Elliot: is the EU funding hamas?
curi: Heh. Not directly. but EU money has been flowing into Hamas by various routes. The EU Commission has just instituted a "study" to try to prevent EU money from reaching Hamas.
Elliot: -_-o
curi: 'Not giving them any' is of course ruled out as a method. That would be simplisme.
Elliot: LOL

Some think the path to happiness is to get what one wants. And parallel to this, is the theory that with enough money, to buy whatever one likes, happiness will come.

Some think the path to happiness is to want what one has. And parallel to this, is the theory that money and things are distractions and obstacles to true happiness.

Both extremes are false. We must both seek to get what we want (more generally, do what we intend) but we must also seek to want the right things (have (morally) good intentions).

Did you like this piece on The World? Here's more answers:

Christians: We will be holding a prayer session this evening at 8pm.

TCSers: We blame her parents.

Hans Blix: I believe she was hiding Saddam's WMD.

Psychiatrists: We believe she had a traumatic incident in a canal during her childhood.

Her Husband: That traitorous bitch had a girl on purpose!

Gun Nut: We need a gun in every Egyptian household.

TCS Gun Nut: At least arm the six little girls!

Feminist: The wrong person is dead.

Socialist: This is the inevitable result of Egypt's capitalist economy.

Socialist: The State should have redistributed some of the female children to other families and given them a boy instead.

Socialist: The solution is a state-sponsered GDP or Gender Redistribution Program. We consider this a higher priority than a traditional GDP.

Social Worker: If only the US hadn't cut food aid to Egypt by 43.2% this year, this never would have happened.

Social Worker: The US increased food aid to Egypt 200% this year, but there was so much we haven't been able to distribute it all yet. It is the responsibility of the West to feed the hungry, and when the West fails, they are responsible for the consequences.

You can't do 'precision' with a sufficiently young person. because, being good Popperians, they only use as much precision as is needed for their problem situation.

so i was reading this newspaper article on economics, and it was ok, a little scary how stupid it says most ppl are, but anyway, it mentions the broken window fallacy (if you break a window, it creates a job to fix the window, so you helped the economy *ahem*). and it just has to give the example this way: "Some teenagers, being the little beasts they are, toss a brick through a bakery window." grrrrr

IMAO quotes Jonah Goldberg who says:

"Affirmative action is based upon the assumption that blacks cannot compete with whites. But if I say that blacks can't compete with whites, I'm a racist."

^^

i like this a lot

was looking at Trinity, Bill Whittle's newest essay. he devotes quite a lot of space to why creating instead of just redistributing wealth exists. here's an explanation i like:

would you rather have a truck on the curb outside McDonalds full of hamberger components, or something to eat?

i thought i should blog something. rather than 5 hits yesterday i got 42. i don't know why but whatever, i'll try to give you *something* new to read, i guess.

In politics, a lot of discussion has gone to answer this question: Who should rule? Should it be the strongest? The smartest? The most popular? The divinely blessed? The oldest? And each generation should we pick again, or go be heredity?

That last question may have given it away. It implies that our leader should remain leader for his whole life! But we have term limits on presidents for a reason... See, the point is that 'Who should rule?' is entirely the wrong question. Any answer at all, doesn't matter who you pick, is a recipe for tyranny -- for one leader who's policies, bad or good, rule our lives. And yes, if you put a lot of energy into selection, maybe you can find a benevolent dictator who will have mostly good policies, and few bad ones. But that is still tyranny, and the hope of only having to live with "a few" bad policies by my King is just not that inspiring.

The answer to the question is to instead focus on: How can we set up our government so that bad leaders and policies get corrected? And that -- having a system open to criticism and change -- is the answer to tyranny. Picking the right tyrant in the first place is *not*. (unless it's curi)

idiotarians are ppl who side with evil without having evil intentions. another way to put this is they have good motives but bad ideas. the whole point of this is that we do not attribute bad motives to those who disagree with us -- quite the contrary, we think most people who disagree with us have good motives. only a few are actually evil.

there is nothing analogous in how they treat us...