The Nairobi Trio

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Huh? Who knew this wouldn't work?

Congressman Ron Paul - Capitalism Without Capital? - Texas Straight Talk

Capitalism Without Capital?

How good is this issue of The American Conservative?

Now we're talking

PickensPlan

Reflection on the 4th of July

The Turning Point

We're Winning The War on Terror!

Another report card from fellow Nolan Chart denizen and libertarian colleague, Doug Eberhardt.

World's Only Superpower

Occupation Plan for Iraq Faulted in Army History - NYTimes.com

OK, let's set up the HQ here, and I'll see you in the Mess Tent.

Campaign for Liberty

Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty

The mission of the Campaign for Liberty is to promote and defend the great American principles of individual liberty, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, by means of
educational and political activity.

The Right to Bear Arms -- Still Unsettled

In part, our second amendment is based on the propensity of Britannia to occupy (see the American Revolution, the Irish Rebellion). But further the propensity becomes a case of a government occupying the territory of its people.

It's informative to read Halbrook's The Founders' Second Amendment; Origins of the Right to Bear Arms, while thinking of the USA as currently under occupation by its own government.

Does the Invisible Hand Need a Helping Hand?

Ronald Bailey at Reason reports on some interesting ideas about the complexity, and individual freedom, in cost-benefit analysis. The idea that every opportunity appears differently to each observer accounts for the unintended consequences of treating us as collectives.

Does the Invisible Hand Need a Helping Hand?

George Carlin -- RIP

Here's another bunch of ignorant shit: school uniforms. Bad theory. The idea that if kids wear uniforms to school it helps keep order. Don't these schools do enough damage makin' all these kids think alike? Now they're gonna make them look alike too? And it's not a new idea. I first saw it in news reels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand 'cause the narration was in German! -- George Carlin

Exactly --

The Cunning Linguist

by Marty Beckerman

Another Good Person, #0011

Burt Munro, a man who is an example of a natural libertarian, essentially apolitical, doesn't debate the principles -- he just lives that way.

Movie Review

On the heels of No Country for Old Men comes There Will be Blood. Clearly the second best western since Unforgiven. And clearly Daniel Day-Lewis puts in an acting tour de force the equal of Newman in Hud, Gable in The Misfits, Wayne in True Grit, or Brando in One-Eyed Jacks.

Another Good Person, #0010

John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is a writer widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. Like Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson, he helped kick-start the "new journalism" which, in the 1960s, revolutionized nonfiction by incorporating techniques from novels and other forms of fiction. McPhee avoided the attention-grabbing streams of consciousness of Wolfe and Thompson, but his detailed description of characters, insatiable appetite for details, and masterful style make his writing lively, readable, and personal, even when it focuses on obscure or difficult topics.

---

His book, The Control of Nature, is bedrock to my libertarian views. Free man in harmony with nature is the ideal. Tinkering man pitted against nature is the folly.

Movie Review

Easily the best movie I have seen in the past 12 months. Clearly the top Western since The Unforgiven. Hands down the equal of the very best Coen Brothers' movies (as in "Fargo").

Josh Brolin -- I haven't noticed him before, but too good to forget again.
Cormac McCarthy -- No more fooling around -- I will be reading now.
Kelly MacDonald -- A favorite, and what an acting gem without much screen time.
Tommy Lee Jones -- Finally another Woodrow Call performance.
Javier Bardem -- Hannibal Lecter meets the Coen Brothers.
Woody Harrelson -- Famous wiseass gets his pronto.
Steven Root -- Great cameo.
Barry Corbin -- Greater cameo.
The filling station coin flip -- what a scene!
"Look, I need to know what I stand to win." -- What a line.
The best dialog -- almost every spoken word, but, "If it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."
Evocative of -- Lonely Are the Brave.

What if . . .

Why do we have a "farsi-spoken-here" radio station?

Here I was minding my own business, reading a web post, by majd hooman, about dubya saying something stupid. Then I read that he said something stupid on ". . . Radio Farda, the U.S. government radio station that broadcasts into Iran in Farsi . . !"

Yikes! Who's paying for this? Read and weep. How much? A cursory web search reveals that Radio Farda may have had an $8 million dollar appropriation, in 2005, from the US Congress.

Paul Scofield -- RIP

Oscar-Winning Actor Paul Scofield Dies

Actor Richard Burton, once regarded as the natural heir to Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud at the summit of British theater, said it was Scofield who deserved that place. "Of the 10 greatest moments in the theater, eight are Scofield's," he said.

The Benies of Libertarianism

I can read and assimilate well-taken points from across the political spectrum, such as Bob Cesca's

Bush's Iraq Strategery: Blame The Troops.

Why have libertarians ceded the non-interventionist ground to the left. Why do we wait until the left states the obvious?

Houston TX -- Tunnels!

Houston TX -- Comfort Food!

Recommended by 41, Bar, Hakeem, Nolan and ZZ Top!

Houston TX -- Mex!

Terrific Chicken Enchilada Soup

Houston TX -- Oysters!

at Massa's.

Houston TX

Sam Houston Airport

Thomas Paine

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a
necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a Government, which we might expect in a country without
Government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. -- Thomas Paine

Is Barack Obama a Left-Libertarian?

Obama's preference for reducing healthcare costs while preserving the freedom to choose whether or not to participate in the healthcare system, as against Clinton's (and Edwards's) insistence on mandating participation, is not a one-off discrepancy without broader implications. Rather, Obama's language of personal choice and incentive is a reflection of the ideas of his lead economic advisor, Austin Goolsbee, a behavioural economist at the University of Chicago, who agrees with the liberal consensus on the need to address concerns such as income inequality, disparate educational opportunities and, of course, disparate access to healthcare, but breaks sharply from liberal orthodoxy on both the causes of these social ills and the optimal strategy for ameliorating them. -- Daniel Koffler, Substance, not style

FDT Out!

Fred's very best qualities: Doesn't like campaigning, and has the substantial sense of self-worth that allows him to leave politics behind.

On the fearmongering against Islam

To even speculate that islam will overcome christianity is a sorry-ass joke. There are 2 -- exactly 2 -- major religions in terms of adherents. There are 3 christians for every 2 muslims. There are millions of rich christians for every rich muslim.

In my little ky town, there are hundreds upon hundreds of christian churches, while there is 1 islamic center with maybe 200 members (ie. a whole christian congregation or 2 for each individual muslim. Can you imagine the amount of pure chickenshittedness it takes to cry that we* should be afraid of the lunatic fringe of the amateurish islam.

The chicken little routine is an immense insult to christianity, its teachings, its followers, and the goodness at its core. Christianity outnumbers Mohammedanism 3-t-2. Christianity dominates nearly all of the world's major countries. Islam has never permanently replaced an advanced religion, government, culture, or economy. Islam apparently, based on where it thrives, is the self-destructive religion of the 4 horseman of the apocalypse. It is large because chaos reigns in many regions of the world, but it is incapable of coalescing into the thoughtful philosophical forms that rule the world.

If you believe that there will ever be a united states of sharia, or similar such dumb shit, then you are a loser, a traitor to your country, and an infidel to christianity. Mark it down. It ain't gonna happen.

We may get invaded by martians someday, but they are gonna have both christians and muslims for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

* note -- I was raised a christian, and I still see the evidence of God in the world around me. I am philosophically a taoist (not religiously a taoist). In other words, I am not big on ritual and dogma. Therefore, when the battle comes I will be on the side of Jesus, with sword in hand, whether we are fighting klingons or islamofaschists. But to even pretend that these ululating fools are on the same plane as christians or americans is a humiliation that we should reject with all our might. Otherwise, we will lose . . . to our fearstricken selves!

Orchestration Central

I have found a way to pick up real fast on what the neocon-giulianis will try next. Listen to michael savage at night, then to francene the next day, on WHAS radio, our louisville nexus to talk wrong radio. They come across entirely differently, but that's strictly bad cop, good cop.

Last night, ms was frothing over obama's church, then today francene (the local talk wrong distaff talking head) seems to be giving the issue a fair hearing before coming down in the same place as savage.

Who does this help? Ironically, shrillary. Comparing obama to mitt over and over reduces cred for both of them. Rudy is already dead but his campaign provides a nice place for neo-cons to pick up a few paychecks, until the endgame when they will drift unobtrusively into the hrc camp.

I fear that our favorite stealth authoritarians are doing an end run to land in a soft spot in the chillary administration.

photo storage

Criswell Predicts

Criswell Predicts