Friday, December 25, 2009

Person of the Year 2009



RELATED

Ayn Rand at 105: Great Thinker or Cultish Queen? [video]
February 2nd marked the birthday of Ayn Rand. Although she died in 1982, she remains a towering figure in the cultural landscape. Find out why Randian philosophy is having a renaissance.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Betsy McCaughey on Health Care Reform

Betsy McCaughey is the author of over one hundred scholarly and popular articles on health policy, infection, medical innovation, the economics of aging, and Medicare.

Betsy McCaughey appeared as a guest on the Quinn and Rose Show, 12/4/09, for a conversation on what is in the Senate Health Care Bill. [15:17]

icon for podpress

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Capitalism Unbound

Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights
by Andrew Bernstein

Published by University Press of America
Purchase from Amazon.com

Available January 16, 2010
Paperback, 146 pages

"This book is a concise explanation of capitalism's moral and economic superiority to socialism, including America's current mixed-economy welfare state. This volume offers a focused, essentialized, and condensed argument ideal for the layman who admires capitalism but lacking a succinct, accessible explanation of its moral and economic virtues."
"In Capitalism Unbound, Andrew Bernstein has presented the too-often neglected but essential moral case for capitalism alongside the historical and economic one. The great virtue of this work is the taut and well-written prose that makes it both easily digestible and full of important ideas. In these times when capitalism is unfairly blamed for every social ill, Bernstein's work should be read by everyone as the antidote. His rousing call to unleash the human mind and celebrate productivity is both rare and to be cherished."

—Dr. Eric Daniels, research assistant professor, The Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism

Friday, December 18, 2009

Merry Christmas

John Stossel on Health Care

John Stossel talks with John Mackey (Wholefoods) and Grace-Marie Turner (Galen Institute) about health reform.

The Real Problem with Health Care



Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Whole Food Health Care



On August 11, 2009, Whole Foods co-founder and chief executive officer John Mackey published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal recommending “eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.” The ideas, many of them familiar to market-oriented health policy wonks, ranged from malpractice reform to eliminating the tax incentives that tie insurance to employment. “The last thing our country needs,” Mackey warned, “is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.”

It was as if a bomb had gone off in the arugula line. Some of Mackey’s customers, who tend to be urban, upscale, and left of the political center, went ballistic. Protests were held outside and occasionally even inside several Whole Foods outlets. A Boycott Whole Foods group on Facebook attracted more than 34,000 members. “Mackey’s campaign,” warned one boycott leader, “results in the deaths of 60 Americans every day due to lack of health insurance. Mackey is responsible for these deaths as much as anyone.”

The “intense” reaction took the soft-spoken 56-year-old by surprise, but the protests quickly faded away. What remained after the hubbub died down was a contentious White House health care plan still very much up in the air and a businessman still eager to have a calm policy conversation with people who now regarded him as a libertarian traitor to his customers’ political beliefs.

John Mackey is used to confounding conventional political categories. A cutting-edge entrepreneur who is comfortable quoting both Ludwig von Mises and astrology, who both practices veganism and sells some of the best meat in America, and who both chases profits and is an outspoken advocate of charitable giving, Mackey is an advocate of what he calls “conscious capitalism.” He is that rarest of businessmen: an articulate and passionate defender of free enterprise and free individuals.

Mackey—who has contributed in the past to the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit organization that publishes this magazine—sat down with reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch and reason.tv Editor Nick Gillespie in September.

Full version of an hour-long conversation with Mackey

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Consequences of Gay Marriage

Newest Tent City

Homeless camp in Colorado Springs

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Christmas Jam

The 21st Annual Christmas Jam rocks on into Saturday night at the Asheville Civic Center.


Dave Frary (l) and friends. Photographer Stephen Miller, Asheville Citizen-Times

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Ayn Rand Biography



Finally! -- an Objectivist reviews the book "Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right" by Jennifer Burns.

Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand & the American Right
by Jennifer Burns
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 384 pp. $27.95 (cloth).
Reviewed by Robert Mayhew
Published in The Objective Standard

[...] Jennifer Burns’s Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right is the first biography to appear since the Brandens’.3 As Burns has no personal ax to grind, is a professor of history, and had nearly unprecedented access to the Ayn Rand Archives, those interested in Rand had reason to expect Burns’s book to tell much about the life and thought—especially the political thought—of the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. And although, in the 21st century, it may be too much to expect an academic biography that “canonizes”4 Rand, it is reasonable to hope for a portrayal that steers clear of vulgarization. Unfortunately, those who have such expectations will be disappointed...

Sunday, December 06, 2009

Climategate Deniers



RELATED

Tempers Flare In Climate Change Flap
by Charles Cooper | CBS News | December 5, 2009
One day after reports that Britain's Met office intends to reexamine 160 years' worth of temperature data, emotions over what's now being dubbed "Climategate" are getting more raw by the day.

Asheville Global Report
The under-reported apologists for the international global warming hoax.

Nick Griffin on Climategate

What Global Warming Supporters Really Want

Climategate: Gore falsifies the record
Andrew Bolt | Australia Daily Sun | December 09, 2009
In fact, as Watts Up With That shows, one Climategate email was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on November 12 - just a month ago. The emails which have Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous email urging other Climategate scientists to delete emails is from last year.

Inconvenient Data



RELATED

Al Gore Cancels $1,200 Per Handshake Event
Noel Sheppard | Wall Street Journal | December 4, 2009
Al Gore apparently has canceled a high-priced speaking engagement during the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen. The Nobel Laureate was slated to lecture about his new book ‘Our Choice’ where attendees could pay over $1,200 a ticket for the right to meet the Global Warmingist-in-Chief and have their picture taken with him. According to Danish newspaper Berlingske, this has been canceled due to ‘unforeseen changes’ to Gore’s schedule.

NASA hiding climate data
By Stephen Dinan | Washington Times | December 3, 2009
The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Rand Paul Money Bomb

RandsTeaParty.com

Monckton

How do you like me now?



Lord Monckton: Shut Down The UN, Arrest Al Gore

Appearing on The Alex Jones Show yesterday, Lord Christopher Monckton went further than ever before in his vehement opposition to the elitists running the climate change scam, calling for the UN to be shut down and for fraudulent peddlers of global warming propaganda like Al Gore to be arrested and criminally prosecuted.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Liberty on the Rocks

Members of LibertyAsheville and the Libertarian Party of Buncombe County (defunct) have decided to move forward with establishing a chapter of Liberty on the Rocks here in Asheville NC as a natural outgrowth of these and other liberty groups that want greater interaction in an informal setting while also establishing a broader nonpartisan appeal to liberty advocates.

We will have our inaugural gathering Monday, December 7, at 7:00 PM at El Chapala Restaurant on Merrimon Avenue. We expect to start small and begin advertising the event more aggressively after the holidays.

We'll start with a Facebook page.

Presidential, My Ass

President Barack Obama speaks about the war in Afghanistan at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009.




Or




Or




RELATED

Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic
By Gabor Steingart | Der Spiegel | December 2, 2009
Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.