May 22
Here is today’s Huffington Post headline:
“Spring Has Sprung In The Arctic … But It’s Way Too Early For It:
NOAA just reported the earliest snowmelt in 78 years of recorded history.”
But intrepid data analyst Tony Heller examined the Danish satellite imagery of Arctic ice. “Temperatures are forecast to remain below freezing over the Arctic Basin for the next two weeks, well into the normal melt season.” Heller added that there is almost no melting going on yet in the Arctic. See here.
May 22
Not since the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial has a government school board imposed such a ludicrous rule on school curricula. Last week, the government school board of Portland, Oregon UNANYMOUSLY VOTED TO BAN all schoolbooks or other materials which question or doubt the government’s theory of apocalyptic manmade global warming. See here.
This astounding act of tyranny and censorship rivals the actions of pro-creationist authorities who prosecuted John Scopes for teaching his students about the theory of evolution in 1925.
Will Portland’s public schools now begin firing teachers who inform students about scientific skepticism of global warming, as Dayton, Tennessee fired Scopes? Will teachers be removed for sneaking global-warming skeptic materials into their classrooms?
May 22
Government masquerades as a protector and defender of the poor.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Government’s worldwide are the greatest promoter of impoverishment, starvation and suffering for the world’s poorest.
Mostly governments keep people poor by imposing legal barriers and licensing schemes upon poor people–which prevent poor people from launching rewarding careers.
During next week’s Libertarian National Convention in Orlando, Florida, Dr. Roger Roots will be lecturing on the topic of “Government’s War on the Poor: the Lesson of Lysander Spooner’s American Mail Company.”
The specific times and locations of the lecture are to be announced. Look for Dr. Roots at the Montana LP Delegation table. (Roots tends to be an active and serious LP delegate, and will be participating in Party business throughout the weekend.)
May 22
LSU President Roger Roots will be a featured speaker at the upcoming Libertarian Party National Convention in Orlando, Florida. Roots will be lecturing on the topic of jury nullification.
The Libertarian Party National Convention will be held from Friday, May 27, through Monday, May 30, 2016 (Memorial Day), with special committee meetings, candidate and activist training seminars, and a Welcome Reception on Thursday, May 26. Visit LP.org and its ‘Action’ tab for details.
The convention will be held at the Rosen Centre Hotel & Resort in Orlando, Florida.
May 19
Even the Associated Press has begun to notice the collapse of Venezuela just 15 years after the country adopted socialism:
Vigilante violence against people accused of stealing has become commonplace in this crime-ridden country of 30 million, once one of the richest and safest in Latin America. The revenge attacks underscore how far Venezuela has fallen, with the lights flickering out daily, and food shortages fueling supermarket lines that snake around for blocks.
May 18
Socialism is a curse that no one should wish for–unless one wishes it on a hated enemy.
Any society that adopts socialism will inevitably become sick and weak over time.
Venezuela went hard-line socialist in 2000. Sociology professors in the U.S. cheered the Latin American country on.
But just 16 years later, Venezuelans are starving and dying in the streets.
Venezuelan GDP fell 3.9 percent in 2014, and 5.7 percent in 2015.
In 1999 there were 13,000 Venezuelan companies. By 2016 that number had fallen to 4,000. See here.
May 18
A terrifying spectacle of hate has become front-page news in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and the Billings Gazette.
For the past 2 days, both papers have focused on a story of some fun-loving (but foolish) Canadian tourists who allegedly strayed off the government boardwalk at Yellowstone National Park’s Prismatic Spring geothermal area. The young men apparently sought a few moments of excitement, and defied National Park Service signs warning visitors not to walk out on the surface of the hot bubbly mud. See here, and here.
Hundreds, if not thousands of people have done the same thing.
But the Canadians posted video on social media. See here.
Chronicle and Gazette writers have led a torrent of hatred against the hapless young men, detailing how the Canadians violated various rules of the Park Service. “Yellowstone park rules explicitly prohibit tourists from traveling off boardwalks or designated trails in hydrothermal areas,” the Chronicle wrote.
Astoundingly, the Chronicle even reported the NPS’s blatantly unconstitutional anti-filming regulation–WITHOUT SO MUCH AS MENTIONING THE POSSIBILITY THAT THE REGULATION MAY VIOLATE THE FIRST AMENDMENT.
Additionally, park policy prohibits filming from the social trails above Grand Prismatic Spring.
The park requires film permits for commercial, nonprofit, documentary, promotional or educational filming, including entertainment broadcasts and some student projects.
Rachel Cudmore, who works in the film office at Yellowstone National Park, told the Chronicle in an email that no permits were on file for High On Life or any of the four men associated with the project. She added that the project “would have required a commercial film permit.”
“Typically, anyone that is filming or photographing for reasons other than personal enjoyment should contact the Film Office to inquire about a special use permit for these activities,” Cudmore said.
The Chronicle even expressed astonishment that
Filming without a permit was not one of the charges listed in the criminal complaint filed Tuesday, though Reid said it was possible that charge could arise later on.
Cudmore said filming without a permit was a misdemeanor crime with a maximum prison term of six months and a maximum fine of $5,000.
May 16
Reason Magazine’s cartoonist Peter Bagge recently took a 4-day trip to Cuba.
(Cuba has recently opened itself somewhat to American tourism.)
Bagge reports that Cuba is a filthy island with littered beaches and smoke-filled air. The air pollution is so bad there that Cuba’s weather reports sometimes simply say: “Smoky.”
There are rolling blackouts and bad plumbing. Evidence of racial discrimination, according to Bagge, is everywhere, even while Cuban socialists proclaim their society to be racism-freeSee here.
Bagge reports that the most highly educated Cubans make more money catering to western tourists than they would practicing their professions.
May 15
In 2016, Lysander Spooner University will embark on a series of research trips aimed at studying glacier in Montana and the greater Yellowstone region.
Join us this coming Saturday at the sidewalk in front of the ‘MT Cup’ coffee shop in Livingston, Montana at around 8:00 a.m..
After introductions, we will caravan to the nearby Crazy Mountains (estimated drive around 30 miles) where we will begin trekking in search of the Crazy Range’s mountain snowfields.
Be warned: it is early season and there is plenty of snow to navigate through. Bring crampons, snowshoes or skis.
AN ANSWER TO ‘CHASING ICE’?
Several people have pointed us to a film and lecture series called “Chasing Ice” by nature photographer James Balog and Jeff Orlowski. The 2012 film is visually impressive and quite stimulating. It depicts the well-funded ‘Extreme Ice Survey’ project, in which Balog and other activists don expensive state-of-the-art gear and take sequential footage of glacier melts in Greenland, Iceland and elsewhere, in an effort to promote fear over alleged manmade global warming.
“Chasing Ice,” of course, has been met with rave reviews almost everywhere. Critics like Tony Heller, however, point out that what Balog and Orlowski attribute to manmade carbon emissions has actually been happening FOR CENTURIES, meaning that fossil fuels cannot be blamed for all the world’s reduced glaciers.
Blalog will show some pictures from 100 years ago, and compare them to modern pictures, to prove that global warming is making the glaciers disappear. What he won’t tell them is that everything he documents has been going on for centuries, and has nothing to do with human activity.
Lysander Spooner University’s research project is much less well funded and less ambitious. We aim to capture photographs of local Montana and/or Wyoming glaciers from the same vantage points year after year on the same calendar dates.
Join us next weekend!
May 15
See this story from Yahoo News.
Every government that ever existed ultimately came for all freedom, all property, all money, and to kill all who resist.
Frequently, governments accuse anti-government speakers of such crimes as treason, sedition, undermining the morale of the military, conspiracy to overthrow the government, or plotting terrorism.
Defense lawyers have pointed out that many of those arrested in Egypt were simply grabbed randomly from cafes, stores and sidewalks, in a show of force by the state.
