This has been a bad month for dictators: Pinochet died and Saddam was hanged. Now it looks like Castro may be in his last days. Hopefully, he will die un-mourned, and his regime will collapse, allowing Cuba to be free for the first time. It won’t happen that way….something worse is bound to happen, but [...]
Archive for November, 2011
In the latest issue of Reason there is a story by Guy Taylor (not yet online) about the extent of freedom of the press in Syria, particularly on the internet. I confess that I don’t know as much about Syria as I should; I understand all the other major Middle Eastern countries far better, so [...]
While the deaths of American troops in Iraq make the news at least whenever the count reaches one milestone or another, it’s almost completely forgotten that there are thousands of American civilians (for many of them the term “civilian” is debatable as they serve as bodyguards for important buildings and people) working–and dying–in the country. [...]
At a Senate Judiciary Hearing today, Attorney General Gonzales made this deeply disturbing statement: I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn’t say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says that the right of habeas [...]
Go see Children of Men. It’s a great anti-authoritarian, post appocalyptic film that succeeds everywhere that the similarly themed V for Vendetta came up lacking. For instance, the movie contains several overt references to recent events such as the Abu Ghraib scandal as V did, but in V it always seemed forced, while here it [...]
The picture at this link shows the GDP of U.S. in terms of foreign countries. Look at it and reflect upon how fabulously wealthy this country is thanks to its relatively free market economy. But also ask yourself this: why should any political unit be so large? If the larger states were granted status as [...]
In 1972, Godfather producer Albert Ruddy tried to make Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged into a film. In discussions about this venture, Rand told Ruddy that the “Soviets might try to take over Paramount to block the project.” Wow….that’s truly insane. If believing that international affairs turn on a film adaptation of your novel doesn’t count [...]
These are some amazing 3D images painted on the side of formerly ugly buildings. (From LRC). How about some King Crimson? Well, it’s really hard to find any videos of the original King Crimson lineup but here are a couple of videos with former members of the band playing KC classics, which is about as [...]
According to Lew Rockwell (who ought to know), Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) today formed a presidential exploratory committee. Don’t let the Republican part fool you: Paul is a dedicated, hardcore libertarian; he ran as the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in 1988. As crazy as this sounds, if he were to run, I think Paul could [...]
At my alma mater, Washington University in Saint Louis, there were two elderly people–a man and a woman, apparently bother and sister–who attended nearly every campus lecture that had food. I always assumed they were homeless, but not only were they not homeless, they both graduated from Wash U. The brother, Sam Lachterman, also received [...]
