It's A Great Day

Stella Daily loves crossword puzzles. In fact she solves thousands of them a year. At age 21 she was reintroduced to the books of Ayn Rand that she had first read in high school. This started her reflecting on the use of words like ego in crossword puzzles:

To the best of my knowledge - and I have solved five or more puzzles per day for the past five years - I have never seen a positively-phrased clue for EGO, only neutral and, more frequently, pejorative clues. A word that could be clued as "Man's sacred purpose" or "Working title for Ayn Rand's Anthem" is instead clued as "Megalomaniac's characteristic" or "'I' problem," as if being conscious of one's ego were a problem. EPA, on the other hand, tends to be clued as "Earth protector (abbr.)" or "Clean Air Act source, for short," implying that the Environmental Protection Agency has done good for the world in its regulation-making.

So she decided to take matters into her own hands. Mrs. Daily has created her own puzzles and has written the word clues to be consistent with Ayn Rand's beliefs:

Besides the personal pleasure I get from creating a crossword whose makeup reflects my way of thinking, I hope in so doing to spread the ideas I espouse. As a solver, I have often been prompted to see a movie, read a book, or at the very least perform a Google search because of something I?ve learned from a crossword puzzle. I like to think that solvers of my puzzles may perhaps choose to pick up an Ayn Rand novel, see a movie whose protagonist represents a true hero, or ask questions about philosophy because of clues that I?ve written.

Click here to access a hyperlink to some of her puzzles.

PermaLink | 7:33 AM | |

After the death of 7 astronauts and 2.5 years of safety corrections the space shuttle was launched again a couple of days ago and guess what happened? The same problem was experienced that let to the death of 7 astronauts and 2.5 years of safety corrections. See Edward Hudgins from the Objectivist Center here and Michael Gough from The Cato Institute here to see what should be done.

PermaLink | 6:24 AM | |

Yesterday was the first time I have taken the Washington, D.C. subway since the dual incidents in London. I had read all about the increased security on Metro. So what did I see on my trip?

I took a bus (no visible changes) to the West Falls Church station. On the platform was a Fairfax County police officer. What he was doing there I have no idea. He looked at people as they came down the escalator. He talked to a woman. Passengers had all sorts of bags, backpacks, and packages. The officer didn't ask to look in any of them.

I studied the stations at each stop while standing on the train. I never saw another police presence. I got off at Foggy Bottom at George Washington University. This is always a busy place, especially at rush hour. Again, I saw no signs of security.

I'd love to know what Metro is really doing to prevent a terrorist attack.

PermaLink | 6:22 AM | |

Yesterday, with one daughter off to work at H & M and my other daughter on a shopping trip with my wife to Ikea, I decided to sit at Reston Town Center and read Nathaniel Branden's explanation of the differences he had with Ayn Rand. The piece, based upon a 1982 lecture, turned out to be riveting to someone who has thought so much about her philosophy:

The message she has brought runs counter not only to the dominant teachings of religion and philosophy for many centuries past, but, no less important, it runs counter to the teachings of most of our parents. Our parents, who said, "So who's happy?"; who said, "Don't get too big for your britches"; who said, "Pride goeth before a fall"; who said, "Enjoy yourself while you're young, because when you grow up, life is not fun, life is grim, life is a burden"; who said, "Adventure is for the comic strips; real life is learning to make your peace with boredom"; who said, "Life is not about exaltation, life is about duty."

Then, this incredible writer, Ayn Rand, comes along and says, in effect, "Oh, really?" and then proceeds to create characters who aren't in the Middle Ages, who aren't running around in outer space, but who are of our time and of this earth-who work, struggle, pursue difficult career goals, fall in love, participate in intensely emotional relationships, and for whom life is an incredible adventure because they have made it so. Characters who struggle, who suffer, but who win-who achieve success and happiness.

So, there is a powerful message of hope in her work. A powerful affirmation of the possibilities of existence. Her work represents a glorification not only of the human potential but also of the possibilities of life on earth.

Mr. Branden then goes on to explain one of the many problems he sees with her work:

In preparation for this presentation, I re-read the opening chapter of "�The Fountainhead." It really is a great book. I noticed something in the first chapter I never noticed before. Consider these facts: The hero has just been expelled from school, he is the victim of injustice, he is misunderstood by virtually everyone, and he himself tends to find other people puzzling and incomprehensible. He is alone; he has no friends. There is no one with whom he can share his inner life or values. So far, with the possible exception of being expelled from school, this could be a fairly accurate description of the state of the overwhelming majority of adolescents. There is one big difference: Howard Roark gives no indication of being bothered by any of it. He is serenely happy within himself. For average teenagers, this condition is agony. They read "The Fountainhead"and see this condition, not as a problem to be solved, but as a condition they must learn to be happy about-as Roark is. All done without drugs! What a wish-fulfillment that would be! What a dream come true! Don't bother learning to understand anyone. Don't bother working at making yourself better understood. Don't try to see whether you can close the gap of your alienation from others, at least from some others, just struggle for Roark's serenity-which Rand never tells you how to achieve. This is an example of how "The Fountainhead" could be at once a source of great inspiration and a source of great guilt, for all those who do not know how to reach Roark's state.

Much of what he has written I assumed that people grasped as they read her books. But if you take a look at the entire article you will see that this is far from what happened. It turns out that many admirers of her work felt guilty if they were not exactly like John Galt.

PermaLink | 6:06 AM | |

on the 3 worst Supreme Court decisions in recent terms. Mr. Epstein is the famous law professor from the University of Chicago. They are, Kelo (of course), the marijuana decision, and the upholding of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that restricted free speech.

PermaLink | 7:51 AM | |

Kenneth Harney of the Washington Post reveals that Congress is getting in the act of trying to reverse the Supreme Court's eminent domain decision. First, the house adopted

by a vote of 365 to 33 a highly unusual resolution deploring the court's ruling. The House also voted 231 to 189 for a bill that would prohibit the spending of any federal housing, transportation or Treasury money "to enforce the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Kelo v. City of New London ." The court ruled that municipalities have the right to determine what constitutes a "public purpose" for eminent-domain-seizure purposes, even if that means taking privately owned real estate away from one set of citizens and giving it to private developers who promise to increase the local tax base or increase employment.

Next comes the Senate, which is expected to pass the

Protection of Homes, Small Businesses and Private Property Act of 2005, proposed by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). That bill would declare that it is Congress's view that "the power of eminent domain should be exercised only for 'public use' as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, and that this power to seize homes, small businesses and other private property should be reserved only for true public purposes."

Under no circumstances, Cornyn said, should local eminent-domain powers "be used simply to further private economic development." The bill would prohibit all uses of federal funds in connection with any eminent-domain seizures for economic development purposes.

There is also plenty of activity in the states:

Legislators in more than two dozen states are moving to rein in, or at least clarify, the powers of municipalities to condemn and seize homes. Eight states -- Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Montana, South Carolina and Washington -- already impose restrictions in some form.

And in the state that initiated Kelo coming before the Supreme Court

Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) has endorsed a moratorium on eminent-domain seizures, and called the issue "the 21st century equivalent of the Boston Tea Party: the government taking away the rights and liberties of property owners without giving them a voice. But this time it is not a monarch wearing robes in England we are fighting -- it is five robed justices at the Supreme Court in Washington."

Mr. Harney concludes the article with news about the Lost Liberty Hotel. It looks like there is hope after all.

PermaLink | 9:35 AM | |

From Charles Lane of the Washington Post in a story appearing today:

"[I]n my review over the years and looking at Supreme Court constitutional decisions, I don't necessarily think that it's the best approach to have an all-encompassing philosophy," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his 2003 confirmation hearing.

Oh no.

PermaLink | 4:54 AM | |

The Washington Post has a new court blog to help keep us up-to-date on all the information regarding the new nominee. The bottom line: We don't know much about Roberts except that he is conservative. Is he the type of conservative who supports locking up suspected American terrorists and throwing away the key or is he our type that describes themselves as conservative but are actually libertarians. I'm still not hopeful.

PermaLink | 9:27 PM | |

From Linda Greenhouse in today's New York Times:

There are others, potential nominees whom the president might have chosen, who probably also feel a lump in the throat when they think about the Supreme Court, but it is caused by anger rather than reverence. That is not to say that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, whom President Bush had offered as his models for a Supreme Court selection, do not respect the institution, but their stance is one of opposition to many currents of modern legal thought that the court's decisions reflect.

Now the question is whether Judge Roberts, if confirmed, will, like those two justices, commit himself to recapturing a distant constitutional paradise in which the court was faithful to the original intent of the framers or whether, like the justice he would succeed, he finds himself comfortably in the middle rather than at the margin.

His r�sum� suggests the latter, as does his almost complete lack of a paper trail. There are no flame-throwing articles or speeches, no judicial opinions that threaten established precedent, no visible hard edges.

So it looks like the President picked someone who will get through the Senate. But as far as a hero who will drive the Supreme Court to see the error of its ways, well it doesn't look promising at this time. I don't get non-ideological judges. On what basis do they make their decisions?

This is what these nominations have come to. In order to get on the bench the individual cannot be too extreme or too experienced so that he or she does not have opinions that can lead to a contentious confirmation battle.

On C-Span this morning Senator Kennedy actually framed the coming hearings with perfect accuracy. He said that his opinion of Roberts will come down to how he views Congressional powers under the Commerce Clause. I worry that the Senator will be able to go to bed without fear.

PermaLink | 4:58 AM | |

Its too early for me to say much of anything about this nominee. What has stuck me tonight about all the news stories is the repeated reference to his being the first Supreme Court Nominee in 11 years. Well during one nomination of a Supreme Court Justice, that of Clarence Thomas, I was up at Dartmouth College participating in a Cato Institute summer seminar. Everyone from The Cato Institute was excited about the choice. They already had an association with him.

It cost me $800 to participate in this seminar, which at that time was to my wife and I a fortune. Attending even meant missing my younger daughter's July 4th birthday. But I was determined to go, arguing that this was my only opportunity to do something like this. Well, for once my prediction came true. After that year Cato stopped holding the summer seminar. Only a few years ago did they start offering something like it again.

I had a fantastic time. I met many of the leaders of the libertarian movement, including Fred Smith who I would work for many years later. It convinced me that my political views were on the right track. As students we would attend lectures during the day and then discuss what we had learned all through the night. Fantastic.

PermaLink | 9:35 PM | |

The blogospher is already alive with the rumor that the nominee is Joy Clement. Here's a story from the Associated Press.

PermaLink | 9:43 AM | |

Regular blogging has been suspended since we are hearing that a new nominee is about to be named and because Senator Byrd has made it a new law that the U.S. Constitution be taught in schools and to federal government employees. Therefore, I thought it would be valuable to have a lesson a day about one of the most important political documents ever written until we hear who the nominee turns out to be.

Lesson 1: Our Constitution is one of liberty or negative rights.

The rights contained in our Constitution derive directly from the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that we are "endowed with by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Jefferson did not believe that these rights were guaranteed. And notice that he did not mention specific rights like the right to food, employment, marriage, and healthcare.

The Founders wanted our government to one of limited powers that would allow each American to have the ability to reach their fullest potential. They understood that a guarantee of a right to money or goods would mean that these would have to come from someone else. This is why the rights we have under our Constitution are called freedom or negative rights. We have the right to do what we want as long as we don't harm others (that's why we use the term negative.) Alternatively, a positive or welfare right is exactly what the words imply. We would have an explicit right to take from others for our own benefit. The Founders were against positive rights after their experience with the British and after reading the political philosophy of John Locke.

PermaLink | 6:42 AM | |

The Institute for Justice is trying again:

Washington, D.C.-The U.S. Supreme Court has one final chance to correct one of its most-despised decisions in recent memory-its ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, which allows the use of eminent domain for private development. Today the Institute for Justice will file a petition for rehearing on behalf of New London, Conn., homeowners asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider its 5-4 ruling from June 23 that has already opened up the floodgates to eminent domain abuse.

"We will be the first to admit that our chances of success with this motion are extremely small, but if there is any case that deserves to reheard by the Supreme Court, it is the Kelo case," said Scott Bullock, senior attorney at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice. "This is the worst Supreme Court decision in years. Hopefully the Court will see the abuse of power that it has unleashed and will reconsider its misguided and dangerous opinion."

Keep your fingers crossed.

PermaLink | 6:47 PM | |

From last Friday's show in which the question was whether Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist should retire:

PermaLink | 6:10 PM | |

From today's Washington Post and New York Times (I guess even these newspapers have to face reality at some point.)

1. Government planned urban renewal is a failure.

2. Government incentives to promote technological innovation is a failure.

Its a great day to be a libertarian.

PermaLink | 10:46 AM | |

Katie Newmark's mom receives an extremely nice write-up in this Sunday's Washington Post magazine in a story about how the newspaper brought her to D.C. and teamed her up with a liberal blogger. No matter the magazine says, however, I still think Katie is the best blogger I know.

PermaLink | 11:43 AM | |

On the heels of my email to the Washington Post reporters is an excellent column by David Salisbury and John Merrifield on the need for real school choice as a means of improving public education:

Incremental reforms in America's school system will do nothing -- or worse than nothing -- unless reformers attack the problem at the root, which is the bureaucratic and political control of schools. The solution is to open the schools up to consumer choice and competition with private schools, allowing parents to choose the schools that they think are best for their children.

Read more.

PermaLink | 7:43 AM | |

Dion Haynes reports today that Senator Brownback has decided to end his bid to expand the D.C. private school voucher program for next year because of time constraints. The Editors of the Washington Post, in a column almost certainly written by Colbert King, agree that this was a good move. Below is my email to Mr. Haynes and King:

We might ask the D.C. officials who are against expanding the voucher program to the suburbs why they support allowing D.C. college students to be charged in-state tuition at out-of-state public colleges. The justification for the law was that the District lacked capacity and it is the same issue when it comes to vouchers.

I don't understand the argument that sending kids to the suburbs will somehow invalidate the 5 year study of vouchers. I think the greater risk to understanding the impact of private school vouchers is people not being able to take advantage of them.

For example, it now looks like no new children are going to be accepted into the voucher program for high school slots. This will almost certainly have a negative incentive to parents entering their kids into the program. If you know that your child will have to go to a public school in high school will you enter the voucher program when they are younger?

So now when researchers look at the impact of vouchers they will have to do what was done in Milwaukee plus at least one additional group. They will need to review test scores of kids in public schools compared to the test scores of those who used vouchers, compared to the group that wanted to use vouchers but could not get a slot, compared to those that were voucher kids but then re-entered the traditional school system in high school. This all gets even more complicated because some families will choose charter schools at some point in their kid's educational experience.

As you see when you consider all of possibilities in the way that a child can be educated in D.C. there is no way to statistically look at just 2 groups, voucher kids versus non-voucher kids. Program evaluation is no reason not to expand the availability of vouchers.

Mark

PermaLink | 7:29 AM | |

Sam Dillon of the New York Times reports the following important finding today:

America's elementary school students made solid gains in both reading and math in the first years of this decade, while middle school students made less progress and older teenagers hardly any, according to test results issued today that are considered the best measure of the nation's long-term education trends.

Nine-year-old minority students made the most gains on the test, administered by the United States Department of Education. In particular, young black students significantly narrowed the historic gap between their math and reading scores and those of higher-achieving whites, who also made significant gains.

Not all news is good however. The story goes on to say that the achievement gap between whites and blacks has stayed about the same in high school, and test scores for all students for these grades points to a real problem.

The Secretary of Education credits, of course, NCLB with the educational gains. I'll credit school choice.

PermaLink | 8:17 PM | |

The question yesterday morning on C-Span's Washington Journal was "Do the bombings in London make you feel less safe?" I guess my answer would be "yes" in the short-term but "no" in the future.

It is obvious that some idiots will try and kill more Americans. But this does not mean that the so called "War on Terror" will go on forever. If you take the recent violence in Great Briton and add the growing insurgency in Iraq (kids being blown-up as U.S. soldiers distribute candy) it is easy to have a bleak view of what lies ahead.

But I think this view would be wrong. If you think back to recent history there were many who believed that Communism would take over the world and the only way to prevent this from happening was to challenge its spread militarily wherever its seeds were sprouting. But there were other, like Friedrich Hayek and Ayn Rand, who thought just the opposite.

They pointed out that Communism was a bankrupt system. It was doomed not because of errors in implementation or because of the people involved but because the theories upon which it is based are inconsistent with man's nature. So too with Islamic terrorism.

Any vision of society not based upon the ability of man to achieve happiness through his use of reason is headed for the intellectual junk yard.

Therefore, of course, we should continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against violence from both foreign and domestic threats. And we may have to use our military to attack those who have or are planning on attacking us. But this will not go on forever. Eventually, those who have lost brothers or sisters or, as we have seen in London, sons who have been directly involved in terrorist activities will figure out that this way of life is unsustainable. It is then that they, like millions before them, will realize that freedom and liberty are the only paths to prosperity.

PermaLink | 5:41 AM | |

According to Alan Finder in today's New York Times a trend is developing in which the same teacher stays with students 2 years in a row.

Having a teacher stay with a class for more than a year - or looping, as it is known - is on the rise, according to many experts. As educational innovations go, it is remarkably simple. So are its benefits, proponents say. Teachers get to know their students, and the students' parents, extremely well. They know each child's strengths and weaknesses, and the children know the teachers' expectations and methods. This familiarity can save a lot of time at the beginning of the school year.

There is little hard data on the frequency or effectiveness of looping, but classes in hundreds, if not thousands of schools across the United States have adopted it.

I don't know if you remember, but this is done at the Earth School where my daughter works in New York City. I think it works great if your kid gets a good teacher. But if he or she has a bad one the situation is horrible. And in most traditional public schools if you as a parent try to have your child moved from one class to another you are looked at as a trouble maker.

PermaLink | 6:04 AM | |

The only highlight of this Supreme Court term was the victory for the Institute for Justice in the ruling which said that states that allow shipments of wine within their borders cannot restrict shipments that originate from wineries of other states. So yesterday with nothing to do my wife and I took a drive to Middleburg and visited the woman who started the case at the Swedenburg Vineyard. What a great decision that turned out to be.

There in a small office just outside of the tasting room we found Juanita Swedenburg. She was clearly happy to meet me as I informed her that I was here to congratulate her on her victory. She came out of the office and answered questions about her experience for several minutes.

Mrs. Swedenburg said that she had fought for 10 years for the ability to ship her products to people in other states. She said that Clint Bolick, one of the founders of IJ who defended her in front of the Supreme Court, used to come by and buy cases of wine from her. Whenever he came she would complain about her problem, even though she had no idea what he did for a living. Once she learned that he was an attorney she kept bugging him to take the case. He refused for 5 years, although she said that in the background IJ was researching the issue. She said she even told her husband at one point that she was going to have to find someone else to fight her cause for her.

Of course, Mr. Bolick did end up defending her and he one of the first decisions he made was to sue in New York because, she said, it was a big important state. She added that Mr. Bolick advised her that most important thing for her to do was to talk to the media about the problem so that they could win first in the court of public opinion. Mrs. Swedenburg was extremely complimentary of the approximately 20 people at the Institute of Justice that worked so hard on her cause. She also added that she liked the Washington Post's coverage of her story.

As we were talking with her a small group of vineyard owners from Australia came in and bowed as they met her. It was a very happy scene and you could see that she was pleased, in a reluctant way, to be receiving all of this attention.

As we were walking out a friend of hers mentioned that at first she did not like receiving the notoriety. This is because the Supreme Court ruling came on the one year anniversary of the death of her husband, who she is reminded of whenever people bring up her victory.

I, of course, see her as a hero.

P.S. Swedenburg Vineyards makes a great Chardonnay, as good a any Californian variety I have tasted.

PermaLink | 5:09 AM | |

Robert Novak predicts that Chief Justice Rehnquist will announce his retirement today. Also, Ted Olson speaks to the Federalist Society today at 12:00 noon on the Supreme Court's last term. There could be more than the usual interest in his appearance which will be broadcast on C-Span radio.

PermaLink | 8:00 AM | |

Just last year our family visited London, rode the tube and a double-decker bus. The people there are just fantastic in their dry, sarcastic, and extremely funny view of life. And of course, no one deserves this.

PermaLink | 8:41 AM | |

TOKYO -- In a hard-fought victory for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's lower house of Parliament narrowly approved legislation that would transform the state-run postal savings and insurance system into a private enterprise over the next 12 years. The privatization would create one of the world's largest financial institutions...

The legislation calls for dividing state-run Japan Post into separate businesses for mail delivery, banking services and insurance starting in 2007. A fourth company would handle employee salaries and manage post office properties. All four companies would be grouped under a holding company at first, but the umbrella organization would then sell its shares in the banking and insurance enterprises by 2017.

As reported by Chisaki Watanabe of the Associated Press, Japan will accomplish something that libertarians in the U.S. have only dreamed about. And since the Post Office in Japan plays a much larger economic role than the one in the U.S. this is quite a victory for the free market.

PermaLink | 6:01 AM | |

I know you have been just dying for my opinion on the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor so here it is. I am so happy she is going. This Justice was way too unpredictable for my taste.

Now, who should replace her? The answer is simple. The opening on the Supreme Court represents the first one since 9/11/01. This President has been transformed by the events on that day. Therefore, Theodore Olson should be the nominee. He served as Solicitor General, a position which is considered the 10th supreme court justice. His wife Barbara died in the plane that hit the Pentagon. He is a card-carrying conservative who would have no trouble being confirmed by both sides of the Senate.

PermaLink | 4:20 AM | |