Blogs

Buy a CD, copy it to your computer, get sued by the RIAA?

Well, not likely but the threat was made recently in court by the RIAA. Their brief basically said that if you copy a legally purchased CD to your computer, it is illegal. Would they threaten to make a case out of it in court? Perhaps not now, but as...

Posted to Cigars, Scotch and Anarchy by libertyboom on Sun, Dec 30 2007

Filed under: RIAA, record industry, stealing, copyright, music, downloads

Bush signs SCHIP bill, no tobacco tax

This is one that is near and dear to my cigar-loving heart. Bush had vetoed this bill twice before that would have expanded the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to include more children. It would have been funded by more tobacco taxes...

Posted to Cigars, Scotch and Anarchy by libertyboom on Sat, Dec 29 2007

Filed under: SCHIP, tax, welfare, taxes, tobacco, Bush, Bernanke, cigars

ESPN "Fighting for Our Country"

I'm watching the Liberty Bowl on ESPN this afternoon and the commentator states that one of the players, and I paraphrase, was over in Iraq fighting for our country. We Austrians know that that is a ludicrous statement but there could be three reasons...

Posted to Cigars, Scotch and Anarchy by libertyboom on Sat, Dec 29 2007

Filed under: Iraq, war, ESPN

"Vulgar" Libertarianism and Voluntary Socialism

From what I've been able to gather, "vulgar" libertarianism is a label applied to the tendency of some libertarians, particularly with right-wing sympathies, to defend currently existing property arrangements and corporations as if they...

Posted to Brainpolice by Brainpolice on Sat, Dec 29 2007

Filed under: Anarchism, Competition, Capitalism, Socialism, Libertarianism, Economics

Anarchism and Atheism, Theism and Statism

Anarchism and atheism are both defined in negative terms. As general paradimes they do not actually advocate any particular belief or system of organization. They represent the lack of a belief. Atheism is a lack of belief in deities and religions, while...

Posted to Brainpolice by Brainpolice on Fri, Dec 28 2007

Filed under: Anarchism, Ethics, Religion, Atheism

Pushing the Button

Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button Everyone has probably seen the commercials for the office supply company were all the person has to do is push the “easy” button and all their problems are solved. Every time I see that commercial I think about what...

Posted to IrishOutlaw by IrishOutlaw on Fri, Dec 28 2007

Filed under: IrishOutlaw, Libertarians, anarchy, Rothbard, free market

"Legal" Immigration

This is the continuation, or expansion, of this small item , that I posted earlier on this 'blog. In that post, I asked what benefit is provided by the legal immigration process to those of us already living in the good old US of A. I'd like to...

Posted to Ronorama by Ronorama on Fri, Dec 28 2007

Determining If The Recession Has Begun

In this article from Fortune, the author tries to make the case that you don't know you're in a recession until months after it starts. The author writes: Investing successfully is about looking ahead, while determining whether we're in a...

Posted to Love of Liberty by ChrisR on Thu, Dec 27 2007

Filed under: inflation, business cycles

An open letter to Ron Paul fans on the limitations of radical political candidates

Dear Ron Paul Supporter, Do you honestly believe that your candidate has a chance in hell of winning the primaries, much less the general elections? I could cite results from every reputable polling organization that show Ron Paul with less than 3% of...

Posted to Radical Idealism by David V on Wed, Dec 26 2007

Filed under: Ron Paul, elections

Voting is not a right

The next time you hear someone going on about the "right to vote," remind them than voting is not a right - it's a coercive power wielded by the voting minority over a society. Rights denote the extent of action men may take without initiating...

Posted to Radical Idealism by David V on Wed, Dec 26 2007

Filed under: democracy, elections

Free Market to Blame For The Mortgage Crisis?

I knew it would only be a matter of time before I would read that the free market is to blame for the current housing bust. Below is an excerpt from a letter to the editor of the New York Times : Its cause is the rigid, unrealistic ideology of the “magic...

Posted to Love of Liberty by ChrisR on Sat, Dec 22 2007

Filed under: housing

The Decline of Morality in the West

I believe in objective secular morality, founded on reason and universalism. I think a common mistake is the idea that if we ditch religion, we must fall back on moral relativity. Then the religious people feed on this and get to accuse secular people...

Posted to Brainpolice by Brainpolice on Sat, Dec 22 2007

Filed under: Objectivism, Ethics, Universality, Determinism, Collectivism, Altruism, Religion

Socioeconomic Factors and Contaminated Temperature Data

Excerpted from a World Climate Report blogpost about the following forthcoming journal article (emphasis added): McKitrick, R. R., and P. J. Michaels, 2007. Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes inhomogeneities on gridded global...

Posted to Libertas @ Mises.com by Geoffrey Allan Plauché on Sat, Dec 22 2007

Filed under: Environmental Economics, Global Warming

Steven Weinberg on Education

A few of my posts have been about education, and about starving workers; so I was happy to come across a 1988 interview (by Bill Moyers with the Nobel prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg) that brings the two ideas together. In the middle of the interview...

Posted to scottyokim by scottyokim on Sat, Dec 22 2007

Voting is the worst kind of political apathy

Most economists agree that from a cost-benefit perspective, the cost of voting far outweighs any material benefit . For example, in a presidential election, your vote is one out of 120+ million. Your chance of casting a tie-breaking vote is infinitesimally...

Posted to Radical Idealism by David V on Sat, Dec 22 2007

Filed under: democracy, voting, elections