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Someone with too much time on their hands used Google trends to compare trends in searches for reputation and corruption 
I tend to agree. However, I shudder at Mr Jordan’s suggestion that we are what we search… September 16th, 2006 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The journey from environmentalism to sanity may not be so far after all:
And about bloody time too! The prohibition of DTT was a product of wrong-headed, fashionable green dogma and Lord only knows how many people in the developing world have paid for it with their lives. Just how many neural transmitters do you have shut down in order to hand-wring about poverty and premature death in the developing world while simultaneously campaigning against everything and anything that stands a chance of tackling them? I sincerely hope that the greenslimers are seething with thwarted rage. In fact, I hope their blood boils until they have a collective stroke. I wish a pox on them (before they unleash a pox on the rest of us). September 16th, 2006 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
London calling! London calling! Reports are coming in of growing resistance to the brutal occupation of the Food Nazis:
Smuggling food into prisoners is a time-honoured practice but I have to admit that the cemetery angle is cool. They may need to start digging tunnels though. Hopefully, this is a ‘line in the sand’; a message from the public to the ruling class paternalists and busybodies that their food fascism is an intervention too far. September 16th, 2006 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
Well, if you spray acid everywhere:
Of course, our political masters will conclude from this that the solution lies in compulsory voting. September 16th, 2006 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
The senior Russian central bank official who was shot dead this week was a prominent campaigner against money-laundering. No matter what one thinks of some of the more oppressive laws against money transfers – as a libertarian, I find a lot of such laws counter-productive and intrusive of privacy – there is no doubt that Russia has a terrible reputation for financial skulduggery. By going against financial hoodlums, it sadly appears this guy signed his death warrant. Funnily enough, this story does not appear to have caused much of a stir outside the business sections and some of the foreign bits of the press. I find that a bit odd, if not chilling. A senior central bank official gets murdered. Imagine the reaction if a top official working for the Bank of England or the Fed got killed. Russia has a long, long way to go before it becomes a place in which civilised people will want to do business. September 15th, 2006 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
This by George Reisman, economist and free marketeer:
Here is more about anti-trust pursuit of Microsoft by the European Union, in a slightly less irreverent vein. September 15th, 2006 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s national current affairs flagship, the 7.30 Report, ran an interesting piece on Peak Oil theory, which was surprisingly contrarian considering the ABC’s traditional biases (think BBC protégé). The most common manifestation of Peak Oil theory – a belief that at some point soon oil production will peak and then decline, causing spiralling oil prices and a world of chaos – has long been a favourite of environmentalists, leftists and the perpetually gloomy. However, of late Peak Oil’s slip is showing to such an extent that even an organisation like the ABC cannot deny it is distinctly iffy. I would go further; it’s demonstrably false. Mark Nolan, ExxonMobil Australia’s Chief Executive controversially stated earlier this week that
When an oil company representative talks like that, one tends to believe him – oil companies have a natural interest in maintaining a perception of scarcity to maintain upward pressure on the price of crude. And he’s referring to known oil reserves. Thanks to woeful underinvestment in exploration by – and equally woeful management of – many of the world’s true oil majors, the state owned National Oil Companies (subscriber-only article, sorry), we may have knowledge of just the tip of the iceberg. Considering the pace of development of alternative energy sources, the famous quote from former Saudi oil minister Sheikh Zaki Yamani that “the Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.” is looking more prophetic than ever. Peak Oil chaos? Stuff and nonsense. September 15th, 2006 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
– Don Henry, Australian Conservation Foundation September 15th, 2006 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
Okay, it is very late on Thursday evening and I thought I would pose this question to our commenters for a bit of a Friday quiz before I go to bed: What is the worst film you have ever seen? (This thought was inspired by seeing a short trailer for a movie starring Jennifer Lopez). September 14th, 2006 | 104 comments - (Comments are closed)
Mark Ballard pins it down precisely in The Register. September 14th, 2006 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
In recent UK opinion polls, 73% of adults surveyed supported public funding for research into the effects of global warming on hippopotamus obesity in Zambia, 65% supported laws regulating the length of rasta dreadlocks in the UK, 87% agreed with the statement “Islam is a religion of peace and reason”, 67% supported DHSS funded holidays in Spain for pigs and goats forced to work at petting zoos, 97% supported NHS funded cosmetic surgery for Cherie Blair, 78% believes that Elvis and Spike Milligan are alive and well and living in Area 51 in the USA and 75% supported paying more for the tax-funded BBC. September 14th, 2006 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Recently the Democrat Mayor of Chicago (Richard Daley) vetoed the higher minimum wage law proposed by the (Democrat) city council and they have failed to overturn his veto. The proposal was quite wrong headed, both because it discriminated against large employers (such as Walmart) who were the only employers who were to pay the new ‘living wage’, and on the general grounds that (all other factors being equal) increases in minimum wage law (over the amount of money already being paid) levels cost jobs (in accordance with the law of demand). However, the Democrats are making great play in the mid-term elections with both Walmart bashing and with minimum wage level law increases generally (if they get their way, most States will have higher minimum wage level laws than the Federal level) and for the best known Democrat Mayor in the country to veto such an increase (and an increase linked to Walmart bashing) both points to the absurdity of Democrat policies and shows the Democrats to be disunited as well. Meanwhile in California the Democrats are pressing for universal government health-care (basically a version of the plan Mrs Clinton proposed in the early 1990’s) and the Republican Governor is pledged to veto the proposal. This may seem to be a winner for the Democrats, but people who support universal government health-care (with all the increase in taxes, health rationing and the decline in the quality of health care that it means) would vote Democrat anyway. Whereas many Republicans were considering not voting for ‘Arnie’ on the grounds of his wild spending on building projects. The Democrats in California have given the Republicans (and independents and moderate Democrats) a reason to turn out and vote – vote against the Democrats. Also by beating the drum for more government health care (on top of Medicare, Medicaid, and all the rest of it) the Democrats risk turning attention to places where it has already been tried. Such as Louisiana (where the long established system of government hospitals are a terrible mess) or Tennessee where even the Democratic party Governor has admitted that ‘TennCare’ did not turn out too well. If they go on like this the Democrats could well save the Republican House of Representatives. Otherwise the Republicans’ wild spending (on the ‘entitlement programs’ and other such) might well have led to many pro-liberty voters staying at home (giving the Democrats the House, if not the Senate). September 14th, 2006 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
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