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Sunday, December 6, 2015

Miscellany: 12/06/15

Quote of the Day
Self-respect is the root of discipline: 
The sense of dignity grows with 
the ability to say no to oneself.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

Tweet of the Day
Image of the Day

The real St. Nick also kicked heretics' asses, via Libertarian Catholic
Explanation: St. Nick gave heretics a different type of gift

Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente's photo.
The new right/center President of Argentina,  Mauricio Macri.
Facebook Corner

(Cato Institute). "U.S. military personnel are heading to Iraq and Syria. The administration continues its slow progression to renewed ground combat....Unfortunately, no matter how combat-effective these forces, they won’t turn around a 16-month deadlock. The more men and materiel the president commits to 'win'–whatever that means–the more he will have to introduce after the failure of every successive escalation."
The invasion of Afghanistan was conducted in accordance with Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty in response to the September 11th attacks. The invasion of Iraq was justified by faulty information manipulated by Bush administration officials. The legal and ethical situations of both conflicts are different.

 The Future of Iraq post-invasion plan drafted by the State Department was disregarded by the administration, with results visible today.

 Major portions of NATO combat forces remain in Afghanistan, and that situation should not be confused with Iraq.

 The USG shouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place, and screwed up its own post-invasion plans.

 Whether we are responsible for repairing the foreign policy damage of past elected officials - to what extent, in what locations, using what methods - is a normative argument, which should be an ongoing conversation, deliberated on by citizens, not just officials.
The OP is full of crap. The Afghanistan war was clearly illegal. The government of Afghanistan did not attack the US.

(Jeffrey Tucker). The remarkable way in which Mahler 3 plays with a theme by Brahms is so inspiring. If IP had been enforced, the entire first movement wouldn't have been written.
How much classical music remains lost because creators didn't want their work ripped off by common thieves?

(Peter Schiff). http://news.nationalpost.com/news/finland-to-pay-every-citizen-1100-per-month-and-scrap-all-other-benefits-in-effort-to-reduce-unemployment-rate
Folks, this actually a good idea. If someone wants more money than this, they get a job. Any job now results in more money for the worker. Under most welfare schemes there's zero incentive to work unless you get quite a good job, because getting paid will cause a clawback to welfare benefits.
Under this system, you get paid no matter what.
This is ludicrous economic illiterate leftist claptrap. It's still redistributive in nature: for X to gain, Y must get his pocket picked. And no matter how you slice it, subsidizing leisure is clueless economics and harms economic growth.

Vintage Economic Christmas



Political Potpourri

CNN released pairwise matchups over the weekend, and the red meat frontrunners, Trump and Cruz again lost to Dem frontrunner Clinton. Rubio has won most recent matchups again (impressive because he is lesser-known than Clinton or Trump), and Carson also has won his fair share. Right now I need to see new polls because the CNN has Trump up by almost 10 points over newer polls. I do not live in Iowa or New Hampshire. The only spots I've seen through cable are Bush's and maybe a couple by a Rubio PAC.

I often check the Libertarian Republican and Lew Rockwell websites and both of them seem to be obsessed with Trump and nativist/closed borders politics. I still haven't posted my one-off opinion on Trump (which as familiar readers may have guessed will not be complimentary), but this guy has been shifting opinions even during the campaign to appeal to his populist base (e.g., Syrian refugees). He just keeps putting stuff out there--slapping tariffs on Mexican-produced vehicles, kicking out 11M unauthorized immigrants, forcing out Syrian refugees---which are clearly illegal, if not unconstitutional. This unpredictable strongman stuff should be make any legitimate libertarian crap in his pants; it is the stuff of kinder, gentler fascism. His bluster will never pass Congress, at minimum without a GOP supermajority in the Senate, and at last sight, he has yet to win a single endorsement to Congress. Even if he somehow would win the general election, Congressional Republicans would have their own mandate and the idea they would rubberstamp Trump's government healthcare vision (just to point out one example) is outright delusional. He talks tough on trade and foreign policy, and that's a recipe for a global race to the bottom. I've seen one analysis likening his movement to a secular blue-class Reagan-type coalition. He is clearly connecting to a less educated audience, one which seems to distrust the talking heads and the elitists (no doubt with my 4 degrees, I must fall in that category). What they don't seem to grasp is whatever success Trump has achieved, a lot of it has to do with crony political connections. He's part of the system, not its solution. He's a snake oil salesman selling phantom cures.

Choose Life: Baby Surprise!











Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Chip Bok via Townhall
Musical Interlude: Christmas Hits

Jim Brickman (featuring Mark Masri), "Christmas Is"

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