On the show this week, I talked about why Iran is in the crosshairs. I played some interesting clips of General Wesley Clark laying it all out during the Bush years (of course he sings a different tune now that his side is in the White House–that’s interesting too!)
Here are the clips of Wesley Clark. The first one is him telling about Bush & Co. plotting to reshape the world, while the second clip has him spinning a different yarn for his teammate Obama.
Despite my appearance (and my name!), I’m half Irish. I’m even a citizen of Ireland (and the U.S. of course) with two of my grandparents–Irish as Paddy’s Pigs–emigrating from County Mayo through Ellis Island to Brooklyn nearly a hundred years ago.
Being raised by a first generation Brooklynite of purely Irish stock, I absorbed a great deal of Irish culture, lore and attitudes. Perhaps that’s why I’m an anarcho-capitalist: Ireland, I have read, had a thousand years of non-centralized, non-coercive government which was peaceful and orderly and had the happy effect of making its untamed population difficult for the English to conquer. I only discovered this fun fact in my adult life, however. What I gleaned of Ireland in my childhood included, among other things, that the Irish, at least our line, were poor. I also got the impression that the English were not.
After the horrible massacre in Afghanistan over the weekend in which 16 Afghani civilians–mostly children–were mowed down in their home in the middle of the night, allegedly by a single unhinged US soldier (although there are reports of two or more “drunk, laughing” US soldiers), Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, “War is hell.” Panetta said he was “deeply shocked and saddened” by the incident, but he also said this “wasn’t the first and won’t be the last” of this kind of horrible event, adding “I do not believe there is any reason to change our strategy [in Afghanistan] at this time.”
There was an article this weekend in the Wall Street Journal called It’s Too Easy Being Green, by David Owen. Here’s the letter I wrote to the editor in response–maybe they’ll publish it, maybe they won’t, but in any case, I can share it here.
Dear Sir:
David Owen, in his article, It’s Too Easy Being Green, points out the paradox of trying to be green in a consumption-driven world and cites the ease and push to consume as the real problem. I agree with Mr. Owen that over-consumption is a problem (though my concern is more for the wasteful and rapid use of finite resources than fear of global warming.) In any case, Mr. Owen failed to cite the real reason driving and flying are so cheap, and why fuel itself is so affordable: government policy.
I think there’s much more to Operation Fast & Furious than we’ve heard about so far. Will it bring down Eric Holder? How about Obama? Listen to my take on the developing story: Monica Perez Fast and Furious
A friend recently asked me to recommend a book that explains the Fed. In my efforts to find the best book to introduce the topic, I came upon this documentary. Although it must be several decades old, it clearly and thoroughly lays out the basics of money and the Fed and can serve as an (more…)
For my review of this book, click: Continue reading…
I have a bit of a twitter problem–it keeps me up way past my bedtime and delays me from starting my day’s work. I’m not sure whether or not to feel guilty about this. Am I educating myself or amusing myself? Does this count as work or leisure? Is following twitter the future equivalent of reading the newspaper everyday, or is it merely a narcissistic distraction? Well, this morning decided the issue: I happened upon a tweet by @libertarianmike: “The chances of being harmed by terrorists are mathematically minute. The chance of being robbed by your own govt? That’s easy:100%–J.Sobran.” I recalled that my father (a Classical Liberal like Ron Paul) loved Joe Sobran, but I still pegged Sobran for a neo-con, so complete had I thought was that sect’s dominance of
Sometimes talk radio makes me crazy! It didn’t always, though. As a matter of fact, I used to find great comfort in listening to my favorite hosts when I lived in Southern California. During those years, there were several hosts I relied on to keep me sane, one in particular I dubbed “the Voice of Reason.” These hosts’ rational arguments against the false hope of entitlements and the impossibility of a centrally-controlled economy provided me a constant palliative to all the liberal rhetoric to which I was daily exposed in LA. I sloughed off the growing social agenda these hosts seemed to be pushing and also decided to give the benefit of the doubt to Bush & Co. on invading Iraq–who was I to presume to understand the complexities of geopolitics? Eventually, however, I stopped listening to
I recently found Our Enemy the State, by Albert Jay Nock, under a chair in my kids’ playroom–I must have bought it long ago and misplaced it. I flipped the book open to a chapter: “Politics and Other Fetiches,” and despite the unpromising chapter heading I was immediately riveted. Although written in 1935, Our Enemy (more…)