America First - by Charley Reese

"We live in strange times when politicians expect to get a pat on the back for returning to Americans $300 or so of their own dollars while giving Israelis $3 billion and Egyptians $2 billion..."

"They are, after all, American politicians, elected to serve the American people. There is nothing, not a word, in the Constitution that authorizes them to help any foreign nation in any way whatsoever. Foreign aid, in all its many forms, is clearly unconstitutional..."

"Global trade does not require treaties, alliances or military forces stationed overseas. It does not require our muck-brained Congress to turn over its constitutional duty to regulate foreign trade to the executive branch. It does not require our Supreme Court to even know what foreign laws say, much less apply them to Americans."

America First - by Charley Reese

So What If Pot Can Cure Cancer; That’s No Reason For You To Use It by Paul Armentano

"Not only can cannabis alleviate cancer patients’ nausea and pain, elevate their mood, and increase their appetite, but also – as Dr. Liu’s own data demonstrates – it may help to alleviate the very disease that’s ravaging their bodies. Nevertheless, I suppose that Dr. Liu would rather have these patients shut up and die than expose the political hypocrisy surrounding criminalizing a plant."

So What If Pot Can Cure Cancer; That’s No Reason For You To Use It by Paul Armentano

Drug-War Hogwash by Charley Reese

I agree with Charley Reese.

"The second alternative is to legalize and regulate drugs. These drugs are so cheap to produce that they can be sold legitimately at a far lower price than illegal drugs. The whole illegal-drug business would go bust. If addicts could buy their drugs at a reasonable price from a noncriminal enterprise, then you would eliminate the necessity of addicts having to commit crimes to feed their habit. You could also provide education and treatment in a noncriminalized environment. You would eliminate a lot of corruption, and you could greatly reduce the prison population. To continue as we are is to fulfill the definition of insanity and chronic stupidity by repeating the same acts that result in the same repeated failures."

Drug-War Hogwash by Charley Reese

Gas Cans and Liberty by Dario McDarby

"What parent, with a functioning brain, would leave a gas can near a water heater? The gas can, probably in most cases, is less the villain than the stupidity of parents that too often leads to the death or injury of their children. Curing stupidity, though, is not a governmental function."

Gas Cans and Liberty by Dario McDarby

Rushville Republican - Voiles: We need more old codgers now

Neat little story from my hometown newspaper.

Rushville Republican - Voiles: We need more old codgers now

Crisis in the Caucasus - by Ivan Eland

"In short, U.S. friend Georgia is hardly on the unambiguous right side of this dispute, was recklessly aggressive (in part because of U.S. military aid and friendship), and is not strategic to the United States. As bad as this crisis is, it could have been worse if Georgia had already been admitted to NATO. This crisis should be a wake-up call that admitting Georgia, Ukraine, or other non-strategic nations in the Russian sphere of influence into NATO could needlessly make Russia even more hostile and start a new, dangerous, and unnecessary Cold War."

Crisis in the Caucasus - by Ivan Eland

Interventionist Hypocrisy -- MWC News - A Site Without Borders

"Referring to Russia’s incursion into Georgia, President Bush says that invading a sovereign country that poses no threat is “unacceptable in the 21st century.” John McCain echoes that sentiment with, “In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.”"

"What planet do Bush and McCain live on? Have they never heard of Iraq? That’s a sovereign and independent country that never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. Nonetheless, under Bush’s command and with McCain’s support, the U.S. government invaded Iraq, effected regime change, and is still occupying the country."

MWC News - A Site Without Borders - - Interventionist Hypocrisy

Small Texas school district lets teachers, staff pack pistols | Top Stories | Star-Telegram.com

Just saw this in my local paper.

It's great to see a school district looking out for the safety of its students and staff!

To deter and protect against school shootings, trustees have altered district policy to allow employees to carry concealed weapons if they have a state permit and permission from the administration... the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff’s office, leaving students and teachers without protection. The district’s lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target...

"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that’s when all of these shootings started," Thweatt said. "Why would you put it out there that a group of people can’t defend themselves? That’s like saying 'sic ’em’ to a dog."

The gun policy Teachers and staffers in the Harrold school district can carry firearms beginning this fall if they, have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun, are authorized to carry by the district, receive training in crisis management and hostile situations, and use ammunition that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls.

Small Texas school district lets teachers, staff pack pistols | Top Stories | Star-Telegram.com

Peddlers of Ideas - Jerry Kirkpatrick - Mises Institute

"The concept of core curriculum is a product of education czars who think they know what is best for everyone. The government today does not run the clothing industry, but if it did, the "core curriculum" in clothing would probably be the Mao tunic. Instead, our free market in clothing performs extremely well in getting our bodies covered and it does so in a bountiful assortment of styles, colors, and prices."

Peddlers of Ideas - Jerry Kirkpatrick - Mises Institute

You’re Next: Ron Paul’s warning « Doug Wead The Blog

Doug Wead writes:

If the President’s son can be misunderstood, so can you and me. One word spoken in jest over the telephone or out of context in a series of e-mails can trigger the audit that makes you the focus of attention. And once you are the focus, everything else they see and hear may only affirm their suspicion...

This is why the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written. The founding fathers were not protecting criminals. They were protecting us, from an intrusive, sometimes clumsy, sometimes evil government. We are now forfeiting those hard earned, well reasoned, personal liberties out of panic.

“Well,” you say, “But I’m innocent.” Yeah, so was Jesus, the apostle Paul, John Bunyan, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandella. Good luck. We will send postcards.

You’re Next: Ron Paul’s warning « Doug Wead The Blog

An Affair to Remember - HUMAN EVENTS

Chuck Norris writes:

"If one cannot properly handle his private affairs, can we truly expect him to handle political ones?"

"Our Founders had a better answer than government or even education. God is the answer. God is the moral compass of America. Or He should be, if we ever want to restore morality in our homes and civility to our land. Our Founders believed morals flowed from one's accountability to God, and that, without God, immoral anarchy would result."

An Affair to Remember - HUMAN EVENTS

Smokin’ Some Weed with Ron Paul « Doug Wead The Blog

I agree with Doug Wead and Ron Paul.

According to one source, the United States has 2 million people in prison. Only Rwanda has a higher percentage of the population. Much of it is due to these drug laws...

... scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that cannabis is substantially less harmful than alcohol and should be treated not as a criminal issue but as a social and public health issue...

Among the finding of the Senate report? Marijuana is not a gateway to the use of hard drugs. Marijuana use does not lead to the commission of crime. Marijuana users are unlikely to become dependent. Marijuana use has little impact on driving. Liberalizing marijuana laws is unlikely to lead to increased marijuana use. Marijuana prohibition poses a greater risk to health than marijuana use.

Clearly, in our attempts to get it right, to wage war on drugs and minimize their impact on our children, we overstepped and got it wrong. And we’ve hurt a lot of people in the process. Now we haven’t the political courage to face down public ignorance on the subject and begin the tedious, thankless work of re-education. Once more Ron Paul is the voice crying in the wilderness, calling us back to our senses and speaking out for those thousands of forgotten men and women behind bars who have no voice or no hope. They are the victims o[f] our good intentions, our human sacrifices to keep the demons from our own doors and our own children. But it is wrong.

Smokin’ Some Weed with Ron Paul « Doug Wead The Blog

Juror's challenge raises legal issue - The Boston Globe

Good for Mr. Eddlem.

Eddlem said he would have voted to convict Luisi in a state court; he simply felt there were no grounds for a federal prosecution. He opposes nullification, he added in an e-mail, but judges who ignore the Constitution pose a far greater threat than a "handful of 'nullification' radicals."

Juror's challenge raises legal issue - The Boston Globe


Hat tip to The Shotgun Blog.

Western Standard


I'd like to see more jurors reading Lysander Spooner's essay before they serve.

TRIAL BY JURY

So, also, if the government may dictate to the jury what laws they are to enforce, it is no longer a trial by the country,” [*9] but a trial by the government; because the jury then try the accused, not by any standard of their own --- by their own judgments of their rightful liberties --- but by a standard dictated to them by the government. And the standard, thus dictated by the government, becomes the measure of the people’s liberties. If the government dictate the standard of trial, it of course dictates the results of the trial. And such a trial is no trial by the country, but only a trial by the government; and in it the government determines what are its own powers over the people, instead of the people’s determining what are their own liberties against the government. In short, if the jury have no right to judge of the justice of a law of the government, they plainly can do nothing to protect the people, against the oppressions of the government; for there are no oppressions which the government may not authorize by law.

FCC Commissioner: Return of Fairness Doctrine Could Control Web Content

Scary stuff here.

FCC Commissioner: Return of Fairness Doctrine Could Control Web Content


Hat tip to The Shotgun Blog at The Western Standard.

Western Standard

CARPE DIEM: Citizens More Taxed Now Than Under King George

Title says it all!

CARPE DIEM: Citizens More Taxed Now Than Under King George


Hat tip to Liberator Online.

Liberator Online - July 10, 2008

Libertarians: A (Not So) Lunatic Fringe - TIME

"But just because he obeys the rules doesn't mean he likes them. Parshall is dissatisfied with a lot of what government does. He hates our gun laws. Hates the war in Iraq. He doesn't use drugs, but he sees the fight against them as another government power grab. Growing up as a Mormon in Salt Lake City, Parshall was a Barry Goldwater Republican. Now he's the kind of voter who should scare the GOP most--and he's not alone."

Libertarians: A (Not So) Lunatic Fringe - TIME

Kauffman celebrates regular folks who hate war - Mises Economics Blog

Good review of what sounds like a great book. I plan to see if my library will order a copy.

"Official historians have tended to act as if the opposition had no good points or didn't exist at all. Kaufmann shows that they were principled and even prophetic. More than that, he shows that the opposition to war here stemmed from conservative values... the American Right was against intervention. They had seen the way war politics was used to build the state, and had enough of the tendency to give up ever more liberty... After 9-11, the roles switched yet again, and today the Republicans are guilty of trafficking in the worst forms of jingoistic patriotism baiting... Is it really so unreasonable that conservatives should make the anti-war cause their own? Read Kaufmann and see if you rethink your position... There is nothing conservative about the American Empire... It seeks to destroy -- which is why good American conservatives, those loyal to family and home and neighborhood and our best traditions, should wish, and work toward, its peaceful destruction. We have nothing to lose but the chains and taxes of empire. And we have a country to regain."

Kauffman celebrates regular folks who hate war - Mises Economics Blog

You Belong to Us | War On You

"No kind of conscription, whether on behalf of the welfare or the warfare sectors of the imperial capital, can be reconciled with freedom. Nor can it be reconciled with the Constitution. But those who govern us laugh with contempt at such arguments. And yet Americans persist in the delusion that they have a Constitution that limits their government. There is something deeply pathological about this. What else can be said?"

You Belong to Us | War On You

The Great Garet Garrett - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Economic journalist and author Garet Garrett (1878-1954) is largely forgotten by history. Only libertarians and "Old Right" conservatives who still believe in individual liberty, free markets, small government and a foreign policy founded on noninterventionism keep Garrett's name and memory alive today.

Yet, as Seattle Times editorial writer and columnist Bruce Ramsey details in his coming biography "Unsanctioned Voice: Garet Garrett, Journalist of the Old Right" Garrett was a major figure in the American media mainstream from the turn of the 20th century to the 1950s.

The Great Garet Garrett - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Outing the Neocons, by Justin Raimondo

Justin Raimondo asks, "Why don't these people come out of the closet? Why are they afraid to be identified for what they are: a cohesive political grouping that, more than any other factor, is responsible for dragging us into a series of endless wars? Why don't they stop running from their heritage, and their own ideas, and start proclaiming the virtues of Neocon Pride?"

Outing the Neocons, by Justin Raimondo

Does Public Transportation Mean a Cleaner Environment? -- The Weekly Standard

Rachel DiCarlo Currie writes, "Most new cars create no more pollution per passenger mile than a bus."

The Weekly Standard: "Does Public Transportation Mean a Cleaner Environment?"

On Jonah Goldberg’s Youthful Phase

"any good, honest, intelligent, justice-seeking person can hardly fail to recognize that the state is a criminal or near-criminal enterprise, run by snake-oil salesmen and hucksters, which rides roughshod over the rights of its own citizens; and, at the very least, that the state must be watched closely, and limited as much as possible."

On Jonah Goldberg’s Youthful Phase

The American Conservative » Historical Adjustment

Justin Raimondo writes, "Sullivan didn’t just want to invade Iraq – he wanted to nuke the entire country. On the basis, I might add, of exactly zero evidence that the Iraqis were behind the anthrax letters – the same lack of evidence which the FBI, today, considers sufficient to convict Bruce Ivins of that crime... It’s one thing to have been for the war, and then seen the light: it’s quite another, however, to have advocated genocide, and then pretend it never happened. Fess up, Andy — or shut up."

The American Conservative » Historical Adjustment


Hat tip to Lew Rockwell blog.

LewRockwell.com Blog: Justin Raimondo to Andrew Sullivan

SchansBlog: perennial candidates and perennial "losers"

Andrew Horning writes, "Those who spring onto the scene with fame, money, power and success are winners. The poor underdogs fighting for liberty and justice for all …are quite obviously losers.... Call me a loser. Call all of us embattled underdog protesters losers. I won’t mind. I’ll be in the best company."

SchansBlog: perennial candidates and perennial "losers"

Fischer: Outrage in Idaho: Feds send man to prison for protecting town from flooding « Stiff Right Jab

What an outrage!

"Virtually everything is wrong with this story. It’s an egregious violation of the constitutional limitations on federal power, as federal bureaucrats simply dismissed the fact that Mr. Moses was required by local authorities to do exactly what he was doing."

Fischer: Outrage in Idaho: Feds send man to prison for protecting town from flooding « Stiff Right Jab


Hat tip to The Other Side of Kim.

The Other Side of Kim du Toit - TheOtherSideofKim Front Page

The Struggle Over Egalitarianism Continues - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Institute

"It is easy to invent a new oppressed group."

The Struggle Over Egalitarianism Continues - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Institute

LewRockwell.com Blog: Latest Police State Tactic: Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

Outrageous behavior of "public servants."

"That's what happened to a totally innocent mayor of a Baltimore suburb when cops knocked down the door to his house, shot to death his two labrador retreivers, tied him up along with his mother-in-law, and interrogated them for two hours with the dead pets at his feet... The cops have not apologized, of course. They were just serving and protecting."

LewRockwell.com Blog: Latest Police State Tactic: Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

A time for choosing ... | Daily Newscaster

"Our nation has been lead to war by people who oppose The United States Constitution and willfully lie and deceive to reach their goals of destroying the reputation and sovereignty of our nation. We are told that we must sacrifice our freedoms given to us by our Creator and fought for by our fathers to be safe from terrorists that hide in caves and have no army or nation. Then we are told if we do not submit to the absolute authority of the state we are not loyal Americans."

"Yet our history says just the opposite..."

"It is time for all Americans to make a choice..."

A time for choosing ... | Daily Newscaster

Don't Know Much About History

"The presumption that the United States should rule the world, sword at the ready, for the foreseeable future is an unacceptable basis for a just, even-handed foreign policy."

Don't Know Much About History


Hat tip to Lew Rockwell blog.

LewRockwell.com Blog: Genghis Bush

Neocons lust for war with Iran | Daily Newscaster

"Are these Neocon warmongers insane or is the America public just dumb enough to buy the same script for going to war with Iran as was used and subsequently discredited for Iraq?"

Neocons lust for war with Iran | Daily Newscaster

The FBI's selective release of documents in the anthrax case - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

"Put up or shut up: this is the most critical evidence in this case. If Ivins cannot be placed in New Jersey on those dates, he is not the attacker, or he did not act alone."

The FBI's selective release of documents in the anthrax case - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com


Hat tip to Lew Rockwell blog.

LewRockwell.com Blog: Kangaroo Briefing

Do You Feel Safe Now? Proud? - by Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts writes:

Now that military officers... have reached a split verdict convicting Salim Hamdan, a onetime driver for Osama bin Laden, of supporting terrorism, but innocent of terrorist conspiracy, do you feel safe?

Or are we superpower Americans still at risk until we capture bin Laden's dentist, barber, and the person who installed the carpet in his living room?
...
Hamdan was not defended by the slick lawyers that got O.J. Simpson off, and he most certainly did not have a jury of his peers. Hamdan was defended by a Pentagon-appointed U.S. Navy officer, and his jurors were all Pentagon-appointed U.S. military officers with an eye on their careers. Even in this kangaroo court, Hamdan was cleared of the main charge...

Do you think you are made more safe when you stand there while "your" government implements its own version of Joseph Stalin's show trials?
...
One would hope that the Hamdan verdict would be enough shame and ridicule for the U.S. in one day. But no, Bush didn't stop there. On his way to the Beijing Olympics, President Bush expressed "deep concerns" for the state of human rights in China. But not in Guantanamo, nor in Abu Ghraib, nor in the CIA's torture dungeons used for "renditions," nor in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. is expert at bombing weddings, funerals, children's soccer games, and every assortment of civilians imaginable.

As the good book says, clean the beam from your own eye before pointing to the mote in your brother's eye...

What would President Bush say if, heaven forbid, the Chinese were as rude as he is and asked Mr. Superpower why the land of "freedom and democracy" has one million names on a watch list. China with a population four times as large doesn't have a watch list with one million names.

What would President Bush say if China asked him why the U.S., with a population one-fourth the size of China's, has hundreds of thousands more of its citizens in prison? The percentage of Americans in prison is far higher than in China and is a larger absolute number...

China's human rights policy is not perfect. China's greatest human rights failing is that China is the Bush regime's prime enabler of its war crimes and human rights abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan. By financing Bush's budget deficit, China is financing Bush's gratuitous wars. Indeed, China can be said to finance the weaponry that the U.S. gives Israel to enable the suppression of the Palestinians and with which to bomb the civilian population of Lebanon...

Do You Feel Safe Now? Proud? - by Paul Craig Roberts

TSP Solver for Google Maps

Fastest round-trip solver. Pretty cool for geeks.

TSP Solver for Google Maps

Marijuana: Dude, it's illegal! -- Western Standard

"Even in this Conservative anti-drug propaganda pamphlet, the biggest risks identified with marijuana use are associated with the government's prohibition, not the drug itself."

"While the drug war rhetoric might be improving, the success of the drug war is clearly not. After over 80 years of marijuana prohibition, the government still has to remind parents that it's illegal"

Western Standard

The Superfluous Man: Barbarism

"A while back, I remember some conservatives wailing/gloating about the results of some survey that showed the percentage of American Muslims who thought bombing attacks on civilians were at least sometimes acceptable; this, we were told, showed how dangerous they were. I wonder how many Americans polled today would say that the devastation of Hiroshima (or Nagasaki, or Dresden, or Tokyo) was justified. I’d be extremely surprised if it wasn’t a majority; liberals and conservatives alike are deeply invested in the idea of the Good War. It would be more even more interesting to know how many of the people shrieking about the menace of barbarous Muslims would say that burning tens of thousands of innocents alive at Hiroshima was the right thing to do -- but, sadly, I suspect I have a good idea of the answer to that."

The Superfluous Man: Barbarism

Anarchy In Your Head » Archive » Prosecuting the Free Market

Excellent commentary on government intrusion into private market pricing!

Anarchy In Your Head » Archive » Prosecuting the Free Market


Hat tip to Lew Rockwell blog.

LewRockwell.com Blog: How The State Sees The Market

LewRockwell.com Blog: Contempt for the Constitution

"Notice that Bush’s outburst came during a discussion of the USA Patriot Act, and McCloy’s during a discussion of removing and confining persons alleged (but not proven) to pose a threat to national security. Notice further that the USA Patriot Act was never necessary for the protection of the country, and neither was the action to remove and confine the Japanese and Japanese-Americans. Existing laws and legal due process would have sufficed to deal with the prevailing conditions in both cases. The government in the early 1940s and again in the early 1990s simply grabbed and exercised great powers while the public, ignorant of the true situation, allowed its groundless fears and ethnic prejudices to dominate its thinking."

"In every such national emergency, precisely when constitutional restraints on the government are most desperately needed, the Constitution becomes nothing but a scrap of paper. Government leaders understand this fact, and they speak and act accordingly."

LewRockwell.com Blog: Contempt for the Constitution

Sign of the times for the GOP in Kansas? -- Campaign For Liberty

"So, the lesson for Republicans: voters like American sovereignty. Policing the world? Not so much."

Ron Paul’s Campaign For Liberty » Blog Archive » Sign of the times for the GOP in Kansas?: "Sign of the times for the GOP in Kansas?"

Farewell to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Yuri N. Maltsev - Mises Institute

"We will remember Solzhenitsyn as an unyielding champion of freedom who dedicated himself to revealing the horrors of socialism and exposing the ultimate evil of Lenin, Stalin, and their cohort of mass murderers. Once a prisoner of brutal labor camps himself, Solzhenitsyn chronicled the horrors of the Soviet Gulag system and emerged as a one of Russia's greatest writers. He became a moral and spiritual leader who exposed and condemned the nefarious nature of the socialist ideology that served as the basis for the monstrous communist slave camps established from Siberia to Ethiopia, Cuba to Vietnam, China, and Yugoslavia. He riveted socialists of all countries whose secret ghastly history he exposed."

Summary from "http://www.mises.org/".

Farewell to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Yuri N. Maltsev - Mises Institute

Muzio Clementi - Pandora Internet Radio

I have heard Clementi sonatinas played since childhood, but never knew how influential he was.

"Clementi was the complete piano man, popularizing the instrument through his own performances, writing exercises to develop young pianists, writing sonatas for mature pianists to play, and manufacturing instruments for their use."

Muzio Clementi - Pandora Internet Radio

The Tenacity Of Ludwig Von Mises

Gary North writes, "Mises never stopped saying in print that the dominant economic ideas of his era were all tainted to one degree or other with the irrationalism of socialism. He never stopped saying that all civil governments are at bottom inflationary because politicians seek to extract wealth from those under their jurisdiction, and at some point, the victims resist. Governments turn to fiat money in order to extract wealth by stealth."

The Tenacity Of Ludwig Von Mises

The Security Blanket - by Sascha Matuszak

"When you imagine China's public discussion landscape, do not envision a bland, gray expanse of Party doublespeak. Instead, think of an endless gopher field with a few guys in suits running around wielding clubs. For foreigners, not being able to log onto Wikipedia or BBC or some other site that is blocked for the time being might be very inconvenient and sinister. But in China, not only is the blanket familiar, but everyone has a flashlight on underneath."

The Security Blanket - by Sascha Matuszak

The Superfluous Man: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008

"But at least for a time, Solzhenitsyn made it harder for the deceivers, the dupes and whores and apologists of mass murder and despotism and slavery, to get away with it. That's surely worth something."

The Superfluous Man: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1918-2008

Congressman Ron Paul - Washington's Intervention Addiction - Texas Straight Talk

Ron Paul writes:

"To cure this addiction to intervention we have to honestly admit the problem and once and for all, kick the habit. That will involve some pain, without a doubt. There is no easy, painless solution to the mess the disastrous economic interventions of the past have wrought. The question is – do we allow some lending institutions to collapse, or do we allow the dollar to collapse? To extend the metaphor, do we endure the temporary discomfort of withdrawal, or do we continue on until there is a fatal overdose? We can delay the agony, but only for a little while, and then we will all end up paying the price for the mistakes of a few."

"With the final passage of the Housing Bailout Bill quietly on a Saturday in the Senate, and the President’s signature, our government has unfortunately chosen the latter…"

Congressman Ron Paul - Washington's Intervention Addiction - Texas Straight Talk

YouTube Music Videos 60s 70s - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Mr Bojangles - Blogs - YouTube MySpace Video - Noolmusic.com

The late Bobby Joe Garrison sang this with Possum Glory Train band, with which my daughter and wife played.

Barbara and I heard this version playing yesterday at Tropical Smoothie Cafe on our date.

Good memories.

myspace.com/possumglorytrain

YouTube Music Videos 60s 70s - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Mr Bojangles - Blogs - YouTube MySpace Video - Noolmusic.com

Anti-Positivist: World Records: A Private Matter

"Regardless, the free market allows competing definitions of sports to exist side by side."

Anti-Positivist: World Records: A Private Matter

The Patsy- by Justin Raimondo

Alternative view on suicide of "lone anthrax killer".

... even if Ivins was in on the plot, he wasn't alone – and the rest of the poisoners are still out there.

Did Ivins wind up a "suicide" because he knew too much and was about to reveal what he knew to investigators? We may never know the answer to this question, but that should hardly stop us from raising it.

This whole sorry episode exemplifies media complicity with U.S. government agencies in creating narratives that reflect well on official Washington.

The Patsy- by Justin Raimondo

To Prevent War With Iran, a Paradigm Shift Is Needed - by Muhammad Sahimi

"However, Iran's progress, while significant, is not alarming. The fact is, there is no direct connection between Iran's UEF in Natanz, which produces low-enriched uranium (LEU), and what would be needed for producing high-enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon..."

"There is no evidence that Iran has the necessary materials or is in a position to successfully make them and take all the above steps in a short time, even if it has every intention of doing so. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program stated that Iran is unlikely to be able to make a nuclear weapon before 2013..."

"But this has not stopped the neoconservatives and their allies in the Israel lobby, as well as the government of Israel, from issuing dire warnings about how close Iran is to making a nuclear weapon."

To Prevent War With Iran, a Paradigm Shift Is Needed - by Muhammad Sahimi

Copyright Expert Finds Copyright Law Too Depressing to Blog About - Mises Economics Blog

"Copyright law has abandoned its reason for being: to encourage learning and the creation of new works. Instead, its principal functions now are to preserve existing failed business models, to suppress new business models and technologies, and to obtain, if possible, enormous windfall profits from activity that not only causes no harm, but which is beneficial to copyright owners. Like Humpty-Dumpty, the copyright law we used to know can never be put back together again: multilateral and trade agreements have ensured that, and quite deliberately."

Copyright Expert Finds Copyright Law Too Depressing to Blog About - Mises Economics Blog

U.S. congressman opposes House resolution on China_English_Xinhua

"Instead of lecturing China, where I have no doubt there are problems as there are everywhere, I would suggest that we turn our attention to the very real threats in the United States where our civil liberties and human rights are being eroded on a steady basis," Paul said.

"The Bible cautions against pointing out the speck in a neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in one's own. I suggest we contemplate this sound advice before bringing up such ill-conceived resolutions in the future," he said.

U.S. congressman opposes House resolution on China_English_Xinhua


Hat tip to The New Liberty.

Ron Paul vs The Hypocritical Jingoists : The New Liberty

"It's a little bit like a free lunch without the calories" -- KarenDeCoster.com Web Log

"Strong, intelligent, healthy people are a threat to the state, as opposed to the overweight, energy-lacking, weak, sickly, pill-dependent types. That's why you need to declare your independence from all of the nonsense and attempts at control."

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: "It's a little bit like a free lunch without the calories" Archives

Richard Starr on "Why I Turned Right"

I just finished reading (maybe rereading) my brother's chapter in "Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys."

These were a few things I enjoyed.

Instead of a political conversion, I had the sensation of discovering more vivid renditions of my own inchoate feelings, and more elegant articulations of what I had already believed. And I found I had joined a political community.

This echoes my own experience of recent months and years of discovering the Old Right / libertarian / Austrian economics community.

"If you have ever worked on a farm, nothing else seems like work." -- quoting John Maynard Keynes.

The more I learn about Keynes, the less I care for him, both personally and economically, but he seems to have nailed this one. Richard and I and our sister grew up on a small family hog and grain farm in southeast Indiana. There are many memories, but one is of Dad rousing us early on Saturday mornings to "move the hogs" from one field to another.

Based on my wife and children's experience this year and last with detasseling hybrid seed corn plants for Pioneer, detasseling gives farming a run for its money, other than its not being a year-round project.

"You know," I confided one day to one of my conservative friends on campus, "it was important for the baby boomers to secure abortion rights and the right to die -- that way, they can kill off both their offspring and their aging parents. No one will ever have to depend on them." All very unfair of me, no doubt.

Conservatives, they [ liberals ] say are always looking for an enemy -- and when they can't find one they fabricate one. It's a short step from there to believing that threats are imaginary, and enemies non existent, which is the great modern liberal temptation.

After watching my country go abroad in search of "monsters to destroy" nearly full-time for my whole life, in apparent ignorance of John Quincy Adams' warning in 1821, I am inclined to agree that the liberals fear is a greater concern here.

John Quincy ~Adams's Warning Against the Search for Monsters to Destroy

This is too good not to quote a bit. JQA writes, "Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...."

Amazon.com: Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys: Mary Eberstadt: Books

Congress's 'Virtual Iran War Resolution' by Ron Paul

"This is unbelievable! This is closing down Iran. Where do we have this authority? Where do we get the moral authority? Where do we get the international legality for this? Where do we get the Constitutional authority for this? This is what we did for ten years before we went into Iraq. We starved children – 500,000 individuals it was admitted probably died because of the sanctions on the Iraqis. They were incapable at the time of attacking us. And all the propaganda that was given for our need to go into Iraq was not true."

Congress's 'Virtual Iran War Resolution' by Ron Paul

Where have all the Menckens gone? - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Hard to pick just one of these quotes.

"Most people want security in this world, not liberty. Liberty puts them on their own, and so exposes them to the natural consequences of their congenital stupidity and incompetence."

Where have all the Menckens gone? - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

H.L. Mencken on Liberty and Government - Gary Galles - Mises Institute

So many excellent quotations, very difficult to pick just one.

"As our government has overflowed its proper and Constitutional banks, it has increasingly turned to tasks it cannot do well, if at all, and attracted many who are willing to not only overlook, but compound its failings, if only they can take the reins of power. And this leads to no end of shameful behavior"

H.L. Mencken on Liberty and Government - Gary Galles - Mises Institute

Memo to the New York Times: Tolerant AND Sectarian (Not a contradiction in terms) -- Western Standard

I have not read Mencken, but I am guessing this might be what he would sound like if writing today.

"It’s not hard to be sectarian and tolerant. Tolerance would be respecting a person's right to worship as they believe. Tolerance would be to have a permissive attitude and not call for the outlawing of mosques or headscarves. Tolerance would be to engage Muslims in discussion over dinner. Tolerance would be to visit a synagogue, mosque, or ashram in order to avoid having a caricature of someone’s belief before you disapprove of it. But NY Time’s tolerance isn’t a permissive attitude. It’s permissive logic. Apparently you have to permit your mind to believe that contradictory claims are both true and not true."

Western Standard

End of Message - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good idea. I think I'll start giving it a try.

"End of Message or EOM signifies the end of a message, often an email. The subject of an e-mail may contain such an acronym to signify that all content is in the subject line so that the message itself does not need to be opened."

End of Message - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I Love Being Energy Dependent

"I have a confession to make: I love being dependent on foreign oil. In fact, I love being dependent on domestic oil too. For that matter, I love being dependent on other people for all the other things I purchase in the course of my life."

"Thus, what is the ideal trade policy for the United States (and every other nation)? A unilateral abolition of all trade restrictions on the American people. No negotiated trade agreements or mutual lowering of tariffs with other nations. Instead, simply drop all barriers to trade here in the United States, including all U.S. government-imposed embargoes and sanctions that punish Americans for trading with foreigners. Not only would such action liberate the American people to freely trade with the people of the world, not only would it bring the interdependencies that are the key to rising standards of living and peace, it would also serve as a model for the rest of the world to follow."

I Love Being Energy Dependent

How Hard Could It Be?: Good System, Bad System - Starbucks - company culture

"Isn't it a bit odd that Starbucks had gone to the trouble of paying someone to stand around the front of the shop, getting into squabbles with loyal customers, making people repeat their orders, while not even increasing the total number of Frappuccino Blended Coffees that could be produced per unit of time?"

"But when one of your employees yells, "They're not allowed to give it to you up here!" at a customer, that's probably a sign that the systems you have put in place have become self-defeating."

How Hard Could It Be?: Good System, Bad System - Starbucks - company culture

Tribute to Seven Antiwar Republicans - ToTheCenter

"The real test of courage is to take a principled stand against a popular undertaking and, in the words of our commander-in-chief, stay the course. That is exactly what these seven Republicans have done and this writer believes that time and circumstances have vindicated them."

"Because most Americans are susceptible to the misperception that being antiwar is a characteristic of Democrats, I believe that these Republicans deserve some praise and recognition."

Tribute to Seven Antiwar Republicans - ToTheCenter

Utopian Dreams

A discouraging assessment of big government.

"They didn’t seem to much anticipate people subverting the constitutional framework itself in the way it has happened historically: that the Supreme Court would declare growing food on your own land for your own consumption to be commerce “among the several states,” that vast hordes of sophists would insist that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” is a reference to the National Guard (established in 1903), that the power to take property for “public use” would encompass seizing people’s homes so that multibillion dollar corporations can have a more profitable store location, that the existence of the words “general welfare” would be taken to mean that the government could do anything whatsoever that is not expressly forbidden by the Constitution, or that the 10th Amendment would just sort of vanish. The supporters of the Constitution understood and feared human ambition, but badly underrated human cleverness."

"Those who believer that a single institution can be given a monopoly on force, the right to be the judge in cases against itself, and the sole right to interpret the laws binding itself, and then be expected to behave because of a piece of paper--they are the ones indulging in utopian fantasies."

Utopian Dreams

Broken Glass Everywhere - Art Carden - Mises Institute

Art Carden writes:

In his classic Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt applies Frederic Bastiat's "broken window" fallacy. Many still haven't learned the lesson, apparently: this article from the Boston Globe argues that this year's earthquakes in China will be good for Chinese economic growth and that disasters can be good for the economy more generally. Disaster-induced institutional change might lead to higher growth over the long run, but in general the proposition flies in the face of one of economics' simplest ideas: destroying resources makes societies poorer, not richer...

What looks like increased economic growth is often redistribution in disguise...

... if destroying resources made us better off, "Beirut should be one of the wealthiest places in the world."

The art of economics consist in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

Government largesse after the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake was good for some Alaskans, but the resources had to come from the taxpayers. Government largesse after Hurricanes Andrew, Ivan, Dennis, Katrina, and others increased the incomes of some of the recipients of that largesse, but again, the resources had to come from taxpayers.

There is an argument that, by encouraging societies to replace decrepit infrastructure, a disaster can accelerate growth. Yet again, the resources needed to replace that infrastructure must come from somewhere. While we might expect to see robust postdisaster growth along the Gulf Coast and in government-sponsored Gulf Opportunity Zones (GO Zones), it is scarcely clear that this would be economically efficient relative to encouraging people to move elsewhere...

We have an obligation to people, not to places … Given just how much, on a per capita basis, it would take to rebuild New Orleans to its former glory, lots of residents would be much [better off] with $10,000 and a bus ticket to Houston.

Government subsidies mean that there will be more production in the geographic space defined by the GO Zone, but this is not net new production. It is economic activity that would have otherwise taken place elsewhere.

As a fan of innovation and progress, I am somewhat sympathetic to the idea that disasters increase productivity by hastening the switch to more efficient technologies. If the productivity increase from implementing these new technologies were so great, however, private firms would implement them on their own initiative without government prodding...

The back door we installed after our house was robbed is much nicer than our old one. However, the fact that we would have preferred the services rendered by the old door to the services rendered by the new door was revealed in the fact that we had not replaced the old door yet — nor did we have any immediate plans to do so. The new door represents an improvement to our property, but to make that improvement we had to forego the services we otherwise could have enjoyed with the money we spent on the new door. If we hadn't been robbed, we would have the services provided by the old door plus the $400 or so we spent on the new one. Instead, we have only the services provided by the new door, and the old door is nothing but a shattered mess in a landfill somewhere...

In spite of all of this, I am prepared to believe that the long-run consequences of a disaster can be beneficial if they lead to privatization of previously government-owned property as well as institutional reforms more amenable to free markets...

Hazlitt once pointed out that the good ideas in economics have to be relearned every generation, and indeed it seems that a disaster cannot pass without common economic fallacies rearing their ugly heads. The broken-window fallacy seems to reappear every time nature or terrorism causes mayhem and destruction...

Broken Glass Everywhere - Art Carden - Mises Institute

LewRockwell.com Blog: Time for Fascism

"Time Magazine, long (still?) a house organ for the CIA, is pumping for state slavery ("national service") under chickenhawk Rick Stengel. It even uses fascist war propaganda art..."

LewRockwell.com Blog: Time for Fascism

The Greens are Going Crazy -- Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy

"It’s hard to ignore the fact that the Greens are going crazy, not just in the United States, but around the world. They are increasingly frantic over the opposition being voiced against global warming, one of the greatest hoaxes in modern history."

"The Greens have bet everything on global warming as the reason for giving up the use of long established sources of energy such as oil, coal and natural gas. The object has been to slow everything the modern world calls progress."

Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy

Offshore oil drilling -- cleaner than Mother Nature

"Ironically, in terms of oil contamination, Mother Nature is 95 times dirtier than Man. Some 620,500 barrels of oil ooze organically from North America's ocean floors each year. Compare this to the average 6,555 barrels that oil companies have spilled annually since 1998..."

Offshore oil drilling -- cleaner than Mother Nature

Dr. No in the Senate, Too - Mises Economics Blog

"If the only way to get a judiciously negative politician onto Capitol Hill is to elect a doctor, then I guess we need 462 more physicians in Congress."

Dr. No in the Senate, Too - Mises Economics Blog

America - Red, White and Blue Brainwashed | SheeplePeople.com

Let’s keep it simple. Businesses and individuals create jobs. Government can only hire people when they remove capital from individuals and businesses that are the job creators. Government then wastes 70% or more of this capital before finally using it to public benefit.

When the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates to “soften” economic downturns they are also destroying the value of the U.S. Dollar...

Government should stick to protecting the rights of individuals and defending our nation from it’s enemies. When government takes on more, we all suffer.

America - Red, White and Blue Brainwashed | SheeplePeople.com

Save Lives by Doing Nothing | SheeplePeople.com

“Moral imperative” and “duty” are commonly heard call to actions for donating to the less fortunate. Recently these appeals have been raised for the crisis in Myanmar...

By donating to Myanmar, we are propping up a ruthless, violent dictatorship that is responsible for some of the worst atrocities in modern times...

The left and many on the right would rather ‘feel’ like they are doing something rather than doing the right thing, which is nothing. Yes, that’s correct, doing nothing is the best course of action. Sometimes, meddling in the affairs of others only makes things worse.

After sending $500,000,000,000 to Africa over the last 30 years, Africa is experiencing poverty more severe than when the “War on Poverty” started. It’s unfathomable that we continue with the same plan despite obvious indications over many decades that the situation is only getting worse.

Save Lives by Doing Nothing | SheeplePeople.com

Drug Wars - We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident | SheeplePeople.com

"We’re Winning the Drug War..."

"No, we lost the second it started. It’s unbelievable to me that we would blindly go down this road again. After all, it was just 40 years earlier when we had the slap in the face that Prohibition gave us. We are STILL paying for Prohibition. By outlawing alcohol we created enormous profit margins for criminals. Criminals used those profits to build empires that persist to this day (the Mafia)..."

"Criminals use their profits to build armies. Criminals kill each other and innocent bystanders that get in the way. In the most desperate neighborhoods and countries, druglords are the law..."

Drug Wars - We Hold These Truths to be Self Evident | SheeplePeople.com

Congressman Ron Paul - The Dangers of Neo-Conservative Economic Policies - Texas Straight Talk

"The fiat monetary policy we now follow is the most significant factor contributing to our economic peril, and it is central to the neo-con agenda. As we hear new calls to empower the Federal Reserve Board, we should be aware that underlying all neo-conservative policies is the idea of monetary inflation. Inflation is the technique used to pay for the regulatory-state and the costs of policing the world."

Congressman Ron Paul - The Dangers of Neo-Conservative Economic Policies - Texas Straight Talk

Hi-tech is turning us all into time-wasters | Science | The Observer

"According to new research, one person in five now suffers from the problem so badly that their careers, relationships and health are threatened. Many researchers blame computers and mobile phones for providing too many distractions for people."

Hi-tech is turning us all into time-wasters | Science | The Observer

Report: Banning personal web use actually costs billions : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

Interesting study.

"e-breaks" don't distract employees from their work but rather help them reduce stress while sharpening and focusing their minds for another round of work.

Report: Banning personal web use actually costs billions : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

The Seen, the Unseen, and the Hidden Costs of Statism - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. writes:

This is why the state doesn't want pictures of US wounded or dead circulating in public. The media mostly obey. Did you ever notice that? You are being shown only what the government wants you to see. The state does not want you to see dead soldiers or suffering families of those shot and killed.

Instead the state wants you to believe that the Iraq War is about patriotism, 9/11, national pride, the campaign to make you safer, the administering of justice, manhood and courage, and all the rest of the coverups for what war really is: murder and destruction paid for by you and me and made legal solely because it is the state and not someone else doing it...

But from the government's point of view, it is running the war, and it should control what people know about it to the same extent it controls everything else about the war. As a result, after 4,000 dead soldiers, countless hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, millions of wounded on all sides, there are only a handful of bloody pictures to be found anywhere.

Amazing isn't it, just how effective the state can actually be when it cares intensely about something? And why does it care so much?...

... the state is most especially interested in continuing to foster the myth that these kids are dying for their country, and there are no more important people to convince of that than the parents of the dead.

But actually, only the most naïve could possibly believe that this is what the rules are wholly about. They want to protect the rest of us from reality. The Vietnam War lost massive support at home when the military loosened up on photojournalism. The handful of pictures we have from World War II all date from a period after FDR too bowed to public pressure.

At one level, it is pathetic that we need pictures to underscore what war is all about. But since the ancient world, the masses at large have proven susceptible to believing every myth about the grandeur and glory of war. We imagine that we as a people are going abroad to bring justice, truth, and liberty to some unenlightened and threatening foreign tribe. This has been the constant theme since the ancient world.

Then we see the pictures. It turns out that the unenlightened tribe is a collection of individuals pretty much like us. They are made of flesh and blood, have families, worship God, and struggle with pretty much the same issues that all people everywhere have always struggled with. There is no great glory in killing them, nor in being killed by them.

But the state says that sometimes war is necessary. If our masters really believe that, why hide its costs? Let us see precisely what we are getting into here. If it is justified, let us see why and how, and let us observe what we are giving up in exchange for the just war.

The truth is that the state must hide not only its wars but all of its activities. It hides its inflation. It hides the effects of its taxation and its protectionism. It fears anyone who draws the cause-and-effect connection between its activities and their deleterious consequences for the rest of us. It is the most destructive force in our world. Because that truth is so momentous, the state does everything possible to hide the smallest drop of blood.

The state wants us to all go on with our lives, believing it, loving it, and seeing only the pictures it wants us to see.

The Seen, the Unseen, and the Hidden Costs of Statism - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

Trotsky, Strauss, and the Neocons, by Justin Raimondo

Justin Raimondo's words from 2003 still sound apropos five years later.

"In the Orwellian world of the neocons, where a new form of political correctness frames their every utterance, the language is contracting. Because the goal of totalitarian thought control is to make the expression of political incorrectness impossible, the goal of this Neocon Newspeak is the abolition of many now-common words. In this context, words are used, not to make debating points, but to end all discussion. There are no Straussians, we are told, and even the word neoconservative is to be flushed down the Memory Hole, along with shelves full of books, articles, and even one incredibly boring film detailing their intellectual and political evolution in minute detail..."

"Arnold Beichman was next up at bat, with his own nominee: in any discussion of the neocons and their influence, he wants any reference to Leon Trotsky or the influence of Trotskyism to be strictly verboten. Writing in National Review Online, Beichman is outraged at Jeet Heer's National Post piece detailing the Trotskyist roots of leading neocons, whose cocktail party chatter evidently includes abstruse references to Max Shachtman and the factional history of the Fourth International..."

"The ideas that energize the neoconservative movement have little if anything to do with traditional conservatism. That this suspicion is now widespread among traditional conservatives, as well as journalists, is not to be undone by lame accusations of alleged "anti-Semitism." Paring down the permitted language of political debate is not going to work, either. It is clear beyond the need for further proof that the War Party bamboozled the American public into taking that first fateful step on the road to empire. We know who they are, and what they believe: it is not a "conspiracy," as the detractors of this theory insist, because there is nothing secret about it – and because the same people are urging us onward, to Iran, Syria, and beyond..."

Trotsky, Strauss, and the Neocons, by Justin Raimondo

SchansBlog: more evidence that the GOP continues to be in (deep internal) trouble

"If Ms. Steelman's bid shows anything, it's how determined a wandering Republican Party, both nationally and locally, is to hold on to the bad habits that lost them their reputation. Beware to the reformer."

Perhaps this could be said of Ron Paul as well.

SchansBlog: more evidence that the GOP continues to be in (deep internal) trouble

What is a fool? -- VisionaryDaughters.com

"Avoiding fools certainly does not mean turning a deaf ear to the spiritually needy — the ignorant but teachable — but rather means not casting our pearls before those who stubbornly reject teaching (one of the defining characteristics of a fool)."

VisionaryDaughters.com

Enemy of the State - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

Great book review of the biography of a great man.

Enemy of the State - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: Los Angeles To Ban Fast Food Expansion Archives

More bureaucracy and loss of liberty in LA.

"Los Angeles bureaucrats are going to ban the opening of new fast food joints within a 32-square-mile area of the city. Of course, that will promote healthier eating! Surely, that will have people shopping for fresh food, cooking at home, and eating veggies and lean meats as opposed to processed junk..."

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: Los Angeles To Ban Fast Food Expansion Archives

Look Me In The Eye: More changes to the Look Me in the Eye paperback

"I realized I don’t need profanity to tell a story. The story is built upon my thoughts and actions and experiences and feelings . . . and profanity is not an essential part of that. Some of you (plenty of you, and me too) still swear some in real life, but a book like this is better off without it. I am convinced of that."

I read the hardcover version, but I am glad to see he is offering a "sanitized" version more suitable for younger people.

Look Me In The Eye: More changes to the Look Me in the Eye paperback

VisionaryDaughters.com

"How should a 14-year-old girl interact with boys? Should it be different than how a grown young woman interacts with young men, and if so, how?"

VisionaryDaughters.com

The Demise of Conscience, Part 1

Jacob Hornberger writes:

"After all, can an immoral act be converted into a moral act simply by having the government do it? If stealing is wrong on a private basis, even when the money is used to help others, how is that same act converted into a moral deed when the state is doing it?"...

"Why do Americans continue to embrace the welfare state despite its manifest immorality, damage, and destructiveness? My hunch is that they have lost faith in themselves, a loss that they have replaced with faith in government. They want to be relieved as much as possible of the difficult choices and decisions that life presents them. By delegating the responsibility of making peaceful choices about what they do with their money to the welfare state, they have rendered unto Caesar the things that belong to God, including the exercise of free will. The result has been a demise of conscience..."

"Everyone agrees that neither the Iraqi government nor the Iraqi people ever attacked the United States. Everyone agrees that no Iraqi participated in the 9/11 attacks. There is no question but that in the Iraq War, the United States is the aggressor nation and Iraq is the defending nation..."

"How could the killing of any Iraqi be morally justified, given that the U.S. government was going to be the aggressor in the conflict? How could killing people while serving as part of an aggressor force be reconciled with God’s laws? I can’t help but wonder how many U.S. soldiers who were struggling with their conscience before the invasion are bedeviled by it today..."

"Thus, the circumstantial evidence led strongly to one conclusion: The real purpose of the invasion of Iraq was not to protect the United States from a WMD attack or to enforce UN resolutions but rather to simply achieve what the sanctions had failed to achieve throughout the 1990s — a change in the regime governing Iraq."

"So what would be wrong with that? What’s wrong with it is that it’s morally wrong and a violation of God’s laws to kill the people of another nation simply to achieve a change of administrations within their government. The government that is seeking the regime change through an invasion is the aggressor nation. In fact, an invasion for the purpose of regime change is also illegal under the UN Charter, to which the United States is a signatory."

The Demise of Conscience, Part 1

Who's Planning Our Next War? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Pat Buchanan writes:

"Yet, to start a third war in the Middle East against a nation three times as large as Iraq, and leave it to a new president to fight, would be a daylight hijacking of the congressional war power and a criminally irresponsible act. For Congress alone has the power to authorize war."

"Yet Israel is even today pushing Bush into a pre-emptive war with a naked threat to attack Iran itself should Bush refuse the cup..."

"Is it not time the American people were consulted on the next war that is being planned for us?"

Who's Planning Our Next War? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Insatiable Government - Garet Garrett - Mises Institute

"Until about 1910, excepting only the period of the Civil War, the cost of the federal government was met almost entirely by customs duties and the tobacco and liquor taxes; and until about 1910 the cost of state and local government was met by the property tax, supplemented somewhat by corporation taxes, license fees and death duties."

Insatiable Government - Garet Garrett - Mises Institute

Hat tip to Anti-Positivist.

Anti-Positivist: Something to consider

Diminished Expectations: Human Slingshot.

Don't try this one at home!

Diminished Expectations: Human Slingshot.

Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented -- Endless Simmer - A Food Blog

Enjoyed this list.

Endless Simmer - A Food Blog » Blog Archive » The Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented

Hat tip to Diminished Expectations!

Diminished Expectations: The Top 10 Foods Only America Could Have Invented.

Honorable Exit From Empire - HUMAN EVENTS

Pat Buchanan writes:

From 1989 to 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and breakup of the U.S.S.R., America had an opportunity to lay down its global burden and become again what Jeane Kirkpatrick called "a normal country in a normal time."

We let the opportunity pass by, opting instead to use our wealth and power to convert the world to democratic capitalism. And we have reaped the reward of all the other empires that went before: A sinking currency, relative decline, universal enmity, a series of what Rudyard Kipling called "the savage wars of peace."

Yet, opportunity has come anew for America to shed its imperial burden and become again the republic of our fathers.

Honorable Exit From Empire - HUMAN EVENTS

Brutal Assault at a Minnesota Amusement Park

Gary Larson writes, "Reducing black-on-anybody crime, putting an end to “disproportionate” incarceration for black males, starts literally at home. In one-parent black homes (usually, moms) and in single-parent homes of any race, anywhere, teaching Respect for Others, their rights to life, liberty, etc., is paramount, often lacking. Look around. Dads are important to full growth, especially of young males. Irresponsible, mostly father-less parenting, coupled with a popular culture embracing sock-it-to-'em TV and shoot-'em-up video games, rap lyrics celebrating violence, demeaning women ("ho's"), dehumanizing humanity, and a lot more, cause the senseless attacks such as those at Valleyfair and our dark streets."

Intellectual Conservative Politics and Philosophy

Climatic golden age: the weather was warmer than today prior to the advent of the "Little Ice Age" around 1300 A.D., and agriculture and commerce benefited | New American, The | Fi

Contrary to today's global warming alarmism, the earth has been warmer, and life was quite good then.

Michael E. Telzrow explains:

And so it was for nearly five centuries. Fagan writes that it was a climatic golden age--a period of unusually warm summers and mild winters that produced atypical crop success. Thirteenth-century life was generally short and characterized by heavy labor for rural inhabitants, but crop failures were generally rare.

Climatic golden age: the weather was warmer than today prior to the advent of the "Little Ice Age" around 1300 A.D., and agriculture and commerce benefited | New American, The | Fi

TOM UTLEY: Last rites for my dear old mum, a bedside farce and why the rights culture robs us of happiness | Mail Online

Tom Utley writes:

"The paradox is that if you think of life as a series of duties (as she always has) - and of happiness as an undeserved blessing, rather than a right - you are likely to be much happier than if you think happiness is yours by right."

"That's a sense that most of my generation have lost, if we ever had it."

"All the emphasis, since the liberal reforms of the 1960s, has been on replacing Christian duties with human rights."

"In the process, I believe, we have diminished the stock of human happiness rather than increasing it."

TOM UTLEY: Last rites for my dear old mum, a bedside farce and why the rights culture robs us of happiness | Mail Online

Hat tip to "The Other Side of Kim."

The Other Side of Kim du Toit - TheOtherSideofKim Front Page

A Weak and Dependent People

Jacob Hornberger writes, "No one can say though that federal officials are dumb. People who are bailed out are likely to be very grateful to their federal daddy for having helped them out. How likely is it that bailout recipients will ever challenge the government at a core level? Who’s going to bite the hand that feeds him? Oh sure, people will carp about governmental inefficiency or call for reform of this or that government program, but when it comes to questioning such things as torture, wars of aggression, occupations, warrantless searches, and socialist bailouts, the lips of weak and dependent child-adults are likely to be silent or kissing the boots of their federal providers. That’s why Roman officials used “bread and circuses” as they extended the reach of their Empire around the world."

A Weak and Dependent People

Friday Interview: Hayek's Most Famous Book

"One of his major themes was that in times of war, national leaders will use the war to grow the size of government. And it doesn’t have to be a World War II sort of war. You can think of wars on poverty, wars against drugs, wars on terrorism. All of these are wars that the leaders have used to say we need to have more government, bigger government, more government involvement — and particularly if it’s a war that is open-ended. I mean World War II actually came to end. It’s hard to think that the war on terrorism would ever come to an end, or a war on poverty, or a war on drugs for that matter."

Friday Interview: Hayek's Most Famous Book

Hat tip to Mises Economic Blog.

Hayek on Liberty in Wartime - Mises Economics Blog

England vs. the Price System - Henry Hazlitt - Mises Institute

Mr. Hazlitt's words in 1947 appear quite relevant today. Quite applicable minimum wage laws for example -- preventing employees from offering their services freely to the highest bidder and employers from hiring the lowest bidder.

"The underlying assumption beneath the present strangling network of economic controls is that a free market and price system is at best a fair-weather system, a luxury a country can afford only when it is already well off. It is the precise function of free prices, however, to allocate production among thousands of different commodities and services and to relieve the most serious shortages most quickly by providing the greatest profit and wage incentives precisely where those shortages exist."

England vs. the Price System - Henry Hazlitt - Mises Institute

Email: How "EOM" Makes Your Email More Efficient

Looks like a good idea. Put the whole e-mail message in the subject and end it with "EOM" (End of Message).

Email: How "EOM" Makes Your Email More Efficient

D.C. Government Continues Mugging Gun Owners

The Supreme Court has recognized that the primary purpose of the Second Amendment is to establish the individual's right to keep a weapon for self-defense, yet the new D.C. law practically destroys the ability to exercise that right by forcing an individual to load, unlock, or assemble their weapon only after a threat is already present. Advantage, criminal!

D.C. Government Continues Mugging Gun Owners

Template for World "Justice" | The New American

Some background from 1997 on today's stories about Radovan Karadzic.

Template for World "Justice" | The New American

Everyone's Favorite Villain - by Nebojsa Malic

AntiWar.com presents the following non-politically-correct view.

Bosnia was used by the U.S. to establish the Imperial prerogative to intervene in other countries without much regard for the UN or international law. What soon followed were Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. There is no way the Empire will even entertain a challenge to its narrative, as without the Bosnian myth it crumbles entirely. Says Trifkovic:

"Radovan Karadzic will be duly convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, and he will not come out of jail alive. The verdict is already written, but it reflects a fundamental imbalance. It ignores the essence of the Bosnian war – the Serbs' striving not to be forced into secession – while remaining mute about the culpability of the other two sides for a series of unconstitutional, illegitimate and illegal political decisions that caused the war."

The judgment against Karadzic, writes Trifkovic, "will be neither fair or just, and therefore it will be detrimental to what America should stand for in the world. It will also give further credence to the myth of Muslim blameless victimhood, Serb viciousness, and Western indifference."

Everyone's Favorite Villain - by Nebojsa Malic

Analyzing Global-warming Science | The New American

Interview of Dr. Arthur Robinson by William F. Jasper.

The current temperature is about average for the past 3,000 years...

Moreover, the temperature, which is going up very slowly, is correlated with the sun’s activity, not hydrocarbon use...

Right now the UN claims that they have about 2,500 people involved in this and about 600 scientists seriously involved. This is what Al Gore would point to today. We have more than 22,000 scientist signers of our global-warming petition who’ve looked at the issue and concluded essentially the opposite of these United Nations people...

Science does not depend on polling... The only thing our petition demonstrates is that there is no consensus among scientists in support of the UN claims...

Scientific truth is not determined by polling or by convening meetings...

As you know, climatologists have trouble predicting the weather a week or two in advance. They surely cannot predict climate many years in the future...

We can show that the hypothesis of human-caused global warming is false, however, because we have enough empirical data to falsify this hypothesis. Human-caused global warming is a hypothesis that has failed so many experimental tests that it is clearly without merit...

First, just because the UN has spent an enormous amount of money to convene meetings of 600 mostly self-interested people... to try to determine something that isn’t knowable with current data and techniques, and produce a report, proves nothing.

Moreover, many of these 600 disagree with the conclusions that the UN-IPCC advertises. The scientists are never allowed to approve or disapprove the final report, and many of the comments that they submit for publication in the report are rejected by UN bureaucrats... So this report is not even approved by the people who are claimed to have authored it. This is a fraudulent process.

... they often unethically omit that part of the data that does not agree with their hypothesis. They pick the parts of the data that favor their conclusion and discard the rest. If you play with the data, you can falsify with it. So the UN is picking parts of the data. We are considering it all.

Al Gore also makes a big deal about glacier recession... But he only shows the data for the limited time intervals that seem to support his claims...

The glaciers have been shortening for 200 years. They started shortening a century before significant amounts of CO2 were produced by human activity...

The glaciers started shortening long before we were using significant amounts of hydrocarbons, and, when we increased our use by six-fold, the shortening rate did not change. Therefore, human hydrocarbon use is evidently not the cause of glacier shortening or the mild natural temperature increase that is causing that shortening...

In those curves, the temperature goes up before the CO2 and goes down before the CO2. The CO2 lags the temperature. And the reason it does is that the CO2 rise is caused by the temperature rise rather than vice versa... Gore shows the curves with poor resolution, so that this cannot be seen by the viewer...

If the UN controls, rations, and taxes energy, they will have the power to determine whether you can run a wood stove, whether you can run an automobile, or can use any of the technology that makes our modern life possible...

The power to tax and ration energy is the power to control the world — to have life and death control over every human being on the planet. No government should ever have this power. The United Nations-IPCC process is not about the climate or saving the environment. It is about power and money — lots of it.

Should Gore and the UN succeed, the effect will not only be diminished prosperity in the United States. In underdeveloped countries, billions of people are lifting themselves from poverty by means of hydrocarbon energy. If their energy supplies are rationed and taxed, they will slip backwards into poverty, misery, and death. This fits the population control agenda of the United Nations.

If the misuse and falsification of the scientific method that drives the human-caused global-warming mania succeeds, it will cause the greatest acts of human genocide the world has ever known. It must be stopped.

Analyzing Global-warming Science | The New American

The Bureaucrats Are Running Scared - Mises Economics Blog

"Public schooling is no longer up to the task of producing the next generation of parasitic, wealth-destroying government drones. Something has to be done now or the very fabric of the modern state could start to unravel. "National service" offers today's bureaucrats hope for a better tomorrow. The basic premise is that forcing all young adults to participate in some form of government-directed labor will yield a crop of lifelong bureaucrats. Once the kids realize they don't have to be productive and can rely on taxpayer funds for subsistence, they'll be hooked!"

The Bureaucrats Are Running Scared - Mises Economics Blog

Is It Time to Liberate China from Communism?

"Given that conservatives and neoconservatives understand the importance of not permitting the U.S. government to invade, bomb, occupy, and “liberate” China, Vietnam, and North Korea (as well as East Germany and Eastern Europe during the Cold War) from the brutality of communist control, why do they have such a difficult time getting it when it comes to Iraq, where their invasion and occupation have killed and maimed more than a million people, destroyed the entire country, and sent into exile millions of refugees? "

Is It Time to Liberate China from Communism?

The God Called Democracy by Jim Fedako

"There is nothing ethical about using the power of politics to gain an advantage. And, hiding behind a majority of voters does not make an unethical action ethical"

The God Called Democracy by Jim Fedako