Archives for: 2006
The Culture of Irresponsibility
December 21st, 2006During the month of December, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, coworkers in my small corproate office could sign up to bring in breakfast foods. Like vultures, my colleagues would descend on the food and devour it. It's a gruesome spectacle - one in which I'… more »
The Christmas Gifts that Keep on Giving
December 19th, 2006If you're struggling to find an X-mas gift to give your friends and relatives, I've got an idea for you: silver or gold coins.
Sure, you can't put them in your DVD player, play them or eat them, but they're awful shiny, not to mention that they are fu… more »
What would you do?
December 15th, 2006Catallarchist Jonathan Wilde recently posed a question that hits at a problem that has weighed heavily on my mind these past few months:
At some point in the future, the majority of US voters come to believe passionately in communism. As the president… more »
Caption or Comment on this Drug Raid Photo
December 11th, 2006I thought about writing something up, but I'd rather hear what you have to say about this:
Article: Balko Photo credit: Justin Cook, University of North Carolina more »
TSA watch: Power without Accountability
December 8th, 2006I'm flying to Houston from Atlanta this evening, so I'll once again have to deal with all the TSA bullshit. And no, I won't be wearing my "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" T-shirt. Because I'll be going face to face with bureaucracy later today, I want to pass… more »
Man Fakes Retardation to Secure Government Subsidies
December 6th, 2006The AP reports:
For nearly 20 years — ever since Pete Costello was 8 — his mother has collected disability benefits on his behalf. In meetings with Social Security officials and psychologists, he appeared mentally retarded and unable to communicate.… more »
Little by Little, Our Freedoms are Lost
December 5th, 2006NYC health board bans trans fats at restaurants
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Board of Health voted Tuesday to make New York the first city in the nation to ban artery-clogging artificial trans fats at restaurants -- from the corner pizzeria to high-end bakerie… more »
Watch out parents, 1337-speak could be dangerous!
November 29th, 2006ROFLMAO! This news segment on "leet speak" is 3x(3LL3|\|7 (Note that it's only about two minutes long)!!! I less than three YouTube. more »
John Taylor Gatto
November 29th, 2006John Taylor Gatto taught English in New York City schools for 30 years. During that time, he learned how absolutely busted the public education system is in the United States. Upon his retirement, he wrote a seditious book titled, The Underground Histo… more »
Ben Stein Misses the Big Picture
November 28th, 2006Ben Stein's latest editorial for the New York Times, In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning, discusses the need to eliminate the deficit. His idea? More taxes on the wealthy. But what's particularly interesting about Stein's piece is how he so… more »
Rangel's Bet
November 27th, 2006You might have heard about Rep. Charles Rangel's bill to re-introduce the draft. Rangel writes:
I intend to reintroduce legislation to reinstate the military draft, making men and women up to age 42 eligible for service, with no exemptions beyond he… more »
92-Year-Old Atlantan Murdered in Police Raid
November 23rd, 2006Radley Balko, the Agitator, is covering the latest present day example of how you and I are living in a police state. The case? Atlanta police had an undercover buyer purchase drugs at the home of a 92-year-old woman who, appparently, rarely ever left… more »
The Future of Driving (Under the Influence of Regulation)
November 22nd, 2006Drivers who are convicted for DUI may soon be facing even stricter punishment if Mothers Against Drunk Driving (They're "MADD" in more ways than two) get their way. Per an article from the New York Times:
In the first phase of the plan, Mothers Ag… more »
The [il]legitimacy of Intellectual Property Rights
November 21st, 2006Patri Friedman lays out a "practical argument" against intellectual property rights protection over at Catallarchy. Patri's analysis deals with the topic of IP protection in an even-handed manner and is worth reading.
I am a[n] [il]legitmacy-of-IP… more »
"When the bell rang, I started pummeling my daughter" - Mark Frauenfelder on Nintendo Wii
November 17th, 2006Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder reviews his initial experience with the Nintendo Wii after trying it out with his daughter. If you haven't been following the console-wars, the Wii uses a motion-sensing wand-like controller to bring physical action to th… more »
Milton Friedman, Rest in Peace
November 16th, 2006Milton Friedman has died. He was 94.
Thank you, Professor, for your steadfast pursuit of freedom. Your legacy lives on.
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
-Milton Friedman, 1912 - 2006 more »
Lou Dobbs: the State Comes First
November 15th, 2006In an editorial titled, Dobbs: I'm a populist, deal with it, Lou Dobbs claims that he is a "damn proud populist" after defining a populist as being "a supporter of the rights and the power of the people". Dobbs then obfuscates these allegedly populist u… more »
Dems on Net "Neutrality"
November 15th, 2006An article on c|net News speaks to what we might expect regarding the issue of "net neutrality" from a Democratic-majority Congress (Link):
"Clearly, we're going to have to address the question of network neutrality," Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan De… more »
Eliminating Traffic Lights: Dutch Town Experiments with Anarchy on the Road
November 9th, 2006The Dutch town of Drachten has been systematically eliminating all traffic lights per the recommendation of road engineer Hans Monderman. Though a small town of only 50,000, twelve of the original fifteen sets of traffic lights have been eliminated over… more »
Front Door Drug Delivery: the War on Drugs is a War on Choice
November 8th, 2006Back in December of 2005, an illegal drug trafficking operation in New York called "Cartoon Network" was shut down (Link: WaPo). The Cartoon Network, which was in no way connected to the cable network of the same name, specialized in making home deliver… more »
Ambling Thoughts on Election Day
November 7th, 2006Facing the the force of the farce that is our democracy, I find myself pondering life as an Expatriate: is getting out of the United States a viable method to secure more freedom, both civil and fiscal? Or are there other ways to circumvent the state wh… more »
Reuters: 'Republicans get no traction from strong economy'
November 3rd, 2006In Reuters today there is an article by Andrea Hopkins titled, Republicans get no traction from strong economy. Per the article:
CINCINNATI, Nov 3 (Reuters) - White House budget director Rob Portman can point to plenty of good economic news that sho… more »
Kerry's Botched Attempt at Humor
November 1st, 2006By now, you've probably seen the headlines suggesting that Sen. John Kerry thinks U.S. troops are dummies and that you better stay in school unless you want to end up in Iraq. Here's what Kerry said:
He said: "You know, education -- if you make the mo… more »
A Voting Illustration: A Simple Democracy
October 31st, 2006Every couple years I am subjected to a number of reasons why I should vote. The imperatives scornfully scream from the TV, the internet, my mailbox, corporate emails, and varying acquaintances. I'm sure you've heard all of them, too: it's your duty to… more »
Democrats Will Win by Being "Not Bush"
October 30th, 2006Donald Lambro opines in the Washington Times that the Democrats will make large political advances in the upcoming election, sadly, not because they have better ideas, but simply because they are "Not Bush" - an idea that can easily be extended to voting… more »
NJ Ruling on Gay Marriage Wakes the "Sleeping Giant" that is the Religious Conservo-Fascists
October 27th, 2006The Washington Post reports that religious conservative groups ("Religious conservo-fascists", for short :>>) are ecstatic over the recent New Jersey court ruling that allows for gay marriages. Why would leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention, the… more »
Bush on Winning in Iraq
October 26th, 2006Yesterday, President Bush held news conference on Iraq. During the conference, Bush covered topics including timetables, winning in Iraq, the situations in Iran and North Korea and the upcoming November election. Though the full transcript is worth a r… more »
Self-Organizing Systems (A description of Anarchy in a paper on traffic lights)
October 23rd, 2006A paper on Self-organizing traffic lights ... contained the following bit on self-organizing systems:
A system described as self-organizing is one in which elements interact in order to achieve dynamically a global function or behavior.
This fu… more »
Full Circle on Foley
October 20th, 2006The Mark Foley scandal comes full circle, back to a sexual interaction between Foley and a late-twenties priest when Foley was a young teenager:
Foley, 52, has said through attorney David Roth that he was molested by a priest when he was between the… more »
U.S. Mint Afraid of Competition from Alternative Money
October 18th, 2006Background - The Liberty Dollar:The Liberty Dollar is an ingeniously simple alternative form of money created to compete with Federal Reserve Notes, also known as the fiat currency of the United States of America, by Bernard von NotHaus. What's so inven… more »
Virtual Economies
October 18th, 2006I'm a bit behind the times: I only recently heard of Second Life (SL), a growing virtual world created to mimic the metaverse idea written by Neal Stephenson in his book, Snow Crash (Note that Snow Crash was written in 1992).
In this virtual world, y… more »
The Gaming Addiction
October 18th, 2006I am confident that many readers (Many bloggers) have succumbed to the siren song of video and computer games. Gaming is entertaining and challenging. It's a great distraction, justifiably better than just watching TV because you're actually doing some… more »
House Rep. Barney Frank Lucid, Wesley Snipes Busted by The Man
October 17th, 2006I'm having a bit of a dry-spell on posting due to busy work conditions. Thankfully, Catallarchists Sean Lynch and Randall McElroy found a couple newsworthy items I can't help but repost here.
The first relates to Representative Barney Frank (D - MA)… more »
Canadian Troops in Afghanistan Encounter Impenetrable Marijuana Forests: "We tried burning them ..."
October 13th, 2006Start your Friday off with some of the funniest news I've read in quite awhile (H/T reddit):
Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-fee… more »
Two Good Reasons for Google to Buy YouTube
October 12th, 2006First, the obvious, compliments of Google Trends (H/T Digg):
The quick and impressive success of YouTube explains a lot of why Google would find YouTube desireable from an acquisition perspective. However, with intellectual property cases taking on… more »
Geologist Loses Rock to TSA Stooges
October 10th, 2006Robert Thorson, a geologist, was flying to give a speech at a Stone Foundation meeting in Oregon. As a geologist, he was carrying-on a rock specimen as a prop for his talk. Well, that was his plan, anyway -- before TSA gave him no alternative other tha… more »
YouTube Acquired by Google for $1.65 Billion
October 10th, 2006Google is acquiring internet video giant YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.
The creators of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, 29 and 27, respectively, stand to make a little bit of money on this deal. To announce the acquisition in a fitting mann… more »
"It doesn't feel like real money"
October 9th, 2006An article from the UK's The Independent titled, Britain becomes 'never, never land' as personal debt runs out of control, included the following anecdote by Alice Douglas. One can't help but imagine any number of Americans telling the same story about… more »
Wall St. Must be Pissed
October 9th, 2006First, we find out that OPEC has decided to cut output (One can't help but wonder if OPEC, as led by the Saudis, had no choice):
Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose after six OPEC members, led by Saudi Arabia, agreed to cut output by about 3.4 perce… more »
A Day in the Life of Homeland Security
October 6th, 2006After reading a number of disturbing pieces on the Department of Homeland Security, I decided to take a tour of www.dhs.gov and see what more I could find out about this executive agency. The DHS was created in 2002 by order of President Bush. The miss… more »
The Problem of Public Schools
October 3rd, 2006Public schools are destined for mediocrity simply by existing as institutional extensions of the state. The abominable marriage of education and government fails because it disconnects cost and benefit, thereby severing learning from the powerful forces… more »
Bill Frist's Bottom Line
October 2nd, 2006Internet gambling is about to be shutdown for Americans:
The House of Representatives and Senate unexpectedly approved a bill early on Saturday that would make it illegal for banks and credit-card companies to make payments to online gambling sites.… more »
TSA: Toiletries in Small Quantities Not a Threat
September 25th, 2006The Transportation Security Administration has partially re-allowed, after nearly a month-and-a-half ban, travelers to carry-on certain liquids and/or gel products. Per the Forbes article:
"We now know enough to say that a total ban is no longer nee… more »
The War in Iraq has made Terrorism Worse.
September 25th, 2006In stark contrast to President Bush's recent statement that America is safer five years after 9/11, a National Intelligence Estimate has been released (Read articles on it here or here) that concludes that the Iraq War has, instead of mitigating the issu… more »
Building Walls: The Proposed 700-Mile "Fence" Between U.S. and Mexico
September 21st, 2006Legislation regarding illegal immigration is back on the table in the House and Senate. The Senate unanimously voted (94-0) to take up a measure, which has already passed the House, that would entail building a 700-mile, double-layered "fence" spanning… more »
Coup d'Thai
September 19th, 2006Per the Bangkok Post's breaking news, Thailand military staged the 20th coup since 1932 on Tuesday evening:
A so-called "Democratic Reform Council" declared itself in control and declared martial law nationwide. Terse announcements said it included t… more »
Willie Nelson Busted for Drug Possession
September 19th, 2006Willie Nelson, 73 year-old country music legend and NORML Advisory Board co-chair, was arrested for drug possession along with four other 50+ men who were traveling through Louisiana on Nelson's tour bus. A trooper had stopped the bus on a routine inspe… more »
Spinach Market Dead: Somewhere Popeye Crying
September 19th, 2006Per the Atlantic City Press:
The market is dead: Spinich warning over E. coli contamination hits New Jersey growers with sales drought
Dan Graiff spent a beautiful Monday afternoon on a tractor, only to come off the field to hear more bad news:… more »
When -1 + -1 = -3: GM and Ford Discuss Joining Forces
September 18th, 2006Per Yahoo! Finance, GM, Ford Could Merge or Form Alliance:
Executives of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have discussed a possible merger or alliance, the trade journal Automotive News reported Monday. Both companies declined comment.
That's… more »
The United States of America, Incorporated
September 14th, 2006Government in a nutshell:Government owes its existence to extortion, which is the coercive taking of wealth. This lone quality is government's defining characteristic. That said, assuming a government is charged with doing something more than just appr… more »
Bush Asks, "Are We Safer?" An Answer via Examination of the Homeland Security Advisory System
September 12th, 2006In light of the five year anniversary of September 11th, many are asking the question, "Are we safer?" President Bush gave a speech on that subject in Atlanta this past Thursday, September 7, 2006. He said:
Many Americans look at these events and a… more »
The "Splinter in the Eye" Fallacy
September 12th, 2006Below is my response to a comment made by Bob Bone:
Bob,
In response to my post, Victor Davis Hanson on Immigration: An Appeal to Legality, you said:
You are guilty of an "appeal to non-existant fallacies." These occur when people pretend to spo… more »
The Extent of Nothingness
September 8th, 2006Extrapolating the size of the earth relative to other planets, our sun and other stars leaves us flummoxed.
But should we go the other direction, we'd soon realize we are composed of nothing but so much empty space:
A hydrogen atom is only about a… more »
Homesteading and Tailgating
September 8th, 2006Homesteading is the act of establishing ownership over previously unowned, scarce resources. Manuel Lora and Jeffrey Tucker over at Mises explain it thusly:
In the Lockeo-libertarian tradition, homesteading is a means to establish an initial claim to… more »
Kinsella on Self-Ownership
September 7th, 2006Stephan Kinsella makes an exhaustively comprehensive case for self-ownership, which is the fundamental prerequisite of all human freedom.
I recommend reading Kinsella's piece in its entirety, but below I summarize what I found to be his key argument… more »
Steve Irwin, Croc Hunter, Rest In Peace
September 5th, 2006If you've checked the news recently, you know that Steve Irwin, the 'Crocodile Hunter', was killed this past weekend after being stabbed by a stingray while filming in Australia.
Though not a regular watcher of Irwin's shows, I watched enough to feel… more »
Deep Fried Day
September 1st, 2006Who said I was going to do this every week? It's hard to assimilate so many links! That said, here are a few random bits of news for your viewing (dis)pleasure.
The Good:
From FreethePlant.com comes a story titled, Top 10 Pot Studies Government Wis… more »
Fun with the Inverted Yield Curve
September 1st, 2006In light of halve's request to lighten the mood around here and having an innate ability at finding humor (Well, I find these things humorous) in bizarre places, I humbly submit the yield curve as it stood before the market opened this morning:
In… more »
Schrenko Goes to Jail
August 31st, 2006Georgia's former School Superintendent Linda Schrenko has been sentenced to serve eight years in prison for stealing more than a half a million dollars from the government. What did she spend the money on, you ask?
Schrenko pleaded guilty in May to u… more »
Meaningless Statist Terms
August 31st, 2006Francois Tremblay deconstructs a number of meaningless statist and collectivist terms over on The Radical Libertarian. Here's are a couple I enjoyed (Go to The Radical Libertarian to read the rest - emphasis mine):
From the statist perspective, "gov… more »
Fearful Americans Offended by Arabic T-Shirt: Raed Jarrar Harassed
August 30th, 2006Earlier this month, Raed Jarrar, an American with Arabic heritage, was flying from JFK to California via JetBlue. The day of his trip, he happened to be sporting a black t-shirt that proclaimed in Arabic and English, "We will not be silent." While wait… more »
The Problem of Evolution: Pope Benedict to Ponder Intelligent Design
August 29th, 2006Per The Guardian's John Hooper on Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design (emphasis mine):
There have been growing signs the Pope is considering aligning his church more closely with the theory of "intelligent design"
...
A prominent… more »
Consumer Confidence Down in August
August 29th, 2006The Consumer Confidence index fell to its lowest level since November of 2005, moving from 107.0 in July to 99.6 in August. Per the Yahoo! AP article:
Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board's consumer research center, said this month's drop --… more »
Katherine Harris: Christian Politician
August 28th, 2006The blogosphere is a'buzz about House Representative Katherine Harris' remarks to the Florida Baptist Witness. Most bloggers are gabbing about Harris' calling the separation of church and state a "lie" (How dare she blaspheme the Holy Constitution!). H… more »
Victor Davis Hanson on Immigration: An Appeal to Legality
August 25th, 2006Victor Davis Hanson over at Cato Unbound makes the following logical fallacy:
No humane or civilized society can exist long when the laws — and there are no statutes more fundamental than those governing citizenship and entry into a nation — are syste… more »
Traffic Lights and Civil Disobedience
August 25th, 2006On a daily basis, we allow ourselves to be institutionalized by social and government law.
Drivers wait for an automated, mindless machine to flash green: how often is the intersection they wait to cross utterly empty with no cars in sight? Why don… more »
Snakes on a Mutha#$!kin' Plane!
August 24th, 2006This past weekend I had the pleasure of watching Samuel L. Jackson's opus, Snakes on a Plane (SoaP).
Rest assured, it was muthafuckin' awesome.
I won't ruin any of the gruesomely hilarious ways they found to have snakes kill the passengers, but s… more »
Concise and Hilarious Critique of Keynes
August 23rd, 2006Found via Tim Worstall who found it over on Marginal Revolution, a pictoral critique on Keynesian economics by Xavier Sala-i-Martin.
Sometimes, a picture (or about thirteen of them) is worth a 1,000 words.
For those not familiar with the impact… more »
The Credit Boom
August 23rd, 2006Via the Mises blog, Robert J. Samuelson's article, Unwinding the Credit Boom, speaks to the expansion of credit over the past 60 years (emphasis mine):
We are at the end of the credit boom -- certainly the six-year boom and maybe the 60-year boom . .… more »
Sales of Existing Homes Down
August 23rd, 2006If you've been keeping up with the current housing market downturn, the results of the latest existing home sales report should come as no surprise:
Existing Home Sales Drop in July to Lowest Level Since January 2004
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of pre… more »
Home "Ownership" from 1945 to 2005
August 22nd, 2006This graph represents the Household Home Mortgage (Debt) data divided by the Household Real Estate (Asset) data as published in the Federal Reserve's B.100 schedules. The greater this proportion, the less equity Americans have in their homes.
The… more »
Changes at autoDogmatic
August 22nd, 2006AutoDogmatic is changing.
Due to insufficient volume, Los, T/ether and Matthaus have officially been removed from regular writer status. In their place, please welcome Aaron. Aaron is a fellow anarcho-capitalist as well as a fellow Atlantan. I ex… more »
The American Home, The American Liability
August 21st, 2006Inspired by research by Tim Iacono, I delved into data produced and published by our dear, damnable Federal Reserve. In particular, I wanted to look at the B.100 data on Household assets and Liabilities from 1975 to 2005. I must also give some inspirat… more »
Everybody's Working For the Weekend
August 18th, 2006H/T to Loverboy for creating the catchy line, "Everybody's working for the weekend." It's the mantra of corporate america.
Does this drawing capture your weekly existence?
Anyone else have a problem with working at a job you hate simply to fun… more »
Bad News For Equity Bulls
August 17th, 2006All intelligent investors take note: we are currently in the midst of a long-term secular bear market in equities that will most likely last until sometime between 2010 and 2020. How do I know this for a fact? I don't. However, in the past few weeks,… more »
The Automatic Regulator: Natural Coercion and Freedom
August 16th, 2006In my article on Natural Coercion and the Choice to Live, I describe the natural, inherent coercion of life:
There is no de facto right to life in excess of the right to protect and the ability to sustain.
Though life is freely given it is not fre… more »
Man the Creator
August 15th, 2006I have come to understand the essential characteristic of man to be that of a creator: human beings create value.
The farmer creates food; the manufacturer creates product; and the professional creates information. In step with that which we crea… more »
Appeal to Authority and Tradition: On Logical Fallacies
August 14th, 2006Logical fallacies are unavoidable. Yet we often fail to recognize these deductive failures for what they are when we see them. Internet-based debates snowball into logically fallacious free-for-alls. Arguments deteriorate even more quickly if you're f… more »
Gore's Less-Than-Green Lifestyle: A Few Inconvenient Truths
August 14th, 2006You're likely familiar with Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth. In light of Gore's call to lead a carbon-neutral lifestyle, Peter Schweizer of USA Today did some investigative reporting to determine how Al Gore makes the environment a priority in his… more »
Hillary's Perky Bust
August 11th, 2006Found via Tim Iacono's Friday Lite at TMTGM, the artist that previously created a sculpture of Britney Spears giving birth doggy style has created a bust of Hillary Rodham Clinton:
Scared yet? From the Reuters article on the matter:
Edwards sa… more »
The Liquid Terrorists and Our Fear-Mongering Governments
August 11th, 2006Per the Irish Examiner, "Terror plot chaos - Police foil plan to blow up 10 airlines" (Excerpts below in blockquote have been numbered for easy reference):
[1] British police and MI5 anti-terror officers swooped in the early hours yesterday, arresting… more »
Virtual Reality College Football
August 10th, 2006While in Best Buy yesterday on my way to purchase a DVD I passed the xbox 360 preview. The game playing was NCAA Football '07. No one was playing it, but the video game was panning around what I quickily realized was Sanford Stadium.
It was amazing… more »
Warring Governments: The Gangs Win. We Lose.
August 9th, 2006Roderick T. Long eludicates the Israeli-Lebanonese fighting in Victory Through Victim-Swapping:
So here we have (what are by libertarian standards) two criminal gangs [The Israel and Lebanon Governments], both blasting away at innocent civilians, and… more »
My "Civic Duty:" Jury Summons, Part Duex
August 9th, 2006You may recall that I won the Jury Duty lotto and was summoned to “serve” back in June. At that time, I was able to reschedule my summons date after sweet-talking the clerk on the phone. As luck would have it, my new summons date was this past Monday,… more »
Our Dollars and Cents: Statist Propaganda
August 8th, 2006With the Federal Reserve in the limelight and having just completed Murray Rothbard’s America's Great Depression as well as the fact that I’m keeping an eye on the yield curve, gold and the stock market, I keep returning to thoughts on our fiat currency.… more »
So Much Space Out West
August 8th, 2006The trip out west was great. I haven't seen so much sky in quite awhile, and while at the Grand Canyon, we had one clear night where I could make out the Milky Way (Only the third time I've been able to see it). Nature never ceases to amaze - whether i… more »
On Vacation
August 1st, 2006Consider this an away message. Unless Matthaus or The Los blog, aD might be rather quiet for the next seven days. I'm busy losing my money in Vegas, enjoying the Grand Canyon and having a little time with my family in New Mexico. Plus a wedding in Mic… more »
The Beer Bank
July 28th, 2006Blue laws still exist in the State of Georgia. They prohibit businesses from selling alcohol on Sundays. Despite this onerous relic of prohibition born by liquor and grocery stores, there are no restrictions on Sunday alcohol-sales for establishments t… more »
The American Standard
July 27th, 2006Captions, symbolic extrapolations and witticisms requested.
All submissions to be included below.
halve: "Well, at least we didn't invent the bidet." more »
Natural Coercion and the Choice to Live
July 25th, 2006The Declaration of Independence states:We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.Many,… more »
Go Jobless
July 24th, 2006I stumbled across an article written by Steve Pavlina titled, 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job. The article talks about the problems of being an employee as well as the merits of being self-employed. Here is a clip:Getting a job is like enrolling… more »
Mind Control
July 23rd, 2006Found via Digg, an article on CNN.com titled, Surfing the Web with nothing but brainwaves: Someday, keyboards and computer mice will be remembered only as medieval-style torture devices for the wrists. All work - emails, spreadsheets, and Google searches… more »
autoDogmatic Makes VH-1's 'Best Week Ever'!
July 22nd, 2006Well, Zeke (My siamese cat) did, anyway.
VH-1's Best Week Ever did a piece on "Cat Crap Videos" for their July 21st episode. The show humorously went through multiple screenshots of these cat pooping videos, and wouldn't ya know it, there were a few s… more »
An Argument Against Minimum Wage Laws
July 22nd, 2006Minimum wage laws are like having the government as an overarching union for the entry-level worker. This is supposedly a good thing.
A number of individuals try and refute the free-market arguments against minimum wage based on the position that the… more »
Bush Trimming: Veto #1
July 21st, 2006As the Los (and the rest of America) noted below, Bush recently used his first veto in 5 1/2 years as President to stop embryonic stem-cell research. Anyone else think this was done with November looming on the horizon? How about Bush's following comme… more »
On Buffett: The 99% Capitalist
July 19th, 2006Warren Buffett is an American hero. He's also a hero of mine. Ever since plowing through Roger Lowenstein's Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist and subsequently picking up The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America, only to g… more »
I <3 Wal-Mart.
July 19th, 2006Everyone loves to hate Wal-Mart.
Maybe it's the everyday low prices. Or perhaps it is that Wal-Mart brings us those prices by buying cheap goods overseas. Many hate Wal-Mart because they out-compete the local mom & pop stores - you know, like K… more »
Hijacking Words
July 19th, 2006What better follow-up to my post on Switching Symbolic Meaning than an article about a Berkeley linguist's study on the monopolization of certain fundamentally good words by the Republican party: [Professor George Lakoff] makes a very persuasive argument… more »
The Definition of Insanity
July 18th, 2006The 'net can't seem to figure out who originally said it, but we've all heard it in some shape or form:The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, each time expecting different results.Application: Are people who continually p… more »
What's Wrong With This Picture? Increases in the PPI.
July 18th, 2006Via MarketWatch:WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. producer prices rose by a larger-than-expected 0.5% in June, but core inflation increased 0.2% as expected, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.
Higher energy and food prices accounted for most of the… more »
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