportunity to act, they had nothing positive to say. Although the Tea Party protests contain a wide variety of people, some with questionable politics, it also contains individuals who make a proper, principled defense of freedom. The Poujadists had nothing like Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute:

Or Dr. John David Lewis of Duke University:

The Tea Party movement writ large may or may not rise above the level of a general discontent with large government. It depends primarily on whether they adopt the type of principled opposition to statism offered by Objectivism.

However, at the very least the Tea Parties have served to put government on notice that all is not well with the people, and that despite the Democrats' claim of a popular mandate for socialism, many are not willing to let liberty go so easily. This is the message of the Tea Parties that leftists are scrambling to obfuscate, and which the Tea Party participants themselves must come to embrace and understand.

Objectivist Round Up

The latest Objectivist Round Up is available at Reepicheep's Coracle. This week's Round Up is dedicated to Ayn Rand's birthday. Happy Birthday Ayn!

Ayn Rand In The New Criterion

Some sectors of American culture have not gotten the message yet: Ayn Rand was more than a grumpy ignoramus with no friends who couldn't write.

As evidence, see this awful piece from The New Criterion, which seemingly regresses to the critical state of the 1950s, before a well-developed knowledge of Rand's ideas had propagated through society. There was scarcely any excuse for this in the fifties; there is absolutely no excuse today, with the many Objectivist resources available, starting with The Ayn Rand Institute.

Between harping yet again on the Fountainhead "rape" scene, and about how she lost friends over the years, and Rand's imagined similarities to Joseph Stalin (!), the article engages in numerous intellectual gaffes. For example:

From the correct psychological insight that the allegedly compassionate sometimes use the existence of the weak and needy as a tool for their own social ascent and attainment of power—whole political parties, in almost every country, are founded upon this principle — it does not in the least follow that there are no people in need of assistance or that compassion for them is ipso facto bogus and a cover for the will to power.

Unfortunately, this statement is typical of the critical vein of the article, and misses the mark. Rand's point was not that others do not need assistance (something that is dependent upon physical fact as well as personal disposition), or that assisting others is bad (she regards it as morally optional and dependent on personal values). She does make the first point mentioned above: that pity is used as a political tool. However, her main points are A) to warn against an inversion of moral values in which need is raised to the level of a value and is made a primary moral claim on the productive, and B) to warn those who stand to lose values against being disarmed by the call to sacrifice. She is against the idea that need is morally superior to having, because she saw the link between a moral code and life and death: that values promote life, and need per se drains values (and therefore the life they support). This subtlety will escape anyone who projects a conventionally negative and incorrect view of egoism on what Rand is saying.

Daniels then moves to Rand's fiction:

Rand’s hero-worship is also Nietzschean in inspiration. It is deeply unpleasant. She entirely lacks the literary ability to convey anything admirable, or even minimally attractive, about her heroes, who are the kind of people one would not cross the road to meet, though one might well cross it to avoid them.

All I can say here is: "Speak for yourself!", since I would rather spend time with Roark than Daniels. Although most of her heroes are not what I'd call cuddly, this is because they are projections, not photographs. Daniels' criticism suggests the error of judging romanticism through the lens of naturalism. For example, Rand does not mention whether Roark does laundry, so are we to assume that he wears the same clothes day in, day out, and smells bad? The book is not filled with stories of his trips to the grocery store, so does he always dine out?

If The New Criterion is indeed a journal of cultural criticism, they should know to apply the appropriate esthetic standard to the work being criticized: that of romanticism. Roark's personality carries certain behavioral traits to their extreme, such as a reliance on his own mind. The fact he is not chummy is because the author selected only certain traits for the portrayal. Are we to castigate El Greco for painting in linear shapes, or Fra Angelico for his unreal bright patches of color, or Vermeer for painting in dots and lines? If Daniels wanted a more congenial character, perhaps he should have looked to Francisco D'Anconia; at least he would be fun at a party, provided one is not a looter.

About Roark's architecture, he says:

Howard Roark is the architect-hero of The Fountainhead, but there is abundant evidence in the book that he is not a very good architect: his ideas are totally derivative and, furthermore, derivative of ideas that are themselves not merely worthless, but monstrous. Like his creator, he claims an originality that he does not have... This is pure, unadulterated Le Corbusier. Indeed, it could have been written by him.

Apparently Rand needed to be an original architect with no historical sources, in addition to being a novelist and a philosopher. Rand was known to have admired the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, and patterned Roark's fictional work after some of Wright's ideas. Does this negate originality? The proper standard of creativity is not simply doing something that has never been done by anyone, but of acting according to purpose and first-hand decision-making, not mere imitation. Therefore Roark designs by seeing and making first-hand cognitive calculations to relate a building's structure to its environment. The nature of productivity and creation itself is beyond the scope of this post, so I will leave it at that.

With regard to Rand's life and personality, Daniels makes every effort to drag Rand from her chosen home in America back into Russia, even likening her to Joseph Stalin whenever he deems it possible:

In some respects, Rand is almost Soviet. Her habit of remaking the past in accordance with her wishes or needs of the present is most striking.

This charge has been leveled before, notably in Anne C. Heller's Rand biography. I can see the reason for this statement, since she always emphasized the qualities that embodied her personal values, and self-reliance was high on the scale. However, I read Heller's book and frankly I don't understand the myopic focus on what are basically a couple of socially clumsy actions from her youth. For example, when she was young, she promised to supply various gifts when she was famous. She also apparently accepted a loan from family, from whom she was later somewhat estranged, and who it is alleged she did not repay. However, as a mature adult she maintained warm and grateful relations with many people who helped her, such as Archie Ogden and Cecil B. DeMille. To liken her attitude to Stalin, of all people, is utterly and underhandedly vicious.

Regarding Rand's view of her ideas' origin:

Like any Stalinist despot, Ayn Rand considered herself to be totally unprecedented and quite without parallel.

Actually, Rand's view is the accurate one. While various authors developed similar ideas, the essentials of her philosophy are unique in history. One would be challenged to find the historical sources for the following selected ideas that Rand originated:

• The sanction of the victim, i.e. the idea that only the moral permission of oppressed producers makes their exploitation possible
• The observation that Kant regarded the mind as ineffective precisely because it has an identifiable nature, which is in fact the source of the mind's efficacy for the living organism
• The derivation of the concept of moral value from the nature and requirements of life
• The idea that concept formation involves the retention of similarities and the dropping of specific measurements
• The idea of art as a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's "metaphysical value judgments"
• Her presentation of the axiomatic concepts underlying philosophy
• The insight that focusing the mind, not choosing, is the essence of free will
• The definition of "value" as that which one actually acts to gain and/or keep (not merely what one claims to value)

On Ayn Rand's method of writing, Daniels says the following:

In her expository writings, Rand’s style resembles that of Stalin. It is more catechism than argument, and bores into you in the manner of a drill. She has a habit of quoting herself as independent verification of what she says; reading her is like being cornered at a party by a man, intelligent but dull, who is determined to prove to you that right is on his side in the property dispute upon which he is now engaged and will omit no detail.

This glib statement is offered without logical support, in the exact manner of the hypothetical man he is criticizing. The "drill" Ayn Rand uses is logic. To "omit no detail" means you are being thorough. Quoting yourself is necessary when nobody else has said the same thing before you. Next issue!

On her view of architecture and technology:

Her unequivocal admiration bordering on worship of industrialization and the size of human construction as a mark of progress is profoundly Stalinist.

The idea that skyscrapers are Soviet takes the cake; Soviet buildings were bully threats in stone, effectively built by slave labor. Skyscrapers are built by private money by voluntary agreement, and are (even today) renowned the world over as symbols of economic freedom and aspiration. That is why Al Qaeda chose to destroy one of those symbols, rather than a Soviet structure in Moscow.

It's been a while since I've seen such a contemptuous stream of statements about Ayn Rand uttered from such a purportedly high pulpit. Talk about not seeing the forest for the (wrong) trees. In each of these cases, Daniels takes a minor, non-essential attribute of Rand or her writing and stretches it into bizarre hyperbole. There is nothing essential or uniquely Ayn Rand about any of it.

In fact, the essence of Ayn Rand is the polar opposite of that presented by Mr. Daniels. To those who understand her work correctly, she presented an exalted vision of human capability, and achieved astounding and positive things in her own remarkable life. Her philosophical place in history is that of an heir to Classical Greek humanism, with its respect for reason, its focus on the world around us, and its resultant confidence in the possibility of success in human affairs.

If readers wish to discover something about Ayn Rand and her thought, I direct them to her writings, so they may judge for themselves. As for the journal's choice of essayists on Rand, I suggest they apply a more rigorous criterion.

Cairn, North Table Mountain

I ate lunch on top of North Table Mountain in Golden, CO yesterday. It's an interesting, flat-topped mountain consisting of odd rock outcroppings and rolling prairie. I've seen huge herds of deer feeding up here, isolated from the bustle of the greater Denver area. It also has the appearance of the surface of another planet, and I've seen spots that are exactly like NASA Mars photos. This is a cairn someone spontaneously erected on a hill, with others barely visible on the horizon.

Tea Party Fee Irony

I couldn't help but be struck by the irony of this report on a tea party convention being criticized for charging a fee.

Here we have a (very diverse) movement aimed at, among other things, bringing freedom and individual rights back to America, and apparently certain participants are up in arms over the convention's organizers attempting to pay for costs or perhaps break even by charging a $549 registration fee.

Now, I don't know if the fee is justified by the costs in this particular case, but it certainly is odd and a bit disconcerting to hear condemnations of money-related activity from people supposedly trying to pave the way for freedom to make money, among other things. This definitely smacks of altruism to me (the premise that anything done for the self is suspect and should be avoided). Such ideas are not an appropriate part of a freedom movement, which requires an ironclad devotion to the rightness of individual thought and action, including the right to make money.

Also, if this movement is to grow, is it realistic to think that it will always remain a free, volunteer only, grass-roots organization with no fees?

Frankly I'm undecided as to whether the movement serves a purpose beyond its current one, which is to express dissatisfaction with the growth of statist policy. It's not that the movement is bad, it's just that I'm not confident it has the critical intellectual mass to coalesce into something meaningful and long-lasting. There were some great speeches by Objectivists that had the right content, but can that persist and increase, with the culture the way is? Will it be co-opted by more corrupt elements of the conservative movement, who don't value freedom and want to establish a Christian theocracy?

As evidence of that, they have engaged Sarah Palin to speak at the convention, something that I find repulsive. Her policy positions are strongly pro-Christian, unprincipled and therefore anti-freedom. For example: she is against abortion, stem cell research, and same-sex marriage, all of which are incorrect positions from the perspective of individual rights (see this essay for an example of why such positions are dangerous). On the plus side, she supports oil exploration, and is a warming skeptic, but I have not been impressed with her speeches and found them to be populist, down-home pandering with little real intellectual content. I have no confidence she understands or would consistently implement individual rights. She would not be a reliable defender of freedom; she would simply be an election-year asset for a more established candidate.

As for the tea party protests themselves, I suppose this is ultimately irrelevant. At the very least, such protests are effective in their current form as a way of venting popular dissent. It remains to be seen what direction it will take, or in what direction it will be led.

Subtle Sunset Fire

This sunset over the mountains is not a splashy fireworks show, but a quiet play of subtle beauty. The intense iridescent fire at the bottom passes from warm to cool, and light to dark as the eye moves throughout the cyle of clouds and sky. A tiny sliver of cloud flashes fire just above the horizon, sending out faint rays of light as the sun slowly disappears.

Winter X Games vs. Transportation Policy

I was around home on Sunday, having skied on Saturday, so I missed the wonderful traffic jam on I-70 due to the Winter X Games in Aspen. The image below shows sub-15 mph speeds for a 28-mile stretch of this four-lane highway. And that's in good weather!


I need to mark this on my calendar for next year so I make sure I don't get ensnared.

This also shows what happens when you let government manage transportation: tons of pent-up demand (traffic) with no product (efficient transportation) to buy, years of political bickering over transportation policy (which will no doubt be followed by some impulsive, expensive and stupid solution that will involve the use of brute force), and stagnation along the traffic corridor. Of course, we've preserved all the sleepy mining towns along I-70, which are scraping by because development is effectively outlawed.

It is time for society to relinquish the notion that only brute force is an effective means to deal with others, especially in important matters. This view, which is often regarded as a "pragmatic" adaptation to the alleged realities of human nature, is in fact entirely impractical, as well as immoral. Only people who are free to think and act, keep and invest their money, and engage in voluntary agreements, are in a position to solve society's larger problems. And any goal that requires coercion (such as public transportation -- or health care) is better left undone.

Edits: changed position of "(efficient transportation)" and added ", especially" to last paragraph.

Dawn Over Dillon Reservoir

These sculpted clouds hovered south of Frisco, CO Saturday morning, behind frozen Dillon Reservoir, as dawn's first light was just hitting Bald Mountain (right).


Rewind 15 minutes to when I was driving towards the east side of the Eisenhower Tunnel, looking up at Mount Bethel, which is the pointed mountain on the right as you near the Continental Divide. I happened to glance up into the deep blue sky and see what I thought was a planet peeking from behind the ridgeline, and I wondered which planet it was. Then, I noticed that the "planet" was hugging the ridge, that it was descending, and that it was also weaving almost imperceptibly. Someone was skiing/riding down the ridgeline before dawn, with a headlamp! Cool! I've seen people skinning up the valley before during the day, but never when it was dark.