Model 271 a hot seller

Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi broadcast journalist who threw his shoes at George W. Bush recently, has created a hot market. According to Istanbul-based Baydan Shoes, al-Zaidi hurled one of their products, model 271, at the neocon U.S. president and has since received tens of thousands of orders worldwide for the shoe, which it has renamed the Bush shoe. Durgham al-Zaidi, the journalist's brother, disputes the claim of the Turkish firm, saying he believes the shoes were made and purchased in Iraq. He also criticized people for trying to make money from his brother's act of protest.

Happy Birthday, PC!

Without the personal computer, the status of liberty in today's government-dominated world would be much lower than it is. I'm sure there's controversy over when the PC was born, but December 19, 1974 is certainly a significant date in its history. On that day, the January, 1975 issue of Popular Electronics made its appearance with the Altair 8800 on its cover and caught the attention of Paul Allen and Bill Gates. The Harvard freshmen dropped out of school to write programs for the Altair and went on to found a software company.

Today's "This Day in Tech History" feature at Wired.com commemorates the Altair and that landmark issue of Popular Electronics.

Michael Crichton's "perfect writing environment"

Michael Crichton was a fascinating writer and I'm still saddened that he's no longer living, though I never met him. Amazon published a short quiz they gave him and I was particularly fond of one of his replies.

Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: Small room. Shades down. No daylight. No disturbances. Macintosh with a big screen. Plenty of coffee. Quiet.

State of Fear has had 1,273 reviews on Amazon, with an average rating of three stars. The breakdown is as follows:

1,273 Reviews
5 star: (381)
4 star: (246)
3 star: (170)
2 star: (171)
1 star: (305)

It blasts the environmental movement for its political character. The book deserves five stars.





It deserves five stars.

The Real Meaning of Thanksgiving

Richard Ebeling explains that when the first settlers tried communism, most of them died. There was incentive to shirk, not work. What saved them?

Gary Galles also has a piece on the real meaning of Thanksgiving, as does Gary North, who relates the event to marginal utility theory.

Unlikely friends

A friend sent me a link to this YouTube video, which has over 5 million views. There's no indication of how this "friendship" ends, but it's amazing to see.

Armistice Day Slaughter

As economist Bill Anderson notes, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month is memorable for one more eleven: There were 11,000 casualties that day, including 320 Americans killed in action. His great-uncle was one of the fallen.

John Hayes-Fisher writes:

The respected American author Joseph E Persico has calculated a shocking figure that the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those killed, wounded or missing on D-Day, when Allied forces landed en masse on the shores of occupied France almost 27 years later.

What is worse is that hundreds of these soldiers would lose their lives thrown into action by generals who knew that the Armistice had already been signed.

Of course, the myth persists that these and the millions of others who lost their lives were "serving their countries." They were pawns whom the politicians and their banker buddies manipulated and eagerly sacrificed. Commenting after the war, H. L. Mencken observed:

The Government hospitals are now full of one-legged soldiers who gallantly protected [J. P. Morgan’s] investments then, and the public schools are full of boys who will protect his investments tomorrow.

And the Federal Reserve was behind that lovely war, too [p. 124].

Michael Crichton

I was shocked this week to learn of the death of Michael Crichton, 66, from cancer. Thirteen of Crichton's books became films, including the blockbuster hit, Jurassic Park. The Harvard medical school graduate also published under pseudonyms, John Lange and Jeffery Hudson. His Jeffery Hudson novel, A Case of Need, won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel, 1969. He created the hit TV show, ER, and directed or wrote several movies, including Coma, a Robin Cook bestseller.

As his Wikipedia biography states, "In December 1994, he achieved the unique distinction of having the #1 movie (Jurassic Park), the #1 TV show (ER), and the #1 book (Disclosure, atop the paperback list)."

Crichton was rumored to have written 10,000 words a day at his peak. "He wrote seven days a week and would hide himself away in a sparsely furnished room to minimise distraction, eating the same thing for lunch every day . . . He would break off from his labours only to take exercise or to see his family. As each work progressed, he would wake up earlier and earlier until towards the end of each book he would be at his computer at 2am."

His books have sold over 150 million copies worldwide. As Jurassic Park director Steven Spielberg commented, “Michael was a gentle soul who reserved his flamboyant side for his novels. There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place.”

Notes on Democracy review

My review of Dissident Books' new edition of Mencken's classic Notes on Democracy appears today on Strike the Root. The case against government as we know it is overwhelming, and as Mencken makes vividly clear, democracy is but another way to grow the state. Democratic Man, accordng to Mencken, is someone who

can imagine and even esteem, in his way, certain false forms of liberty – for example, the right to choose between two political mountebanks, and to yell for the more obviously dishonest -- but the reality is incomprehensible to him.

And Democratic Man will be going to the polls November 4 to express his false conception of liberty.

iPatriot Act is ready and waiting

The government's war against freedom will one day include the internet.  The only thing needed for the iPatriot Act to pass is a web Pearl Harbor.  

Why supermarket tomatoes taste flat

It's not because Florida tomato growers can't produce good-tasting tomatoes.

Art Carden explains:

Florida tomato grower Joe Procacci came up with a tomato that tasted great and could be produced economically. After intervention by the Florida Tomato Commission, however, Procacci was barred from selling his tomatoes to willing buyers.

After a decade of experimenting with Heirloom tomatoes, Procacci developed what he called the UglyRipe tomato, which the Florida Tomato Commission barred from export because it didn't meet its standards for roundness.

Gary Galles wrote in 2005:

In effect, the government has delegated [the FTC] the power to criminalize selling fruit other growers deem unfit to sell or selling it in ways they don’t approve of, even when buyers, fully in­formed about any shortcomings, would be eager customers. (Procacci had to turn away out-of-state buyers and take about $3 million in losses when denied an exemption from the roundness rules in January [2005].)

Whatever this is, it's not the free market at work. The FTC apparently wanted to protect the reputation of the state's tomato growers by limiting export to lousy-tasting tomatoes that were round.

Phelps vs. Cavic

I salute Michael Phelps for his incredible accomplishments at the Beijing Olympics. I also salute Milorad Cavic, whom Phelps beat by .01 seconds in the 100 meter butterfly to win his seventh gold medal, tying him with Mark Spitz. It was the closest race Phelps has had, with one more to go. According to what I've read, it is the smallest margin of victory possible in the Olympics.

But I am nagged by doubt. I watched the race and the video replays immediately after. The replays were far from conclusive. The Serbs filed a protest, but Olympic officials stood by the results, in spite of what the video showed. From a Reuters report:

Serb Olympic team officials believed Cavic had touched first and the timing system may have failed but Ben Ekumbo, the race referee, ruled the result should stand.

FINA [the sport's governing body] also said Phelps would not have lost the gold medal if the Serb protest had been upheld.

"It was a question to share or not share first place," said Cornel Marculescu, FINA's executive director. "With everything we saw, the first arrival was Michael Phelps."

According to race referee Ben Ekumbo of Kenya:

"I personally looked at the video footage and it was very clear that the Serbian swimmer touched second after Michael Phelps," said the Kenyan.

"It was clear from the video that it was an issue of stroking. One was stroking and the other was gliding.

If these officials saw video that convinced them I would like to see it. Michael Phelps is Big Money -- big money for more than Michael Phelps. A loss in his quest for a seventh gold medal would have deflated his market value considerably. It would have deflated interest in watching the Games. There were too many people in positions of power who stood to lose too much money if Phelps lost.

I don't know if the race results were fixed in any way. Maybe Phelps won because he really touched first. Maybe Phelps won because Cavic was too soft on his touch, as Ekumbo claimed. But saying Cavic was too soft on his touch is different than claiming Phelps touched first. Marculescu said "the first arrival" was Phelps. Ekumbo agreed. It sounds like the officials want to say Cavic touched first but not hard enough to register, and that he didn't touch first, Phelps did. Which is it, guys?

Given all the politics and money involved with the Olympics, this case is far from settled, for me, at least. But regardless, Michael Phelps is still a great champion, and I wish him well.