The Cato Daily Podcast
Just a reminder, if you are not listening to the Cato Daily Podcast, you should.
Sunday SciFi: NPR’s looking for the Top Five SciFi books
OK, not really, since they are lumping fantasy in as well. So you have crap written by George R.R. Martin listed along really good SciFi. Ya, I am biased here. I am much more of a SciFi fan than a fantasy one, and perhaps GRRM may be able to be write decent Elf porn or whatever passes for mainstream fantasy these days, but his attempts at SciFi that I have read have been utter drek.
You can enter your top five books or series under comments for this NPR story on their quest for summer reading. Fair warning, you have to register to post.
The five I entered were:
- Space Viking – H. Beam Piper
- The Probability Broach – L. Neil Smith
- The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Philip Jose Farmer
- The Mote in God’s Eye – Dr. Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven
This list could change on any given day by one or two entries.
Quote of the Day
“Every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor.”
Quote of the Day
“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.” — Ayn Rand
Quote of the Day
My personal credo as a libertarian conservative: I think all attempts to reform your fellow-citizens or tell them how to live their lives are arrogant and tyrannical. THAT’S why I oppose Leftism. I want people to be free to manage their own lives. “Reform” is just authoritarianism. People are not playthings for anybody’s theories or obsessions.
Monday Book Pick: Alongside Night
Alongside Night by J. Neil Schulman
This Libertarian novel from 1979 predicted the Obama presidency pretty damn accurately! So much so, the author plans on suing the United States for Copyright Infringement!
Quote of the Day
It’s about those Tea Party protesters:
Beware the Libertarians mobs! They will take over the government and then leave you alone!
Today’s Robert Heinlein Quote
I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand’s; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces with the other matters handled otherwise. I’m sick of the way the government sticks its nose into everything now.
Robert A. Heinlein, as quoted by J. Neil Schulman in The Robert Heinlein Interview and Other Heinleiniana
Monday Book Pick: Tom Paine Maru
Tom Paine Maru by L. Neil Smith
This is the “author’s edition” release, recovered from an old hard drive, in an obsolete word processor format. This is what was originally submitted to a publisher who then edited it with a weed wacker. A delightful bit of space opera in the classic L. Neil Smith Hard Core Libertarian style.
A key reason why the same sex marriage vote failed in Maine
A vote on the legality of same sex marriage in Maine overturned the law passed by the legislature on same sex marriage. So, once again marriage in Maine is legally only between a man and a woman.
Every time this issue comes up for a vote before the people, heterosexual marriage is affirmed and same sex marriage is voted down. Even in very “liberal” states such as California. When this issues was up for a vote in Oregon, a fairly liberal state in 2004, the ballot issue banning same sex marriage passed by more votes that George W. Bush received. Hmmm….could it be that some good “liberal” democrats don’t support same sex marriage? Could it be that it isn’t just “far right social conservative religious bigots” that are voting against same sex marriage?
Here is a dirty little secret that many good liberals either don’t know or won’t admit. There are several traditional core democrat constituent groups that are more than just a little bit “social conservative” and are strongly opposed to same sex marriage. These constituent groups include Roman Catholics, the elderly and blacks.
The left won’t address this issue in their own ranks. Instead, they will engage in hate speech and mean spirited attacks against their traditional “Emmanuel Goldsteins.”
If the proponents of same sex marriage were really and truly serious about their cause, they would first start to address their opponents in their own liberal house hold and then reach out to those are in agreement with their cause, like the Libertarians.