Oct. 12 — 25, 2008

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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.

Reaching Out to the Left, Part 1: The Basics

      By Anthony Gregory from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"As libertarians, we have a goal of a freer world. Despite what some might think, the degree of human freedom in a society is not just a function of the type of people in power or the structure of government. It is ultimately a reflection of public ideology. What the average person believes has a great impact on how the state operates and what it does. "

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0807d.asp

San Francisco weighs decriminalizing prostitution

      By Evelyn Nieves from Breitbart.com

"San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K—a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93V4U0O0&show_article=1

Who's afraid of Obama the gun banner?

      By J.D. Tuccille from Disloyal Opposition

"[T]hat doesn't mean that America will be disarmed under an Obama presidency, even if that's how the hypothetical new chief executive wants to expend his political capital. For starters, law just doesn't matter as much as people think when it comes to how people live their lives."

http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2008/10/whos-afraid-of-obama-gun-banner.html

Non-Money

      By NonEntity from Strike The Root

"As Joseph Stalin said, 'The people who cast the votes do not decide an election, the people who count the votes do.' So it is with money. As long as the bankers control the value of money, they control our very lives, for money is but a representation, a token, of the life force itself. ... What if we could make and end-run around 'legal tender'? What if it were possible to make barter actually work?"

http://www.strike-the-root.com/82/nonentity/nonentity5.html

Sinus Infection? Try Marijuana!

      By Annalee Newitz from io9

"New research confirms that molecules found in pot called cannabanoids are powerful antibiotics."

http://io9.com/5063442/sinus-infection-try-marijuana

Life in Amerika

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

A Gigantic Armed Robbery

      By Robert Higgs from The Independent Institute

"Barbara Bush probably never dreamed what amazing things her rather dim-witted firstborn son would accomplish. By the time that all of these crimes have run their course, George Walker Bush may well have proved himself to be the greatest economic wrecker and looter in the history of the world."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2353

The Enforcement Arm of the Robber State

      By William N. Grigg from Pro Libertate

"As the economy collapses, credit lines become constricted, and tax revenues are choked off, we can expect local representatives of the parasite class (commonly called "government") to become perversely creative in finding new ways to extract money from productive people."

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2008/10/parasites-plunderers.html

ACLU: 2/3 of US population lives in "Constitution-free" zone

      By Jon Stokes from Ars Technica

"[T]he ACLU has been collecting ... reports of such inland 'border' checkpoints, and has built its new 'Constitution-Free Zone' campaign around them. Unfortunately for the ACLU, few of the folks who have been subject to search at such checkpoints have actually come forward with complaints, but the ones who did speak up have compelling and troubling stories."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/
20081023-aclu-23-of-us-population-lives-in-constitution-free-zone.html

Government, don't dare scan my body

      By Robyn E. Blumner from St. Petersburg Times

"The Transportation Security Administration agent, a gray-haired woman with tired eyes, told me I had been 'selected' for enhanced screening and directed me into a large machine."

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/article858283.ece

Doyle wants checkpoints

      By Gina Barton and Steven Walters from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"Ignition interlocks, which require drivers to pass a breath test before their cars will start, also are at the top of MADD’s agenda for the state, and Staskunas said he plans to introduce a bill that would dramatically increase their use."

http://www2.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=809697

Ordered Liberty without the State

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

The Siege of San Francisco

      By Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com

"My Sunday in San Francisco was a reminder that 'terrorism' – which most Americans and their government like to pretend they oppose even as they expand upon and fine-tune its tools – is the modus operandi of an ever-engorged state system."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer183.html

Joe the Outlaw

      By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"By practicing plumbing without a license, Joe is bucking the system in a truly heroic way. He shouldn't be condemned for this. He should be celebrated as a freedom fighter. He has a lot more to complain about than just taxes. It is the state itself in all its incarnations that is his true enemy. He ought to demanding answers from the politicians about their regulatory schemes to further restrict competition in a wide range of areas (banking for example!)."

http://mises.org/story/3160

Death to the Party!

      By Victor Koman and Wally Conger from out of step

"For those libertarians still clinging to the electoral process...." [Also find SEK3's "Our Enemy, The Party" here]

http://wconger.blogspot.com/2008/10/death-to-party.html

You Can Get Anything You Want...

      By Jesse Walker & Arlo Guthrie from Reason Hit & Run Blog

"I asked for it, I got it...."

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/129510.html

Ain't My Government: We Who Said No To The State

      By Manuel Lora from The Swamp Land Exile

"Finally, war can never be isolated as an issue, for it requires major intrusion in the economy such as increased taxation, inflation, price and wage controls and a myriad other extremely socialist and fascist measures. Once we add conscription/slavery, the crushing of domestic liberties and the police state, the recipe for totalitarianism is complete."

http://www.vanguardist.org/index.php?/archives/
1203-Aint-My-Government-We-Who-Said-No-To-The-State.html

Spreading Decentralism

Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.

The Regionalist: Stormin’ Norman, Decentralist

      By Bill Kauffman from First Principles

"Stormin’ Norman wanted to abolish the city government and permit blocks, tracts, sections to manage their own affairs. Soho, Harlem, Bensonhurst: each neighborhood would be responsible for its own welfare, trash pickup, fire protection, parks, education, policing, etc."

http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1109&loc=fs

U.S. has plundered world with dollar, Chinese state paper rages

      By Simon Rabinovitch from Reuters

"How can Europe and Asia grasp each other's hands and together confront the once-in-a-century global financial crisis sparked by the U.S.; how can they construct a new equitable and safe international financial order?"

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSPEK466920081024

Project Censored 2009

      By Kate Sims from YES! Magazine

"Perhaps the world owes a debt of gratitude to the Bush administration and their neoconservative associates. They have made the folly of the 'pro-empire' agenda so painfully clear that they may have forced the global population into a different, post-empire mode of thinking; one that could give birth to a whole new way of life for humankind. And while change of this magnitude may be difficult, there is nothing more rewarding—and more necessary."

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2988

Open source enables value-based business models

      By Dave Rosenberg from Negative Approach - CNET News

"I've read several recent articles that suggest open source will be subsumed into the fabric of all software, but that it won't offer large enough revenue opportunities for standalone companies. One of the key arguments is that software revenues get cut down to 10 percent 20 percent of what they would be from a proprietary vendor. That's likely true, but the argument against this notion is that software has been way too expensive for way too long."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10064951-62.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

A Move towards Market Socialism

      By D.W. MacKenzie from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"The Hong Kong approach stands in stark contrast to the Bush administration's new policy. Hong Kong is standing by its capitalist institutions by allowing private investors to deal with the current crisis, as well they should. Free-market capitalism transformed Hong Kong from a poverty-stricken victim of the Second World War to its current prosperous condition."

http://mises.org/story/3157

The New World Hegemon

Depictions of the coming Imperial power

Central Planning at Home and Abroad

      By David R. Henderson from AntiWar.com

"Someone who believes that he can look 'the man in the eye' and 'be able to get a sense of his soul' – as George Bush said after meeting Vladimir Putin the first time – is not someone who has a lot of humility about his own abilities. It's not surprising, therefore, that George Bush, with incredibly little knowledge of the Middle East and, apparently, no awareness of the animus between the Sunnis and the Shias, could be confident that he could bring a stable democratic government to Iraq."

http://www.antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=13628

Did Joseph Wharton Cause The US Financial Meltdown?

      By Tim Hartnett from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"People bound for upper management in large public companies have usually immersed themselves in a conformity campaign from high school and few of them ever emerge from it. They join large organizations and acquire the talent of enduring both maddening redundancy and contradictory policies. ... What it means is that Wall Street's obliviousness to fiscal reality has once again facilitated the concentration of private property into fewer hands. The bungling incompetence of our betters inevitably leads to the further enserfment of everyone."

http://mises.org/story/3149

Confessions of a Conspiracy Theorist

      By Sheila Casey from Dissident Voice

"Over the past few decades, the CIA controlled mainstream media in America has achieved a significant PR objective: they have made it socially unacceptable to believe that there is a conspiracy operating at the highest levels of our government."

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/10/confessions-of-a-conspiracy-theorist/

How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout

      By Pam Martens from CounterPunch

"Americans are correctly outraged at the spectacle of U.S. crony capitalism crashing stock and bond markets around the globe while simultaneously watching the poster boys of crony capitalism on Monday, October 13, 2008 march up the granite steps of the United States Treasury building in their Armani shoes and heist a fresh $125 Billion of taxpayer dough in broad daylight."

http://www.counterpunch.org/martens10172008.html

Meltdown at the Guantánamo Trials

      By Andy Worthington from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Recent events at Guantánamo are turning out like some kind of Christian fable. A principled military officer — politically conservative and a devout Catholic — who served in Iraq, where he was 'praised by his superiors for his bravery,' and was now serving his government as a prosecutor in a system of special trials conceived for prisoners held in the “war on terror,” began to uncover information, withheld from the defense teams, which indicated that all was not right with the system."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0810o.asp

Politics by Other Means

War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.

The War Party Embraces Obama

      By Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.com

"Our war-birds are naturally migratory creatures, effortlessly moving from branch to branch, and party to party, with no compunction whatsoever about changing either their nesting habits or the color of their feathers, so long as their ultimate goal – promoting conflict, in whatever form – is achieved. ... Obama will merely put another face on the same old policies, albeit more friendly and less offensive to our own elites, who would rather not be so rudely confronted with the ruthlessness of their rulers."

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13623

New President Won't Tame Executive Power

      By Gene Healy from Cato Institute

"Those who hope to put an end to the abuses of the Bush years are right to distrust McCain. Even so, when it comes to executive power, perhaps the best argument for an Obama presidency is found on a sardonic bumper sticker currently sold at Cafepress.com: 'Obama '08: Get Disappointed by Someone New'."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9713

Government Is Already an Income-Transfer Machine

      By Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"McCain proposes to have the government buy up mortgages in which the amount owed exceeds the current value of the houses. Under the plan the banks would be paid the face value of the mortgages and the government would then refinance them at a lower principal and interest rate. The taxpayers, of course, would pay the difference. Isn’t that redistribution? He also supports the bailout of Wall Street financial institutions and the partial nationalization of banks. So where does he get off accusing Obama of socialism? "

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0810n.asp

The Conservative Rebellion

      By Alvaro Vargas Llosa from The Independent Institute

"The Republican Party has indeed deviated from conservatism as it is understood by those who consider Edmund Burke the founder of the conservative idea, William F. Buckley the intellectual midwife of modern-day American conservatism, and Barry Goldwater the flint that sparked a vast political movement in favor of small government in the United States. ... How was it that the self-styled party of individual liberty became, in the eyes of many, the party of big government, intolerance and jingoism?"

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2354

Why Listen to Colin Powell, or Brokaw?

      By Robert Parry from Consortiumnews.com

"The U.S. news media’s fawning over Colin Powell also has not been a victimless exercise. By holding Powell up as a near-perfect hero, the news media has allowed Powell to steer public opinion at key moments – from his work containing the Iran-Contra scandal in the late 1980s, to his political embrace of Bush during the Florida recount battle in 2000, to his selling of the Iraq War in 2003, to his support for Bush’s second term in 2004."

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/102008.html

Spontaneous Order

Articles showing decentralized successes.

Value and Stock Market Declines

      By Mark A. Pribonic from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"The Austrian concept of value is ordinal rather than cardinal. Almost subconsciously we rank goods in order of personal preference. The whole basis of trade is derived from our individual ranking systems whereby we exchange something of less value, including money, for something of greater value. We often state that the value of a transaction is x amount of dollars. But this ignores the other side of the equation, which is the good that the money was exchanged for. "

http://mises.org/story/3153

The Goal Is Freedom: Who Needs Evidence?

      By Sheldon Richman from Foundation for Economic Education

"Weisberg makes the same mistake that superficial free-market advocates make. He believes that markets, to qualify as free in libertarian theory, need only be free of government restrictions (regulation). But that is only half the story. Truly free markets are also free of privilege -- guarantees, bailouts, Fed-provided liquidity, taxpayers as lenders of last resort, and so on. ... As a matter of fact, genuinely free markets are not really unregulated. They are strictly regulated by the need to avoid losses."

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=2426

Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize

      By David R. Henderson from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Krugman, probably the best known economist under the age of 60, is known to the public mainly for his regular column in the New York Times. Yet those columns do not do justice to the extent of his economic knowledge and understanding."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0810h.asp

Feel-good Foods: What You Eat Can Affect Your Mood

      By Chicago Tribune via Life Extension Foundation

"Chocolate cake is a popular home remedy for depression, but it comes with some unwelcome side effects. Sweet treats don't just pack on the pounds; they give us a sugar high that's inevitably followed by a demoralizing crash. Still, there's growing recognition in the medical community that the right food choices can improve your mood. Though drugs are often considered the first line of treatment for depression, a dietary change might be all you need...."

http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=7478

OpenOffice.org 3.0 officially released

      By Ryan Paul from Ars Technica

"Although OpenOffice.org has not yet reached full parity with Microsoft Office, it is maturing at a rapid pace and is already capable of meeting the basic needs of many average computer users." [Price and openness have reached more than parity.]

http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/10/13/openoffice-org-3-0-officially-released

Nonspontaneous Disorder

Articles showing centrally planned disasters.

Escape from the Depreciating Dollar

      By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"True liquidity is based on savings and capital; it cannot be created by decree. Decrees end up creating money out of thin air, which ends up overriding market preferences and generating inflation. Everything officials do to fix the crisis ends up prolonging it."

http://mises.org/story/3152

How Inflation Works

      By Paul Craig Roberts from CounterPunch

"Anyone who has been alive very long is aware that the US government has failed on the inflation front. Soft drink machines that once delivered a bottled drink for a nickel now charge a dollar, a twenty-fold increase in price. ... It is not easy to make the young aware of the long-term rise in prices."

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10212008.html

Trying to Get Something for Nothing

      By Steve Saville from Safe Haven

"[F]ew people appreciate the basic economic truth that the government has no capital. Any capital provided by the government to the banks will first have to be extracted from other parts of the economy via taxation or inflation or borrowing. In other words, the government's provision of additional capital to sick businesses can only happen at the expense of the more healthy parts of the economy."

http://www.safehaven.com/article-11627.htm

Why This Bailout is as Bad as the Last One

      By Jeffrey A. Miron from The Independent Institute

"Government pressure will be difficult for banks to resist, since the government can both threaten to withdraw its ownership stake or promise further injections whenever it wants to modify bank behavior. Banks will respond by accommodating government objectives in exchange for continued financial support. This is crony capitalism, pure and simple."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2346

The ABCs of Paulson's Bailout

      By Michael Hudson from CounterPunch

"It is a con game. Financial gains have soared since 1980, but banks and institutional investors have not used them to finance tangible capital formation. They simply have recycled their receipt of interest (and credit-card fees and penalties that often amount to as much as interest) into yet new loans, extracting yet more interest and so on. This financial extraction leaves less personal and business income to spend on consumer goods, capital goods and services. Sales shrink, causing defaults as the economy is less able to pay its stipulated interest charges."

http://www.counterpunch.com/hudson10202008.html

War Is The Health Of The State

War is the ultimate State intervention in society.

Susan Sontag Was Right

      By Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.com

"Sontag, who was vilified ... and died a few years later of inoperable cancer, has been more than vindicated. She was a modern Cassandra, at least in this instance, and her insight into where and how we went wrong, post-9/11, deserves to be remembered...."

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13613

Government of Thieves

      By Paul Craig Roberts from CounterPunch

"Just as the Bush regime’s wars have been used to pour billions of dollars into the pockets of its military-security donor base, the Paulson bailout looks like a Bush regime scheme to incur $700 billion in new public debt in order to transfer the money into the coffers of its financial donor base. "

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10172008.html

When a Contractor Just Isn't Good Enough

      By David Isenberg from Cato Institute

"The State Department has outsourced henhouse security to a fox, giving a U.S. security contractor the job of investigating possible crimes committed by other security contractors working for the United States in Iraq."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9727

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, Adieu

      By Robert Higgs from Liberty & Power: Group Blog

"Living for years on end without previous freedoms, many people lose their awareness of the loss. They become accustomed to the new normality."

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/55976.html

As Its Economic Power Wanes, Does the U.S. Lean Harder on the Military?

      By Phyllis Bennis from Foreign Policy In Focus

"As to ignored opportunities, we come back again to those disastrous wars. Just a few days before Congress passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill (which tops $800 billion when all the tax-break sweeteners are added), it passed another massive spending bill with almost no one paying attention."

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5594

Bits of History

The Past seen with a fresh look.

The Goal Is Freedom: Capitalism or Freedom

      By Sheldon Richman from Foundation for Economic Education

"There's an unfortunate phenomenon in politics. If a candidate says he favors markets but does little to actually free any markets once he becomes, say, president, lots of people will assume he's done so anyway. Evidence that he didn't won't matter. He will become known for his 'laissez-faire, hate-the-government' policies -- even if such policies are nonexistent. Rhetoric gets all the attention. ... No system in which officials can create inflation, trade restrictions, patents, bailouts, licensing, and other privileges can be described as free."

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=2411

Back to the Future

      By Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.com

"Once again, the delicate structure of human economy shudders, and falls, as the death of a system that has made us the wealthiest nation on earth is loudly proclaimed. Capitalism is dead – long live … what? We've seen these other ‘isms before, and they aren't a pretty sight. Socialism, fascism, communism, national socialism, corporatism, and other despotisms too obscure to be mentioned – they're all rising from their graves, resurrected by fear and the hope of redemption. "

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13601

Herbert Hoover Redux

      By Ivan Eland from The Independent Institute

"Herbert Hoover converted a mundane recession into the greatest economic disaster in modern history—the Great Depression. Unfortunately for all of us, George W. Bush is headed down that same path."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2339

A Ramble 'Round Old Birmingham

      By George A. Selgin from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"Birmingham, Brummagem, Bromwicham, Brymingham, Bermingeham…. Spell it or say it however you please, there is something queer about the place. "

http://mises.org/story/3072

Oct. 22, 1938: Xerox This

      By Randy Alfred from Wired

"Inventor Chester Carlson produces the first electrophotographic image. It's the precursor of the Xerox machine. Carlson was an engineer who couldn't get a job in his field during the Great Depression...."

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/10/dayintech_1022

War and Peace

Articles showing the nature of War.

Will Transplanting the Strategy in Iraq to Afghanistan Save the Day?

      By Ivan Eland from The Independent Institute

"In Afghanistan, the now well-equipped Taliban is likely being supported by the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI), a long-time ally of the group despite billions in U.S. assistance slathered on the Pakistani government. Furthermore, the untamed Pakistani tribal areas provide a sanctuary for the Taliban so that fighters from the group can cross into Afghanistan, attack, and then retreat to the sanctuary."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2350

The Afghanistan Advantage

      By William S. Lind from CounterPunch

" The action of the Saudi government in sponsoring talks between Mr. Karzai’s regime and the Taliban is something the U.S. and NATO should welcome and support. As quickly as we can without upsetting the applecart, the U.S. should also start to talk with the Taliban. "

http://www.counterpunch.org/lind10202008.html

Understanding the U.S.-Iran Crisis

      By Phyllis Bennis from Foreign Policy In Focus

"The Bush administration has claimed, almost since coming into office, that Iran is a 'threat' to the U.S. Even U.S. intelligence agencies agree that Iran doesn't possess nuclear weapons or a nuclear weapons program, and that it is very unclear whether Iran even wants to build such a weapon. Iran has never threatened the United States. (And unlike many countries in its neighborhood, Iran has not invaded another country in over a century.)"

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5586

How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away-Iraq and Washington

      By Ron Jacobs from Dissident Voice

"I should be used to it by now, but I’m not. When I read statements from US policymakers telling the world that Iraq is still not capable of defending itself without US help, I am still angered and amazed at the bold-faced arrogance."

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/10/
how-can-i-miss-you-when-you-wont-go-away-iraq-and-washington/

Don't Expand NATO

      By Benjamin H. Friedman and Justin Logan from Cato Institute

"Leaving aside nuclear weapons, which deterrence renders unusable, Russia is not a great power, and is incapable of threatening Western Europe, let alone the United States. Even fattened by oil revenues, which have fallen by roughly 40 percent since the war in Georgia, Russia still only has a GDP roughly equivalent to that of Italy and Portugal combined."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9738

Gazing Ahead

Attempts to peek into the future.

What Now?

      By Jim Kunstler from Clusterfuck Nation

"The societies of the world will be faced with the task of rebuilding systems of fruitful activity, i.e., real economies based on productive behavior rather than the smoke-and-mirrors of Frankenstein-finance con games. In fact, ... the Frankenstein story -- the New Prometheus -- is yet another apt narrative to inform us what we have done. We have 'played' with financial fire and brought to life a monster now bent on killing us."

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/10/
its-fascinating-to-read-the-commentators-in-mainstream-journals-like-the-financial-times-and-the-wall-street-journal--all-st.html

Reflections on the 'Crisis'

      By Karen Kwiatkowski from LewRockwell.com

"I would assume these actions include – and are not limited to – reducing and eventually eliminating our physical, moral, verbal, spiritual, and financial support of the corporate state. Instead, we will increasingly choose to support ourselves, those about whom we care, and those with whom we choose to trade, in the marketplace of both goods and ideas. We will shun the state."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski214.html

Startup Turns CO2 Into Fuel

      By Dave Demerjian from Autopia from Wired.com

"Carbon Sciences claims it has developed a way of using the CO2 emitted during the combustion of coal, oil and other hydrocarbons to create transportation fuels like gasoline and jet fuel. Should Carbon Sciences — or any of the other firms working on similar projects — accomplish this on a large scale, it could bring a reduction in CO2 emissions as well as an abundant supply of renewable fuel."

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/10/california-comp.html

Analysis: netbooks a challenge and opportunity for Linux

      By Ryan Paul from Ars Technica

"Opportunities for Linux in the mobile Internet device arena are huge and could redefine the platform's role in the consumer market."

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/
20081014-analysis-netbooks-a-challenge-and-opportunity-for-linux.html

Five old-fashioned Web concepts that need to die

      By Rafe Needleman from Webware - CNET

"Wake up! It's 2008. There are things we've become accustomed to doing and seeing on Web sites for years that really should have vanished by now."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10065922-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Culcha'

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

Charlie Kaufman: Hollywood's Brainiest Screenwriter Pleases Crowds by Refusing to Please

      Reviewed by Jason Tanz from Wired

"The mind of Charlie Kaufman may not be the happiest place on earth, but it is one of the most fascinating. ... Kaufman's Möbius scripts contain some of the strangest loops ever put to film."

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-11/ff_kaufman

Ridley Scott to Adapt Forever War

      By Meredith Woerner from io9

"So it appears that Ridley Scott is intent on getting his hands on all the greatest science fiction novels and turning them into blockbusters, which sounds fine to me."

http://io9.com/5062626/ridley-scott-to-adapt-forever-war

Best Movies to Watch When the Economy Is Going to Hell

      By Betsy Schiffman from Epicenter from Wired.com

"Conventional wisdom is that when times are tough, Americans go to the movies. Box office grosses increased during five of the last seven recessions since 1965, according to data from the National Association of Theater Owners."

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/best-recession.html

Central Bankers Still Don’t Get It

      By George Selgin from The Independent Institute

"Who can forget the end of 'Planet of the Apes' when Charlton Heston, kneeling before the half-buried remains of the Statue of Liberty, slams his fists into the sand and cries, 'You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you ...damn you all to hell!' Now imagine the same scene, but with a half-buried Morgan Stanley building standing in for Miss Liberty and a time-traveling Walter Bagehot playing the lead...."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2345

Bailout and Revolution, Film Noir Style

      By James N. Herndon from LewRockwell.com

"I was uneasy, that’s for sure. I felt as if the third act of a tawdry melodrama was underway. I even imagined that I heard screaming from the cheap seats. In fact, I had. The blackmail note had just arrived. Money was being demanded by the mercenaries with an MBA, by the whores with a printing press, by the loan sharks with the Wall Street addresses, by the guys who shower in their suits and make love to their cell phones. By the hit men who’ve turned mass murder into an investment opportunity."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/herndon5.html

The lighter side

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

A brief digression on matters of lost time

      By John Hodgman from TED | TEDBlog

"Humorist John Hodgman rambles through a new story about aliens, physics, time, space and the way all of these somehow contribute to a sweet, perfect memory of falling in love."

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/john_hodgman_s_brief_digression.html

Update Thursday: Bush Endorsement

      By Saturday Night Live from Video - NBC.com

Pres. Bush endorses McCain and Palin

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/
clips/update-thursday-bush-endorsement/783981/

Too Much Political Knowledge

      By Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report

"Stephen is outraged that his viewers came in 9th for their political knowledge."

http://www.hulu.com/watch/40509/the-colbert-report-too-much-political-knowledge

Adventuring Party Politics: The Campaign is Getting Ugly

      By somehedgehog from Live Journal

"GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do? OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it. MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I'm a level 72 ranger and he's only a level 8 paladin."

http://somehedgehog.livejournal.com/245807.html

You Suck At Photoshop #19

      By Donnie Hoyle from My Damn Channel

"Donnie Hoyle sheds some light on the shadows of his past."

http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Big_Fat_Brain/
You_Suck_At_Photoshop__Season_2/1167_960.aspx

Deep Thought

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

The Curse of Visionary Politicians

      By George C. Leef from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Much nonsense has been written about the great financial debacle of 2008, much of it deliberately crafted to confuse and mislead people into believing that it was caused by free-market capitalism. The truth is that this is the latest manifestation of our national curse — the curse of visionary politicians. That curse stems from our proclivity for electing politicians who have grand ideas for improving the nation (or even the world) by trying to make things more equal, more righteous, more fair, more something. The trouble is that their plans always backfire, doing damage to taxpayers and other innocent bystanders."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0810l.asp

Annals of Culture: Late Bloomers

      By Malcolm Gladwell from The New Yorker

"On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure: while the late bloomer is revising and despairing and changing course and slashing canvases to ribbons after months or years, what he or she produces will look like the kind of thing produced by the artist who will never bloom at all. Prodigies are easy. They advertise their genius from the get-go. Late bloomers are hard. They require forbearance and blind faith."

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

The Nausea Express

      By Jim Kunstler from Whiskey & Gunpowder

"The circumstances we’re entering appear, for the moment, to take the shape of a compressive deflationary depression with the cherry-on-top add-on of a hyper-inflation further down the road — meaning initially that jobs, incomes, and pensions are lost, but that later on even the little money that people manage to get — perhaps mostly from government hand-outs of one kind or another — steadily loses its value. Every way you jigger things, it just ends up meaning the same thing: a much poorer society."

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/Archives/2008/20081016.html

Trade Makes People Better Off, Even Superheroes

      By Art Carden and Mike Hammock from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"The law of comparative advantage shows us how we can (seemingly) create something from nothing merely by redirecting our efforts and trading."

http://mises.org/story/3134

Quantum Cryptography: As Awesome As It Is Pointless

      By Bruce Schneier from Wired

"Cryptography is the one area of security that we can get right. We already have good encryption algorithms, good authentication algorithms and good key-agreement protocols. Maybe quantum cryptography can make that link stronger, but why would anyone bother? There are far more serious security problems to worry about, and it makes much more sense to spend effort securing those."

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/10/securitymatters_1016

Miscellany

Articles not easily classified

A Little Thing Called Inflation

      By The Mogambo Guru (Richard Daughty) from Safe Haven

"The Fed is now giving foreigners 'unlimited amounts of dollar funds', and yet I cannot get another dollar with which to turn my ordinary burger-and-fries dinner into a Grande Feast of double fries and two perfectly-fried all-beef patties?"

http://www.safehaven.com/article-11632.htm

I'm a Bull

      By HotForWords from YouTube

"Bear and Bull.. why the animal references for stock market directions?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKuEO02FKxM

An Echo, Not a Choice

      By Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Republicans talk about the burdens of regulation, which leaves the impression that they are for free markets. But this is wrong. Free markets are free of more than regulation; they are also free of subsidies, privileges, and guarantees. Lightening up on regulation may please business, but if it is done while keeping the subsidies, privileges, and the guarantees in place, it is not a move toward the free market."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0810i.asp

Rediscovering Latin America

      By Alvaro Vargas Llosa from The Independent Institute

"My travels confirmed that, unlike almost every other region of the world, Latin America is split down the middle between those who think their identity can only be expressed in confrontation with the outside world and those who are eager to play in the big leagues of economic development. Latin America is caught between two diametrically opposing forces seeking to determine its course for generations to come—a momentous struggle between modernizers and reactionaries."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2344

My Windows 7 Wish List

      By John C. Dvorak from PC Magazine

"Nothing on my Windows 7 wish list will be implemented, but I figured I'd complain in advance anyway."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332430,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03079TX1K0000584

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