Get Over Your Industrial Complex
From the monthly archives:
For as long as I can remember, I have heard nightmarish tales from conservative pundits of the spectre of a “liberal bias” in the mainstream media. Ranging from the patently absurd to the clearly insightful, these claims have resurfaced in the current presidential election with a vengeance. John McCain, who consistently joked that the media [...]
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As the national media floods the airwaves with talk of placing new regulations on the financial sector, it’s worth thinking about what regulation is, how much regulation invades our lives, and what principles should be applied to regulation in general.
Regulation is government manipulation of the market for the purpose of achieving a certain set of [...]
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In what has to be the most shocking ideological shift caused by the American sub-prime lending crisis, Alan Greenspan has tentatively reversed his position on the ability of financial institutions to regulate themselves. A stalwart defender of the free-market and deregulation during his 18-year tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Greenspan testified on [...]
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While the current global financial crisis has its immediate roots in the collapse of the American housing bubble, there has been little to no discussion about the deeper causes of the meltdown. As you’ve probably read many times elsewhere, the internal practices of the financial sector – AIG, Merrill, Lehman, Mac – triggered the floodgates [...]
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Nothing I’ve ever read has effectively explained to me how evolution works. I know there are mutations: the beneficial mutations lead to survival and reproduction while harmful mutations lead to death. How, I’ve always wondered, can the amazing complexity and diversity of live arise from so many individual efforts of trial and error? How many [...]
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John McCain’s presidential campaign is starting to do quite poorly. According to the latest ABC/Washington Post national polling data, Democratic hopeful Barack Obama has opened a ten point lead - 53% to 43% – over his Republican rival. Indeed, states that “should have been” solid red like Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida are turning pall [...]
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You’ve probably received a number of politically charged emails in the last fews days that purport to reveal questionable practices by one campaign or the other. Today I got this email. The highlights are as follows:
Here is a quick look into 3 former [...]
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“A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.”
-Barry Goldwater
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It’s easy to get distracted by the political theater of the day and forget what government is supposed to be doing. Government organizes people. At it’s simplest, government organizes it’s citizens to fight an external enemy and create an internal peace. Governments also tend to take money from one group of people and use it [...]
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If recent polling data is any suggestion of what may occur on election day, then I would be forced to say that the United States is undergoing a massive political transformation. With no toss-up states, Obama has a 353-185 lead in the electoral college. In order to lose, the Obama-Biden ticket would have to drop [...]
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Talk softly and carry a big stick.
by other on October 30, 2008
in Commentary, Ramblings
On Sunday, it was reported (barely) by the New York Times that, allegedly, a Special Forces operation was carried out by four American choppers and on-the-ground commandos within Syria’s borders. They destroyed a terrorist haven in Kabul, a town that borders Syria and Iraq. Syria claimed that it was a “construction” zone. Intelligence indicated that [...]
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