the fam

alternate atlas

With the amount of science fiction I've been listening to, I'm especially susceptible to alternate universe scenarios.

Here's one suggested by Manuel Lora on blog.Mises:

Atlas Shrugged: The Movie, directed by Michael Moore, starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.

free reads

Thanks to The Podcast Pedant (AKA the host of Escape Pod), I've started listening to James Patrick Kelly reading his own stuff.

Man, these first few stories are great!

historicist headlines

My comrade Stephen Carson reads newspapers so I don't have to:

Newsflash! Demand Curve Slopes Down!!

Stephen W. Carson

USA Today's front page headline today really isn't that far from mine: "Cutting back at the pump: Gas use drops as prices rise". But USA Today writer James Healey's economic insight doesn't stop there... It looks like the supply curve slopes up!

Fuel conservation might be short-lived. For one thing, prices are likely to drop. EIA says, "Significant increases in gasoline production ... over the next several weeks should stem the rise in gasoline prices and may, actually, cause them to decline somewhat."

Let me be clear that I'm not complaining. Would that we regularly had headlines proclaiming economic truths. In fact, let me suggest some:

• Prices move to match supply and demand!
• Rent control causes housing shortage!
• Regulatory paperwork burden favors large, established firms!
• Minimum wage disemploys least skilled!
• Federal Reserve causes inflation!

Link post | 08:36 AM | Comments (0) | contact Stephen W. Carson | other posts

more audiofiles for audiophiles

More and more:

LiteralSystems.org

Free Creative Commons Licensed Audiobooks

What's it all about? LiteralSystems audiobooks are always free of charge to enjoy and share with your friends non-commercially. These are mp3 file recordings of human-voiced readings and performances of classic literary works -- download to your itunes, ipod or windows media player and listen. There is no registration or email disclosure required. Simple.

JR on B5

Jeff Riggenbach on Babylon 5:

It seems to me that the point of B5 is precisely that we all must make our own choices about war and peace and creativity and advancing civilization, rather than having The Answer handed to us or imposed upon us from on high. Sheridan manages to convince the Vorlons and Shadows to withdraw to their own boundaries and allow "the younger races" to work out their own approach(es) to these problems.

In any case, I do not base my evaluation of any work of art on how "libertarian" it is. I like B5 because of the excellence of the character writing and the depth of character development. G'Kar [sp?] and Londo (and, perhaps, Ivanova) are my chief exhibits.

JR

babble on 'five

Under the leadership of its final commander, Babylon 5 was a dream given form: a dream of a galaxy without war, when species from different worlds could live side by side in mutual respect.... Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. This is its story...."

- monologue from the Pilot, spoken by Londo Mollari

I seem to be one of the very few libertarians who can make the following 2 claims:

1. I've seen every episode of all five seasons of Babylon 5;
2. I really dislike the show...

Not only did this particular libertarian not like the Babylon 5 series, but he can't begin to understand how any libertarian possibly could.

Is it like Star Trek: statist, but what choice do we have?

That's not the impression I get. The impression I get is that libertarians see something positive in the show itself -- not just scifi eye-candy, but something somehow related to what we believe. If so, I have no idea what that could be.

As I've mentioned, I've been listening to a lot of science fiction podcasts while I paint the house. What baffles me about these podcasts is that the hosts of shows I really like will enthusiastically endorse other podcasts that I quickly decide I can't stand.

One common theme between my discomfort with Babylon 5 and my dislike of these briefly sampled podcasts is their militarism. My two favorite science fiction television shows -- Farscape and Firefly -- involve ex-soldiers and non-soldiers as heroes and current professional soldiers as badguys.

Now I can imagine libertarian fans of Bab5 pointing out that the military on that show is the badguy, too, but I'm not buying it. First of all, all the goodguys are government officials, all representing world governments. When trade is mentioned at all, it's either negotiated between governments (a la NAFTA and the rest of the neoliberal agenda), frowned on as black market (violent, criminal, immoral), or sneered at as corrupt and all-powerful "megacorp" (where political capitalism is the only variety of capitalism even contemplated).

The political background of the show is like a love letter to the Clintons, the Democrats, and the Left Establishment in general -- the people in charge of the executive branch when the show was being made.

I can imagine a libertarian (one of the decentralist variety) praising the show as pro-secession. Yes, the decentralist would concede, the show opens with the hero pronouncing Abraham Lincoln his hero, and trying to deliver one of Lincoln's speeches, but the way events unfold (with the station declaring independence from the corrupt world government of Earth) the Lincoln references are clearly there to reassure viewers that the show is not blind to the history of slavery just because it ends up embracing the right of secession.

Even if I were to accept the secessionist argument, it's still not evidence of libertarianism, since the secessionist government of Babylon 5 is every bit as authoritarian as the world government it has seceded from. (In the same way that the Confederate Hamiltonians took over when the Confederate Jeffersonians went into battle: tariffs and taxes; the first military draft; political centralization, etc.) The station is still run by a military elite who don't hesitate to boss everyone else around. That doesn't automatically make the show pro-military -- any more than Archie Bunker's bigoted rants made All In The Family pro-racism -- but at no point are we given the sense that any of this hamfistedness tarnishes the armor of Bab5's supposed goodguys.

Yes, I know: at the end of everything, there are "free" elections, but that's democracy, not freedom. Majoritarian elections do not equal liberty.

Finally -- and here is the biggest problem with Babylon 5 from my perspective -- the heart and soul of the show is about the struggle between war and peace, not just in history, not just within ourselves, but as necessities of progress. In one of the very last episodes of the series, the doctor gives a speech about how terrible war is, but how necessary it is to progress.

The two ancient races vying for influence with humanity and the other younger races, represent violence and chaos on the one hand, and peace, order, and stagnation on the other. Them's yer choices; take yer pick. We want peace, but we need war. Suddenly the love letter isn't just addressed to the Clintons. Now it's meant for the Roosevelts and the Keynesians.

Yes, Babylon 5 is five seasons of the Broken Window Fallacy -- of the destructivist myth ingrained in us by teachers and textbooks that the progress of civilization is the history of struggle. Peace, it seems, is stagnation.

One of the most profound awakenings I've had in my Misesian education has been to the classical liberal doctrine of peace and prosperity, the two inseparable. The progress of civilization has taken place despite the history of struggle, not because of it. Cooperation and the division of labor have advanced us; war and conflict have dragged us down.

This was not the lesson of my schooling, not even at the hands of Quaker pacifists. Their love of peace was principled, spiritual, aesthetic, but not practical. Pragmatically, they were all FDR-brand New Deal so-called liberals: those who thought that the burning of crops and the mass slaughter of livestock saved us from the Great Depression, at least until World War II saved us from the Great Depression. These people believe that it was the Marshall Plan that brought Europe back after the war, not the resumption of trade after fascism had been defeated.

Boring old peace is the path to prosperity. That may not make for good science fiction, but it's the reason we can afford the leisure to read and write science fiction in the first place. For the creators of these fictional worlds to pretend that struggle and destruction are necessary to our overall well-being is as painful and ironic as the children of the productive bourgoisie decrying capitalism as the source of poverty and suffering.

---

Peace

There are high-minded men who detest war because it brings death and suffering. However much one may admire their humanitarianism, their argument against war, in being based on philanthropic grounds, seems to lose much or all of its force when we consider the statements of the supporters and proponents of war. The latter by no means deny that war brings with it pain and sorrow. Nevertheless, they believe it is through war and war alone that mankind is able to make progress. War is the father of all things, said a Greek philosopher, and thousands have repeated it after him. Man degenerates in time of peace. Only war awakens in him slumbering talents and powers and imbues him with sublime ideals. If war were to be abolished, mankind would decay into indolence and stagnation.

It is difficult or even impossible to refute this line of reasoning on the part of the advocates of war if the only objection to war that one can think of is that it demands sacrifices. For the proponents of war are of the opinion that these sacrifices are not made in vain and that they are well worth making. If it were really true that war is the father of all things, then the human sacrifices it requires would be necessary to further the general welfare and the progress of humanity. One might lament the sacrifices, one might even strive to reduce their number, but one would not be warranted in wanting to abolish war and to bring about eternal peace.

The liberal critique of the argument in favor of war is fundamentally different from that of the humanitarians. It starts from the premise that not war, but peace, is the father of all things. What alone enables mankind to advance and distinguishes man from the animals is social cooperation. It is labor alone that is productive: it creates wealth and therewith lays the outward foundations for the inward flowering of man. War only destroys; it cannot create. War, carnage, destruction, and devastation we have in common with the predatory beasts of the jungle; constructive labor is our distinctively human characteristic. The liberal abhors war, not, like the humanitarian, in spite of the fact that it has beneficial consequences, but because it has only harmful ones.

Ludwig von Mises, "The Foundations of Liberal Policy"

now hear this

In addition to the audio features of FreeAudio.org, we now have these documents (among others) available from Merriam Webster:

• Declaration of Independence (1776)


• Constitution of the United States (1787)


• Bill of Rights (1791)

fan mail

From: anonymous-comment@blogger.com
Subject: [lowercase liberty] 4/13/2006 05:43:52 PM
Date: April 15, 2006 5:14:04 PM EDT
To: bkmarcus

god you americans talk crap!I found this site when googled anarchy!this isn`t anarchy!this is i`m bored because i`m stuck at home and my wife earns more than i ever will!

--
Posted by paul to lowercase liberty at 4/13/2006 05:43:52 PM

geek dad 2:25

In my rant against Escape Pod host Steve Eley's political assumptions, it would be easy to overlook the fact that I called Escape Pod a great show. It's a science fiction short story audio magazine, and it has helped me get through much of the manual labor of home renovation. (It and also Spaceship Radio, which replays old radio plays from the 1950s.)

As I've lost my interest in science fiction novels, these podcasts have helped me rediscover the short story format, which was, as Eley points out, the way most of us came to science fiction, once upon a time.

Science fiction and fantasy are the genres of ideas, and the short story format is perfect for such a genre.

None of which has anything to do with what I'm going to point you to.

The Creative Commons license doesn't allow me to edit the audio I wanted to share, so instead I have to suggest you just listen to the first 2 minutes and 25 seconds of this episode.

If you're interested in Escape Pod itself, I don't recommend you start with this episode. Instead I'd recommend Imperial, Robots and Falling Hearts, or L'Alchimista. Or if you don't have much time, you can look through the list of flash fiction (short short stories).

For now, the podcast is listener supported, which is an honorable model. I recommend donating.

My fear is that Eley considers "art grants" more honorable than for-profit models, which (in a world where the big grants come largely from taxes) means he'd rather have dollars taken by force than rendered willingly, though I'm positive that's not at all how he thinks of the issue. The more we voluntary listeners give voluntary support for these things voluntarily, the better our chances of reducing the number of "art grants" that others are coercively forced to support. (See, I can't seem to stay away from rant-mode. Sorry.)

fewer callers, more stories

From: bkmarcus
Subject: fewer callers, more stories
Date: April 12, 2006 11:19:14 AM EDT
To: pennradio@gmail.com

Hi Michael Goudeau. PennRadio wouldn't be the same without you.

My favorite thing about the show is Penn Jillette just telling his stories.

My least favorite thing about the show is when you guys take phone calls. If I wanted to hear phone calls from strangers I could listen to pretty much any other radio show -- which is why I don't listen to the radio at all. (I listen to your show on podcast.)

I, for one, am happy New York is doing such a terrible job of keeping callers on the line for you. I'm sure it will be less frustrating when you're handling calls directly in Las Vegas, but some of us might miss the days of bad technicians and abrupt hang-ups.

The April 11th episode was, as you might guess, my favorite so far: all stories; no phone calls. I hope you do more of that.

Mine is just one preference, I realize, and you can't change the whole show just for me, but I'm hoping I'm not the only one giving you this kind of feedback. I hope you'll forget standard formats and let Penn Jillette's show be its own thing. Happy Jack should put down his sign.

Thanks for your time.

laissez faire,
bkmarcus
www.bkmarcus.com

new loyno

From Walter Block:

Want An Excellent Undergraduate Radical Free Enterprise Education?

Then enroll at Loyola University New Orleans for the fall 2006 semester. Yes, Loyola University New Orleans!

Our four member fall 2006 economics department (William Barnett II, Walter Block, Jerry Dauterive and John Levendis) is heavily influenced by the works of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Kirzner and other members of the Austrian School of economics, which focuses on private property rights, free markets and limited government. They have published in such scholarly periodicals as the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, the Review of Austrian Economics, Advances in Austrian Economics, the Journal of Libertarian Studies, the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, the Independent Review as well as numerous mainstream scholarly journals. As well, long time libertarian Nick Capaldi teaches business ethics at Loyola, and Stuart Wood, a former student of Israel Kirzner?s, is a member of our finance department.

The libertarian oriented economics club meets twice a month, and includes the following amongst its outside guest speakers: James Buchanan, Tom DiLorenzo, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Guido Huelsmann, Fr. James Schall, S.J., Walter Williams, Tom Woods. This department also features a monthly Austrian Economics Seminar, which is now discussing Human Action by Mises. With only a few economics majors, we have recently sent off some half dozen of our students to graduate schools in economics. We also have a student publication program (see attached) which has succeeded in placing over a dozen student term papers in law reviews and refereed journals in economics.

But isn?t New Orleans now under water? Not a bit of it. While there are vast stretches of the Big Easy that have been negatively impacted by Katrina and not yet rebuilt, the uptown university area where Loyola (and Tulane) is located is as beautiful as it ever has been. As well, that other geographical student focus, the fabled French Quarter, is up and running, ready for business as usual. Further, the crime rate is down, way down. So come on down, and enjoy an excellent education at Loyola University New Orleans.

Yes, application numbers are lower than usual. But this is a great opportunity for students who otherwise might not have thought of Loyola University New Orleans as a place to study. Please contact Walter Block (wblock@loyno.edu) for further information. See also (http://www.loyno.edu/).


Dr. Walter Block, Ph.D.
Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics
College of Business Administration
Loyola University New Orleans
6363 St. Charles Avenue, Box 15, Miller 318
New Orleans, LA 70118
c.v.: http://www.cba.loyno.edu/faculty.html

skullcrusher mountain

So far I've been pretty underwhelmed by the "podsafe" music I've heard.

Jonathan Coulton's "Skullcrusher Mountain" is the first major exception:

MP3 | Flash Animation

Lyrics:

Welcome to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain
I hope that you've enjoyed your stay so far
I see you've met my assistant Scarface
His appearance is quite disturbing
But I assure you he's harmless enough
He's a sweetheart, calls me master
And he has a way of finding pretty things and bringing them to me

I'm so into you
But I'm way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I'm crazy
I'm not surprised that you agree
If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don't like it
What's with all the screaming'
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don't like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you'

I'm so into you
But I'm way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I'm crazy
I'm not surprised that you agree
If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet

Picture the two of us alone inside my golden submarine
While up above the waves my doomsday squad ignites the atmosphere
And all the fools who live their foolish lives may find it quite explosive
But it won't mean half as much to me if I don't have you here

You know it isn't easy living here on Skullcrusher Mountain
Maybe you could cut me just a little slack
Would it kill you to be civil?
I've been patient, I've been gracious
And this mountain is covered with wolves
Hear them howling, my hungry children
Maybe you should stay and have another drink and think about me and you

I'm so into you
But I'm way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I'm crazy
I'm not surprised that you agree
If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet
I shouldn't kill you yet
I shouldn't kill you yet

missing links

A friend forwarded this word of the day to me this morning.

Between that word and this morning's cartoon from Tim Tolles ...


... (which I assume refers to recent news about this fossil, discussed here) ...

I'm reminded of my post on the mistreatment of the word "because":

grammatical inversion

self-esteem

a career of ruling over others

From the Ron Paul of local government:

Being a government employee, I love this paragraph:

Government employees would have to find jobs in private enterprise if they wanted to work. There are two major kinds of government employees -- those whose services would be in demand in the free market (teachers, librarians, secretaries, firemen, etc.) and those who perform no useful function but simply keep the governmental machinery running (lawmakers, tax collectors, bureaucratic record keepers and paper shufflers, executives in the military-industrial complex, the President and the Vice President, etc.). The first kind would probably find only minor difficulties in adjusting to a free society. A forest ranger in Yellowstone National Park might find his job almost unchanged, as the Park was taken over by a private corporation to be run for profit. Those lawyers and judges whose minds were young and flexible enough to adjust to freedom instead of statutory law could sell their services to free enterprise arbitration agencies. On the other hand, men who had spent their lives as tax collectors for the Internal Revenue Service or as Federal narcotics agents would find no "demand" for their services and would have to change careers in order to survive -- perhaps even to that of garbage collector or janitor (honorable work, for a change). In a sense, this would be a partial penalty for having been willing to make a career of ruling over others.

Source: The Market for Liberty by Linda and Morris Tannehill.

Have a good weekend!

Brian Drake
Libertarian Candidate for Texas House of Representatives - District 15

socialism can't calculator

18th-century English dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary. Thirteen Volumes. London, 1928, Reissued in Compact Edition, 1971. Volume 4 (E), p. 379, "Excise" 26.

libertarian worlds collide

Last night I posted the email my mother forwarded me.

This morning, Gary North opened his LRC column with the same bit of trivia.

Last week, I got caught up on all the podcasts I listen to. That's a lot of hours of listening, trust me. (I also tried out several science fiction podcasts, about which I hope to comment later.)

The first thing I "tune" to when I need audio accompaniment to manual labor is the PennRadio podcast.

Gary North is a paleoconservative theonomist with a strong libertarian background.

Penn Jillette is an outspoken libertarian, but he's an even more outspoken atheist. (Whereas I am a quiet atheist, an outspoken agnostic, and an even more outspoken libertarian.)

Gary North recommends the Chris Bliss juggling video.

Penn Jillette blasted it almost every day for a week, and got his friend Jason Garfield to do a Chris Bliss Diss video.

Gary North writes of the second video:

He is a much better juggler. He uses five balls, not three. Yet his performance lacks something fundamental. He is not an artistic creator; he is an imitator. He is not a skilled amateur; he is a professional. He stands in front of a video camera. If he drops a ball, he can re-shoot the video. There is no audience. He risks nothing."

Gary North continues:

The comments by people who have posted this video indicate that they resent the first performer's success. They judge in terms of technical competence, not audience satisfaction.

"This is a common failure of skilled people."

Gary North is right.

Not only do I share his judgment about the 2 videos, but also his assessment of why people with talent resent people with creativity.

It reminds me of a footnote I encountered while editing something yesterday:

Otto Weininger wrote at the beginning of the century: "Someone may have a talent, for example, the mathematical talent, by birth and to an extraordinary degree; he will then be able to digest the most difficult chapters of this science with but small effort; but it does not follow that, for this reason, he has any genius, which is the same thing as originality, individuality, and condition of his own productivity. Conversely, there are great geniuses who have not developed any special talent to a high degree. Just think of Novalis or Jean Paul. [...] Talent is hereditary, it may be the common good of a family (the Bachs); genius is not transferable, it is never general, but always individual (Johann Sebastian)." Geschlecht und Charakter (19th ed., Vienna: Braumüller, 1920), part II, chap. IV, p. 126.

unique moment

Forwarded from my mother:

On Wednesday of next week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be ...

01:02:03 04/05/06

That won't ever happen again.

Of course, it took a week to bounce around from person to person to my mother to me, so next week is this week, and next Wednesday is, um, tomorrow, and the unique moment will come in about an hour and a half ...

Austrians and Mutualists

Journal of Libertarian Studies 20, no. 1 (Winter 2006)

Mises Institute Publications Volume 20, no. 1 (Winter 2006) SYMPOSIUM ON KEVIN CARSON'S STUDIES IN MUTUALIST POLITICAL ECONOMY

• EDITORIAL by Roderick T. Long. Many of the individualist anarchists, and in particular those thinkers associated with Benjamin Tucker?s journal Liberty, sought to combine a political theory based on individual sovereignty and self-ownership with an economic theory based on the labor....
• THE SPOONER-TUCKER DOCTRINE: AN ECONOMIST'S VIEW by Murray N. Rothbard. First, I must begin by affirming my conviction that Lysander Spooner and Benjamin R. Tucker were unsurpassed as political philosophers and that nothing is more needed today than a revival and development of the largely forgotten legacy that they left to political philosophy....
• THE LABOR THEORY OF VALUE: A CRITIQUE OF CARSON by Robert P. Murphy. This is an impressive work. It first attempts to rehabilitate the classical labor theory of value (by giving it a subjectivist spin), and then traces the history of capitalism to show that it was founded by, and necessarily relies upon, State aggression....
• KEVIN CARSON AS DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. By Walter Block. On the one hand, he shows familiarity with the important libertarian contributors to the field of political economy. On the other hand, familiarity with libertarian authors seems to have been wasted on Carson, as he adopts the labor theory of value as the basic building block of his analytic framework....
• FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: LAISSEZ-FAIRE CAPITALISM IS GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION: A CRITIQUE OF KEVIN CARSON. By George Reisman. Carson's book centers on the incredible claim, self-contradictory on its face, that capitalism, including laissez-faire capitalism, is a system based on state intervention, in violation of the free market...
• LAND-LOCKED: A CRITIQUE OF CARSON ON PROPERTY RIGHTS. By Roderick T. Long. In 1888, France's leading libertarian periodical, Gustave de Molinari?s Journal des Économistes published a favorable and appreciative review of Benjamin Tucker?s Liberty....
• CARSON'S REJOINDERS, by Kevin A. Carson. This is not, properly speaking, a rejoinder?obviously, since Rothbard?s article predates my book. But since it was chosen to set the tone for this symposium issue, and includes some comments on individualist anarchism in general, I?ll make a few remarks anyway....

SUBSCRIBE NOW
Link post | 02:49 PM

wetware

I used to work for a psychology professor whose research interest was how people express their identities through customizing their computer environments. I only worked for him for a few years, but his impact on how I think about personal computers has been pretty significant.

Sometimes it's not too hard to tell what's on a person's mind:

basement counterfeiting

Forwarded to me by "Mr. B":

D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h

|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|

Please forward to anyone you know who cares about the value of their money.

Dear friend,

The Federal Reserve can create new dollars out of thin air. Much of the federal government's deficit spending is funded with this "funny money." When more dollars are created prices rise and the value of your savings fall. Sadly . . .

We believe the Federal Reserve is about to create a whole bunch of new money. Why? Because, starting March 23 the Fed will stop publishing a statistic called M3. M3 is the best guide to how much new currency the Fed is creating. The only reason to stop publishing M3 is because . . .

The Fed is planning to do a whole lot of "legal counterfeiting," and wants to hide it. This is a direct threat to your budget and savings. It must be stopped. Fortunately . . .

Congressman Ron Paul is sponsoring legislation to force the Fed to continue reporting M3. We need to force this legislation through Congress. It's the best brake we have to stop inflation. And the brakes come off March 23.

Please send a message to Congress right now telling them to pass Ron Paul's bill. You can do so here:
http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=44

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|*|

(He sent it last week, but I've been behind on everything by 2 weeks, so consider this progress.)

benmaman @ 6 months

Pregnancy update for anyone who's curious.

news to me

April 01, 2006 A new month and a new page to turn Tim Swanson A few of announcements regarding members of LvMI. First, David Heinrich and BK Marcus have accepted analyst positions with the World Bank Tax Enforcement Division. Here they will also be working closesly with the United Nations Council on Capital Exploitation in preventing unfair distribution of incomes across the worlds social strata. Webmaster David Veksler will shortly announce a re-engineered site for the Microsoft-free Linux-based LAMP platform. This will include a Personals section powered by Google Romance. Lastly, I am running as a State Senator under a coalition Social Democrat/Green Party ticket. My uniting message won the unanimous nomination, "He gave us a free lunch." And remember, thousands of people have sacrificed their lives so you can have the right to force their children to fight for that right. Update: I was just informed that Stephan Kinsella recently accepted a job with the RIAA. He will be working in their IP infringement group. April 1, 2006 11:03 AM | contact Tim Swanson | other posts