Book Review - 'Ayn Rand and the World She Made,' by Anne C.�Heller - Review - NYTimes.com
Story of Ayn Rand more or less
Saturday, October 31, 2009
24-stage frac job planned for Sanish Three Forks well - Oil & Gas Journal
24-stage frac job planned for Sanish Three Forks well - Oil & Gas Journal: "24-stage frac job planned for Sanish Three Forks well
Oct 28, 2009
Guntis Moritis
OGJ Production Editor
HOUSTON, Oct. 28 -- Whiting Petroleum Corp. plans to use 24-stages for hydraulically fracture its Ogden 11-3 TFH horizontal well, completed in the Three Forks reservoir in the Sanish field, Mountrail County, ND."
Oct 28, 2009
Guntis Moritis
OGJ Production Editor
HOUSTON, Oct. 28 -- Whiting Petroleum Corp. plans to use 24-stages for hydraulically fracture its Ogden 11-3 TFH horizontal well, completed in the Three Forks reservoir in the Sanish field, Mountrail County, ND."
Friday, October 30, 2009
Gold vs Silver..Why The Debate? (by Market Sniper) - Slope Of Hope with Tim Knight
Gold vs Silver..Why The Debate? (by Market Sniper) - Slope Of Hope with Tim Knight
Ratios
At one point it was even at 100:1. I now use 45:1 and 70:1 as switch points. See your tax accountant as to the benefits of such a program. Think 1031 Tax Deferred Exchange. For those who do not want to break the rear axle of your automobile moving your silver when it comes time to switch, think about using ETF’s that solely reflect the price of the two metals. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this. From being in just one or the other to being long one and short the other.
Ratios
At one point it was even at 100:1. I now use 45:1 and 70:1 as switch points. See your tax accountant as to the benefits of such a program. Think 1031 Tax Deferred Exchange. For those who do not want to break the rear axle of your automobile moving your silver when it comes time to switch, think about using ETF’s that solely reflect the price of the two metals. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this. From being in just one or the other to being long one and short the other.
IF your objective is to accumulate the actual physical metals, do not use ETF’s as a substitute for physical ownership. Rather, take profits from your switching trades and purchase the actual metals themselves. Gold vs. Silver? No debate, accumulate both.
Big Government � Blog Archive � Pelosi Health Care Bill Blows a Kiss to Trial Lawyers
Big Government � Blog Archive � Pelosi Health Care Bill Blows a Kiss to Trial Lawyers
check out this juicy morsel to the trial lawyers (page 1431-1433 of the bill):
check out this juicy morsel to the trial lawyers (page 1431-1433 of the bill):
Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.
Lame Cherry: The Thirdworldness of Obama
Lame Cherry: The Thirdworldness of Obama
Judge Carter is a very bright justice and yet in all of this he has appeared being tainted by Mr. Obama associations to be nothing but 3rd World.
For starters, Robert Bauer as this blog reported is married to Anita Dunn who works under David Axelrod as the pictures reveal quite intimately. Mr. Bauer is also Mr. Obama's attorney who works for the international law firm, Perkins Coie.
The problem there starts in Judge Carter just hired a law clerk named Sid Velamoor who worked for Perkins Coie. In such a national case as this, Judge Carter is not that inept to have done this career ruining maneuver in hiring someone from a law firm who has had received most of the 2 million dollars Mr. Obama has spent on the Birther case.
This blog noted that something odd appeared to be going on, a feeling with Judge Carter, that it looks as if this was happening in Kenya, that it looked like a Judge with a stinking fish and was auctioning off to a high bidder in sometimes a Hillary Clinton was making pillow talk, and at other times, it was Bearick Obama.
The end result is the appearance looks like the most powerful man in America forced Judge Carter to hire a clerk to write a decision throwing out Obama's case, and the clerk worked for Obama's personal attorney.
Judge Carter is a very bright justice and yet in all of this he has appeared being tainted by Mr. Obama associations to be nothing but 3rd World.
For starters, Robert Bauer as this blog reported is married to Anita Dunn who works under David Axelrod as the pictures reveal quite intimately. Mr. Bauer is also Mr. Obama's attorney who works for the international law firm, Perkins Coie.
The problem there starts in Judge Carter just hired a law clerk named Sid Velamoor who worked for Perkins Coie. In such a national case as this, Judge Carter is not that inept to have done this career ruining maneuver in hiring someone from a law firm who has had received most of the 2 million dollars Mr. Obama has spent on the Birther case.
This blog noted that something odd appeared to be going on, a feeling with Judge Carter, that it looks as if this was happening in Kenya, that it looked like a Judge with a stinking fish and was auctioning off to a high bidder in sometimes a Hillary Clinton was making pillow talk, and at other times, it was Bearick Obama.
The end result is the appearance looks like the most powerful man in America forced Judge Carter to hire a clerk to write a decision throwing out Obama's case, and the clerk worked for Obama's personal attorney.
Lame Cherry
Lame Cherry
I have always noted someone like Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters when gas was 4 dollars a gallon. He has children he can afford. He has his business. He has money to pay for college etc... So when it costs another thousand dollars a year for gas, he just pays it.
Poor people have to make decisions in buying gas to go to work or to not eat meat, fruit for that week, which weakens their physical condition, they get sick over time, then can't work, and then lose what home they have, and end up in government housing never able to get on their feet again.
I have always noted someone like Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters when gas was 4 dollars a gallon. He has children he can afford. He has his business. He has money to pay for college etc... So when it costs another thousand dollars a year for gas, he just pays it.
Poor people have to make decisions in buying gas to go to work or to not eat meat, fruit for that week, which weakens their physical condition, they get sick over time, then can't work, and then lose what home they have, and end up in government housing never able to get on their feet again.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Trends I'm Watching
Trends I'm Watching
Presently, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner have become the quintessential short-term decision makers. They explicitly "do whatever it takes" to "solve one problem at a time" and deal with the unintended consequences later. It is too soon for history to evaluate their work, because there hasn't been time for the unintended consequences of the "do whatever it takes" decision-making to materialize.
In the context of the recent economic crisis, a highly motivated and organized banking lobby has demonstrated enormous influence. Bankers advance ideas like, "without banks, we would have no economy." Of course, there was a public interest in protecting the guts of the system, but the ATMs could have continued working, even with forced debt-to-equity conversions that would not have required any public funds. Instead, our leaders responded by handing over hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to protect the speculative investments of bank shareholders and creditors. This has been particularly remarkable, considering that most agree that these same banks had an enormous role in creating this mess which has thrown millions out of their homes and jobs.
...Americans understand that the Washington-Wall Street relationship has rewarded the least deserving people and institutions at the expense of the prudent. They don't know the particulars or how to argue against the "without banks, we have no economy" demagogues. So, they fight healthcare reform, where they have enough personal experience to equip them to argue with Congressmen at town hall meetings. As I see it, the revolt over healthcare isn't really about healthcare, but represents a broader upset at Washington. The lack of trust over the inability to deal seriously with the party goers feeds the lack of trust over healthcare.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Mich. Democrat: Pelosi 'not happy with me' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room
Mich. Democrat: Pelosi 'not happy with me' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room: "Stupak wants a vote on the House floor to strike the language, and predicts he would have the votes to pass such an amendment.
'This has been federal law since 1976,' he said, noting that President Barack Obama has vowed not to allow healthcare reform to pay for abortions.
'We have to have a vote,' he said."
'This has been federal law since 1976,' he said, noting that President Barack Obama has vowed not to allow healthcare reform to pay for abortions.
'We have to have a vote,' he said."
Monday, October 26, 2009
Ogre’s Politics and Views � Hate Crimes
Ogre’s Politics and Views � Hate Crimes: "Hate Crimes
Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by Ogre
There can be no freedom of speech where there are hate crimes law.
There is no freedom where thoughts can be punished."
Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by Ogre
There can be no freedom of speech where there are hate crimes law.
There is no freedom where thoughts can be punished."
Why I Believe in God | The Scriptorium Daily: Middlebrow
Why I Believe in God | The Scriptorium Daily: Middlebrow
So why do I know God exists?
Given the limits of a short essay, I will only be able to point in the direction of my favorite reasons, but there are many books that provide deeper justification and further explication of these reasons. On a popular level favorite books that were helpful to me include J.P. Moreland’s Scaling the Secular City and A.E. Taylor’s Does God Exist? Readers looking for something more difficult would do well to check out the work of Richard Swinburne of Oxford University.
Of course, I don’t believe in God at first because I sat and thought about Him. I believe in God, because I encountered Him. I prayed and had an experience of Him from a very early age. He has answered my prayers and forced me to change my behavior. This every day direct mental experience of His existence is fundamentally why I know God is real.
If I did not have it, I would have little motivation to wonder about Him, but I sought Him and I found Him . . . or better He found me! Of course, despite my apparent sanity (from my own biased point of view!), I might be mad or deceived. God might be an illusion in my head, despite the sense that there is a different mental texture to what His voice is saying.
Once challenged in his beliefs by reasonable questions, only a fool or a saint would be sure that he was not deluding himself. I know I am no saint and I hope not to be a fool, so I had to ask if my experiences were real and if I had correctly interpreted them.
It is important, therefore, that I have every day indirect experience of His existence. The community of believers around me matters. I am not alone in thinking God is real or speaks to people. This does not prove that God exist, but the billions of people over long periods of time who have believed in God does suggest that at the very least I am not the victim of some private delusion!
So I speak to God and He speaks to me and millions of living and otherwise rational human beings share this experience. It is what I would anticipate if God is out there. Why do some people fail to share that experience?
I don’t know, but absence of evidence in a few does not suggest the problem is in those who believe.
Third, there are philosophical arguments that suggest the existence of God is either necessary or reasonable. For example, the existence and nature of the cosmos suggests the existence of a rational God. The universe appears to have order and design and I am not persuaded that merely naturalistic processes can account for this order and design. Whatever the process God used to create, and only the arrogant believe they have this all worked out, the fundamental nature of that creation suggests a plan.
Fourth, morality persuades me that God exists. The long trajectory of human history demonstrates a common morality behind the blind spots of any particular culture. There is a common way that most people in most places and most times have followed. This law suggests a lawgiver.
Fifth, the existence of gratuitous beauty convinces me God exists. When I traveled above the clouds for the first time with my oldest son, he told me that it was beautiful and neither of us was surprised. Wherever we looked, we saw beauty and this was not a beauty that could have been hardwired into us by any natural process. Wherever we look as human even to the furthest reaches of the cosmos beauty is there waiting for us.
Sixth, the world of Ideas points in the direction of the existence of the Mind of God. As a Platonist, I am convinced that numbers and ideas are real. There is a metaphysical world that cannot be reduced to the material. This does not prove God exists, but makes His existence more plausible to me.
Finally, love suggests to me that God is real. As Plato points out in his masterful dialogue Symposium love is surely of something. Humanity possesses a love for the Good, the True, and the Beautiful that demands a proper object. Only God is great enough to be a sufficient end for all the longing in the human heart. It might be that the universe is perverse and has given us this great longing without any means of fulfilling it, but there is no good reason to take this withering view. The sensible, indeed the hopeful response, is to assume that like hunger or thirst this longing too can be find satisfaction in reality.
My friends who don’t believe in God might claim that I believe in God, partly, because I want to do so. This is true. The existence of a good God is such an awesome, exciting, and hopeful idea that I am rooting for it. There is nothing irrational with giving good news the benefit of the doubt, if you don’t sacrifice your mind to do so.
You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
• Ask The Animals (how far we’ve strayed) � ASK THE ANIMALS and they will TEACH you… [Job 12:7-12]
• Ask The Animals (how far we’ve strayed) � ASK THE ANIMALS and they will TEACH you… [Job 12:7-12]
For you have need of endurance, so that you may do the will of God and receive what is promised.
“For yet a little while, and the coming one shall come and shall not tarry; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls.
-Hebrews 10:36-39
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