Friday 9 October 2009

Friday morning ramble

twitter_logo_header It’s not possible to talk here at NOT PC about every good story and every great link I read or you send me. That’s what my Twitter page is for, where you can can get all these links to great reading “live” if you’re visiting there regularly. But if you haven’t been reading regularly enough, or you wanted a wee reminder about something you meant to check out, then here’s your (ir)regular Friday ramble through this bunch o’ liberty links. 

  • Lindsay Mitchell writes about Pseudo solution to pseudoephedrine problems, with evidence from bans on sales in Oregon.  This is the sort of thing John Key should be reading if he wants evidence-based advice.
  • Can We Really Trust The Leading Economic Indicators? Um, not really, says Mish. http://tinyurl.com/ybpbu8q
  • Water, cigarettes and sheep - the three currencies that helped rebuild a part of Iraq after the war. Another story of how money is a creation of the market, not a creation of governments.
    http://mises.org/story/3724
  • HEALTH: There's "a problem in the U.S.A," alright. Another kid-cult video to join the hundred of other kid-cult video singing praises to the Messiah!
     http://tinyurl.com/y87e6vd
  • Oops. Annette King can't tell the difference between the parody Sue Kedgely & the real one. Mind you, nor can Sue
    http://tinyurl.com/yek827s
    Wonder how Annette King will go with RogerDouglasMP:
    http://twitter.com/RogerDou...
  • Westpac economists suggest NZ's floating exchange rate helps reduce the price volatility of its commodity exports. Interesting argument.
    http://tinyurl.com/yeay33g
  • How inconvenient: “Ice melt during the Antarctic summer of 2008-09 was the lowest ever recorded...” But I’m sure you’ve already heard that news from your friendly, local, reliable mainstream news media, right? 
     http://tinyurl.com/ycl5mjx
  • Uh, maybe not so reliable. UMR Poll says news media have credibility issue. Only 35% of NZers believe the media is accurate. That many?!
    http://tinyurl.com/ye4z8zh
  • They’re trying to censor the internet – the buzzphrase for censorship is “net neutrality.”  Read “Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet,” and arm yourself for the coming battle.
    http://bit.ly/3vvoFR.
  • There’s a frickin’ elephant in the schoolroom all right!
    http://bit.ly/OXKOW
  • NZ Economic weather report: Electricity lines and power prices rising faster than the CPI . . . who would have thought that a government-owned and regulated ‘market’ would be so inefficient.
    http://tinyurl.com/ycc3c26
  • NZ BabyBoomer lifestyles are ‘coming home to roost’ as credit defaults jump 19.4%.
    http://bit.ly/ky3uN
  • Lindsay Mitchell looks at the true extent of unemployment: Most folk don't know how the unemployment rate is calculated, which is very convenient when you want to hide some embarrassing numbers.
     http://tinyurl.com/ydotfn7
  • Hallelujah! NSW now require teachers to spend part of each day teaching the sounds that make up words.
    http://tinyurl.com/yc9lfwm
  • Ecozealots ditched toilet paper for a year  . . . and they’re now selling deadtree books & packaged DVDs to “save the planet” – and to make themselves famous. A fair trade? 
    http://bit.ly/16FnxR
  • Speaker Pelosi Hints at Massive US Tax Hike
    http://tinyurl.com/ydbabt5
  • Winning the Unwinnable War Here’s A Book Every Military Strategist and Politician Should Read . . . To learn more about the book, or read an excerpt, visit:
    http://winningtheunwinnablewar.com/
  • Mish calls talk about those "secret" moves to trade oil in currencies signalled by Robert Fisk. "Ridiculous hype" he calls it.
     http://tinyurl.com/yd8xhx9

Great quote to counter a popular straw man:
"An individualist is a man who lives *for* himself not *by* himself."
(Said by an 8-year-old girl!)

  • Has the govt breached New Zealand's international trade commitments by funding Maori Television? Liberty Scott thinks so.
    http://tinyurl.com/yb66yvo
  • Green Shoots? Nouriel Roubini says US unemployment will rise through 2010. US economy is "shopped out" he says.
    http://bit.ly/srh1h
  • It’s way worse than we feared: @drmabuse interviews an FTC spokesman about the US Government’s proposed new "guidelines" to be forced upon bloggers.
    http://bit.ly/n5luu
  • This report on the imminent demise of the US dollar is worth considering, but since it includes the words "Robert" and "Fisk," be sure to consider Mish’s assessment as well.
    http://tinyurl.com/yd9knqk
  • American children singing songs of praise for Barack Obama are a little much, says Thomas Sowell, “especially for those of us old enough to remember pictures of children singing the praises of dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mao.”

    “But you don't need a dictator to make you feel queasy about the manipulation of children. The mindset that sees children in school as an opportunity for teachers to impose their own notions, instead of developing the child's ability to think for himself or herself, is a dangerous distortion of education.”

    Read A Letter From a Child by Thomas Sowell

  • What a great title for a blog post: 'The plural of anecdote is not data.' Love it.
    http://tinyurl.com/yd6cyc3
  • Companies run regular fire drills, so why not regular phishing drills? Seems a fair question.
    http://bit.ly/IN5UL
  • Peter Schiff: 'The real economic crash has just started' (Oct. 03) One hour speech on video.
    http://bit.ly/4bLscX
  • Not mention the GDP delusion: "stimulus" & retail subsidies aren't "growth" - just more capital consumption
    http://tinyurl.com/ct97m6
  • NZ Govt spending on the basis of a multiplier is suspect-anyone trying to sell these policies isn't to be trusted
    http://tinyurl.com/yatfku7
  • ARC: "Just War Theory" Is Unjust to Americans - and to NZ soldiers in Afghanistan being put in harm's way.
    http://bit.ly/ykYMo
  • Latest #parenting post at Rational Jenn’s is all about avoiding being a helicopter mum.
    http://bit.ly/kn97A
  • He was arrested by a bully, betrayed by a coward, and now it’s being covered up by Big Brother.  Read about Dan Edge’s plight here:
     http://tinyurl.com/yag88w5
  • The market should be replaced by democracy, says Michael Moore. But as Ludwig Von Mises would have told him if Moore could read, the market is democracy.
    http://mises.org/resources/...
  • Jezebel.com’s take on Polanski and the Hollywood letters made Get Frank laugh a few times [Really good]
    http://bit.ly/e5VV5
  • Okay, the Community Reinvestment Act helped spark the whole crisis in the first place.  So why do you think Team Obama aims to expand it?
    http://tinyurl.com/ycwc92c
  • The Copenhagen Climate Change Treaty draft looks less of a climate treaty and more of a blueprint for world socialism.  Take a look.
    http://tinyurl.com/yd6dgq5
  • The US  Federal Trade Commission will soon requires bloggers to disclose payments, dictating what counts as payment & disclosure.  Chilling.
     http://bit.ly/h26Xq

Something for politicians, mainstream economists and Reserve Bank Governors to think about:
“True, governments can reduce the rate of interest in the short run. They can issue additional paper money. They can open the way to credit expansion by the banks. They can thus create an artificial boom and the appearance of prosperity. But such a boom is bound to collapse soon or late and to bring about a depression.”
- Ludwig Von Mises, Omnipotent Government

  • "The politics [of global warming] are tough now because conservatives years ago allowed the debate to get away from them; frightened of being labelled nature-haters, they declined to attack anti-progress green arguments as they were being formed. Result: in 2009 they’re dealing with a full-blown religion, and they’re discovering that logic isn’t much of a weapon against faith.”  (Tim Blair’s throwaway remarks have more insight than most people’s long-considered arguments.)
     http://tinyurl.com/y9mh76z
  • ‘Smart Growth’ and the coming ‘Housing-Led Recovery’ – or, to put it another way: ‘Oxymorons for Morons’ http://tinyurl.com/y97mqd2
  • Apple vs Apple vs non-Apple. Have you heard about about the “moron in a hurry"?
    http://bit.ly/JJzNK
  • COOL MAPS: How to explode the idea of over-population in three simple maps: The most populated country on earth, the Netherlands, shown at three different densities. So where’s the over-population?
     http://tinyurl.com/n7lryo
  • Capitalism FAILS. Capitalism the movie, that is.
    http://tinyurl.com/ya4rusc
  • The Australian Prime-Minister and the US Presidential family both regularly challenge the time-space continuum. Something at which Helen Clark wasn’t too bad either.
    http://tinyurl.com/y9dgkj2
  • Caught in the Act: A funny tribute to guys who think they got the sneaky glance but got snapped.
    http://bit.ly/WkpAi
  • Where’s the Top 6 - Beer Towns In New Zealand? Get Frank has the answers you’re looking for: http://twit.ac/pozb
  • MORE COOL MAPS: Failed States: A neat interactive graphic showing which states in the world are at risk of failing.
    http://tinyurl.com/mb2y4z
  • "Governments failed to let wages and prices adjust in the 1930s and they’re doing the same thing again now." No Virginia, governments don’t learn from their mistakes.
    http://tinyurl.com/ycaw6ns
  • A restaurant that serves you what the last guy ordered offers a nice warning for all you 'market failure' theorists:
    http://bit.ly/1eC7Nn
  • Here’s a novel idea for ObamaCare enthusiasts: considering the impact of health care “reform” on doctors: Investor’s Business Daily has done the heavy lifting for you:
    http://bit.ly/1sEPeS
  • Psychological Distance And Poetic Excellence considered at the Poetry Blog. It works the same for art, you know.
    http://bit.ly/2U2IpE
  • Environmentalists want to destroy four American hydroelectric plants. And you thought they liked renewable energy?
    http://tw0.us/2K0
  • A dose of libertarianism would enhance our democracy, says 'former' Australian Fabian socialist.
    http://tinyurl.com/yeu5bor
  • Read this amazing reply from a US librarian in reply to a request to remove a children's book on gay marriage. Would that all bigotry inspire such resolute eloquence.
    http://bit.ly/d9gdu
  • Not sure how George H. Smith would handle this, but... Penn Jillette discusses the Beatles as proof of God.
    http://tinyurl.com/ycgvhcn
  • Ireland's 2nd vote in 2 years on EU's Lisbon Treaty is a "yes." Given it was "no" last year, isn't it now one all? Or doesn’t it work that way with things the government wants?
    http://tinyurl.com/yc5nwzl

Observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists—amidst all their appeals to nature and pleas for "harmony with nature"—there is no discussion of man's needs and the requirements of his survival. Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot survive in the kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision—i.e., on the level of sea urchins or polar bears. . . .
- Ayn Rand (1971), "The Anti-Industrial Revolution," Return of the Primitive

  • Maybe you should keep this one on file for Sunday: Diana Hseih’s ‘Rationally Selfish Radio’ Podcast #11: The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God.  Or not.
    http://bit.ly/OZNwU
  • It was supposed to be International Free Press Day, but the supposedly free press flunked it. “The Danish cartoons story was a test, and the civilized world failed it.” http://tinyurl.com/yfx3u78
  • The decision to hold the Olympics in Rio may be bad news for Chicago, but it may be great news for America!
    http://tinyurl.com/ycb3glw
  • What - or Who - Started the Great Depression? The answer in an abstract for a new working paper reads thus: Herbert Hoover.
    http://tinyurl.com/m8y64z
  • On the occasion of Ludwig Von Mises’s 128th birthday, George Reisman pays him the ultimate tribute: "His teachings are nec­essary to the preservation of material civilization.
    Ludwig von Mises: Defender of Capitalism – George Reisman 
  • Are We Raising a Generation of Wimps? Onkar Ghate answers at PJTV. http://tinyurl.com/y8hqsmq
  • The 'U6' measure of US unemployment has risen to 17%. And since it’s similar to the methodology used during the Great Depression, U6 offers a better historical perspective on the severity of our current crisis – what this shows is that US unemployment is already at Great Depression levels, with the employment market still contracting. http://tinyurl.com/yetl37l
  • Here’s Peter Schiff on ‘The Recovery That Isn't’
    http://bit.ly/WxiMI
  • Israel Has A Moral Right To Its Life:Israel is [still] America's frontline in the war on terrorism. (2002):
    http://tinyurl.com/7borml
  • Why the Palestinian People Do Not Deserve Independence (2002)
    http://bit.ly/68cGi
  • The Purpose of a Palestinian State (2002)
    http://bit.ly/12vdk2
  • Another warmist hockey stick broken? Here are the stories:
    http://tinyurl.com/ydtdlxj
    http://tinyurl.com/ybxaqnp
    http://tinyurl.com/yeeyrhm
    Or maybe not? Warmists defend the stick:
    http://tinyurl.com/ydrcduw
  • Obama now has negative rating on 5 of the top 6 issues Americans now consider most important:economy, health care, budget deficit, unemployment, & taxes. http://tinyurl.com/ygxspga
  • And finally, Nanny state drinking lawsthat a Sue Kedgley would love: Show a license to buy a pint.
    http://ff.im/-96HGC

"Money is the tool & symbol of a society built on mutual, voluntary trade rather than forced labor, duty to the state, or war."
-Ayn Rand

Enjoy!
PC

1 comment:

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