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Liberty and Power

  • Aug 28, 2006

    So, yes, I'm back

    by Liberty and Power

    Vacation is over. I spent most of it at Burntside Lake in northern MN, on one of the islands near the center of this satellite photo. Also spent some time in Seal Cove, Maine. Now back to work, and believe me, it has accululated in my absence. So, light-to-no blo
  • Aug 27, 2006

    "Every New Arab Generation Hates Israel More Than the Previous One"

    by Liberty and Power

    These are the words of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And I think he's right. Read the Israeli writer and peace activist Uri Avnery’s essay on the Second Lebanon War for this quotation and more.

    "The main product of this war is hatred. The pictures of death and destruction in Lebanon entered every Arab home, indeed every Muslim home, from Indonesia to Morocco, from Yemen to the Muslim ghettos in London and Berlin. Not fo
  • Aug 27, 2006

    Prometheus 2006 Awards Winners Announced

    by Liberty and Power

    The Libertarian Futurist Society presented its annual Prometheus Awards in three categories Aug. 25 at the World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim, Calif.

    British author Ken MacLeod won his third Prometheus Award for best novel for Learning the World, an inventive first-contact novel that explores the politics involved from two perspectives: the natives of the planet and the "alien" (human) visitors.

    MacL

  • Aug 27, 2006

    Bush and Saddam Should Both Stand Trial, Says Nuremberg Prosecutor

    by Liberty and Power

    A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg says that George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein. Benjamin Ferencz, who secured convictions for 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating the death squads that killed more than one million people, argues that Bush and Saddam should be tried for starting"aggressive" wars—Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his
  • Aug 26, 2006

    Murkowski's Folly

    by Liberty and Power

    Reuters news agency has reported that Alaska governor Frank Murkowski finished third in the state’s Republican primary with a mere 19 percent of the vote. The article stated that “Murkowski, who is the first Alaska governor to lose in the primary election since Democrat Bill Sheffield was defeated in 1986, angered Alaskans by appointing his
  • Aug 26, 2006

    More on the New Jim Crow "Survivor."

    by Liberty and Power

    Over at Positive Liberty, Jason Kuznicki rightly slams the new Jim Crow"Survivor" which I discussed here a couple of days ago.

    The idea that an experiment in segregation has anything interesting to tell us about the human condition is deeply offensive. As it applies to humans, race may have either physiological or cultural meanings
  • Aug 26, 2006

    The So-Called 'Battle of Britain': Another Political Myth Bites the Dust

    by Liberty and Power

    An article in the September 2006 issue of ‘History Today’ does away with at least three myths surrounding the Battle of Britain:-
    (1.) “it was not the RAF but the Royal Navy that saved Britain in 1940.…This is the contention of three senior military historians at the Joint Services Command Staff College.”
    (Senior British officers in all three services attend the College. Inter alia, they do courses in military history.)

    Dr Andrew Gordon, head of maritime

  • Aug 24, 2006

    Will the New Jim Crow "Survivor" Revive the "One-Drop Rule?"

    by Liberty and Power

    Jim Crow is alive and well at CBS. The network has announced that contestants in the next"Survivor" will be divided into ethnic"tribes" including a black team, a white team, a Hispanic team and an Asian team.

    “I think we have gotten to a point where it is politically incorrect to talk about race,” reader Jim Carmignani noted on the message board. “Perhaps this will help rejuvenate conversa

  • Aug 22, 2006

    The Christian Conservative Who Opposed the Vietnam War

    by Liberty and Power

    Here is my HNN article (co-authored by Linda Royster Beito) on Eugene Siler, the only member of the U.S. House to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution:
    To the extent a religious right of any kind existed in 1964, Eugene Siler easily qualified as a platinum card member. In his nine years in the U.S. House, he was unrivaled in his zeal to implement “Christianism and Americanism.” Yet forty-two years ago this month, on August 7,
  • Aug 22, 2006

    Reintroducing Myself

    by Liberty and Power

    I thought it might be worthwhile to reintroduce myself, as I've been absent from Liberty and Power for about a year.

    My intensive blogging about the situation at the University of Southern Mississippi (and, no, it's not completely over...) led to temporary burnout last summer.

    Then I was in a bicycle accident at the end of last October, in which I hit the brakes too hard on a downhill stretch trying to avoid a car coming around a blind corner. I succesfully avoided

  • Aug 21, 2006

    LEAP

    by Liberty and Power

    Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is a group of current and former police officers, judges, prosecutors, and elected officials who've come out against the drug war. Their introductory video is below.

    I think it's a pretty damned powerful video. The guilt, regret, and introspection apparent in these former cops is striking -- and admirable.

    I also think this group needs more attention. They've grown from five founders to around 5,000 members in just a few years,
  • Aug 20, 2006

    Carnival of Bad History

    by Liberty and Power