It looks obvious

George Will, my favorite political columnist, gave a speech in the Cato Institute to introduce his new book, One Man’s America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation. It is, not surprising, a very interesting speech, and followed by interesting Q&A, and recommended watching.

Browsing the net today I stumbled upon an interesting site. The creators of the site made a short animation movie based on Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer”. The text and its adaption for movie are both wonderful and worth noting. Mark Twain wrote this story in response to the Philippine-American war of 1899-1902, which he opposed. But the story is actual today as it was when written.

I usually avoid online questionnaires because they are simply stupid and complete waste of time. But when my wife send me the link to this questionnaire I find it pretty much fun, mostly if you take the results with more than a grain of salt.

And hmm here are my results… :) 

You’re Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!
by Mark Twain
With an affinity for floating down the river, you see things in black and white. The world is strange and new to you and the more you learn about it, the less it makes sense. You probably speak with an accent and others have a hard time understanding you and an even harder time taking you seriously. Nevertheless, your adventurous spirit is admirable. You really like straw hats.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

. . . like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master. You now have your freedom–if you can keep it. But do remember that you can lose this freedom more quickly to yourselves than to any other tyrant.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

After I linked to reviews about Harry Potter’s Libertarianism and to the different approaches for individualism and struggle to preserve liberty in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Ring it is just natural to link to this interesting review of Robert Heinlein’s legacy in the Wall Street Journal:

Robert A. Heinlein, who died in 1988, lived a life inspired by two great loves. One was America and its promise of freedom. As one of his characters put it: "Your country has a system free enough to let heroes work at their trade. It should last a long time–unless its looseness is destroyed from the inside." And he loved and admired women–not just his wife, Virginia, who provided the model for the many strong-minded and highly competent females who populate his stories, but all of womankind. "Some people disparage the female form divine, sex is too good for them; they should have been oysters."

In another hundred years, it will be interesting to see if the nuclear-powered spaceships and other technological marvels he predicted are with us. But nothing in his legacy will be more important than the spirit of liberty he championed and his belief that "this hairless embryo with the aching oversized brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. Will endure and spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency."

If anyone suspected that my addiction to the Harry Potter books is because I like children books, or that the dark story of wizard has its own magic - that works on old people too, she was wrong. Apparently my affection for the Harry Potter story is because of the Libertarian message of healthy suspicious about the government, self reliance and individualism. My intellectual integrity is safe, again… 

I guess one can find any message one desire in a series of 7 children books, so why not this one:

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter, Libertarianism, Humor

Being on vacation I missed the interview of John Stewart with former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. I was surprised by Zbigniew’s sense of humor, but not by his brightness - and agreeing with him or not, its worth the time listening to him, or in this case reading his new book, Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower, which I added to my reading queue.

Tags: Zbigniew Brzezinski Strategy

My wife surprised me with P.J O’Rourke’s new book On the Wealth of Nations and F.A. Hayek’s  The Road to Serfdom which I intended to read for long time. Not very diverse ideologically but definitely nice presents. If any of you wants to diversify my reading, I’m open for recommendations (and to present )

Tags: Books P.J. O’Rourke F.A. Hayek Presents

I admit, I’m addicted to this series of book. I know that they aren’t the best written, and I acknowledged that many much better books are waited to be read - but I’m hooked. And we finally have date for the last in the series - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Well I know what I’m going to do during the last week of July, and you?

Technorati Tags: Harry Potter - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - books - Children Books

I’m reading, with great pleasure, Chingiz Aitmatov’s book - The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years. I will always prefer his approach and description of the Kazakh people, and his approach to humanity in general, than Borat’s approach.  And yes I know, Borat intention is to expose the American, or western, dark sides by using the prejudice about Kazakhstan. However by doing so it is also emphasis this prejudice. Unlike Borat, Aitmatov’s critics about the soviet system doesn’t mock the Kazakh people - its describe them with affection and respect.

There are many ways to tell a story, Personally I prefer the one made with love.

Technorati Tags: Chingiz Aitmatov - Borat - Sacha Baron Cohen - Kazakhstan - Story Telling

I’m reading now Ryan Sager’s new book,The elephant in the room , with great joy. In the book Sager review and analyze the historical roots of the conservative movement and the forming rift between its two factions.

After winning the majority in both houses and two terms of President George Bush the conservative movement testing its core values and its future. If in the past, while not in power, The differences between the ultimate goals of the social conservatives and the libertarians - The main two factions of the conservative movement - where hidden, They aren’t any more. Sager eloquently describes the reasons both, the libertarians and the social conservatives, joined together to form the modern conservative movement in the 50’s and their journey to power. He than analyzes the reasons why the social conservatives start turning a way from the ideas of small government and liberty.

It is crucial moment for those of us which are concern with Libertarian ideas. We, or more correctly I, were not aware for the true meaning of the , mistakenly identified as election slogan, compassionate conservatism. It seems that the war on terror and its real menace is being used as an excuse to strengthen the executive brunch . In addition the social conservatives introducing a new area of intrusive government .

The Libertarian faction of the Republican party has to choose, based on the coming mid-term elections and the 2008 presidential election, if they are able to promote, and accomplish, small government and greater freedom. The answer might be, unlike Sager’s optimism, negative.