Tag: Townhall.com

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Townhall: Mass Protests Against Massive Failure

Post author By Redactor
Post date June 23, 2013
No Comments on Townhall: Mass Protests Against Massive Failure

Millions of people, around the world, are taking to the streets, to protest … what?

Could they possibly have legitimate gripes? Yes. Do they? Mostly. Will the protests do any good? Open question.

All this and violence, too, at Townhall.com. March on over, then rush back here for more reading.

“Brazil Protests Continue,” NPR
“Brazil’s protests raise fears for World Cup as a million take to the streets,” The Guardian
“Brazil’s president pledges to hold dialogue with protesters,” Reuters
“No a la Reelección” and “What the Argentines Protest,” Common Sense by Paul Jacob

Tags demonstrations, general strike, protest, Townhall.com

links

Townhall: 33 Billion Balloons in a Strange Land

Post author By Redactor
Post date April 28, 2013
1 Comment on Townhall: 33 Billion Balloons in a Strange Land

So, what country are we living in, today? Well, it’s explicable, if absurd — explicable in terms of the old “Cui bono” idea, of incentives and disincentives; absurd because of … well, click on over to Townhall.com, read this weekend’s Common Sense column, and see. Then come back here for further limning of the absurdist status quo.:

CNN: “Former Atlanta schools superintendent reports to jail in cheating scandal”
Washington Post: “The danger of how we grade teachers and schools,” by Jena McGregor
Huffington Post: “The 5 Causes of Test Cheating Scandals,” by Dr. Christopher Emdin
Washington Post: “Atlanta’s former schools chief charged under law used against Mafia,” by Valerie Strauss
The Daily Caller: “Ballot-fraud convictions shed light on Obama’s ’08 campaign”
Washington Post: “Ending retirement abuses in Montgomery County”
Washington Examiner: “Unions face off with Montgomery County Council, residents over raises,” by Kate Jacobson
Washington Post: “Congress finds it hard to let Federal Helium Program run out of gas,” by David A. Fahrenthold
The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: “Public Choice,” by William F. Shughart II

Tags Townhall.com

links

Townhall: It’s not about drones

Post author By Redactor
Post date March 10, 2013
4 Comments on Townhall: It’s not about drones

The key issue of last week’s great Rand Paul filibuster was not drone technology, as such, but whether those who run the government will accept the rules of the Constitution. That’s the message from Yours Truly this week on Townhall. Read the column, then come back here for some more links to further facts and opinion.

First Hour of Filibuster Video (all 13 hours available on YouTube)
“Drone Policy Must Include Checks and Balances,” by Benjamin H. Friedman, Cato Institute
“President Obama, did or did you not kill Anwar al-Awlaki?”, by David Cole, Washington Post
“John McCain and Lindsey Graham Declare War on Rand Paul,” by Brian Dougherty, Reason (Hit and Run)
Daily Show segment, Jon Stewart on Rand Paul
“Rand Paul fires back — McCain, Graham think ‘whole world is a battlefield,’” Fox News
“Military robots and the future of war,” by P.W. Singer, TED talk (see Saturday’s post)
“An off-target drone,” The Economist

Tags drone strikes, filibuster, Rand Paul, Townhall.com

links

Townhall: Barack Obama and the Teachable Wage

Post author By Redactor
Post date February 17, 2013
No Comments on Townhall: Barack Obama and the Teachable Wage

This weekend’s Townhall contribution from Yours Truly expands on a point made here on Friday: Raising the minimum wage does not help the poor … so why not press the point?

For your further consideration, including extensive work on the racial effects and racist origins of minimum wage laws:

“Sense and Nonsense on the Minimum Wage,” by Donald Deere, Kevin M. Murphy, and Finis Welch, Regulation 1995 No. 1
“Herman Cain on Obama’s call for higher minimum wage,” Herman Cain interviewed by Neil Cavuto, Fox Business
“The Economics of the Colour Bar,” by W.H. Hutt
“Minimum Wage Escalation,” by Thomas Sowell, Hoover Institution pamphlet, undated
“Eugenics: Progressivism’s Ultimate Social Engineering,” by Steve Horwitz and Art Carden, Freeman
“Krugman and a Critic on the Minimum Wage,” by David Henderson, EconLog, February 16, 2013

There is of course a long history and bibliography on the economics of price floors like the minimum wage.

Tags minimum wage, Townhall.com

free trade & free markets links

Townhall: The Next Thing in Money

Post author By Redactor
Post date May 20, 2012
No Comments on Townhall: The Next Thing in Money

More about Ziggy?

This weekend’s Townhall column takes off on a subject broached here at This Is Common Sense last week. But there’s a lot more to it, so check it out. And come back here if you want a complete, easy-to-access full list of the column’s links:

The Next Money: As the Big Economies Falter, Micro-Currencies Rise, by Eric Garland (The Atlantic)
Andresen on BitCoin and Virtual Currency, Gavin Andresen interviewed by Russ Roberts (EconTalk)
Josiah Warren (Wikipedia)
Federal Reserve Act (Wikipedia)
The Gold Confiscation Of April 5, 1933 (text archived at The Privateer Gold Pages)
Nixon Shock (Wikipedia)
Ron Paul 2012 (campaign website)
F.A. Hayek (Wikipedia)
Denationalization of Money: The Argument Refined, an Analysis of the Theory and Practice of Concurrent Currencies, by F.A. Hayek (PDF, Mises Institute)
Ron Paul, Upping the Ante in His Campaign for Liberty, Hoists the Flag of Hayek, by Seth Lipsky (New York Sun)
Ziggy Stardust (Wikipedia disambiguation page)

For further reading, please consider:

State-Tamperings with Money and Banks, by Herbert Spencer
The Origins of Money, by Carl Menger
The Theory of Money and Credit, by Ludwig von Mises
Free Banking in Britain: Theory, Experience, and Debate, 1800 – 1845, by Lawrence White
Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775 – 1821, by George Selgin
The Mystery of Banking, by Murray N. Rothbard

Tags competition in currency, monetary policy, money, Ron Paul, Townhall.com

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Today in Freedom

On this day in 1833, Denison Olmsted was alerted by his neighbors to something truly amazing, a night sky filled with shooting stars.

Not just a one or two or a dozen or a hundred: 72,000 or more per hour. Though recognizing where among the constellations meteors came from was ancient knowledge, it had not been recorded by modern-era scientists, at least in this case. What Olmsted noticed was that the meteors were coming from one point in the sky, the constellation Leo. This regular meteor event is now called the Leonid meteor stream.

In the morning, Olmsted wrote a brief report on the meteor storm for the New Haven Daily Herald newspaper, which elicited correspondence from around the country, thus beginning a social storm, in a sense: crowd-sourced science.

Thought of the Day

Once the most potent moral figure in Western culture was Jesus Christ. Believer or unbeliever, you took your ethical bearings from him, or professed to. To question his morals was to expose yourself as a monster. Now, the most potent moral figure in Western culture is Adolf Hitler. It is as monstrous to praise him as it would once have been to disparage Jesus. He has become the fixed reference point by which we define evil.
Alec Ryrie, Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt (November 2019). See also “The End of the Age of Hitler,” First Things, November 2024.

— Alec Ryrie

Alec Ryrie

Shooting Stars

Abolish. Or Set in Stone

Destroying Dane Farming

Disaster Relief Pass-Over

Exemplary Rejections

Not Now