Friday Morning Ramble…

“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the
collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
- H. L. Mencken

Sean Plunket invites Rawshark/WhaleDump to phone in. Kim DotCon makes the call.
Kim Dotcom takes his right of reply, calls Sean Plunket – RADIO LIVE

“Labour candidate hopeful and Massey University tax lecturer Deborah Russell has blogged a piece to allay our fears over Labour’s proposed capital gains tax (CGT), which she says is a fair tax. Only, as you will see from our correspondence with her, my fears are only heightened.”
Practical Example of How Unfair Labour’s CGT Will Be – Houses Brought Pre-CGT. You Need to Read This. – Mark Hubbard, LIFE BEHIND THE IRON DRAPE

“The last time death duty existed in New Zealand was 1992. It appears that Labour are looking to reintroduce it but under another name with far more complexity.”
Labour's CGT a death duty in drag – Ben Craven, TAXPAYER’S UNION

“Labour will have an "Expert panel" work out the detail of the Capital Gains Tax post election.  So what else are they planning…”
Labour: Commissions and expert panels for Africa – LINDSAY MITCHELL

“The proposal from the Labour Party to spend $100 million to give Christchurch a commuter rail service is so utterly ludicrous that it deserves ridicule.”
Commuter rail for Christchurch? Cheaper buying them each a Porsche – LIBERTY SCOTT

Seems a reasonable summary.
The Whale Oil scandal – LINDSAY MITCHELL

“Horrendous charges led to ex-husband’s death, widow believes.”
IRD demand 'the final straw' – NZ HERALD

Brent Ritchie: “In my house when debt is getting too high we don't go on holidays and increase the kids' pocket money…”

POPULAR POSTS THIS WEEK:

• “Some of the most serious allegations I’ve seen…”
• The #1 reason for #dirtypolitics: the barrenness of the "centre-right"
• Smart green failure
• CGT questions
• Labour’s Kiwibuild policy "will quickly run out of money"
• Leading Keynesian Economist Uses The “D” Word
• Amy Adams’s meddling dirtier than the dairying
• The drums are beating again to censor free speech
• Posts on Judith Collins

 

“Historically in Washington, the Treasury and the Fed take care of the dollar. The Pentagon and the Intelligence Community take care of other threats, but what happens when the dollar IS the threat?”
Jim Rickards: The Coming 25-Year Great Depression – MONEY MORNING

“Paul Krugman has not shown that markets should be regulated; he has shown that his MO is to misrepresent the nature of free markets…”
Paul Krugman: Master of the Straw-Man Fallacy – Ari Armstrong, OBJECTIVE STANDARD

“In recent months talking heads, disappointed with the lack of economic recovery, have turned their attention to wages. If only wages could grow, they say, there would be more demand for goods and services: without wage growth, economies will continue to stagnate. … The underlying error is to fail to understand that economising individuals make things in order to be able to buy things.”
The wages-fuel-demand fallacy – Alasdair Macleod, COBDEN CENTRE

The reason anti-patent advocates don’t think they have the burden of proof is they have been taught the economic anti-concept of so-called ‘pure and perfect competition’ is the goal of capitalism.  “Some of these people even think that perfect competition is the definition of capitalism.  Perfect competition is inconsistent with the condition necessary for real per capita economic growth, is inconsistent with all property rights, has nothing to do with capitalism, is anti-mind, anti-invention, anti-patent.”
Intellectual Property, Innovation and Economic Growth – Dale Halling, STATE OF INNOVATION

“You can't be for big government, big taxes, and big
bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.”
- Ronald Reagan

“Wind energy development in the United States has slumped. Despite record installations in 2012, and eking out a 1-year, $12 billion extension[1] of the wind production tax credit (PTC), new wind capacity last year fell to just 1,087 megawatts, a level not seen in more than a decade…
    “ This slump, like others that plagued development in prior years, can be traced directly to generous government assistance, current energy prices, and the inherent limitations of wind power.”
Big Wind’s Last Gasp – Lisa Linowes, MASTER RESOURCE

“Wind and solar power are industries that are destined to remain in their infancy, if not forever, then certainly for the indefinite future.”
Why Renewable Energy is Hopeless – John Hinderaker, POWERLINE

“The nearly two-decade long pause in global warming may just be the tip of the iceberg for evidence against anthropogenic climate change
Study: The Lower Troposphere Has Not Warmed In The Last 26 Years – DAILY CALLER

“National Geographic Magazine had a Global Warming issue in September 2004. New instruments have given new data. By planning now, NatGeo can make a revised issue 10 years later, in September 2014.” Here’s how it might look…
National Geographic’s Warming Warning – 10 Years Later – WATTS UP WITH THAT

“The speech by former US Vice-President Al Gore was apocalyptic. ‘The North Polar ice cap is falling off a cliff,’ he said. ‘It could be completely gone in summer in as little as seven years. Seven years from now.’
Those comments came in 2007 as Mr Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigning on climate change.
But seven years after his warning, … far from vanishing, the Arctic ice cap has expanded for the second year in succession – with a surge, depending on how you measure it, of between 43 and 63 per cent since 2012.
Myth of Arctic meltdown – MAIL ON SUNDAY

“In 1986, scientist James Hansen told Congress that the US had warmed 1-2 degrees since 1958, but his own graph showed no warming since 1958, and cooling since the 1930s.”
Hansen – Lying To Congress For Almost 30 Years – Steven Goddard, REAL SCIENCE

No, they’re not primarily environmentalists either.
Environmental hypocrisy? Greenpeace embarrassed by leaders’ jet-setting carbon footprint – WASHINGTON TIMES

“The opposite of Racism is Individualism.”
- Will Spencer

“It’s not always obvious what the right principles are. But the fact that violent religious fundamentalists who blow up private property and harm innocent people are clearly on the wrong side of things should be obvious, even to Obama.”
Why Obama Has No Strategy for ISIS – DR HURD.COM

“The libertarian case for intervention against ISIS…”
Rand Paul’s Fatal Pacifism – Richard Epstein, HOOVER INSTITUTION

“The author of this article on immigration is being accused of "allowing enemies to come here to destroy us." In his defence, the only ones doing that are those who want to import a deadly alien ideology: the notion that the government should be the arbitrator of ideas.”
Immigration for Conservatives and Republicans – VOLTAIRE PRESS

“No need for ISIS. The West is beheading itself and Obama is sharpening the knife.”
The Reformation of Manners – Mark Steyn, STEYN ONLINE

“Brutal men in northern England—predominantly Muslim immigrants from Pakistan—(allegedly) sexually abused some 1,400 girls—but that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as Raymond Ibrihim writes for Front Page. Muslims have also raped and otherwise brutalised women in Australia and Nigeria, not to mention the Middle East…. the sexual abuse of ‘infidel’ women is built into Islamic theology.”
Muslims Sexually Enslaving Children: A Global Phenomenon – Raymond Ibrahim, FRONT PAGE

“Hundreds of Yazidi women abducted by ISIS have either been sold or handed out to members of the Sunni extremist group.”
U.S. military carries out airstrikes, aid drops to Iraqi town surrounded by ISIS - CNN

From which countries do foreign fighters in Syria hail?

“By one reckoning, the cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel might seem like an even stalemate. But in fact it’s lopsided in Hamas’s favour.”
Gaza truce open-ended, but puts off tough issues – WASHINGTON POST

“Stop Israeli Occupation of Gaza?  Well, guess what: Israel DOES NOT occupy Gaza.  It left Gaza in 2005, pulling out all its soldiers and leaving all its settlements.  So who DOES occupy Gaza?  Hamas.”

“It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.”
Mission Creep: When Everything Is Terrorism – Michael Schneier, SCHNEIER ON SECURITY

“Buchanan, while admirably loyal, ignores the correlation between Nixon’s embrace of paper money and Paine’s prophetic call for impeachment for that high crime. Let us now, in this month of the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation and the 43rd of his abandonment of the gold standard, pause to wonder…”
Did “The Nixon Shock” Lead to Nixon’s Resignation? – Ralph Benko, COBDEN CENTRE

“Like his Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, Larry Page attended Montessori schools until he entered high school. They both cite the educational method of Maria Montessori as the major influence in how they designed Google’s work systems.”
How Google's Larry Page became a responsible entrepreneur – GUARDIAN

Australian research shows children attending a Montessori school rate higher than the national average in physical health and well-being; social competence; emotional maturity; language and cognitive skills; and communication skills and general knowledge.
2012 Australian Early Development Index – MONTESSORI AUSTRALIA FOUNDATION [11-page pdf]

“There is a scientific reason certain people thrive more than others.”
The Brains of Successful vs. Unsuccessful People Actually Look Very Different – NEWS.MIC

“Don’t miss out – come and hear world leading Paediatric Neuropsychologist Dr Steve Hughes present
‘Igniting the Flame Within – Montessori Education & the Development of the Self,’ on Thursday September 11th at 7.00p.m.
Igniting the Flame Within – Montessori Education & the Development of the Self – MMEF

“The ‘adjunct crisis’ has not grown out of the so-called corporatisation of the university. Instead, the crisis is largely a product of the very assumption [that] universities across the nation have swallowed: that research is valuable as an end in itself.”
The Cause of the Adjunct Crisis: How a Research Focus is Destroying Higher Education – Thomas Duke, UNDERCURRENT

Considering studying for the AMI Montessori 3-6 Diploma starting in Auckland this summer?  Watch this video about AMI teacher training, it's a must see!

The chairless chair!

Dale Halling: Why Rand Choose Inventor as Galt’s Profession…

A man about whom the truism is perfectly apposite: he was both a gentleman and a scholar. Rare but true. His book The Aristotle Adventure especially is eye-opening, and a unique work of scholarship. His incisive yet gentlemanly brand of intellectual activism will be sorely missed.
Burgess Laughlin, July 4, 1944 - August 29, 2014 – STUDY GROUPS FOR OBJECTIVISTS
Burgess Laughlin: A Man who Made Progress – Craig Biddle, OBJECTIVE STANDARD
"If I were to select the most salient feature of his writings, it would be his vision of Heroism among the intellectuals" – Rohin Gupta

The latest fashionable conservative smear on Ayn Rand.
Is Ayn Rand Utopian – VOICES FOR REASON

“Life is an adventure, and New York is the place to have it."
Read Joan Rivers's Sweet Ode to New York City – VULTURE

“"At my funeral, I want Meryl Streep crying in five different accents."
Joan Rivers: The best jokes to remember the comedian – INDEPENDENT

Learning Swedish, with fart jokes.
14 Swedish words that give me the giggles – Kristin Lund, SWEDEN.SE/BLOGS

“The craft beer trend is growing fast. Is it all froth and fashion, or a real moneymaker?”
Craft beer market bubbling – Christopher Adams, NZ HERALD

“Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions.”
- Frank Lloyd Wright

The Martin Bradbury Guide to online debate:

[Hat tips Maria Montessori Education Foundation, Chris Heasley, Stephen Hicks, Anoop Verma, Per-Olof Samuelsson, im Matzger, Famous-Quote.net, Jim Rose, Mark Hubbard, Roger Simon, Cathy, The Anti Al Gore, Climate Change Fraud, DRUDGE REPORT, Atheist Revolution, Ari Armstrong, Geek Press, Voices for Reason, Eastwood]

Thanks for reading.
Have a great weekend!
PC

PS: If you have spare time on the weekend, consider this…