Peter Lindberg responds to my comment about the worries of urban planning, saying that that particular planner goes much farther than most people do. This is a relaxing thought that the whole industry/study isn't in the direction. Good to know. :)#

Tony Pierce has a new photo essay.#

Brad DeLong on Fahrenheit 9/11: "Much better than your standard Michael Moore movie--largely because he's off-camera most of the time, but also because the smarmy misrepresentation quota is down to 20% and the truth quota is up to 80%. 20% is still too large, however: I wouldn't send anyone to see it who doesn't already know enough to spot the 20%."#

Later, Brad is reminded of when President Bush called a group "the elite" and then "My Base." Do people not realize this is a reference to "al qaeda", which means "The Base" in Arabic?

Local Ranger on Michael More: "Something few people seem to have noticed about Michael Moore, whether they love him or hate him, is that he keeps making the exact same movie over and over. And surprisingly, it gets better every time."#

Rep. Ron Paul, MD on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.#

Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.

Lance Arthur continues his Guide to Man Grooming.#

Men hate to go shopping. It's something in our DNA. Even I, who spends way too much on shoes and shirts and outerwear, hate stepping into a grocery store. The choices are too many, I think everything's too expensive, I regret getting things I'll never actually use (beets? canned beets? whu huh?) and I walk out feeling like I've been taken.

What men like is hunting. Not necessarily in the "I really need to strap a deer on my Bronco" style of hunting, more in the basic "I have a target in mind and I will search until I locate it and claim it for myself" style. So think of shopping like hunting. You are on a shirt hunt. You are hunting for the juiciest, most satisfying shirt in the shopping wilderness, and nothing but nothing is going to stop you from that goal.

See? Shopping can be manly!

Moxie interviews Michael Moore's proctologist.#

Mox: I understand you have doctor/patient confidentiality to deal with, but can you tell me anything at all about Michael Moore's rectum since he's recently made an ass of himself so publicly?

Ass Dr: Well back in 1996 I sent a team of highly skilled spelunkers into an area of his body where we suspected his ass might be located.

Capitalism and the way it makes incremental improvements on our quality of our lives is fantastic.#

Robert Scoble on a book he's reading.#

Speaking of Chinese, I'm reading a book "1421 The Year China Discovered America" that makes a darn good case that Christopher Columbus didn't discover America. He's done a ton of work that shows that the Chinese were actually here 60 years prior and that Christopher Columbus actually had copies of their maps!

That basically throws out a whole ton of history I learned in elementary school.

The book is a must read, by the way. Even if the conclusion is wrong it gives amazing detail about just how advanced Chinese culture was in the 1420s. I'm halfway through and had trouble putting it down to start blogging.

1. It doesn't matter who may have ran across America before the Spanish did, whether it was Chinese and Nordic people. Why? Because they didn't do anything about it. None of these other people effectively traded with the Native Americans or made any use of their discovery. Often times they just gave up. That is why Christopher Columbus and what he represents is important, not just because he "discovered" a new place.

2. "Even if the conclusion is wrong..." is a terrible motto in my opinion. Would you read a physics book if it presented every untrue theory but gave you great amounts of detail about the people who made them and how they found these things? Of course not. Things that are not true are not valuable from a utility point of view (but they may be interesting as literature or as a history-of-mistakes book.)

3. As for how "advanced" China was, I recommend reading books like The Wealth and Poverty of Nations or Guns, Germs, and Steel where you were learn that while the Chinese did invent many interesting things, they never made any use of them. China's totalitarian government made large ship building illegal and killed any chance of expanding its exploration. Similar measures were made against paper, gunpowder, clocks, and other instruments that China had priority in inventing.

What is more important: an invention without a use or purpose, or an re-discovery of an invention that causes monumental change?