Nov. 11 — 17, 2007

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Ender's Review
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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.

Eminent Domain Gone Wild

      By Drew Carey from Reason.tv

"Eminent domain is the constitutionally sanctioned practice of taking land for legitimate public uses. Traditionally, that's meant things like roads and schools. Over the past several decades, however, governments have gone hog wild with eminent domain, routinely condemning property and turning it over to well-connected private developers as a way of subsidizing economic development and increasing tax revenues (never mind that it doesn't always work out that way)."

http://reason.tv/video/show/56.html

The War and the Wimp Factor

      By Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.com

"The War Party is good at lobbying the lords and ladies of the Beltway: inside deals, indirect subsidies, and outright pay-offs are the order of the day in Washington. Outside the Beltway, however, the commoners – that's you and me – are getting restless. A mass 'people's power' movement is what's going to bring down the Empire, in the end, just like similar movements brought down the Soviet empire in Eurasia and the Balkans."

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11916

Come on People! Bill Cosby is Right

      By Laura S. Washington from In These Times

"Few can object to the book’s core propositions: Cherish your children. Get an education. Speak standard English. Listen to the elders. Banish gun violence. No more excuses. It’s a no-brainer. As the scholars and intellectuals drone on from college campuses to legislatures to C-Span, their so-called 'victims' are never in the room. The elites don’t ask the folks who are toiling, suffering and, yes, striving. Cosby, on the other hand, has been asking. "

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3416/

Unholster the 2nd Amendment

      By Robert A. Levy from Cato Institute

"Significantly, the 2nd Amendment refers explicitly to 'the right of the people,' not the rights of states or the militia. And the Bill of Rights is the section of our Constitution that deals exclusively with individual liberties."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8794

Life in Amerika

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

Heading Towards the Police State

      By Bart Frazier from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Every year the United States becomes less free; the state controls more of our lives, takes more of our money, and takes from us more choices of how we are to live our lives. This is not the result of some government plot to establish a dictatorship but simply the natural progression of the state. Unless freedom is defended diligently, it disappears and is replaced by the police state."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0711f.asp

The Border Wall

      By Rad Geek from Rad Geek People's Daily

"The Border Patrol should not exist at all, and the men and women who decide to join it are, whether they realize it or not, violently inflicting injustices on innocent people every day, as an essential part of their job duties. Cruz seems to me like a basically decent man with an acute conscience, and it will be better for him now that he has to find an honest line of work."

http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/11/13/the_border/

Bleed for Public Safety

      By Radley Balko from The Agitator

"Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that police in the Dairy State may forcibly take roadside blood samples from suspected drunk drivers. And of course, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled more than 15 years ago that the police can set up sobriety checkpoints to stop random drivers to see if they're driving while intoxicated, even if they've otherwise done nothing wrong. Now put those two rulings together, and you get the what-the-hell-country-are-we-living-in, but very real, possibility you may soon be driving on a public road, doing nothing out of the ordinary and breaking no laws, then be stopped, questioned, and if the police officer doesn't like your answers, be forced to give him some of your blood. Ponder that for a sec. Ponder that in many states, you've no right to ask that a physician or trained medical professional draw the blood, either. The cops get to jab you."

http://www.theagitator.com/archives/028321.php

Shocked, Shocked to Find Cheating in Casablanca

      By Becky Akers from Foundation for Economic Education

"Whether or not they cheat, screeners perform as pitifully as Rudy Giuliani at an antiwar rally. “Security screeners at two of the nation's busiest airports failed to find fake bombs hidden on undercover agents posing as passengers in more than 60% of tests last year. . . . Screeners at Los Angeles International Airport missed about 75% of simulated explosives and bomb parts…"

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=1703

Ordered Liberty without the State

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

Don't Buy a Tiger

      By Joshua Katz from LewRockwell.com

"In Philadelphia, a group of remarkably intelligent men came together to form a government. These men had seen full-grown governments before, had in fact just freed themselves from one. Yet here they were, feeding and nourishing a small baby government, playing with it, considering it so cute and adorable that they just had to have one. Not just that, but their neighbors had to have one too, and their descendents, and their neighbors descendants. They pushed this dangerous creature onto all these innocent parties with the assurance that they had instructed the baby not to grow. What’s more, they had provided enforcement mechanisms. "

http://www.lewrockwell.com/katz-j/katz-j25.html

How to Protect Your Daughter from Sexual Assault

      By Retta Fontana from Strike The Root

"The only way out of this problem is to teach your children to question authority, especially your own. They must be given the full sanction of self-determination from the first moment that they indicate they are ready for it. Children are very reliable in this respect. The most practical way of teaching a child to question authority, or anything, for that matter, is to do so by example. "

http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/fontana/fontana7.html

The Fall of the Towers

      By L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise

"What emerges foremost and loudest from all this is a First Clear Truth, shared now by almost everybody on the planet, everywhere on the political landscape, that despite what they claim, governments are evil, that most corporations are their partners in evil, and that the mainstream media are nothing more than despicable pimps or prostitutes who help to make it all happen—which is to say, help keep us all in chains."

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle443-20071111-02.html

Another Sad Day—This One for Real Money Enthusiasts

      By Sunni (Maravillosa) from Sunni and the Conspirators

Feds raid the Liberty Dollar, Sunni comments

http://www.sunnimaravillosa.com/node/1248

Spreading Decentralism

Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.

Urban homesteading

      By Rad Geek from Rad Geek People's Daily

"A true free market requires an end to what Benjamin Tucker rightly condemned as 'the land monopoly,' and a radical application of the homestead principle, which means that an awful lot of 'squatter’s rights' can and should be recognized as the basis of a just claim to the land. While I disagree with Tucker on some of the specifics of rightful land ownership — for example, I don’t think that rental contracts necessarily constitute abandonment of land — I do agree that absentee landlordism is artificially propped up by a pervasive and unjust system of government intervention on behalf of the rentier class."

http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/11/16/urban_homesteading/

A Turning of the Tides: Financial and Political Turmoil Foreshadow the End of the American Empire

      By Glen Allport from Strike The Root

"For decades, the freedom movement in America has been a mere speck on the landscape; a mumbled whisper lost in the national discourse. Now a tipping point of sorts has apparently been reached. I do not know where it will lead or how far it will go, but the American public is suddenly interested in, educating themselves about, and actively seeking freedom in a way that looks more like 1776 than 2007."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/allport/allport18.html

Catching Up With an Aqua Teen Terrorist

      Peter Berdovsky (aka Zebbler) interviewed by RU Sirius from 10 Zen Monkeys

"February 1, 2007: a day that will live in infamy. The great city of Boston was brought to its knees by the appearance of unexpected L.E.D. placards in places where they didn't belong. Alert to potential connections between terror and anything a wee bit unusual, stout citizens and government officials alike in the land of the free and the home of the brave peed their metaphoric pants."

http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/11/15/catching-up-with-an-aqua-teen-terrorist/

Anarchy, Anarchy – Wherefore Art Thou?

      By Wilton D. Alston from LewRockwell.com

"Aside from the fact that anarchy is not a place, despite our tendency to refer to 'places' such as Ancapistan or Libertopia, it might still seem that a just, peaceful, thriving society based upon the premises of market anarchy is far away. The reasons for this are several-fold. First and foremost, even the supposed believers often speak of it in these terms. Sometimes, when one examines the challenges presented by the current statist society, they seem insurmountable."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/alston/alston36.html

The New World Hegemon

Depictions of the coming Imperial power

Neocon Projections

      By Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com

"What nation-state is more thoroughly committed to the 'violent overthrow' of other regimes than the neocon-dominated United States of America? What government is more dedicated to the use of terror – such as its 'shock and awe' bombing of innocent Iraqis, and the succeeding indiscriminate killing of Iraqi men, women, and children – than that headquartered in Washington?"

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer166.html

Special Relationship: Bush Family Friends Flay Rape Victim

      By Chris Floyd from Empire Burlesque

"[T]hey do not give a damn if a young woman who has been brutally raped is now whipped almost to death by their family friends -- friends who have helped make the Bushes richer and richer down through the years. If the lashing took place in front of their very eyes, they'd simply chat to Prince Bandar about the Cowboys game this weekend or ask King Abdullah if the weather was fine during his last stay on the Riveria."

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1353&Itemid=135

The Strange Story of Dual_EC_DRBG

      By Bruce Schneier from Schneier on Security

"The NSA has always been intimately involved in U.S. cryptography standards -- it is, after all, expert in making and breaking secret codes. So the agency's participation in the NIST (the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology) standard is not sinister in itself. It's only when you look under the hood at the NSA's contribution that questions arise."

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_strange_sto.html

Taser first, ask questions at the autopsy.

      By Rad Geek from Rad Geek People's Daily

"Meanwhile, in Canada, a gang of four cops in the RCMP has killed a man by electrocution. The victim was [a] Polish immigrant named Robert Dziekanski, who had been detained in a secure area in the Vancouver International Airport. He became agitated and could not communicate with the employees, since he did not speak English. When the cops showed up to try to talk to him, he was ... standing with his back to a counter and with his arms lowered by his sides. That didn’t stop them from whipping out their tasers and shooting him within 25 seconds of arriving on the scene."

http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/11/17/taser_first/

Politics by Other Means

War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.

Stop the Lies, Stop the Funding, Stop the Genocide: STOP IT

      By Arthur Silber from Once Upon a Time...

"Even if this bill were to be signed by Bush exactly as the Democrats have crafted it, it requires precisely nothing. It will change nothing. U.S. troops will remain in Iraq in at least the many tens of thousands for years to come, and probably for decades. The genocide will continue. The slaughter will go on."

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/11/stop-lies-stop-funding-stop-genocide.html

Matt Taibbi on Mike Huckabee, Our Favorite Right-Wing Nut Job

      By Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone

"Huckabee at most times is gentle and self-deprecating in his public address, but when he talks about religion, he gets weirdly combative and obnoxious, often drifting into outright offensiveness."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/17324246

The Lobby

      By Paul Craig Roberts from CounterPunch

"By preventing the rise of a Palestinian state, Israel has been able to continue with its theft of the West Bank. Palestinians who have not been driven out have been forced into ghettos, cut off from schools, hospitals, water, and their olive groves and farmlands. In a recent book, President Carter called the existing situation 'apartheid.' Carter was demonized by the Israel Lobby for his use of this word, but some experts consider Carter's choice of words to be an euphemism for the continuation of what I. Pappe and N. G. Finkelstein call 'the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.' That the vast majority of Americans know nothing of this is testimony to the power of the Israel Lobby."

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts11142007.html

U.S. Role in Bringing Pakistan to the Abyss

      By Ivan Eland from The Independent Institute

"Now it is within the realm of possibility to have a repeat of the 1978 situation in the Shah’s Iran. The population could become so enraged at a brutal dictator supported by the United States, that eventually a hostile radical Islamist government would take power. But this time, in Pakistan, it would be a regime with nuclear weapons—in short, an Islamic bomb. So the Bush administration may yet hand us the worst of all worlds: bin Laden and company still on the loose and again guarded by an Islamist regime, this time with nuclear weapons."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2069

Spontaneous Order

Articles showing decentralized successes.

Deregulating Education

      By David Boaz from Cato Institute

"Many people who think American schools need better teachers, more testing, and higher standards have welcomed NCLB without thinking through the implications of a centralized, one-size-fits-all, command-and-control system. If the twentieth century taught us anything, it should be that markets, competition, and decentralization work better than mandates, monopoly, and central direction."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8793

The Humanitarian Dilemma

      By Alvaro Vargas Llosa from The Independent Institute

"What would have happened if those families had known that their children were being sent to France? And what if, after trying to act legally, Zoe’s Arc had been prevented by Chad’s tyrannical government from taking the children and they had faced imminent danger? Those who maintain that even under such circumstances a European charity would not be right to violate the norms of a different country live in a fantasy world."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2068

A perfect storm for gold as mines left empty

      By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from Telegraph.co.uk

"RBC argues that the global dollar system known as Bretton Woods II is "coming apart at the seams" as Asian, Mid-East, and Latin American states start to break their dollar links to avoid importing US inflation. The result is to resurrect gold, which is fast regaining its role as the world's benchmark currency."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/11/15/bcngold115.xml

Solving the "Problem" of Free Riding

      By Ben O'Neill from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"The problem is not that anyone has aggressed against anyone else. It is not that anyone's rights have been violated. It is not even that anyone has suffered any detriment at all. Rather, it is a 'problem' only when compared to what might have been done instead — a problem of allegedly inefficient underproduction of the good in question. In other words, the problem is that, if not for the nonexcludability of the good, things could potentially have been even better."

http://www.mises.org/story/2769

Nonspontaneous Disorder

Articles showing centrally planned disasters.

Embracing Creative Destruction

      By Jim Fedako from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"[M]ost likely, we will never see if a business model based on rented equipment is able to crack the existing foundation of the lawn-care business, not because the idea is known ex ante to be inefficient, but because government stands ready to squash creativity and protect existing capital structures, all to the detriment of the consumer."

http://www.mises.org/story/2770

Vouchers or School Choice?

      By Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Regardless of why Utahans said no, in the long run they have struck a blow for education free of state control. That may seem hard to believe, since the voucher movement promotes itself as being in favor of 'school choice.' But while their hearts are in the right place, their solution won’t get them where they want to go. The way to create school choice is not to give the state more excuses to regulate the private schools. That’s what vouchers would do."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0711e.asp

The Failure of State-Sponsored Schooling

      By Per Bylund from LewRockwell.com

"The heterogeneous beliefs of kids going to school at the age of six or seven (or whatever) are literally untraceable when the same kids nine or twelve years later have been educated. Of course, there are differences in political views; but those differences are simply a matter of 'how much more' state we 'need,' never the opposite and the question Why? is not asked and not even considered."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/bylund/bylund23.html

Hooked on Subsidies

      By Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren from Cato Institute

"When it comes to politics, we don't often find ourselves in agreement with Bonnie Raitt or Graham Nash. But now that they are campaigning against new nuclear plants, they're our friends. Raitt, Nash, the Indigo Girls and other vocal rockers are attacking a provision in pending Senate legislation that would award what they call 'massively expensive loan guarantees--potentially a virtual blank check from taxpayers' for nuclear power plant construction."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8792

War Is The Health Of The State

War is the ultimate State intervention in society.

Monetary Reform and Anti-Imperialism, or Why War Protesters and Free Bankers/Gold Bugs Should Join Forces

      By Steven Horwitz from Liberty & Power: Group Blog

"If you want to make it harder for the US to act like an imperialist bully you need to find ways to reduce the resources available for it to do so. Getting the state out of the money creation business eliminates its ability to manipulate the monetary system to raise funds surreptitiously for the war machine."

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/44523.html

Dynasties and Democracy

      By Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.com

"Yes, we still have a president, not a king; yes, the Constitution is still referred to, albeit almost never enforced; and, no, we don't have hereditary titles, unless you're counting the editorship of Commentary magazine. Yet an American president has more power than any king ever did, and this has come about as a result of his role as commander in chief as well as chief executive."

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=11894

Maimed and Murdered by the State

      By Arthur Silber from Once Upon a Time...

"When you are determined to maintain American global hegemony and a worldwide empire of military bases, no price is too high. With billions of dollars available from other sources to pay for the continuing slaughter, the latest bill is hardly a matter of great moment."

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/11/maimed-and-murdered-by-state.html

Ron Paul and the Defeat of the Liberventionists

      By Anthony Gregory from LewRockwell.com

"Ultimately, the state operates within the confines of public ideology. When libertarians join in on perpetuating the fallacy that market economics and personal liberties are compatible with or protected by a bloated warfare state, it only encourages the particular type of governance that characterizes the modern American experience. We get what Robert Higgs calls 'participatory fascism.' We get a system of corporatism, police statism, aggressive war, and vicious nationalism, all delivered through social democracy."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory150.html

Bits of History

The Past seen with a fresh look.

The Goal Is Freedom: Individualism, Collectivism, and Other Murky Labels

      By Sheldon Richman from Foundation for Economic Education

"[T]he great political debate is not between individualists and collectivists, but between those who see the coercive state as the locus of authority and those who see voluntary society as that locus. Liberals from Adam Smith to Herbert Spencer to F.A. Hayek have emphasized the benefits of free, spontaneous social (market) processes (including the common law) and how those processes are disrupted by the state."

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=1709

Who cares about cause? Something must be done!

      By Vin Suprynowicz from Las Vegas Review-Journal

"For more than a thousand years, Christian doctrine had prescribed harsh punishment for anyone who made a false accusation of witchcraft. Since for obvious reasons it was pretty hard to actually prove your neighbor had made your cow go dry by hexing it with the evil eye, or that she flew around at night on a broomstick, this kept false accusations to a minimum. But in the 1480s the interestingly named Pope Innocent III changed all that with his bull 'Summis Desideratis'; a couple of German shopkeepers published their Malleus Maleficarum -- the 'Hammer of Witches' -- and the witch-hunts were on."

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/11182211.html

Gold, Ron Paul and Prosperity

      By George F. Smith from Strike The Root

"Candidate Ron Paul understands inflation as the creation of money out of thin air. While this view depicts a disturbing state of affairs and has a distinguished history, it is not in the least popular. For one thing, it tends to incriminate the money creators. If inflation is defined as price increases, by coincidence the guilt falls on those who raise prices. "

http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/smith/smith3.html

The Foolishness and Immorality of Gun Control

      By Scott McPherson from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"The National Academy of Sciences — hardly a pro-gun organization — admitted that after years of researching the effects of 'gun control' it could not conclude that any measure had been effective at reducing crime or saving lives. Even honest liberals will tell you that millions of people, in the United States alone, use guns to defend themselves every year — far more than the number of people who use guns to commit violent crimes. "

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0711g.asp

War and Peace

Articles showing the nature of War.

When the Pretense and the Lies Unravel

      By Arthur Silber from Once Upon a Time...

"Even overwhelming brute force can only carry you so far, especially when more and more people begin to appreciate that you are nothing more than a viciously murderous bully. And certain other countries, including those that may hold a very significant part of our economic future in their hands, may decide that it is in their best interests simply to let the United States go down, despite the short-term very negative effects that will have on themselves and many others."

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/11/when-pretense-and-lies-unravel.html

Cyberwar: Myth or Reality?

      By Bruce Schneier from Schneier on Security

"The biggest problems in discussing cyberwar are the definitions. The things most often described as cyberwar are really cyberterrorism, and the things most often described as cyberterrorism are more like cybercrime, cybervandalism or cyberhooliganism--or maybe cyberespionage. At first glance there's nothing new about these terms except the 'cyber' prefix. War, terrorism, crime and vandalism are old concepts. What's new is the domain; it's the same old stuff occurring in a new arena. But because cyberspace is different, there are differences worth considering."

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/cyberwar_myth_o.html

Worshipping the Military, or the Society it Defends?

      By Doug Bandow from AntiWar.com

"It must be clearly understood: War is not a high ideal, let alone the highest ideal. War is hideous, a monstrosity. While it sometimes leads to the most sublime sacrifice and heroism, it more often results in unparalleled barbarity. Even good people often end up doing horrible things. Economies are wrecked. Communities and societies are destroyed. Institutions are eradicated. Families are broken and dispersed. People are slaughtered and maimed."

http://www.antiwar.com/bandow/?articleid=11912

The Unknown Antiwar Activist

      By Paul Krassner from The Huffington Post

"Although the leadership of the Yippies (Youth International Party) in 1968 was virtually all white, Jerome Washington became the first black Yippie organizer."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-krassner/the-unknown-antiwar-activ_b_72106.html

Great Individuals In History

Some people stand out from the crowd.

Scientist -- Albertus Magnus : Nov. 15, 1280 (date of death)

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

"Albertus wrote:- The aim of natural science is not simply to accept the statements of others, but to investigate the causes that are at work in nature. We should not underestimate the importance of such ideas, for most scholars at that time believed that knowledge could only be obtained from a study of the scriptures. ... Thomas Aquinas died in 1274 (actually on his way to the Council in Lyon) and three years later certain factions within the Church tried to condemn his teachings on the grounds that he was too favourably disposed to non-Christian philosophers, both Arabic and Greek. By this time Albertus was an old man, but he travelled to Paris to argue in favour of Thomas Aquinas, whose ideas of course, although not identical to his own, were similar in their support for the teachings of Aristotle."

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Albertus.html

American patriot -- Crispus Attucks : Nov. 17, 1723

       from The African American Registry

"It has been said that he picked up a stick and shouted to the crowd gathered there to follow him to King Street. When they arrived Attucks went to the front of the crowd and struck at one of the British Soldiers. The soldier shot him twice. Four other men were killed, and six others were wounded. The next day, Attucks' body was taken to Faneuil Hall, and two days later, all the businesses were closed for his and the other victims' funeral. This event is known as the Boston Massacre."

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/
2337/Crispus_Attucks_the_first_American_patriot_to_die

Writer/Artist -- Kurt Vonnegut : Nov. 11, 1922

       From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Kurt Vonnegut's experience as a soldier and prisoner of war had a profound influence on his later work. As a Corporal with the 106th Infantry Division, Vonnegut was cut off from his battalion and wandered alone behind enemy lines for several days until captured by Wehrmacht troops on December 14, 1944. Imprisoned in Dresden, Vonnegut witnessed the February 13–February 14, 1945 bombing of Dresden, which destroyed most of the city. Vonnegut was one of just seven American prisoners of war in Dresden to survive, in their cell in an underground meat locker of a plant known as Schlachthof Fünf (Slaughterhouse Five)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut

Actress -- Jean Seberg : Nov. 13, 1938

       from Saint Jean

"Twenty years after her death, Jean Seberg remains an icon in France and a cult figure the world over. Though her grave has become a place of pilgrimage for many, and her turbulant life a subject of intense scrutiny, it is her enduring screen image that continues to ensure her place in the hearts and minds of those who fall under her spell."

http://www.saintjean.co.uk/biog.htm

Culcha'

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

Let the Viewer Decide

      Frederick Wiseman interviewed by Jesse Walker from Reason

"Wiseman kept making movies [after his first was banned]. Many of them, like Titicut Follies, look at life within bureaucracies and other hierarchical institutions.... Certain topics keep recurring: power, coercion, dehumanization, and the ways we help and victimize both each other and ourselves. Some of his documentaries are remarkably long ... and all are told without narration. They both demand and reward patience."

http://reason.com/news/show/123022.html

LJ Talks To…Best selling Repairman Jack novelist, F. Paul Wilson

      By Christopher Ryan from Library Journal

"F. Paul Wilson, is on a roll: his 11th Repairman Jack adventure, Bloodlines, is earning solid reviews and steady sales; June 2008 marks the debut of a YA series based on Repairman Jack’s early adventures; and progress is finally being made in the 12-year effort to bring Repairman Jack to the big screen."

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6497480.html

“Everybody is happy now”

      Brave New World reviewed by Margaret Atwood from The Guardian

"A world of genetically modified babies, boundless consumption, casual sex and drugs ... How does Aldous Huxley's vision of a totalitarian future stand up 75 years after Brave New World was first published.... Huxley himself still had one foot in the 19th century: he could not have dreamed his upside-down morality unless he himself also found it threatening. At the time he was writing Brave New World he was still in shock from a visit to the United States, where he was particularly frightened by mass consumerism, its group mentality and its vulgarities."

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2212230,00.html

UWA 43: Back to rummaging around the Attic.

      By Warren Bluhm from Uncle Warren's Attic

"In addition to some lovely clips from It Happened One Night and other flicks...."

http://unclewarrensattic.blogspot.com/2007/11/uncle-warrens-attic-43.html

The lighter side

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

Americans Announce They're Dropping Out Of Presidential Race

      By staff from The Onion

"The U.S. populace, which has participated in every national election since 1789, said that while the decision to abandon next year's race was difficult, recent events, such as disappointing victories by both Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani in regional straw polls, left them with no real choice."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/69752

Franken Berry Needs an Inflation-Free Diet

      By The Mogambo Guru (Richard Daughty) from The Daily Reckoning

“What is the sound of one hand clapping while the other hand reaches for a box of breakfast cereal and then having to pay more for it in dollars-per-ounce, which means having less money for everything else including going to a bar and getting hammered…”

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Writers/Mogambo/DREssays/MG111607.html

Medical Miracle: Man Lives Thanks To Heart Stolen From Dead Man

      By Today Now! staff from Onion News Network

"Start your day with our morning show, Today Now! Join hosts Jim and Tracy as they welcome Dave Portman, a real-life Frankenstein's monster."

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/medical_miracle_man_lives_thanks

Satan Refuses to Take Sides in Regan-Murdoch Lawsuit

      By Andy Borowitz from Borowitz Report

"The lawsuit filed yesterday by O.J. Simpson publisher Judith Regan against her former employer, Rupert Murdoch, has created a 'difficult personal dilemma for me,' Satan said in a press conference today. For the Prince of Darkness, who has had longstanding ties to both Ms. Regan and Mr. Murdoch, the lawsuit 'leaves me feeling very much caught in the middle,' Satan told reporters."

http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=6798

Deep Thought

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

Not High; Still Mighty

      By Danny Shahar from Strike The Root

"[T]here is only one observation that can thoroughly defeat moralistic legislation: morality is something that comes from within. It is not a pattern of outward behavior; it's a set of values and principles which guide one to live well."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/shahar/shahar6.html

Epicurus on Freedom and Happiness

      By Edward W. Younkins from Le Québécois Libre

"Epicurus' ethics can be viewed as a form of egoistic hedonism (or hedonistic egoism). He states that nature compels all human beings to search for pleasure and to avoid pain. Epicurus thus approached ethics from a biological (and psychological) perspective. He said that human beings need health of the body and calm of the soul and that freedom from pain and peace of mind imply a state of rest and tranquility. It follows that the true test of pleasure is the removal of all that gives pain. When a person reaches that goal he is in a state of contentment and rest called happiness, eudaimonia, or tranquility of mind (ataraxia)."

http://www.quebecoislibre.org/07/071111-4.htm

Americans: Sheep to the Constitutional Slaughter? An Interview with Judge Andrew Napolitano

      Interviewed by Brian Doherty from Reason

"If our rights come from government, then the Patriot Act is lawful and constitutional because the government that gives freedom can take it away just by having the president sign a bill into a law. But if rights come from our humanity, as I argue almost every day on Fox, than government cannot take freedom away absent due process and a fair trial, where you are charged and convicted of violating someone else’s freedom."

http://reason.com/news/show/123496.html

Life & Property

      By Tibor Machan from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"The first thing that comes to light, if one just thinks about it a bit, is how wrong it is to think of property as mere stuff. Instead, property involves a great variety of human creations, natural resources, inventions, and works of art. When property is lost, it is clear that specific and often unique values have vanished from one’s life and, indeed, that one’s life itself has been significantly damaged."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0711h.asp

Miscellany

Articles not easily classified

Sin Fronteras

      By Rad Geek from Rad Geek People's Daily

"We are often told that immigration is a complex policy issue, with a lot of competing interests to sort out, finicky bureaucratic details to adjust, and a desperate need for civility and compromise. We’re told that it’s complicated because we need to balance complicated economic and humanitarian needs, on the one hand, with the varying interests of U.S. workers, the social welfare system, the education system, our culture and heritage, law and order, and national security. Hand-wringers, both liberal and conservative, like this line, because it allows them to portray themselves as sensible middle-of-the-roaders without actually committing themselves to any serious challenge to the immigration system as it currently stands."

http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/11/12/sin_fronteras/

The Mayonnaise Cure

      By Fred Reed from Fred On Everything

"Better yet would be separate tests of different subjects. When a kid demonstrates that he can read at the twelfth grade level, no teacher should ever again be allowed to so much as mention reading to him, unless it be to ask him to coach her. If the kid passes what is now the tenth-grade Algebra II, or chemistry or physics, that should be it. He should then have a choice of taking advanced courses, taught by a vertebrate, or going behind the school to smoke and drink beer."

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Mayonnaise.shtml

The Cancercrats of Texas

      By Garry Reed from The Loose Cannon Libertarian

"Like a dog that can't pass a tree without giving it a hind-legged salute, government can't do anything without creating a bureaucracy. A career bureaucrat with ruling-party connections will be appointed to the top spot of this so-called "cancer research" bureaucracy and receive the six figure salary and all the taxpayer-funded perks and bennies that the rest of us mere mortals can only dream of. The Bureaucrat will then appoint all of his or her cronies and hangers-on and toadies to executive positions. Career civil servants, whose jobs will primarily consist of shuffling papers from inbox to outbox, will be set for life."

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

Bill tying financial aid to antipiracy efforts passes House committee

      By Eric Bangeman from Ars Technica

"As it stands, the bill would put colleges and universities on the front lines of the war against file-sharing. As part of the financial aid administration process, schools would have to inform students about their official policies about copyright infringement, as well as possible civil and criminal penalties."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/
20071115-bill-tying-financial-aid-to-antipiracy-efforts-passes-house-committee.html

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