On the Passing Scene VIII

I'm in a cranky mood, but then, I am the world's youngest curmudgeon.

• I compared Rand on philosophy to Marx on economics, but actually, she's more like L. Ron Hubbard on science. So they can keep calling themselves "Objectivists"; to me, though, they'll always be Philosophiologists.


• Does it strike anyone else as funny when leftists talk about mega-corporations? I mean, sure, gargantuan monopolistic companies with undue political influence are bad, no rational person is concerned to deny that, but it's not something the right has to apologize for.
  
  Oh, but, then again, I really doubt most leftists have even heard of Izhmash or Norinco. Indeed, one suspects they're not even acquainted with the phrase "design bureau".


• Relatedly, some idiot was saying public broadcast news is less biased than other sources because, get this, "Other news has corporate sponsors." It's funny to me because a lot of NPR and PBS sponsorship comes from fairly ideological nonprofits.
  
  See, a moment's thought would've revealed that a corporation is inherently less inclined to skew news than a nonprofit would be. I mean, you know what Wal-Mart wants you to do? They want you to shop at Wal-Mart. What does the average nonprofit want you to do? At the very least, they want you to vote differently; frequently to live every aspect of your life differently. Which is more likely to be involved in a given news report: Wal-Mart's sales, or something a nonprofit wants to change your opinion on?
  
  Quick, which is more likely to influence coverage?


• So you periodically get these wackjob conspiracy-theorists who say that jet vapor-trails contain poisons designed to make people sterile. Apparently because there's some secretive cadre that believes the earth is overpopulated?
  
  It's funny because actually, the not-secretive-at-all cadre that believes the earth is overpopulated just gives billions of dollars to population control measures (of varying degrees of jackbootedness), principally in third world countries. It's ironic that the tinfoil-hat crowd are worrying about conspirators drugging vapor trails, when the actual methods are much more mundane, and, if anything, even more sinister.


• Just recently I've seen a bunch of idiots saying that Japan doesn't need any relief aid, because, apparently, they're a rich country. The big problem there is, of course, that, no, Japan just has a high average income. Many of its people are still poor, of course—America's average income is higher still, does that mean New Orleans didn't need any aid after Katrina? Jackasses.
  
  Less severe but far more annoying is an undercurrent you find whenever a certain kind of person discusses Japan, that almost seems to resent them for having a high standard of living. How dare non-white people not live in mud huts, I guess.


• Relatedly, I've heard grown men claim Japan is completely Westernized...because they wear blue jeans. Because of course there is no way to retain any aspect of your traditional worldview and culture unless you wear a picturesque robe. And go around barefoot, we don't want you messing up your mud hut's dirt floor by wearing shoes.


• I would not ordinarily comment on Charlie Sheen's train-wreck of a life, except to point out how many libertarians are praising him (he is living their ideals, after all), but I thought I'd make one remark. Namely, Carlos, if you really had tiger blood you'd be dead already; the whole Felidae is notoriously weak to toxins.
  
  Also, you were in The Arrival. That makes your uncle's being in The Soultaker look respectable.