This short story, by Anita Acavalos, was inspired by the WWI poetry of Wilfred Owen, namely “Dulce et Decorum Es” and “Anthem for Doomed Youth.”
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Article: Seeking Heaven Read Post »
This article is an edited version of Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s opening address to the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society (PFS) held in Bodrum, Turkey at the Hotel Karia Princess, June 3-7, 2010. The address provides an insightful overview of various libertarian alliances and strategies over past decades, including the paleo-libertarian/paleo-conservative alliance, and reasons for its failure. Hoppe illustrates how the state has coopted even most free market think tanks into serving the state’s aims, because they are not radical enough and their principal addressee is the central government. Hoppe argues (a) that libertarians must not put their trust in politicians or get distracted by politics and (b) using the case of Pat Buchanan as an example, that it is impossible to have a lasting intellectual association with people (such as some conservatives) who are either unwilling or incapable of grasping the principles of economics.
In view of these insights and this history, Hoppe surveys the brief history of the PFS and sets out its basic purposes.
Read the Full Article by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
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Article: The Property And Freedom Society — Reflections After Five Years Read Post »
Slate writer Melinda Wenner Moyer makes a big to-do over new mainstream medical-research findings that suggest that saturated fats affect your blood-cholesterol levels in ways that don’t really hurt you, while processed sugars affect your blood-cholesterol levels in ways that do hurt you. I agree with Moyer that the topic is something over which it is worthwhile to make a big to-do. The bottom line: LDL (“bad, bad”) cholesterol comes in a variety of flavors, distinguished by the sizes of the particles in your blood. Big LDL particles — those you get from eating fatty meat — seem not to attach to artery walls; those are the heart-neutral particles. Small and medium LDL particles — the ones you get into your blood by eating processed sugars and flours — do appear to attach to artery walls and contribute to heart disease.
The knowledge that processed carbohydrates lead to problems with blood cholesterol isn’t new, however. Dr. Sheldon Reiser published studies showing that processed-carb intake raises LDL and triglyceride levels back in 1983. (You’ll have to visit a library to find this: “Physiological Differences between Starches and Sugars,” in Medical Applications of Clinical Nutrition pp. 133-177, ed. By J. Bland, Keats Pub. New Canaan, CN, 1983.)
I’ve known how to eat well for years, but recently have set aside the time and developed the motivation to really do it. What occurred to me while I was shopping: My wife and I are now shopping mostly for meats (including fish), cheeses, nuts, and a huge variety of fresh produce. In other words, the “radical” healthy diets some of us are eating, including the “paleo” diet, remind me of what my grandmother ate (though our grandparents didn’t know to avoid bread, especially white bread). Of course, we’re avoiding processed foods, which everybody has known to do for decades.
So, what’s the federal government to do? Government officials have been waging war on our meat and fat intake for years, most recently with the updated food pyramid (the one from 2005, due to be updated this year) that calls for six or more servings of grain (only half of them whole grain), and only two of meat, per day — a diet likely to make anyone but a marathon runner gain body fat and tiny-bit LDL. Knowing that the 2005 pyramid is already obsolete, is there any reason to trust the next one, or any reason to trust that the government’s new war on salt is any more credible?
The final answer: Don’t trust the government’s war on nutrition (ostensibly a war on bad nutrition) any more than its wars on inflation, unemployment, drugs, or terrorism. Inform yourself, take control of your own health, and enjoy a long and healthy life in spite of the government’s attempts to help.
The War on Nutrition Read Post »
Federal assistant AG Thomas Perez is considering filing a “pattern or practice” lawsuit against the New Orleans Police Department as a result of all the killings and coverups perpetrated by that department since Katrina. Due to niceties in federal law, such a suit, if won by the feds, would effectively allow the Justice Department to determine how the NOPD runs for a while.
What I find most interesting in the coverage of the story, though, is this: Even though Perez wants to take over the NOPD because of a lengthy and recent record of police killings of innocent people and ensuing cover-ups, Perez still can’t bring himself to call the NOPD “corrupt,” “malignant,” “evil,” or even “dangerous.” Perez and a New Orleans defense attorney (!) refer to the NOPD as “troubled,” which moniker the rest of us use to describe a rebellious and unhappy, but otherwise harmless, teenager.
I’m guessing that Perez and the defense attorney avoid stronger language partly instinctively in the avoidance of incurring personal liability (a habit lawyers learn quickly), and partly to avoid shaking our faith in government itself — political correctness at its most transparent. But it makes me wonder: If killing the people they’ve sworn “to protect and serve” earns a police department the label “troubled,” what must it take for these folks to refer to a department as “corrupt”?
The NOPD Is “Troubled” Read Post »
In the silly but eminently watchable Travel Channel show, Man v. Food, host Adam Richman visits diners that provide food challenges — dishes so big or so pepper-hot that whoever manages to eat an entire one wins some kind of honor. Imagine such a diversion during America’s (first) Great Depression. In fact, it should ever be as Man v. Food paints it; the only famines recorded in the last several centuries have been the direct results of the activities of forcible governments. Societies always, always can feed themselves abundantly and inexpensively in the absence of governmental wealth-destroying interference. Watch for evidence of this in your own life while the American economy struggles to absorb the gargantuan economic “stimuli” and control-tightening measures instituted over the last, and the next, few years.
Nature’s Bounty (Thanks to Man) Read Post »
