Michael B. Duff

There are millions of people—including me, including the Kochs, including people who have never heard of the Koch family—who feel some basic affinity for the notion that that government is best which governs least. Although this is a bedrock tradition in the American polity, it has had almost zero representation in Washington, D.C., during the last decade of bipartisan misgovernment. Yet libertarians are supposed to be a threat to the republic. Just imagine if we had any political power!

Not a big fan of Katy Perry, but this ticket costume is priceless.

I ignored this story at first, not because I doubted the $200 million figure, but because the president can't control how much his security costs. I think it's grossly unfair to criticize a president because of how much his security costs. We live in a dangerous era, so I viewed the $200 million figure as a measure of how dangerous the world was, not how lavish the president is. I'll admit it sounded ridiculous, but I just assumed they were doing something sneaky like adding up the entire cost of the battleships or something.

"Much like owning a handgun for self-defence, significantly rising gold prices are one of those investments you sort of hope never pays off." — ilcylic

Repeat after us: gold is not a currency. But, just in case we are wrong, pretty soon one may see it accepted as pseudo legal, non-federal reserve note equivalent just about everywhere. First: the ICE, where "Gold bullion will be permitted for initial margin only and will be accepted by the clearing house by electronic transfer in increments of 1 troy ounce, and will be priced daily using the London Gold Fixing Price in US Dollars." In other words, the ICE will gladly take your gold. Period.

The new round of quantitative easing monetary policy adopted by the Federal Reserve has brought about an obvious trend of depreciation of the U.S. dollar, and the continuation and deepening of credit crisis in the U.S. Such a move entirely encroaches on the interests of the creditors, indicating the decline of the U.S. government’s intention of debt repayment. Analysis shows that the crisis confronting the U.S. cannot be ultimately resolved through currency depreciation. On the contrary, it is likely that an overall crisis might be triggered by the U.S. government’s policy to continuously depreciate the U.S. dollar against the will of creditors.

PERRY: If you want to know when Washington really got off the track — the 16th amendment, giving them the opportunity to take your money with a personal income tax. […] [Link recommended by Kenny Ketner]

Today, monetarist or 'supply side' economists are regarded as the 'free market right wing' of the economic mainstream, which is quite astonishing when considering that the same 'Chicago School' was regarded as 'leftist fringe' back in the 1940's.

"A million Climategates now. A million ACORNs now. A million Journolists now."

So, were all the people screaming about inflation now screaming about deflation a year and half ago? Why not? In terms of level, by the way, the recovery in commodity prices has now brought the overall index about back to where it was in December 2007.

Harley-Davidson, the iconic American motorcycle brand with a cult-like following, has announced it has chosen to build its second assembly plant ever outside the United States in India.

Ireland faced a painful choice between imposing a resolution on banks that were too big to save or becoming insolvent, and, for whatever reason, chose the latter. Sovereign nations get to make policy choices, and we are no longer a sovereign nation in any meaningful sense of that term. From here on, for better or worse, we can only rely on the kindness of strangers.

His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food. The premise held up: On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.