Guest Editor

Don Stacy is the guest editor today.

Photo courtesy of moodaholic.
Politicians Smother Cities
Original article A Reason article explaining how to bring life back to great American cities.
A New System of Paper Currency
Original article Lysander Spooner's radical banking proposal.
The Evil of Government Debt
Original article Destutt de Tracy strikes again in The Freeman.
Health Care "Deeming" as Political Adultery
Original article Commentary from The Atlas Society on the Democratic Congress health care scam.
Henry David Thoreau: Who He Was and Why He Matters
Original article An introduction to Thoreau from the director of the Thoreau Project. 
Seeking a 'Real End' to Iraq War
Original article  Antiwar opinion from Al Jazeera English.
Racial Slur Development Not Keeping Pace
Original article A report by the nation's bigots from The Onion.
Greed, Need, Risk and Regulation
Original article Anthony de Jasay defends capitalism in the Library of Economics and Liberty.
Barefoot Statistics: Data for the People
Original article Opinion from New Scientist advocating wresting control of statistics from the government.
The Warmers Strike Back
Original article Walter Williams warns that the global warming scientists are preparing to retaliate.
Dying People Shouldn't Be Beggars
Original article Chicago Tribune editorial identifying altruism as a failing medical strategy.
Supporting the War Instead of the Troops
Original article Congressman Ron Paul opposes the perpetual war in Afghanistan.
The Soviet Unionization of Health Care
Original article Commentary from The Future of Freedom Foundation on ObamaCare.
Conspiracy and the Paranoid Center
Original article Post from the Center for a Stateless Society about the political center's conspiracy theory obsession.
A Thousand Words
Original article A photo blog.

In the DVD player: Welcome to Macintosh (recommended), I Will Never Forget You (recommended), Frontline: Black Money (recommended), The U.S. vs. John Lennon (interesting), Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa (strongly recommended), Jericho, Season 1 (strongly recommended), The Hurt Locker (intense, recommended), My Flesh and Blood (should see), The Guardian (recommended), Frontline: Ten Trillion and Counting (recommended), Frontline: The Madoff Affair (MUST SEE), Taxi to the Dark Side (MUST-MUST SEE), Frontline: Hand of God (MUST SEE), The Tunnel (recommended), Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (MUST SEE), Defiance (strongly recommended), Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda (MUST SEE), The Heart of the Game (highly recommended),Downfall (highly recommended), Frontline: Inside the Meltdown (recommended), White Light, Black Rain (strongly recommended), Rendition (highly recommended), Religulous (recommended), The Ground Truth (highly recommended), I.O.U.S.A. (highly recommended), The Wire, Seasons 1-5 (highly recommended); see recommended movies 

On the nightstand: Wall Street Revalued by Andrew Smithers and Anatomy of the Bear by Russell Napier

Playing on Pandora or in iTunes: Times Like These (acoustic version) by Foo Fighters

 

Economics for Dummies
8.14286
Paul Hein 2010-03-15 03:00
Exclusive to STR I don’t want to deceive you: I am not going to present a sort of Economics 101 for the benefit of the economically illiterate. In fact, I am myself among that number, never having studied economics. What I am suggesting is that, in the current financial crisis, economics is, in my opinion, somewhat irrelevant. It may be dumb to think that there is an economic solution to...
Suckers!
9.5
tzo 2010-03-15 03:00
Exclusive to STR In a (nearly) parallel universe, portions of recent history are recorded as follows:   late 19th century-1934 Saudi Arabia's currency is called the Petro, and it is backed with oil, such that one barrel of oil equals 20.67 Petros. All taxes and payments to the Saudi government must be made in Petros. World markets utilize the Petro, a way to deal in oil without actually...
Quake
6
Jim Davies 2010-03-15 03:00
Exclusive to STR Among the welter of news reports about the recent tragedy in Haiti, I noticed a couple that were quite perceptive. As it happens, they both broke surface on the PBS News Hour.   One came a few days after January 12th from David Brooks, the Hour's token conservative. He observed that a slightly more severe earthquake had hit San Francisco and Oakland in 1989, which brought...
We're All Irresponsible Now
7
Emiliano Antunez 2010-03-15 03:00
Exclusive to STR On Wednesday, January 27th, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, delivered his first State of the Union message to its citizens (and “illegal” aliens), all three hundred million plus of us. Besides all the usual empty rhetoric, platitudes and clichés, there was a sentence in Mr. Obama’s speech that was very telling of his audacity and...
Twenty-one Reasons Why Statism Is a Radical and Radically Incoherent Theory
9.75
Jakub Bozydar W... 2010-03-10 04:00
Exclusive to STR Upon encountering the claim that some non-statist doctrine (e.g., anarcho-capitalism) is practically unsafe due to its radical character, it is worthwhile to point to the glaring radicalism of every form of statism. Having thus suggested, however, that it is not radicalism per se that is a problem with any given socio-economic doctrine, it is even more worthwhile to underscore...
Does Obama Hate Black People?
0
Manuel Lora 2010-03-09 04:00
Not even an earthquake in a very poor country is enough for the federal administrators to show compassion. The Obama regime will make no change to its immigration policy in light of the utter devastation in Haiti. The Coast Guard will interdict those trying to enter the U.S. illegally by sea. Only those with special circumstances will be granted special permission: orphans who have ties (not just...
Eminent Domain and the Free Society
0
Alex Schroeder 2010-03-05 04:00
Exclusive to STR Eminent domain has long been a contentious issue in American politics. The United States Constitution, under the Fifth Amendment, grants the government the authority to legally seize private property. It stipulates that such a seizure is warranted if the property will subsequently be used to serve the “public”. Moreover, the property owner must be justly compensated...
Creeping Totalitarianism
8.8
Alex Schroeder 2010-02-01 04:00
  Exclusive to STR   In the past decade, public smoking bans in America have become increasingly commonplace; governmental efforts to institute such bans often prove successful, primarily because the majority of Americans do not smoke. In other words, the majority can only gain from such legislation. Supporters reason that they should not have to inhale second-hand smoke every time they...
Timing Is Everything
8.66667
Bill Butler 2010-02-01 04:00
Exclusive to STR Time preference is an economic concept that compares time in relation to an individual’s need for material gratification. Time preference is a comparison, not a measurement. Time preference is immeasurable because it is, by definition, subjective. That is, each individual has a different time preference and each individual’s time preference can change...
Valor and Discretion
9
tzo 2010-02-01 04:00
Exclusive to STR   Once upon a time I worked a second shift job and regularly walked home from the train station during the later hours of the evening. One night as I was making my way home, a police cruiser pulled up alongside me and the officer asked me where I was headed. I said I was going home, and he then asked me where that might be. I gave him the name of my street, and with that he...

 

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