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Ron Paul on Separation of Church and State

September 21, 2007 / Klint Finley

(Since I’ve already pissed off the Truthers once today…)

No God Zone questions Ron Paul’s libertarian credentials:

The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers. On the contrary, our Founders’ political views were strongly informed by their religious beliefs. Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion.

(The above quote is from Paul’s essay “The War on Religion“).

No God Zone counts the references to God in the constitution: zero.

Also of note, from the comments:

Local laws are easier to change and easier to avoid. But that doesn’t mean local violation of rights is okay. It is just another version of the ‘love it or leave it’ school of thought. I argue from a rights perspective and it is wrong to violate rights at ANY level of government.

Ron Paul said it is the government’s funciton to support ‘traditional marriage’ so he is willing to have his view enforced by the state. He only bickers over at which level the coecion should be done. That may be Constitutionalism but it is not libertarianism.

I’ve been trying to come up with a concise way to express my distinction between conservative constitutionalism and libertarianism and I think this hits close to the mark.

Full Story: No God Zone.

More Ron Paul skepticism here and here.

What would a Ron Paul presidency look like?

August 6, 2007 / Klint Finley

Something Awful speculates:

“Colloidal Silver Approved for Cancer Treatment”
“Wal*Mart to Offer Low-Income Schools in 48 Stores by October”
“First-Responders to Require Citizenship Exam Before Giving Aid”
“Art Bell to Step Down”

Ron Paul and the racist right

May 21, 2007 / Klint Finley

I’m posting this here because I think there’s a fairly large cross-over between Technoccultists and Ron Paul supporters, and because I’d really like to get the bottom of this. Paul’s not going to get to get a fair shake in the mainstream media or the progressive media, and the libertarian media (such that it is) seems a bit quiet on the issue of Ron Paul’s alleged racism. Though I admittedly skew to the left for the most part, I have a few libertarian tendencies as well so I feel like maybe I can give him a fair shake. For your inspection:

Ron Paul, In His Own Words.

Ron Paul: The Radical Right’s Man in Washington.

The defenses of Paul I’ve seen so far are:

1. Deny that the newsletters even exist and claim that the Daily Kos poster who posted this is “obviously a neocon Guiliani supporter who has been building up a record on this site in an attempt to give you some sort of street cred to run bullcrap like this diary throughout the Republican primary.” (From “libertynow”‘s comments on the Kos diaries).

2. Take the Paul’s defense that he didn’t write the newsletters at face value.

The former I find fairly absurd, and the latter just doesn’t quite work for me. And while it’s true that you can’t choose your supporters, one has to look at why the racist right tends to support Ron Paul. Even before I read about these newsletters, I was worried by Paul’s immigration positions and asserted that he was deliberately playing to the racist right. But I’m quite open to being proved wrong.

L. Ron Hubbard Movie to be Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

June 14, 2010 / Klint Finley

Paul Thomas Anderson the Master

Paul Thomas Anderson is working on a film, working title The Master to star Philip Seymour Hoffman as a L. Ron Hubbard analogue:

Let’s look at what we know about the P.T. Anderson project. It centers around a man (Philip Seymour Hoffman, the only name currently attached to the film) who starts a faith-based organization that becomes popular in 1952 America — exactly the year L. Rob Hubbard expanded his Dianetics self-help system and established the Church of Scientology. The film explores “The Master’s” relationship with a young drifter named Freddie who joins the fold and becomes his Number 2 officer, only to later question both the faith and its figurehead in later years — something plenty of high and low ranking Scientologists alike have done over the years, many publicly denouncing the organization on their way out. The Master employs interrogation-style psychotherapy procedures not unlike the “audit” process basic to Scientology, and spends time living in seclusion with his inner circle on a ship, which Hubbard himself did in the 1960s. […] More recently, trade paper Production Weekly reported that Reese Witherspoon had been offered a role in The Master; The Wrap’s Deal Central speculated she would play Mary Sue, the young, pregnant wife of Hoffman’s character. Mary Sue Whipp, of course, was the name of Hubbard’s much younger third wife who became involved in Dianetics in the 1950s and helped him run his Scientology empire. The role of The Master’s daughter is also being cast, with Amanda Seyfried, Emma Stone, and Deborah Ann Woll rumored to be in the running. Also linked to the project is Jeremy Renner, who had been up for the role of Freddie, though his involvement is as yet unconfirmed.

Film.com: Will Scientologists Declare War on Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master?

Playlists’s comparisons between the movie and Hubbard’s life

Universal passed on the film, reportedly balking at the $35 million budget, but of course there’s rampant speculation that the budget wasn’t the only reason. The Wrap reports that River Road picked up the film instead.

(via VBS)

Paul Krugman: How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?

September 15, 2009 / Klint Finley

Economics, as a field, got in trouble because economists were seduced by the vision of a perfect, frictionless market system. If the profession is to redeem itself, it will have to reconcile itself to a less alluring vision — that of a market economy that has many virtues but that is also shot through with flaws and frictions. The good news is that we don’t have to start from scratch. Even during the heyday of perfect-market economics, there was a lot of work done on the ways in which the real economy deviated from the theoretical ideal. What’s probably going to happen now — in fact, it’s already happening — is that flaws-and-frictions economics will move from the periphery of economic analysis to its center.

There’s already a fairly well developed example of the kind of economics I have in mind: the school of thought known as behavioral finance. Practitioners of this approach emphasize two things. First, many real-world investors bear little resemblance to the cool calculators of efficient-market theory: they’re all too subject to herd behavior, to bouts of irrational exuberance and unwarranted panic. Second, even those who try to base their decisions on cool calculation often find that they can’t, that problems of trust, credibility and limited collateral force them to run with the herd.

New York Times: How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?

Incidentally, here is a free behavioral economics course from the previously mentioned Peer2Peer University.

Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus Fistfight in Hell (Jan. 16, 2017)

April 16, 2017 / Damien

I used think that running for high office would take years of experience, billions of dollars, and a cleaner history than I may or may not have. Turns out you just have to be willing to lie forever to get what you want.

And also California and Oregon were talking about secession, for a little bit, there. I kept wondering when somebody was going to do a Great Ghost Dance Revival, so we could kick this off proper.

Because, honestly, what do you think? Damien Williams 2020? I can see the ads now…

Mindful Cyborgs: AnxietyBox, Alerts, and Attention with Paul Ford

March 31, 2015 / Klint Finley

This week on Mindful Cyborgs we talk with former Harper’s editor and hobbyist programmer Paul Ford about AnxietyBox, a tool he built to help manage his own anxiety.

Download and Show Notes: Mindful Cyborgs: AnxietyBox, Alerts, and Attention with Paul Ford, Part 1

Plus, I’m behind on our releases. It turns out the second part of our interview with Eleanor Saitta, in which we do a deeper dive on Nordic Larp, has been up for a couple weeks:

Major Water Shortage in São Paulo, Brazil

February 18, 2015 / Klint Finley

The New York Times reports:

As southeast Brazil grapples with its worst drought in nearly a century, a problem worsened by polluted rivers, deforestation and population growth, the largest reservoir system serving São Paulo is near depletion. Many residents are already enduring sporadic water cutoffs, some going days without it. Officials say that drastic rationing may be needed, with water service provided only two days a week.

Full Story: The New York Times: Taps Start to Run Dry in Brazil’s Largest City

(via Abe)

KZSU Interview with Klintron, Recording and Transcript

September 17, 2013 / Klint Finley

If you missed me on 90.1 KZSU Stanford ThermoNuclear Bar last week you can now check it out on SoundCloud, or read the transcript below. We talked about the occult, conspiracy theory, EsoZone, Portland, Psychetect, Mindful Cyborgs, the Indie Web.

Here’s a sample:

S1: Where do you see then your variety of your projects going? I mean we have talked about this earlier. I had said that Technoccult was one sphere, and Psychetect was another, Mindful Cyborgs was another. If you saw any relation between the three other than just you happen to be in the middle or do you see any sort of end-goal coming up for you?

KF: In terms of an end-goal, I think the purpose of all of these has always been to find some way to engage with other people in a way that’s meaningful for both of us. I guess, it’s kind of an abstract way of talking about it, but something like Psychetect is just a different way of expressing myself and hopefully of communicating with people. Things like Technoccult and Mindful Cyborgs are more directly communicative projects. I think the only thing that they all have in common is a general interest in thoughts and thinking and consciousness. I guess, the overriding idea of Psychetect is to kind of create audio representations of thoughts or of sort of mental spaces that I don’t feel like I can describe with words. There’s I guess an overlap with something like Mindful Cyborgs where a big part of what we’re talking about is what it feels like to think in a world where you’re always connected to the rest of the world via the Internet and everything you do is being measured by somebody.

Full transcript

(Previously: G-Spot interview with me about Psychetect)

I should also mention that PDX Occulture is still sort of around, and that though EsoZone is gone, Weird Shift Con has emerged to fill that void (though I don’t have anything to do with organizing it).

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