Friday Ramble: The non-budget edition

Frankly, I’m sick of hearing about the goddamn budget and all the insufferable spin and lies about it.  So this latest Ramble is a goddamn budget-free zone.  Except for this:

The policies advocated by the welfare school remove the incentive
to saving on the part of private citizens. On the one hand, the measures
directed toward a curtailment of big incomes and fortunes seriously
reduce or destroy entirely the wealthier people’s power to save. On
the other hand, the sums which people with moderate incomes
previously contributed to capital accumulation are manipulated in
such a way as to channel them into the lines of consumption."
-Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action

• Given the Keynesian spend-borrow-and-hope economics of stimulunacy applied by most of the world’s governments over the last eighteen months, it was surely inevitable that their borrowing-led stimulunacy would lead inexorably to a debt-lead “sovereign debt” crisis.  And frankly, their Keynes-led lunacy wasn’t doing too much better before that either.
  Bloomberg: the past five years don’t make Keynes look good – COBDEN CENTRE
• Doug Reich explains why Europeans’ attempt to fake economic reality is doomed to failure.
      ”Market prices for securities tend to reflect the underlying fundamental value of those securities. Rather than an actual plan to cut government budget deficits by say, oh, I don't know, STOPPING SPENDING, Europeans have announced the magical creation of $1 trillion of phony money to bail out countries who are broke and can not pay their creditors. Investors have responded by selling eurocurrency and entering transactions to protect themselves from the devaluation of the currency or the default of these governments to pay their contractual obligation. Such activities allow prices to immediately reflect the true value of these instruments.”
  Germans Announce Law to Reverse Cause and Effect - Euro Drops – RATIONAL CAPITALIST
• “Trying to suppress the symptoms without addressing the causes behind the widening in the spread can only make things much worse.”
  The Eurozone Stimulus Package and Economic Fundamentals – FRANK SHOSTAK
• Remember how excited everyone was a few weeks ago when that unexpected drop in unemployment was announced. "That's the single biggest drop in the Unemployment Benefit since the recession began," Social Development Minister Paula Bennett enthused, after which everyone jumped on everyone else to say how amazing we all were,  Alan Bollard started harrumphing about raising interest rates, the NZ dollar went up, and Treasury started pretending the NZ economy was going to grow at around three percent over the next year.
  But guess what.  Now that the mainstream media has moved on to the next figment of their imagination, an Official Information Request made by blogger Lindsay Mitchell suggests that the form and content of Bennett’s announcement was deliberately deceptive, despite it being swallowed whole by nearly everyone.
  OIA response reveals real reason behind drop in the dole  - LINDSAY MITCHELL
• “There will be no real growth and development in NZ while this culture prevails.”
  Owen McShane: Three Tales of Stupidity – OWEN McSHANE
• Just while everyone is getting excited at Britain’s new political leadership, they go and announce the sort of attack on property-owners that would leave  Bernard Hickey in ecstasy.
  U.K. Capital Gains Tax Rise From 18% to 50% Would be Legalised Theft  - MIKE SHEDLOCK
• Obama has a new US defence policy.  It’s called “Hope.”
  Coulter: "Obama National Security Policy: Hope Their Bombs Don't Work" – RATIONAL CAPITALIST
• Wonder how it will work with North Korea?
  S Korea Confirms North's Torpedo Sank Warship (Killed 46) – BERNAMA
• Obama’s totalitarian credentials become more obvious by the week.  This week’s example: Obama's regulatory czar Cass Sunstein talks about requiring Internet sites to automatically post links to opposing viewpoints.
  Weasel Words From a Would Be Tyrant – NEW ZEAL
  
  
• Meanwhile, back in Venezuela, there’s more theft and disaster from Obama’s pin-up boy Hugo Chavez. Not content with arresting the country’s butchers last week for refusing to sell their meat at a loss, this week he’s nationalising a group of iron, aluminium and transportation companies for refusing to produce under threats.
  Venezuela's Chavez orders takeover of iron-makers  - BUSINESSWEEK
• Obama’s poster-boy is visibly destructive.  His latest poster-girl, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is less so. But it shouldn’t be. “What is the problem that so many liberal/left MSM pundits and columnists have with identifying the moral, political, and judicial philosophy of President Barack Obama’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan?” wonders Edward Cline. “Kagan’s positions are, if not overtly socialist, then pragmatically statist. She is for disarming Americans, she is for ‘selective’ censorship, and she worked with the Clinton administration on the first round of attempted socialized medicine. She is no friend of freedom.”
  No Friend of Freedom: Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee, Elena Kagan – CAPITALISM MAGAZINE
• Stephen Hicks outlines how Kagan can seemingly be both for free speech and against it--a position that would make Lewis Carroll want to write about it.
  Kagan, the Supreme Court, and regulated speech – STEPHEN HICKS

Today’s debate about global warming is essentially a debate about
freedom. The environmentalists would like to mastermind each
and every possible (and impossible) aspect of our lives.”
- Vaclav Klaus, Blue Planet in Green Shackles

• Former NZ Minister of Energy, and of Science & Technology Barry Brill explains why New Zealand’s temperature record is hopelessly compromised.
  Crisis in New Zealand climatology: The warming that wasn't – QUADRANT
• Here’s another relatively rational look at NZ’s leaking home problem, by a chap called Ken Collins:
  Leaky Buildings – Part 1 – How did we get here. – THE SCIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE
• No-one has been more of a thorn in the side to ClimateGate’s biggest villains than Canadian mathematician Steve McIntyre. So check out McIntyre’s presentation to the recent Heartland Institute conference ‘Reconsidering the Science and Economics of Climate Change,’ including an outline of the ‘hide-the-decline’ trick.
  Heartland Presentation – CLIMATE AUDIT
• [Click through for all three parts]
• To get some idea of why McIntyre upsets The Team so much, read one of his most recent pieces re-examining the way the IPCC team decided that “1998 was the warmest year in the millennium.”
  AR4 on “1998 was the warmest year” – CLIMATE AUDIT
• By the way, this was voted best handout at the conference.
  

• Specially for reader Julian, a meditation on the saying “"If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport."
  If You Never Miss a Plane... – BRYAN CAPLAN
• If you’ve spent any time here at all at NOT PC, you’ll know I’m very supportive of Montessori  education. So here’s a great page of links from Montessori trainer Susan Stephenson’s site giving you a full idea of what’s out there on the net to help you out with your Montessori adventure.
  The Montessori Method of educating & raising children to develop their fullest potential – SUSAN STEPHENSON
• But as you might also be aware,  when choosing a Montessori school for your child it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find one that is actually a genuine Montessori school, and not just a Monte-Something school with Dr Montessori’s name on the signboard. This excellent two-part Canadian TV report will sharpen your critical faculty when seeking out a school for your child, and give you some idea of what to look for if you want the genuine article.

• Noelle McCarthy defends Kiri Te Kanawa’s outburst in favour of great singing, which caught in its crossfire SuBo, i.e., the “singing pudding belting out show tunes.”
  Don't take Dame Kiri on - she's made of steel – NOELLE McCARTHY
• If you disagree with Kiri, d’you really think either Susan Boyle or Hayley Westernblah could sing like this? (Or look as good in extra-widescreen?)

• If liberals understand that abortion is no business of the state, but a matter of choice between a woman and her doctor, why don’t they apply that principle in the wider context?
   Abortion-Only Laissez-Faire? – PRINCIPLED PERSPECTIVES
• The elephant in the room when it comes to the debate on Arizona’s new anti-immigrant laws is drugs, specifically the War on Drugs.  Cato steps into the breach.
  A Forceful Call For Change From El Paso – CATO
• Arizona’s attack on immigrants is, or should be, a litmus test for freedom-lovers.
  The Arizona Litmus Test – FUN WITH GRAVITY
• However, Arizona’s new anti-immigrant laws have certainly flushed out (again) the fact that when it comes to freedom, conservatives are firmly opposed.
  On Immigration, Too Many Conservatives Oppose Liberty – ARI ARMSTRONG
• I wonder if this might change their minds?  Or just start them to boil over. ;^)

• So what’s the Objectivist view of immigration? Here’s a(nother) quick look.
  Immigration - DIANA HSIEH
• Specially for Draw Mohammed Day yesterday, I’m reposting this classic Cox& Forkum cartoon:

• And courtesy of Craig Ceely, an easy way to make every day a Draw Mohammed Day—and every email a Drawn Mohammed Email.  I give you, the Mohammed Emoticon:
          (((:~(>
  Dim, Maybe...But Not Dhimmi – LADY’S MAID JEWELS
• For some reason or other, I can’t get this tune out of my head.  Which seems only appropriate, I guess. “He’s got the rhythm in his head.”

• Yes, “rhythm is our business.”  Take it away Jimmy Lunceford
  
  
• And since the theme is rhythm . . . it surely “don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”
  
  

Have a great weekend!
PC