Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Our Looming 'W'

Just as I was bidding good riddance to this decade, this article catches my attention.

http://tiny.cc/zVsTe

Here's to a better year than last!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

SOTD (Song Of The Day)

Uprising (Live) by Muse

Listen to / download it here:
http://amzn.com/B0030HC9RM

QOTD

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent"
~ Thomas Jefferson

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Last Minute Gift Ideas

For those of you who have put off your holiday shopping until the last minute, here are a couple possibilities.

First, because we all love doing out taxes:


I thought this one seemed appropriate. If our government keeps us on our current path our currency may very well be worth as little as this:

Monday, December 21, 2009

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Illusion of Design

I have no idea who this Doctor Zero is but I like him.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/12/20/the-illusion-of-design/

Retail Health Care & Reform

Twin Cities own Ed Morrissey offers a great article about health care clinics in retail place such as Target.

QOTD

"State interference in economic life, which calls itself 'economic policy,' has done nothing but destroy economic life."
~ Ludwig von Mises
(h/t - Bill Jungbauer)

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie explains why there is much to be grateful for this holiday season.

The New Website is Here! The New Website is Here!

The new website is here! The new website is here! I'm somebody now! Millions of people surf the web each day! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity that MAKES people! Things are going to start happening for me now.

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2008/the-jerk-phonebook-p1.php

I'm proud to announce that my new website is up and running. A very good friend of mine created this for me and I give great thanks for all his hard work. If you are reading this blog on the site then you are already aware of its existence. If you are reading this via the Blogger.com site, then head on over to www.nathanatkins2010.com

Kind Words From a Good Friend

The following is an excerpt from a recent email I received from a friend of mine who had just donated to my campaign.

"You're a good man and an honest one and even though we probably don't see eye to eye on every issue we need more individuals of your ilk in office. Besides, it's our differences that make us stronger."

I couldn't agree more. It seems that we so often allow our differences to divide us and if we took the time to further explain and explore these differences we may very well find that we share a common ground.

Thanks for the kind words my friend.

Friday, December 18, 2009

Not the way to start a campaign

I really hope this does not happen to me.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The Liberty Manifesto

The Liberty Manifesto

by P.J. O'Rourke

P.J. O'Rourke is the Cato Institute's Mencken research fellow.

Remarks delivered at a gala dinner celebrating the opening of the Cato Institute's new headquarters in Washington.

P.J. O'Rourke is the Cato Institute's Mencken research fellow.Remarks delivered at a gala dinner celebrating the opening of the Cato Institute's new headquarters in Washington.


The Cato Institute has an unusual political cause -- which is no political cause whatsoever. We are here tonight to dedicate ourselves to that cause, to dedicate ourselves, in other words, to . . . nothing.

We have no ideology, no agenda, no catechism, no dialectic, no plan for humanity. We have no "vision thing," as our ex-president would say, or, as our current president would say, we have no Hillary.

All we have is the belief that people should do what people want to do, unless it causes harm to other people. And that had better be clear and provable harm. No nonsense about second-hand smoke or hurtful, insensitive language, please.

I don't know what's good for you. You don't know what's good for me. We don't know what's good for mankind. And it sometimes seems as though we're the only people who don't. It may well be that, gathered right here in this room tonight,are all the people in the world who don't want to tell all the people in the world what to do.

This is because we believe in freedom. Freedom -- what this country was established upon, what the Constitution was written to defend, what the Civil War was fought to perfect.

Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to health care, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

So we are here tonight in a kind of anti-matter protest -- an unpolitical undemonstration by deeply uncommitted inactivists. We are part of a huge invisible picket line that circles the White House twenty-four hours a day. We are participants in an enormous non-march on Washington -- millions and millions of Americans not descending upon the nation's capital in order to demand nothing from the United States government. To demand nothing, that is, except the one thing which no government in history has been able to do -- leave us alone.

There are just two rules of governance in a free society:

* Mind your own business.
* Keep your hands to yourself.

Bill, keep your hands to yourself. Hillary, mind your own business.

We have a group of incredibly silly people in the White House right now, people who think government works. Or that government would work, if you got some real bright young kids from Yale to run it.

We're being governed by dorm room bull session. The Clinton administration is over there right now pulling an all-nighter in the West Wing. They think that, if they can just stay up late enough, they can create a healthy economy and bring peace to former Yugoslavia.

The Clinton administration is going to decrease government spending by increasing the amount of money we give to the government to spend.

Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting a high-powered corporate lawyer in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money -- hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.

The Clinton administration is putting together a program so that college graduates can work to pay off their school tuition. As if this were some genius idea. It's called getting a job. Most folks do that when they get out of college, unless, of course, they happen to become governor of Arkansas.

And the Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers? Or maybe the people in Texas were attacked because of child abuse. But, if child abuse was the issue, why didn't Janet Reno tear-gas Woody Allen?

You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.

Government contains impure ingredients -- as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you.

On the basis of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign promises, I think we can say government practices deceptive advertising.

And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud.

There, ladies and gentlemen, you have the Cato Institute's program in a nutshell: government should be against the law.

Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.


This article can be found at the following link:http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6857

One of my favorite economists offers some much needed clarification

I love this man...