Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.
Frank Moore Colby
Chart of the Day: Obama's Economic "Accomplishments" at a Glance
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| Via LFC |
@Pontifex The Church is a rock in faith and morals, not a chameleon. Rosica speaks of "The Need to Embrace People Where They Are". John 8:11
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) October 10, 2015
@Pontifex Do not paint the Church the colors of the rainbow.We must please God Who judges not by appearance. Prov 16:2;1 Pet 3:3-5;Isa 29:13
— Ronald Guillemette (@raguillem) October 10, 2015
Image of the Day
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| NOTE: Hillary Clinton doesn't realize John Kasich has won 2 elections since Strictland was the governor of Ohio |
As a Born Texan, I Can Say He's Spot On
Cut Off Spendaholic Obama's Credit Card
Political Humor
A Few Notes
The blog pageview counter recently turned six-digits, not bad for an obscure little blog. Not that Drudge is worried; he often pulls in 18M over a single day. I have occasionally cited a blog post on Facebook or Twitter but at most I get a temporary burst of readers. I have maybe half a dozen followers on Twitter and those favoriting or retweeting my tweets are more the exception than the rule. I have to admit that I'm somewhat disappointed that I haven't built up more of a reciprocal relationship with pro-liberty scholars I've admired in the blog. Maybe it's because my pieces aren't seen as original contributions to the pro-liberty literature, or I'm not a trained economist. I've also had some petty disagreements with Tom Woods and Mark Perry (economist behind the hugely successful Carpe Diem blog); I've criticized the hugely respected Ron Paul; I've occasionally taken on prominent libertarians on socially experimental policy like "gay" marriage and anti-intellectual property icons, like Jeffrey Tucker. And certainly I do not suffer "progressive" fools gladly; it could be my personal style turns off a lot of prospective readers or fellow scholars. I think some of the crackpot leftists deserve a "Moonstruck" Cher slap back into reality, especially when they invade pro-liberty forums to spam their ideological crap; I myself don't troll leftist forums trying to start a fight.
Then there have been the anti-immigrant restrictionists and/or Trump cultists who sorely test my patience. It's difficult to explain if you haven't seen the wolfpacks in action; for example, National Review has published a number of posts over the past 2 months over the fact that there is absolutely nothing pro-liberty or conservative about Trump's policies. In fact, Trump's support is largely based on voters with less than a college education. Over the past decade, I've seen McCain and Romney attacked venomously as being unprincipled RINO's and over certain votes or position flip-flops. Now certainly the cultists are entitled to their foolish support/votes, but what you see on the forums is the cultists flooding NR threads with the reaction of one of my pro-Obama nephews in 2008, without any prior political exchange, loosely paraphrased, "Well, I'm entitled to cast my vote for Obama, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Na-na-na-na na-na!" He was casting his vote in Kansas, which counted just as much as my vote in Maryland. It's one thing when you can rationalize your vote or support in a coherent fashion.
But take, for instance, unauthorized immigration. The number of aliens has actually gone down about a million since 2007; the major incentive for unauthorized entry has to do with legal paths for visiting workers all but closed since 1964. Of the 11.5M unauthorized aliens, between a quarter and a third of these are workers who overstayed their visas. There's an attempt to scapegoat immigrants for welfare programs, when in fact immigrants are largely ineligible for the programs, the fact that social spending was not a factor for the open immigration portion of our history (through WWI) and the participation of social spending on immigrants for most states is below 5%. [Similarly, the ideologues ignore various taxes paid by aliens.] We even see the citizenship of American-born/raised children being targeted by these ideologues. There is nothing respectable about any of this; there's no attempt to discuss visiting worker program reform, there is no comparably strident attempt to take down the welfare state (which I vehemently oppose), etc. The restrictionists want to use force--the government--to interfere with the natural right to migrate and worship a set of special-interest restrictionist laws dating back to WWI. All of these xenophobes come up with the same set of excuses to justify meddling in the lives of other people they don't even know. I think at least a half dozen to dozen of them have quoted the great libertarian economist Milton Friedman on the welfare state, ignoring texts where he explicitly stated that he was in favor of illegal Mexican immigration. It really depends on the situational context; I'll often let it go because I know none of them are going to admit that I converted them on an issue they're emotionally vested in. But sometimes I want to make an example of a troll, because most of the pro-immigrants just don't want to confront the jerks.
But as I've repeatedly stated, I would write the blog even if there were no readers. I did somewhat hope that the blog might build an audience towards future book projects. I may do the projects anyway.
I have not been doing a play-by-play analysis of EmailGate, but the Blumenthal (non-government) emails reflect a cronyism benefiting contracts doing business with the new Libyan government, not to mention a covert CIA contact in an email forwarded by Clinton to the State Department flatly contradicts her assertions that she never sent outgoing sensitive/classified/classifiable emails really undermine her integrity and credibility.
Finally, in a story I might otherwise cover in my nutrition blog, FEE wrote a piece on yet another "never mind" momentary guideline. Over the last decade, I got back in touch with one of the few girls who befriended this geeky high school freshman from way back. She saw in me many of the same traits as her big brother Patrick, who had won district in the UIL science contest. Patrick was bright enough to get admitted to MIT straight out of high school (without graduating). I don't think he ever graduated; he got involved with a successful MIT spinoff in the 1980's and eventually cashed out his shares, retiring as a millionaire. Her Dad got transferred after her freshman year, and I went on to win district twice in succeeding Patrick before graduating (in 3 years). We had an on-off friendship after connecting via a reunion website. She was divorced, working as a ranch gatekeeper in a trailer. She sometimes had to go on grocery runs (her refrigerator had limited capacity). In any event, she once described buying a carton of these "healthy" egg substitutes (egg whites, vs. whole eggs). I think I had read and done the same back in the 1980's and 1990's. During my low-carb days in 2003-2004 I had come across the Weston Price website which points out, among other things, that natural milk and whole eggs were very nutritious (e.g., see here). The basic point is that milk fat and egg yolks were among the healthiest parts of the foods which resulted in the birth of healthy calves and chicks: why are we treating them as some sort of dietary poison? I sent her a non-Price URL raising similar points, and she told me that it had convinced her to go back to whole eggs, something to this day remains part of my regular diet.
How many of the conventional dietary myths have been debunked over the recent past? Dietary cholesterol, salt consumption, bacon, water consumption, etc. How many fads have we gone through over the years? Frozen yogurt vs. ice cream? The infamous low-fat diet, that shifted fat calories to carbs or protein grams--and correlates with the ensuing obesity boom? I mindlessly followed those who shifted from things like bacon and eggs to (healthier?) bagels and pasta? Isn't it time we go back to the basics of nutrition and reject the knee-jerk, unscientific guidelines of bureaucratic Emily Litellas?
Facebook Corner
(Cato Institute). thread about government nutritional guidance which influenced decades of consumer behavior but turned out to be wrong, e.g., alleged issues with whole milk
Now this is the CATO I expect why can't you always show common sense instead of mindlessly shilling for the rich?
The economically illiterate fascist trolls, like the OP, are miserable "Politics of Envy" bastards who have never learned business people earn success by fulfilling the needs and desires of willing consumers, unlike thieving political whores.
(IPI). Exchange over Madigan "extreme" cartoon below.
Tell me how removing organized labor's position is better for the PEOPLE. This is tired politics of blame the victim, redressed from the private sector. "We know you spent your life working here but, we're going to need that pension back now. You didn't plan for this? Not my problem..." No innovative concepts coming forth on the regulation of recreational marijuana or promoting the production of hemp. Nothing about the potential of taxing the rising "on demand" market. Just some sad corporate shill talking about suppression of the labor wage. Nauseating.
You corrupt self-serving parasite!
(Rand Paul 2016). http://rare.us/story/gop-campaigns-find-new-uses-for-hillary-clintons-book/
The "hard choice" will be for a Democrat voter choosing between a corrupt fascist and an equally economically illiterate socialist.
(National Review). Hearing phrases like “you’re out!” is hurting kids.
Leave it to the fascists to figure out how to strip the fun out of recess...
Choose Life: Daddy-Baby Daughter Workout
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Eric Allie via IPI |
Roberta Flack, "Making Love"
Trigger Warning: Where To Go If Tom Woods (or I) Show Up On Your Campus
How Universities Silence Truth—And What We Can Do About It
*Trigger Warning*Tom DiLorenzo humiliates modern academia.
Posted by Mises Institute on Friday, October 9, 2015
