Tuesday, February 19
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Robert Kaercher is the guest editor today. |
Reflections on the Newly Independent Kosovo
"How much blood has been spilt because one 'ethnic team' felt it was superior to another, because they felt entitled to a certain stretch of land or whatever? It's pretty silly to begin with, that anyone would take up arms over the fact that someone else in their backyard speaks with different-sounding words and believes in a different man in the sky and has different social habits and customs. It's even sillier when you dress these things up and make them into 'nationalities' and 'ethnicities,' and then stake their whole identity on it. It's collectivist and has about as much sense as Giants and Patriots fans waging war in the streets...." Column by Marcel Votlucka.
A Free Society, the Labor Market, and Job Security
"Since proficient employees can choose to work for any business concern they wish, companies have to make it worth an employee’s while to remain in their organisation or even attract future workers at all." Column by Christopher Awuku.
“‘Is the American era over?’ That was the big question that launched a lengthy analysis by veteran international affairs reporter James Kitfield in the influential National Journal last May. Significantly, the article – which featured interviews with an all-star cast of former top U.S. policymakers – was titled ‘The Decline Begins.’” If they’re referring to the decline of the US Federal Megastate, then hallelujah. Perhaps then we can finally figure out how to behave like a humane society.
Kurds
Impose Limits On Where Arabs Can Live in Northern Iraq
“Every
three months, Munawer Fayeq Rashid goes to the Asayech, an intelligence
security agency in Irbil, and hands over his identification. The Shiite Muslim
Arab never goes alone. He has to bring a Kurdish sponsor to vouch for him.”
Isn’t it great that Uncle Sam “liberated” the Kurds from Saddam’s rule
so they could turn around and tyrannize somebody else?
“Across this last weekend, the Western propaganda machine was working overtime, celebrating the latest NATO miracle: the transformation of Serbian Kosovo into Albanian Kosova. A shameless land grab by the United States, which used the Kosovo problem to install an enormous military base (Camp Bondsteel) on other people's strategically located land, is transformed by the power of the media into an edifying legend of ‘national liberation’.” The machinations and lies of state power never stop.
Air
Force Has Hands Out For Expensive Fix
“After more than seven years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Air Force's aging jet fighters, bombers, cargo aircraft and gunships are at the breaking point, they say, and expensive, ultramodern replacements are needed fast.” The costs of socialist defense schemes just keep on climbing.
Some
Expect Pakistan to Be Less Cooperative After Elections
“The
poll results reflect the widespread impression here that Pakistanis are
fighting for U.S., not Pakistani, interests.” Whatever gave them that impression?
Bernanke
Doesn’t Inflate Fast Enough, Says McCain
“Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke should have been quicker to cut interest rates to try to avert a recession.” I guess you could say McCain has a “high time preference” when it comes to the Fed’s legalized counterfeiting.
“You
will count speed as a virtue if you're going through a home remodeling,
clicking on an Internet link or drafting a cornerback. But presented with
looming calamity, most of us would much prefer one that moves slowly. Which is
why there is no comfort in hearing that if Hillary Clinton is elected
president, she will be ‘ready on Day One’.”
Candidates
Plunder the Pews in Their Altar Call For Votes
“Presidential
candidates are professing their faith as the ‘Jesus Factor’ continues to
reverberate in politics.”
No, actually they’re not. Charles Johnson cites some horrific examples.
Sex
Registry For Juveniles Called Too Harsh
“Texas
officials may soon begin ignoring a new federal sex offender law that would
require some juveniles as young as 14 to register on a national Web site. A
federal community notification act approved by Congress and signed by
President Bush is so sweeping, it's raising concern among even those who
traditionally have pushed for greater public sex offender disclosure.”
“Christopher
Lane set out a few years ago to write a book about people who hate people.
Lane, a Victorian literature scholar and professor at Northwestern, had
already published a book on misanthropes in the Victorian era, which he says
‘had a relatively high tolerance for eccentrics, reclusives, hermits, and
scolds’. He wanted to carry his study into the 21st century. But when he
began asking psychiatrists about the fate of contemporary misanthropes, the
response he got was that they’d likely be medicated. Behavior considered
part of the normal spectrum in the 19th century, Lane says, had in our time
become a mental disorder requiring treatment with prescription drugs.”
How
Generalissimo Washington Crushed the Spirit of Liberty
“[George Washington’s] primary aim was to crush the individualistic and democratic spirit of the American forces. For one thing, the officers of the militia were elected by their own men, and the discipline of repeated elections kept the officers from forming an aristocratic ruling caste typical of European armies of the period. The officers often drew little more pay than their men, and there were no hierarchical distinctions of rank imposed between officers and men. As a consequence, officers could not enforce their wills coercively on the soldiery. This New England equality horrified Washington's conservative and highly aristocratic soul.” An excerpt of the late great Murray Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty.
Nation
of Andorra Not in Africa, Reports Shocked State Dept.
A photo blog.