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Harry Browne, former Libertarian Party Presidential candidate, writer on business and the author of the very interesting book, How I Found Freedom In an Unfree World, has died. Here is an article about his life and contribution to the libertarian political cause in the United States.

I think his book cited above is the thing I am most grateful to Browne for. It points out the many ways in which, right now, you can make your life freer, less dependent on the State and open your eyes to making the most of life without waiting for someone's permission. At a time when the prospects for liberty seem rather gloomy in some ways, that is a good message to spread around.

I am sure those closer to the coalface of U.S. politics might have less kind things to say about Browne's activities in the LP, but I'll leave that to others if they are so inclined.

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The other day I made a less-than-complimentary reference to the thoughts of so-called "crunchy con" Rod Dreher, who has taken against the ugliness of modern capitalism and its assorted vulgarity. Blogger Clive Davis thought that I was being a touch unfair.

Well, if you thought I was harsh, then check this out by Radley Balko:

"Only after raw, unabashed capitalism has taken care of more primitive problems can we begin to have places like Whole Foods, or targeted products like no-chemical, no-additive, no-hormone, free-range chicken. Only after industry has knocked down a lot of trees and sullied a lot of streams on its way to feeding us, medicating us, and giving us good reason to think we'll live past the age of forty do we get the luxury of beginning to worry about the health of the environment, and the survival of beings outside our own families, much less outside our own species.

I don't begrudge Dreher his Birks and his granola, but talk about the excesses of capitalism and so-called conspicuous consumption are innevitably followed by calls to slow things down -- maybe idle the engines of progress for a bit. There's generally little acknowledgement that it is excess and consumption that have put them in the position of being able to write books about the problems associated with...you guessed it...excess and consumption."

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A friend of mine in Manhattan has joined an effort to save St Brigid's Church in the Lower East side and I find myself sufficiently drawn to the cause to support them in print.

Photo: Copyright Dale Amon, all rights reserved.

St Brigids was built on the old waterfront of New York at the time of the Irish famine. It was perhaps the first stop for those who escaped the horror which starved one and a half million of their fellow citizens to death in Ireland and then survived the unspeakable conditions of the Atlantic crossing. The trip alone killed perhaps one of every five who attempted it. As one British Captain put it at the time, the difference between carrying slaves and Irish to the new world was that you did not get paid for a slave unless you delivered him alive.

The church was built in a time when the majority religion in Ireland was outlawed; those landing on New York's quays built their own place of worship on the shore to celebrate the freedom of religion they found in their new home. The ceiling was built by boatbuilders and carried some of the characteristics of that trade. You can read more about the history here.

The Catholic Diocese of New York has decided to tear it down and has thus far turned a deaf ear to the sometimes strident cries from parishioners. I agree the Diocese is legally the owner and does have the legal right to do with the property as they choose. I do not agree they are doing the right thing. Quite the contrary, I feel they are going down a path that runs counter to the long term interests of their religion, their members, the community the church has served for over a century and a half; and those who wish to see a bit of the historical roots of their own families kept alive.

This is not a problem unique to this small parish; due to costly recent legal problems the Catholic church in America has been destroying small congregations in the same way a national store would cut costs and sell assets to raise capital in hard times: by chopping off all marginal operations. The problem is, a church is not a business, or at least that is not why it exists. A small congregation is not a cost center; it is the very reason the religion exists. If religion is to have any meaning at all in the 21st Century it has to be as the last bastion of community. We used to have small community schools in America. The State destroyed education and communities to gain 'economies of scale' and to 'pay teachers more'. I would hate to see Big Religion join Big Government as yet another destructive force in our society.

If you find this argument compelling; if you want to save a bit of 19th century American architecture or have strong feelings about the immigrant history of the Irish, Italians and Hispanics, contact these people and see what you can do to help.

It is a given in libertarian circles that property rights are an absolute right. You will find no one at Samizdata who will stray from that view. This does not mean libertarians like myself turn a blind eye to what their neighbors do or what happens in the community around them. The actions of others can affect my quality of life, and I feel it my duty to use strong but peaceful persuasion when I feel someone is harming others. Many find it confusing that libertarians will at the same time defend someone's right to do something while saying they are a bloody immoral fool if they actually do it.

I have recently come across two cases which have impacts in areas which I care about. I have dealt with one of them above; the other is a far more complex issue of regulatory distortions which may soon cause disastrous and irreversible secondary harm and are perhaps only answerable in the time available by a devil's deal. I have yet to figure that one out, so I decided, for the moment, to stick with this far simpler and clearer issue of property rights in an unfree world.

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It has been said that the best political arrangement when it comes to protecting liberty and constraining the size of government is when no party controls all branches of government. Gridlock is liberty-friendly, on this view. Well, the idea that it is bad for a single party to run the entire shebang does seem to be borne out by the skyrocketing spending going on in the United States under George W. Bush. Bruce Bartlett, a Reaganite Republican of long standing, has written a blistering indictment of Bush's record on spending.

Bush ran back in 2000 (it already seems a long time ago) as a "compassionate conservative", and only the most gullible must have ignored the fact that this was codespeak for spending lots of other people's money. I fear very much that we could get the same outcome if David Cameron ever leads the Tories back to power by promising the same menu as his Labour opponent.

I get the impression - and that is all that it is - that some conservative writers are getting a bit fed up with Bush, and I am not just talking about the cack-handed post-invasion phase in Iraq. On a whole list of bedrock issues for conservatives, such as federalism, free markets, respect for liberty and privacy, this administration has fallen way short. It has not even delivered on Social Security reform in any meaningful way, and the tax code is as hideously complex and full of distortions as ever.

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You may have already heard this but I laughed out loud when I came across this: an officer involved in Dick Cheney's recent difficulties is called Captain Kirk.

Phasers off, gentlemen.

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Popular Mechanics takes look at the myths that sprung up after Hurrican Katrina hit New Orleans. Some of their findings will be of no surprise to samizdatistas, I'm sure, including:

Folks in Tornado Alley and along the San Andreas fault don't get federally backed insurance, so why should taxpayers subsidize coastal homes, many of them vacation properties? Before we start rebuilding "bigger and better," Congress should reform the flood insurance program. A good start: Structure premiums so the program is actuarially sound and clamps down on repetitive claims.

Three major policy changes could help make our energy system more resilient in the face of disasters. 1) Loosen restrictions on refinery construction to encourage new refineries in more diverse locations. 2) Expand port facilities for Liquefied Natural Gas to help supplement domestic supply. 3) Relax the current ban on offshore natural gas drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Others point to a civil society that is capable of functioning with relatively low levels of government supervision:

In reality, although looting and other property crimes were widespread after the flooding on Monday, Aug. 29, almost none of the stories about violent crime turned out to be true. Col. Thomas Beron, the National Guard commander of Task Force Orleans, arrived at the Superdome on Aug. 29 and took command of 400 soldiers. He told PM that when the Dome's main power failed around 5 am, "it became a hot, humid, miserable place. There was some pushing, people were irritable. There was one attempted rape that the New Orleans police stopped."

When Nagin issued his voluntary evacuation order, a contraflow plan that turned inbound interstate lanes into outbound lanes enabled 1.2 million people to leave New Orleans out of a metro population of 1.5 million. "The Corps estimated we would need 72 hours [to evacuate that many people]," says Brian Wolshon, an LSU civil engineer. "Instead, it took 38 hours."

Disasters such as this pose a challenge for minarchists and anarchists, because they present situations where government can apparently make a difference for the better. The article looks at the government response, and although it has suggestions for improvement, is somewhat favorable.

Interesting stuff.

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Various precincts of the respectable press and the blogosphere having gotten wrapped around the axle regarding Vice President Cheney's hunting accident, I thought a little background on quail hunting in Texas (by an actual Texas quail hunter!) might be in order.

It is not uncommon for a quail hunter to get "peppered", due to the tendency of quail to fly somewhat erratically at relatively low levels. Unlike ducks and dove, which come in high, and pheasant, which take off vertically, quail often fly at head level. Not to mention that quail often live in brushy country where visibility can get a little short, and people tend to hunt them with open chokes which spread the pattern out. Serious injuries are rare, due to the small pellet size, open chokes, and (often) smaller gauge guns used by quail hunters.

I myself have just barely avoided shooting an actual pickup (bright red, thank you, about 20 yards away) while quail hunting, and have had a member of my party peppered (not by me, thank the gods). It was a pretty typical incident - a few stray pellets in the neck, no harm done. It is, in short, easy even for a very conscientious shooter to have an accident.

That said, based on the rumor and speculation in the press, it sounds like what happened to Mr. Whittington was a little more than your typical peppering. The length of his hospital stay alone points to more of a direct blast than a few stray pellets.

The typical rules of gun safety simply do not apply in their usual way when hunting upland game. To verify, to the same degree as with a rifle or pistol, that there is nothing at all in your line of fire before shooting would preclude wingshooting at quail, grouse, and other birds, where you are swinging your gun through a low-flying bird at high speed. For that reason, safety is assured to a large degree by having a disciplined shooting line - everyone stays more or less in line, and everyone knows where their zone of fire is.

The story is that Whittington came up behind Cheney, or that Cheney shot Whittington when he was behind him. Someone can come up behind another hunter and still be in his designated zone of fire, and everyone in the party has a responsibility to stay clear of each other and not show up where unexpected. Its possible but by no means certain that Vice President Cheney was only negligent, and that there was some contributory negligence by Mr. Whittington.

Here in Texas its just good manners to say that it is your fault if you get involved an accident like this (as Mr. Whittington has apparently done). That said, the crashing silence from the Vice President is a little disturbing. Not to blow this accident out of proportion (as the partisan press is busily doing), but he needs to stand up and take responsibility like a man.

The current complaint from the press that they were left out of the loop tells us a lot more about their self-regard, and about how well they have trained the Bush White House to treat them as enemies and tell them nothing, than it does about anything else. Still, the VP needs to hold a press conference, say his mea culpas, mix in some good words for Mr. Whittington, utter a few nostrums about gun safety, and generally be a gentleman (in the older sense of the word) about this.

UPDATE: Cheney finally takes the podium. Looks like the mea culpa I would expect of him.

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U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney wounded a fellow shooter of quail in an accident. Well, I guess it shows what a gulf now exists between the U.S. government and our own. I cannot imagine a single senior Labour politician who would spend time out shooting. (Imagine John Prescott doing it. Actually, don't). The story reminds me of another deputy leader, the late William Whitelaw (a decorated soldier in the Normandy WW2 campaign), who managed to fire some buckshot at someone during a grouse shooting meeting in the Scottish highlands.

Many politicians in the past have enjoyed the pastime of shooting game. Many MPs were landed gentry, who could not wait to get out of smelly London in the summer months and, once the game season started in August, would blast away at hapless birds, bagging them in prodigious quantities. And several paid the price. Robert Peel, Prime Minister in the 1840s, suffered a nasty buzzing in one of his ears after a gun went off too close. Salisbury and Churchill shot game, as did Macmillan and Alec Douglas Home. Across the big pond there was no greater hunter of game, of course, than Teddy Roosevelt.

All that tradition is fading out. I cannot imagine Tory leader David Cameron shooting game (imagine how that would jar with his trendy image) although his ancestors probably nailed whole flocks of pheasants in their time.

Anyway, the lesson of all this is that if you find yourself in the company of a politician holding a shotgun, stand well behind.

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Just as newspapers around Europe and beyond are coming to the support of Jyllands-Posten in Denmark, US State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper has said that freedom of expression in a European country is "not acceptable".

Firstly, who the hell asked the US State Department to opine on something in a newspaper in Denmark? Secondly, if they are going to take a side here, are religious extremists so deeply entrenched in the US political establishment that they cannot understand the importance maintaining secular rights to free expression in the face of attempts at religious censorship and overt intimidation?

Land of the free, home of the brave, eh? Not in Washington DC it seems. Rather than face down the intolerant face of radical Islam, the US State Department is pandering to it. This is a national disgrace and I hope some US newspapers will show how they feel by supporting their colleagues in Denmark and publishing the damn cartoons themselves and telling Kurtis Cooper where he can stick his political master's craven opinions.

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The other night I enjoyed a pleasant meal with a business contact, who works in the property industry and for a large U.S. company. He was talking to a group of people and struck me as a thoroughly charming fellow: articulate, funny, interested in other people, highly intelligent. And then he said something that slightly vexed me in that he started to go on and on about how we must be so appalled by this nutcase rightwinger in the White House, how most Americans were insular and dumb, yadda-yadda. It was so obviously an attempt to deflect what anti-American prejudices potentially might have existed by getting in the blow first. He was, then, slightly surprised me when I said over a drink later that I did not like the way that Americans felt the need to abase themselves this way, or denigrate their home country, or its people. In fact, I told him that, much that I disagreed with many of Bush's policies, such as his fiscal profiligacy and Big Government leanings, I liked the United States a great deal, not least much of its culture, its vitality and the niceness of most Americans.

So a gentle tip for American travellers from this Brit: don't slag off your own country when abroad. The locals will see through it and despise you for it. Be proud of what you are as an individual living in Jefferson's Republic, which for all its faults is the greatest free nation on the planet, and likely to be so for a while to come.

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Efforts continue to use powers of eminent domain (UK = compulsory purchase) to take US Supreme Court Judge David Souter's home away from him in order to use the land for a hotel and tourist attraction called the Lost Liberty Hotel.

However New Hampshire State Representative Neal Kurk, in spite of being behind worthy measures to prohibit in his state the sort of abuses of eminent domain that the US Supreme Court okayed with their monstrous Kelo judgement, is nevertheless opposed to the plan to use eminent domain against Souter.

"Most people here see this as an act of revenge and an improper attack on the judicial system," Kurk said. "You don't go after a judge personally because you disagree with his judgments."

Why not? If Souter was part of the system underwriting a grotesque abridgement of liberty, who not grotesquely abridge his liberty? I suppose being a politician himself, the notion of using laws against the people responsible for them might be a little too close to home for Kurk even if he is sponsoring a measure to prevent such abuses in New Hampshire. Yet why should people whose liberty is abridged and rights to property threatened not want to punish the guilty parties with the tools they themselves have no problem seeing used against others? I am a great believer in revenge.

Do unto others as they do unto you.

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For those of you that have enjoyed your Festive break and have not been keeping up with political happenings 'over the pond', there has been an eye-opening little scandal going on in Washington.

A member of the Most Honourable Order of Washington Lobbyists, Jack Abramoff, has pleaded guilty to the heinous crimes of fraud, bribery and tax evasion. In a plea bargain deal, Abramoff will face nine to eleven years of penal servitude in exchange testifying against the sundry Congresscritters that may face prosecution.

Clearly, Mr. Abramoff is a menace to society:

Among the allegations in the court documents is that Abramoff arranged for payments totaling $50,000 for the wife of an unnamed congressional staffer in return for the staffer's help in killing an Internet gambling measure. The Washington Post has previously reported that Tony Rudy, a former top aide to DeLay, worked with Abramoff to kill such a bill in 2000 before going to work for Abramoff.

An internet gambling measure? Not surprisingly, it turns out that Mr. Abramoff was getting a large part of his money from Native American tribes who have a large stake in gambling operations in the United States outside of Las Vegus.

Abramoff's appearance in U.S. District Court came nearly two years after his lobbying practices gained public notice because of the enormous payments -- eventually tallied at $82 million -- that he and a public relations partner received from casino-rich Indian tribes. Yesterday, he admitted defrauding four of those tribal clients out of millions of dollars.

As you can imagine, that part of the Washington elite that has emerged from their Holiday cheer is agog with the news. Wonkette, for example, took time out from promoting her book to pass comment on the latest news, which is that Republican politicians are falling over themselves to 'return' money that Abramoff donated to them. Starting at the top, President Bush is returning the $6,000 that he donated to his re-election campaign. Abramoff was a generous soul; 24 figures from both political parties in Washington have announced that they are following the President's lead. Oddly enough, a leading Democrat Senator, Harry Reid, is declining to return his $47,000 booty, saying that it is basically a Republican problem.

I was bemused that there was no follow-up from the media on that point. It would seem that it is okay for Democrats to take money from a crook, but not Republicans. It must be that 'liberal media' that they talk about over there.

As a non-American citizen, I must confess to being bemused at the fuss; in a political system where cash is vital to electoral success, where do people think that the money comes from?

But American political analysts, such as The Washington Post's Richard Cohen, seem to me to miss the point. He wrote about the lobbying system in Washington and its biggest critic in the Washington system, John McCain:

Back to McCain. For years now, he has been fulminating against the system -- the outsized role and influence of lobbyists and the parochialism of senators and representatives who, like the ridiculous Ted Stevens of Alaska, have turned selfishness into a matter of high principle. But more important, McCain has tried to rein in campaign spending, which is a root of the problem. The sad fact is that the average member of Congress has his hat out for campaign funds most of the time. Lobbyists know that. They go see a member and in a heartbeat they are hit up for a donation.

...So much needs to be done: campaign finance reform, an ethics committee with teeth, the insistence that lobbyists report whom precisely they are lobbying -- the name, please, not merely this entity called "the House of Representatives." But what's needed most of all is indignation on the part of the public, a cold fury about being ripped off and taken for granted.

Closer to the point was that old friend of Samizdata.net, Boris Johnson. Writing in this morning's Daily Telegraph, Johnson thinks that Abramoff's lobbying clients, the Native American tribes looking to protect their gaming interests are the real victims.

It was a classic piece of lobbyist's hocus-pocus. The Native Americans needed him to represent their gambling interests, and Mr Abramoff was happy to oblige. In fact, he became known as "Casino Jack" for his skill in persuading Native Americans that he was indispensable to their cause, and prising millions from their reservations...

The point is that he was not only suborning the politicians; he was deceiving the business interests he represented.

Businessmen long for certainty; they long to know what the decision-makers are thinking, so that they can plan ahead. They yearn to be in the loop, to have the drop on things. It is the genius of the lobbyists and the consultants to understand this need, and to satisfy it in the most imaginative way.

The reality is that government decisions are often taken in a way that is shambolically unpredictable, but the lobbyist pretends otherwise. He whispers that he can get his client an introduction to so-and-so. He produces organograms of power. He rustles up members of the governing party, or civil servants, or journalists, and persuades them to come to watch the football or the rugby. And nine times out of 10, since this is England, the freebie-takers will do absolutely nothing to requite the favour they have received; but the lobbyist knows that doesn't really matter. The client sees the beaming, drunken faces of these important folk; the client is satisfied, and the client believes just about anything the lobbyist tells him.

Johnson hints, but does not explain the full nature of the problem.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with lobbying or being a lobbyist. When the state takes it upon itself to regulate and interfere with people's lives and business, it is natural that people and business would like to have an input on the political process that has the potential to ruin or enrich them, depending on the fickle finger of legislative whims. An honourable lobbyist would use intellectual argument to present the case for their client without unseemly corrupt practices. However, it is tempting for the not so honourable to use the shortcut of cash.

Well meaning statists, like Senator McCain, think that campaign finance reform will have an impact on reducing the temptation for politicians to take bribes. I would suggest that an honest politician is always honest. He misses the point that rampant lobbyist-driven corruption is a sure sign of excessive legislative involvement in business life. Businessmen do not give money to lobbyists because they have too much of it, and your average Washington lobbyist is just a smashing fellow, but because they think lobbyists can change legislative outcomes.

Legislatures that do not have the power to distort market outcomes are not plagued with lobbyists. How many gambling industry lobbyists are infesting Philadelphia's City Council? Mr. Abramoff just a symptom of the disease known as 'the state'.

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I must admit to being saddened and a bit angered to read that Doug Bandow, a former writer for the CATO Institute, a leading U.S. libertarian think tank, has left after it was revealed that he was paid by a lobbyist to write articles specifically favouring said lobbyist's clients. I used to like some of the stuff Bandow wrote as he came across as a relatively sane voice on domestic and foreign policy issues. It turns out that at least on certain topics, he was a shill. Ouch.

Of course, most of us have to work to earn a crust, and there is nothing specifically wrong in my view in a writer being paid by a company or organisation to advance a point of view so long as the writer is up-front about that. If a person writing skeptical articles about the so-called Greenhouse Effect is backed by Exxon or Shell, then one can obviously take that into account, even if the quality of the argument is impeccable. The same might go, say, for a writer getting backing from Greenpeace who writes all manner of doomonger articles, and so forth.

A lot of people who once enjoyed Bandow's articles will be feeling slightly peeved.

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Almost uniquely amongst nations, the United States takes upon itself the super-ownership of its subjects even when they are not within the territory over which it claims sovereignty. Even if you live and work outside the USA, you are required to file tax returns and have US tax liabilities. It would appear Americans cannot escape the enveloping grasp of their government and its rules anywhere on this planet.

And yet as soon as you step outside the USA, even though US subjects retain their tax liabilities to the state, it would appear they loose any constitutional protection from its excesses.

Whilst in many ways the USA offers the world a splendid example of defended civil liberties, in so many other ways the freedom Americans assume is theirs is really an illusion.

The state is not your friend.

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The U.S. Senate has blocked a vote to extend the Patriot Act, about which Perry de Havilland wrote the other day. Maybe some sanity is breaking out. Many of the Act's provisions are tenuously linked to protecting the public from terrorism, to put it mildly, and violate parts of the U.S. Constitution. Let's hope Congress reflects more before passing such laws at such high speed in the future. And the same applies to our own benighted Parliament and the wretched UK Civil Contigencies Act.

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It is good to see opposition to the absurdly named 'Patriot Act' but as expected, there are many who want to see this monstrous legislation extended.

Looks like the best chance here is for moves to extend the provisions of the act falling to a filibuster and therefore allowing many of the more egregious aspects to expire.

Much was made much of 'sunsetting' aspects of the Patriot Act when it was initially passed so one would have hoped Congress would be happy to see those parts of this draconian and intrusive law wither away. However the eternal trouble with giving the state more power is that 'emergency' provisions inevitably become the norm from that point onwards as those in power are loath to ever accept a reduction in their ability to exert control over people.

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It is a great shame to see Randy Cunningham, a fighter ace who did sterling work over North Vietnam, descend into the cesspool of corruption like so many before him. My opinions of the man were already diminished by his blinkered views regarding the excesses of Serbian nationalism but to see this old warrior revealed as utterly corrupt is still deeply saddening.

It is equally revolting to see Democrats act as if this is the special preserve of the Republican Party rather than an endemic feature of the whole process of which they too are very much a part. Taxpayers for Common Sense has some rather more non-partisan views:

Keith Ashdown, of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, said Cunningham's guilty plea hurts both parties. "There are very few things that I read that kick me in the gut. This is beyond my wildest guess of how bad it actually is — how bad, how long and how nobody knew about it," said Ashdown. "I don't think Democrats or Republicans win on this. It basically makes people detest Congress even more and deters voter turnout."

In truth the only way to reduce corruption in high places is to have less high places and which party is on top makes very little difference.

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Are the political opponents of George Bush, who are advocating cut-and-run in Iraq, about to take the attrition war there (which by any objective measure the USA cannot possibly lose on the battlefield) and turn gradual military advantage into decisive political defeat?

Discuss.

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I am certain it comes as little surprise to any of our readers that politicians are, by nature, liars. Still, it is a bit of fun to see them blatently caught at it, especially when the lying is potentially putting the lives of their own citizenry at risk.

This Republican film clip shows the moving lips and indeed proves our belief in a multi-party system being the best thing next to a no-party individualist system. Competition makes the antagonists apply resources to counter 1984 style rewrites of history,

Of all the Democrats shown, only the Clintons are truthful enough to admit and some extent hold to their past sentiments. They represent the most honest and upstanding individuals the Democratic leadership has to offer.

Take that as you may...

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Yes, you read that correctly. And moreover he states that presidents do not create jobs, entrepreneurs do... Mister Bleeding Heart himself, Alan Frigging Alda!

Follow the link and read the whole thing, I kid you not.

I am chastened as clearly I must reappraise my views of the man and repent a few of the things I may have said about him in the past. Any moment now I fully expect to see a flock of pigs flying past my window!

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Yesterday I got into conversation with two sibling members of my family, both of whom are opposed to the US invasion/liberation of Iraq. One is (approximately) an environmentalist, the other is (precisely speaking) a UKIPper, but both are agreed in opposing the war and Britain's involvement in it. I am cautiously and pessimistically supportive, but am not sure. I hope Mark Steyn is right about it, but fear that he may not be.

Anyway, an hypothesis about the state of US public opinion surfaced, as interesting hypotheses will when people who disagree, and who hence bring varied ideas and attitudes to the table, but who wish to remain civil with one another, as I and my siblings do.

For the last few years, the Left in the USA has been saying: It's all about oil, it's all about oil. Now for many Americans, and for most people outside America, fighting a war for mere oil is evil. But what if lots of Americans hear that this war is all about oil, and are pleased? But what if the dime has now finally dropped that actually this war is NOT all about oil?

Could that be what Middle America is getting nervous about? For as long as they were convinced that it was all about oil, they were content. That is our kind of war. Simple, limited, clear, selfish. All the things you want, and not like Vietnam at all. But now that it is dawning on them that this really is about "democracy" and such like, for that exact reason they are getting fidgety. Will it be worth it? When will it end? Where will it end? etc.

It would be entertaining to think that the American Left have been the most energetic de facto supporters of President Bush because of what they regarded as their fiercest criticism of him, but that now that the Left is being defeated in the argument about the true nature and true purpose of the war by the war's most energetic supporters, support for that war is, as a direct result, eroding.

One should probably not be looking for entertainment in such serious things, but, entertainment aside, is this not a rather interesting way of looking at it? I am sure that this theory does not apply to all American supporters or ex-supporters of the war. But to some, maybe?

No links in this I am afraid. I do not recall hearing anyone else saying anything quite like this, although some surely have.

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I am in New York. I try to visit this great city every now and then, although as it happens I have not been here since 2000. Besides the fact that the skyline of this city has been defiled since then, it is still the same place, although it seems to get richer and cleaner every time I visit.

My first trip here was in 1991. I was 22 years old at the time, and before I went I remember my mother being slightly scared for me. At that point New York had a reputation for being a somewhat rough and dangerous place. It had perhaps deserved that reputation in the 1970s, but by 1991 it was not especially fair. When I walked the streets of Manhattan I quickly discovered that New York was a fabulous city, but my first experience was an odd one. I arrived at Newark Airport, collected my luggage and headed for the bus stop outside. However, my progress was impeded by the fact that the dead body of a large black man was lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of one of the escalators. There were policemen standing nearby, preventing other people from coming too close.

I do not know how this man died. My best guess is that he simply fell while on the escalator and hit his head. Howevever, my mind was filled with visions of airport shootouts. The thought "What is this place, and what the fuck am I doing here?" went through my mind. I cowered a little.

I then got the bus into Manhattan, found the hostel where I was staying, and had a great time. The city was a litttle grimy, and there were one or two rough neighbourhoods, but it was in truth a magnificent place.

Since then the city has got a lot richer and more gentrified, and (at least in Manhattan) the rough neighborhoods do not seem quite so rough as before. On Saturday I wandered into Hell's Kitchen, famous for being a tough location, recorded in bad movies such as this one.

But of course its proximity to the important locations of midtown means that a certain amount of gentrification may have taken place. That or the long time residents have taken a liking for politically correct lettuce leaves.

Having roughed such a dangerous place, I retired to a nearby restaurant, where I had some Provencale food washed down with an excellent premier cru Burgundy. (Although the food was excellent, the restaurant felt nothing like France. Everything about it was obviously New York, from the size of the portions to the accents to the volume of the diners to the decor). Okay, at that point I got the "kitchen" part. Hell was still eluding me.

If you go a long way uptown, then yes, some places are not quite as gentrified as this. But they are perfectly fine, and in terms of safety New York feels these days more like Tokyo than the dangerous, feared place that people in foreign countries had heard terrible stories about during my childhood.

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Just over a year ago I spent a very happy few days in northern California, spending one very long and pleasant day in the state's Napa Valley wine region. The region boasts some of the best wines in the world, including the now-famous wineries of Robert Mondavi. Mondavi's wines caused a global sensation in the trade when, during a "blind tasting" in the early 1970s, wine critics rated his produce a notch above the competition from more exalted premises in Bordeaux and Burgundy. The horror!

This article very nicely draws out how the challenge of New World wines from California, Chile, Argentina (a magnificent producer of wine), South Africa, New Zealand and Australia has led to a fairly grumpy response from the traditional centres. This is perhaps understandable. The French produced some of the finest wines of all time, with only a bit of competition from the flowery Hocks and Moselles from Germany and the likeable Riojas in Spain and a few good ones from Italy. About 20-plus years ago, you could walk into a supermarket and choose from only a relatively limited range of wines, much of it fairly basic plonk. Globalisation has put some of the world's most far-flung wine producers into the reach of Joe Public.

All we need now is a similar global "race to the top" in the production of effective hangover cures.

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Regular readers may recall that I supported Bush for President as the "least bad" alternative. Certainly his domestic agenda was nothing for a libertarian to crow about, but on most issues his opposition was at least as bad.

Bush is certainly doing what he can these days to put the "bad" in least bad.

One of the areas where this libertarian could confidently point to Bush as better was on tax policy. He cut taxes, and his Democratic opposition was all about raising them. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is now floating tax "reform" that includes limitation of the mortgage deduction, a great way to raise revenue and disrupt the economy by assuring a hard landing from our current mortgage-fuleded credit bubble.

While the usual Democratic lament when faced with the Republican budget agenda has been some combination of "they aren't spending enough" (the Dems wanted to spend more on the brobdingnagian presription drug benefit) and "they aren't raising taxes to pay for this", the Republican spending spree has gotten so far out of control that the normally rock-solid claim that the Dems would spend more is getting harder to make.

And finally, we come to his nomination of crony Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Now, the reasons for disappointment in this pick are multiple.

First, Bush blinked on the diversity/affirmative action front. You may recall that his first pick to replace Sandra Day O'Connor was a man, John Roberts, a nice thumb-in-the-eye for the diversity crowd. However, Roberts was shifted over to fill Rehnquist's seat, and Bush explicitly told his crew to find a woman to replace O'Connor, pandering to the worst kind of identity politics.

And he apparently did so based on his confidence that she would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision creating a right to abortion in the US. Now, as a matter of Constitution law, Roe is a terrible decision, and should be overturned pronto. However, there is every reason to believe that Bush has sold a seat on the Supreme Court, for a single vote on a single issue, to a woman who will be reliably statist and anti-Constitutional.

Harriet Miers is from Dallas, and the word here is that she is a pretty squishy liberal who found God (conveniently, just about the time that being an evangelical became a real entre into the Dallas power structure, but lets give her the benefit of the doubt on that). There is no reason whatsoever to believe that she won't join the anti-individual rights wing of the Court, and some pretty good indications that she will. From what I hear from people who have reason to know, she is a very conventional thinker whose strengths have always been political, not intellectual, and who has never shown a shred of political courage in her life.

She is likely to be very much in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter, in other words, with the occasional anti-gay and anti-abortion vote thrown in.

Another opportunity blown. Humbug.

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So is GWB really facing 'rebellion' by conservatives over his choice of nominee to the Supreme Court? It has long puzzled me why he has been cut so much slack for so long given that his conservative credentials were never very strong to begin with. I guess just not being Bill Clinton was enough for the GOP's supporters to stomach his significant expansion of Big Government and clear lack of any interest in trying to revive the squandered Reagan legacy.

But is this the straw that breaks the camels back or just a storm in a media teacup? Are there really enough people in the GOP willing to derail his latest nominee to the Supreme Court on ideological grounds and do they think there is any chance of them getting someone more to their liking from a Big Government statist like George Bush Jr.? Is this 'outrage' on the right going to make a difference? I will be curious see how this is really going to play out.

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It has been claimed by the BBC that George Bush has said he was "instructed by God to invade Iraq and Afghanistan", not "inspired by his Christian beliefs" mind you, actually "instructed", presumably via some sort of celestial Red Telephone in the Oval Office. Now he may or may not have actually said that (the BBC is rather prone to run with whatever story fits its world view), but I can certainly believe he might have said those things.

As the guy is a practicing Christian, it is to be expected that the G word is something that might come easy to his lips. Now I am all in favour of the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan but I really do wonder if he has any idea how utterly bonkers that sort of thing sounds to non-believers such as myself?

Do not get me wrong, I am not saying he should deny his faith if he thinks he has a personal relationship with God. If that is how he sees things, why should he not say so? I realise than many of my utterances about liberty and the world generally strike many of a different bent as equally bizarre. But I am well aware how negatively my remarks are often received even though I may not actually care a great deal... but at least I know.

But I wonder if GWB actually has the slightest idea how he sounds to some people when he invoked his deity in such a manner? Is the President o