Unqualified Offerings

By Mona
Brian Doherty, author of the just-released Radicals for Capitalism, is interviewed. Excerpt:

Q: What’s a brief definition of libertarianism?
A: The belief that government, if it has any purpose at all – and there are some libertarians who think it doesn’t – then that purpose is only to protect its own […]

Apparently Wolf Blitzer introduced a segment with this query . . .
Now, with two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups in the region, is there a growing chance the United States could find itself at war with Iran?
“Find itself” at war with Iran? Like, “ZOMFG, all of a sudden I’m bombing another country! And all I […]

By Mona
According to BBC News:

…the US has warned the European Union that ongoing inquiries into secret CIA flights within Europe linked to the black [prison] sites are threatening intelligence ties between Europe and the US.
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The investigations “have not been helpful with respect to necessary co-operation between the United States and Europe,” John […]

By Mona
Count me as a huge fan of the MSNBC host. For he does stuff like this, smacking down the historically illiterate Secretary of State when she utters manifestly erroneous factoids about FDR, his Congress, and WWII (yeah, I know it is shocking, but BushCo is still stuck in that era) in […]

Dispatch from Elvis Costello’s world:
He said he heard about a couple
living in the USA
He said they traded in their baby for a
Chevrolet
Except it’s a Dodge Intrepid. (Thanks - natch - to the Costello mailing list.)

Man, some conservative bloggers ought to buy Stupid-Abatement packages to offset their writing on this Al Gore’s House business. Wizbang allows a fact I did not know, that Gore buys as much “green power” for his mansion as possible, only to call this a bad thing! because
This is a zero-sum game, folks. The more of […]

By Thoreau
Good news for those who fear genetically modified food:  A strain of “super salmon”, that can grow to be more than 20 times larger than their wild counterparts, only achieve their super growth in the conditions of a “fish farm.”  In a special cage designed to mimic the wild they are typically about twice […]

By Mona
Jim Henley holds a reputation as a sophisticated commentator and a fellow who know his way around the Intertubes. So, it is with sadness — nay, shock — that one observes his making recourse to Wikipedia, when everyone who is anyone has moved on to Conservapedia. This fine new online […]

So like all lazy bloggers, I pulled a link from Wikipedia just now, on Ludwig von Mises. But at the top of the page, under the title (”Ludwig von Mises”), is the subhead
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bu-but! It’s not from Wikipedia, it’s in Wikipedia. But it’s also “from” if you look at it a certain […]

Al Gore uses a lot of electricity. Al Gore buys carbon offsets. Libertarians who take anthropogenic global warming seriously - count me among them - generally favor markets in emissions over hard regulatory targets for individual homes and businesses. That way people and companies can decide to conserve or offset or buy unused capacity as […]

Oh, baby!
I was genuinely touched by the ending. The tight focus made for an effective change of pace, and it answered a few questions and asked some others.

By Mona
Clown Town Hall continues to showcase penetrating political and sociological insight, most recently from columnist Dinesh D’Souza whose recent book explores how the sexual depravity of a liberal-influenced America is the root cause of “why they hate us” and hence of 9/11, to wit: Muslims are rightly aggrieved by the […]

Ahmadinejad:
This thing has turned into
a runaway train
Rice:
[Waves lantern]
Cash:
I can’t look!

The past really is another country. I would like to bomb it.
The Editors

Gah! Rolling along great - a rare treatment of class in SF television - and then, wipe wipe! they tidy it all up for the end of the hour. The double irony: I expected little based on the preview, then it all developed much more authoritatively than I thought it would, and then they ruined […]

was written by Dave Weigel at Hit & Run. Dave does actual research and analysis that pretty convincingly deprecates the “Wilder effect,” aka “the 15 percent lie - the supposed percentage of whites who tell pollsters they would be willing to vote for a black candidate but in the privacy of the voting booth never […]

By Thoreau
So, let’s say that one wants to reduce the amount of CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels.  Yeah, yeah, there are plenty of objections to be raised against that notion.  Let’s just table those for now, for the sake of argument.
Now, all sorts of statist proposals have been put forth to achieve that objective […]

By Thoreau
Last week I read Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer:  Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.  The main topic is movements and fanaticism, but it includes all sorts of observations on life, the universe, and everything.  I found it really, really interesting, so I’ve decided that for the next few days I’ll blog a […]

Great Britain is withdrawing troops but sending compliant journalists. Damien McElroy’s gushing report from the USS Eisenhower, currently stationed off the Iranian coast, reads like a recruiting brochure. Then there’s this:

Iran’s belligerent posture has increased the challenges facing the Eisenhower since it deployed to the Middle East last October. Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh, the commander […]

By Mona
Another day in America-hating Angry Left Bush-supporter, GOP extremism. CNN’s conservative commentator Glenn Beck finds common cause with Islamic jihadists, kinda like Dinesh D’Souza, who continues to hold vaunted places in right-wing institutions. Declares Beck:

BECK: You know, there`s a new poll out that Muslims, the higher educated Muslims in the Middle […]

By Mona
[Edited for clarity shortly after posting.]
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Shush back at him (see his headline). Don’t tell GOP operative and Townhall columnist Patrick Ruffini that his imagined Victory in Iraq isn’t, or that Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha have nothing to do with the reasons why. Don’t disturb Ruffini’s oh-so-patriotic optimism that there is a […]

Dominic Moran of ISN Security Watch explains how things are going in the city where Steven Vincent’s murder remains unsolved:
Three Shia movements are struggling for control of Basra: the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Islamic al-Fadhila party and supporters of prominent cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr’s representatives in the Dawa party were […]

By Mona

American voters hate homosexuals nearly as much, but we who lack a belief in a deity(s) fare worse than anyone — even individuals who statistically may be likely to be entering their dotage (I know, I know, lots of very robust seniors out there).
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Just imagine the prospects for a 72-year-old gay atheist […]

By Mona
Why Does Canada Hate Itself , 9-0?
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Silly Canadians, they think it untoward that this has been going on in their country:

Deportees may be incarcerated in deplorable conditions for years without adequate hearings and may be ordered deported to face torture or execution in a foreign country known for human rights abuses, […]