In the 1960s, the world was going to be destroyed by fossil fuels, by running out of fossil fuels, by acid rain, by overpopulation, by pesticides, by famine, and by Global Cooling. But what actually happened was that fuel production went up, population growth rates fell in every nation (except Kazakhstan, thanks a lot you idiot Borat), pesticide use dropped off with the invention of BT crops, food production went up until recently (we still produce more crops every year, but they are drained off to make ethanol and not to feed people), acid rain was overblown, and you know what happened to Global Cooling (it’s still a huge threat as far as anyone knows, one good asteroid or volcano and it’s Fimbulwinter for sure! I mean, ummm, everyone believes in global warming so there won’t be any more Ice Ages, because, ummm… Al Gore, QED. Take no notice of my pack of Malamutes, they’re just show dogs. Really. They mainly guard the snowmobile, anyway.)

A key obligation in a scientific misconduct case is to correct any affected publications, and our confidentiality policies do not conflict with this obligation. In this case, after accepting the findings of the committee, I immediately moved to have the record corrected for those papers that were called into question by the investigation. The committee’s report indicated that three publications needed to be corrected or retracted, and this is now a matter of public record. To date, the paper, “Rule learning by cotton-top tamarins,”Cognition 86, B15-B22 (2002) has been retracted because the data produced in the published experiments did not support the published findings; and a correction was published to the paper, “Rhesus monkeys correctly read the goal-relevant gestures of a human agent,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274, 1913-1918 (2007). The authors continue to work with the editors of the third publication, “The perception of rational, goal-directed action in nonhuman primates, ”Science 317, 1402-1405 (2007). As we reported to one of these editors, the investigating committee found problems with respect to the three publications mentioned previously, and five other studies that either did not result in publications or where the problems were corrected prior to publication. While different issues were detected for the studies reviewed, overall, the experiments reported were designed and conducted, but there were problems involving data acquisition, data analysis, data retention, and the reporting of research methodologies and results.

I then ask the question that is the title of this piece: "What's wrong with prostitution?" Today's Puritans - you know the sort, they bleat about smoking, drinking and eating meat - claim it's rape in disguise. If it is rape then it's rape and not prostitution, if it's not rape it's consensual conduct between two adults and none of anyone's business.

On 6th July you are cordially invited to join the Kingsmead and Southgate School Players, and the AGON Theatre team for a free show, and interactive public debate about the power of the media and the world of beauty, celebrity and fame.

Darlings, Lights, Cameras, Action, Revolution!

The PFS was not supposed to compete with the Mises Institute or LewRockwell.com. It was not supposed to be a think tank or another publication outlet. Rather, it was to complement their and other efforts by adding yet another important component to the development of an anti-statist intellectual counterculture. What had disappeared with the break-up of the original JRC was an intellectual Society dedicated to the cause. Yet every intellectual movement requires a network of personal acquaintances, of friends and comrades in arms to be successful, and for such a network to be established and grow, a regular meeting place, a society, is needed. The PFS was supposed to be this society.

On the libertarian side, the cooperation with conservatives was motivated by the insight that while libertarianism may be logically compatible with many cultures, socio-logically it requires a conservative, bourgeois core culture. The decision to form an intellectual alliance with conservatives then involved for the libertarians a double break with the “establishment libertarianism” as represented, for instance, by the Washington DC “free market” CATO Institute. This establishment libertarianism was not only theoretically in error with its commitment to the impossible goal of limited government (and centralized government at that), it was also sociologically flawed with its anti-bourgeois—indeed: adolescent—so-called “cosmopolitan” cultural message: of multiculturalism and egalitarianism, of “respect no authority,” of “live-and-let-live,” of hedonism and libertinism. The anti-establishment Austro-libertarians sought to learn more from the conservative side about the cultural requirements of a free and prosperous commonwealth. And by and large they did and learned their lesson. At least I think that I did.

Essentially, this was also my first impression when I came in contact with the MPS and this impression has been confirmed since. The MPS is a society in which every right-wing social democrat can feel at home. True, occasionally a few strange birds are invited to speak, but the meetings are dominated and the range of acceptable discourse is delineated by certified state-interventionists: by the heads of government funded or connected foundations and think-tanks, by central bank payrollees, paper-money enthusiasts, and assorted international educrats and researchocrats in-and-out of government. No discussion in the hallowed halls of the MPS of US imperialism or the Bush war crimes, for instance, or of the financial crimes committed by the FED, and no discussion of any sensitive ‘race-issue,’ of course.

Well, the government felt sorry for these people and decided to build a fence around the town to protect them from the wild animals. The town folk were furious. They said that they were safer with the wild animals roaming the streets because it kept the criminals out of town. They refused the fence, preferring the lions on their lawn to the thugs in masks who would break into homes in the dark and slaughter people for a few dollars, or rands as the case may be.

Then, a farmer spokesman stood up, tipped his hat back and said, ‘Son, I don’t think you understand our problem. Those dingos ain’t fu….’ our sheep – they’re eatin’ ‘em.’

Four Ministers will be responsible for the climate. The Ministers for Cold will be Mr. Snow and Mr. Frost, the Minister for Heat will be Mr. Power, and the Minister for Rain will be Mr. De Wet.

The Minister for Exclamations will be Gordon Bennett.

The Minister for Losing Data will be... what was his name again? He will also be the Minister without Portfolio, having left it in a taxi.

One has to get almost spiritual here. The nearer we get to truth, the better things turn out. Untruth always leads to tears, regardless of intentions. This is an iron law of the universe, totally unbreakable. If you try to screw with truth, you will only screw yourself. That’s simply because truth happens to be what is, regardless of what you want it to be.

If CAGW is untrue, it’s untrue, and you won’t be able to quality control nature into conforming with your expectations. You may be able to control for a while the kind of human response you’d like to see, but any action taken won’t address the truth of the situation. At best, it’ll be a waste of time, and at worst, create a raft of avoidable problems.

But of course, you will never hear that AGW might be false, since in the ivory tower of academia, you are surrounded by people who stand to gain money, power, and great prestige if they “save the world” from AGW, and stand to lose money, power, and a LOT of prestige if it is proven false, so you will never hear that it might be false, or hear about any consequences of trying to stop it, since those consequences will only effect “the little people” outside the ivory towers. You need to get out and look around, find out what taking action against AGW will do to “the little people”, try talking to some of them instead of only hanging out with your ivory tower crowd all the time.

The leader of the group was some young theology student. He was praising Bryant's antigay campaign because gay sex was inherently immoral. I asked why that was and he said: "Because all sex outside of marriage is immoral." That was just the opening I was looking for. "All sex?" I asked again, loud enough for everyone watching the confrontation to hear. "Absolutely," chimed the self-assured preacher. Now it was time to move in for the kill. "Really, so tell me, do you masturbate?"

This sort of honest discussion was not something he was used to having. He stammered for a second and you could see he was trying to figure out how to answer this. In all likelihood an honest answer would have meant he would have to condemn himself and he knew this would lose him credibility in the debate. After a few seconds he decided the best answer is a lying answer: "No, of course not," he replied.

With that he started to smile thinking he had won the debate. My reply was short: "Well, perhaps that's your problem."

Formal rules divide us from one another; the more rules that are imposed upon our conduct, the greater the distances among us. Of course, this is the logic upon which the state always acts: to insinuate itself into our relationships with others, substituting its coercively-enforced edicts for our interpersonal bargaining. We become conditioned to look upon strangers as threats, and to regard political intervention as our only means of looking after our own interests.

The risks of disease, of any kind, are minimal. If the risk were larger, certainly the university I attended would have died off before second semester. I remember reading once that studies were done of what was found on stairway railings in various public locations. It is far more disgusting and revolting than some dried spunk—which I should note was one substance widely found on such railings. It really is best not to think of such matters, otherwise a compulsive fear may take control of you. We seem to survive fairly nice, in spite of these substances floating about us, so it’s best to forget about them. Just consider for a moment that you eat in restaurants using devices that were in the mouths of thousands of people before you—including some really disgusting people. And you really don’t know how well washed those utensils were—see what I mean, it’s best to simply not think of such things.

Philosophy is also a discipline in which discussions are not thoroughly fraught with specialized jargon but are conducted in fairly ordinary terms. Everyone can, with a bit of effort, access these ideas, in other words, instead of submitting to the authority of experts as one would normally do in the case of most of the sciences, even when these bear directly on one’s life, such as medicine, nutrition, biology, psychology, or sociology (although in some of its special areas philosophy can get quite complex and even convoluted, just as do the sciences). Thus most who have an interest in philosophy will want to and are likely to be able to explore its topics directly or through participation in the work of contemporaries, not by reading up on the topics as dealt with in the past.

This, then, places into the hands of a certain group of people in every new generation the task of revisiting the topics of the field. These would include, as already noted, “Is there a God?” “Is there free will?” “Can we know the world?” “Is it possible to be objective?” “Are principles of conduct made up or discovered?” “What exactly is justice or equality or liberty?” And so forth and so on.

It is precisely when “facts uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent” that we need plain old ordinary science the most. Just how high are the stakes in climate science? We do not have a scientific answer to that, we just have a bunch of fools screaming “THE SKY IS FALLING”. How urgent is action? Again, we have no scientific answer, just people screaming “WE HAVE TO ACT NOW”. Right then we need more and better science, not post normal anything.

We all learn about the “Scientific Method” early in our education and now we clearly need a “Post Normal Scientific Method”.

Feeling sad that politicians do not take your conclusions seriously enough? Not enough certainty with the old, difficult “scientific method”? Too much variability? Not to worry, NEW climate science gives you all the certainty you could possibly need. Have politicians and the media scaring little children and giving them nightmares in no time. YES with NEW climate science, even polar bears falling out of the sky and monkeys and kangaroos committing suicide becomes believable.

SO throw out all those old science text books, and embrace climate science, where conclusions lead the science wherever YOU want it to go!

The trouble is, ask the average teenager (I know, I've got two) what he wants out of life (other than achieving level 83 in World of Warcraft) and the answer will be a Gallic shrug and some chimp noises. Don't laugh. Most adults I question with this may give a more erudite answer but not much clearer. er.

Meanwhile, the politicals were faced with a straightforward choice. If they wanted to survive, all they had to do was become human, behave up to human standards in future, and compensate those they had wronged, in full, with interest and 100 per cent damages.

They ruthlessly pruned all unjust or intrusive laws from the statute books. They withdrew armies from conflicts around the world, and radically down-sized them. They reduced the functions of government to their core – civil justice, criminal justice, and defence against aggression. They took down spy cameras, and closed communications interception centres.

All along, so good people now understood, it had been the political way of doing things – their system – that had been unsustainable. There was nothing wrong with our way of doing things, the economic system, that couldn’t easily be solved given the will and a bit of effort.

And people came to see those, that promoted, supported or enforced political policies designed to harm innocent people, as enemies of humanity, deserving nothing but contempt and loathing. Those that robbed good people through re-distributory or confiscatory taxation, were seen as the thieves they were. Those that ordered aggressive wars, were seen as the mass murderers they were. Police, soldiers and others, that behaved with brutality, were seen as the criminals they were. Those that spied on innocent people were seen as the violators of rights they were. Those, that promoted the “human activities cause catastrophic global warming” fraud – wanting, as they did, to destroy industrial civilization for the sake of nothing more than a pack of lies - were seen as traitors to the human species.

Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battle lines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments and those who believe that we must live within limits. The vicious battles we have seen so far between greens and climate change deniers, road safety campaigners and speed freaks, real grassroots groups and corporate-sponsored astroturfers are just the beginning. This war will become much uglier as people kick against the limits that decency demands.

The biggest thing you can do for freedom is the one "thing" that is available to each and every one of you all the time. It is not putting forth the effort to run a pro-freedom website, or to write a book, or run for office, or vote. No, the biggest thing you can do to advance freedom in the world is to simply live free each and every day, while respecting the same in others. You can do that, can't you? I know you can!

Who but the rich sustain good restaurants? Who but the rich make fine porcelain or jazz clubs or beautiful rugs or fancy furniture, not to mention stunning architecture and enthralling theater possible? I cannot afford to support artists, musicians, actors, great chefs, and the other people who create and produce some of the marvelous features of our culture, nor can my equally middle level and poor income earning friends. But once in a blue moon we all manage to go to a great French restaurant, an art gallery, a neighborhood where fashionable estates are located, or a shopping center that features exquisite merchandise.

Examine your own conscience. What have you done, personally or by encouraging and supporting others, to harm another person? Your only honest guilt is for those actions. You owe them, and them alone whatever reparations are possible to make it right. You and I do not owe anything for actions taken by others, especially before we were born. And nobody not actually a victim of those wrongs is due any sort of compensation! You cannot logically assume guilt for other people, nor be liable for the debts of others unless you freely assume them.

The Alpha Grantwriter in our hive has been very successful indeed. He has earned three publications, a keynote address, and attracts the attention of a suitor from the symbiotic grant-giving predator genus Lucra Ecologica Hysterica. The suitor's grant bags are bulging with carbon credits and tax revenues harvested using the hive's last graphs, and the pair once again engage in their annual cross-pollination ritual. They relax with a cigarette, and return to their respective hives: the Grantwriter with fresh money, the Grantgiver to Washington or Brussels with new carbon tax proposals. The circle of life is completed.

But life is not always so easy inside the hive of the climate researcher. Occasionally the sanctity of the hive is breached by a predator from the species Methodica Skeptica Scientifica, who threatens the hive with demands to see their raw data.

If a scientist, co-author, or other scientist cited by the scientist, has offered material evidence or models and the scientist comes to know of their falsity, the scientist shall take reasonable remedial measures, including, if necessary, disclosure to grantors, managers, editors, and other scientists. A scientist may refuse to offer evidence, other than the testimony of another scientist in a fraud matter, that the scientist reasonably believes is false.

Here's a radical idea; let's dole out all the Nobel prizes the same way that the politicians in Norway gave out the peace prize to Obama.

My suggestion would be that we give the Nobel Prize in Medicine to the Roman Catholic Church. The reason: Lourdes, of course. Lourdes is where the faithful go hoping to be cured of illnesses and diseases. It tends to work with those problems most likely to be psychosomatic to begin with, but has a high failure rate with real problems.

The difference is that winners won't let random events take over their day. They control the day from the very start by taking deliberate action to get themselves in a good mood. Even if they have not slept well, mistaken hair remover gel for toothpaste, stood on the dog and the shower's cold because the boiler has gone off in the night, they will take time out and deliberately get themselves in the right frame of mind as their day begins. It's an active, deliberate process.

When the sky don’t fall
like we think it should
has reality
been misunderstood?

So why choose Guilt Machine Warehouse to start your vending business? We would love to have you as one of our valued customers and we pride ourselves in going the extra mile. Because we have a virtual monopoly on the manufacturing of these machines, we offer our guarantee that no one else can beat our low prices.

So what are you waiting for. Help assuage the guilt of some poor liberal sucker. Call now, and get super-rich TODAY!!!

Then those dumb-ass Congressmen had to go put "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and in 1956 declared "In God We Trust" to be our National Motto ... and everything went to Hell. The very next year media darling Charles Van Doren confessed to cheating on a major TV Quiz Show. The Russians launched Sputnik, before we could get a satellite of our own into space, and all we had to counter it with was the Edsel. Humiliation City!

ELIANT - European Alliance of Initiatives for Applied Anthroposophy - is working to ensure, in view of growing European integration, that legislative framework conditions are created to safeguard the various aspects of applied anthroposophy, including education, nutrition and agriculture, special needs (curative) education and social therapy, medicine and therapeutic disciplines. It urges the need for policies and a European legislative framework which give people real diversity of choice when making decisions that affect quality of life and cultural diversity.

So several hours will be spent searching through emails and trying to figure out where the information that is required might be. In the meantime my documents and files are being held hostage by Microsoft. At some point I will probably have to repurchase the software as the cost of continuing the search will be greater than the value of the product. And I will buy it because I have no choice. But you can bet that I will hate Microsoft as a result.

We can expect more strange defenses from AGW believers as evidence continues to mount against catastrophic AGW and runaway global warming. For example, we are now told by those afflicted with CD, in all sincerity, that global warming is causing global cooling. And the few who are cashing in on the scam quietly enable those afflicted by CD by censoring skeptical points of view wherever possible.

Detox was in no mood for compromise. “I am not called Detox for nothing”, he said. “If you want my help, you must reform your kingdoms – you must de-tox them. You must end all political lies, redistributory taxes and aggressive wars. You must sack all your bureaucrats, and retire all your soldiers. You must institute the rule of law and justice, as my father Felix did. You must look to have every one among your people treated as he or she treats others”.

Yes, mistakes are made. Yes, there's a peanut gallery that gets out of hand on occasion. But this is a learning community that watches for its own mistakes, corrects them in public, and encourages open-ended interaction. We absolutely do not have a predetermined goal in mind.

Most important of all, the denizens of this site represent every political and religious view one could imagine, because both topics are absolutely verboten. We're not about a political or even policy end.

We're about science.

In too many disciplines of Science, mathematics has become unhinged from observation & measurement.

Science in all the disciplines must revert back to the empirical method — observation & measurement.

In its battle against the Individual, the State has many powerful weapons – but we have the Future on our side. The reason why so many science fiction writers, movies, and fans are libertarian is because, according to science fiction, The Future is Libertarian.

That's good to know – because if there is any prediction of science fiction that no one disputes, it's that the Future is getting closer all the time.

"Social policy aimed at controlling risk and quelling fear often seems to increase it," the report says. "Measures based on installing visible signs of 'security' such as CCTV cameras (the UK now has 4.2 million, more than in the rest of Europe put together) appear to be counter-productive -- they don't lead to people feeling safer. Creating visible signs of security may make some people more fearful, as they sense high security must mean high risk."

Thus, the useful function of reliance on consensus is restricted (it checks your own tendency to cherry-pick), and its value is dubious (since what it amounts to is ignoring the existence of dissent among your chosen authorities). Furthermore it completely fails to distinguish convergence by independent experience and thought from convergence by groupthink, which you should be keenly interested in distinguishing.

Any who wish to join us are encouraged to distribute this declaration, to act in furtherance of our new society, to voluntarily excel in virtues and to communicate and cooperate with other members of the new society.

Free, unashamed men cannot be ruled.

We are The Free and The Unashamed.

“While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions ... ”
- This was an unsuccessful experiment but I still hope to get it published.

“It is hoped that this study will stimulate more work in this field.”
- This is a lousy paper but so are the others in this crummy field.

“Careful analysis of obtainable data ...”
- Three pages were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer.

What does this have to do with the 'pessimism versus optimism' question with which I began? Depending on where you focus, you can land on either side of the debate. God knows, I've fence hopped. I finally decided that it doesn't matter. Pessimism, optimism...it just doesn't make any difference to how I act and who I am. It would be nice to have an impact on the world but the matter is out of my control. All I control is myself and those things in my immediate sphere.

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
- Cicero - 55 BC

• Trying to arrest a burglar shows you lack sympathy for the financially and morally deprived and may be a criminal offence
• Sterling may go down a lot as well as go down
• Ministers need air flights and official cars to help them get over the important message that flying and driving can damage the planet

Only by keeping the little man in mind at all times can the cost of government decisions be seen in context. But it seems to me far more important to keep the little people in mind so that government constantly remembers it is there to serve us not itself. It is there with our permission, we are not here with its. And therein lies the greatest danger of socialism. It is not just that it requires adherence to a flawed ideology, although that is bad enough, it is that the State and the government are given an existence separate from the people. The socialist State's primary aim is to preserve itself. The socialist government's primary aim is to preserve itself. This leads to a way of thinking evidenced every day by poor Gordon and his cabinet of lightweight autocrats.

The greatest problem we all face today is not the economic climate. It is the reporting of the economic climate and the miasma of despondency it creates. Every single day, in every newspaper, magazine, news bulletin and news item we are enveloped in a fog of depression. We are in an economic whirlwind and thousands upon thousands of people are going to suffer as a consequence. But not all. For some, the same whirlwind will lift them to new heights of prosperity. And this will not be by chance. It will be by design.

The English High Court was invited to examine some of the claims made by St Al of Gore in his film and concluded them to be an inconvenient pack of distortions. St Al himself was exposed for having bought a hugely expensive seaside property which will be destroyed if his claims about rising sea levels prove to be even a quarter true and to have a main home which uses more electricity than many towns. And the naughty planet has frustrated every single prediction the hoaxers' computers have made.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight for civil liberties, we shall fight against unjust taxes and impositions, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength on the air and on the Internet. We shall defend our rights and our freedoms, whatever the cost may be.

The true cost, the true risk, of the precautionary principle in agriculture is hunger and disease. Eurocrats can perhaps afford the luxury of unscientific constraints on producers, consumers and taxpayers. But those constraints are a far greater threat to the sunflower farmer in Kenya and the malaria victim in Uganda.

I work exclusively in the Project Management field, and one thing I had noticed, that whatever I did, the activity completion bar on my Gantt charts on Microsoft Project only moved to the right, a sort of "forcing" was evidently in play.

I checked this on every project I had ever been involved with and it was True on every one, the Gantt bars only moved to the Right!

If we do not value ourselves sufficiently highly to want to provide for our needs through our own efforts there can be no hope that we will act positively towards other people. A deflated sense of self-worth does not carry with it an inflated sense of the worth of others. I believe the only way to rid the country of the underclass is to change the attitude of those in it. Many an asocial yob has been turned into a hard working man by being shown that he can cope, that he can hold down a job, that he can learn a trade, that his fate is in his own hands and, most importantly of all, that being trapped in welfare dependency is more a state of mind than anything else. There might be some for whom there is simply no hope, but they are very few and far between. The problem is with those who are persuaded they have no hope when in fact they are perfectly capable of coping with life and standing on their own two feet. Human nature gives us a survival instinct, the system should encourage that instinct not suppress it.

I once was very proud of my country. Eight years of George Bush cured that.

But the strength of libertarianism is not found in the answers it gives, for it doesn’t give answers. Instead, it is a social environment where incentives exist to encourage people to find answers and it rewards people in direct proportion to the importance of the solutions they discover. It also removes the main roadblock to finding solutions -- the ability of vested interests to prevent change. Liberty is not the answer -- liberty is the state of being that allows us to find answers. And equally important, it is an environment that allows us to ask questions which other systems suppress.

I changed my mind because I studied history and economics. I realized that the economic principles of socialism, regardless of what good motives may compel them in some people, were flawed. Socialism was contrary to human nature. From each according to his ability punished the able and reduced their numbers. To each according to their need rewarded need and swelled the ranks of the needy. This required another burst of socialism, making the results more apparent. Long term it is difficult to sustain such a system.

One then has to build into the equation that those who bleat about inequality are generally in favour of government spending money. They believe, erroneously in my view, that government has magic powers and can improve life for all if only it spends enough money. This causes the spending fund to be under permanent pressure to spend more on this, more on that and more on everything. Putting more cash in the pockets of the low earners is just one item on the list. As revenues increase political pressures to give some to favoured groups come into play. We cannot assume that additional taxes on the wealthy would ever be reserved wholly to pay more to the poorest, but even if that were the case how much would they get?

• Money Saving Tip for Ghana Government
• Senegal Law Makers: Puppet Custodians of Democracy
• Per Capita Debt Mathematics Makes Ghanaians More Indebted
• SADC: A Free Trade Area is Born in Africa
• Tanzania: A Resurgence of Asset Nationalisation
• South Africa Recalls Generic Drugs
• Deplorable Sanitation in Africa: Could Private Solutions Help?
• A Special Appeal to Egypt: Free Saad and Karim
• A Coup in Mauritania
• The Ugandan Military: More Bias than a Political Party
• China in Ghana- Not a Win-Win Deal?
• Morocco Could Join Africa's Economic Lions

Both in the selecting of seeds from healthy plants and in cross-breeding plants we make modifications to what would otherwise be the "natural" gene pool in future generations. I do not hear Prince Charles complain about these processes, perhaps because it has happened on his estates since long before they were his estates.

What troubles me in particular is that there is no single standard of driver. Some people pay good attention to the road, anticipate potential hazards ahead, keep to a speed suitable for the circumstances, always know how close the vehicles behind them are and do all the other things which form a very good and safe driver. Others press the pedals, hope for the best and have absolutely no clue what is going on around them. Someone in the first category might well be a safer driver after five pints of cider than everyone in the second category, yet he runs the risk of a serious penalty despite doing no one any harm. It is a very curious state of affairs.

It is with considerable sadness that I announce the death of Vincent Miller, the founder and president of the International Society for Individual Liberty.

The sex offender hysteria has gone out of control. And now we hear that whistling at someone might be enough, in the UK, to get one registered as a sex offender! Of course the officials say that it will only be used in extreme cases. We’ve heard that line before. It is always used to justify the camel’s nose in the tent and then they go hog wild.

I've noticed an interesting fact in the lives of many successful people, and it is the not just their sheer determination to succeed but the attitude that they are creating or doing something special. They were not in a competitive mindset. They were in a creative mindset. The idea of creating something overrides the idea of competition. Amateurs compete; professionals create.

Since that first mention of Greenflation there has been added a third string to the bow of the activists. Not only have they fostered draconian rises in taxation and systematically blocked the development of abundant energy resources, but they have now promoted an equally disastrous international programme of biofuels, heavily subsidised (of course) by taxpayers. High food and fuel prices are now officially described as “external factors”, when they are in fact foreseeable and unavoidable outcomes of policies embraced by governments themselves.

If you have a dream then write that dream down in as much detail as you possibly can. Then start building it. Just get on with it. Deal with the money when you get to it. Simply assume that at the right time in the right place the money will appear. Make plans to earn it. If the date you had set yourself doesn't happen then you got the date wrong, that's all. It didn't affect your dream. Reset the date.

Here, I think, is the reason why living today is such hell. As they sense the new way spreading, the politicals and their cronies retreat more and more into the old way. They behave more and more aggressively, more and more dishonestly, more and more unjustly, more and more harshly towards innocent people.

As a result, they are more and more losing their credibility among good people today. And once they lose credibility, all they have left is resort to brute force. But the more force they use against innocents, the more hearts and minds they will lose. And that will spread the Copernicus moment wider and wider. No wonder they are scared.

Some commentators tell us that the fear, which the politicals and their media today constantly emit, is meant to make us all frightened too, and so to give them a way to (falsely) justify evil acts in the name of protecting us. But I think it goes deeper than that.

I think the lovers of tyranny are scared. Really scared. And I think they have good reason to be scared.

In summary, when we pass from the old way of doing to the new, tyranny is replaced by freedom. War is replaced by peace. Poverty is replaced by prosperity. Sham equality is replaced by moral equality. Bad laws and flawed justice are replaced by honest law and objective justice. And a restricted future is replaced by a growing and probably unlimited future.

Now here’s a thought. Could it be that the political system, which has organized human societies for thousands of years, has reached its breaking point? Could what we are living through today be a battle between the old way of doing things and a new way, a way of human progress and improvement? Could our relatively sudden movements forward, like the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, be the times when the new way is winning? And could the times of madness, like today, be the times when the old way is fighting back?

The point is that the champions of the relevant kind of neuroscience and its alleged findings are themselves making decisions, deliberating, and consciously deciding about what to do, day in and day out, including when they decide to make various claims about the implications of their work for the legal system they wish to discredit and take steps to convince the rest of us of how outmoded our thinking and institutions are. They cannot have it both ways--deny that people make decisions but then proceed to make all sorts of significant decisions themselves!

All this sounds a bit bleak were it not for the fact that even though they were actually printed in newspapers, and in many cases really happened, they were nothing to do with the Health and Safety Executive.

It was this alliance of crazy environmentalists and greedy corporatists that combined to rip off motorists, taxpayers, and the worlds poor. Hillary Clinton, who previously voted against ethanol, is now proposing boosting it -- she wants votes in the farm states. Ethanol increases the demand for grains and thus is throws money into the farm states where Hillary wants support for her bid for power. Obama has voted to starve poor blacks in Africa in order to get the votes of white people in Iowa. And I should note the Republicans are just as bad. But they don’t get all weepy about how they want to help the world’s poor the way Hillary and Barack do. Why aren’t Democrats, who pride themselves on being compassionate (provided they can use someone else’s money for it) so quiet about this assault on the poorest people in the world?

Other things being equal, honest, peaceful parents are more likely than dishonest or aggressive ones to bring up their children to be honest and peaceful. The productive, the independent and the tolerant are likely to foster productiveness, independence and tolerance in their heirs. On the other hand, bigots, idlers, liars, criminals or control freaks are more likely to beget bigots, idlers, liars, criminals or control freaks. So, I conclude in the first instance, those people who themselves behave as civilized human beings should be the ones to pass their qualities on to the next generation. And the uncivilized should avoid having children. Put succinctly, scum shouldn't have spawn.

People tend to spend more time in cities than they do in empty fields. Based on that limited sampling they tend to exaggerate the facts about population. The reality is that there is much more empty land than there is urban jungle.

The kind of thing I refer to is when the perpetrator assumes a moral high ground and condemns disagreement with his/her ideas as automatic justification for censure simply because they have the moral high ground, i.e. if you abide by his/her rules, criteria, etc. then you are one of the chosen. But if your opinions differ then you are the devil's work. No justification need be given, no science, no evidence and certainly no contact or interviews; you are simply damned because you dare differ from the 'accepted' view. You can find this kind of nonsense everywhere from magazines to junk science.

Of course there is no movement worth speaking of to stop people from having children. It’s hard to rile up people to hate kids. It’s easy to get them to hate foreigners. It’s been going on for centuries. I think that raw prejudice is far more likely to explain the presence of anti-immigration libertarians than the welfare argument does. If it were really welfare that concerned them they’d spend more time lobbying for government restrictions on giving birth. I would be curious though, to see exactly where they would build the wall to prevent reproduction.

“The inspector's comments about private motorists beggar belief, he has uncritically accepted a crazy suggestion from Friends of the Earth that if lots of people take the trouble to respond to a consultation because it affects them, then their views can't be taken into account because their numbers are disproportionate. It's a bit like having a general election which one party wins convincingly on a 70% turnout, then saying that the other party has won because everyone who didn't vote is assumed to support them!”

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because like my friend from Germany, they will awake one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun.

Our government's latest ad scheme involves convincing us that we are not safe. Convincing us that there are organizations intent on destroying our way of life, they have us in a constant state of fear. For our own good, the government will need to identify each one of us, conduct background checks, monitor our movement, and know with whom we associate. Well, of course terrorists are after us - our government has spent the last few decades provoking just about everyone on the planet by poking its nose in places it doesn't need to be. Yet, on the local news last week, I heard some red-blooded, flag waving veterans proclaim that they are quite willing to trade some freedom for security and the eradication of terrorists. The ad campaign has been so successful that the average citizen doesn't even understand why this country has been the target of terrorists. These government spin-doctors could sell fur coats in hell.

Similarly, agents of change are driving a new paradigm shift today. The signs are all around us. For example, the introduction of the personal computer and the internet have impacted both personal and business environments, and is a catalyst for a Paradigm Shift. We are shifting from a mechanistic, manufacturing, industrial society to an organic, service based, information centered society, and increases in technology will continue to impact globally. Change is inevitable. It's the only true constant.

For more than 10 years now I've been getting variations on this question. If I hear it one more time I'm going to retire to a cave in Tibet and sic rabid yetis on anyone who approaches within a mile. So here, for once and for all, are my answers.

And I sat there, staring at the screen, unable to think of anything it would be "unthinkable" to ban. Free speech? But all kinds of people, no doubt including many readers of my article, want to limit that. Religion? But only my religion deserves protection; your religion is dangerous fanaticism, involves wearing funny clothes, or is just an excuse for getting away with taking drugs! Apple pie? But OMG, the stuff's full of sugar. And maybe even transfats. And does anybody remember the Alar hysteria? Dogs? But cities all over the country have yielded to various anti-breed hysterias, and in some places have even sent minions door-to-door to round up the designated dog-Jews of the moment. Yogurt? But that's a dairy product, an exploitation of animals! Model rockets? But they can be terrorist weapons!

One can look forward to a wider diversity of opening hours in the French-speaking countries and jurisdictions mentioned above if public authorities resolve to favor free individual choices and decisions instead of the rigidity of sectional interests.

The whole idea of the corporate social responsibility movement is to take away the choices we have and to give them to the elites, the politically preferred rulers of our society – the NGO, nongovernmental organization. NGO, bad title. Anyone who knows the NGO movement in practice knows it is not a non-governmental organization. It is a PGO - pro-government organization. They have never seen a government program they did not want to expand.

Just think about what this means. Working together, you and I can supply the entire recycled glass industry with a steady stream of raw materials—and all we have to do is drink. In fact, the more we drink, the more empties we can donate. The math truly speaks for itself.

So what about those shoes of yours: Are they the result of a complex process that is almost impossible to understand--and even more difficult to warrant? Or are they the result of a chain of easy-to-understand operations carried out by specialists working in harmony for their own and everybody else’s benefit? It is not simply a matter of perspective; it is a very important standpoint that needs to be based on your conscious decision on how you see the world work.

For those who consider taxation, regulation, and the myriad other intrusions of government to be the greatest challenge to individual liberty, the alternatives may seem far less obvious. Yet only misconceptions about the nature and power of government stop most individuals from enjoying true freedom. The belief that governments perform socially useful functions, that you have a duty to obey laws, that government can be counted upon, and that the government is so powerful that it can prevent you from being free, are all mistaken beliefs.