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Six weeks ago, Robert McHenry, a former editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published The Faith-Based Encyclopedia, an article exposing Wikipedia for being a foolhardy Quixotic experiment gone horribly awry, concluding with:

The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.

Fortunately for humanity, there is a way to know who has used the facilities before and after any edit is made to an article. Incidentally enough, one of the features employed by the Wiki software used at Wikipedia allows anyone, the public-at-large, to view who made any kind of change to an article. Additionally, it allows you to see what the previous versions looked like as everything is permanently stored forever, chiseled into a proverbial stone tablet.

At the same time, I make no claim that Wikipedia is the most authorative or even accurate source of information. In fact, several times I have found the scholarship to be lacking completely, or noticeable biases propagated. However, one should not throw the baby out with the bath water.

In his piece, Mr. McHenry illustrates the inaccuracy of Wikipedia by pointing to an article on Alexander Hamilton, which was riddled with inaccuracies and inconsistent statements. However, he failed to point out that the brutish hordes of Wikipedia have in fact found errors in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Editors at Wikipedia humbly added the following notice:

People often claim that Wikipedia can never be as authoritative as Encyclopædia Britannica (EB). There can be no question that at the current stage, EB is vastly more complete and accurate than Wikipedia. This page is here to exhibit mistakes and omissions in EB and how they have been corrected in Wikipedia.

For every error in EB noted here, of course, there are likely dozens of mistakes just as egregious in Wikipedia. Nevertheless, this page should also serve as a reminder to Wikipedians of one important advantage that the open nature of Wikipedia gives it over proprietary encyclopedias: given sufficiently many readers, every error will be spotted and corrected by someone.

While many of the changes are contentiously trivial (such as Frank Zappa’s name), the principle of the matter stands: the best is the enemy of the good.

Currently EB charges users to access the online version of the EB, whereas Wikipedia has no such fees but depends on donations, both monetary and knowledge.

While both McHenry and myself agree that Wikipedia is far from the best, or even far from the quality and accuracy of much of the EB, the market (as determined through usage) is “good” enough for vox populi. And to the dismay of McHenry, the business model for EB makes it difficult for it to compete with Wikipedia, much in the same manner that Microsoft has found it increasingly difficult charge for an arguably more user-friendly product (Windows) against a “free” product (Linux) which, to be sure has its share of quirks and bugs, but it is “good” enough to get the necessary tasks accomplished (or so says the market).

In fact, misplacing their “faith” as I have, Trillian recently added a feature called “Instant Lookup” which highlights certain keywords in an IM window, hyperlinking the user directly to a corresponding entry in Wikipedia.

Endeavors such as Wikipedia, have helped information continue down the path of decentralization and dissemination, by removing barriers to entry. Much in the same way, blogs have revolutionized the publishing industry by, for-better-and-for-worse, removing editors, committees and censors in all shapes and forms. So, just as Andrew Orlowski and others railed against the blogosphere, so to has the encyclopedia establishment struck out against Wikiphiles.

And for the record, regarding the editorial authority behind articles that appear in the EB, I would no sooner have Milton Friedman write an article on free-trade than I would have Glenn Reynolds pen the article on libertarianism.

Note: further Wikipedia criticisms addressed here. Image created by Justin Otis.

Doctors Go on ‘Strike’ and Death Rates Plummet:

Death rates in Israel have dropped considerably since physicians in public hospitals implemented a program of sanctions three months ago, according to a survey of burial societies.

The Israel Medical Association (IMA) began the action in March to protest against the government’s proposed imposition of a new four-year wage contract for doctors. Since then, hundreds of thousands of visits to outpatient clinics have been canceled or postponed along with tens of thousands of elective operations. Emergency rooms, dialysis units, oncology departments, obstetric and neonatal departments, and other vital facilities have been working normally during the action.

The Jerusalem Post surveyed non-profit burial societies, which perform funerals for the vast majority of Israelis, and found that the number of funerals has fallen drastically.

According to one funeral parlor manager the same thing occurred in 1983, during a similar action by the IMA, which lasted 4 and a half months.

The only area of Israel which was found to not have a reduction in its death rate was the city of Netanya. It also just so happens that all of the doctors at the only hospital in this city have “no-strike” clauses in their contracts and are therefore unaffected by the action.

I found this unconventional piece while researching information on health and nutrition.

Upfront, I am neither a nutrionist or certified health practioner official guy doctor person. I am however, a chronic user of foodstuffs including meats, breads and even veggies. Futhermore, as an avid amateur athlete, I try to keep my hour-glass figure in feng shui harmony…

From my own experience, Dr. Mercola seems to have useful and even worthwhile information that can help you get back into that sexy two-piece (or no-piece for that matter). And from the looks of his blog, he actually tries to stay abreast of the latest developments.

Let me know if he sucks or has no idea what he is talking about, por favor.

One nation, purple or maybe plum, with goofiness for all:

But that doesn’t mean we have nothing in common. We must always remember that, as Americans, we all have a common enemy - an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.

I speak from personal experience. For the past year, I have been hounded by an organization calling itself “the United States Department of Commerce,” which apparently is linked to the federal government.

Every few weeks, the “Department of Commerce” sends me a threatening letter, demanding that I fill out “the 2002 Survey of Business Owners and Self-Employed Persons (Form SBO-1 or SBO-2).” This is a questionnaire that asks, among other things, whether I am a Samoan. The “Department of Commerce” claims that I have to fill this out because of something that was in my federal tax return.

Dave Berry in his finest hour. (Via shonk)

The Graphing Calculator Story:

I used to be a contractor for Apple, working on a secret project. Unfortunately, the computer we were building never saw the light of day. The project was so plagued by politics and ego that when the engineers requested technical oversight, our manager hired a psychologist instead. In August 1993, the project was canceled. A year of my work evaporated, my contract ended, and I was unemployed.

I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, so I decided to uncancel my small part of the project. I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple’s doors, so I just kept showing up.

If you have ever used a Mac, you have used this program. (Via Slashdot)

THE 10 BEST URBAN LEGENDS IN FILM HISTORY:

URBAN LEGEND #4. The suicide along the Yellow Brick Road.

The legend: A stagehand committed suicide during the filming of “The Wizard of Oz” by hanging himself from a tree in the haunted forest set. If you watch the film, you can see his body dangling in the background in the sequence where the Wicked Witch warns the Scarecrow and Tin Woodsman not to aid Dorothy.

Did it really happen? (Via DiVERSiONZ)

Try to stay sober tonight, at least while you are on the road. (SA image via Agnosiophobia)

Fans dislike it (unless their team benefits).
Coaches hate it (unless their team benefits).
Universities despise it (unless their school benefits).

Conspiracy theories suggest that the Bowl Championship Series was created in part by ne’erdowellers of the powerful conferences (and don’t forget Notre Dame) to consolidate their unquenchable thirst for what every has-been college benchwarmer craves: young, nubile college coed cheerleaders.

That is the very reason that pedigree programs such as Texas A&M have managed to only reach a BCS bowl once, we do not employee the services of razzle dazzle pom-pom estrogen-laden females to do our coordinated yelling.

Anyways, the Associated Press sent a letter, dated December 21st to the emerald city offices of the BCS — a nice and friendly, Christmas-Hanukkah-Kwanza cease-and-desist letter.

Apparently, the AP feels its reputation is on the line as the BCS continues to falter and screw the pooch year after year. So they do not want to have their poll used as part of the BCS formula to determine rankings for the bowl games and have thus requested to have the AP component of the BCS formula removed effective immediately.

For those unfamiliar with the current sky-is-falling situation, Division I-A college football is the only organized sport in the Industrialized World that does not utilize a playoff system to crown the best team victor maximus. Furthermore, after 7 years of trial-and-error, the bean counters and paper-pushers at the BCS still have yet to figure out a system that pits the top teams against one another.

Instead of utilizing a Sweet 16 or Elite 8 bracket tournament, the BCS uses conference champs plus two-at-large wild cards. There are six conferences which are considered the big kids on the block: Pac 10, SEC, Big 10, Big 12, ACC and Big East. Whoever ends up number one in each of those is given an automatic bid to one of the four BCS bowl games (Sugar, Rose, Orange, Fiesta). So regardless as to how good a team is in relation to the rest of those in Division I-A (as ranked by the AP or USA Today), so as long as they win that conference championship they get a bling bling filled bowl trip (each team that goes to a BCS bowl receives $11-14 million).

No big deal you say? Well normally it has not been a huge problem as the strength discrepancy between the conferences has been relatively balanced throughout the past few years. This year however, the Big East had only 7 teams and only one of them was any decent: Pittsburgh. They won the conference and were given the automatic birth to the Fiesta Bowl. This, despite the fact that they are ranked a miserable #21st. The BCS bowls are where the creme-de-la-creme are theoretically supposed to compete and this is certainly not the case here.

To make matters worse, three big conference teams (USC, Oklahoma, Auburn) finished with undefeated records, yet only two of them can compete head-to-head in the current configuration. Plus, Utah from a “weaker” conference, went undefeated managed to sneak into a highly coveted wild card at-large bowl bid — against mighty Pittsburgh.

A couple easy fixes to this system:

- institute a playoff system for the top 16 or 32 teams: Division I-AA, II and III do this very thing and have no problems
- keep the BCS ranking system but remove automatic bowl berths and have #1 play #2, #3 play #4, etc…
- play rugby instead

On a much more important note, on New Years Day I will be going to the Cotton Bowl to cheer on my fellow Aggies as they play against the barbaric Vols from Tennessee. Gig’em.

It’s that time of the year again, the end of it. And because I watched lots of movies and because every other blogger is doing the same thing, below is my take on the movies I managed to see while sober.

Top 5:

Napoleon Dynamite - funny because you know someone just like him, it was probably you too
The Butterfly Effect - great illustration of cause, effect and personal resposibility/ownership for actions; ending was depressing though
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - original and a good “what if…”
Saved! - best documentary of the year
The Incredibles - good wholesome family fun that your in-laws would even enjoy

Could Have Been Better:

Walking Tall - more action, less love
I, Robot - replace Will Smith with a cardboard cutout of Tom Selleck
Dodgeball - Lance Armstrong was the funniest guy in it
Anachorman - Brick was the funniest guy in it
Hidalgo - not based on a True Story, inspired by a con-artist
Chronicles of Riddick - bad ending, script written by survivors of a Turkish prison
Team America: World Police - replace script with any episode of South Park
The Punisher - cheesy ending, should have shacked up with blonde neighbor
Kill Bill Vol. 2 - more action, less drama (although if viewed immediately after Vol. 1 it is pretty good)
Lost in Translation - either make it a thought-provoking drama or outlandish cultural comedy, it’s from late 2003 but I saw it in 2004
Spider-Man 2 - replace a stoned Kirsten Dunst with an inflatable doll
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - needed a more climatic ending, even if it was not in the book

Formulaic from the word go:

Miracle - guess who wins?
White Chicks - thankfully women have better curves than the Wayans brothers
The Bourne Supremacy - same fight scenes filmed in a different location
The Flight of the Phoenix - to be fair, this was a remake of a Jimmy Stewart flick
The Passion - add bloopers, add a few musical numbers, add a cameo appearance by William Wallace, add a trite adult love scene, replace cross with a heavy stone

Just plain sucked:

The Day After Tomorrow - the CGI was good at least
Troy - loosely inspired from the abridged Cliffs Notes
Alien vs. Predator - false advertising
The Alamo - apparently Davy Crockett really liked to play the fiddle
Without a Paddle - the lighter side of Deliverance
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights - he was not a hunk, she was not hot, everything was predictable

Film classic everyone should watch this winter break:

Crazy People - if the writers of The Onion made a movie, this is probably what it would look like

I discovered Ludwig von Mises in the summer of 2000 after bumping into an old classmate at a junior college I was then attending. The gentleman was pouring through a hefty tome, diligently rereading it for the forth time. As an outspoken civil libertarian and fiscal conservative, he mentioned that I would enjoy the book immensely as it would provide a theoretical backbone to my educational experience at the University level. That book of course, was Human Action and despite its publication some 60-years ago, I continually find useful nuggets to digest, none of which show any sign of aging.

As a member of the Always-On Generation (i.e., my peers are always connected to the Internet in some form or fashion), I did some research online and discovered that although he died more than 30 years ago, his vision and ideas still live on in the hearts and minds of his students. One organization in particular that stuck out among others was the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. Upon reading several daily articles and noting that they had a seminar for college students coming up, I requested a packet of information to understand more of the motives and goals that the Institute had.

Although I never attended that summer session (note: I later learned that Mike Ewens did) I continued to follow the happenings at the Institute with much interest. The daily articles acted as a viral hook as both their brevity and poignancy crystallized much of my own research and expanded it into areas that kept me awake at night.

2000 of course was an election-racket year and earlier in the spring I spent time working for the election committee during the primary and run-offs (the same gentleman that introduced me to Mises was an election judge, I worked as his assistant). Having grown tired of a lack principled candidates (at the time I considered Alan “Lincoln-is-my-daddy” Keyes to be a diamond in the rough…) I sought out and found both the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party.

At the time, the CP seemed to have many of the same domestic and foreign policy goals as the LP, with the biggest division stemming from the fact that the CP was down with g-o-d: they were kicking their campaign in a Jesus approved fashion, or something to that effect. Their organization was relatively small and their Dallas office was non-existent. So, I convinced a friend of mine (an old Ag) to visit a meeting of the Libertarian Party of Dallas. That was perhaps the most depressing sight I had seen since watching a bunch of kids wipe out into a wall while skateboarding in junior high. The only thing these LP guys (along with the token militant female activist that spurned sexual reproduction) seemed to want to do was smoke pot, legalize it, talk about it on the radio and register people to vote for legalizing marijuana. They were like, Ludwig von who? Non-aggression what? Inflation is caused by Alan Greenback?

That fall I worked as a paper-pusher at the general election and never joined a Party. I did however, come across numerous other organizations, such as Cato, IHS, the now defunct Free-Market.net and several other non-profits that promoted free-trade and various libertarian-esque policies. However, none of them had what I saw as a pure unflinching, unapologetic and uncompromising view towards the State and towards personal liberty.

Another professor at the junior college mentioned another organization that dealt with libertarian thought and “Austrian economics,” the Foundation for Economic Education. As a follower of the Claremont School Of Hard Chicanery, he mentioned them with some reservations as he apparently found the writings of Mises to be brilliant yet anti-Christian, or something along those lines (he still works at the college and still feels the same way).

So in March of 2001 I attended a FEE student seminar and felt somewhat out-of-place. Donald Boudreaux (he maintains a great blog) kicked off the session by discussing the “I, Pencil” essay from Leonard Read. This was all fine and dandy and quite interesting if one is not familiar with decentralization, specialization or the division of labor, however this was about as “radical” as the academic discussions got. Being the hot-headed rash Texan I argued with Burt Folsom and others over the need for taxation and other superfluous conditions in what Lysander Spooner aptly called the Constitution of No Authority. However, Mawell’s Demon persisted in this case and the State left a bad taste in my mouth (be sure to check out the blog “analysis” maintained by Sheldon Richman and Jude Wanninski of FEE).

With this background (there is much more where that came from…), I would like to pose a question to individuals such as Tom Palmer, Radley Balko, No-Treason bloggers, the SPLC and other organizations and individuals that feel that the Mises Institute is anti-liberty.

I am willing to listen to any criticisms you have of the Institution, the published books and journals, etc. I really do not have time for ad hominem attacks though, as I am too busy making fun of frat boys, so keep the personal attacks in your little black book for another time. I have no vested interest in the Institute financially or academically and consider both libertarianism and economics to be fanciful hobbies – neither of which I intend to make careers out of.

With that said, I should note that I did attend the Mises Summer session this past summer and had the time of my life. I went in half-expecting it to be like a FEE seminar mixed with a twist of some militia meeting or the South-Will-Rise-Again scheme. It was in a league of its own, quite entertaining, informative and professional – and a number of the students had just attended a similar event from Cato (they felt the organizations are like apples and oranges, but are both good in their own right). I should also point out that on occasion I do blog at Mises.org however I do not receive any kind of compensation or request for autographs from fans (neither Cato nor FEE have blogs I can post at). I also wrote several articles for LRC back in 2001, however I had them all removed for personal reasons (I also wrote for Playboy and Penthouse…).

A couple pre-emptive rebuttals that deal with recent topics, first I think Abraham Lincoln and just about any other politician (Ron Paul being the only recent exception coming to mind) is a douche bag as defined by Eric Cartman. Grant was a choad and Sherman was a man-whore. I have no relatives that fought on either side of the war, nor am I an honorary member of any southern or northern or masonic heritage group. So, you probably will not win too many points by pointing out that Lew Rockwell or DiLorenzo or Stromberg has a fetish with the South (much to the dismay of Jaffa, neither Rockwell or DiLorenzo donned on KKK masks during my stay at Auburn, I will keep you posted though). I am also not a fan of the State, so trying to justify its existence or why humanity should try to streamline it to make it better, faster, cheaper will not win any points either. And, I have no clue what is going on in the Ukraine and frankly I do not give a rats ass, I have enough work to keep me busy on this side of the Red River, let alone some other land with dragons, unicorns and magical dermatologists.

One last point: try to separate your beef with LRC and antiwar.com from the actual Institute – they are three separate entities and you should presumably have enough Jerry Springer dirt on the later to not need to worry about the two former.

In a nutshell: I want to know why I or anyone else should not be affiliated with the Mises Institute at all because of their supposed anti-liberty stance and maybe why I should join the ranks of other enlightened libertarians in whatever spiffy movement they are involved with. I honestly do not want to waste my time working with vagabonds, so free me from their tyrannical shackles por favor.

In my usual day-to-day discussions, I rarely discuss anything directly related to economics or politics as it has been my experience that these are two bridge-burning topics.

Last night though, I ended up debating some of my friends over the merits of building stadiums which are partially subsidized by taxpayers and the State. Unfortunately, like all arm-chair arguments, neither side had any type of documentation or referred journals they could whip out to back up their points.

Now that finals are over I decided to look into this issue vis-Ã -vis Mr. Internet — and found some information that was quite interesting.

Earlier in the year, Art Carden pointed to an article discussing the economic ramifications of the St. Louis Rams competing in the playoffs:

Much debate is surrounding the economic impact of a St. Louis playoff game to the local economy. While the city officials have determined the impact to be more than $10 million, sports economist Brad Humphreys disagrees. “There is no [academic] research that finds positive impacts associated with any of the [major] professional sports in North America,” Humphreys said. “Economists agree on that.”

Two months ago that same Humphreys (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) followed up with the interview in a paper published with Professor Dennis Coates (University of Maryland-Baltimore County) whom noted in “Caught Stealing: Debunking the Economic Case for D.C. baseball” that:

“… professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city’s economy. The net economic impact of professional sports in Washington D.C., and the 36 other cities that hosted professional sports teams over nearly 30 years, was a reduction in real per capita income over the entire metropolitan area.”

The paper lists numerous case studies of cities with professional sport stadiums and how their metropolitan areas were economically affected.

Throughout last night’s discussion, I mentioned that the “public interest” argument was simply redistribution in disguise and that proponents were falling into the classic ‘What Is Seen And Unseen‘ fallacy. Incidentally, Gene Callahan mentioned this point in an article discussing this very topic, a new stadium for the New England Patriots. To wit:

What is seen is the activity around the stadium on game day. People buy tickets to the game, which are taxed, producing revenue for the state. Inside, they buy hot dogs and beer, producing revenue for both the vendors and the state. They may go out for a meal before or after the game, enriching area restaurants. Perhaps they will also stop at a local museum, or see a show afterwards. Both while the stadium is being built and after it is in use, local construction companies will have more work, first constructing and later maintaining the stadium, access roads, parking lots, and so on.

The opportunity costs, the foregone investments that could have been made with the scarce resources, is difficult, if at all calculable. However, all that is seen to my viking friends are the kiosks, parking lots, vending machines, jammed restaurants, cheerleaders, commentators and a manifold of other pomp and circumstance. The other productive possibilities (including long-term savings in stocks, bonds, etc.) were erroneously outside their tunnel vision.

“The boost to the local economy is worth the investment,” those are the words the proponents reiterated throughout the night. In some ways, the stadium can be seen as a money pit, as the industry and marketplace fall into the leisure category. While I am not arguing against lifestyles filled with any and all types of leisure activities, proponents of stadium construction fail to see that activities currently and historically carried out within their labyrinthian (sic) halls are not wealth generators for anyone outside the political classes, players and owners of franchises. In fact, a passage in an article from Frank Shostak stuck out as being a facsimile to this point:

For instance, if a government embarks on the building of a pyramid, which adds absolutely nothing to the well-being of individuals, the GDP framework will regard this as economic growth. In reality, however, the building of the pyramid will divert real funding from wealth-generating activities, thereby stifling the production of wealth.

Again, I’m all for living a life filled with leisure, however, empirically speaking, stadiums are similar to aircraft carriers and tanks in that their marginal utility for activities outside of war or amusement is nil (Cowboy Stadium does not double as a pasture for bovine or sheep during the week nor do they grow turnips on the sideline or use locker rooms as horse stalls). If a stadium truly stimulated the growth of an economy to the marked degree at which proponents claim it does, why not build hundreds all over the place, just like pyramids of the past?

Because these stadiums are funded by-in-large from taxpayers (directly) and the State (who receives its funding from taxpayers) and because the investment for the construction of a stadium is done by scoffing at the opportunity costs of What Is Unseen, it is a two-fold strike to rational economic thought and should not be indulged or pursued.

Well, despite nature’s damndest I had yet another birthday on planet earth.

This, in spite of getting a nasty flu and being covered in poison ivy (who knew crawling around in a forest for 3 days would create the possibility of running into some alergen). And to top it off I had two exams today.

Nevertheless, I successfully outsourced my celebration to India. So some guy in Bombay is having the time of his life, for $2.73.

Additionally, Sean Lynch suggested that for a paltry $.10/night I could also outsource my marital duties to India, China or even Singapore.

Michael Blowhard dug up some nice statistical gems that are too good to ruin by reposting them here.

Tyler Cowen found this infonugget: “On average, a working-age German works about 2 hours and 35 minutes per calendar day.”

John Engler at inluminent has the Walmart-joke-of-the-day.

And the economic endgame apparently already happened in North Korea.

Here’s to looking forward to another Aggie-filled year and to sobriety, wherever it may lurk.

Partaking in the teaser:

The Fermi Paradox is a conundrum proposed by pioneer physicist Enrico Fermi that questions the likelihood of Intelligent Extraterrestrial life. It begins with the Drake Equation or some derivative which guesstimates the possible number of intelligent civilizations in the universe, and then extrapolates expansion rates into the universe from a point location within the cosmos of that species or culture. The paradox concludes that there should have been enough ET’s over the last 14 billion years that even if they moved at velocities achievable by human technology today, they could have swarmed over the galaxy, or even the cluster to which our galaxy belongs, many times over.

I think it’s fair to say that we humans don’t know enough about the universe to draw any firm conclusions from the paradox. Still, it’s an interesting thought experiment; The galaxy is over 100,000 light years from rim to rim and contains perhaps 400 billion stars each of which could easily have, on average, a half dozen planets. The galaxy is perhaps 10 billion years old. If there were a single fledgling interstellar civilization in all that space and time, and it expanded away from it’s planet or point of origin on average at the measly rate of one light year every ten thousands years, slower than the Voyager Spacecraft are traveling, and grew in all directions, it would take a mere one billion years to get from one end of the galaxy to another and completely fill it up along the way. Humans could begin constructing spacecraft that could move at ten times that rate right now if we put our minds to it. So if we could spread all over the galaxy, why hasn’t someone already spread all over us? Once cultures started spreading like this it seems likely a ruthless sort of selection would kick in and favor the culture or the faction within a culture which does so the most aggresively, quickly, and successfully. It’s hard to see what would stop it.

The first thing that comes to mind is that none of the equations take into consideration how long it takes to develop and evolve intelligence capable of star trekking, let alone have the desire to do so.

To win the Occam’s Razor argument, let us start with what we do know and go from there:

- We know of only one species that has developed the capability of shooting things out of orbit
- This ability, for all intents and purposes took approimately 4.5 billion years from beginning to end
- As of right now and to the dismay of cryptozoologists and Captain Kirk, neither whales, dolphins or any other creature has developed the ability to launch a space-farring civilization
- Currently there is little archaeological or biological evidence to suggest that another “intelligent” creature evolved before H. sapiens did on Earth, created the capacity to fly into space and either blew themselves up or took everything plus the kitchen into space with them and disappeared without a trace

Some thoughts on scenarios posted by DarkSyd:

- Periodic annihilation: that every now and then part of the galaxy decides to downsize itself and blow Sector Y into oblivion, the same sector which houses a newly minted space-farring civilization. But this is really just a variation of nature-vs-civilization themes. What if an asteroid whiped out humanity right now? Despite the ability to launch things into space we would all be primordial slime starting the cycle over again. If this could happen to us, it could very well happen to any other alien species.

- The Prime Directive notion, imagine if any civilization practiced right now on Earth. Instead of trading technologies and scarce resources with “foreign aliens” both sides must waste valuable productive resources in the production of goods and services. Non-coercive trade is always in the interest of both parties as it ends in a win-win scenario. Gene Roddenberry never took a class on comparative or absolute advantage.

- X-files: all I have to say to someone that truly believes space-farring extraterrestrials live among us is, there are hundreds of thousands of individuals that make their careers studying the cosmos, when was the last time that any of these astronomers reported seeing a Death Star or Borg Cube? Do you really think there is a conspiracy involved in an industry that can be entered with a $150 telescope from Walmart?

Currently I find myself agreeing with the musings of PZ Meyers on ET intelligence. Furthermore, could it not be possible that Homo sapiens are the first one’s to hatch out of a proverbial egg? Are we trailblazers for the galaxy? Are we the (un)lucky ones that managed to squeeze through the collapsing walls and just barely be in the right places at the right times?

Another thought is that for instance, what if humanity hits the scifi “singularity” and we biologically merge with robots, computers and Coleco Vision? In addition, what if at some point down the road, we figure out how to dematerialize any form of matter into usable energy safely and efficiently (but unfortunately not perpetually as in there is some kind of loss/friction). At that point we could calculate how much energy each one of us requires to consume and how much energy we had altogether and then figure out the total time we would have to live as a species (barring a cosmic hiccup). So, instead of wasting resources by launching Welcome Mats into space, we begin a massive, solarwide attempt at collecting every piece of matter including radiating photons and store them in some battery-like form to be used later on. If that is the case then we might build a Dyson sphere around the host stars for further consumption in some form and fashion. Thus, all super-duper-smarty-pant aliens would be “invisible” to our current efforts at observing them because they have done just this (blocked out infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray type of radiation as they could likely try and operate at near-absolute zero temperatures for lossless efficiency).

That fulfills my non-gym oriented activity of the day. Note: if you ever get poison ivy try, IvyStat, it works.

Famous Atheist Now Believes in God:

One of World’s Leading Atheists Now Believes in God, More or Less, Based on Scientific Evidence

NEW YORK Dec 9, 2004 — A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.

At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.
[...]
There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists’ investigation of DNA “has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved,” Flew says in the new video, “Has Science Discovered God?”

There you have it, because he cannot understand DNA, the world, the universe and other complex systems, a supernatural entity must have created it. Of course that is the only logical conclusion. It is elementary my dear Watson.

Go back in time with me, 200 years into the past. Imagine if you will, standing in front of a group of individuals who say that because you cannot explain why various chemicals behave in certain ways, that the only way to explain their actions is through an outside source known as g-o-d.

It’s the classic, I have no idea what in the world is going on, so instead of doing the hard work of coming up with a testable hypothesis, I’ll invoke the time honored tradition of a god in the gaps.

Not sure why your car won’t start this morning? God chose to not let it. Of course, isn’t the opposite just as insightful? Not sure why your car started this morning? God chose to let it.

I’m so close to tenureship I can almost taste it!

Mavericks Fan Ejected After Hurling Mark Cuban Onto Court:

DALLAS–A Dallas Mavericks fan was ejected from the American Airlines Center Sunday after an incident in which he threw debris on the court. The debris, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, was hurled from the seats behind the team’s bench, striking assistant coach Avery Johnson in the head during a time-out. Police and security rushed immediately to the stands where they forcibly removed the fan, 27-year-old Richard Harwich.

“We had a minor incident involving a fan that threw some debris onto the court during a time-out,� said Gary Henderson, head of security for the American Airlines Center. “Our security forces responded swiftly and defused the situation. Any fan that wishes to throw Mr. Cuban from the stands will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. He is not a weapon or a projectile. He is the owner of this team.�

Grade exclusion cheapens degree, sets unfortunate precedent

With the stated goal of becoming a Top 20 public university over the next 15 years, A&M already had its work cut out for itself. As former students who have returned to complete graduate degrees, it was disappointing to read about the decision to institute a grade-exclusion policy.

Hiring graduates, accepting graduates into professional post-graduate programs and future educations: a schools reputation is, for better or for worse, a key component which employers, other universities and potential students gauge their decisions on.

Although the current policy allows for only three grade changes, it is the principal of the matter: if A&M invites and accepts “high-quality� students (i.e. top 10%) who for whatever reason waste their first year and for whom 3 Q-drops are not enough, that says something about the academic expectations they have of their students. In effect it takes away personal responsibility and accountability which students will have to deal with in real-life, outside the unrealistic protective bubble at the University.

Furthermore, it simply cheapens the degree of everyone else who graduated in the past and everyone who had to live with their mistakes and grow from them.

Regardless as to what other institutions are doing (is Baylor really the role model A&M should be emulating?), A&M should institute policies which place academic excellence and scholarship above all others – we could have been trail blazers but instead we are yet another misguided group following a short-sighted path.

Tim Swanson
David Veksler
Margaret Rynn

Class of 2003