As said before, much “ink” has been spilled on these “pages” to discuss the libertarian response to the tea parties. Several of us have suggested that while we’re happy the partiers have regained their allegiance to small government and fiscal conservatives, we’ve thought it a bit strange that these folks seem to come out of [...]

Our prison system, holding nearly 25% of the worlds reported prisoners, may seem like an April fool’s joke but certainly is not a laughing matter. I’m in the early stages of writing a post in response to Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) recent article in Parade entitled: Why We Must Fix Our Prisons. Sen. Webb is [...]

Two weeks ago, the Dow hit a major low at 6440, closing slightly higher. This made a lot of sense to me, given the fundamentals of the economy. In fact, I nearly posted a rather snide article on CNBC “calling the bottom” that morning. But then things changed. The Dow has been on a tear [...]

Again, this is why I hate politics. Now, I know little about Jindal personally, and not being from Louisiana, don’t know how good of a president he’ll make. I’ve really only seen him on TV for a very short time, in response to Obama’s non-SOTU speech. But I was immediately struck with the same sort [...]

Just a little musing I had… From the little I know about the workings of the illicit drug market, marijuana is one of the main crops. Pretty much everybody — at least everyone in my generation — knows at least one pot-smoker in their lives. Far fewer know people who use (or admit to the [...]

Over at Ezra Klein, the yuppies are in a tizzy: But Matt misses the neighborhood effects. It’s a pretty sure bet that if you live near a Starbucks, you also live near a $8 sandwich shop. And probably another $8 sandwich shop. You’re not far, I’d imagine, from frozen yogurt, or maybe an artisanal chocolate [...]

When oil went into freefall, dropping from $147/bbl last year into the $40/bbl range, I wasn’t surprised to see gas make an enormous downward trend, and (as usual) trail the oil price by 1-2 weeks. But since then, I’ve seen little appreciable movement in the oil price, but gas has been trending back upwards (at [...]

This is all I need to say: Happy Saturday, folks. Eat it before it becomes illegal. Hat Tip: Radley Balko

I’m a bit of a fan of the Gadsden flag. I’ve got a 3′ x 5′ version from here. Back in the day, this was my old office. So when I found out that there’s a designer clothing line centered around the Don’t Tread On Me logo, I was a bit intrigued. But I started [...]

This is somewhat off-topic, but as I know many bloggers and blog-readers are technophiles, I wanted to get advice from the best place I could. The time has come for us to replace my wife’s laptop. It’s about as old and decrepit as a laptop can be and still run Windows, and is a constant [...]

In my family, we’ve got a simple tradition. Every year on Thanksgiving, we pass around a book where everyone can write what they’re thankful for that year. We might as well start that tradition here, right? ————————— Today, I’m thankful for my family, who (mostly) flew out here to SoCal where my brother and I [...]

As anyone who reads this blog understands, I’m not a favor of any taxation. Nor am I much in favor of government. But at the moment, we have a government, and its functions must be paid through some revenue. We might as well find economically efficient, rather than inefficient, ways to raise that revenue. Politicians [...]

What began decades ago as a joke is gaining steam here on the west coast. Rural counties on the Cal-Oregon border who believe they are completely unrepresented in Sacramento & Salem are considering a way out: Some folks around here think the economic sky is falling and state lawmakers in Sacramento and Salem are ignoring [...]

Both Obama and McCain suggest that with a cap-and-trade scheme, we can make headway against global climate change. Without getting into the debate over whether climate change is real or man-made, I think it’s clear that any climate change avoidance techniques America engages upon will not make a lick of difference to what China and [...]

If the myriad of emails coming into my inbox every day are representative of reality, there are many reputable universities willing to offer an easy path to a degree, many “nice girls” would love to share their pictures with me, Africa is full of rich orphans looking for an escape (along with a nice reward [...]

I think it’s too early to tell. There are some very legitimate concerns that many Libertarians have about Barr’s commitment to Libertarian principles. Barr defeated Ruwart 54% to 46% and I can tell you from being there that many of the delegates who supported Ruwart were very dissatisfied with the outcome. It’s very unclear to [...]

The Libertarian Convention of course! Which convention did you think I was talking about? The Libertarian National Convention will run this Memorial Day weekend beginning on Thursday, May 22nd and ending on Monday, May 26th. I plan on attending the convention representing The Liberty Papers as a citizen journalist on Saturday, Sunday, and possibly Monday. [...]

Which Presidential candidate is worse for liberty, John McCain or Barack Obama?

The Debatable Land has an interesting post asking readers and other bloggers to name the most overrated and under-rated Presidents in history: 1. You may nominate up to three Presidents in each category. 2. Three points will be awarded to your first selection, two to your second and one to your third. If you do [...]

This blog has had a long and sordid history with the more ardent supporters of Ron Paul, as clearly evidenced in the comments to this post from yesterday. Over the months leading up to the primaries and throughout the primaries, I’ve seen that those enthusiastic Paul supporters have often found it difficult to believe that [...]