Archive for June, 2008

30
Jun

Another Victimless Crime Leads To Death

By joeglab 2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

From the Boston Globe:

A 22-year-old man who stopped breathing while in police custody after his arrest during the June 18 Boston Celtics NBA championship celebration died yesterday, prompting an investigation by Boston police and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office into his death.

The parents of David Woodman, a former Emmanuel College student who was living in Brookline, said their son did not receive prompt medical attention while lying unconscious, face down on Brookline Avenue with his hands cuffed behind his back. They also accused police of failing to give them a full account of what happened.

Officers grabbed Woodman, who was carrying a plastic cup of beer, and as they struggled to handcuff him pushed him face down onto the ground, according to Woodman’s friend.

“He wasn’t being a punk or anything like that,” said the friend. “I don’t understand why the officers used such brute force to arrest him.”

Gee, good thing we got that dangerous animal off the streets. See, public consumption of the devil’s brew does indeed harm innocent people. Or maybe contempt of cop does.

Actually, it’s a victimless crime or rather a non-crime which makes it even more painful and destructive of civil society. Just like this case.

29
Jun

Swedish Children’s Parties Move Underground

By joeglab 0 Comments
Categories: socialism

I guess kids’ birthday parties will now be held in speakeasies from now on in the country that recycling zealots in the US wish to emulate.

BamseAngry

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.

He says the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the other one.

The boy handed out his birthday invitations during class-time and when the teacher spotted that two children had not received one the invitations were confiscated.

Sounds consistent for a country that abhors capitalism and praises Mao.

27
Jun

Thanks, Alan and Ben

By joeglab 2 Comments
Categories: Austrian Economics, economics and monetary policy

I have been looking forward to my photo workshop in Venice, Italy for some time now. The trip is all-inclusive and was paid for several months ago (or so I thought) so all I had to do was not go crazy waiting until October. Then I get this email from the organizer of the trip (chart not included):

I have booked all that is necessary for each of us and …. a few little surprises to ensure an even greater time together in Bella Venezia!!!

I have one little bad news…. the USD$$$   has plummeted by 14.3% against the EURO since lat year !!   We ADVERTISED  hotel rates in USD $ , but will be paying the hotel in EURO.

The deficit is quite significant when booking 20 or so rooms per week, so I am afraid we need to charge you an extra USD$300 for the WEEK for the accommodation component of the costs.

Sweet. The trip isn’t for another few months so I wonder how many more emails like this I’ll get before I actually take off?  The $300 kinda makes me mad but it got me thinking about how aware everyone else in the world is of our monetary policy and how numb Americans are toward anything but reality teevee shows. The Euro is inflating like crazy (in terms of gold) but Da Fed is making Brussels look like a bunch of monks.

26
Jun

Classic Books In Three Lines

By joeglab 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

Ha! Here’s Orwell’s 1984 distilled down to a haiku:

WINSTON: Don’t tell the Party, but sex is way better than totalitarianism.
EVERYONE: Surprise! We’re the Party.
WINSTON: Oh, rats.

26
Jun

Biodiesel: You Still Can’t get Something For Nothing

By joeglab 2 Comments
Categories: economics and fascism

The next great idea: use the world’s zillions of acres of fallow farmland to grow diesel fuels. Friggin’ brilliant!

biofuel_main

A billion acres of farmland around the world have been abandoned and could now be used to grow biofuel crops, a new study suggests.

One of the criticisms of biofuels such as ethanol from corn or rice is that the crops eat into land that could be used to grow food, which is increasingly in short supply globally, causing frustration and hunger that have led to protests and riots. The alternative of clearing forests to grow biofuel crops is unacceptable to many.

Yet somewhere between 1 billion and 1.2 billion acres of agricultural land is lying fallow, the study finds. That compares to about 3.8 billion acres that are currently in use.

Shortage of land is not the issue. Profitability is. The only reason we grow corn here to make into biofuel is because our government subsidizes it. But it isn’t profitable. Especially when there are untold zillions of barrels of energy-dense fossil fuels to be had at a price that is still cheaper than biodiesel. At the moment, the only way to make biodiesel widely available is for governments to steal the means of production at which point political expediency will trump saving the planet (whatever the definition).

26
Jun

Philadeiphia’s Wall Murals Also Its Newest Religion

By joeglab 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

Philadelphia started its wall mural program in blighted areas in an effort to send a positive message to impoverished inner-city kids. I recall seeing them painted on the walls of housing projects way back when off of Vare Ave as I sat in traffic on the Schuykill Expressway. But don’t dare contract with the owner of a privately-owned building to paint your own mural without permission from your overlords.

In a city famous for murals, some recent paintings on the sides of businesses and abandoned buildings seem to blend with Philadelphia’s urban landscape.

But a closer inspection shows them to be advertisements for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Colt 45 malt liquor, which are brands sold by Pabst Brewing Company. They appear to be part of a national marketing campaign by the Illinois-based company.

Several business operators said they were paid to have the ads painted on their buildings and were told or assumed that it was legal.

However, the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections said they are breaking the law.

Meanwhile, put that same artwork on a billboard and it’s ok. Go figure.

26
Jun

When Anti-Gun Rhetoric Fails, Try Class Warfare

By joeglab 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

Or so goes the reasoning of Karen Heller at The Inky:

Aaron McKie grew up in Olney, went to Gratz High, graduated from Temple, and was a valued guard for the 76ers, named NBA sixth man of the year for the 2000-01 season.

On Monday, he was arrested after allegedly lying in the purchase of two handguns, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson and a 9mm Ruger.

“Unfortunately, Philadelphia’s become a pretty dangerous place,” his attorney Brian McMonagle said, “and for athletes like himself, there’s certainly no good reason for them not to try to protect their families and themselves.”

McKie no longer lives in Philadelphia. He resides in a $1.8 million, 7,417-square-foot French colonial with five bedrooms and 61/2 baths in the bucolic burg of Narberth. So danger is less likely to come from thugs than from deer.

Karen, the whole debacle stemmed from the sham that is gun control. The man shouldn’t have to justify owning a gun (or his mansion)  to you or anyone else.

26
Jun

Supremes affirm second amendment, still manage to get it wrong

By libertyvini 2 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

Chris Manion reports on the lewrockwell.com blog that the Supreme Court has upheld the Second Amendment (gee, thanks!) with the majority and minority from the Boumadiene decision on habeus corpus exactly reversed. Yet as unsettling as that is, what is really a worrying prospect is that both the majority and the minority have fundamentally flawed ideas about the scope (it is designed to constrain the feds only), the nature of the right, and the plain wording of the amendment;

“Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”

You’re damn right it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t permit the prohibition of any weapon used for any non-criminal purpose, by any person, you ignorant jerk.

“In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”
He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

Um, Justice Stevens, have you actually READ the document in question? What part of “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” don’t you understand?

Thanks in part to the heroic efforts of Ron Paul and others, the average garbage collector has a better grasp of the constitution than these nine enshrined eminences.
Will someone please save us from this court?!

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Scotus-Guns.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

UPDATE: Our friend Stephan Kinsella disagrees; according to his reading, the thugs in the government of DC have plenary power, so the Second Amendment does not apply;

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/021701.html#more

25
Jun

Et Tu, Tutu?

By libertyvini 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized

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I heard a snippet on CNN of an interview with Desmond Tutu where he made the statement that a country’s leader (a man whose policies of destruction of the country’s currency as well as the property and other civil rights of the people, and the beneficiary of a rigged election) should resign now, “while there is still time”. Imagine my dissapointment upon discovering not only that the president in question wasn’t George Bush, but that the former Anglican archbishop’s statement was a not so veiled exhortation for Mr. Bush to attack another tyrant (Mugabe) destroying his ‘own’ country. Please, your excellency, please stop.

25
Jun

Yay! Rothbard Audio Available!

By joeglab 1 Comment
Categories: Austrian Economics, recommendations and reference

I have always been a big fan of Audible.com since I don’t get much time to sit and read for any length of time. So I was thrilled when I just saw that Murray Rothbard’s “America’s Great Depression” was now available as an audio download. It made my morning.

I can’t wait to get it onto my iPod. I’m sure it’ll be great. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what this guy had to say at Amazon.com.

this is one of the most enraging books I have ever read about anything related to economics. The author seems to forget that underneath ALL of the formulas and “trends” in any field of economics lies WEALTH. REAL, SUBSTANTIAL, PRODUCTIVE, LABOR-RELATED WEALTH. This is something even Keynesian economists fail in recognizing…any book which does not recognize the intervention of FDR’s fiscal policy as a return to the philosophy of our founding fathers (IE. Henry Clay, Alexander Hamilton)and the only way we could have possibly survived the depression and the mobilization to fight fascism is a POORLY written book from an author who is obviously misinformed by the popular trash of classroom and related ivory tower academia.

That’s enough of a recommendation for me! However, the vast majority of readers gave it 4-5 stars.

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