Cannibals!
Nathaniel Branden was interviewed for Full Context. Very interesting.#
Thomas DiLorenzo writes about "Moronic Intellectuals" including Howard Zinn:#
A first priority of all totalitarians is to rewrite their country's history in order to make their "leadership" appear to be indispensable to the nation's very survival. Thus, perhaps the most widely-used American history text in today's universities is A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn. Published without a single source citation, Zinn informs today's college students that Maoist China, where tens of millions of innocent civilians were murdered by their own government, was "the closest thing" in all of history "to a people's government, independent of outside control." Castro's Cuba "holds no bloody record of suppression," Zinn writes, in another fantastic lie. By contrast, the writings of Jefferson and Madison were supposedly a "diabolically creative way to ensure oppression." George Washington's Farewell Address, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, are not even mentioned, nor is Alexander Hamilton, Valley Forge, and the D-Day invasion. Zinn openly admits that his stylized version of American history is written with the express purpose of smearing classical liberalism and promoting socialism. Little wonder that it is so widely used on college campuses.
Murray Rothbard on Oliver Stone's JFK and the conspiracy theories in general:#
The evidence is now overwhelming that the orthodox Warren legend, that Oswald did it and did it alone, is pure fabrication. It now seems clear that Kennedy died in a classic military triangulation hit, that, as Parkland Memorial autopsy pathologist Dr. Charles Crenshaw has very recently affirmed, the fatal shots were fired from in front, from the grassy knoll, and that the conspirators were, at the very least, the right-wing of the CIA, joined by its long-time associates and employees, the Mafia. It is less well established that President Johnson himself was in on the original hit, though he obviously conducted the coordinated cover-up, but certainly his involvement is highly plausible.
The last-ditch defenders of the Warren view cannot refute the details, so they always fall back on generalized vaporings, such as: "How could all the government be in on it?" But since Watergate, we have all become familiar with the basic fact: only a few key people need be in on the original crime, while lots of high and low government officials can be in on the subsequent cover-up, which can always be justified as "patriotic," on "national security" grounds, or simply because the president ordered it.
VoluntaryExchange comments on the problem of selling marijuana in Amsterdam.#
Governments are so bad at managing business operations that the Dutch government cannot even compete in the retail marijuana market. You're probably saying this has to do with all the hash bars in Amsterdam, but it actually isn't legal to sell there (only unprosecuted). The government is trying to sell marijuana legally, and it cannot compete with the illegal sellers in the hash bars.
Michael Moore's searing examination of the Aragorn administration's actions in the wake of the tragic events at Helms Deep. With his characteristic humor and dogged commitment to uncovering - or if necessary fabricating - the facts, Moore considers the reign of the son of Arathorn and where it has led us. He looks at how - and why - Aragorn and his inner circle avoided pursuing the Saruman connection to Helms Deep, despite the fact that 9 out of every 10 Orcs that attacked the castle were actually Uruk-hai who were spawned in and financed by Isengard.
Robert A. Harris has a handbook of rhetorical devices for writing and speaking online.#
VoluntaryExchange quotes from the Skeptical Environmentalist:#
Perhaps the best killer quote I have ever seen comes from Sheik Yamani, the leader of OPEC during the 1970s.
"the Stone Age came to an end not for a lack of stones, and the oil age will end, but not for a lack of oil" (pg. 120)
Here's another bit of trivia for economists who need to make the point that prices are driven by scarcity not utility:
Aluminum was first discovered in 1827, and since it was exceedingly difficult to extract, it was very expensive. Napoleon III had aluminum forks and spoons produced for himself and honored guests while lesser visitor had to make do with gold utensils. (pg. 140)
[...]
My guess is that many people who were offended by the Exxon Valdez damage were not equally offended by Saddam Hussein's pointless environmental damage to Kuwait, even though:
...[the] accident [was] about 25 times smaller than the Gulf incident. (pg. 192)
And, if we really care about birds so much, we should get rid of all our windows and cats:
...the total 250,000 dead birds from the Exxon Valdez disaster is still less that the number of birds which die on a single day in the U.S., colliding with plate glass, or the number of birds that are killed by domestic cats in Britain in two days... (pg. 192)