Friday Morning Ramble, 14.10.16

 

 

 

 

The rest is leftist drivel, but let this never be forgotten: “In their time in office, National has tripled New Zealand's debt from $31.4 to $93.9 billion… If National gives away the surplus in tax cuts [or more welfare], the debt Bill English built up will never be repaid.”
"Fiscal prudence" – NO RIGHT TURN
A booming surplus – KIWIBLOG
The surplus isn't really a surplus at all – Andrew Dickens, NEWSTALK ZB

“Helen Kelly didn’t take her medical cannabis before we came to see her last Friday…”
Helen – Russell Brown, HARD NEWS

Both Ministers Mallard and Smith gave the grey ones everything they wanted in the way of regulation and “qualification,” and lo…
New Zealand second most expensive country for childcare – NZ HERALD

Eric Crampton: “The 2009 regs came in under NZ National Party, who had just finished campaigning on an anti-nanny state ticket.”
Award-winning artisan cheese maker says red tape is killing the industry – NZ HERALD
Safety cheese – Eric Crampton, INSIGHTS

“It seems clear the banks have shifted their appetite for risk to a more conservative position.”
Are the banks bracing for a storm? – Liam Dann, HERALD

“[Ardern] was a pig in muck canoodling with Campbell. But her grasp of the wider context of historical child poverty was woefully lacking.”
Judith Collins telling it as she sees it – LINDSAY MITCHELL

“Of course the media chased down all the hand wringers and bleeding hearts, who have never had to make a hard decision about tax payer dollars, to get the predictable reproof.
    “It's hard to know where the condemnation was going but it seemed to suggest that parenting wasn't much of factor in child poverty which wasn't what Collins was saying at all.
    “Just to recap….”
This is how you fix child poverty in NZ – Martin Van Beynen, STUFF

 

“When you subsidise poverty and
failure, you get more of both.”
~- James Dale Davidson

 

"It is almost as if 2016 were designed to make a point: it is the ultimate rebuke of the attempt to find salvation in politics, and it invites us to look to the state of our own souls."
Donald Trump Vs. Hillary Clinton: Choose Your Sexual Predator – Robert Tracinksi, THE FEDERALIST

“Americans aren’t nearly as polarised as Trump and Clinton might think.”
Take a Deep Breath, Voters. There Is a Third Way – Gary Johnson, NEW YORK TIMES

“Gary Johnson polls first post-debate.”
Poll: Who won the presidential debate? – WASHINGTON TIMES

“As recently as September 15, Donald Trump pledged to end all new federal regulation until a review of regulation, its costs and benefits, can be completed. The issue of regulation, it would seem, is once again ‘in play.’”
Isn’t $1.9 Trillion A Year Lost to Federal Regulations Enough? – SAVVY STREET

Both leading candidates hide from the truth…
What candidates won't say in public – John Stossel, CHRON
The Illuminating but Unsurprising Content of Clinton’s Paid Speeches – NEW YORKER

 

“Authority has always attracted the lowest
elements in the human race. All through
history mankind has been bullied by scum.”
~ P.J. O'Rourke

 

“Trump/Clinton tax plans: Some will pay more, some will pay less and the debt will continue to be outta control.”
A Comparison of Presidential Tax Plans and Their Economic Effects – TAX FOUNDATION

Donald Trump needs to read this along with every single one of his supporters – and advisers.
There Are No 'Myths' Or Exceptions About Free Trade: It's Always Unrelentingly Good – John Tamny, FORBES

“Just imagine that you are 20 years old. You have only known the digital age. This election year is your first introduction to real-time politics. The top two presidential contenders are speaking about a world that has very little to do with anything you have ever experienced. You are looking for something different.”
What Every 20-Year Old Should Know about Liberty – Jeffrey Tucker, FEE

“Mike Rowe: Spend a few hours every week studying American history, human nature, and economic theory.
Start with Economics in One Lesson.”
Economics in One Lesson – MISES.ORG

Why bother with press releases?…
"We have had her tee up stories for us before and have never been disappointed." – WIKILEAKS

Wrong tense? “Lots of journalists, including myself, worry about what happens when the public broadly loses faith in the media.”
The fact-checkers keep destroying fact-checking – Timothy Carney, WASHINGTON EXAMINER

“Clinton team instructed DNC with strategic goal of ‘elevating’ Trump two months before he declared his candidacy.”
Pied Piper Candidates... – WIKILEAKS
Excerpts of Hillary Clinton’s Paid Speeches to Goldman Sachs Finally Leaked, Trump hit with self inflicted right cross – AGAINST CRONY CAPITALISM

“Podesta said Obama's Iran deal will lead to nuclear war.”
"This agreement condemns the net generation to cleaning up a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf." – WIKILEAKS

“I would like to take this opportunity to praise Wikileaks Hillary, who is a lot better than Public Hillary…”
”I would be even more a fan of Wiki-Hillary if I could be sure that she represents Real World Hillary's true agenda” – Ilya Somin, FACEBOOK

“If Clinton is serious about addressing corporate short-termism, then she should support loosening Washington’s grip on America’s economy. Instead, many, if not most, of her policy proposals would only tighten it further.”
Short-Term Government Built Short-Term Capitalism – John Allison, CATO

“Why does the NewYork Times support a candidate they consider to be a congenital liar?”

“It's not a new Cold War. It's not even a deep chill. It's an outright conflict.”
Russia, US move past Cold War to unpredictable confrontation – CNN

Russia's used environmental groups to cripple the U.S. fracking industry to keep oil prices high, since virtually the only viable Russia industry and source of government revenue is oil.
Hillary Clinton Email: Russia Funding “Phony” Green Groups – WATTS UP WITH THAT

"“I’m done with the U.S.,” Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani’s wife told him on Friday …Usmani, twice a Fulbright Scholar and an award-winning computer scientist who uses big data to save lives from terror attacks. . . . "
A Muslim Family Fled America This Week – HUFFINGTON POST

Scotland. The welfare State.
Scottish deficit is twice that of the UK and higher than Greece – UK TAXPAYER’S ALLIANCE

The king is dead. Long live his prisoners.
Man jailed for 30 years in Thailand for insulting the monarchy on Facebook – GUARDIAN

“Fresh evidence that the key divide in politics is between the generations, not the classes: the case of UK pensions.”
How the triple lock pension pledge went out of control – Fraser Nelson, SPECTATOR

“As technology reduces transaction costs, the nature of work and the role of the firm are changing. Decades-old government regulations inhibit the market's ability to respond.”
Work Is Changing for the Better, and Government Is Trying to Hold It Back – Iain Murray,FEE

“You commit the ages-old fallacy of judging the worth of firms and industries according to how many workers they employ rather than according to how well they enhance human well-being by increasing the production of consumer goods and services.”
Oh How I Wish that Julian Simon Were Still Alive – Don Boudreaux, CAFE HAYEK

”He loves the real world – and I can understand his conviction of the sheer fakeness of the world imagined by politicians. Henry Hazlitt shared that same view, and this comes through in the text.”
Why Does Mike Rowe Love This Economics Book? – Jeffrey Tucker, FEE

“It is the 59th anniversary of the publication of Ayn Rand's novel, AtlasShrugged. What sometimes goes unappreciated by readers of the novel is the extent to which Ayn Rand targeted business people as potentially the most egregious saboteurs of freedom. It is no exaggeration to say that Atlas can function as a guide to how the corporate state works.”
Atlas Shrugged and the Corporate State – Sheldon Richman, FEE

“You can’t make people equal without the power to force them to be equal, which means taxing their incomes, restricting their choices and regulating their behavior. It’s no coincidence that Thomas Piketty wants to impose a punitive tax of 80% on incomes above $500,000. He’s not interested in funding social programmes; he just wants to confiscate the wealth…”
Inequality and money in politics – Steve Simpson, VOICES FOR REASON

Contra Piketty …
More than 2/3 of this year's Forbes 400 built their fortunes from scratch – FORBES

“I think it’s important to correct this mistake because it has had a big impact on Britain’s reputation around the world.”
David Cameron’s ex-Strategy Man Calls For Amber Rudd To Be Sacked Over Plan To List Foreign Workers – HUFFINGTON POST (UK)

And Keynesians and modern macro types keep insisting business debt = economic growth …

 

Jones et al., 2016: “[C]limate model simulations that include anthropogenic forcing are not compatible with the observed trends. This suggests thatnatural variability overwhelms the forced response in the observations, but the models may not fully represent this natural variability or may overestimate the magnitude of the forced response.”
Scientists: ‘Climate Model Simulations That Include Anthropogenic Forcing Are Not Compatible With Observed Trends’ – Kenneth Richard, NO TRICKS ZONE

“Arctic sea ice defies Al Gore.”
Experts said Arctic sea ice would melt entirely by September 2016 - they were wrong – TELEGRAPH

“Why we need separation of science and state.”
Is Modern Science Polluted? – Patrick MIchaels, CATO

“If this only shows how dottily desperate some of our wilder climate alarmists have become, we may come back to earth a little by focusing on another version of the great climate scare which also got The Guardian very excited eight years ago, when it launched a campaign  under the heading ‘The final countdown.’This proclaimed that we then had only ‘100 months’ left to save the world from ‘irreversible climate change’: soaring temperatures, melting ice caps, dangerously rising sea levels, more hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, and all the other familiar harbingers of catastrophe.”
The Guardian's '100 months to save the planet' was always just a fantasy – Christopher Booker,TELEGRAPH

“Time for tilting at windmills is at an end (South Australian blackout shows need for energy security instead of windmills).”
South Australia’s Wind Power Debacle: Blackout Spells the End for Wind Power – STOP THESE THINGS

 

“Can any of you seriously say the Bill of
Rights could get through Congress today?
It wouldn't even get out of committee.”
~ F. Lee Bailey

 

“Affordable and abundant energy is the cornerstone of human progress.”
The moral case for civilization’s use of fossil fuels – Alex Epstein, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

“Smarmy and excruciatingly wearisome, DiCaprio is a hypocritical nag who has the carbon footprint of a small Third World country.”
Note To Leonardo DiCaprio: Maybe Actors Shouldn't Be Pretend Intellectuals, Either – Kerry Jackson, INVESTORS.COM

“On Indigenous Peoples Day, let’s stop promoting simplistic myths about Native Americans as the ‘original conservationists’ and start recognizing their rich institutional heritage that encouraged resource conservation.”
Native Americans Loved Private Property – Terry Anderson, FEE

“In 1980 an ecologist and an economist chose a refreshingly unacademic way to resolve their differences. They bet $1,000. Specifically, the bet was over the future price of five metals, but at stake was much more -- a view of the planet's ultimate limits, a vision of humanity's destiny. It was a bet between the Cassandra and the Dr. Pangloss of our era.”
Cornucopians vs. Malthusians – ROGER PIELKE JR.’S BLOG
26th anniversary of Julian Simon/Paul Erlich bet – UTOPIA…

“Some dreams have more cylinders than others…”:

 

“It’s inevitable. Whenever I attack Social Security [i.e., social welfare] as an immoral institution that needs to be abolished, someone announces that my arguments are irrelevant because Ayn Rand was a hypocrite who took Social Security…
    “What most people don’t realise — and what surely is relevant to the debate — is that Rand herself argued that opposing Social Security and cashing Social Security checks is not hypocritical.”
Onkar Ghate on Ayn Rand and Social Security – VOICES FOR REASON

Louise Lamontagne: “No, it is not capitalism that made this happen, it is government involvement in education, medicine and the economy that did.”
Big Pharma's Manufactured Epidemic: The Misdiagnosis of ADHD – SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

How to stop cyclists being “doored”? One simple behavioural change: the ‘Dutch Reach.’
Slamming the Door on "Dooring" – GUS VAN HORN

“After recently experiencing the standard question from a well meaning authority, ‘so how does Montessori support Imagination?"
Creativity and Montessori Education – MARIA MONTESSORI.COM

“This book has nothing to do with coming-of-age issues, rather it is a ‘hippie discovers communism’ kind of story.”
Che Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries: A Hippie Discovers Communism and Becomes a Monster – Anoop Verma, CAPITALISM MAGAZINE

“In 1931, Shaw advocated the extermination of unproductive human beings…”
The Intellectual Guerrilla Warfare of George Bernard Shaw – THE VERMA POST

 

“The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have
his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends.”
~ Ludwig von Mises

 

“At least one in three Europeans and untold millions in Asia died. What was the source of this brutal, lethal efficiency?”
What caused the Black Death and could it strike again? - Wendy Orent, AEON

“The study’s findings appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and to the surprise of no one (except science-denying loons), there was no link between vaccines and autism.”
Anti-vaxxer group furious after study they funded debunks vaccine-autism link – DEAD STATE

Rafe Champion: “A long interview with Deirdre McCloskey explaining why she wrote three thick books to rescue the productive people and the decent values which have made us prosperous and free from the “often idiotic” abuse from socialists and economic illiterates at large.”
”Q: Why did you decide to write a trilogy about the bourgeois?” – Deirdre McCloskey, IL GIORNALE

“In this installment of the Ayn Rand Institute’s podcast series on A Companion to Ayn Rand, Tara Smith, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, discusses the chapter she authored, “Objective Law.”
Inside A Companion to Ayn Rand: #4, Tara Smith on Objective Law – AYN RAND CAMPUS

 

 

“Why is Roark attracted to Dominique? After all, she has no worth, no career that she loves, and she goes out of her way to destroy her highest values, such as Roark. What rational man would want someone so self-destructive?”
Why is Roark attracted to Dominique? – Leonard Peikoff, PEIKOFF.COM

““You would never put fake books on your bookshelf, so why would you put fake art on your walls?”
13 Reasons Why Original Art in the Home is as Important as Bed – STUDIO SIXTY-SIX

The best films to watch for free on British Pathé online – TELEGRAPH

“Some are inspiring and some are surprising, but all give a small insight into the mental qualities that are required to be reach the peak of the architectural profession.”
The Strange Habits of Top Architects – ARCH DAILY

“’Brevity comes from selection, not compression.’”
As American editors sharpen their pencils, some advice on writing short – Roy Peter Clark, POYNTER

“[Lou’s widow] Laurie Anderson has put together a playlist of Lou Reed originals. Listen and read why Laurie picked each song..”
Laurie Anderson's Playlist Reveals The Real Lou Reed - NME

“A piercingly dark piece of writing, taking the heart of a Dickens or Dostoevsky novel and carving away all the rest, Ernest Hemingway’s six-word story—fabled forerunner of flash- and twitter-fiction—is shorter than many a story’s title…”
The (Urban) Legend of Ernest Hemingway’s Six-Word Story... – OPEN CULTURE

Kipling, Yeats, Eliot, Hemingway … Dylan?!
“Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize for Literature for creating ‘new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’.” Don’t mention ‘Wiggle, Wiggle.’
Bob Dylan's most famous lyrics – BBC NEWS

The Guardian live blogs…
Nobel prize in literature won by Bob Dylan – as it happened – GUARDIAN

“Even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked…”

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Johnny Hodges

 

Blast off!

 

And finally

 

[Hat tips etc. Tim Murphy, A.E. Samaan, Sport Review, Phil Oliver, MattNippert, NIRP Umbrella, J. Neil Schulman, MiamiGator, British Pathé, Famous-Quote.net, hockey schtick, William Gerber, Steve Goddard, Jim Rose, Frank Furedi, Wilhelm Scream, Eric Crampton, ArrestJK, Wagner Clemente Soto, David Bus Baird, John Mc, Niall Ferguson, Neville Vedder , Scott Nelson, Capitalism Magazine, Gov. Gary Johnson, Edward J Czajka, Marijuana, Inc. , Levan Ramishvili, Berend de Boer, Garry Kasparov, Eric Boehm, Yaron Brook, Matthew Yglesias, WikiLeaks, Natalie Fraehlich, Climate Realists, Robert Tracinski, Don Watkins , John Shepard, Hugo Schmidt, For The New Intellectuals, Louise Lamontagne, Bastiat Institute, Vinay Kolhatkar, Duke Ellington Central/TDES New York', Walter Donway, Michael Strong, Philosophy Matters, Lou Reed, Maria Montessori Education Foundation, Jason Monaghan, Alex Epstein, Marvin Adams, Michael Earley, Andrew Sheldon]

Have a great weekend!
PC

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