Sorry for the lack of posts, ladies and gents. It's been a busy few months.
Here's a little something to tide you over.


(Thanks to The Agitator)

Why, god?!?!?!? W H Y !!??!!??!!??!!??

And now for a rundown of some of today's funny and serious news stories:


Bash the Bailout: Government is Not the Answer

The Financial Crisis: Facing the Facts

Who Voted for the Wall Street Bailout?

The Nonexistence Theorem

Shoeless Joe Biden and the Snowbilly Hockey Mom

Reagan (and Hayek), Not Entirely Off-Base

She Left Me for Jesus

This is interesting:

From Winds Of Change:

A much remarked, minor story in this election was the question of Senator Obama's birth certificate. We've all ignored it, except to try to shoot it down, because it sounded like a wacko conspiracy theory; and anyway, the campaign produced a birth certificate.

In ignoring this story, we may have made an error. Some of you will recall that the issue arose briefly a little while ago when a Clinton camp supporter filed a suit demanding that Sen. Obama produce various documents to prove that he is able to run for the Presidency.

US Federal District Court Judge R. Barclay Surrick has denied Sen. Obama's motion to dismiss the suit, and has ordered him to produce a certified copy of the original long version of his birth certificate. Presumably, Sen. Obama will comply.

However, the judge's order also states that, according to the law in effect in 1967, Sen. Obama lost his citizenship when he was adopted in Indonesia. He has therefore also ordered Sen. Obama to produce a certified copy of his Certification of Citizenship and a certified copy of his Oath of Allegiance.

Want a crash course in economics? Give Econ4U a try.

No I'm not being paid to shill for them and yes the site is quite educational.

Here are a few pointers on how to have a polite political debate from the folks @ the Art of Manliness:

Kate grandpa’s is fond of repeating the mantra he and his fellow sailors repeated while serving aboard the USS Indiana during World War II. “Never discuss politics or religion.” And he always adds, “So what does that leave to talk about? Girls, of course.”

Gramp’s advice is certainly appropriate if you’re going to be trapped on a ship with the same guys for months on end. And it’s a rule of good etiquette for dinner parties and other occasions when polite decorum should prevail.

But otherwise, politics should be debated, vigorously and often. Men in every age debated politics- from the Grecian Assembly to the Roman Forum, from the salons of France to the mutual improvement societies of colonial America. Being able to reasonably discuss the political issues of the day was considered a vital and essential part of being a well-rounded, well-educated, man. Indeed, one of the express purposes of education during this time was to equip men to be able to hold their own in the political forum.

These days rousing, yet respectful political debate is practically non-existent. The new media, far from presenting balanced, in-depth coverage of the important, meaty issues of the day, spend their time constantly regurgitating manufactured scandals and fanning the flames of personality contests. Debates between men in person, and especially on the internet quickly devolve into indignant shouting matches, where personal insults are substituted for rational arguments.

That’s not to say that our manly forebearers were the paragons of respectful debating. They too would often let their passions get away from them and unleash oratorical hell on their opponent. For example, during his days as a young state assemblyman in New York, Teddy Roosevelt would frequently lose his cool during debates on the Assembly floor. He’d call his opponents “cold blooded, narrow-minded, prejudiced, obstinate, timid, old psalm singing Indianapolis politicians” or “oily-Gammon, churchgoing specimens,” or simply “classical ignoramuses.”

Young Roosevelt quickly became the laughing stock of the Assembly and of the state newspapers with his outbursts. After bitterly insulting a senior assemblyman, Roosevelt was rebuked severely, and tearfully apologized for his unbecoming behavior. He soon learned to control his temper and direct his passion towards more constructive debate as opposed to petty insults.

Unlike men from the past, today’s men are unapologetic about their undisciplined, discourteous political rants. Men need to learn how to bring back vigorous, yet civil political discourse.

From Paul Reads:

In Friday's debate, candidates Barack Obama and John McCain tacitly agreed that one of them will "rule the country." Perhaps tired of dizzying circumlocution, moderator Jim Lehrer rephrased a question about priorities for the third time:

LEHRER: Before we go to another lead question. Let me figure out a way to ask the same question in a slightly different way here. Are you -- are you willing to acknowledge both of you that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the country as president of the United States beyond the kinds of things that you have already -- I mean, is it a major move? Is it going to have a major affect?

CNN Debate Transcript, emphasis added

Kings rule. In 1789, Americans rejected the idea. Mr. Lehrer gave Senators McCain and Obama the opportunity to clarify a major point of philosophy, on which they apparently do not differ. Neither candidate addressed the wording. Are we subjects? A comforting response would have started, "I will not rule, I will … and in answer to your question …."

The candidates bickered over whether each understood the distinction between tactics and strategy. That's pedantic. Whether the president rules America?* That deserves discussion.

Quick question; How many of you think that the President rules the nation and how many of you don't? Discuss/ Debate.

(*emphasis mine)

Cato@Liberty shows you the difference between free-market, laissez- faire capitalism and corporatism:

The seemingly arcane difference between laissez-faire and corporatism is one of the most important in today’s public policy debates. Laissez-faire means the equality of all before the law, with the state neither helping nor hindering any market actor. Corporatism means offering special favors to those who’ve already succeeded. (Just for starters: “Too big to fail” is corporatism.)

If only this distinction were more clearly understood by lawmakers, journalists, and the general public. Too often all of these groups just use the vague word “capitalism,” which seems mostly intended to split the difference — or to obscure it. But laissez-faire and corporatism are directly opposed to one another, and if more people on the left understood this, they might be far more sympathetic to free markets. Even, perhaps, while keeping a healthy mistrust of corporations.

Here we have a very interesting and informative article about free-markets and the economy by Matt Kibbe of the Freedom Works Foundation written for Reason Magazine:

A

s for Paulson’s desired role to become economic czar and CEO of the American economy, I recommend Hayek’s famous essay, "The Use of Knowledge in Society." Hayek says it best. “If we possess all the relevant information, if we can start out from a given system of preferences, and if we command complete knowledge of available means, the problem which remains is purely one of logic...This, however, is emphatically not the economic problem which society faces...The reason for this is that the 'data' from which the economic calculus starts are never for the whole society 'given' to a single mind which could work out the implications and can never be so given.” This is the same argument both Mises and Hayek used to dismantle the idea that socialist systems could supplant price discovery through the market process with really well-meaning, smart bureaucrats. By now, virtually everyone realizes that a full-on socialist economy brings only human misery to people, particularly to workers who don’t have access to the special favor of the political elite.

Or is that really understood? Listening to Wall Street types and their friends (from both political parties) in office, you would think that free market capitalism is fundamentally broken. Many are downright hysterical in their predictions of gloom and doom. I had read about the phenomenon, but now I actually understand what a “panic on Wall Street” really is. But it is very difficult, in the current legislative panic, to discern fact from fiction. One popular example is the assertion that capital for small businesses is “seizing up.” People I trust have told me this.

Many more people with a vested interest have asserted this. The most popular example widely used in the past few days is the claim that Sonic Drive-Ins were being denied, despite credit worthiness, needed business capital by GE Capital. Even the McCain campaign uses this talking point. It is, inconveniently, an urban myth, just like the guy that had both kidneys stolen and wakes up in an icy bathtub. According to a press statement by the company released on Monday, “GE is just one of many lenders who finance Sonic franchisees and, in fact, many franchisees maintain access to other diversified sources of financing. Furthermore, Sonic has not received any notification from GE Capital, either directly or indirectly, that it will stop financing new loans to Sonic franchisees.”

This is not to say that the economy is not in serious trouble, that capital flows are not being disrupted, or that access to credit is not a problem. The point is that the government is proposing to redistribute $700 billion dollars. That’s more than the annual GDP of Australia. With that much money on the table, expect disinformation to permeate the public debate. Some of that misinformation is intentional, but most is not. As a good Hayekian, I understand that knowledge is dispersed throughout the economy, and that good information only emerges if the discovery process is allowed to function. To put it another way, the only thing I know certainly is that I don’t know everything.

This is not an ivory-tower, think-tank point. It seems to me, during times of economic crisis, that there is an obligation to first do no harm. Should we rush to pass legislation written by tired, 25-year-old legislative staffers in the middle of the night in offices littered with Domino’s boxes and empty vente Starbucks cups? What are the inevitable unintended consequences? My biggest fear is that the plan will do far more harm than good, even in the short run, by propping up poorly performing banks at the expense of well-run institutions ready and able to come in and clean up the mess. And, yes, as Warren Buffet could tell you, they hope to make a healthy profit doing it.

We are talking about legislation that will fundamentally alter the face of American capitalism for at least a generation. Allowing investment banks to go to the government for a $700 billion line of credit is akin to inviting a vampire into the house. If you live, you certainly won’t be the same person when you wake up the next morning.

Assuming that all of the short-term problems are real, and assuming that we are headed into real economic hardship, what should we do? What would Mises do? A quote from Hayek’s Fatal Conceit is instructive: "The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they know about what they imagine they can design." (Hat Tip to economist Peter Boettke). Paulson’s audacious power grab has tainted the whole debate, crowding out a more rational conversation about how to remove real barriers to better-functioning markets. Especially after last night's dispiriting Senate vote, and the coming second round in the House of Representatives, that conversation is less likely to happen than ever.

I have to say, with my limited knowledge of economics, it seems to me that Mr. Kibbe knows what he's talking about.

This financial crisis isn't a failure of laissez-faire, free-market capitalism but a failure of corporatism.

From the group’s press release:

Thousand Oaks, CA — A national caucus of Republican activists has urged GOP legislators to stand firm against the “Paulson Bailout” of a corrupt financial regulatory system. “This proposal is a government takeover of the entire U.S. economy,” says Republican Liberty Caucus Chairman William Westmiller, “whose only purpose is to rescue those who made risky bets on bad mortgages.”

The Caucus [www.RLC.org] opposes any taxpayer payoff to rescue those who made bad investments in any sector of the economy. “The problem is not a lack of government control,” says Westmiller, “but rather the decades of market distortions imposed by Congress through subsidies, mandates, guarantees, andconstraints on free-enterprise mortgage offerings.”

The Paulson proposal grants the Secretary of the Treasury total control over all mortgage-related financial instruments, nearly a trillion-dollars in discretionary funds, and the power to nationalize or deputize every financial institution in the nation. “This isn’t a rescue plan,” says Westmiller, “it is an economic police state.”

From the fine folks @ BoingBoing.net:
Just in time for Banned Books Week, here's Philip "Golden Compass" Pullman on why book bans -- especially religiously inspired book bans -- are so futile and wrong:

Because they never learn. The inevitable result of trying to ban something – book, film, play, pop song, whatever – is that far more people want to get hold of it than would ever have done if it were left alone. Why don't the censors realise this?...

In fact, when it comes to banning books, religion is the worst reason of the lot. Religion, uncontaminated by power, can be the source of a great deal of private solace, artistic inspiration, and moral wisdom. But when it gets its hands on the levers of political or social authority, it goes rotten very quickly indeed. The rank stench of oppression wafts from every authoritarian church, chapel, temple, mosque, or synagogue – from every place of worship where the priests have the power to meddle in the social and intellectual lives of their flocks, from every presidential palace or prime ministerial office where civil leaders have to pander to religious ones...

My basic objection to religion is not that it isn't true; I like plenty of things that aren't true. It's that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.

Another gem from Cato@Liberty:

The New York Times takes note of the brewing tax revolt in Massachusetts, where a grassroots group has put an initiative on the ballot to repeal the state income tax. The Times headline (on paper) reads, “On Massachusetts Ballot, a Tax Repeal That Worries Leaders.” Why does a newspaper that purports to be a check on government so often present questions from the government’s point of view? Did they once publish headlines like “On Washington Mall, a Peace March That Worries Leaders” or “In Massachusetts, a Civil Rights Crusade That Worries Leaders”? I doubt it.

And I should in fact congratulate reporter Pam Belluck for writing

It would save the average taxpayer about $3,600 a year. Annual revenue from the tax is about $12.5 billion, roughly 45 percent of the state’s budget of about $28 billion.

Too often, as we’ve noted before here on Cato@Liberty, the mainstream media use the formulation “the proposed cut would cost the government millions of dollars.” At least this time Belluck started with the taxpayer.

From the Line is Here:

Really, you don’t say? Economic advantages and disadvantages that are applied through government regulation can lead to ethnic unrest? Wealth redistribution along ethnic lines makes people testy and prone to take out their frustrations on other ethnic groups?

That is just amazing!

In all honesty, it is nice to see a study that highlights this, although anyone who pays attention to African and Balkan politics and conflicts would have been able to tell you this without a study

.

From Cato@Liberty:

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear is trying to seize some online casinos. Unlike casinos that are on the land, online casinos are difficult for the government to tax. According to Mr. Beshear, if the tax collectors can’t get their paws on a business, then that business is a “leech” on the community. This type of thinking comes from Statism 101 and will require reading works not listed on the syllabus. Go here and here (pdf).

From the Western Standard:

One of the biggest confusions in the current mess is the claim that it is the result of greed. The problem with that explanation is that greed is always a feature of human interaction. It always has been. Why, all of a sudden, has greed produced so much harm? And why only in one sector of the economy? After all, isn't there plenty of greed elsewhere? Firms are indeed profit seekers. And they will seek after profit where the institutional incentives are such that profit is available. In a free market, firms profit by providing the goods that consumers want at prices they are willing to pay. (My friends, don't stop reading there even if you disagree - now you know how I feel when you claim this mess is a failure of free markets - at least finish this paragraph.) However, regulations and policies and even the rhetoric of powerful political actors can change the incentives to profit. Regulations can make it harder for firms to minimize their risk by requiring that they make loans to marginal borrowers. Government institutions can encourage banks to take on extra risk by offering an implicit government guarantee if those risks fail. Policies can direct self-interest into activities that only serve corporate profits, not the public.

Many of you have rightly criticized the ethanol mandate, which made it profitable for corn growers to switch from growing corn for food to corn for fuel, leading to higher food prices worldwide. What's interesting is that you rightly blamed the policy and did not blame greed and the profit motive! The current financial mess is precisely analogous.

The Obama campaign disputes the accuracy of the above advertisement, which is fine. It's also threatened regulatory retaliation against outlets that show it, which isn't fine. Instead of, say, crafting a response ad, Obama's team sent stations a letter [pdf] arguing that "Failure to prevent the airing of 'false and misleading advertising may be 'probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility.'" And, more directly: "For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement."

This casts Obama's campaign as a bunch of speech-squelching bullies, and it makes the ad itself into a story, guaranteeing that more people will see it. Together with similar efforts elsewhere, the incident says something about how a President Obama might approach media regulation. Obama says he won't restore the Fairness Doctrine, but, he isn't opposed to other, more subtle ways the authorities can influence what is or isn't said on TV and radio. For those of us who have fears based John McCain's piss poor record on free speech issues, it's important to remember that his opponent might not be any better.

The financial crisis that we're dealing with was caused by the government and their stooges.
This is why we are where we are today.


*

* video embed updated 10/02/2008

*In no way, shape, or form does the Professor Politico Show endorse any of the presidential candidates (only because we haven't found one to endorse yet) or their views.

For those of you looking to waste your vote on someone other than John McCain or Barack Obama; here are a few cool websites that are trying to break the monopoly the Republocrats have on politics.

Third Party Ticket

Break the Matrix

Campaign for Liberty

I just had to share this op-ed in the New York Sun by John Stossel.

Barack Obama says, "[Today's economic problems are] a stark reminder of the failures of ... an economic philosophy that sees any regulation at all as unwise and unnecessary."

What? Does that mean that until last week the Bush administration embraced the free market? Nonsense. Governments at all levels have regulated and subsidized the housing and financial industries for years. Nothing changed under President Bush.

At the Division of Labour Web log, an economist, Lawrence White, asks: "What deregulation have we had in the last decade? Please tell me. On the contrary, we've had a strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act, which has encouraged banks to make mortgage loans to borrowers who previously would have been rejected ... "

The government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created precisely to interfere with the housing and mortgage markets. In effect, Freddie and Fannie diverted money to people who wouldn't have qualified for mortgages in a real private market.

Had actual private companies performed these activities, they would have been subject to market checks. But they were not. The results were predictable.

Now that it's all tumbling down, the politicians and pundits blame the free market.

It's not simply misunderstanding. It's demagoguery by people who will never admit that their "progressive" social policies have spawned a taxpayer bill that boggles the mind.

This is a story not of private enterprise but of cynical political opportunism. Moral hazard — the poisonous mix of private profits and taxpayer-covered losses — is what you get when politicians indulge their hubris to redesign society. The bailout of those companies holding bad mortgages — big-business socialism — sets us up for the next crisis.

Maybe the Republican presidential candidate will dissent? Not a chance:

John McCain says, "We are going to fight the greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street. These actions [leading to crisis] stem from failed regulation, reckless management and a casino culture on Wall Street. ... We need strong and effective regulation ... "

He proposes a new bureaucracy, the Mortgage and Financial Institutions Trust, MFI, which he says will "provide troubled institutions with an orderly process to identify bad loans, provide funding and eventually sell them at a profit. ... The MFI will supervise the sale of loan assets at market prices and purchase them as necessary."

A government agency is going to buy bad loans and make a profit selling them. Give me a break.

Senator McCain blames today's problems on "greed," but how can greed be the root of the problem? As Mr. White says, "Greed ... is a constant." Exactly. People were just as greedy five and 50 years ago. Why didn't these troubles occur then?

Irresponsibility induced by government-created perverse incentives is the culprit. For decades politicians of both parties have relieved big companies of the responsibility that market discipline would have imposed. The promise — explicit or implicit — to bail out companies "too big to fail," not to mention regulatory, tax, and trade policies that raise barriers to entry for new competitors — weakens market discipline. That invites recklessness.

What if the government cut Freddie, Fannie, Bear, AIG, and the others loose and let them do what other businesses do on hard times: renegotiate with creditors and revalue assets? Would there be another Great Depression? Not likely. What turned a recession into the Great Depression was the Federal Reserve's contraction of the money supply. I doubt they'd make that mistake twice.

Public officials say the big companies must be saved to prevent a devastating credit "lock." Really? Without a federal bailout, lending wouldn't have resumed? The market wouldn't have sorted it out? Prices wouldn't have found a more solid floor? We'll never know.

It's like they planned it this way all along.

From TheNewspaper.com:

Private companies in the US are hoping to use red light cameras and speed cameras as the basis for a nationwide surveillance network similar to one that will be active next year in the UK. Redflex and American Traffic Solutions (ATS), the top two photo enforcement providers in the US, are quietly shopping new motorist tracking options to prospective state and local government clients. Redflex explained the company's latest developments in an August 7 meeting with Homestead, Florida officials.

"We are moving into areas such as homeland security on a national level and on a local level," Redflex regional director Cherif Elsadek said. "Optical character recognition is our next roll out which will be coming out in a few months -- probably about five months or so."

The technology would be integrated with the Australian company's existing red light camera and speed camera systems. It allows officials to keep full video records of passing motorists and their passengers, limited only by available hard drive space and the types of cameras installed. To gain public acceptance, the surveillance program is being initially sold as an aid for police looking to solve Amber Alert cases and locate stolen cars.

"Imagine if you had 1500 or 2000 cameras out there that could look out for the partial plate or full plate number across the 21 states where we do business today," Elsadek said. "This is the next step for our technology."

From Cato@Liberty:

In a study released today by the Cato Institute, economist and Cato adjunct scholar Shirley Svorny says no:

In the United States, the authority to regulate medical professionals lies with the states. To practice within a state, clinicians must obtain a license from that state’s government. State statutes dictate standards for licensing and disciplining medical professionals. They also list tasks clinicians are allowed to perform. One view is that state licensing of medical professionals assures quality.

In contrast, I argue here that licensure not only fails to protect consumers from incompetent physicians, but, by raising barriers to entry, makes health care more expensive and less accessible. Institutional oversight and a sophisticated network of private accrediting and certification organizations, all motivated by the need to protect reputations and avoid legal liability, offer whatever consumer protections exist today.

Consumers would benefit were states to eliminate professional licensing in medicine and leave education, credentialing, and scope-of-practice decisions entirely to the private sector and the courts.

If eliminating licensing is politically infeasible, some preliminary steps might be generally acceptable. States could increase workforce mobility by recognizing licenses issued by other states. For mid-level clinicians, eliminating education requirements beyond an initial degree would allow employers and consumers to select the appropriate level of expertise. At the very least, state legislators should be alert to the self-interest of medical professional organizations that may lie behind the licensing proposals brought to the legislature for approval.

Warning: Adult Language

The video runs a little long but this is quite an excellent rant.
(Via United Liberty)

Here's a little something to help you escape all the doom and gloom going on in the news today.




And here I always thought that dogs were just dumb animals.

The bailouts of banks, mortgage lenders, and insurance companies by the federal government will now cost American tax-payers about a half-trillion dollars. This according to Neil Cavuto of Fox News. But, according to Congressman Ron Paul, it could be considerably more.Congressman Paul rightfully points out that the best course of action by the federal government should have been no course of action at all.
Watch the video for more.

Here we have an excellent piece from Reason about the hypocrisy of the Hollywood Left.

From Reason:

Andrew Breitbart, long associated with The Drudge Report, prop. of the excellent newsfeed site Breitbart.com, author of The Washington Times col "Big Hollywood," and maker of lists for reason, finds it larfable that Matt Damon is worried about GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin banning books. Breitbart writes:

The sad fact is that actual artistic oppression—book banning in its many modern forms—is a matter of course in the entertainment industry, especially when the underlying product is declared politically incorrect or runs contrary to the interests of Hollywood's political altar, the Democratic Party.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations runs rings around Hollywood's pious First Amendment absolutists.

"I hope you will be reassured that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs," director Phil Alden Robinson wrote after changing the script from Muslim terrorists to Austrian neo-Nazis in the Tom Clancy thriller, "The Sum of all Fears." "And I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination."

While Mr. Clancy put up an admirable fight, actor Ben Affleck acquiesced, cashed his multimillion-dollar check and fought the dreaded Austrians, whose flagging Teutonic self-confidence again took a hit. Thanks to Hollywood artistic appeasement, Arab youth in totalitarian Muslim countries indoctrinated in anti-Western thought dodged another esteem bullet....

The silence of the celebrity political class was heartbreaking when Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered by an Islamic radical in retaliation for making "Submission," a critically acclaimed film that portrayed horrific female oppression within the practice of Islam.

Yet Hollywood—quick to find martyrs near to its heart (Valerie Plame, et al)—ignored its fallen Dutch comrade and refused to celebrate the film and its maker, fulfilling his murderer's greatest desire.

Why? This is why:

Always good for us rah rah capitalism types to keep in mind that sweeping out the dusty corners of private enterprise will reveal just as many dunces as when one does the same thing in government. From today's Telegraph:

Were it not so serious, the role reversal would be hilarious. For years, US governments have called in titans of finance for advice on how to run federal affairs more effectively. Now, those clever clogs who were once deemed to have all the answers are asking difficult questions, like: "May we have some help, please, we appear to have burned through our shareholders' reserves?"

Here's an excellent argument for NASA to get out of the way.

This one is for you Objectivists out there.
From Kushal Sharma @ TheAtlasphere:

When most people hear about open source software, they think of charity, altruism, and "free stuff." At a deeper level, however, the open source movement is often highly individualistic.

I am a fan of Ayn Rand’s writings, and I deeply admire and follow Objectivism to the extent of my understanding.

I consider rational selfishness to be a great virtue, and anyone who understands its value would scoff at anything that has an altruistic motive.

For this reason, some Ayn Rand fans might disagree with the premise of the open source software movement. That, however, could be a mistake.

What exactly is open source? Open source is a movement started by people who believe that when customers buy software, they should have the actual source code to the software.

This means anyone capable of making changes to the source code and customizing the software to suit their needs, can do so without worrying about whether they’re infringing upon copyright or trademark laws.

It also follows that you are free from mandatory updates and have a choice about whether to use any updates you receive. Unlike some commercial products, once you buy or download open source software, you get the entire software with redistribution rights and not just the “right to use it for a limited time.”

This freedom, coupled with the availability of the source code, is the backbone of open source. This has made it possible for people to incorporate a great number of important changes to the software and make it truly world-class.

This also makes the nature of development in open source community-based, which is the reason why almost all open source software is available free of cost.

The open source movement has developed an intricately balanced, yet surprisingly robust, community for developing software.

However, since open-source software is available free of cost, most people outside the movement — and within it — mistakenly see it as an altruistic undertaking.

Quite a few of them have even forgotten that it is not intended to be free as in "free beer" but free as in “freedom of speech.”

Either way, most of them fail to realize that there is an individualism at its core. And it is this spirit, not altruism, which lies at the heart of the open source movement.

So I'm going through my blog aggregator and come across this article from Protein Wisdom.
Here's a little tidbit:

Randall Kennedy, professor of law at Harvard University and the author, most recently, of “Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal,” writing in the WaPo:

[...] Whether black onlookers believe that this election was decided “on the real issues” and that Obama was “judged fairly” will be shaped in part by future developments, including the nature of the campaign in its closing weeks (will race-baiting intensify?) and the demographics of the final voting tally (will people who have traditionally voted Democrat vote differently this time around?).

— Of course, if blacks vote overwhelmingly for Barack — say, 96% or more — we needn’t ask any questions about the whether they supported him on the issues. That would just muddy the intellectual waters, and take the sting out of the implication that is to follow.

I guess I'm all of the above, then.

(Thanks to Break The Matrix)

The Obamessiah is losing, and is ignoring the advice of fellow Democrats on how to reverse the trend.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Barack Obama and his senior advisers are under fire for ignoring the advice of Democratic senators and goveors who are concerned that they do not know how to beat John McCain.

The Democratic presidential candidate's slump in the polls has sparked pointed private criticism that he is squandering a once-in-a-generation chance to win back the White House.

Party elders also believe the Obama camp is in denial about warnings from Democratic pollsters that his true standing is four to six points lower than that in published polls because of hidden racism from voters - something that would put him a long way behind Mr McCain.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that senators, governors and union leaders who have experience of winning hard-fought races in swing states have been bombarding Obamas campaign headquarters with telephone calls offering advice. But many of those calls have not been returned.

A senior Democratic strategist, who has played a prominent role in two presidential campaigns, told The Sunday Telegraph: "These guys are on the verge of blowing the greatest gimme in the history of American politics. They're the most arrogant bunch Ive ever seen. They won't accept that they are losing and they won't listen."

After leading throughout the year, Mr Obama now trails Mr McCain by two to three points in national polls.

Party leaders and commentators say that the Democrat candidate spent too much of the summer enjoying his own popularity and not enough defining his positions on the economy - the number one issue for voters - or reaching out to those blue collar workers whose votes he needs if he is to beat Mr McCain.

Others concede that his trip to Europe was a distraction that enhanced his celebrity status rather than his electability on Main Street, USA.

Since Sarah Palin was unveiled as Mr McCain's running mate, the Obama

camp has faced accusations that it has been pushed off message and has been limp in responding to attacks.

Ahhhhh......Fall is in the air! And so is circumcision.

From the Meming of Life:

It was originally a religious ceremony, a (quite strange, if you think about it) symbol of faithfulness to God. But interestingly, circumcision was not common outside of Jewish and Muslim practice until the 1890s, when a few religious enthusiasts, including the strange character JH Kellogg, recommended it as a cure for “masturbatory insanity.” Kellogg spent much of his professional effort combating the sexual impulse and helping others to do the same, claiming a plague of masturbation-related deaths in which “a victim literally dies by his own hand” and offering circumcision as a vital defense. “Neither the plague, nor war, nor small-pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as this pernicious habit,” warned a Dr. Alan Clarke (referring to masturbation, not circumcision).

Given these jeremiads by well-titled professionals, the attitudes of American parents in the 1890s turned overnight from horror at the barbarity of this “un-Christian” practice to immediate conviction that it would save their boys from short and insane lives. It was even reverse-engineered as a symbol of Christian fidelity and membership in the church.

(Isn’t it a relief that we’ve left this kind of mass gullibility so very far behind?)

The supposed health benefits and other red herrings were created after the fact, in the early 20th century, to undergird sexual repression with a firm foundation of pseudoscience.

From Jacob Sullum @ Reason's Hit & Run blog:

Yesterday the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the state's smoking ban applies to private clubs as well as businesses open to the general public. Washington's Clean Indoor Air Act, passed in 1985, exempts "private facilities which are occasionally open to the public except upon the occasions when [they are] open to the public." An initiative approved by voters in 2005 broadened the ban to cover "places of employment." American Legion Post 149 in Bremerton challenged the Kitsap County Board of Health's attempt to stop its members from smoking at the post home, where all seven employees are relatives of members and all but one smoke, arguing that the exemption for private facilities remained in force. A five-judge majority of the state Supreme Court disagreed. Four judges dissented, with one of them, Richard Sanders, concluding

that if the majority's interpretation of the law is correct, the law is unconstitutional:

I would hold the Act does not apply to the Post Home as a private facility. Alternatively, if the Post Home's status as a private facility does not limit the Act's application, I would hold the Act is void for vagueness; unduly interferes with the Post Home's right of intimate association; violates the Post Home's substantive due process rights absent actual proof of a real and substantial relation between secondhand smoke and workplace dangers; and violates equal protection by distinguishing between two classes of business without reasonable grounds.

The answer is here.

(Thanks to Cato-at-Liberty)
For more visit the above link.

The really funny, and more to the point, honest answer is here.

That would be the day the Democrats and Republicans turned their backs on the Constitution of the United States.
From Reason Online's article on the subject:

We must, and we shall, set the tide running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom.
Barry Goldwater, accepting the 1964 Republican presidential nomination

This year's Republican National Convention had a different theme for each day. Monday was "Serving a Cause Greater than Self." Tuesday was "Service," Wednesday was "Reform," and Thursday was "Peace."

So what was missing? Only what used to be held up as the central ideal of the party. The heirs of Goldwater couldn't spare a day for freedom.

Neither could the Democrats. Their daily topics this year were "One Nation," "Renewing America's Promise," and "Securing America's Future." The party proclaimed "an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights." Expanding and upholding individual liberty? Not so much.

Forty-four years after Goldwater's declaration, it's clear that collectivism, not individualism, is the reigning creed of Republicans as well as Democrats. Individuals are not valuable and precious in their own right but as a means for those in power to achieve their grand ambitions.

You will scour the presidential nominees' acceptance speeches in vain for any hint that your life is rightfully your own, to be lived in accordance with your beliefs and desires and no one else's. The Founding Fathers set out to protect "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," but Barack Obama has a different idea.

The "essence of America's promise," he declared in Denver, is "individual responsibility and mutual responsibility"—rather than, say, individual freedom and mutual respect for rights. The "promise of America," he said, is "the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper."

In reality, that fundamental belief is what you might call the promise of socialism. What has set this country apart since its inception is not the notion of obligations but the notion of rights.

"All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself," wrote the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. "The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary co-existence of individuals."

Here's an entertaining and insightful commentary on the state of American politics from the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller.

Everyone I talk to seems to think the president of the United States right now is stupid.

The Bush presidency is stupid speeches, stupid high gas prices, stupid bad economy, stupid war on terrorism, stupid war on drugs, stupid hurricane fixing, stupid global warming, stupid war -- stupid, stupid, stupid.

They all seem to think we need to get a smarter guy in the White House fast, and Bush is so stupid, that task shouldn't be too hard.

Not me.

I'd like to say that I believe every president in United States history, including the stupid one we have now, is smarter than me. My alma mater is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show on Earth Clown College, so I'm damning with faint praise, but I'm stupider than this here stupid president.

Maybe I'm less stupider than Bush than I'm stupider than Jefferson. But I'm stupider than all the stupid in both of them put together.

The idea, especially from the Democrats that I know, is, we just get a smarter guy in the White House, and all the problems will go away. We'll have smart speeches, smart high gas prices, smart bad economy, smart war on terrorism, smart war on drugs, smart hurricanes, smart global warming, smart war in Georgia -- smart, smart, smart.

Read the whole thing here.

From Real Clear Politics(RCP):

The potential political consequences of Sarah Palin have been chewed over from every imaginable angle.

Though there is plenty to ponder, one thing is certain: libertarian-inclined voters should be encouraged. No, I'm not suggesting that your little Molly will be bringing home "The Road to Serfdom" from her (distinctly non-public) elementary school. But in contrast to any national candidate in recent memory, Palin is the one that exudes the economic and cultural sensibilities of a geniune Western-style libertarian.

Now, Palin's lack of experience has been framed as an impenetrable negative. One wire story helpfully noted that Palin had never ever appeared on "Meet the Press." Shocking! But as Barack Obama often notes, it's not about experience, it's about judgment. And Palin's penchant for reform-minded conservatism is certainly at odds with the racket Washington Republicans have offered up the past 8 years.

Palin, for example, vetoed 300 pork projects in Alaska in her first year in office. She made a habit of knocking out big-government Republicans in her brief political career. For this, the 44-year-old mother of five enjoys a sterling approval rating in a state with arguably the nation's most libertarian-minded populace.

When it comes to healthcare, Palin says she wants to "allow free-market competition and reduce onerous government regulation." These days, any mention of the "free market" that's not framed as a crass pejorative is a sign of progress.

Culturally, there is little for the Heartland to dislike. By now, you've probably seen picture or two of Palin sporting a rifle. Apparently, she's left carcasses strewn across the Alaskan wilderness. In some places -- areas where the nation is growing -- owning a gun is not yet a sin. And unlike Obama, Palin seems to believe that the Second Amendment means the exact same thing in rural Alaska as it does in the streets of Chicago.

Yes, Palin is without argument a staunch social conservative. She is fervently opposed to abortion - even in cases of rape and incest, which will raise eyebrows, but is certainly more philosophically consistent than the namby pambyism of your average politician. The choice issue, after all, is complicated, even for many libertarians. And, as I was recently reminded, Ron Paul, the Libertarian champion of the 21st century, also opposes abortion.

Even when advocating for "moral" issues, Palin's approach is a soft sell. Palin does not support gay marriage (neither does Obama, it should be noted). Yet, in 2006, Palin's first veto as Governor was a bill that sought to block state employee benefits and health insurance for same-sex couples.

We cannot bore into Palin's soul to see her true feelings about gay couples, but, at the time, she noted that signing "this bill would be in direct violation of my oath of office" because it was unconstitutional. For most libertarians, the thought of politician following any constitution, rather than their own predilections, morality or the "common good," is a nice change of pace.

From Reason's Hit & Run:

Q: So libertarian-minded people should be fine with that, right?

A: Let me tell you all the nice things about Sarah Palin: Sarah Palin has been a pretty freaking awesome governor. She came in saying that the entire system was corrupt, and that Republicans were evil, and she was going to just mix everything up and get us a gas pipeline and end of story. And she got to power, she was elected overwhelmingly by independents, beat Tony Knowles, who had been governor before.

The Republicans hate her. If you go and talk to the Alaska delegation here, they despise her.

Q: Really?

A: Hate her. Oh my god! This whole thing about her retarded son really being her daughter's was started by Lyda Green, who is president of the senate, a Republican. [...]

She gave a two-finger salute to Conoco Phllips and Exxon Mobile, raised their taxes on their oil, put in place a transparent way to bid for the seed money and the licenses to finally, finally, put in a natural gas pipeline in Alaska. And it was won by a Canadian company. And she went to the mat and made it happen. She has been systematically pulling the drilling licenses of Conoco Phillips and Exxon Mobile for areas that they haven't touched. I mean, they've been hoarding reserves, and she says, you know, use it or lose it, and she has been sending the attorney general time after time to revoke these things. It's absolutely fascinating.

Gosh, The Onion's Faux News division likes to hit a point squarely on the head don't they?

Four years ago The Slate dropped this Little Nugget and the info still holds true: Your Vote Does NOT COUNT. (Basically.)
For better odds, play Lotto.

Words cannot describe. Just listen.



And here we have the lyrics:

An excellent article about my home town from Pop Sci that I just couldn't resist.
From PopSci.com:

This spring the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation released the draft environmental impact statement for the Fresh Kills Park Project, their plan to turn the Fresh Kills landfill—hitherto best known as a smelly Staten Island mountain—into a world class public park. The statement will be discussed at an open public hearing on September 4th, 2008, and work begins next year on the project's first small section—wrapping around the landfill's north mound and reaching down to the waterfront. This sliver should be finished within a few years, though the park in its entirety is expected to take around 30 years to complete, with $198 million in initial funding, but much more needed along the line.

It seems to me that some people still haven't realized that people will move away from higher tax hellholes, moving out to the suburbs or even, in some instances, out of the State completely.

From TaxProf Blog:

A California activist is trying to gather the 694,354 signatures needed to place a tax initiative on the ballot that would:

• Impose a new 35% income surtax (in addition to federal taxes and the existing 10.3% top state rate) -- 17.5% (on all of the taxpayer's income) when income exceeds $150,000 (single)/$250,000 (joint), and an additional 17.5% (again, on all of the taxpayer's income) when income exceeds $350,000 (single)/$500,000 (joint).
• Impose a one-time 55% wealth tax on assets exceeding $20 million held by a California resident or held in California by nonresident.
• Impose an exit tax of between 36.5% to 54.3% on both income and unrealized appreciation in asset values over $5 million when a resident dies or leaves California

More "Newspeak" from the speech police.

From Protein Wisdom:

– A Utopia, of sorts, where “unity” prevails — even if in order to do so free speech is (like some bad Disney project) “re-imagined” as a right that is heavily policed by the state, with the upshot being that only the speech that doesn’t hurt or offend or cause a rift in the progressive unity continuum is protected, with the rest relegated to a growing repository for what is termed “hate speech.”

The argument goes something like this: in order to have free speech, everyone must be able to have his say. But one is not able to have his say if one’s say is not respected, or is met with “intolerant” counter speech — such that intolerance is equated with a refusal to allow the speech of others equal intellectual standing, regardless of its flaws, inconsistencies, lies, etc.

To point out such things is to engage in a “tyranny of facts” — and as we all know, “tyranny” is bad and ugly and wrong. Thus, in a country increasingly unmoored from Enlightenment thinking and the founders’ animating ideological principles, best captured in classical liberalism and some soft forms of libertarianism, “free speech” has become, perversely, a means by which to grant speech the kind of enforced moral relativism favored by — and in fact demanded by — the totalitarian underpinnings of “progressivism.” As with its sociological counterparts, multiculturalism and the “diversity movement,” acceptable speech is increasingly determined by how little it offends.

Or, to put it another way, free speech — which was conceived as a way to protect unpopular speech from majoritarian tyranny and governmental intimidation — is now, in a perfect Orwellian flip, being re-imagined as a way toward “unity,” by factoring out as hateful those bits of speech that move us further away from a leftist Utopia, where we all stand as one, honoring the state and it charismatic secular godhead.

Here we have an excellent article from Mr. Alexander S. Peak.(Special thanks to the good people at Bureaucrash.com)

From the article:

In life, we often find ourselves encountering fundamental min-understandings. Nowhere is this more detrimental to harmony—or more annoying generally—than in the realm of politics.

One such fundamental misunderstanding concerns anarchy. What is anarchy? Who exemplifies its advocacy? What does anarchism entail?

Ask different people, and you will get different answers—even among self-described anarchists. But if there is one thing on which I hope all anarchists can agree, it is this: The Joker is not an anarchist!

From the fine people at Reason.com:

At the DNC. Rev. Al Sharpton, rushing from point A to point B, gets waylaid by a reason staffer. Another person horns in, and the following fragmented exchange occurs:

Fan: Reverend, Reverend! Can you sign my pocket Constitution?

Sharpton: (distracted) I won’t sign anything I haven’t read.

Sharpton rushes off, leaving a disappointed autograph seeker in his wake.

David Harsanyi has an excellent op-ed piece in the Denver Post.

From the op-ed:

What happens when presidents from more than 100 of the nation's best-known colleges call on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18? Well, a brigade of hyperbolic mommies start screaming at them, that's what.

In the Amethyst Initiative, college presidents have offered a rational, if counterintuitive, plan. Let's stop treating young adults like wards of the state. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (naturally) replied: No debate allowed.

From ABCNews.com:

People are (or will be) having sex all around America today. But that's nobody's business. Sex is a private matter, right? Except that local authorities sometimes say it is their business.

This playset from Playmobil is up for auction on Ebay (courtesy of Stupid Security).
You have got to check it out.

I got a kick out of this, thought you would, too.




What A Clip - video powered by Metacafe

From the movie's website:

Based on the short story Harrison Bergeron by celebrated author Kurt Vonnegut, 2081 depicts a dystopian future in which, thanks to the 212th Amendment to the Constitution and the unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General, everyone is finally equal... The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains. It is a poetic tale of triumph and tragedy about a broken family, a brutal government, and an act of defiance that changes everything.

From Jacob Sullum @ Reason's Hit & Run Blog:

On Tuesday the city council of Helena—West Helena, Arkansas, unanimously gave police the authority to impose a 24-hour curfew on any part of the city. A.P. reports that a 24-hour curfew already has been in effect in one especially crime-ridden neighborhood of the town for a week. (Doesn't that make it a 168-hour curfew?) So far the curfew has resulted in 32 arrests, mostly for misdemeanors. Although police, who are armed with "military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights" as well as "short-barrel shotguns," could arrest people simply for leaving their homes

From Pajama's Media:

In his color-coded article, “The Color-Coded Campaign,” John Heilemann doesn’t just hint that racial prejudice will prevent Barack Obama from winning the White House. He states it directly and without equivocation. The reason America’s first black major party presumptive presidential nominee hasn’t blown out the intractably boring and uninspiring John McCain in the polls, given “surging” Democratic voter registration and voters’ disenchantment with Republicans, is his skin color.

It wouldn’t have anything to do with Obama’s liberal beliefs, inexperience, gaffes, and inconsistencies, would it? No, it’s because he’s black, says Heilemann and other liberals. Lurking just below the surface of any white person’s criticism of Barack Obama is racial bias. Heilemann’s article leaves the impression that Obama longs to take the high road and rise above such distractions; Republicans and other white people just won’t let him.

For more, visit this website.

Today we take a break from all the depressing and rather frustrating political news to bring you a little bit of whimsy.

This article from Wikipedia is an excellent spark for debate on our two-party system.

Today we bring you an excellent article from Aaron Nye on Helium.com. where he posits some very interesting and very true facts about modern secondary education.

Here's a snippet from Mr. Nye's article:

It seems that people these days are content to watch "American Idol" and "Entertainment Tonight" on television rather than actually learn anything. Most folks have forgotten (or more to the point, never knew) what learning is. Critical thinking has gone, like so many other invaluable skills, the way of the do-do. In ancient Greece, universities were not the classroom style, rote memorization facilities of indoctrination of today. Indeed, they were far from what passes for modern education. They actually taught people the skill of philosophy.

First, just let me say hello again, and, mea culpa for the extended absence. There's been some rather "interesting" personal stuff going on on the Professor's homestead. I'd also like to thank Mr. Blogins for the the post a couple of weeks ago. Having said all that, lets get back to the show.

In the future, when we start to mass-produce designer CLONES, The Dow/M3/GM/Time-Warner/Haliburton mega-conglomerate known as UltraCorp will need a jingle for their lovable, oh-so hugable (yet,eerily familiar) products. I think Nellie McKay's got it ready to go:

And speaking of Oil prices.

From ScrappleFace:

When the U.S. Supreme Court reconvenes on the first Monday in October, the nine Justices may consider whether the Constitutional preamble clause “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” guarantees an individual right to drill for oil.

Did you know that 650,000 minors get alcohol from their parents? Sweet zombie Jesus! God forbid parents responsibly introduce alcohol to their own children at an age they think it's proper to do so.

We wouldn't want any responsible drinkers running around the streets, now would we?
Besides, what would the media and politicians have to bitch about? Guns? Oil prices? The price of tea in China? Okay, so they'd still have a lot to piss and moan about, but, you get my point.

And here we have a sensible article from Time magazine about drinking with your kids and doing it responsibly.

Here's a little snippet:

Today news stories offer grim accounts of high school parties that end in gruesome wrecks and of college kids killing themselves by consuming, say, 100 shots in as many minutes. Last year the Surgeon General issued a "call to action" to prevent underage drinking; the National Institutes of Health issued a similar one in 2002.

The calls to action make it sound as if America's high schools have become one enormous kegger, but in fact alcohol use among high school students has fallen dramatically. The Monitoring the Future surveys conducted by the University of Michigan show that in 1991, 81% of eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders had had at least one drink in their lives; by last year, the figure was only 58%. Roughly 47% of this cohort had been drunk at least once in 1991; in 2007 only 38% had ever been drunk. On college campuses, meanwhile, the ranks of nondrinkers are rising steadily. In 1980 only 18% of college students surveyed for Monitoring the Future said they had not had a drink in the past month; by 2006 the proportion had risen to 35%.

And yet the typical college president can offer sad anecdotes about students dead from alcohol poisoning. Those deaths are still so rare that it's impossible to prove they are increasing. But according to Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health, 26% of college kids who drink say they have forgotten where they were or what they did at least once; the figure was 18% for college men in the late 1940s, according to the seminal 1953 book Drinking in College. We think of the midcentury as a gin-soaked era, but when the Drinking in College authors asked students whether they had suffered an "accident or injury" as a result of alcohol (without defining precisely whether that meant only physical injury or also alcohol poisoning), only 6% of drinkers said they had. The figure has now more than doubled, to 13%.

So the data indicate there are fewer young drinkers, but a greater proportion of them are hard-core drinkers. Parents have helped create this paradox. Many parents seem torn between two competing impulses: officially, most say in surveys that they oppose any drinking by those under 21. But unofficially many also seem to think kids will be kids--after all, not so long ago, they were themselves drinking as teens. A few of these parents have even allowed their kids to have big drunken parties at home.

But there is a better way. At first it sounds a little nutty, but you might consider drinking with your kids. Incongruously, the way to produce fewer problem drinkers is to create more drinkers overall--that is, to begin to create a culture in which alcohol is not an alluring risk but part of quotidian family life. Of course, that's a mostly European approach to alcohol, but there's reason to think it could work here. And it may be the best way to solve the binge-drinking problem.

*Okay, so it was a large snippet. So sue me.

And you probably shouldn't open this in front of your kids either.

Today we see the Supreme Court finally admit that the second amendment is an individual right along with the rest of the bill of rights. So all of you gun nuts (I'm one too) rejoice.

Although I feel kind of bad for the poor gun control advocates. Their logic may have been flawed and they may have used emotional manipulation to get their favorite pieces of legislation passed, but dammit, they're nice decent people...........Aah, who am I kidding? A gun control advocate is just like any other power hungry, megalomaniac out there.

And the arguments have been the same for god knows how long. Don't you guy's think maybe you should change up your reasoning a little.

• Guns kill people - Guns don't kill people. A gun can't fire itself or load itself. A gun is a tool like so many other things and like so many other thing can be used for good or ill. So strike one for one of the many pieces of flawed logic by gun control advocates.

• The second amendment is a collective right - First of all, rights can not be collective in nature, two people don't have more rights than one person. Secondly, the second amendment

  A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms,(emphasis is mine) shall not be infringed

  clearly states the individuality of the right to keep and bear arms.
  

• It'll lower crime rates - The fact of the matter is that communities that have a high gun ownership rate are usually much safer than those that do not. Think about it. What criminal is going to try and rob or rape someone who's packing heat and knows (presumably) how to use it? Criminals have a tendency to go after easy marks, those they perceive to be weak or timid. Also, gun control laws only really affect law abiding citizens. They don't prevent criminals from getting guns. Criminals will just go to a black market gun dealer

Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year — on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court on Thursday all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrongheaded and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia’s gun-control law.

In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for nonmilitary uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a “militia.” The ruling will give gun-rights advocates a powerful new legal tool to try to strike down gun-control laws across the nation.

This is a decision that will cost innocent lives, cause immeasurable pain and suffering and turn America into a more dangerous country. It will also diminish our standing in the world, sending yet another message that the United States values gun rights over human life.

More here.

And here is the landmark Supreme Court decision.

In honor and tribute to a legend of comedy and defender of the first amendment:









I didn't always agree with George Carlin's views, but I did always respect the man.
Some of his views on politics drove me absolutely insane, but he always made you think. And for that I am thankful.

Now I know this is probably the point where I'm supposed to say something like, "He's in a better place now". But, if his stand up material on the matter is any indication, I don't think he'd very much like that if he were alive.

Mr. Carlin is dead. And there is nothing worse in the world for a family member or friend to go through than to lose a loved one. We all have had or will have that experience one day. And it is my greatest hope that each and every one of you take some comfort in the fact that your lost loved ones lived their lives to the fullest extent they could.

My sincerest condolences go out to Mr. Carlin's family and friends.

note: This probably isn't the best I could do, but, this is the best I've got.

You’ve seen him plenty of times on sitcoms; he’s the dumb, bumbling, idiot dad/husband/boyfriend who's useless at everything but bringing home a paycheck. The message: Guys are dumb and women, being the superior sex, have to lead them around. This, of course, cues the laugh track.
Yet a survey from an organization called Children Now found that two-thirds of kid respondents described men on TV as angry, while respondents from another group’s survey said men were portrayed as corrupt on TV by a 17 to 1 margin. Clearly, this is no laughing matter.

See the ads here.

Here's an excellent story by the fine folks @ NeoLibertarian on the hypocrisy of liberals and other "progressives" when it comes to "cultural imperialism".

From NeoLibertarian:

Today’s object lessons are the importance of international treaties, consensus, and organizations and one of the bugaboos of the left, American cultural imperialism.

One of the consistent, and not always incorrect, themes of criticism of the Bush administration has been its tendency to ‘go it alone’ or more provocatively ‘cowboy’ its way through the world, scorning international associations and treaties and provoking international opinion.

A more general criticism, as in of the whole United States not just of the Bush Administration, is that America practices ‘cultural imperialism,’ i.e. supplanting local culture with our own. This is accepted as always bad, since evidently there is no bigger threat to cultures the world over than being able to get a decent hamburger, but I digress . . .