Oh my god. I am perfectly comfortable with adoring the female body.#

Gina Smith links to a 1998 interview between John Miller and Osama Bin Laden.#

JOHN MILLER The American People by the large do not know the name Osama bin Laden, but they soon will. Do you have a message to the American people?

OSAMA BIN LADEN I say that the American people gave leadership to a traitorous leadership. This became very clear and especially in Clinton's government. The American government, we think, is an agent that represents the Israel inside America. If we look at sensitive departments in the present government like the Department of Defense or the State Department, or sensitive security departments like the CIA and others, we find that Jews have the first word in the American government, which is how they use America to carry out their plans in the world and especially the Muslim world.

The presence of Americans in the Holy Land supports the Jews and gives them a safe back. The American government, in a time where there are millions of Americans living on the street and those living below the standard of living and below the poverty line, we find the American government turning toward helping Israel in occupying our land and building settlements in the Holy Land.

Iain Murray links to Scott Burgess on environmental "truths."#

Another environmental 'truth' is born.

The Netherlands is an amazing place.#

Bella#

Silke's first conversation. Having children must be amazing.#

Haha, Julie! Maybe I'll start making some T-shirts. I imagine they would say something like "Let's MAKE OUT" on the front and, "at MAKEOUTCITY.COM" on the back. Good? I like sharing book shelves too. There's too many books, like blogs, to filter yourself.#

By way of Ian at Truck & Barter, I have found Robert Nozick, of the Cato Institute, on why intellectuals seem to disproportionately oppose capitalism.#

Why do wordsmith intellectuals think they are most valuable, and why do they think distribution should be in accordance with value? Note that this latter principle is not a necessary one. Other distributional patterns have been proposed, including equal distribution, distribution according to moral merit, distribution according to need. Indeed, there need not be any pattern of distribution a society is aiming to achieve, even a society concerned with justice. The justice of a distribution may reside in its arising from a just process of voluntary exchange of justly acquired property and services. Whatever outcome is produced by that process will be just, but there is no particular pattern the outcome must fit. Why, then, do wordsmiths view themselves as most valuable and accept the principle of distribution in accordance with value?

From the beginnings of recorded thought, intellectuals have told us their activity is most valuable. Plato valued the rational faculty above courage and the appetites and deemed that philosophers should rule; Aristotle held that intellectual contemplation was the highest activity. It is not surprising that surviving texts record this high evaluation of intellectual activity. The people who formulated evaluations, who wrote them down with reasons to back them up, were intellectuals, after all. They were praising themselves. Those who valued other things more than thinking things through with words, whether hunting or power or uninterrupted sensual pleasure, did not bother to leave enduring written records. Only the intellectual worked out a theory of who was best.

Ian offers his thoughts:

I think the reason public intellectuals oppose capitalism is much more simply stated:

Contrarianism.

Let's face it: the work that gets the most attention not only in academia, but also in popular press and discussion, are those things that appear contrary to our suppositions. Why do some people find economics so boring? Could it be because it often looks like a lot of convoluted chatter devoted to explaining the numbingly obvious? When prices go up, people buy less. We need 225+ years of economic debate to tell us that? (No, that isn't my take on economics -- I'm suggesting it's a popular view of the study of economics.)

What gets our attention, garners public notoriety and generates lot of interest from academics are those things that are contrary. In this case, finding fault with a system that, while imperfect, has yet to see any competing system that isn't more flawed by orders of magnitude.

Ludwig von Mises on a similar subject:

No less absurd is the second reproach thrown upon capitalism, namely, that technological and therapeutical innovations do not benefit all people. Changes in human conditions are brought about by the pioneering of the cleverest and most energetic men. They take the lead and the rest of mankind follows them little by little. The innovation is first a luxury of only a few people, until by degrees it comes into the reach of the many. It is not a sensible objection to the use of shoes or of forks that they spread only slowly and that even today millions do without them.