Friday, October 21, 2005
"With Labour back, the financial community has to take more seriously the bevy of policy pronouncements served up just prior to the election campaign. That’s a nuisance, because a change of government would have seen the sillier of Michael Cullen’s intentions, simply trashed," says Gareth Morgan. "The government is so busy rearranging the chairs on the deck of the ship of savings and investment, that it's lost sight of the reality that if individuals don't take responsibility for the steerage of their savings and investment decisions they will more likely sink financially anyway."
The Economic Freedom of the World, 2005 Annual Report has just been published by Canada's Fraser Institute. This report has been authored for the last decade by Professors James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, with the cooperation of some 67 public policy organizations from around the world. This new report is important as it provides further empirical evidence of the importance of economic freedom to individual well-being and opportunity. The report's conclusions include the following: "Countries with more economic freedom have substantially higher per-capita incomes and higher growth rates." These findings show economic freedom is not just desirable from some philosophical viewpoint but is a necessary and absolute good. Countries that move from less economic freedom to more raise their citizens' well-being much faster than the more restrictive regimes.
"There is a difference between Soft Multiculturalism - the idea that minorities should not face discrimination and that the customs of different people should be tolerated, and which he describes as a 'benign force' - and Hard Multiculturalism, which insists no culture is better than another, and which believes society should not only tolerate difference but promote it. This leads some Western intellectuals into the perverse position of defending cultures that condone the killing of homosexuals and the virtual enslavement of women, whilst denigrating the culture of the free societies of the West, inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment."
The destruction of core values surrounding relationships and marriage are hurting society, argues William Duncan. "Modern litigation seeks to restructure the political environment of this country. This concept is described in another way by Richard Weaver as 'Striking at restraints without considering what they preserve.' ... The argument of those who want to see the family restructured focuses on the 'individual interests' in marriage and family relationships, while their opponents stress the "social interests" affected by such relationships. The wisest approach to these issues requires that we compare the institution of wedlock as it has existed within a long-established American tradition of family law with the proposed new institution that would result from the proposed restructuring of marriage. Only such an approach avoids the false, but often-propounded, notion that the fight over the definition of marriage is primarily a struggle between the legislative branch of government and the judicial. In reality, what is at stake in the fight over the definition of marriage is not the difference between the legislature and the court, but rather the difference between the state and society."
"When Nelson GP, Dr Joseph Hassan, sent a letter to his patients telling them he would no longer prescribe contraceptives, he made headlines. His actions have been praised in some quarters, while others have nothing positive to say. His letter has sparked debate all around the country. Many claim doctors should be forced to prescribe contraception and refer patients for abortions, no matter what their moral view regarding either issue. People suggesting such a course of action appear to be asking for a health system where the practitioners are required to obey the system without question. But isn't this the same modus operandi employed by despotic and tyrannical regimes? Where the system forces people to act without engaging their conscience, and the free will of the individual is removed to further the ends of the ideology? Such a system would be dangerous. It would require doctors to act solely according to the will of the state, and without thinking. Is this really what we want?"
Frustrated with the success of so-called "conservative" bioethicists in influencing public policy in the US, several "progressive" bioethicists have aligned themselves to the Democratic Party to shift public policy from right to left. Or, in the words of Dr Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania, from "religious fanaticism" and "narrow intuitionism" to "pragmatic principalism". At a seminar organised by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington thinktank with close links to the Democratic Party, several "progressive" bioethicists described their initiative in terms which suggest that US bioethics has fissured into nearly irreconcilable camps operating with completely different philosophical frameworks. According to the speakers at the seminar, progressives believe that bioethics should concern itself with social justice issues, and that human dignity is best promoted by providing the necessities of life, like healthcare, food and education. Conservatives, on the other hand, want "government enforcement of majoritarian prejudices that are based on emotion and instinct and repugnance". To use the words of R. Alta Charo, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, its recent interest is "foetus fetishism".
~ Nature, Oct 13 (sorry, no link)
"It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it isn't. The pages coming out of your color printer may contain hidden information that could be used to track you down if you ever cross the U.S. government. Last year, an article in PC World magazine pointed out that printouts from many color laser printers contained yellow dots scattered across the page, viewable only with a special kind of flashlight. The article quoted a senior researcher at Xerox Corp. as saying the dots contain information useful to law-enforcement authorities, a secret digital "license tag" for tracking down criminals."
What Will Heaven Be Like? Peter Kreeft doesn't shy away from the tough ones when he provides his thoughts on 35 frequently asked questions about eternity. This is one of the best brief expositions I have seen; challenging and yet comforting.
The Economic Freedom of the World, 2005 Annual Report has just been published by Canada's Fraser Institute. This report has been authored for the last decade by Professors James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, with the cooperation of some 67 public policy organizations from around the world. This new report is important as it provides further empirical evidence of the importance of economic freedom to individual well-being and opportunity. The report's conclusions include the following: "Countries with more economic freedom have substantially higher per-capita incomes and higher growth rates." These findings show economic freedom is not just desirable from some philosophical viewpoint but is a necessary and absolute good. Countries that move from less economic freedom to more raise their citizens' well-being much faster than the more restrictive regimes.
"There is a difference between Soft Multiculturalism - the idea that minorities should not face discrimination and that the customs of different people should be tolerated, and which he describes as a 'benign force' - and Hard Multiculturalism, which insists no culture is better than another, and which believes society should not only tolerate difference but promote it. This leads some Western intellectuals into the perverse position of defending cultures that condone the killing of homosexuals and the virtual enslavement of women, whilst denigrating the culture of the free societies of the West, inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment."
The destruction of core values surrounding relationships and marriage are hurting society, argues William Duncan. "Modern litigation seeks to restructure the political environment of this country. This concept is described in another way by Richard Weaver as 'Striking at restraints without considering what they preserve.' ... The argument of those who want to see the family restructured focuses on the 'individual interests' in marriage and family relationships, while their opponents stress the "social interests" affected by such relationships. The wisest approach to these issues requires that we compare the institution of wedlock as it has existed within a long-established American tradition of family law with the proposed new institution that would result from the proposed restructuring of marriage. Only such an approach avoids the false, but often-propounded, notion that the fight over the definition of marriage is primarily a struggle between the legislative branch of government and the judicial. In reality, what is at stake in the fight over the definition of marriage is not the difference between the legislature and the court, but rather the difference between the state and society."
"When Nelson GP, Dr Joseph Hassan, sent a letter to his patients telling them he would no longer prescribe contraceptives, he made headlines. His actions have been praised in some quarters, while others have nothing positive to say. His letter has sparked debate all around the country. Many claim doctors should be forced to prescribe contraception and refer patients for abortions, no matter what their moral view regarding either issue. People suggesting such a course of action appear to be asking for a health system where the practitioners are required to obey the system without question. But isn't this the same modus operandi employed by despotic and tyrannical regimes? Where the system forces people to act without engaging their conscience, and the free will of the individual is removed to further the ends of the ideology? Such a system would be dangerous. It would require doctors to act solely according to the will of the state, and without thinking. Is this really what we want?"
Frustrated with the success of so-called "conservative" bioethicists in influencing public policy in the US, several "progressive" bioethicists have aligned themselves to the Democratic Party to shift public policy from right to left. Or, in the words of Dr Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania, from "religious fanaticism" and "narrow intuitionism" to "pragmatic principalism". At a seminar organised by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington thinktank with close links to the Democratic Party, several "progressive" bioethicists described their initiative in terms which suggest that US bioethics has fissured into nearly irreconcilable camps operating with completely different philosophical frameworks. According to the speakers at the seminar, progressives believe that bioethics should concern itself with social justice issues, and that human dignity is best promoted by providing the necessities of life, like healthcare, food and education. Conservatives, on the other hand, want "government enforcement of majoritarian prejudices that are based on emotion and instinct and repugnance". To use the words of R. Alta Charo, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, its recent interest is "foetus fetishism".
~ Nature, Oct 13 (sorry, no link)
"It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it isn't. The pages coming out of your color printer may contain hidden information that could be used to track you down if you ever cross the U.S. government. Last year, an article in PC World magazine pointed out that printouts from many color laser printers contained yellow dots scattered across the page, viewable only with a special kind of flashlight. The article quoted a senior researcher at Xerox Corp. as saying the dots contain information useful to law-enforcement authorities, a secret digital "license tag" for tracking down criminals."
What Will Heaven Be Like? Peter Kreeft doesn't shy away from the tough ones when he provides his thoughts on 35 frequently asked questions about eternity. This is one of the best brief expositions I have seen; challenging and yet comforting.
