On Saturday Dec 24th, an important voice in the cause of freedom was silenced. Siobhan Reynolds, founder of the Pain Relief Network, tireless foe of the monsters promoting the War on (Some) Drugs, and the financially ruined victim of secret court proceedings that outrage the conscience and will rightly be held in infamy in coming [...]

The hacker or whistle-blower who leaked a tranche of emails several years ago has struck again, releasing 5,500 emails and an encrypted set of 22,000 emails into the Internet. The emails are worth studying in full, because they raise very serious questions about the credibility of the IPCC, the journals publishing papers on climatology, the government scientific bodies commissioning research into climate and the news organizations covering them. Moreover, the emails call into disrepute the assertion, frequently made, that the warming of the climate over the past century is known to be “unprecedented”. While it is possible that it is unprecedented, we do not know this for certain, since the proofs advanced are provably flawed.

  H/T Facebook user I bet Ludwig von Mises can get more fans than John Maynard Keynes’s

The Standards and Poor rating service has downgraded the U.S. Federal Government’s bonds to AA+ status. This action long overdue does not go far enough. To understand the meaning of this, we should first understand the meaning of the S&P ratings. The ratings indicate several things: 1) The likelihood of a default – the debtor [...]

I highly recommend XKCD, a webcomic devoted to romance, sarcasm, math and language. Today’s comic forces people to choose between attacking capitalism and their favorite superstition. Enjoy!

Hal Lewis has resigned from the American Physical Society, disgusted by their embrace of the lucrative fraud that underlays much of the research into Anthropogenic Global Warming. His resignation  letter is worth reading in full:

Like her ideological forebears from the last century, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is angry that businessmen who are eager to avoid a loss are raising prices. From the LA Times, Anthem Blue Cross asked to justify controversial rate hikes : The Obama administration called on Anthem Blue Cross on Monday to [...]

I regularly read the Science Based Medicine Blog since it is an interesting combination of intelligent, rational examination of medicine and the naive monstrous morals of a toddler. This week’s column by Dr Steven Novella does not disappoint. The good doctor reviews the medical impact of modern sodium consumption and states: As usual, the medical [...]

One of the most pernicious effects of the Bismarkian Welfare State is the infantilization of society, the destruction of adulthood. This infantilization renders people incapable of caring for themselves. It places them in a state of permanent dependence. Unable to live without the state, people are put in a position where resistance to the rulers, [...]

Fortunately for humanity and the civilization that sustains it, Barack Obama stayed true to his record of incompetence and failure, messing up the talks at Copenhagen.  The talks have ended with nothing more than yet another agreement to meet again in a few years’ time. His last ditch instructions to Hillary Clinton, which led to [...]

We will probably never know precisely why the senior staff at the Climate Research Unit decided to quit being scientists in order to take up the profession of Cargo Cult Scientist. It could be the celebrity of being known as leading researchers. It could be a genuine fear that if they didn’t lie, humanity would make the “wrong” decision and render the Earth uninhabitable. It could be a totalitarian desire to rework society according to blue-prints that were pleasing to them. It could be because they wanted the lucrative grant money. It could be that they feared being viewed as has-been or never-were hacks.

What we can tell, though, is that their fraud was predicated on their inexhaustible supply of grants from governments, grants that transferred an uninterruptible stream of taxes into their coffers. The system was such that these Cargo Cult scientists were able to establish themselves as authorities, and suborn the skeptical review of and replication of their work, and, for a time, act in an environment that lacked negative consequences for their misconduct. That is, until someone blew the whistle.

But the special function of certain Newspeak words, of which oldthink was one, was not so much to express meanings as to destroy them. These words, necessarily few in number, had had their meanings extended until they contained within themselves whole batteries of words which, as they were sufficiently covered by a single comprehensive term, [...]

Excerpt from War is a Racket by Major General Smedley Butler USMC [The] soldier pays the biggest part of the bill. If you don’t believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran’s hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of [...]

The governator sent a letter to the California State Assembly where he, er, told them he would “strike” them. Carnally. To the Members of the California State Assembly: I am returning Assembly Bill 1176 without my signature. For some time now I have lamented the fact that major issues are overlooked while manyunnecessary bills come [...]

… patients are an expense or liability to be gotten rid of rather than a source of profit who must be served. Much of the problems with government supplied health care can be traced to this truth concerning incentives.  A hospital is not paid more if they treat people well.  They don’t lose money if [...]

Yesterday the Nobel Prize Committee insulted the Great Helmsman, President Barack Obama by awarding yet another prize to an unworthy second rater while ignoring the Great Helmsman’s dramatic contributions in every field.  Our dear leader wrote the two greatest books in modern civilization. These books are an inspiration to all of us who are his [...]

Continuing his George Costanzaesque presidency, Obama has decided to reappoint Ben “Helicopter” Bernanke to another term on the Fed. Here’s what Obama had to say: Ben approached a financial system on the verge of collapse with calm and wisdom; with bold action and outside-the-box thinking that has helped put the brakes on our economic freefall [...]

For decades the cost of medical care has risen relative to prices in general and relative to people’s incomes. Today [1994] a semi-private hospital room typically costs $1,000 to $1,500 per day, exclusive of all medical procedures, such as X-rays, surgery, or even a visit by one’s physician. Basic room charges of $500 per day [...]

Over at the Agitator, Radley Balko asks why people are amused by Bob Dylan’s latest run-in with the law. I find it pretty depressing. There was a time when we condescendingly used the term “your papers, please” to distinguish ourselves from Eastern Block countries and other authoritarian states. Post-Hiibel, America has become a place where [...]

Yet another great letter by Don Boudreaux: Dear Olivia Jane: You and many readers of Daily Kos are furious that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey expressed – in the pages of the Wall Street Journal – his opposition to greater government involvement in health care. Exercising your rights and abilities as consumers, you are therefore [...]