Nov. 12 — 18, 2006

Home Agora Columns Connections Review

Ender's Review
of the Web

Web articles of likely interest to individualists found during the preceding week.
 

If you encounter any difficulty using this document please let me know as soon as you notice. Contact information is at the bottom of this page.

I am happy to receive addresses of potential readers of Ender's Review who might like to receive a few trial issues and/or an invitation to subscribe. Or, if you prefer, please, send a link to this page or the index (which also has comprehensive source site links) to those you think might be interested.

Find all RSS feeds & e-mail lists on the Sign Up page – or use this RSS feed for Ender's Review 

Pursuing Liberty

Articles showing the positive influence of action in the pursuit of Liberty.

Pulling the Plug on the State

      By Kevin Van Horn from Strike The Root

"To carry out a successful nonviolent struggle, we need to understand the specifics of the sources of power for the U.S. Federal government and state and local governments, so that we may work to erode these sources. We also need to assess potential sources of power for the resistance and for our alternative institutions, in each of the six categories. We need to understand which pillars of support are most important to maintaining State power in this country, and how they may be influenced, so that we may use our limited resources most effectively in undermining support for the State."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/horn/horn2.html

The Legacy of Milton Friedman

      By Alexander Tabarrok from The Independent Institute

"Friedman did not restrict his genius to the academy or even to his field of monetary economics, he used economics to forcefully argue for a better world. Friedman was a key player in ending the draft, he used the power of the Nobel prize to champion unpopular causes like drug legalization. He not only wrote about floating exchange rates he helped to bring them into being. "

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1852

AER Dietary Supplement Legislation

      By staff from Life Extension Foundation

"What is clear is that if this Senate bill is approved and enacted into law, there will certainly be more regulatory confusion and cost associated with supplements." {I thought you might find the legislative link at this site "interesting."}

http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/consumer_alert_130906.htm

Second Guessing Tiki Barber's Retirement

      By Paul J. Gessing from The Free Liberal

"Barber is an intelligent, photogenic guy and he wants to be able to play with his kids and get around without experiencing physical pain. Can you really blame him for that? So many former players have been beaten up so bad that they can’t climb stairs or bend down without suffering immense pain. With the brains and looks to parlay his NFL success into a job in the announcer’s booth, it is hard to blame someone for taking the opportunity."

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/002422.html

Life in Amerika

Articles depicting the negative impact of politics on the cause of Liberty.

ID theft, Real ID, and the Wizard of ID

      By Garry Reed from Loose Cannon Libertarian

"What is ID Theft? What is Real ID? What is the Wizard of ID? What do these IDs have in common? In today's Peeping Tom Dystopia, government datacrats at all levels are fixated on finding out everything about us. They track us with spycams and RFID chips and warrantless wiretaps and computer stealthbugs and black boxes in our autos and covert email intercepts and mandatory snitching from our bankers and doctors and telephone firms and credit card companies."

http://www.freecannon.com/RealIDTheft.htm

Police Brutality and Portland's High Density Development

      By Randal O'Toole from NewsWithViews.com

"In 2004, Portland dedicated a new $59-million jail, including $600,000 for art works in the jail. But the region doesn't have the funds to open it, so the jail remains empty. Crime rates are increasing and the county sheriff has had to release inmates early, at least one of whom murdered someone a few days after being let out. Although budgets for police, jails, mental health, and other programs have all been cut, Portland continues to approve heavy subsidies for high-density developments like the Pearl District."

http://www.newswithviews.com/O'Toole/randal4.htm

The Education Debate We’re Not Having

      By Scott McPherson from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"All this handwringing over the best way to pay for public schools distracts us from a far more important point: that we are dealing, first and last, with a broken system — and one that is inherently defective. Rather than patch it up with more money, we ought to try a different approach."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0611c.asp

Dances With Comcast

      By Jonathan David Morris from The Libertarian Enterprise

"I've had a lot of bad experiences with utility companies. Never in my life have I had one as bad as my recent run-in with cable giant Comcast. After closing on our new house last Friday, my wife and I spent the entire next day sitting around waiting for a cable TV/Internet/digital phone installation that, as of this writing, still hasn't happened. Take a look at how it all went down, and you'll see why I now believe Comcast represents everything wrong with America. "

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle393-20061112-04.html

Ordered Liberty without the State

Some people say it's Anarchy, some say it's not possible. It is an interesting topic.

Dreams of the Ordinary Citizen

      By John Locke from Strike The Root

"Incremental change around the edges, like changing your job or address, will not bring your dreams back to life. Simple, unfocussed rebellion will not result in change. Changing your vote to get someone else into office will not change the system. If any of these things worked, they would have worked by now. Only by 'striking at the root' causes will you be free to live your own dream. The root of this problem is a system that regards you as a pawn to be used for the ends of the power-hungry. It is time to walk down the road less traveled and take back your life."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/locke/locke4.html

Voting divides, spurs authority

      By Bill Anderson from Badger Herald

"If people want change, we need to look outside the ballot box. African-Americans didn’t end segregation through voting. Even after it was declared unconstitutional, they had to organize their communities for a sustained struggle against an entrenched order. Social change can only come from bottom-up struggles, while voting is merely a distraction to maintain the status quo and keep us compliant."

http://badgerherald.com/oped/2006/11/16/voting_divides_spur.php

What Makes Police Brutality Possible?

      By Roderick T. Long from Center for a Stateless Society

"There was a time when those in positions of legal authority were literally regarded as beings of an inherently superior order, entitled to a special status exempt from ordinary moral rules. That doctrine was known as the divine right of kings. Nowadays we profess to have given up that doctrine; the Declaration of Independence boldly declares that 'all men are created equal.' But we are still all too quick to treat the bearers of official power as a breed apart. Such inequality is arguably inherent in the institution of government itself. All governments, even purportedly democratic ones, reserve to their agents certain rights denied to the rest of the populace."

http://c4ss.org/content/21

There's No Such Thing As "Goodminton"

      By L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise

"Government is about stealing; that's all it's about; that's all it's ever been about; that's all it will ever be about. The kind of society government needs most is a society at war with itself, torn by violent crime, crippled by poverty, intellectually and technologically stagnant. A peaceful, prosperous, progressive society is a threat, because it eliminates all the excuses traditionally used to steal from us. No election is ever going to change that. "

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle393-20061112-02.html

Spreading Decentralism

Articles demonstrating an increase in the dispersal of power.

What Empire Does to a Culture

      By Roderick T. Long from Ludwig von Mises Institute

"Once again, the cure for local tyranny is not less decentralization but more. First, break up empires into states, states into counties, counties into wards, wards into townships, townships into neighborhoods, and so on down to the level of the sovereign individual."

http://www.mises.org/story/2374

The Coup: Arms and Arguments

      By Claire Wolfe from Backwoods Home Magazine

"Much coffee flowed from the Hog Trough to the night shift. The restaurant stayed open crazy hours to serve a watchful populace. We hung out there so much we even started getting used to the new Seattle sort of brew. Coffee that didn't taste like radiator rust. What a concept."

http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/wolfe061115.html

Secession Seen As Win For Portland Taxpayers

       from WMTW.com

"A report by the Peaks Island Independence Committee calculated that Portland would save $2 million in administrative costs and receive $2 million more in state school aid, resulting in a net gain of $1.7 million."

http://www.wmtw.com/news/10343599/detail.html

Secession Process Starting in Fulton

      By Denis O'Hayer from WXIA-TV Atlanta

"Last week, Fulton County endured a controversial campaign to elect a new commission chairman. Next week, state legislative leaders will take the first step toward letting the county's northern section leave Fulton County entirely. They want to resurrect Milton County, which existed up until 1932."

http://www.11alive.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=87640

The New World Hegemon

Depictions of the coming Imperial power

Are Democrats Turning A Blind Eye to Civil Liberty?

      By Paul Craig Roberts from Antiwar.com

"The Bush regime was able to evade these restraints because Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and because Republicans wielded 9/11 as a weapon to forestall political opposition. With signing statements and other unilateral declarations of presidential authority, the Bush regime asserted executive branch powers beyond the reach of Congress and the judiciary. The Bush regime perpetrated a coup d'état against the Bill of Rights and the jurisdictions of Congress and the courts. Unless Democrats roll back this coup, Americans have seen the last of their civil liberties."

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=10010

Family Feud: Little Bush Hits Back at Daddy

      By Chris Floyd from Empire Burlesque

"The comforting storyline that the 'grownups' are stepping in to set things to right is the usual dangerous, reductive nonsense of the corporate media worldview. Daddy's men and Junior's men are all part of the same political network (or crime family, if you prefer). There may be power struggles between them over certain issues, personality conflicts, policy disagreements, but they are all ultimately working for the same mutual interest: their own aggrandizement (in various forms – power, honors, riches, ideological triumph, etc.). "

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=923&Itemid=135

Dissent and punishment

      By Andy Nowicki from The Last Ditch

"What is truly vicious about today's persecution of dissent is the very fact that it is so modulated. A people trained to hate those designated as 'bigots' would still be troubled to see such people arrested, thrown in prison, or put to death. While legal harassment of dissenters is hardly unheard of today ... , the more common and more insidious method is to mount whispering campaigns against one's enemies, to 'out' them as alleged 'hatemongers.' Less insidious, but just as hateful, are the shrieking campaigns they sometimes mount as an alternative. In either case, the thoroughly modern persecutors then smirk as their victims' lives are ruined, and gloat as they are shunned by their gutless former employers, friends, and family members. "

http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/nowicki_dissent_punishment.htm

The U.S. torture trail

      By Nat Hentoff from The Rhinelander Daily News

"[I]n a statement that should shame this country around the world - our chief law-enforcement officer, Gonzales, actually said, when asked at a press conference if the Department of Justice owes an apology to Arar:' We were not responsible for (Mr. Arar's) removal to Syria. I'm not aware that he was tortured, and I haven't read the commission report ... He was initially detained because his name appeared on terrorist lists, and he was deported according to our (immigration) laws.' (By the way, Arar is now banned from entering the United States. Why?)"

http://www.rhinelanderdailynews.com/articles/2006/11/15/opinion/opinion59.txt

Politics by Other Means

War, rumors of war, and politicians fomenting war.

Dialing for Santorum

      By Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone

"This was the year the national elections devolved into nothing more than a forum for organizing the disgust and revulsion of the population, with both sides firmly entrenched in their own tribal paranoia and ready to disbelieve any unwelcome result the voting machines might spit out, all confidence in the system lost. No one really won -- it felt more like the country decided to pull the plug on itself or burn cigarettes in its arm."

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/12564802/

Lose a War, Lose an Election

      By William S. Lind from Antiwar.com

"While both parties want to get out, neither has nor will be able to create a consensus on how to get out. Not only will they be unable to generate a consensus between the parties, or between the executive branch and the Congress, they will not be able to find consensus within either party on how the withdrawal is to be managed. The result will be paralysis and a continuation of the war."

http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=10012

A Word to the Unwise

      By L. Neil Smith from The Libertarian Enterprise

"Above all, keep your religion in your pants. Like whatever else you have down there, nobody cares about it but you. If you don't like to drink and smoke, then don't drink and smoke—and don't bother those who do. The same goes for drugs. If you don't care for same-sex marriage, then don't marry someone of the same sex. If you don't like abortion, then don't have one. If you don't like evolution, then don't evolve."

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle393-20061112-09.html

The Big Election

      By Nicholas Strakon from The Last Ditch

"I hope I don't have to reassure you, at this late stage, that I despise the Nazi-Commies and everything they stand for. In fact I despise almost everything they pretend to stand for. But Bush's Commie-Nazis needed some bad punishing, they needed it bad, and I was happy to see them get it. Bad and hard."

http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/lights147.htm

Spontaneous Order

Articles showing decentralized successes.

European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs

      By Matthias Schulz from Spiegel Online

"The new traffic model's advocates believe the only way out of this vicious circle is to give drivers more liberty and encourage them to take responsibility for themselves. They demand streets like those during the Middle Ages, when horse-drawn chariots, handcarts and people scurried about in a completely unregulated fashion. The new model's proponents envision today's drivers and pedestrians blending into a colorful and peaceful traffic stream."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448747,00.html

Second Life Will Save Copyright

      By Jennifer Granick from Wired News

"The idea that innovation can flourish in the absence of copyright enforcement is not as heretical as it might seem. Take the fashion industry. As law professors Chris Sprigman and Kal Raustiala write in their paper on the subject, neither copyright nor patent law prohibit copying fashion designs. ... And yet fashion is highly innovative, with new styles several times a year, despite low IP protection. Similarly, professors Emmanuelle Fauchart and Eric von Hippel write that haute French cuisine is another area with low IP protection, yet high levels of innovation and creativity. No law prevents copying recipes. Instead, French chefs have developed social norms, much like those Linden Labs seeks to empower, against exact copying, dissemination of tricks of the trade and adopting significant innovations without crediting the chef responsible. Failure to follow these norms results in reputation harm, including ostracism."

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,72143-0.html

Canadian Opportunity in Fish-Depleted Oceans

      By Harry Valentine from Le Québécois Libre

"A government that recognizes and upholds private property rights could enable private companies to use private capital to build artificial reefs and place them around Hudson Bay (as well as Foxe Basin and Hudson 'Strait'). The reefs could increase the population of native species and/or allow for the introduction of new species. They could also form the foundation of a new fish industry that would be located entirely inside of Canada."

http://www.quebecoislibre.org/06/061112-5.htm

Ravalli County vote is a signal to face the challenge, not expect to hide from it.

      By staff from Missoulian

"While free enterprise is, in theory, all about competition, the reality is no business truly welcomes competition. Competition is something businesses preach for others, not themselves. That doesn't mean competition is bad. It's not. It's actually what best ensures a viable future for businesses. Local businesses may not desire competition from large national chains, but such competition is a fact of life in the 21st century. It's a challenge best met because it can't really be avoided - not even with clever zoning."

http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2006/11/14/opinion/opinion3.txt

Nonspontaneous Disorder

Articles showing centrally planned disasters.

Vote Early, Vote Often

      By Bruce Schneier from Schneier on Security

"When a candidate has evidence of systemic errors, a recount can fix a wrong result -- but only if the recount can catch the error. With electronic voting machines, all too often there simply isn't the data: there are no votes to recount. ... Or imagine this -- as far as we know -- hypothetical situation: After the election, someone discovers rogue software in the voting machines that flipped some votes from A to B. Or someone gets caught vote tampering -- changing the data on electronic memory cards. The problem is that the original data is lost forever; all we have is the hacked vote."

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/11/revoting.html

Economic Nationalism, Enemy of the People

      By Sheldon Richman from Foundation for Economic Education

"There is nothing good to be said about economic nationalism. It begins with the idea that the boundaries of economies coincide with the boundaries of nations. But this never happens in the absence of compulsion. Left alone, people naturally buy and sell to best advantage oblivious to political lines. Early on they figure out the benefits of specialization and comparative advantage, which as if by magic leads to the production of more useful stuff."

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=930

Centralized Cappuccino

      By Andrew J. Coulson from Cato Institute

"Imagine what would happen if coffee shops were run like schools. Let's say that state and local officials granted Starbucks a 'public coffee' franchise, paying it $10,000 annually per customer (about what the public schools spend per pupil) to keep us all in caffeinated bliss. It would be the espresso shot heard round the world."

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6773

How Much Does Politics Count?

      By Walter Williams from George Mason University.

"Blacks and Hispanics, especially blacks, are the most politically loyal people in the nation. It's often preached and taken as gospel that the only way black people can progress is through racial politics and government programs, but how true is that? Let's look at it."

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/06/politics.html

War Is The Health Of The State

War is the ultimate State intervention in society.

Impeach the American People!

      By Butler Shaffer from LewRockwell.com

"I do not discount for a moment the vicious and wicked deeds of the White House sociopaths who have, with only token objection from others, behaved like drunken SS-officers on a holiday for butchers. But it is time not only for Americans, but for the subjects of other nation-states as well, to look themselves in the face and ask why they have been willing not only to sanction such destructiveness, but to insist upon it as the highest expression of the “greatness” of the society in which they live."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer148.html

Worshipping the State: Why They Die

      By Michael Gaddy from The Price of Liberty

"Simple facts most soldiers do not understand: The government (state) is not our country; when you fight and die in undeclared wars, you do so for the State and not for our country or our freedoms; when you forsake the Constitution you swore to uphold and defend to follow unconstitutional orders, even from your commander-in-chief, you cross the line from defender of your country to the very real possibility of becoming a war criminal."

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/11/13/gaddy.htm

Somebody Has To Do It?

      By Robert L. Johnson from Strike The Root

"The 'why' we have the US military in both Iraq and Afghanistan is because of cowardly politicians from both parties who think much more of their own careers than they do about the lives of members of the US armed forces and the lives of the people in the countries they invade. As a reality check, each recruiter of each branch of the armed forces should be required to tell each person inquiring about joining the military that instead of defending the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, they will be sent to war for the advancement of the careers of politicians who’ve sold their souls to AIPAC and Israel."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/johnson/johnson12.html

No, We Won't All Be Speaking Arabic Next Year

      By Doug Newman from The Libertarian Enterprise

"Millions of Americans believe that Osama bin Laden wants to take over the world, when he hasn't even taken over Afghanistan. Millions of Americans still support a war in Iraq, a nation which even GWB admits had nothing to do with 9/11. Millions of Americans still believe that Osama and Saddam posed a clear and present threat to what was left of America's freedom. Millions of Americans support a domestic police state to thwart these threats."

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle393-20061112-05.html

Bits of History

The Past seen with a fresh look.

Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

      By Richard M. Ebeling and Sheldon Richman from Foundation for Economic Education

"FEE's staff and trustees mourn the passing of Milton Friedman, one of the twentieth century's most influential champions of individual liberty and free markets. He died Thursday at the age of 94. The 1976 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and an early associate of FEE, Friedman did more than any single person in our time to teach the public the merits of deregulation, privatization, low taxes, and free trade."

http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=929

Opening the Gates of the Gulag (Pt. II): Manifest Destiny's Dark Side

      By William N. Grigg from Pro Libertate

"When confronted by warnings that the War on Terror is creating a Reich, defenders of the regime blithely insist that it's irresponsible to project the lines forward and see such a result, because it “can't happen here.” All that is necessary to rebut that view is to project the lines backward and show that it has happened here." [Part of a multipart essay at his blog, which begins with Part 1 and continues with Part 3.]

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2006/11/updated-opening-gates-of-gulag-pt-ii.html

German philosopher's 100th birthday celebrated

      By Oliver Bradley from European Jewish Press

"She concluded that modern individualism and subjectivity could only go hand-in-hand with human interaction. Reality, politics and freedom can only be achieved by consenting people and only via negotiations. According to Professor Heuer, Arendt was convinced that freedom was not self-evident but rather could only be achieved if practiced. "

http://www.ejpress.org/article/culture/11638

Economic Freedom and the Peasant Uprising of 1381

      By Scott McPherson from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"The impact of the Black Death fell heaviest on the lower classes, but by no means were the wealthy spared. It was not uncommon for entire families to perish and, by 1351, when the first wave of the plague finally passed, sometimes entire villages had been wiped out. Anywhere from a third to half the population of England were killed."

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0608e.asp

War and Peace

Articles showing the nature of War.

Who Lost Iraq?

      By Justin Raimondo from Antiwar.com

"The U.S. establishment has slowly come to the realization that the war, as it is presently being fought, cannot be won, and this has given rise to 'the buck-stops-at-the-top camp,' as Bacevich puts it, currently in the ascendant, which ascribes 'the troubles roiling Iraq to massive incompetence in the Bush administration'."

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10007

Bush's "New" Iraq Strategy Revealed: More Troops, More War

      By Chris Floyd from Empire Burlesque

"Knowing all this, the Bushists, backed by the Establishment, will still keep dragging out the war, month after month, year after year, in one form or another. Thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis will die, hundreds if not thousands more American soldiers will die, Iraq will sink further into chaos, the United States will sink further into bankruptcy."

http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=925&Itemid=135

Misplaced Nostalgia

      By Sheldon Richman from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"Before we get too nostalgic about the foreign-policy prowess of the George H.W. Bush administration, we should remind ourselves of what happened from 1989 through 1992. I understand that, compared to the bunch running things now, nearly anyone would look good. But I sense almost a giddiness about the supposed return of the Bush 41 team, primarily through James Baker’s Iraq Study Group and in Robert Gates, who will almost certainly succeed Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of defense."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0611d.asp

Raiding For Women? Female Remains In Graveyards Reflect War In Pre-Hispanic New Mexico

       from ScienceDaily

"An important new archaeological study from the December issue of Current Anthropology is the first to document interregional movement of women in the pre-Hispanic Southwest. Using an analysis of grave sites, the researchers found more female remains during periods of political influence, providing an interesting insight into the ways warfare may contribute the local archaeological record."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061112094745.htm

Great Individuals In History

Some people stand out from the crowd.

Dramatist/Librettist/Illustrator -- W. S. Gilbert : Nov. 18, 1836

      By Andrew Crowther from W.S. Gilbert Society

"He wrote one-act farces; he wrote prose comedies and dramas; he translated French farces (and learned much from the experience); and at a little theatre calling itself the Gallery of Illustration he started writing short libretti with prose dialogue in which the recogniseable 'Gilbertian' voice soon began to sound. ... [H]e was widely accepted to be the most original and "interesting" dramatist of his generation."

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ajcrowth/wsglife.htm

Artist -- Claude Monet : Nov. 14, 1840

       From WebMuseum

"[I]ncreasingly his attention was focused on the celebrated water-garden he created at Giverny, which served as the theme for the series of paintings on Water-lilies that began in 1899 and grew to dominate his work completely (in 1914 he had a special studio built in the grounds of his house so he could work on the huge canvases)."

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/monet/

Actress -- Hermione Baddeley : Nov. 13, 1906

       from Internet Movie Database (text from Bio page accessible from the base link here)

"George Bernard Shaw reportedly so enjoyed her performance in his play, 'Heartbreak House', that he suggested she change her surname from Baddeley to Goodeley."

http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0045968/

Actor -- Burgess Meredith : Nov. 16, 1907

       From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Burgess Meredith was adept playing both dramatic and comedy roles, and appeared in four different starring roles in the acclaimed anthology TV series The Twilight Zone; only Jack Klugman had as many leading guest appearances. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgess_Meredith

Culcha'

Books, Movies, TV, Media, Music, poetry, etc.

Brazil (1985)

      Reviewed by Tom Ender from Endervidualism

Dystopian fantasy stars Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert DeNiro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Jim Broadbent; directed by Terry Gilliam. “I believe this film, Terry Gilliam’s masterwork, knows no equal for its insight into the still evolving flux of our increasingly authoritarian world. ... Perhaps, if more people see films like this one, we can avoid the full measure of State terror which looms ahead.”

http://endervidualism.com/agora/brazil_1985.htm

Book Review: Harbingers, by F. Paul Wilson

      Reviewed by Sunni Maravillosa from Sunni’s Salon

"Even though each book in the RJ series has at least one problem that Jack is hired to fix, Wilson puts some kind of twist into each. Wilson also does an excellent job of keeping disparate threads straight as the story line progresses, rewarding attentive readers with more information on past exploits and teasing them with tantalizing clues as to what's still to come."

http://endervidualism.com/salon/books/wilson2.htm

What Flags of Our Fathers Forgot

      Reviewed by Scott Kauzlarich from The Libertarian Enterprise

"The film was supposedly about the battle of Iwo Jima but in fact, little attention was paid to the battle or its outcome except as the setting for the famous flag-raising picture. The movie spent most of its time recounting the manipulation of the flag-raising soldiers and their families by the government in order to sell bonds. The tone of Flags is decidedly anti-war and anti-state, which is not surprising since it was directed by Clint Eastwood, a self-described libertarian."

http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle393-20061112-07.html

Book Review: It's Superman!

      Reviewed by Wally Conger from out of step

"He knows he’s from Somewhere Else, maybe another planet, but even his dad doesn’t seem sure. After his mom’s death in Smallville, Kansas, Clark doesn’t immediately fly off to Metropolis (here, appropriately identified as New York City) to find fame and fortune as a 'mild-mannered reporter.' Nah. Instead, he first hits the road like Neal Cassady, scouring the nation to 'find himself'."

http://wconger.blogspot.com/2006/11/book-review-its-superman.html

The lighter side

Humor, satire, cartoons, parodies, food, popular music and other things to amuse.

THE LOW POST: The Vilsack Buzz

      By Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone

"This is crazy. It's not even Thanksgiving in 2006 yet. I'm not going to spend even one more second thinking about the 2008 elections. Not one second, do you hear me, you asshole? You people are all out of your fucking minds. All of you! "

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12539401/

U.S. Bombards Insurgents With Negative Ads

      By Andy Borowitz from Borowitz Report

"According to Mr. Snow, Operation Relentless Smear will re-deploy thousands of negative ad producers, directors, and voiceover artists who were momentarily idle at the conclusion of the U.S.'s midterm election campaign."

http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=6633&srch=

Movies Destroying America: Xmas

      By Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report

"If It's a Wonderful Life wasn't in black and white, it would be all red."

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78425

Report: More U.S. Soldiers Suffering From Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder

      By staff from The Onion

"Pre-traumatic stress disorder, a future-combat-related psychological condition previously thought to afflict only young soldiers drafted against their will, is now found in growing numbers among National Guard members, Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force reservists, semi-retired officers, and the newly recruited, according to a government study released Monday. ... The study, conducted by the Department Of Future Veterans Affairs, found that 80 percent of part-time soldiers reported no signs of Pre-TSD while carrying out their obligatory one weekend of duty a month, but quickly developed severe symptoms upon receiving orders for active combat." In many ways this article really isn't funny.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55265

Deep Thought

Scientific and scholarly studies, philosophical essays, in-depth and longer articles

Interview: Michael Jarrell

      Interviewed By Sunni Maravillosa from Sunni’s Salon

"I just seem to have a dislike for authority and control exerting forces in my life. Government and politics happen to be the main intruders into my life so I tend to focus my efforts on them and their actions. I still remember seeing photos my father's stepfather took during WW2 when he and his buddies liberated one of the Nazi death camps. The pictures he took of the piles of discarded humans is still burned into me and that may well have been my introduction to the evils that governments do."

http://endervidualism.com/salon/intvw/jarrell.htm

Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

      By David J. Theroux from The Independent Institute

"He clearly perceived and taught the interdependence of economic freedom with the civil liberties of free speech, worship, press, assembly, and so forth. Consequently, he was one of the most eloquent and persuasive advocates of the economic and ethical superiority of free markets over collectivist government control. In the course of his defense of individual freedom, Friedman was the architect or advocate of many influential and ingenious proposals to resolve critical public issues, while at the same time dismantling government bureaucracy."

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1853

Liberty and Tolerance

      By Vache Folle from St George Blog

"If a tradition fails to satisfy, it will, barring compulsion, be replaced with other ways that are more satisfactory. This will occur without any central planning as individuals pursue their own happiness and invent and mimic strategies and practices that seem to them to work for them. If a tradition satisfies under current conditions, it will be widely maintained without any help from would be conservators, thank you very much."

http://emergencybackupdog.blogspot.com/2006/11/liberty-and-tolerance.html

Expanding Liberty by Challenging Illiberal Beliefs

      By Bradley Doucet from Le Québécois Libre

"In the course of trying to explain to others the benefits that would arise from vastly expanded freedom, libertarians are likely to encounter a wide variety of mistaken beliefs that keep people from accepting what we have to say and embracing our vision of a better world. The more we seek to understand those beliefs, the better we will be able to counter them and address the concerns that underlie them."

http://www.quebecoislibre.org/06/061112-3.htm

Miscellany

Articles not easily classified

Milton, Lost

      By Jim Davies from Strike The Root

"The world of freedom lost a champion November 15th with the death of Milton Friedman at 94. He never became an anarchist, yet he is the reason I, for one, am here; for his Capitalism and Freedom was the first book I read that made such brilliant economic sense that I had to look further into the philosophy of freedom."

http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/davies/davies10.html

It's a Droog's World, After All

      By William N. Grigg from Pro Libertate

"Under our present system, which has been defined as 'soft totalitarianism,' nothing is either good or bad, save as the State defines. This is made very obvious from the morally contradictory conditioning to which youngsters are subjected. Is drug use (the practice that gave the droogs their name) evil? That depends. Public school children are run through DARE indoctrination one week, and then forced to take Ritalin the next."

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2006/11/its-droogs-world-after-all.html

UWA Number Nine

      By Warren Bluhm from Uncle Warren's Attic

"After opening with a blip from the immortal 'Revolution 9,' we revisit the Beatles mono vs. stereo phenomenon with the near-breakdown that made it onto the official stereo version of 'Please Please Me'."

http://unclewarrensattic.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=153020

Milton Friedman, R.I.P.

      By Jacob G. Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation

"I will leave it to others to remind people of the enormous contributions that Milton Friedman, who died yesterday, made to economics and liberty during his long life. I thought instead that I would relate three times that my life intersected with Friedman, all of which were big personal highlights for me."

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0611e.asp

Find all RSS feeds & e-mail lists on the Sign Up page – or use this RSS feed for Ender's Review 

Each week immediately after Ender's Review is posted at Endervidualism a small plain text note (~5K) containing a few links to the web edition is sent to ERevNote subscribers.

Subscribe to ERevNote:

the Ender's Review reminder note

If you know of prospective readers, please send them a link to this page, or alternately if you don't wish to e-mail them yourself, you can e-mail their addresses to me at this address:  Tom@Endervidualism.com and I will send them a message with a link to the latest issue and invite them to subscribe. 

Comments suggestions and discussion on the content and structure of this review are welcome at the ERevD: EnderReviewDiscussion Yahoo group. Feel free to jump in there at any time.

Alternately, you may elect to receive a copy of an HTML e-mail object (50 - 90K). Archives of the HTML e-mail are available to EnderReview members. You may join that group or subscribe to its mailing list.

Home Agora Columns Connections Review