Warning, the images in this video are not suitable for children or the faint of heart. Real images of stoning, genital mutilation and honor killings are shown so be prepared. While I’m actually opposed to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I also think that we shouldn’t kid ourselves about what the Islamic faith is about. The treatment of women depicted in this video is supported by mainstream Islamic doctrine – these are not “radicals” – these are mainstream  Imams in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and elsewhere upholding these practices. Why should we be tolerant of this? I’m not tolerant of a religion that oppresses women so horribly, are you? Shar’ia is not just religious – it is also a governing structure for society, hence it is not comparable to other religions we “tolerate” in the U.S. Political Islam is a movement that seeks to expand the Muslim world and Shar’ia along with it. Are you actually prepared to say that this belief system is an alternate way of life that we should accept? I’m not, it’s pre-modern and horrific in its very nature – no thanks. No tolerance here for this repressive, violent, authoritarian and totalitarian belief system – how about you?  If you are “tolerant” of it, well perhaps you should watch this video again…

For those of you who don’t know, Libertarians are in principled alignment with the so called ‘Austrian School of Economics’ and F. A. Hayek was an Austrian School Economist who made major contributions to our understanding of free enterprise. Okay, bye for now – I hope you all like this.

Technorati Tags: Hayek, Keynes

I just saw an interview with J. Craig Venter, famous for his participation in the human genome project and now CEO of Synthetic Genomics, in which he stated that he is creating a microbe which eats C02 and creates hydrocarbon fuel. That’s right, you heard me correctly. Using genetic engineering, they essentially assemble this little bug and it does this biologically. HOLY *^&%!

The interview is incredibly telling. Venter describes how this work is feasible and scalable, and how energy companies are investing to develop it as commercially viable. He describes how the resultant fuel would be usable in current combustion engines with no modifications. As I listened, I began to get angry though. First, you’ll note the questioner’s insistent tone when asking has about whether the current inaction in Washington, DC is hurting him and his obvious disappointment at Venter’s answer, which is essentially that he doesn’t need any help from the government. I can almost hear the gasps from AGW fetishists who believe the AGW is more evidence of the flawed nature of capitalism.

I then went to the web to research this topic and found myself a bit stymied. The green type of sites reporting on this interview focused on one comment, taken utterly out of context, in which Venter says that without scale, the companies working on this are ‘just playing’. They completely downplay the fact that he claims he has the funding to move ahead already from private industry, including 600 million usd from Exxon Mobil. There was very little other reporting on this topic. Can you believe that? I think that this is due to the fact that Venter isn’t singing from the AGW hymn book about needing to completely change our societies, economies and lives in order to survive. Rather, he proposes a solution that negates fossil fuel dependency and consumes vast quantities of C02 in one fell swoop, a solution that is at once breathtakingly elegant and simple, and that works with our existing industrial infrastructure.

Wow. Okay, I don’t want to get too excited because obviously this has a ways to go. But if he’s right, and look for yourself, he’s not claiming this is some whacked out idea, no, he has the science down pat and he’s a legitimate, credible serious person. He’s already rolling out a significant pilot program. So this isn’t just some hope – it’s real and viable. Do you realize what this means? First, all govt spending on ‘Green Everything’ is unnecessary. Worst case, from a public policy standpoint, we might want to put a carbon tax in place (I love the revenue neutral idea being proposed, btw, if we have to have one at all) to create stronger incentives to adopt it, although I don’t think it’s needed. But that’s it. We are done. No more IPCC, no more green proselytizing from every progressive political hack – no more teaching our children that doomsday is coming! We can stop giving vast sums of money to oil producing countries that prop up their evil regimes with petro-dollars. Okay, you get the picture.

My biggest question is why this isn’t leading every newscast in the world? Answer: Because the AGW issue is so politicized that it’s no longer about the environment. They simply couldn’t take it if their crisis was actually solved by the free market, not government, and all of their rent-seeking, anti-capitalist garbage was invalidated. Check it out – tell your friends, this could be the ‘game changer’ we’ve all been hoping for.

Technorati Tags: capitalism, global warming

I wonder if they know how their insistent talk of God in the poltical sphere, replete with quotes from the Bible, sounds to those of us who are not very religious or, heaven forbid, atheist? It makes them sound like exclusionary zealots – in case you don’t know. What I find most galling is the implicit message that somehow or another, Chritianity had some necessary role in being free, that somehow we wouldn’t have developed into the free superpower we are without Christianity.

The ignorance of the broader sweep of history that this position demands is nothing short of breathtaking. Let’s look at the most obvious of them, in no particular order:

1.Many immigrants to America came here because of religious persecution by various forms of Christianity in the first place.

2. Our founders were very careful to separate church and state in the formation of this country – they put it in writing. While many of them were very religious, they were not by any means looking to build a “Christian Country.” They didn’t write anything about being “God-fearing” into the Declaration of Independence or Constitution – and I think this is intentional.

3. More central is the fact that the entire idea of individual sovereignty – you know the whole idea of what it means to be free, to own oneself – was a convulsion against the very Christian idea that one is a subject of his King and God. Before this radical thought – which only came to life some 500 years ago, a person was the property of his king, tribal leader or other tyrant, as well as his God. There was no end to the depredations one or all could heap upon its people before this idea of individual sovereignty took hold.  The entire line of reasoning  that leads to the assertion of man’s natural rights was born of reason rather than faith, was found in philosopher’s writings not in the bible, and requires no belief in God to subscribe to it.

The truly pathetic aspect of this attitude is that whatever credence the Tea Party  was gaining as an alternative to the religious fundamentalists in the Republican party, it now has lost. They should look at the polls. 59% of Americans identify themselves as Fiscally Conservative and Socially liberal. These ‘Moral Majority’ types are only about 20% of the voting public and they will never be a majority, so their only home is in the Republican party.

In case people don’t understand my anger at them, these are the same people who gave us George Bush – I didn’t like them then, and I like them even less now. How ’bout you?

Technorati Tags: libertarian, libertarian economics, tea party

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

You may copy or borrow from the following letter . . .

I’m disturbed by Congress’s behavior last year . . .

* You passed fewer laws, but they were 3 times as large
* You created 3,486 pages of new laws, whereas the nine-year average is 2,160
* Your 2009 laws averaged 28 pages, whereas the nine-year average is 10!

Longer bills are far more difficult for either Congress or the people to scrutinize and understand.

Part of the problem is combining multiple bills and subjects into one package . . . http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plaws/111publ.html

* the 407-page “stimulus” bill (Public Law 111-3) was a bundle of spending programs, handouts, tax cuts, and unrelated laws
* the 466-page Omnibus Appropriations bill (Public Law 111-5) combined 9 different federal agency spending bills into one
* the 466-page Wilderness, Interior, and Ag bill (Public Law 111-11) created scores of new laws and programs that were unrelated to each other
* the pork-laden 656-page Defense and Military Construction bill (Public Law 111-84) contained the completely-unrelated Hate Crimes Act

I believe the intentions behind such gigantic bills were to . . .

* pass unpopular bills by combining them with supposed “must-pass” legislation
* provide opportunities for logrolling, pork, and other special favors
* deny time for scrutiny by the public and by conscientious members of Congress

With more gigantic bills such as healthcare and cap & trade on the agenda, 2010 could be even worse.

But I demand that you represent me better this year . . .

* cut down on the total number of pages of legislation you pass
* whenever possible, break down large bills into smaller, understandable bills containing only one subject that must pass or fail only on its own merits
* make these objectives mandatory by introducing and passing DownsizeDC.org’s One Subject At A Time Act

END LETTER

(NOTE the length of bills cited above are not based on large-print bill pages, but on the more condensed Public Law pages. For instance, bill H.R. 2647 was 1,158 pages, but is found here as Public Law 111-84 and is 656 pages.)

You can send your letter using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

We also want to thank the following people for donating to support our work last week . . .

1-Time Contributions: Alexander Gunkel, David Ripley, Perry Sheetz, Edward Hudgens, Chelsea Moller, Richard Linchitz, plus 5 donors who asked to be unlisted

New monthly pledges: Kristina L Shull, Daniel H Fylstra, Eli Sutton, plus 1 new pledger who asked to be unlisted

Please make a contribution or start a monthly pledge using our secure online contribution form.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
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That’s right, just in case you had any doubt whether federal bureaucrats were out of touch with the rest of us, here comes this gem.http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/12/11/federal-salaries-explode/ Anyone with a libertarian thought in their head should see this as a ‘canary in the mine’. It is mostly due to the unionization of government labor, which in term has created the civil service pay system that escalates ever upwards. In addition, people game the system to their own benefit with professional gusto that would make most in the private sector blush. It’s now outrageous and should be curtailed – but it won’t be. Most of these people, btw, are unemployable in the private sector – except as consultants who will charge the government double what they cost when they were employees. Happens every day.  I wrote a piece on it a while ago, here it is for those of you who care. http://libertariancomment.com/government-workers-are-the-new-rich/

Technorati Tags: federal government, government employment, libertarian thought

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Technorati Tags: libertarian, love, morality, self-interest, virtue