Reporter David Weigel’s feverish imaginings about the group he pretends to cover objectively have surfaced in emails sent to the liberal listserv, Journolist, according to Fishbowl DC (hat-tip to LRC blog).
Why am I not surprised?
Global-warming “scientists” turn out to be political hacks grinding over-sized axes; “educators” preaching “tolerance” and “love” turn out to be sexual Bolsheviks; green “activists” turn out to be shills for billionaire speculators….. Continue reading
An interesting piece by Nathan Lewis at The Daily Reckoning that should be tattooed on the forehead of every misbegotten pundit confusing the airwaves with his bad definitions and sorrier prescriptions. Lewis doesn’t make the usual libertarian mistake of discussing concepts without refining the context in which those concepts are applied. First, he distinguishes between types of spending cuts. Second, he also addresses the issue of public perception and attitude, which most libertarians don’t even consider part of the debate. Third, he takes into account the order in which things are done. Continue reading
The new atheism is as bigoted as that old-time religion, says a Kentucky pastor:
“Atheists remain a tiny minority, but they’re far more vocal and combative than they used to be, an approach advocated by Dawkins and others. They have every right to state their views. Continue reading
From Bloomberg, some bad news for small farmers fighting agribusiness giant, Monsanto. Libertarians shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that adoption of the precautionary principle is anti-libertarian. It’s not. How can any company give an assurance that it won’t do substantial, irreversible damage to other people’s property through pollination of other alfalfa strains? It cannot. Thus, any assurance that it can is patently fraudulent. Besides, Monsanto, like BP and Goldman Sachs, is a state-created, state-subsidized crony-capitalist outfit and not a product of the free market anyway. Continue reading
Will this be the future of the US?
David Guyatt at DeepBlackLies.co.uk on Russia immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union:
GANGSTERS PARADISE
Organized crime in Russia is out of control. Criminal “brigades” own everything of value and can “acquire” any commodity in any quantity if the price is right. Ferocious criminal gangs ship out nuclear warheads with the same aplomb that they plunder train-loads of stolen bank-notes. Fearless and ingenious they even ripped-off Russia’s entire gold reserves. Continue reading
From George Soros on Project-Syndicate.org. (Nov. 4, 2009), his vision of the new world order.
My comments are in italics.
NEW YORK – Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, the world is facing another stark choice between two fundamentally different forms of organization: international capitalism and state capitalism. Continue reading
Reuters reports (June 23, 3010) that Soros is wringing his hands over Germany’s savings policy:
“Germany’s budget savings policy risks destroying the European project and a collapse of the euro cannot be ruled out, billionaire investor George Soros said in a newspaper interview released on Wednesday. Continue reading
Eric Janszen at iTulip on how the masses never connect an excess of past circuses with a deficit of current bread:
“Ten years from now, when the full impact of the U.S. asset bubbles of 1998 to 2008 are fully felt, the dot com era, when money flowed like oil from a geyser, before the wars and financial crisis, will be remembered as the good old days, the high water mark for American power and influence. Not one in a million Americans will connect the antecedents to financial crisis and excessive government borrowing to the inflation that we will experience in the future. Not our readers, of course. Continue reading
London’s BullionVault, an Agora friend and possible partner/affiliate, and, so far as I know, a very reputable firm has recently announced that the World Gold Council and Augmentum Capital (backed by Jacob Rothschild’s RIT Capital) has bought stakes in it, in return for a 12.5 million P. investment. I must say I’m not too happy about the news and may suggest looking into James Turk’s Gold Money as an alternative. The World Gold Council has been an integral part of the gold-suppression scheme that is at the heart of the financialization of the economy from 1970 onward. Continue reading
In September 1950, the Miami News published an article by Edward Hunter titled ” ‘Brain-Washing’ Tactics Force Chinese into Ranks of Communist Party.” It was the first printed use in any language of the term “brainwashing,” which quickly became a stock phrase in Cold War headlines. Hunter, a CIA propaganda operator who worked under cover as a journalist, turned out a steady stream of books and articles on the subject. He made up his coined word from the Chinese hsi-nao—”to cleanse the mind”—which had no political meaning in Chinese. Continue reading