“Senator Obama … infused unnecessary partisanship into the process.  Now is not the time to fix the blame…”

Posted by email from Duane’s Quick Posts (posterous)

Bill Maher will be releasing his new documentary, Religulous, this Friday.  I was interested at first, but the more I saw, the less I wanted to see.  I think Bill, and other atheists like him such as Richard Dawkins who “go on the offense” are making a mistake for two reasons:

1. In centuries past, those who have sought freedom from religion have been persecuted for their lack of belief in God.  Bruno is perhaps the ultimate example.  If atheism has within its system a superior ethic for the treatment of other human beings, shouldn’t its proponents lead out?  The mockery and persecution of others for their beliefs is, in my view, the antithesis of ethical atheism.  Rational argument, tolerance, education, and uplifting humanism on the other hand, is what I see as the height of doubt.
2. Irrational belief is the “default setting” for human beings, and as long as our species has death and birth, irrational belief in something will always outpace the philosophy of doubt.  Since doubt requires considerable time and education, atheists—by mathematical constraint—will always be in the minority.  Mocking the religious, therefore, may be a grave tactical error in the fight for populous doubt: a short-term win may become the impetus for a long-term washout.  Supposing religious belief is ignorance, then the opposition need only reproduce faster to win; meanwhile, atheists need to both reproduce and educate their offspring.

Posted by email from Duane’s Quick Posts (posterous)

For about 6 years now, Peter Schiff has been the guy that the financial news anchors haul onto the stage to make fun of. He’s been predicting a systemic failure of the banking system for that long, and has made some remarkable predictions along the way. Here he is last May (2008), before this crisis. It sure looks like Mr. Schiff was on the money. Let’s get him in on the drawing board when Congress meets this week to plan a fixer-upper for the economy!

Here he is back in 2006 when “Mr. Laffer” was laughing at him:

I’m proud of the U.S. House of Representatives saying “no” to a bailout of the big banks on Wall Street. Make no mistake, it will be a difficult time ahead… but this was a monumental change in the right direction. There is hope in a trustworthy system after all.

Meanwhile, the following combination on finance.yahoo.com gave me a laugh:

Posted by email from Duane’s Quick Posts (posterous)

It is the yearning of almost all people to know the end from the beginning. And after a person knows it, as she (or he) supposes, her desire turns to securing a place for herself within that anticipated end.

But in a journey such as ours of unfathomable complexity and contingent duration, knowing the end without at times re-evaluating our view of it is a liability to the soul. Each of us has an outward-expanding capacity for growth that is fueled by curiosity and the frequent admission, “We can’t be sure, but this is what we think so far.” Complexity does not yield to preconception; rather, it reveals sublime patterns only to those who challenge their own notions.

A striving to believe is a necessary beginning to wisdom, since confidence in our own knowledge is gained by exploration. But an unyielding belief stands in the way of our systematic progress towards truth. Such a belief is tantamount to certainty, and in its worst incarnation becomes overconfidence and foolishness. I believe that balance of mind, or in other words, our best effort to see fairly, comes not by striving to believe in something, but by striving to unbelieve our own biases.

All beliefs must at some point be wrested from the lofty branches of certainty to be grafted with the humble beginnings of newer and more complete ideas. Progress toward truth makes no exceptions. The consequence of unbending faith in one’s original conception of things is ineluctable stagnation.

I hope to ever be one to challenge my ideas of the world, to see only as far as I can see and claim nothing more, and to re-evaluate the end from the beginning every once in a while.

This is great news!  Ron Paul has officially endorsed Chuck Baldwin and the Constitution Party.  I like the approach to this “New Alliance” that Ron Paul is talking about:

Posted by email from Duane’s Quick Posts (posterous)

I appreciate this “warning to sanity” from Bill Maher:

If those two pictures you saw had been the result of terrorist attacks, instead of a train wreck (because some guy was texting), and because of a hurricane, this country would have completely lost its collective [stuff], we would have invaded Yemen, suspended the constitution, and done all manner of crazy stuff. Isn’t there something to be said for understanding that terrorism—as bad as it is—should not control our lives?

Gold hasn’t been doing very well this year… until today.  It looks like it’s up $83 / oz as of right now.  Some insights into the surge at Bloomberg.

Posted by email from Duane’s Quick Posts (posterous)

Wow. Five years ago, Ron Paul warned of the immoral consequences that could take place because of the special privileges granted to nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the two loan guarantee companies for mortgages). It’s impressive that his economic understanding could lead him to such an accurate prediction, and noteworthy that his focus on prevention was almost entirely ignored:

Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.

—Ron Paul

If only Obama or McCain understood economics like Dr. Paul.