His last column for The Nation was a delicious takedown of all the dark players involved in the scheme by the biggest bankers in the world to fix rates. The bankers got their due, of course, but so did the regulators and, of course, the pliant media. “Now it turns out that the whole thing is a fix—a grimy hand all too visible,” Alex wrote. “Is is possible to reform the banking system? There are the usual nostrums—tighter regulations, savage penalties for misbehavior, a ban from financial markets for life. But I have to say I’m dubious. I think the system will collapse, but not through our agency.”

Libertarianism is strong, but endangered. There is a concerted effort to take the libertarian revival and turn it into something other than libertarian. We see it from the so-called paleolibertarians, that gaggle of bigoted, anarcho-fundamentalists who distort and twist the idea of Ludwig von Mises to try and bolster their right-wing agenda. We see it from conservatives who have flooded libertarianism pushing neoconservative foreign policies and social conservatism, while pretending they are actually libertarian. Certainly Koch has done a lot to fund these latter fakes. Now Charles Koch has gone on the offensive, and offensive describes his actions in every sense of the word. He is now actively working to destroy the most effective libertarian organization in the world. As I see it, that makes him the most potent enemy to libertarianism around. He is trying to do what many far left, and far right, groups would love to do—take the Cato Institute out of the game. Charles Koch—you suck.

It is much more sensible to attribute to Dr. King the more coherent view that if the freedom of individuals to do as they choose is properly respected and protected, they will be enjoying the first kind of freedom — freedom from others’ intrusions — and become capable of achieving freedom from poverty. Free men and women have generally been quite able to provide for themselves, perhaps with occasional voluntary help from their friends and neighbors. That is one of the lessons of history! It is entirely inappropriate to suggest that one person’s poverty authorizes others to take from those who have managed to achieve prosperity. I doubt that Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t grasp something so elementary — it is an insult to his memory to believe that.

Instead what seems to be happening is that people who are aspiring to rule others are invoking his good name for their coercive purposes. It would be a shame if this were tolerated by all those who admire Dr. King for his championing of human liberty.

Friedman thought of himself as a liberal rather than a libertarian, and 'the consistent liberal,' he once argued, 'is not an anarchist.' Human beings are not angels, in his view, so they need government to restrain them. He thought government had a wide role – to maintain law and order, dispense justice, define the rules of property, promote competition, maintain sound money, and protect the destitute. Equally, he believed that governments were too big, to avaricious, too centralised, too bloated, and far too likely to fail in anything they took on.

Obama promised "hope" and delivered despair and depression. Steve Jobs promised little but delivered much. He was the epitome of the entrepreneur, a man who built a fortune by improving the lives of others. He did so without an army of lobbyists, seeking favors, subsidies or handouts. He got rich by enriching all of us.

Given how badly Obama and Congress has dealt with the economic crisis, I'm glad that someone else was out there giving people at least one reason to be hopeful.

Everything Al Gore claimed was a pack of rancid lies, instead of being economical with the truth and telling small lies and exaggerations and hedging his bets he went for the giant lies, the whoppers, he went so over the top with his lies and gross scaremongering exaggerations that it embarrassed even the high priests of the CAGW cult. Climate scientists could not hope to verify or support his gross lies but neither could they afford to contradict their spokesperson, now that was a doozy of a problem!

One can only imagine what Thoreau would think of the United States today - a nation which has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable, ungovernable, and unfixable. What would he think of a government owned, operated, and controlled by corporate America and Wall Street? How would he feel about the illegal wars with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya? What about our unconditional support for the bellicose state of Israel? Would he condone the torture of military combatant prisoners? And, alas, the war on terror?

I used to be proud to call Dr. Suzuki one of my heroes, and now I can see that he is a hypocrite.

Like many Libertarians, Nolan opposed government intrusion in daily life, and believed in personal freedom. He opposed the war in Iraq, called for an end to personal income taxes, and wanted to legalize drugs. He supported a guest-worker program over building a border wall, wanted to close the Federal Reserve System, and end the Patriot Act.

The warming propaganda machine has lost its momentum and is desperate to get it back. They want to silence Lord Monckton and remove him from the field. To that end they'll say anything. They attack his title hoping we won't notice that every British Viscount has a right and by long tradition is called “Lord.” They attack his graphs and charts, hoping we won't bother to learn that most of his data comes straight from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the sources it cites. Lord Monckton had hoped that by using the IPCC's data warming advocates would be forced to debate the merits. Sadly, they continue to alternate between mocking the data and restating their conclusions as received wisdom. Yet when granted a fair forum for debate, it is Monckton who triumphs. Just weeks ago his team of experts were voted the winners in a warming debate at the Oxford Union – a treasured haven of free thought.