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Liberty and Power

  • May 21, 2004

    Chortle

    by Liberty and Power

    "George Bush starts sentences the way he starts wars, without any idea of how they will end."

    --Eric Kenning, in Liberty.

  • May 21, 2004

    US Foreign Policy: Biting the Hand that Feeds You

    by Liberty and Power

    Chalabi, Chalabi, Chalabi. All Chalabi, All the Time. It's all over the news and even here.

    I have to admit that I simply collapsed with laughter when I read this passage from today's NY Times editorial, entitled"Friends Like This":

    Before the war, Ahmad Chalabi told Washington hawks
  • May 21, 2004

    Why the Focus on Hitler?

    by Liberty and Power

    Every time I've taught my Comparative Economic Institutions course, my favorite class day is the one where I ask precisely the question William does below: if Stalin's (and Mao's) crimes were worse than those of Hitler (at least the body count was several times higher), why are we so fascinated and stuck on Hitler as the symbol of totalitarian, murderous evil? I have my own set of 3 or 4 not mutually exclusive answers to that
  • May 20, 2004

    The Designated Demolisher of USM

    by Liberty and Power

    Shelby Thames, the tyrannical chief executive of the University of Southern Mississippi, indulges in the comically grandiose rhetoric we have come to expect from university presidents. He never stops talking about"growing" research; he likes to proclaim that USM is a"world class" institution. The cold fact is that most outside observers would rank USM third among the universities in Mississippi.

    Thames may believe his own pronouncements; a few of his more gullible suppor

  • May 20, 2004

    Human Intelligence

    by Liberty and Power

    For two days, I sat, riveted, watching the 9/11 Commission hearings that took place in the auditorium of the New School, in Greenwich Village, NYC. These hearings were not broadcast on any of the networks nationwide, but there wasn't a single major network in this city that wasn't carrying it.

    For all that has been said about yesterday's appearance by former NY

  • May 20, 2004

    From Smarty Jones to Dumb Yankees

    by Liberty and Power

    Gays are getting married legally in Massachusetts, and the dreaded apocalypse didn't happen. Three cheers for the stability of the republic, through social change, war, high oil prices, and presidential politics. We may even have a Triple Crown winner if the never-defeated Smarty Jones wins the

  • May 19, 2004

    Will Bill Cosby be "Clarenced?"

    by Liberty and Power

    A story in the Washington Post today indicates that Bill Cosby will soon be"Borked" (or should that be"Clarenced?"). At a ceremony at Constitution Hall marking Brown v. Board, he shocked the crowd by saying (among other things):

    "Ladies and Gentleman, the lower economic people are not holding up their end of the deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.'....They're standing on the corner and

  • May 19, 2004

    Our Atlanta-Journal Constitution Op-Ed (Emmett Till)

    by Liberty and Power

    Our op-ed arguing that the Emmett Till case is unlikely to be solved has appeared this morning in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution:

    "The federal government’s decision to reopen the Emmett Till murder case has prompted much hope that justice will finally be served. While this optimism is understandable, our three-year investigation has led us to be skeptical about solving the mystery. We found and interviewed several key witnesses, two of whom were later interviewed by filmmaker Keith A. Beau

  • May 19, 2004

    Kristof's "Nuts with Nukes"

    by Liberty and Power

    As my L&P readers are well aware, I've been recommending Nicholas D. Kristof's interesting NY Times series on Iran. Today's installment,"Nuts With Nukes," asserts in its very first line that there is only"one force that could rescue Iran's hard-line ayatollahs from the dustbin of history: us." Kristof argues that a confrontational position on Iran could embol

  • May 18, 2004

    How India Funds Bush's Campaign

    by Liberty and Power

    Asian Times May 19, 2004

    How India funds Bush's campaign

    By Siddharth Srivastava

    NEW DELHI - There is more than one reason US President George W Bush should thank Indians, whether in the United States or India, as the buildup to elections in the US slated for November gathers steam. Indians are contributing handsomely to Bush's campaign funds while, until recently, there was a band of more than 100 dedicated call-center executives who were handling Bush's fundraising and vot

  • May 18, 2004

    Imminence and Intelligence

    by Liberty and Power

    New York City television is currently blanketed with wall-to-wall coverage of the 9/11 commission hearings, which are taking place today in Manhattan. Seeing these images again of the attack on the World Trade Center, listening to a re-creation of the time-line of the events as they unfolded ... well. It's still painful, especially for those of us who lost colleagues, friends, and neighbors. Kudos to the commissio

  • May 18, 2004

    Szasz in One Lesson

    by Liberty and Power

    The following is my attempt to summarize a good deal of what Thomas Szasz has been writing and saying for nearly half a century.

    If neuroscientists discovered that mass murderers and people who claim to be Jesus had different brain chemistries from other people, most everyone would accept this as evidence that they suffered from a mental illness/brain disorder (MI/BD).

    If neuroscientists discovered that homosexuals had different brain chemistries from heterosexuals, far fewer people would accept this as evidence that they suffered from a MI/BD.

    If neuroscientists discovered that nuns had different brain chemistries from everyone else, very few people would accept this as evidence that they suffered from a MI/BD.

    If neuroscientists discovered that married men had different brain chemistries from bachelors, no one would accept this as evidence that they suffered from a MI/BD.

  • May 17, 2004

    WMD Found.... Not to Be WMD

    by Liberty and Power

    WMD found: Sarin gas causes mass destruction in Baghdad! Well, no, actually. A roadside bomb rigged with a sarin gas shell went off, and two U.S. soldiers were treated for"minor exposure." No casualties.

    Warhawk triumphalism aside, this development hurts, rather than helps, the case for war. It underscores the point that, in the main,"WMD" is a misnomer as applied to chem/bio. Moreover, it shows that, if you are worrie

  • May 17, 2004

    Hemingway on War

    by Liberty and Power

    Great care must be taken when drawing inferences about reality from works of fiction. But Ernest Hemingway offered a few lines near the end of For Whom the Bell Tolls that, when I read them, brought to mind the events in Iraq. He mentions"the despair from the sorrow that soldiers turn to hatred in order that they may continue to be soldiers." And then, even more powerfully, Hemingway insists that a soldier in battle must"get rid" of himself:"the always ridding of self that you had to do i
  • May 17, 2004

    The Spread of Al Qaeda-ism

    by Liberty and Power

    There is a really provocative discussion of Islamic philosophy going on at SOLO HQ, featuring our very own Roderick Long. Check out the dialogue here, here, and here, especially.

    Meanwhile, in response to the charges of those who argue that Al Qaeda is in Iraq,