Medary.com

A (mostly) daily review of what's out there that caught my attention. (Yeah, it's possible I might have ADD . . .)

I surf the Web, so you don't have to!

Section One: The Word:
An occasional comment, rant, or snark, brought on by the flow of events:
Now, per Warren at Coyote Blog: OMG, Best Thing I Have Seen For A While wherein you get schooled, hip-hop-style, in Keynsian vs. Hayekian economics (hint: Hayek is right, Keynes is wrong, much to the chagrin of government planners everywhere) . . .




Section Two: Things That Amuse Me:
2.1: Simians:
Woman Wants To Bring Baby Chimp To Court -- With another hat tip to Special Simian Correspondent Bill (And uh, no, I'm not calling him a simian, although, you know, if you're an evolutionist . . .)

2.2: Travel:
Top Ten Cruise Travel Tips: A Cruise Diva's Must-Haves
The Liberty Ship: Cruising Hard To Starbord -- Heh. Sadly, we've got another trip already planned . . .
NZ airline offers economy-class bed seats
Exploring Air New Zealand’s New Long Haul Cabin with Beds in Coach -- Wherein Cranky Flier whups the previous AP reporting within an inch of its journalistic life . . . what I'm trying to say is that this blogger guy blows AP completely out of the water, reporting-wise . . .

More after the "Read More" . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

The so-called economic freedom which the planners promise us means precisely that we are to be relieved of the necessity of solving our own economic problems and that the bitter choices which this often involves are to be made for us. Since under modern conditions we are for almost everything dependent on means which our fellow-men provide, economic planning would involve direction of almost the whole of our life.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rated higher and which lower--in short, what men should believe and strive for.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

If we strive for money, it is because it offers us the widest choice in enjoying the fruits of our efforts. Because in modern society we are made to feel the restrictions which our relative poverty still imposes on us, many have come to hate money as the symbol of these restrictions. But this is to mistake for the cause the medium through which a force makes itself felt. It would be much truer to say that money is one of the greatest instruments of freedom ever invented by man--a range greater than that which not many generations ago was open to the wealthy.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

A (mostly) daily review of what's out there that caught my attention. (Yeah, it's possible I might have ADD . . .)

I surf the Web, so you don't have to!

Section One: The Word:
An occasional comment, rant, or snark, brought on by the flow of events:

What we're seeing in Arizona, with J.D. Hayworth announcing a primary challenge against John McCain, is that it is once more the Republican Party which is the repository of ideological diversity in the American political scene. The Democrats have been completely seized by the far-left, "progressives" who want nothing more than to implement socialism in their fervent, misguided belief that this time, they'll do it right, unlike every other single time in human history it's been tried--a uniform and dismal history of failure and, more often than not, death and murder on a massive scale--all due to the fatal conceit of a few people that they know better than their fellows how everybody should run their lives.

So, on the one hand, I don't think McCain can be easily forgiven for his transgression which was McCain-Feingold, aka the Incumbent Protection Act. On the other hand, I don't think he's a socialist. He's a centrist--which means he really has no clue about what the "progressives" really want. He has the vague notion that they're wrong, but it's not at all clear to me that he knows why they're so disastrously, drastically wrong. Palin, on the other hand, does--and I think so does Hayworth.

Section Two: Things That Amuse Me:
2.1: Simians:
Nope.

2.2: Travel:
Nope.

2.3: Sports:
Charging rule a non-factor so far
State of basketball in Kansas is thriving
Royals snag outfielder Ankiel

More after the "read more" . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

. . . much more consistency is shown by the more numerous reformers who, ever since the beginning of the socialist movement, have attached the "metaphysical" idea of individual rights and insisted that in a rationally ordered world there will be no individual rights but only individual duties. This, indeed, had become the much more common attitude of our so-called "progressives," and few things are more certain to expose one to the reproach of being a reactionary than if one protests against a measure on the grounds that it is a violation of the rights of the individual.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

A (mostly) daily review of what's out there that caught my attention. (Yeah, it's possible I might have ADD . . .)

I surf the Web, so you don't have to!

Section One: Whip Words:
An occasional comment, rant, stream-of-consciousness brain-dump, or petty and juvenile snark, brought on by the flow of events:
Can This Week Possibly Get Any Better?
It's true. It's been a good week for the American people. Scott Brown's unlikely victory in Massachusetts has upset the entire apple cart for the collectivist Democrats in Washington. The Supreme Court's sudden and (frankly) quite unexpected rediscovery of the First Amendment was stunningly refreshing. And the final collapse of the "liberal"/collectivist radio network Air America is worth its weight in snark. Even the struggling Jackrabbit men won a game in a rather unlikely manner. The only downside so far, apart from that sneezing fit that woke me up at 4 this morning, was the loss of the Lady Vols at Georgia. Rocky Top is in mourning.
More after the "Read More" . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

The Rule of Law implies limits to the scope of legislation; it restricts it to the kind of general rules known as formal law and excludes legislation either directly aimed at particular people or at enabling anybody to use the coercive power of the state for the purpose of such discrimination. It means not that everything is regulated by law, but, on the contrary, that the coercive power of the state can be used only in cases defined in advance by law and in such a way that it can be foreseen how it will be used.

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.

A (mostly) daily review of what's out there that caught my attention. (Yeah, it's possible I might have ADD . . .)

I surf the Web, so you don't have to!

Section One: The Big Stories:
1.1: The Haiti earthquake and aftermath:
Haiti, Poverty and Earthquakes

1.2: The Massachusetts earthquake and its aftermath, or:
WHAT IT ALL MEANS!!!:
And now, a cautionary note
The World Turned Upside Down
Nutroots Agree: Coakley Lost Because Dem Party Is Not Radical Enough
SO, BROWN WON.
It’s The Center, Sucka
Three Reasons Why The Dems Are in Big, Big Trouble. And One Reason Why They're Not. -- As you might guess, the one reason they're not is that their main political opponents are the Republicans . . . who aren't called the Stupid Party for nothing . . .
Massachusetts earthquake puts everything in play -- See, I'm not the only one who went with the borderline insensitive "earthquake" line . . .,
Bayh warns that “far Left” has seized the Democratic Party; Update: Lanny Davis concurs
Ride the Tide with Commonsense Candidates!
The Massachusetts Miracle
Cognitive Dissonance
The Message from Massachusetts
The Democratic Reaction Richter Scale
The Peasants Are Revolting!
Message Not Received
Now That Coakley's Croaked, Just What Kind of Senator is Scott Brown Likely to be?
"the strident, purist base"
MA Senate Election Starting To Get Through At White House?
Message Maybe Recieved, By Some?
Press Takes a New Look at Tea Parties After Brown Win
"This is like Ted Kennedy winning in Utah . . . "-- Cato Institute video . . . ". . . he didn't run on social issues, he ran against big government . . . "
Brown: “Maybe there’s a new breed of Republican coming to Washington” -- If by that he means small-government, responsible-governance, corruption-fighting Republicans, that's what I'm hoping for . . .
Why the Great and Growing Backlash?: What Scott Brown’s election portends for the Obama agenda. -- I like the Ghost of Dean Barnett theory . . .
Brown’s daughter to critics of his joke: Mellow out

More after the "Read More" . . .

From The Road To Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, 1944, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, 1994, The University of Chicago Press.

The conflict is thus not, as it has often been misconceived in nineteenth-century discussion, one between liberty and law. As John Locke had already made clear, there can be no liberty without law. The conflict is between different kinds of law--law so different that it should hardly be called by the same name; one is the law of the Rule of Law, general principles laid down beforehand, the "rules of the game" which enable individuals to foresee how the coercive apparatus of the state will be used, or what he and his fellow-citizens will be allowed to do, or made to do, in stated circumstances. The other kind of law gives in effect the authority power to do what it thinks fit to do. Thus the Rule of Law could clearly not be preserved in a democracy that undertook to decide every conflict of interests not according to rules previously laid down but "on its merits."

Excerpted under Fair Use for purposes of non-commercial education, discussion and comment. Any transcription or typographical errors are mine.