July 15 — 21, 2007

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Ender's Review
of the Web

Web articles of likely interest to individualists found during the preceding week.
 

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Pursuing Liberty

Articles showing the positive influence of action in the pursuit of Liberty.

How the "Balance Sheet" Mentality is Changing American Freedom

      By Jim Amrhein from Whiskey & Gunpowder

"Think about this for a minute. Is there any liberty-based debate in the public discourse today that doesn’t center on an argument about numbers — that hasn’t become merely a contest of 'dueling statistics?' The point of those statistics is always the same: To determine whether a freedom makes bottom-line sense in a twisted equation in which liberty is allowed to stand or fall based solely on its mercantile merits… "

http://www.whiskeyandgunpowder.com/Archives/2007/20070716.html

Yes to Recriminations against Iraq Policymakers

      By Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"The people of the region will need to figure things out for themselves. Real peace and freedom cannot be imposed by bayonets and bombs, especially when wielded by a foreign occupier."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0707e.asp

Libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul is reaching across many lines

      By Michael J. Mishak from Las Vegas Sun

"The punk band members, with spiked hair, tattooed arms and pierced everythings, stood with a crowd of more than 300 and cheered at the rock star on stage, especially when he called for abolishing the Federal Reserve - you know, the banking system that for nearly a century has helped stabilize the U.S. economy, give or take a Great Depression."

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2007/jul/15/566680220.html

Dismissal of weapons charge seen as ‘huge progress’

      By Corina Curry from Rockford Register Star

"Kranish, 22, was arrested in May 2006 for carrying the unloaded gun at the mall in what has been described as an enclosed holster, meaning the gun is not exposed. Kranish had the ammunition for the gun in a separate compartment on the holster, which was strapped to his right thigh."

http://www.rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20070720/NEWS0107/107200032/1004/NEWS

Life in Amerika

Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on the cause of Liberty.

A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth?

      By Paul Craig Roberts from CounterPunch

"Allegedly, the U.S. is a free and open country with a free press and a government accountable to the people. Yet the information fed to the American people is as thoroughly false as that fed to the citizens of Oceania by Big Brother through the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's famous novel."

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07182007.html

Court: Feds can read e-mail, IP addresses without warrant

      By Nate Anderson from Ars Technica

"The government is currently allowed to deploy 'pen registers'—devices that can record every telephone number a suspect dials—without a warrant, since a list of telephone numbers is considered only addressing information and not content. This is analogous to the US Postal Service, where anyone can read information on the outside of an envelope but can't look at the contents. The Ninth Circuit ruled that grabbing e-mail addresses and IP addresses without a warrant amounts to the same thing, and is legal. This is the first time that a federal court has ruled on the issue."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/
20070715-court-feds-can-read-e-mail-ip-addresses-without-warrant.html

Pain Medication: Keep Chilled

      By Jacob Sullum from Reason

"In a sense, Hurwitz was lucky. Yet what doctor wants to take a chance of ending up in a situation anything like his, where honest mistakes could be treated as felonies? Rannazzisi emphasized that the DEA investigates only a tiny percentage of doctors each year. But the chilling effect of cases like Hurwitz's extends far beyond the few who lose their prescription privileges or go to prison."

http://www.reason.com/news/show/121438.html

Federal Agents Using Spyware

      By Bruce Schneier from Schneier on Security

"U.S. drug enforcement agents use key loggers to bypass both PGP and Hushmail encryption: 'An agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration persuaded a federal judge to authorize him to sneak into an Escondido, Calif., office believed to be a front for manufacturing the drug MDMA, or Ecstasy. The DEA received permission to copy the hard drives' contents and inject a keystroke logger into the computers'."

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/07/federal_agents_1.html

Ordered Liberty without the State

Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.

China: From Death Camp to Civilization

      By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from LewRockwell.com

"When you hear about shoddy products coming from China or wheat poorly processed, imagine millions in famine, with parents swapping children to eat in order to stay alive. And what do China's critics today recommend? More control by the government. Don't tell me that we've learned anything from history. We don't even know enough about history to learn from it."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/china2.html

Entrepreneurial Evil

      By Robert Wicks from Strike The Root

"It is my firm conviction that, whenever there exists a problem which is both persistent and widespread, the hand of the state may be found, either actively causing the problem, or preventing its speedy resolution. ... Entrepreneurs are opportunists. They see people in need of something, and take risks to offer them goods and services for a profit. It's a win-win situation. The state also employs its opportunists. They wait for legal openings to expand their own power and influence, and consequently the power and influence of the state."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/wicks/wicks1.html

How the Free Market Would Handle Quarantines

      By Robert Murphy from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"In a free society where pieces of property are all assigned ownership to specific individuals, there would be no such thing as a person having his 'right to walk around' revoked — because there's no such thing as a 'right to walk around' in the first place. Rather, what could happen is that someone is considered so dangerous that all of the reputable health agencies place him at the top of their lists, and they hold news conferences, send out emails and faxes, etc. to alert the relevant owners to look out for this person. Major property owners would probably have prearranged agreements on how to deal with cases like this, so that the response could be coordinated."

http://www.mises.org/story/2635

In defense of immigration: Almost everything you think you know is wrong

      By Brad Spangler from BradSpangler.com

"What part of the word 'anarchist' do you not understand? I am engaged in actively denying the illusionary legitimacy of any government, the very foundation of any program for tyrannical rule, and have been doing so for quite some time."

http://www.bradspangler.com/blog/archives/706

Spreading Decentralism

Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.

My Body, My Choice

      By James L. Payne from The American Conservative

"Paying your own medical bills is simply another way of limiting consumption: if a treatment costs too much, you don’t buy it. The advantage of self-rationing is that it is frank and open and thus avoids the whining and blaming that characterize bureaucratic systems."

http://amconmag.com/2007/2007_07_16/article.html

Skyscrapers learn to chill out

      By Bates Rambow from aBetterEarth.Org

"[W]ater is frozen in big tanks at night when power demands are low. One the ice is formed, cool air that comes off the ice is piped through a circulation system, like traditional air conditioning. This type of system can be used alone, or in conjunction with other cooling systems in order to reduce power demands during peak usage hours. "

http://www.abetterearth.org/blog/id.4157/news_detail.asp

The Ron Paul Movement

      By Jesse Walker from Reason

"The congressman's fans really do want him to do as well as possible in the polls. But victory isn't the only thing on their minds. For many of them it isn't even the topmost thing on their minds. Like those Snakes on a Plane spoofs, the grassroots activity around Paul's campaign is interesting and valuable in itself. ... For Paul, it's a victory just to be on stage with Rudolph Giuliani arguing for a non-interventionist foreign policy, because it serves as a reminder that it's possible to be a fiscal conservative with bourgeois cultural instincts and yet oppose the occupation of Iraq and the effort to extend that war into Iran."

http://reason.com/news/show/121399.html

Big Government, Big Fire

      By Randal O'Toole from Cato Institute

"Forest ecosystems vary tremendously, so there is no one right combination of fuel treatment, fire suppression, and wildfire. But today's highly centralized Forest Service responds more to national political priorities than to local forest conditions. The solution is to decentralize federal forests so wildfire decisions are responsive to the local environment. "

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8490

The New World Hegemon

Depictions of the coming Imperial power

Missing Bush

      By Anthony Gregory from Strike The Root

"Bush will likely be president for 18 more months, yet I'm already kinda missing the guy. Whereas it took me a couple years of Bush before I felt this way for Clinton , I'm already having hints of nostalgia for Bush. Why? How? Mostly, it's Rudy Giuliani. Have you heard this man talk? I can't endure it for a minute. I thought I hated hearing Shrub mutter. But at least there's a strain of comedy value in the Babbling Bush. He sounds kind of funny, like an evil but goofy clown. There's a chuckle to be had on occasion. Even if it's black comedy. Rudy is just terrifying, not funny at all. ... Under either Hillary or Rudy, expect more crackdowns, more spending, more military deployments, more bombings, more databases, more police, more laws, more government."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/gregory/gregory2.html

Are We There Yet?

      By Sara Robinson from Orcinus

"The America that would accept this kind of edict in silence is not the America that we grew up in. Something has changed. We are poised to accept this like we've accepted every other insult. It's hard to imagine that, even when bloggers and other dissenters start losing their property, that there will be tens of thousands in the streets to protect us."

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/07/are-we-there-yet.html

Immigration Tyranny

      By Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"A popular argument among advocates of immigration controls is that a nation has a 'right' to control its borders. ... What the advocates of control never address, however, is a related situation: If the government has the 'right' to prevent people from coming into the country, why doesn’t it have the correlative 'right' to prevent people from leaving the country? Doesn’t control over the borders connote control in both directions? "

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0707f.asp

No More Mister Nice Guy: Newsweek's Kremlin Fairy Tale

      By Chris Floyd from Empire Burlesque

"[T]he reality is that Putin is now what he has always been, even when George Bush was looking into his 'soul' and finding a good buddy, even when the Russian leader was being praised in every Western capital as a breath of fresh air after the fetid Yeltsin era. Putin is a creature -- and ardent champion -- of the Russian 'security organs': a KGB man through and through, dedicated to control, authority, secrecy, and lawlessness in the service of 'security' and 'stability' and 'national greatness.' (Yes, this sounds exactly like a good Bushist; the L'il Pretzel wasn't lying when he said he saw a kindred spirit in Putin.) "

http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/
No_More_Mister_Nice_Guy%3A_Newsweek%27s_Kremlin_Fairy_Tale/

Politics by Other Means

War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.

Why They Won’t Impeach

      By Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com

"Mr. Bush has greatly expanded the exercise of arbitrary, unrestrained executive power and, in so doing, ended any pretense of a system of constitutionally-defined government. With the idea of an imperial presidency so readily accepted by most Americans, the owners and managers of the political order are reluctant to advocate any actions that might threaten this newly-gained source of power."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer160.html

Impeach Now

      By Paul Craig Roberts from CounterPunch

"If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the 'unitary executive' at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of 'national emergency' and the return of the draft. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance."

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07162007.html

Note to Republicans: Impeach Bush

      By Jonathan David Morris from The Free Liberal

"If we don't impeach Bush, we'll be telling future presidents to use torture, hold people without trial, and break international treaties. If we don't impeach Bush, we'll be telling future presidents to start whatever domestic surveillance programs they desire, and get us into whatever wars they feel like getting us into. If we don't impeach Bush, we'll be telling future presidents to issue hundreds of 'signing statements,' so they don't have to follow the new laws they're attached to. In fact, if we don't impeach Bush, we'll be telling future presidents to ignore laws altogether."

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/002873.html

Why America needs immigration amnesty

      By Garry Reed from Loose Cannon Libertarian

"Both BigGov Democrats and BigGov Republicans know full well that the only way to save their mutually cherished authoritarian socialist welfare state is to keep the taxpaying base of the ponzi pyramid bigger than the tax-eating top. They didn't want to fashion a fast-track citizenship program for illegal immigrants out of 'fairness' after all; they desperately needed to conscript as many bodies as possible into the legally sanctioned aboveground workforce where their fleecy tax coats could be sheered at will."

http://www.freecannon.com/ImmigrationAmnesty.htm

Spontaneous Order

Articles showing decentralized successes.

When Elephants Dance: Get ready (finally) for faster Internet speeds at lower prices

      By Robert X. Cringely from I, Cringely

"The cable TV companies want to steal from the telcos basic phone service while the telcos want to steal television service from the cable companies. Since either possibility requires advanced data services and more bandwidth, users benefit. U.S. telcos, notably AT&T and Verizon, are aggressively building out their fiber plants, though AT&T is taking its fiber only as far as the curb while Verizon is taking fiber directly into the home. "

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070720_002525.html

Fire at 10 Pesos -- U.S. businesses accept pesos. Immigration hawks go nuts

      By Katherine Mangu-Ward from Reason

"In fact, border towns have long accepted foreign currencies in North America. The hand wringing about the possibility that Dallas pizzerias and discount stores accepting pesos will somehow enable or support illegal immigration ignores longstanding policies at Wal-Mart, H-E-B supermarkets, and other American chains in towns along the Mexican border to accept pesos."

http://www.reason.com/news/show/121501.html

Study identifies energy efficiency as reason for evolution of upright walking

      By staff from UANews.org

"Bipedalism marks a critical divergence between humans and other apes and is considered a defining characteristic of human ancestors. It has been hypothesized that the reduced energy cost of walking upright would have provided evolutionary advantages by decreasing the cost of foraging."

http://uanews.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/
UANews.woa/wa/MainStoryDetails?ArticleID=14030

Wait is on for life-saving organs

      By Chris Swingle from Democrat & Chronicle

"LifeSharers believes that people who are willing to be organ donors themselves should get priority on waiting lists. Their members sign donor cards — from lifesharers.org, (888) 674-2688 — instructing their family and organ procurement officials to call LifeSharers for its members' names, to choose the one who's highest on the UNOS ranking for each organ. Federal and state laws allow donors, living or deceased, to direct donations to a particular person."

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20070719/NEWS01/707190369/1003

Nonspontaneous Disorder

Articles showing centrally planned disasters.

DiMA: SoundExchange is leveraging absurd fees to push DRM on web radio

      By Ken Fisher from Ars Technica

"Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the July 15 deadline for webcasters to start paying new royalty rates and per-station fees was temporarily put on hold for all but the largest webcasters. The eleventh-hour deal from SoundExchange at first appeared to be the breakthrough that was needed to keep Internet radio alive and kicking, but as we reported, the deal was a bit of a Trojan horse: SoundExchange wants webcasters to adopt Digital Rights Management (DRM) in exchange for better rates." [The FCC does not control these internet radio stations, so another mechanism was required. Free enterprise? Where?]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/
20070719-dima-soundexchange-is-leveraging-absurd-fees-to-push-drm.html

Exchange with Preston Glidden on Planned Obsolescence

      By Kevin Carson and Preston Glidden from Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism

"In regard to the specific example of TV and radio, my immediate reaction was that anyone independently producing such a digital upgrade module would probably run afoul of DRM or broadcast flag legislation, or some such cartelizing device. Such legislation has served pretty effectively to bar market entry and limit competition in DVD product features to the rate at which a handful of manufacturers want to spoon them out."

http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2007/07/exchange-with-preston-glidden-on.html

A Concrete Case of Unintended Consequences

      By Scott McPherson from LewRockwell.com

"Look past all the altruistic fanfare that surrounds licensing proposals and it’s not hard to see that limiting competition is often a major motivator – and limiting supply is always the result. This works out well for those who can pay all of the fees and jump all of the bureaucratic hurdles, but the rest of us pay a higher price, usually in the form of steeper fares and poorer service."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/mcpherson5.html

As ethanol production expands, so do dead zones

      By Bates Rambow from aBetterEarth.Org

"Nutrient runoff pollution is believed to be the leading factor contributing to the creation of the dead zones—areas void of most aquatic life—in waters like the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay. This year, the Gulf of Mexico dead zone is predicted to be the biggest ever recorded. Meanwhile, corn ethanol production is rapidly expanding—thanks largely to heavy government subsidies."

http://www.abetterearth.org/blog/id.4160/news_detail.asp

War Is The Health Of The State

War is the ultimate State intervention in society.

Islamofnordism

      By L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise,

"Maybe it isn't the people, after all. Maybe Roddenberry and all those other socialist science fiction writers have been wrong all along. Maybe Mankind isn't warlike to its genetic core—people don't start wars, after all, governments do; it's the people who are forced to fight them. Maybe war is the biological byproduct of putrescently corrupt politicians, the media pimps and prostitutes who service them, and a few well-chosen 'useful idiots' for man-in-the-street interviews and Congressional committee testimony. They're the 'insane barbers' who are responsible for the horrible, dangerous mess the world's in today."

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle426-20070715-02.html

Ahistorical "Libertarian" Warmongers

      By Sheldon Richman from Free Association.

"It was Sumner, echoing many before him, who pointed out that 'national defense' means 'war, debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmental system, pomp, glory, a big army and navy, lavish expenditures, political jobbery.' The liberals unfailingly understood that war meant the mass murder of innocents and regimentation at home. Nothing is easier for a politician than conjuring up a 'self-defense' justification for war, but the great classical liberals would have nothing to do with it."

http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2007/07/libertarian-warmongers.html

The Reich Wing: Bush-Era Conservatism as Reductio Ad Absurdum

      By William N. Grigg from Pro Libertate

"As the Iraq war ripens into the largest strategic catastrophe in our nation's history, dead-enders among the Bu'ushist faithful confront a sobering question. No, that question is not how to extricate our nation from the Mesopotamian morass, but rather how to deal with internal dissent."

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2007/07/reich-wing-bush-era-conservatism-as.html

America's Idiot Plot Syndrome

      By James Leroy Wilson from The Partial Observer

"Six years after 9-11, America is on the verge of bankruptcy, has lost her freedom, and has become the most hated country in the world. Meanwhile, bin Laden's Al Qaeda movement, once the extremist fringe of the extremist fringe of radical Sunni Islam, has exploded in numbers. If we saw a fictional account of a Presidential Administration this incompetent, we would dismiss it as too unbelievable."

http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=2622

Bits of History

The Past seen with a fresh look.

Why Germans Supported Hitler

      By Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Why did some Germans support the Hitler regime while others opposed it? Each American should first ask himself what he would have done if he had been a German citizen during the Hitler regime. Would you have supported your government or would you have opposed it, not only during the 1930s but also after the outbreak of World War II? After all, it’s one thing to look at Nazi Germany retrospectively and from the vantage point of an outside citizen who has heard since childhood about the death camps and of Hitler’s monstrous nature. ... Whether they agreed with the war effort or not, the German people were expected to support the troops, which meant supporting the war effort." [Sound familiar? This essay has two parts, the link below goes to part one, which also contains a link to part two.]

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0703a.asp

The Goal Is Freedom: The Common Sense of "Common Sense"

      By Sheldon Richman from Foundation for Economic Education

"Though written with passion, it was a carefully reasoned tract that had several objectives: to delegitimize hereditary monarchy, to show the practicality of independence from the British Empire, and to set out ideas for a republican form of government."

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=1448&year=2007&month=7

Helping students become 'responsible citizens'?

      By Vin Suprynowicz from Las Vegas Review-Journal

"America's schools aren't failing.... They're doing precisely what they were re-designed to do between the 1850s and the early 1900s, when America embarked on our current imperial/mercantilist adventure -- that is, to churn out little soldiers and factory workers with mindless obedience drilled in and with the higher critical faculties burned out of them through the process of feeding them learning in small unrelated bits like pre-digested gruel, till they neither know how nor feel any inclination to discern higher patterns, which might lead them to challenge the 'party line'."

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/8517012.html

The Unbearable Lightness of the Buck

      By Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva from Daily Reckoning

"Why did one small court adopt this argument while it left no mark otherwise on American jurisprudence? Despite Justice Mahoney, U.S. courts have rejected every other attempt to argue that the U.S. dollar is not the lawful, valuable money everyone thinks it is."

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/RSS/DR072007sec3.html

War and Peace

Articles showing the nature of War.

The Long History of Lies for War

      By David Gordon from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"The pattern of mendacity has remained constant in the fifty years since Korea. Everyone knows the manner in which Bush lied us into the Iraq war, but the invasion of Afghanistan has gotten a much better press. Was it not necessary to overthrow the Taliban government, which provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden? Quigley shows that this view rests on dubious assumptions."

http://www.mises.org/story/2622

Payback for NATO Expansion

      By Ivan Eland from The Independent Institute

"Those of us who opposed the expansion of NATO in 1999 (admitting Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) and 2004 (Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania) warned that it would lead to problems with Russia. Those problems have arrived. ... One need not have an affinity for Russia, Russians, or their autocratic leader to realize that the United States is principally to blame for the current tensions."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2000

The National Interest

      By James Leroy Wilson from Independent Country

"There are no good options, there is no way the U.S. can fix what it broke in Iraq, and current policy from now on should shift from the humanitarian or ideological and back to America's own security concerns. I understand the position that we are responsible for creating the mess, and therefore we are responsible for fixing it. I understand it, but I don't agree with it."

http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2007/07/national-interest.html

Clone Wars: The Replication of Ruin From Iraq to Somalia

      By Chris Floyd from Empire Burlesque

"The rough beast that is George W. Bush's Terror War replicates itself with remarkable fidelity. Each new monstrosity it brings forth exhibits the same markings, the same structure: a weak, corrupt client regime maintained in office by the occupation army of a foreign power, in brutal conflict with an ever-growing opposition led by -- but not limited to -- religious sectarians. "

http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/
Clone_Wars%3A_The_Replication_of_Ruin_From_Iraq_to_Somalia/

Great Individuals In History

Some people stand out from the crowd.

Innovator -- Robert Hooke : July 18, 1635

      By J J O'Connor and E F Robertson from School of Mathematics and Statistics - University of St Andrews, Scotland

"Hooke was never a person who did one thing at a time, indeed he seemed at his best when his mind was jumping from one idea to another. At the same time that he was working on the air pump he was also thinking about clocks and how they could be used in determining the longitude at sea. Realising the weakness of the pendulum clock in keeping time on a ship which was pitching and tossing, he wondered about the:- ... use of springs instead of gravity for making a body vibrate in any posture."

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hooke.html

Writer -- Jessamyn West : July 18, 1902

       From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The novel was adapted into a 1956 movie, Friendly Persuasion, starring Gary Cooper and directed by William Wyler. It was nominated for an Academy Award as 'best picture.' Her experiences as the movie's script writer are described in her autobiographical book To See the Dream."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessamyn_West_%28writer%29

Philosopher of Science -- Thomas Samuel Kuhn : July 18, 1922

      By Alexander Bird from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"[I]n 1962, Kuhn published his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in the series 'International Encyclopedia of Unified Science', edited by Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap. The central idea of this extraordinarily influential—and controversial—book is that the development of science is driven, in normal periods of science, by adherence to what Kuhn called a ‘paradigm’. The function of a paradigm is to supply puzzles for scientists to solve and to provide the tools for their solution. A crisis in science arises when confidence is lost in the ability of the paradigm to solve particularly worrying puzzles called ‘anomalies’. Crisis is followed by a scientific revolution if the existing paradigm is superseded by a rival."

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/#1

Actor -- Don Knotts : July 21, 1924

      By Jon C. Hopwood from IMDb

"Don's big break before he hooked up again with Andy Griffith was a regular gig on the 'The Steve Allen Show' (1956) hosted by Steve Allen, starting in 1956. He became well-known for his 'nervous man' shtick in the 'Man-on-the-Street' segments that were a staple of Allen's show. His character in the segments was a very nervous man obviously uptight about being interviewed on camera. He developed this into the fidgety, high-strung persona that he used successfully for the rest of his career."

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0461455/bio

Culcha'

Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.

UWA#36: Pretensions of immortality

      By Warren Bluhm from Uncle Warren's Attic

"I'll give you eclectic, my pretty -- and your little dog, too!" [Includes an excellent Josh White 'Welfare Blues' song and Warren's own 'The Radio Guy' along with much more. Web player available at site.]

http://unclewarrensattic.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=237203

Wilder's bleak commentary comes up aces

      Reviewed by Chris Garcia from Austin360.com

"Released in 1951, it's a newspaper drama about a reporter of crooked ways and Macbethian ambition. It's a moral story about media sensationalism gone berserk that has proved alarmingly prescient (O.J., Paris, Princess Di, the little girl who fell down the well — the Greatest Shows on Earth). It's a snapshot, an indictment, a warning gone unheeded."

http://www.austin360.com/movies/content/movies/stories/2007/07/0720garcia.html

The Deal with the Devil -- Part V: Trials and Tribulations

      By Claire Wolfe from Backwoods Home Magazine

"Might as well cut right to the chase. The fancy D.C. attorneys ended up living in the Harbibi bunkhouse for the duration. As promised, they swept for bugs every day -- and not only the electronic kind. They dined on the finest of pork and beans. … And Jen Carolina, in her pursuit of shortcuts to self-responsible adulthood, ended up in the toilet."

http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/wolfe070716.html

Harry Potter’s first reviews hail a gripping finale to epic spellbinder

      Other Reviews, Reviewed by Jack Malvern and Jonathan Richards from The Times

"Both reviews note that objects and spells from previous books become important in the unravelling of the plot, but the Sun suggests that some ardent fans will be disappointed that not all their questions are answered."

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article2106646.ece

The lighter side

Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.

John Edwards Vows To End All Bad Things By 2011

      By staff from The Onion

"In an effort to jump-start a presidential campaign that still has not broken into the top Democratic tier, former Sen. John Edwards made his most ambitious policy announcement yet at a campaign event in Iowa Monday: a promise to eliminate all unpleasant, disagreeable, or otherwise bad things from all aspects of American life by the end of his second year in office."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/63858

Return of the Jihad

      By Jon Stewart from The Daily Show

"Al-Qaeda's resurgence brings out the worst in the Bush Administration's math and logic."

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?lnk=v&ml_video=90161

March to Enslavement -- iPhone

      By Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report

"After begging with dignity, Stephen finally gets his free iPhone." video w/audio

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?lnk=v&ml_video=90177

Music Video Babe -- Kim Carnes

      By Tom Ender from The Sudden Curve

"1981 proved the true breakthrough year for her singing career. Her album Mistaken Identity provided hits which also became music videos. "

http://tonova.typepad.com/thesuddencurve/2007/07/music-video-b-1.html

Deep Thought

Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles

The Problem of Equality

      By Samuel Gregg from Acton Institute

"Such assumptions of equality are integral to the importance attached by commercial society to the very concept of rule of law as well as the equal protection accorded by the law to parties to a contract."

http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?article=393&wherefrom=email

Bizarro 'Libertarianism'

      By Justin Raimondo from Antiwar.com

"Noted libertarian legal scholar Randy Barnett's pro-war manifesto – which aims to reconcile classical liberalism and neoconservative foreign policy adventurism, and attacks Ron Paul for opposing the Iraq war – will doubtless go down in the history of the freedom movement as the founding document of Bizarro libertarianism, a misshapen byproduct of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11306

Web radio faces its death knell

      By staff from Guardian Unlimited

"If webcasters lose their battle, the options are limited. 'We would move outside the US, probably,' says Bill Goldsmith of small webcaster Radio Paradise. Another option is more ominous: Hanson believes that webcasters might cut direct deals with the labels. The labels would offer cheaper licences, he says, but those could come with a caveat: encroaching control of the stations' playlists." [The FCC does not control these internet radio stations, so another mechanism was required. Free enterprise? Where?]

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2129109,00.html

Research group promises multi-gigabit wireless within three years

      By Joel Hruska from Ars Technica

"Researchers at the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) have released results demonstrating multi-gigabit wireless data transfer rates of 15 Gbps at one meter, 10 Gbps at two meters, and five Gbps at five meters. "

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/
20070719-research-group-promises-multi-gigabit-wireless-within-three-years.html

Miscellany

Articles not easily classified

Farm on the Freeway

      By Tom Ender from Sunni and the Conspirators

"If I asked who might represent libertarians in progressive rock ... I doubt many would suggest Jethro Tull as the group to get the nod. However, on occasion, they deliver a subtle anti-state message."

http://www.sunnimaravillosa.com/node/1160

"There Is No Law Here"

      By Nat Hentoff from The Village Voice

" The Supreme Court last year also demolished the Bush team's insistence that the military commissions they had invented at Guantánamo—to sort out and try the prisoners—had anything to do with due process (i.e., fundamental fairness). Also, said the court, the prisoners must not be subjected to 'cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment.' Having brought back some respect for the rule of law by winning this case—defying the president, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney in the process—Swift's reward was the end of his military career."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0729,hentoff,77238,6.html

Bottom in Experience, Top in Polls

      By James Leroy Wilson from Independent Country

"I'm not saying that one must have years and years as a Washington insider or governor to be President, and Lord knows there are some awful people with tons of experience. But it should be noted that the top 3 contenders in each party have the least experience...."

http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2007/07/bottom-in-experience-top-in-polls.html

Is Vista an orphan?

      By Robert X. Cringely from InfoWorld

"And now we reluctantly leave our investigative series on hot one-on-one live chat and move to more mundane matters, namely Windows Vista. I've been getting a lot of posts and email about MS's craptacular new OS, both pro and con (but mostly con)."

http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/archives/2007/07/is_vista_an_orp.html

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