Items of Interest, 14 April 2012

KunstlerCast #201: Listener Mailbag (mp3)
Light Pollution, the Printed Page v. the Screen & More

Commodification and consumerism: Who stole fun? by Lisa Meekison (EB)

Liberty with a Backbone

Peter Hitchens, 'Cushty, easily done!' A criminal's mocking words that sum up our injustice system

Relocalization:
Going Local in an Age of Globalization (with Michael Schuman)

Is it too late for sustainable development?

Counterpunch:
ALEXANDER COCKBURN, Farewell Gastro-Porn: Is the Foodie Frenzy Finally Fizzling Out?
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, World’s Apex Bully Leads World Into Lawlessness
GARETH PORTER, U.S.-Israel Deal to Demand Qom Closure Threatens Nuclear Talks

Catholic:
Cardinal Burke: Employers who Provide Contraceptives Cooperating with Sin


Partisanship and Religious Freedom
The Bishops' Statement on Religious Freedom and Widespread Misunderstanding of the State of Free Exercise



Feminism:
Feminism is failutre
The career neg
Why Rosen's remark was significant
Down with Gender Studies!

doug111:

I’ve always thought that feminists trying to make a moral issue out of the basic nature of males’ sexual attraction to females particularly on first impression by calling it “objectification” was utter nonsense. Yeah we’re attracted by the visual, in particular young, 0.7 or lower waist to hips ratio, symmetrical and healthy looking beauty. We have individual preferences particularly at the higher levels of beauty but also a whole lot of commonality in what men find most attractive. Trying to shame that by calling it “objectifying” women is just absurd. Men are different from women, and no that’s not mostly a social construct.

Retrenched:

Yep. It’s not really “patriarchy” that feminists hate, it’s maleness itself.

Given the role that the male plays in courtship (as the pursuer) it makes sense that he would rely on visual cues to determine first of all whether a woman is healthy and fertile before choosing her as a possible mate?

Items of Interest, 27 January 2012

Dr. Wilson reviews The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution by Brion McClanahan (via Rebellion)

Facebook and the Degradation of Personhood

A Tale of Two Cities: Beijing and Detroit
Which symbolizes success, and which disintegration? It may not be what you think.
by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Vox Populi: Consequences of Post-Christianity

U.S. Probe of Border Attack Hardened Pakistani Suspicions by Gareth Porter

The New Pentagon Budget: Better, Not Great by Benjamin H. Friedman

McRaven plots global expansion for spec ops

Issa rips Holder, Justice Dept. over 5th Amendment ‘escalation of culpability’


Marriage:
Marriage and Procreation: The Intrinsic Connection
by Patrick Lee, Robert P. George and Gerard V. Bradley

Community and Localism:
Neighborliness: On a Shared Life by Brian Phillips

Exploring The Ingredients For Transition w/ Rob Hopkins (mp3) (EB)

Social Justice, Institutions, and Communities by Adam J. MacLeod

Diet and Health
16 Signs You're Primal

Music:
Where I Go: Yo-Yo Ma
The Goat Rodeo Rides Again (January 31): A Conversation With Stuart Duncan Plus Chatting With Chuck Prophet (Video Exclusives)


Vevo

The civilian version of the HK417.

Items of Interest, 17 January 2012

John Zmirak, Ron Paul and Pius IX

The Crash-and-Burn Future of Robot Warfare

Is the United States Still the Land of the Free

Economics:
The Problem With Citizens United Is Not Corporate Personhood

Dave Pollard, Gangsters and Bankster (EB)

Transition Voice: What’s really in and out for 2012

Janelle Orsi: Sharing Economy (EB)

Farming:
How farms are using permaculture design to survive and prosper

Jason Bradford, One acre feeds a person (EB)

Your Prius Won’t Save You: Questions for David Owen, Author of The Conundrum


Counterpunch:
GARETH PORTER AND JIM LOBE, Obama Delays U.S.-Israeli War Exercise
THOMAS H. NAYLOR, The End of Something
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, America’s Last Chance
PATRICK COCKBURN, The Newsfakers

Diet and Health:
Cherries for Gout and Arthritis

The LLVLC Show (Episode 533): ‘Minding Your Mitochondria’ TEDx Viral YouTube Sensation Dr. Terry Wahls (mp3)


Low Carb Mistakes




Music:
BBC3: Daniel Hope, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Julian Marshall (expires in 7 days)

2012 SHOT Show - Media Day at the Range


Paul Howe: Advanced Tac Pistol/Rifle Operator

Items of Interest, 21 November 2011

Peter Hitchens, The Hidden Persuaders and the Menace of TV
Gareth Porter, Ex-Inspector Rejects IAEA Iran Bomb Test Chamber Claim
Patrick Cockburn, Huge Stakes in Syria
Spanish Conservatives Win Majority
Richard Heinberg: Islands in an Expanding Sea

Economics:
Rupert Ederer, Oinkonomics

I think his objection to distributism is rather flimsy, and partly a strawman argument in so far as he identifies distributism solely with agrarianism.

Catholic neo-liberalism under the guise of "personalism"? The Need for Economic Personalism (archive) - the Acton Institute, of course.

The primary error of distributism lay in its understanding of the economy as a zero-sum game, where wealth was seen as a static, non-reproducible entity. Therefore the main problem was not the production of wealth but its distribution: How is the static pie of wealth most equitably sliced up? Distributism hindered the emergence of an adequate understanding of human capital and productivity. The distributivists saw economic development only in terms of the cultural dangers of industrialization and as a threat to the family unit. They did not agree that economic growth would generate wealth that would raise living conditions and be "redistributed" by market mechanisms and through charitable organizations. Such economic naivete blinded them to market realities and the basic laws of economics. By the end of the 1920s, however, distributism began to wane and was soon eclipsed by the New Deal Catholics of the Roosevelt era.

What is the author missing? Is It Really Possible to Decouple GDP Growth from Energy Growth?
He could also read John Michael Greer on the primary economy. (In a similar vein to the above, The Economic Personalism of John Paul II: Neither Right Nor Left.)

Relocalization:
How to Make Multigenerational Homes Work
A rather provocative title: Transition plans and meetings a waste of time, says Greer
Michael Shuman, HOW BAMBI BEAT GODZILLA: A response to James Surowiecki

Guest Post: A Message To The SPLC From A Montana "Extremist"

From Liberty Fellowship’s relocation program, to James Rawles’ American Redoubt, Stewart Rhodes’ Operation Sleeping Giant, and my own Safe Haven Project through Alt-Market.com, the powers-that-be are noticeably perturbed at the very idea of Americans walking away from their computers, leaving their homes, talking to each other face-to-face, and forming mutual aid groups. God forbid…

OWS:
Thomas Fleming, Otherwise Occupied
Occupy Wall Street Occupy Your Street
Jack Random, The Austerity Regime

Education:
Classical Homeschooling
In Defense of Poetry
Coleridge: The Education of Children
Respect the Classical Tradition

Diet and Health:
Chris Masterjohn: At the Intersection of Price and Paleo: My Second Interview with Cary Nosler (mp3)

Misc:
Rorate Caeli: the new SSPX seminary

Orion Design Group (ODG) ODTDM-2 Arid-Environment/Multi-Environment/Multi-Terrain/Multispectral Military Combat Camo (Camouflage) Pattern/”Individual Signature Management” Technology Makes Cover of SureFire “Combat Tactics” Magazine Fall 2011 Issue (Photo!)

Items of Interest, 7 November 2011

Gareth Porter, Debunking the Iran Terror Plot

Thomas Fleming, Republican Party Suicide

Anthony Esolen, Big Rock Candy Nation and Part Two

Wisconsin: Legislature Passes Castle Doctrine Giving Homeowners Great Protection

Relocalization:
Local Money Creates Wealth Outside the Bubble (EB)

John Robb, Resilient Energy: Municipalization of Power

Rob Vischer, Should I become a distributist?

Occupy the economy by building local business by Vicki Robin (EB)

Don't occupy Wall Street, ditch it! by Michael Shuman (EB)

OWS:
What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral.

Presenting the Economic Policy of the Occupy Movement (EB)
Dave Pollard, The Metamovement's Message: We're Not Taking It Anymore (EB)
David D'Amato, Big Business: Good for America?
Kevin Carson, To OWS: Withdraw Consent and Starve the System

Capitalism and environmental catastrophe by John Bellamy Foster (EB)

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

The Occupy Movement and the Black Bloc

Peak Oil:
Tom Whipple, Peak Oil Review, November 7

Saturday Oil Report -- November 5, 2011 by Dave Cohen

ASPO Italy 5 Beyond Peak Oil (EB)

Ricardo study suggests global oil demand may peak before 2020 (EB)

Feminism:
Laura Word, A Few Words on the Women's Franchise

Women promoting the welfare state, collectivism, and the restruction of legitimate liberties because of emotion, or some supposed "ethics of care." Such compassion serves its role in their work in their network of family, friends, and local community, but it is dangerous when applied to political deliberation. The male mind is better suited to considerations of justice, the apportioning of responsibility and obligation. Additionally, if we understand that part of communal life as men cooperating for the sake of the well-being of the group, then the presence of women cannot be but disruptive and a hindrance.

Mark Richardson, The family - motherhood, The family - fatherhood, and Stealing motherhood

Dalrock, Submitting to the patriarchy in their heads
Promiscuity is good, so long as it is done on the woman’s terms.
Boundless is their foolishness.

On Marriage: Paternity Establishment and the Commons
Gage Riley's amicus brief for the Prop. 8 case

South Korea:
Student fashions fuse modern and traditional
New insights into traditional music

Music:

Items of Interest, 3 November 2011

James Kirkpatrick, Diversity Is Strength! It's Also The End Of Southern Civility… And The South (via Rebellion)

and there is the influx of Northerners and Yankees who do not share the values, culture, or history of Southrons...

The Merchants of Death and Me by Philip Giraldi

Mother AND Teacher: The Church, Financial Reform, and Realism by John Médaille

John Robb, QUOTE: The Summum Bonum (Highest Good) of Social Capitalism

Huh?

Why the Rich are Getting Richer

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies


Transition Voice: Take shelter by Gerri Williams (on the movie Take Shelter - trailer - FB, Apple)

Something on Richard Heinberg's new book - A windfall would beat QE hands down
by Anthony Hilton

OWS:
VoxDay: Millenials vs Baby Boomers
Welcome to the Occupation

Nuclear Energy:
Sixty Years of Orwellian Nukespeak

NPR: The War Between Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple
I wish this Mexican standoff would end with all of them in the dirt.

Counterpunch:
GARETH PORTER, U.S. Night Raids Killed Over 1,500 Afghan Civilians in Ten Months
URI AVNERY, Why Israel Will Not Attack Iran
RALPH NADER, The Road to the 2012 Presidential Debates

Diet and Health:
Mark Sisson, Introducing the New Primbal Blueprint Food Pyramid
Another Simple Question: The Paleo Diet is Not The Way to a Healthy Future For Whom?
And Why Are You Paleo?
(RN visits Happy Hound in Los Gatos.)


Classical Education:
Reading

Catholic:
Full Interview with Robert P. George (via Mere Comments)

Two novels by women world famous for their literary works published by Ignatius Press (Sigrid Undset)

The Introduction to "A Bitter Trial: Evelyn Waugh and John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on the Liturgical Changes"

Rorate Caeli: The Roman Rite: Old and New - VI
The New Mass and the Church: the underlying theology of the New Rite is Protestant and motivated by Ecumenism and A diocesan priest ordained according to the 1962 Pontifical

Once I Was a Clever Boy: Adjusting the Succession

Music:
A review of Secret Voices by Anonymous 4
The Sixteen: James MacMillan, Miserere
(I'm not a James MacMillan fan...)

Items of Interest, 21 October 2011

Vandana Shiva: "People should see that corporations have abandoned them long ago."


Rob Hopkins, Does Transition build happiness? An article from the latest Resurgence magazine. (pdf)
Economic Solutions Worth Spreading
The Empowerment Manual
A Conversation with Helena Norberg-Hodge, Part II
How Can We Rouse Police and Other Protectors of the Corporatocracy -- "Guards" of the Status Quo -- to Join the OWS Rebellion?

Tom Engelhardt, Bailing out the Complex

PJB, Is America Disintegrating?

Counterpunch:
VIJAY PRASHAD, Qaddafi, From Beginning to End
PAUL IMISON, The Drug War in Mexico
GARETH PORTER, Was the Iranian Plot a Plan for Retaliation?
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, America’s New African Empire
ALEXANDER COCKBURN, Imperial Massacres

Why Do Men and Women Talk Differently

The Endless Courtship Fantasy

Risky “Sexual Marketplace”: Beware Loathsome STDs

Catholic:
Good news for the Eastern province: Dominican Rite Instruction in Washington DC
Reform of the Reform beginning with the Ordinariates?...
Oxford Oratory Ordination
John Zmirak, Heresy Gets Things Done
Halo Shapes: Round or Triangular?
Healey Willan Society Established by Canons Regular of St. John Cantius
Baldichin by Baldichin

Items of Interest, 14 October 2011

An Introduction to Distributism
Joel Salatin in Time.
Slow Money Town Hall Meeting

Rod Dreher, Phillip Blond, Red Toryism, and power in America
Cars, Individualism, and the Paradox of Freedom in a Mass Society by Ted V. McAllister

Occupy:
My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters | Politics News | Rolling Stone
Making sense of the protests through a post-growth lens by James Johnston (EB)
Jack Hunter, What the tea party movement has that the Occupy movement lacks
Kevin Carson, Which Side Are You On (same as this CP article)
Tomgram: Steve Fraser, The Street of Torments

From Alte:
I Stand with the Protesters
Student Loan Racket Complete Infographic
Occupying Wall Street: The Start of a New American Movement
A Dose of Financial Reality

There is a lively discussion at Traditional Christianity about the movement and its participants -- one may fault some of the protesters for the bad choices they've made, but that doesn't later the fact that the political economy needs to be reformed in accordance with justice.

Peak Oil and Energy:
2011 Peak Oil, Energy & the Economy Conference | November 3-5, 2011 | Washington, DC
Why not space? by Tom Murphy (EB)

Iran:
RAY MCGOVERN, The CIA and the Iran Caper
GARETH PORTER, More Sting Than Plot
Is Obama Admin Fabricating Iranian Assassination Plot To Distract From Fast & Furious Investigation?
Daniel Larison, The Alleged Iranian Plot and The Alleged Iranian Plot (II)
Obama: ‘All Options on the Table’ Over Alleged Iran Plot


Unhappy Anniversary, Afghanistan

U.S. Constitution
The Petition of Right: Essential Part of American History | Nullify Now!

Education:
Careers for the Classically Educated : Circe Institute
Learning Latin: A Great Adventure (via CNS)

MRM:
How a man can head off an impending storm

Diet and Health:
A Primal Take on Body Image | Mark's Daily Apple
Robb Wolf, I-CaveMan: After Party-Part 1 and What is the Paleo Diet?
Dr. Boyd Eaton (mp3)

Music:
Now That The Work is Done: October 14th at the Savoy Theatre
OUP Korea team - Everybody Up
Charlie Rose - Anna Netrebko, Peter Gelb and Stephen Costello
Martina McBride on Letterman.

alt

TV:
House Says Goodbye: Sneak a Peek at Olivia Wilde's Final Episode - E! Online
Downton Abbey: The Script by Julian Fellowes, Masterpiece, PBS Video

Items of Interest, 27 September 2011

Distributism Review:
Thomas Storck, Jobs and the Minimum Wage
David Cooney, Practical Distributism: Subsidiarity and Social Security
Dr. Piers Hugill, Riots in England

Anthony Esolen, Two Steps Ahead of the Spirit (via Mere Comments)

Roundup of Europe’s Meltdown by Taki

Counterpunch:
GARETH PORTER, Did the Rabbani Hit Really Kill Peace Talks?

RALPH NADER, As the Drone Flies

Paul Gottfried, Where is the Peace Party?

Mere Comments: UK: Police Ban Bible Display in Christian Café

Why end of growth means more happiness
Richard Heinberg and Kirsten Dirksen (EB)

Peak Oil keynote by Randy Udall and sustainability conference call for participants
by Aaron Wissner (EB)

Donald Davidson, Regionalism and nationalism in the United States: the attack on Leviathan

SWCS: Small-unit tactic training plays big part in Special Forces qualification

Items of Interest, 21 September 2011

Kevin Carson, Bad Consciousness or Bad Structure

GARETH PORTER, U.S. Night Raids Aimed at Afghan Civilians
VIJAY PRASHAD, The Costs of the Great War on Terror

Immigration, the Republicans, and the End of White America by Ron Unz

What is Ron Unz's agenda?

Peter Hitchens, Boston Lincolngrad: The troubling transformation of a sleepy English town after mass immigration from Eastern Europe

Grist: Did Walmart buy urban agriculture group’s silence? and The Small Town Energy Revolution

The Localizer Blog: A Look at the Other Side

Female Farmers: The New Food Industry Frontier

Education:
Clasical Bloggers
Lost Tools of Writing

The words of the father

Black Belt Mag: Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do: What Kind of Book Is It? Three Contributors to the Expanded Edition Sound Off!

Health and Diet:
Will Misguided Saturated Fat Beliefs Cause Weight Gain in School Children?

MDA: How to Deal With Common Primal Stumbling Blocks

Entertainment:
NPR: Roger Ebert


Nippon Cinema: Trailer for eatrip

More Items of Interest

Medievalists.net: Queen’s and Princesses’ Political Function at the end of the Middle Ages (14th and 15th Centuries)

There was a live webchat with Fr. Robert Barron today, on the occasion of the publication of his new book Catholicism. If an archived video becomes available, I will post it.

HanCinema: Chuseok and the Rise of Traditional Markets

Distributist Review: Labor Rights, Addendum

From crushing distance to opening space - a meditation on speed and local consciousness
by Clifford Dean Scholz (EB)

Visualizing a plenitude economy by Juliet Schor (EB)

New Dream Mini-Views: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy from Center for a New American Dream on Vimeo.

Marginalizing Marriage By Father John Flynn, LC
Why This Trend Threatens Society

Notre Dame: New chair endowed in Byzantine Theology

Chris Masterjohn, Gary Taubes on Cherry-Picking and Paradigm Shifts (A Brief Thought on Science)

Anthony Bourdain sounds off on the U.S. obesity epidemic


Counterpunch:
GARETH PORTER, The CIA and the Drones
DAVE LINDORFF, War Spending and Paul Krugman

SFEMS this weekend: About Catacoustic Consort and Wildcat Viols

Tim Ferris will be speaking in San Francisco on September 14. A profile in The New Yorker.

Items of Interest, 1 September 2011

Robb Wolf: Caring for the land: an interview with Joel Salatin (part 4 of 5)

Red Tory? by Roberta Bayer

Dr. Fleming on the Federalists and Anti-Federalists:

Is this really a black and white case? Were there no Federalists who believed in limited government? Were they all power-seeking monsters? Even John Randolph’s Federalist friend Fisher Ames? Why would Adams and Hamilton have wanted a type of government they had never experienced? It seems to me the real question on the table–apart from quite practical matters of dealing out favors–was how far to depart from the British model, which was almost universally viewed as the freest and most successful state in the world at the time. Outside of New England, the leaders of the Revolution had been proud to be English, and it was their mistaken belief that their rights as Englishmen were being threatened that led them to rebellion. George III exceeded the king’s traditional powers not by acting as a dictator or usurping authority he did not have. He got his powers honestly by bribing members of parliament. In the political struggles of the time, I generally support the anti-federalists, but that does not mean we have to pretend that the Federalists were, to a man, dirty scoundrels plotting tyranny. And, let us be candid. There are no Anti-Federalists today, not in any practical political sense. One might just as well say that in supporting, a party of law and order one is a confucianist or a fascist. The Anti-Federalists made excellent arguments, and when they elected more or less their man to the White House, they achieved something, but many (not all) turned against Jefferson, when he proved to be a practical statesman, doing his best for his country as he saw it, Constitution or no Constitution. I suppose we could begin the restoration of the old order by giving up the Louisiana Purchase and kicking out all states admitted after 1800. Perhaps we should give back to the states the right to issue their own paper money. They did such a good job of it in the past!

Anti-Federalism is an attitude, not a philosophy. As an attitude, it derives its strength from the great traditions of Aristotle, St. Thomas, and Althusius. If turned into a philosophy, however, it will become a strait-jacket.

Inkwell: Authors and Artists
Topic 417: John Robb on War, Peace, and Resilient Communities

Patrick Buchanan, Looking Back at “The Good War”

Part 3 of Why the History of Nationalism Matters in a Global Age by Lloyd Kramer

Vox Populi: All ur bikes are belong to us

Coming round the Dark Mountain Part 1: Uncivilisation by Charlotte Du Cann (EB)

Less Work, More Living by Juliet Schor
Working fewer hours could save our economy, save our sanity, and help save our planet.

Counterpunch:
GARETH PORTER, Tribunal Concealed Evidence Al-Qaeda Cell Killed Hariri
RALPH NADER, The Empire is Eating Itself
THOMAS H. NAYLOR, Robots of the World Unite!

Belief in the Proposition Nation at TAC

Richard Ferrier, Declaration's principles good guides for living freely in the U.S.

Reading the text you might think it was written by someone affiliated with the Claremont Institute.

The propaganda from the Union Army is rather humorous, if you're in the proper state of mind to read it that way. Otherwise it might be infuriating. On Facebook, from US Central Command:

On this Independence Day, we send out thanks and wishes to our troops as they continue to protect our nation and preserve her liberty. Thank you for your service!

And from the National Guard:

Happy Independence Day! As you celebrate our great country today, please take a moment to remember the true meaning of independence and to thank the men and women who fight for our Freedom. Land of the free because of the brave!

Protecting liberty? What of the encroachments on liberty by the National Leviathan? Add to that imperial wars that are not necessary for the defense of the Union -- I think those early American separatists would have a thing or two to say about the way things have turned out.

Something a bit more positive (or more constructive)... Distributism and the Modern Economy by Donald P. Goodman III.

See "American Diversity" and Open Thread at Traditional Christianity.

Edit. Someone posted this for the FB page for the American Chesteron Society: "Happy Birthday America, the only nation built on a creed." Wow.

Counterpunch:
Gareth Porter, Despite Troop Surge, Taliban Attacks and US Casualties Soared
Dave Lindorff, Our Incredible Shrinking Constitution

Some sense in the House

AP: House rejects measure to continue US role in Libya

Counterpunch:
Patrick Cockburn, Amnesty Questions Claim That Gaddafi Ordered Rape as Weapon of War

Gareth Porter, The Open Door in Afghanistan

Foreign Policy: This Week at War: Rise of the Irregulars by Robert Haddick
The U.S. isn’t militarizing intelligence, it’s civilianizing the military.

Faking Success in Afghanistan By GARETH PORTER
90% of Petraeus' Captured "Taliban" Were Civilians

Gareth Porter on Military Spending

The Obama-Gates Scam on Military Spending
Numbers Racketeers

Also from Counterpunch:
John Clark, The Cost of Oil: a Year After Deepwater Horizon
Russell D. Hoffman, Why Naoto Kan Should Resign

Energy Bulletin:
One year later: Assessing the lasting impact of the Gulf spill
Carl Safina, Yale Environment 360

The Fukushima disaster and other irreproducible experiments
JoulesBurn, The Oil Drum

Japan, oil and the fragility of globalization
Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee

Unsung bedrock of prosperity (phosphorus)
Samuel Schläfli, ETH Zurich

More from Gareth Porter on Pakistan

Pakistan Objects
Curb the Drones, Kick Out the Spies

Gareth Porter, Deferring to Petraeus

Counterpunch

Despite evidence that the Taliban insurgency had grown significantly in 2010, the U.S. intelligence community failed to revise its estimate for Taliban forces as part of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan in December.


That unusual decision was in deference to Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S.-NATO forces in Afghanistan, who did not want any official estimate of the insurgency's strength that would contradict his claims of success by Special Operations Forces in reducing the capabilities of the Taliban in 2010.

Gareth Porter, Shattering the Myth of Taliban / Al Qaeda Ties

Gareth Porter, 50 Years After Ike's Speech: From Military-Industrial Complex to Permanent War State
Andrew Cockburn, Pentagon Ecstatic Over New Chinese "Threat"