Category: Culture

Atlasphere member Will Wilkinson recently published a new paper for the Cato Institute titled “In Pursuit of Happiness Research: Is It Reliable? What Does It Imply for Policy?”
From the abstract:

â??Happiness researchâ? studies the correlates of subjective well-being, generally through survey methods. A number of psychologists and social scientists have drawn upon this work recently to argue that the American model of relatively limited government and a dynamic market economy corrodes happiness, whereas Western European and Scandinavian-style social democracies promote it.
This paper argues that happiness research in fact poses no threat to the relatively libertarian ideals embodied in the U.S. socioeconomic system. Happiness research is seriously hampered by confusion and disagreement about the definition of its subject as well as the limitations inherent in current measurement techniques.
In its present state happiness research cannot be relied on as an authoritative source for empirical information about happiness, which, in any case, is not a simple empirical phenomenon but a cultural and historical moving target.
Yet, even if we accept the data of happiness research at face value, few of the alleged redistributive policy implications actually follow from the evidence. The data show that neither higher rates of government redistribution nor lower levels of income inequality make us happier, whereas high levels of economic freedom and high average incomes are among the strongest correlates of subjective well-being.
Even if we table the damning charges of questionable science and bad moral philosophy, the American model still comes off a glowing success in terms of happiness.

As Will writes, “It is not a short paper, nor is it written at a USA Today level of difficulty. So reserve a cool hour for some serious intellectual contemplation. Itâ??s worth it, I hope.”

Writing for TCS Daily, Jerry Bowyer argues convincingly in his article “Ismail Ax: Shooter Was Another ‘Son of Sacrifice’” that Cho Sueng Hui’s slaughter of 32 people at Virginia tech was another instance of Islamic-justified (if not -inspired) terrorism.

First it was Johnny Muhammad, now it was Cho Sueng Hui aka Ismail Ax. Precisely how many mass shooters have to turn out to have adopted Muslim names before we get it?
Keep reading…

Don’t hold your breath to see this in the mainstream media.
H/T: Joe Duarte.

If you are interested in Iraq and haven’t yet read Michael Totten’s recent post on the Peshmerga, the Kurdish army, I recommend it highly. It’s called “An Army, Not a Militia.”
Truly inspiring. …Brought tears to my eyes, actually.
I bet the Kurds would love the movie 300, if they’ve not yet seen it. (I plan to see it soon myself.)

Did you know that the British sailors recently abducted by Iran were under the protection of an escorting ship from the British Royal Navy — but it was ordered to “stand down” rather than defend the sailors?
From historian Arthur Herman’s article on the subject in today’s New York Post:

The latest report is that the Britons were ready to fight off their abductors. Certainly their escorting ship, HMS Cornwall, could have blown the Iranian naval vessel out of the water. However, at the last minute the British Ministry of Defense ordered the Cornwall not to fire, and her captain and crew were forced to watch their shipmates led away into captivity.

Herman explains how this decision reflects a larger pattern of pacifism by the British, including recent (steep) cuts to the budget for the Royal Navy.
Soon, all Britain will have left, with which to defend its sailors, is Tony Blair’s withering consternation.

British scientist Lord Monkton — a former policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher during her years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom — says:

A careful study of the substantial corpus of peer-reviewed science reveals that Mr. Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, is a foofaraw of pseudo-science, exaggerations, and errors, now being peddled to innocent schoolchildren worldwide.

“Foofaraw” … I love it.
Better still, he has challenged Mr. Gore to a formal debate to evaluate the scientific merits of his global warming hype.
And the venue? “[T]he elegant, Victorian-Gothic Library of the Oxford Museum of Natural History, which was the setting for the ‘Great Debate’ between the natural scientist T. H. Huxley and Bishop ‘Soapy Sam’ Wilberforce on the theory of evolution, following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species.”
From Monkton’s formal invitation to Mr. Gore:

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley presents his compliments to Vice-President Albert Gore and by these presents challenges the said former Vice-President to a head-to-head, internationally-televised debate upon the question, ‘That our effect on climate is not dangerous,’ to be held in the Library of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History at a date of the Vice-President’s choosing.
Forasmuch as it is His Lordship who now flings down the gauntlet to the Vice-President, it shall be the Vice-President’s prerogative and right to choose his weapons by specifying the form of the Great Debate. May the Truth win! Magna est veritas, et praevalet. God Bless America! God Save the Queen!

Al has science on his side, right? He has nothing to be afraid of, right?
This, I would pay money to see.