FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: The boring bloody budget edition

Anyone have links to good Budget commentary? Because I struggled to stay awake throughout Bill’s self-justifying dirge, so failed to post my own. (And I’m betting I’m not the only one who so struggled.) How about you add good links in the comments, if you have any, and I’ll add them up here as I see them. In the meantime, while Americans were sleeping…

One measure of today’s housing crisis: Remember when a new subdivision wasn’t national news?
New subdivision gets green light – RADIO NZ

Here come more cowboys.
State houses checked for WOF – Mike Butler, BREAKING VIEWS

10 Questions for Loopy Len on his backtracking Unitary Plan.
Planning Parrot: 10 Questions for Len Brown – WHALE OIL

He’s right, you know.
Open the Door to Migrants – Luke Malpass, NZ INITIATIVE

And the real danger to opening the golden door is … ? “A US border security expert who won a Fulbright and decided to write his thesis on New Zealand’s border security … concluded the major threat to New Zealand’s borders was not terrorism but a biosecurity breach.”
Burn after reading – DIM POST

Just who would society be better off without? A disabled son, or someone saying he should be killed off “because of their cost to society?
Better Off Without You – AUTISM AND OUGHTISMS

You know, any politician could do the same today. < cough > cannabis < cough >
The Real Reason for FDR's Popularity – Mark Thornton, MISES DAILY

Allegedly.
The 25 hardest things about living in New Zealand – BUZZFEED

The truth about the death in Benghazi of US ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues is slowly emerging—with the Obama Administration delaying it at every step.

Andrew Bolt offers “10 signs that the death of the global warming scare are unmistakable. Now it's time to hold the guilty to account.”
10 Signs that warming scare is all hot air
Where are Gore’s hurricanes?
Green energy: keeping warm by burning billions of dollars
Are the satellites lying about poor, drowning Kiribati?
Look at this other drowning island, the Global Mail writer insisted. So I did…
Robyn “100 metres” Williams comes up 99.3 metres short

Windows 8 is only the beginning of Microsoft’s problems, and maybe the start of understanding creative destruction?
Microsoft blues – ECONOMIST

“Unemployable” head of BP Tony Hayward finally lands a temp job.
Ex-BP boss Tony Hayward gets life back with new job at Glencore Xstrata – HERALD SUN

A free chapter from David Stockman’s superb new book, The Great Deformation – The Corruption of Capitalism in America
New Deal Myths of Recovery – LEW ROCKWELL

A new book by every modern economists and central bankers’ hero.
How I Printed So Much Money in Zimbabwe That the Country Experienced Hyper-Inflation – EPJ

See what I mean: “Paul Krugman just endorsed the mad money printing that has been launched in Japan under the rule of the new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe…”
More For the Krugman File – EPJ

Don’t believe Chinese data, especially when it’s good.
China's Data Manipulation In One Chart, And Why The Real Data Implies Weakest GDP Growth In Over 20 Years – ZERO HEDGE

Do believe European data, especially when it’s this bad.
France Double-Dips As European Recession Is Now Longest On Record – ZERO HEDGE

A Capitol Hill briefing on copyright by a group of free-market economists, lawyers, lecturers and entrepreneurs.
CopyRIGHT: Can Free Marketeers Agree on Copyright Reform? - CEI Video

What say you, Bitcoin boosters?
US Government Begins BitCoin Crackdown – ZERO HEDGE

Yes, you too can make your own Periodic Table of Spices (above).
Magnetic Periodic Table of Herbs and Spices – INSTRUCTABLES

Did you know you can attend this July’s “Objectivist Summer Conference” in Chicago wherever in the world you are by webcast? With some great sessions in the offing—from The Politics of Pretend to Convincing the Intellectual Property Skeptic to Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910: “The First Golden Age”—you really should check it out:
Livestreaming – OBJECTIVIST SUMMER CONFERENCE, 2013

Recent historical analysis of the toxin America’s founders left subsequent generations to clean up.
Thomas Jefferson's Nightmare – HISTORY NEWS NETWORK

You know you can download whole books free at the Mises Institute, right? Like this collection of essays by Hayek, for example, including his classics like ‘The Use of Knowledge in Society’ and his contribution to the calculation debate.

She’s right, you know.
Breaking news: Stuffed Rape Culture – HAND MIRROR

An exploded view of a Frank Lloyd Wright classic…
Usonia at SCJ – WRIGHT IN RACINE

The importance of knowing your history.
Ten Things Romans Used for Toilet Paper – ROMAN MYSTERIES & WESTERN MYSTERIES

Not really the right day to be thinking about it, but if you are…
Tips for Bike Commuting to Work – BLISS TREE

Here you go:

Had enough of hearing how hard composers and musicians’ lives are? So was Rimsky-Korsakov.
Rimsky-Korsakov on the “hardship” of the composer’s life – STEPHEN HICKS

If you liked yesterday’s Ralph Vaughan-Williams, then you’ll love this:

All sorts of great things are appearing on YouTube, including long forgotten TV broadcasts of the magnificent Count Basie band like this 1965 example from the BBC, which almost on its own justifies its existence. Almost:

Oh yeah, it’s NZ Music Month. Anybody else head along to see “old timers” Danse Macabre and Penknife Glides at King’s Arms?

Brazier Noir:

[Hat tips Peter Longfield, Jazz on the Tube, ewald engelen, Geek Press]

Thanks for reading,
and have a great weekend!

PC -