The Kurdish Blocs Coalition demanded to know why Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi was allowed to travel from Baghdad to Kurdistan even though an arrest warrant had already been issued. Meanwhile, at least 18 Iraqis were killed and 14 more were wounded.
Much has been written about The Hunger Games and many of the underlying libertarian themes in that story. Jeffrey Tucker recently described the similarity between the fictional games and voting. Brent Railey noted just the other day the realities of the black market springing up to provide what the state can’t, or won’t, and the futility in relying on …
Continue reading “The Hunger Games as a Metaphor for the Warfare State”
Some of us pause on Good Friday to mark the torture and death of a high-value detainee rendered, extraordinarily, to Roman occupiers. Although the charges against Jesus of Nazareth were trumped up, the Romans decided to err on the safe side by going to the "dark side." They applied enhanced torture techniques with the ultimate …
Continue reading “Render to Caesar, Extraordinarily”
Dear Ron, A lot of my readers are big fans of yours: on those rare but pungent occasions when I have criticized you, I’ve gotten lots of "blowback" in the comments section and in emails sent directly to my inbox. Whenever I praised you, I’ve enjoyed a veritable avalanche of favorable feedback. I can’t tell …
Continue reading “An Open Letter to Ron Paul”
At least nine Iraqis were killed and 22 more were wounded in a considerable number of attacks. One Iraqi was kidnapped. Also, the P.K.K. sabotaged an oil pipeline in an effort to hurt neighboring Turkey.
Americans who despair of Washington ever cutting waste from its trillion dollar defense/homeland security budget can take heart from pollster Scott Rasmussen’s book The People’s Money. The author argues that the public is always ahead of the politicians and that the time is ripe for an effective leader to win election with real budget cuts. …
Continue reading “Polling the Right Questions on Defense – Voters Get It Right”
So many government efforts run aground on problems with poor incentives. When the U.S. government intervenes overseas, those poor incentives are compounded by trying to impose Western values and institutions, usually by force, on peoples with starkly different cultural values, customs, and ways of doing things. Such was the case with failed U.S. interventions in …
Continue reading “Rapidly Ending the War in Afghanistan Solves Many Problems”
Fourteen Iraqis were killed as attempts to hold a political reconciliation conference in Baghdad failed. Another 33 people were wounded.
Stewart Nozette, a brilliant scientist whose work was instrumental in advancing the US space program, was convicted last year of attempting to spy on behalf of Israel, and this month was sentenced to 13 years in prison and a substantial fine. Under investigation for over-charging the government for various services performed by his nonprofit, Nozette …
Continue reading “Spying on the Spies”
It seems that the Republican presidential aspirants’ fervor to confront Islam has receded a bit with the decline and fall of Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, but one can likely still count on Rick Santorum to come up with some bon mots on the threat posed by Shariah law. Those who fear that hands will …
Continue reading “The Islamophobia Excuse” 
