News

			Wendy McElroy: has written an introduction to Benjamin Tucker’s Instead of a Book, by a Man Too Busy To Write One: A Fragmentary Exposition of Philosophical Anarchism that comprehensively sketches the framework of Liberty and its publisher, providing invaluable context for both. The Kindle edition ••• (Amazon) is only $4.99. McElroy interviews ••• Jim Bourque Starr, a chiropractor driven by opponents, using government as their weapon, from the U.S. to Mexico. Pertinent to a new and rapidly growing class of “stateless persons.” See The Stateless Man: Liberty Beyond Borders •••, a website by Fergus Hodgson. The world is now full of wandering persons seeking refuge from ever more hapless and predatory governments. But, for encouragement see the item for Dec 2, below. The U.S., the Anglosphere, and it’s allies have a chance to become a lifeboat for the world. -ls

			James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus have completed their book America 3.0 and submitted the manuscript to their publisher, Encounter Books on Friday, November 30, 2012. Explorers Foundation has provided financial support for the writing of this book. We would like to extend special thanks to Ed Warner and Patricia Wagner.

			Venkat; Mises: Venkatesh Rao’s essay on “Waste, Creativity and Godwin’s Corollary for Technology •••,” shows me why Ludwig von Mises, in Human Action •••, so carefully laid the definitional foundations for discussing problems of waste, scarcity, and sustainability. -ls

			Against Crony Capitalism: http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org --- and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/againstcronycapitalism

			Douglas C. Engelbart: demonstrates word processing and the use of the world’s first computer mouse ••• (Stanford University)

			James C. Bennett: “What the USA did was to take the patterns and toolkit the British used to create their society, and to simplify, universalize, and generalize it until it became a versatile template that could quickly convert expanses of raw land into new, functioning self-governing communities without a thousand years of cultural evolution, and a concept of citizenship that could take European peasant communities who had been dumbly following orders for a thousand years, and turn them within a generation into citizens, jurors, legislators, militiamen and volunteers, vestrymen and congregation-members, entrepreneurs, and self-actualized persons -- the whole Anglosphere toolkit -- all in a deliberate manner that the British never thought they would need, but now might do well to look at. “Americans have in many ways been congratulating themselves for the wrong things. The truths of the Declaration were hardly novel or shocking to the Englishmen who read them; rather, they saw them as a Whig five-finger exercise that had been boilerplate since 1688. What was shocking was that the Americans were throwing their own ideals back in their face.” James C. Bennett, July 8, 2006, at http://anglosphere.com/weblog/archives/2006_07.html See also ef glyph 525

			Richard Fernandez: Storming the Castle, by Fernandez, “… is a pamphlet describing how gradually yet irresistibly, Washington became dominated by a party of incumbents. Whether they are Democrat or Republican, politicians have now become a permanent class in the capital, existing along with a giant bureaucracy, operating the government for their own sake. Unless that is changed, they will simply continue increasing until they bankrupt the country.” ••• (more by Fernandez, at his blog, Belmont Club) — Fernandez blog is consistently brilliant, and always points toward greater liberty for everyone. -ls

			Panera Cares®: “What do we do at Panera Cares® community cafes? We feed people. We uplift. We restore dignity. We make you feel welcome. We fill bellies AND self-esteem. We care.” “Why do we do this? Because we believe that everyone deserves a dignified dining experience in an uplifting environment regardless of their means. It’s as simple as that. This is our way of sharing in the responsibility and making a difference in the world we all share.”

			Venessa Miemis: “I feel that we are a global society in transition. Many of our traditional institutions are failing or just broken. The narrative is broken. The idea of ‘us verse them’ doesn’t work when the realization is made that we are all co-existing in an interdependent set of systems. We are now in the process of telling a new story about how civilization can function in a way that incorporates sustainable practices and leads to resilient and thrivable societies.” -from http://emergentbydesign.com/about/ [thanks to Mark Frazier, Openworld, for this connection]

			Peter Thiel, Blueseed is a project to station a ship 12 nautical miles from the coast of San Francisco, in international waters. The location will allow startup entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world to start or grow their company near Silicon Valley, without the need for a US work visa. The ship will be converted into a coworking and co-living space, and will have high-speed Internet access and daily transportation to the mainland via ferry boat. So far, almost 1000 entrepreneurs from 60+ countries expressed interest in living on the ship. The project is backed by PayPal founder and Facebook early investor Peter Thiel.

			Ibn Khaldun: “It should be known that at the beginning of a dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.” Khaldun wrote this in the late 14th century. A long quotation and an interesting discussion will be found on ChicagoBoyz.net: “Economic Policy Advice from 1377” (post by David Foster)

			Steve Elliott’s October 2012 class on Lean Government, Longmont Colorado

			I’m presenting a week-long class on Lean Government the week of October 15th in Longmont, Colorado. I’ve got 11 folks from Boulder County signed up, but the room will hold 20, so I’m opening it up to all and sundry. No charge, free lunch. Please feel free to spread the word and contact me for more information/syllabus, etc. selliott@bouldercounty.org

			Graduates of this class will be able to organize and lead groups of employees through Kaizen (change for the better) events that take apart any process, analyze where the waste is, remove the waste and put it back together again. In Boulder County we were able to reduce the time to generate a Certificate of Taxes Due (one of the papers you sign when you buy or sell a house) from 72 hours to 4. The Land Use department reduced the time it took to issue a building permit in the mountains from 9 weeks to 3. All done with the current staff using the techniques this class will teach.

			efVortex SLIM : Society of Lean Implementation Malcontents, guided by Steve Elliott

			Honduras Free Zone project: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09/11/private-city-in-honduras-will-have-minimal-taxes-government

			Zachary Caceres: “’A classroom of thousands’: Disrupting entrepreneurial education with Massive Open Online Courses” ••• — Radical Social Entrepreneurs •••

			Michael Strong, Honduras, Free Zones: 1) International Treaties; 2) Police Force

			From the FAQ at http://www.grupomgk.com/english/faq.html

			Can the SDRs negotiate their own international treaties and agreements?

			The SDR’s can sign international treaties and agreements on issues related to trade and cooperation on matters within its competence, provided that they are approved by the National Congress.The SDR’s may execute agreements with national or international intelligence service agencies to combat organized crime.“ - Article 7 of the Constitutional Statute Of The Special Development Regions (SDR’s)

			Will the SDR’s police force be truly independent from the rest of the Honduras?

			“The SDR’s have to establish their own police force and are authorized to perform the said function on their own or through proxy. Therefore, for this purpose, the SDR’s may enter into cooperative agreements with other countries or regions.” - Article 8 of the Constitutional Statute Of The Special Development Regions (SDR’s)

			John Bright: With Richard Cobden, in 1840s England, John Bright achieved the seemingly impossible: the repeal of the Corn Laws, which obstructed, through tariffs, the importation of grain into the country. Bright’s biographer, G. M. Trevelyan, writing of Bright’s education, quotes him on his short formal education, at Newton school: “I left Newton on 16 February 1827, and at the age of 15 years and 3 months my school education terminated. I came home and soon began to be employed in my father’s mill, and to take an interest in the business. I had learned some Latin and a little French, … then taught in such schools as I had been placed in. Reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar and geography—no mathematics and no science.” Trevelyan comments: “A scanty stock! But as we shall see, his real education in literature, history, economics, and politics, was about to begin with himself as master. The schools of his sect had done well for him, for they had preserved the influences of his home. His boyhood had been passed in the atmosphere of the Society of Friends, that intangible but pervading spirit which instills rather than teaches the doctrine of the equality and brotherhood of men and women, of rich and poor; the nothingness of worldly distinctions; and the supreme duty of humane conduct. He had not, like so many pupils of more fashionable places of education, unlearned the lessons of his home, and of his own nature—the independence of opinion, the quick response to the whisper of conscience, the aspirations after a higher life. He may have suffered more than he learnt from some of his masters, but at least he had not been taught, like most young Englishman, to quail before the public opinion of his school fellows, or to put on the air of being ashamed of the things of the mind and heart. Like Wordsworth, he emerged from the simple old country schools not molded down to the pattern of gentility or of the bourgeoisie, and he had therefore still the chance of growing into a great man.” —The Life of John Bright, Trevelyan, Houghton Mifflin, 1914, pg. 13-14. My italics. Who was Trevelyan that he would notice such a thing? -ls

			Alfa Demmellash: Stephen Miller, “If you can’t find work you have to create work.” Video of Stephen Miller explaining his new furniture business and how Rising Tide Capital has helped him. Jim Bennett: is on the board of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing.

			vortex Openworld: Added links to articles on new free zones in Honduras

			Alvin Rabushka: “A Free-Market Constitution for Hong Kong: A Blueprint for China •••,” CATO Institute, 1989

			Tim Sullard is a principal organizer of the Great American Techno Festival 2012, from September 13 through 16, in Denver. The Program. And here’s an introduction to Techno music, by Pat Wagner, “A preview of the cutting edge from someone who has never been cool” •••

			Gerhardt Zimmerman has plans to conduct a performance of the last movement of Mahler’s 6th at next year’s Breckenridge Music Festival [Mahler not yet announced here]

			“The sound of the hammer, which features in the last movement, was stipulated by Mahler to be ‘brief and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a non-metallic character’. The sound achieved in the premiere did not quite carry far enough from the stage, and indeed the problem of achieving the proper volume while still remaining dull in resonance remains a challenge to the modern orchestra. Various methods of producing the sound have involved a wooden mallet striking a wooden surface, a sledgehammer striking a wooden box, or a particularly large bass drum, or sometimes simultaneous use of more than one of these methods.” -Wikipedia, at •••

			Vic Sarjoo’s Sir Groovy provides a new and efficient method to find and license music for advertising campaigns, films, tv, and electronic games.

			Lucy Hickerson-Luc reports opening of the Baie Lazare Public Library, Seychelles. “Baie Lazare is an administrative district of Seychelles located on the island of Mahé. It is named after the explorer Lazare Picault.” ••• -wikipedia

			John Roberts: John’s book is described at Amazon: “When Hally, a funny and precocious six-year-old girl, and her photographer dad go out on assignment to photograph the paintings of gifted wildlife artist Jake Bandanna, they think they see him momentarily turn into a turtle. Was it real or a trick of light? Is he just an eccentric or a medicine man? Astonished and skeptical, but honestly intrigued, the family gets drawn into an unexpected quest. Jake Bandanna is helping a wildlife agency with a project for endangered desert tortoises. This soon reveals a conflict between freedom for some and captivity for others and spurs a gauntlet of accelerating tensions that exposes them all to the mysteries of the imagination and the natural world.” ••• (more about the book, at Amazon)

			Jon Barron: Introducing his current Baseline Nutritionals newsletter, Jon writes: “In this month’s newsletter, we are going to cover some of the most controversial herbs found in nature. They are not controversial because there is a debate on if they work or not; they are controversial because many governments have tried to ban these ingredients repeatedly. Even now you will find most of the herbs we are going to cover on the FDA cautionary list and virtually all of them on the Canadian list.”

			Lindsey Ragsdale: is starting a new business, “from scratch, llc.,” in Denver, to provide custom baked goods for any occasion. Here’s a gallery of photographs of her work •••

			Pyotr Patrushev: Professional Interpreter and Translator since the 1970’s. Member of AIIC (Geneva) and NAATI (Australia). Interpreted for Russian and Australian Heads of State (Putin, Howard), Prime Ministers, Members of the Cabinet. Assignments for the CNN, American Broadcasting Corporation, ABC TV and Radio (Australia). Interpreted at over 200 international conferences, UN agencies, World Bank, etc. Translation, voice over and subtitling for TV and film industry. Corporate, private and business clients from around the world. Olympic and Asian games, starting with Munich in 1972. I have recently published two books: a satire on how the Cold War ended when vodka was tinted with a psychedelic mushroom in the USSR; and a memoir about my swim out of Russia to Turkey in 1962 (for which I got sentenced to death on charges of “high treason” and put on the KGB’s wanted list for 27 years). I am in the process of updating another book, “The Transcendent Ape”, a lighthearted look at “intelligent design”, evolution and religion. -Pyotr, Linkedin •••

			Louie from the beet field: tells us what it is like to find strength and hope in the depths of misery. Andras Schiff: explains how he does it, illustrating on piano, in his lecture on Louie’s sonata No 31 in A flat major, opus 110 ••• (if you are short on time, start at 19:40 into the recording of the lecture)

			Laissez Faire Books •••:: Frank Chodorov’s The Rise and Fall of Society •••, first published in 1959 — “Chodorov had the benefit of watching the whole of the 1930s and 1940s and the postwar period, and he could see with even greater clarity how the state operates in different times and places. He poured his heart and soul into the book, yet he knew that the book would matter only after his death. Even the dedication suggests this: He signs it to his granddaughter, who he suggests will have ‘good, clean fun — trying to reconstruct a long-lost pattern of thought.’” Frank Chodorov introduced me to Human Action •••, by Ludwig von Mises. -ls

			Michael J. Lotus: Has received a Cobden-Bright Award from Explorers Foundation for his work on the concept of the Anglosphere, and particularly for his work on America 3.0, authored in collaboration with James C. Bennett, forthcoming from Encounter Books, New York. Lotus blogs on chicagoboyz.net (Lotus is Lexington Green). Michael has made important contributions to the growing network of anglosphere scholars and entrepreneurs. Explorers Foundation is interested in the anglosphere as one source of concepts and practices of use to explorers of every origin.

			Patrick Cox: “As far as we can determine, I’m the first person in history to see his own heart cells, cardiomyocytes, derived from cells [Patrick’s own skin cells -ls] converted to age-zero iPS cells, beating outside of the body.” -in “Breakthrough Technology Alert”, Patrick’s newsletter, published by Agora Financial.

			Mike Adams: “In wake of Giffords shooting, the mere act of questioning the government now being demonized” ••• (article at Natural News) Leif Smith: If we want peace we must be prepared to pay a very high price: we must be prepared to leave other people free to make their own decisions about what’s best for them and for those they care about. Following this principle, government management of health care or education would become impossible. Some would regard allowing people such freedom as a price too high to pay. Consequently, they will get the government management they seek, but they will not get peace.

			Robert Hessen: Charles M. Schwab began as a laborer, from an ordinary family, with no educational preparation for business or technology, but in six months was acting chief engineer for the largest steel mill in America. A fascinating book, Charles M. Schwab, Robert Hessen, Oxford University Press, 1975. Schwab and his story is the kind of thing Ayn Rand wanted us to understand and value. -ls

			Gary Hoover: Austin, Texas, “The Art of Enterprise” - a course in entrepreneurial thinking (11 weekly sessions); and “Understanding Companies” - how to become an expert in any company or industry (4 weekly sessions). Course descriptions. Gary is the founder of Hoover’s (a D&B company), a premiere source of business information. Highly recommended. -ls. Gary has decided to do another startup, so these courses may not be offered again. Hoover’s World - a rich source for explorers. -ls

			Kickstarter:: Stompy: The Giant, Rideable Walking Robot —Why would you not want to see a giant robot rideable spider get built? of course you would.

			Sand County Foundation:: “Wisconsin’s Secretary of Agriculture Ben Brancel, neighboring landowners, and Representatives from Sand County Foundation, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, and others toured Koepke Farms near Oconomowoc, Wisconsin on June 30. The Koepkes are the 2011 recipient of the Leopold Conservation Award in Wisconsin. The tour included a walk-through of the Koepkes’ dairy facility and their crop fields where the family highlighted the benefits of 20+ years of no-till crop management.” Read more …

			The Seen and the Unseen “In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them. ”There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen. “Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.” -from an essay by Frédéric Bastiat in 1850, “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen” [thanks to Ludwig von Mises Institute]

			SS United States, history and current plans for restoration ••• — “After the loud and fantastic claims made in advance for the liner United States, it comes as something of a disappointment to find them all true.” -Punch Magazine, 1952. [thanks to Mary Villalba, board member, SS United States Conservancy]

			“It is almost impossible for an entrepreneur to flourish in an environment that fundamentally dislikes entrepreneurship. Fortunately for the innovators, however, patients are paying for more healthcare bills out of their own pockets. And wherever we find health markets dominated by patients paying for care directly, entrepreneurship is thriving.” ... “In the international market for medical tourism, we are discovering that almost every type of elective surgery can be subjected to the discipline of the marketplace; that discipline is increasingly evident within our borders in the emerging market for domestic medical tourism, where patients willing to travel to other cities can find cheaper, higher-quality care.” ... “... new products and new services have cropped up to meet the needs of patients spending their own money. There are products and services that were made possible precisely because the third-party-payer bureaucracies were not standing in the way. If the private sector is left free to continue with such innovations, there is much more to come.” —from the introduction to Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis •••, by John C. Goodman, published by The Independent Institute •••

			Peter Saint-André has finished the first draft of a book on Epicurus •••

			The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World, by Margaret Cavendish •••, Duchess of Newcastle (1624?-1674), London: Printed by A. Maxwell, 1668 •••

			A contest in creative imagination, proposed by Explorers Foundation

			Topic: What would Emma Goldman have done with the work of Murray N. Rothbard? Contestants must demonstrate deep familiarity with the works of Goldman and Rothbard. Especially sought are transcripts of discussions between Goldman and Rothbard. If a third party should be added to a discussion we recommend Andrew Carnegie. Leif Smith to Jim Bennett: ‘Goldman’s “My Disillusionment in Russia,” and the subsequent volume, “My Further Disillusionment in Russia,” are illuminating. As is Alexander Berkman’s “The Bolshevik Myth”. Goldman and Berkman were given their own train by the Bolsheviks and for a time were imagined to be sterling messengers to the west. Didn’t turn out quite that way. Goldman’s book is in two volumes because the printer accidentally left the second half of the book on the floor and forgot to print it.’ Jim Bennett to Leif Smith: “My assessment is, that in fifty or a hundred years, Goldman will be known primarily for those books. The crimes of the twentieth century, and the placid acquiescence to them in so much of polite liberal society will be the focus of morbid attention for centuries to come. Much attention will be paid the the relative handful that swam against that current. Goldman’s quaint social theories and the events in her life leading up to Russia will mostly be treated as autobiographical color.”

			Windward, The Village Helix, June 29 - July 8

			The Village Helix is a gathering of people who are interested in the arts and crafts, science and spirituality that lie at the center of the challenge to recreate sustainable community at the village scale. We come together to learn, to teach, to share and to support each other in the quest to master old skills and new ways. Hosted by the Windward Education and Research Center, the gathering happens each year in the Windward Center’s campground which lies north of the Columbia River, east of Portland, Oregon, and near the Klickitat River. The event site is a mixed-conifer forest where wetland Douglas firs compete with dryland Ponderosa pines and ancient Garry oaks bear witness to the endless dance. We come together because creating a critical mass of sustainable skills requires a broad community of arts and crafts. And so we join together to learn almost-forgotten skills and newly-learned ways that we can take back to our home communities to help our neighbors and ourselves weather the coming storms of change. If you want to camp-out (with a contained play area set up for little ones so you can relax), eat good food, learn, and experience Windward’s approach to sustainable community, we invite you to contact us about the Village Helix. •••

			WeForest ••• is an international organization dedicated to sustainable reforestation. Our main objective is to participate in countering global warming and promote the international movement to recover part of the forests which have disappeared. Openworld Café ••• — I love the word, “openworld,” introduced to me by Mark Frazier. WeForest was found on this site. EF’s vortex Openworld •••. As far as I know there is no connection between Openworld Café and Marl Frazier’s Openworld •••. But, probably, there should be one. -ls

			“Ethnic minorities identify more closely with the idea of ‘Britishness’ than their white counterparts, new research has revealed, contradicting the perception that immigrants do not integrate into British society.” ••• (albawaba) — found through a link at Minaret of Freedom ••• (Islam & Liberty)

			Howard Rheingold’s 2006 presentation on his conception of OpenWorld ••• — good things here. -ls

			Book banned: Malay edition of Irshad Manji’s Allah, Liberty & Love ••• — Irshad calls her work “The Moral Courage Project.” People are being imprisoned for distributing her book. Moral courage must be dangerous. -ls The Case Against the Fed, by Murray N. Rothbard. An excellent introduction to the economics of money and banking. A worthwhile book, agree or not. -ls “The most powerful case against the American central bank ever written. This work begins with a mini-treatment of money and banking theory, and then plunges right in with the real history of the Federal Reserve System. Rothbard covers the struggle between competing elites and how they converged with the Fed. Rothbard calls for the abolition of the central bank and a restoration of the gold standard. His popular treatment incorporates the best and most up-to-date scholarship on the Fed’s origins and effects.” A free pdf of the entire book ••• (thanks to Ludwig von Mises Institute)

			“… the scary realization everybody needs to understand. When the economy isn’t free, neither are you.” -Jonathan Hoenig, managing member at Capitalistpig Asset Management LLC •••

			Conor Friedersdorf, reviews a new book by Chris Hayes, Twilight of THE ELITES. “The Cult of Smartness: How Meritocracy is Failing America” ••• (the review). Friedersdorf is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs. Jim Bennett comments, “Interesting. At least some of his proposals have merit. In general, what is needed is to smash credentialism and create as many possible alternative routes to higher income and status, using as many different metrics as possible. The fewer chokepoints to advancement, the fewer opportunities for the elites to pull up the ladders.” Let’s develop a culture optimized to generate competitive elites and fierce honest critics of all elites. -ls

			Dariush Homayoun (1928-2011), Iran: Jim Bennett, author of The Anglosphere Challenge, comments that Homayoun was an interesting thinker. Anyone Jim thinks is interesting I try to learn more about. Explorers Foundation is providing financial backing for the writing of Bennett’s (and Michael Lotus’) next book, America 3.0. -ls

			“We have had the past twenty-five years to study and learn the lessons of our own and other countries’ mistakes. Following the removal of this regime we will experience an explosion of national energy that all problems notwithstanding, would once again see our nation in the forefront of emerging economies. The American power has solved almost all our geo-strategic problems -- Russia’s two hundred years of southward expansionism at our expense, the 22 hundred years of insecure western border in Mesopotamia, and Taliban sitting in Afghanistan.” -Homayoun “Now instead of perpetual threat, all we have is opportunity; to resume our historic role as a cultural and economic magnet in a vast area comprising western and Central Asia; alleviating its needs for industrial and cultural products. This is where we belong, can contribute, and make a difference to the better for everybody. The Americans, by destroying the ”Evil Empire“, gave Iran a singular chance, but we were in our worst position to take it. If it only had occurred under the Pahlavi regime! Even under the infamous Qajars, Iranians would at least have been allowed as private citizens to go in their hundreds of thousands and establish ancient ties to the mutual benefit of us all.” -Homayoun Interview with Dariush Homayoun •••, by Reza Beyegan, published in 2003

			A Simple Explanation Of Capital Adequacy Ratios And How They Impact The Gold Market, by Margaret Olsen, precious metals & sports memorabilia appraiser and advisor

			Margaret Olsen, email: Margaret@4preciousmetals.com , website: www.4preciousmetals.com — new clients by referral only, so please mention Explorers Foundation. The big story in the gold market today is a change in banking capital adequacy ratios that would give banks greater regulatory incentive to hold gold. This article from Ross Norman explains the story in greater detail. Here's my simple interpretation on what's going on and what it means for the price of gold: 1. The Basel Committee for Bank Supervision - also known as the BCBS - is a monetary authority that helps to shape the rules for how banks operate. Specifically, banks profit by making loans; accordingly, organizations like BCBS help ensure banks have assets needed to make loans. 2. BCBS is considering giving banks a higher score for holding gold. If BCBS implements such rules, banks will want to hold gold to meet BCBS the required capital adequacy ratio - in other words, to meet regulatory requirements regarding liquid assets banks must hold. 3. If BCBS does decide to create a policy whereby banks are regarded as more stable for holding gold, it is unclear on the specifics on when the rules would kick in. Ross Norman cites a period between 2013 and 2018, perhaps scaling in along the way. 4. If the rules do kick in, this will create significant demand for gold. Basically, banks everywhere will have incentive to buy gold - and potentially lots of it, depending on how the rules are structured. 5. Most importantly, a BCBS ruling that equates gold with capital adequacy brings us one very large step closer to gold being officially re-monetized; it is, in a way, like a gold standard. This is what I regard as one of the most bullish factors possible for gold; the closer it gets to being formally recognized by prevailing monetary authorities, the higher the gold price will go. That gold has gone past $1,500 without any formal recognition speaks volumes; the real price move hasn't even begun. If we can get formal recognition from BCBS or someone else that has the power to influence the global banking system, I think a five-digit gold price comes much closer to reality. The one caveat is that I consider it somewhat possible that the influence of the BCBS will decline significantly in the years to come. As the global sovereign debt crisis gets resolved, the end result could be a transfer of power to supranational institutions like the World Bank and BCBS - or it could mean a collapse of all these big institutions and the rise of non-state networks like Hezbollah and Anonymous. If we see the latter, we will need the monetary authorities that emerge out of those groups to respect gold. For the time being, though, a transfer of power to supranational institutions seems more likely (unfortunate as that may be to those who equate liberty with local governance). And so, a BCBS policy equating gold with capital adequacy is thus very significant. For those looking to play this opportunity, buying gold ETFs like (GLD) and (PHYS) are options - although I favor owning the bullion via vault storage services and through taking physical delivery of the metal. Remember the timeline, though; investors should expect to wait a few years, perhaps as much as six more. Hold until price goes parabolic, and when there are sharp retracements like what we are currently seeing, use that as a buying opportunity. If BCBS equates gold with capital adequacy, you'll be quite glad you did so.

			Charles Morgan, in an essay on Creative Imagination: “How, then, should an artist live and work? George Moore wrote, in a letter to a very young girl who was experimenting in his own art, the following words”:

			If you go out and amuse yourself when you can’t write, your art will waste into nothingness. An artist’s life is in this like in acrobat’s, he must exercise his craft daily, when inspiration is by him and when it is afar. He must not wait for inspiration, he must continue to call it down to him always, and at last he will answer him. . . . If you would hear the Muse, you must prepare silent hours for her and not be disappointed if she breaks the appointment you have made with her. To receive the Muse as it is her due to be received you must have an apartment. You must dine in and alone very often.

			Reflections in a Mirror (second series), by Charles Morgan, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1947

			“… in economies where people doing lowly work are not hampered from adding new work to old, we may expect that just such lowly occupations as janitorial work will be the footholds from which complex, prosperous, and economically important new industries develop.” -Jane Jacobs, The Economy of Cities, pg. 113, Vintage paperback edition.

			Hayekian Moments in Life ••• — Jeffrey Tucker, observing Sao Paulo from a height, again comprehends the significance of a statement of F. A. Hayek’s about planning: “This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals.”

			Oath Keepers Founder, Stewart Rhodes, will be on the Coast to Coast radio show tonight, from 10-11pm Pacific. Stewart will be discussing the new Indiana law, Senate Act #1, that is intended to restore, by statute, a right to resist unlawful entry by police that had existed for centuries under common law, but was wiped out last year in an Indiana Supreme Court Barnes v. State of Indiana decision. This law is a reaction to that very flawed bit of judicial activism. -from an Oath Keepers email today. http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/03/02/indiana-house-approves-bill-that-allows-homeowners-to-kill-police-officers — Stephen D. Foster, Jr., author of this report is opposed to the Indiana law. http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/05121101shd.pdf — a case that led to the Indiana law.

			“Ayn Rand and American Culture,” by Peter Saint-André ••• — St. André admires the spirit and intent of Rand’s account of America. In this article he provides a wealth of things it would have been well for her to have known, things we may hope she would have been delighted to learn. Recently, I have been delighted to learn these things. A new understanding how the entrepreneurial culture of the United States, and of the entire Anglosphere came to be is emerging. St. André provides a good introduction. The bibliography of eleven books is excellent. -ls

			A beautiful video, shown today at the opening of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, tells stories showing how great hardware and software are used to make important contributions to the quality of lives all over the world. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, introduces the video at about 7 minutes into today’s recording of his presentation. It lasts about 10 minutes, and is worth watching: it is genuinely heartening and inspiring. Go to http://apple.com ; click on “Watch the Keynote” ; navigate to about the 7 minute point. -ls

			“What’s Really Behind Europe’s Decline? It’s the Birth Rates, Stupid,” by Joel Kotkin •••

			In September 1909 the plenary meeting of the Verein für Socialpolitik took place in Vienna. At that meeting, ‘Alfred Weber had dared to suggest that there might be something wrong with becoming a civil servant, and something even worse about turning large segments of the population into employees of the state. In doing so, he denounced the very mission of the Verein [circle], which was to provide “scientific” underpinnings for ever more government intervention and a larger, more powerful bureaucracy.’ -Jörge Guido Hülsmann, Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism •••, pg. 200 — a magnificent biography of one of the world’s greatest thinkers, and the mentor of F. A. Hayek. The book is available in many forms, print and ebooks, at the link provided. Explorers Foundation helped to fund the publication of this book. -ls

			The Churchill Memorandum, by Sean Gabb, reviewed by L. Neil Smith ••• — A fascinating alternative history, in which WWII never happened. Smith’s review is interesting reading. -ls

			Ground Force Manufacturing, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho ••• — expanding, training, hiring, exporting trucks to customers all over the world. Ron Nilson, President. … video introduction to the company

			“The Boys of Pointe du Hoc,” by Ronald Reagan, June 6, 1984 ••• — a great speech -ls

			From John Scott, today, Memorial Day All of my comrades in arms especially honor this weekend, which we set aside to remember our all of our dead, all of our family and all of our friends and their sacrifice. The statements below are indeed eloquent tributes and put the notion that “all gave some” and “some gave all” in proper perspective. The “eloquent” words of others, who were not there among us in the heat of battle, can not capture the emotions our memories engender. Yet, these “words” do great service, as they cause the rest of our countrymen to pause and reflect on the sacrifices made, in order for them to live in the free society they enjoy, that is the result of the blood that was shed by others and lives that were shattered. We hope and pray that our lives and our actions continue to do honor to their sacrifice. Semper Fi! The statements to which John refers will be found here: In Memory: A Memorial Day Tribute. One of them is this: “The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit. If other eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us. Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation’s gratitude, the soldier’s and sailor’s widow and orphan.” -General John A. Logan’s Memorial Day Order, Headquarters, Grand Army of the Republic, General Orders No.11, Washington, D.C., May 5, 1868 Thank you, John Scott.

			Power and Willpower in the American Future: Why the United States Is Not Destined to Decline, by Robert J. Lieber, April 2012

			Amazon’s description: “To argue against the widely proclaimed idea of American decline, as this book does, might seem a lonely task. After all, the problems are real and serious. Yet if we take a longer view, much of the discourse about decline appears exaggerated, hyperbolic, and ahistorical. Why? First, because of the deep underlying strengths of the United States. These include not only size, population, demography, and resources, but also the scale and importance of its economy and financial markets, its scientific research and technology, its competitiveness, its military power, and its attractiveness to talented immigrants. Second, there is the weight of history and of American exceptionalism. Throughout its history, the United States has repeatedly faced and eventually overcome daunting challenges and crises. Contrary to a prevailing pessimism, there is nothing inevitable about American decline. Flexibility, adaptability, and the capacity for course correction provide the United States with a unique resilience that has proved invaluable in the past and will do so in the future. Ultimately, the ability to avoid serious decline is less a question of material factors than of policy, leadership, and political will.” ••• (Amazon)

			America 3.0, by James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus, forthcoming, 2013 ••• (description of the book)

			“We the People,” a blog about America 3.0 ••• — fascinating and important content, with links to resources that may open new paths to thinking about the future of America. Explorers Foundation is providing financial support for the writing of this book. -ls

			U.S. vs. Silver Valley Idaho Mining, article by David Bond, “U.S. Attacking Silver Valley Mining” •••

			Novel casting process could transform how complex metal parts are made. “A Georgia Tech research team has developed a novel technology that could change how industry designs and casts complex, costly metal parts. This new casting method makes possible faster prototype development times, as well as more efficient and cost-effective manufacturing procedures after a part moves to mass production. . . . Suman Das, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, has developed an all-digital approach that allows a part to be made directly from its computer-aided design (CAD).” -article in phys.org [thanks to instapundit]

			“Better to have your money in Swiss or German bank than in a Greek one, every sentient vertebrate in Greece has to understand; as a result, hundreds of billions of euros have been moving out of the Greek banking system.” — “Ratcheting Up The Crisis In Europe •••,” Walter Russell Mead, Meadia ••• (Mead’s blog)

			Temporary workers, border security, red card solution, proposal from the Kriebel Foundation ••• Heritage Foundation’s evaluation of the red card •••

			“Some years ago I wrote a brief analysis of the Yes song ‘And You and I’ for someone who contacted me out of the blue over the Internet (perhaps he had read my journal entries about Yes from June 29, 2000 and April 16, 2001, or my essay Saying Yes to Rand and Rock). Sadly, he was dying of cancer at the time, but his wife told me that my letter meant a great deal to him because he too had puzzled over the song for many years. I’ve decided to post it online in case some other Yes fans might find it enlightening.” -Peter Saint-André, 2011

			China, international schools — “There are numerous international schools getting started.” -Brian Bramell. Examples: Dalian Maple Leaf International School •••; Canadian International School of Beijing •••

			“Jonah Bank of Wyoming was established in 2006 by a group of folks that live in Wyoming, work in Wyoming, and most of all care about Wyoming. They felt that there was a need for a bank that would help ‘Build a Better Wyoming’. We stand by our mission statement and live by the Jonah Bank Code every day.” •••

			Anatomy in Clay reports, “In support of America’s Arthritis Awareness Month in May, we asked Steve Kish, Associate Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Zane State College, to prepare a lesson using the ANATOMY IN CLAY™ Learning System. We hope that teaching students about Arthritis will lead to its prevention.” •••

			“… right now anybody who wants to utilize stem cell protocols has to go offshore, either the Dominican Republic, or Asia, or Germany. Why aren’t we bringing this incredible new breakthrough to the United States? Doctors in this country are itching to be able to use stem cells, and their hands are tied.” — Why are we taxed to pay for this restriction of medical practice? -ls Read more: Suzanne Somers: My Stem-Cell Miracle Can Help Millions

			“McKinsey suggests that the notion that megacities will dominate the urban future constitutes ”a common misconception.“ Instead surging smaller cities will constitute well over half of the world’s urban growth, gaining ever more share from the megacities over time. This is particularly true in the U.S. which constitutes the epicenter for the new smaller city economy” — from “Small Cities Are Becoming a New Engine Of Economic Growth, •••” Joel Kotkin, May 8, 2012, first published in Forbes. [thanks to Mike Lotus (Lexington Green, on chicagoboyz.net)]

			Wikipedia “Terms of Use” agreement updated through collaborative process ••• — “Following a historic community editing and comment process, Wikimedia’s Terms of Use has been updated. The newly revised version will become effective on May 25, 2012. The updated Terms of Use is the result of a unique collaborative process that incorporated over 200 edits and 4500 lines of discussion. For more than 140 days, the Wikimedia community reviewed, drafted, and redrafted proposed updates to the Terms of Use, resolving over 120 issues. Never before has a major website’s terms been drafted through such an interactive, collaborative effort.” -Wikipedia, at the linked page

			“Jazz music, more than any other form of art, makes a person free. Playing jazz music, or listening to it, you don’t have to adhere to Soviet laws. And those laws were so artificial, so brutal, so unnatural. Here, listening or playing you could be yourself. You’re free. You’re free from that nonsense.” -Trumpeter, Valery Ponomarev, in this interview, at prx.org, ••• (length 00:13:26) —This is a wonderful story about the sudden onset of a love that shapes an entire life. -ls [thanks to Lara Ewing Himber] PRX.org: “During The Cold War with the Soviet Union, the United States had a secret weapon: Willis Conover’s ‘Jazz Hour,’ carried on the shortwave radio signals of The Voice of America across Russia and Eastern Europe. Starting in 1955 and running for over forty years, ‘Jazz Hour’ nurtured generations of jazz musicians who grew up under the restrictions of Communism. On this edition of Jazz Stories we hear Willis Conover and two outstanding jazz musicians, Czech bassist George Mraz and Russian trumpeter Valery Ponomarev - both of whom learned about jazz from his broadcasts.” — sounds like Willis Conover will become a hero of Explorers Foundation. -ls Another hero: Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records & Service Co., now Smithsonian Folkways. [thanks to Pat Wagner]

			Paul Kayser’s Idea of Good Business: advice from the founder of El Paso Natural Gas

			In The Pipeliners: The Story of El Paso Natural Gas, author Frank Mangan quotes Paul Kayser, the founder of the company: “I start out on this principle: Find out about the man you’re trying to contract with — what he really wants and what is good for him. When you learn that, then aim to give it to him. But at the same time he must give you the things you want. But don’t ever get the attitude of magnifying what you want and minimizing what he wants. A man who has made a bad contract is going to sit up nights trying to find a way to break it. If it is a good contract, you can make it much more rapidly, and in the end it will be a good thing for you as well.” “Behind every corporation are, after all, the people who built the organization, not the faceless shell that many Americans imagine corporations to be, but a structure of people with hearts, muscles, minds, and vision.” —Frank Mangan, author of The Pipeliners. The machinery of Santa Rita No. 1, the well in Jal, New Mexico, basic to the events that produced El Paso Natural Gas, is now properly enshrined at the University of Texas, in Austin, in recognition of that well’s contribution to their good fortune. The Pipeliners: The Story of El Paso Natural Gas, 1977 : Guynes Press, El Paso, Texas; ISBN: 0-930-208-06-4

			“Ever since I first started listening to the progressive rock band Yes in my early teens, I’ve been inspired by the nobility, grandeur, and deeply positive spirituality of their music. In 1999 I started listening to and thinking about their music more seriously. One of those new encounters was a reading of Bill Martin’s book Music of Yes, who suggested the idea of Squire Variations as the foundation of extended works for solo electric bass (something like a modern equivalent of the Bach Cello Suites). Martin’s suggestion took hold in my brain as a wonderous way to pay homage to the Yes music, and for the last few years I’ve been working on solo bass arrangements of the following Yes songs (one from each album in what Martin calls their ‘main sequence’)” -Peter Saint-André, at http://stpeter.im/music/yes/

			“A Better Way to Limit Congestion on Roads: How applying the Managed Lanes concept to arterials could reduce traffic •••,” by Robert Poole and Chris Swenson — ‘Priced “managed lanes” (ML) are one of the great transportation success stories of the past decade, with such lanes now in operation on expressways in many metro areas and new mega-projects adding such lanes in the Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas, Miami, and Washington, DC areas. Because the ML concept has worked so well on congested expressways, there is growing interest in seeing if the idea can be applied to congested arterials, as well.’

			Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 7, 2012, asks: “What could you choose to do today, if you had enough money for a major medical procedure, and the legion of medical regulators didn’t exist? If you were free to choose your own risks in medicine, and doctors and researchers were free to be paid to help you? Here are a few examples, with varying degrees of risk, reward, and unknown factors: Plausible, Possible, Expensive, Prohibited” •••

			‘Growing amid the skyscrapers and bustling streets of New York City, the Riverpark Farm at Alexandria Center™ is New York City’s “most urban farm.” Located at the end of East 29th Street in Kip’s Bay, the Farm supplies fresh, local produce to the adjacent Riverpark Restaurant and creates a unique green space on what will become the west tower at the Alexandria Center for Life Science – New York City.’ — Riverpark Farm, New York ••• “The Unknown Inventor Whose Work is Saving the Developing World •••,” — a Co.EXIST ••• (“world changing ideas and innovation”) article about Ashok Gadgil, a professor in the Department of Civil Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. -thanks to Eugene Seymour, NanoViricides, Inc. •••

			Mao Yushi, Chairman, Unirule Institute of Economics, Beijing, China, wins Milton Friedman Price for Advancing Liberty, CATO Institute ••• — “Economist Mao Yushi safely arrived in the U.S. Wednesday night after a tense several days during which his detention by Chinese authorities seemed imminent. Mao is slated to receive the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, awarded biennially by the Cato Institute, Friday at a black-tie dinner keynoted by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. ‘We’re relieved that the Chinese government has kept its word,’ said Cato founder and president Edward H. Crane. ‘Given the current political environment in China, we were preparing an alternative program in case the event had to go forward without our honoree.’”

			Robert Wenzel, editor & publisher of the Economic Policy Journal, recently was invited to speak at the Federal Reserve Bank. Here’s the conclusion of his talk:

			“The noose is tightening on your organization, vast amounts of money printing are now required to keep your manipulated economy afloat. It will ultimately result in huge price inflation, or, if you stop printing, another massive economic crash will occur. There is no other way out. Again, thank you for inviting me. You have prepared food, so I will not be rude, I will stay and eat. Let’s have one good meal here. Let’s make it a feast. Then I ask you, I plead with you, I beg you all, walk out of here with me, never to come back. It’s the moral and ethical thing to do. Nothing good goes on in this place. Let’s lock the doors and leave the building to the spiders, moths and four-legged rats.”

			Keep Food Legal ••• — “KFL is the first nationwide membership organization devoted to culinary freedom”

			Important targets: • KFL will advocate in favor of abolishing all food-related subsidies. Government subsidies distort prices and demand, cause environmental problems, and have played a large role in creating America’s obesity problem. • KFL will work to defeat food regulations and bans which limit our freedom to produce, cook, buy, and sell the foods we want. The government has no right to tell people what we can and can’t eat. • KFL will advocate at the federal, state, and local levels in favor of more food choices. It is not enough to oppose bad new laws. We will work—in legislatures and in the courts—to roll back bad ones already on the books. One thing KFL will never do is advocate in favor of (or against) any particular foods or dietary choices.

			The Law ••• (pdf), by Frédéric Bastiat - a classic of liberty, published in France, 1850

			The Law, in Spanish ••• (pdf), provided by Hacer: Hispanic American Center for Economic Research •••

			The Law, English, audio •••

			Walter Williams, on The Law:

			Quotations from Daniel Cloud’s, The Lily: Evolution, Play and the Power of a Free Society ••• — This book is a good companion to Cziko’s work on adaptive fit. — The analog always outruns and outsmarts the digital. So, our digital theories about how to deal with analog reality must provide for this, a task especially difficult when dealing with the kind of spontaneous order described by sophisticated economics. -ls

			The entire book, Without Miracles, is online without charge (one miracle) •••

			After giving examples of awe inspiring fit between living creatures and their environments, Cziko concludes chapter 1, “Puzzles of Fit” •••, this way:

			Such instances of fit also demonstrate a degree of complexity that is highly unlikely to be due to chance. This is certainly the case when we observe any living organism, even one as simple as a common bacterium such as Escherichia coli. The probability that billions of different organic molecules would by pure chance just happen to assemble themselves to form the complex arrangement required to produce a cell that is able to take in and metabolize nutrients, eliminate wastes, move about, and reproduce seems (and is) too tiny to consider seriously. It is the astronomical improbability of such functional arrangements of many components that makes them puzzling in the first place. Such achievements of design are instances of what will be called “adapted complexity” throughout this book. When considering examples of adapted complexity in the biological world, such as the spider’s prey-catching behavior, it appears as if knowledge had somehow been obtained by an organism about some aspect of its environment. But there is something even more puzzling about the many instances of adapted complexity among living organisms and their products. In cases such as the mammalian brain and immune system, a continuing process of “fit making” results in the emergence of further achievements of adapted complexity. The ability to fashion novel and more impressive instances of fit is itself an instance of adapted complexity. It is at the same time a very special kind of adapted complexity that can perhaps be best described using the related but distinct term adaptive complexity, with the descriptor adaptive intended to indicate a continuing process of fit making in contrast to adapted, which describes already achieved fit. The goal of this book is to explore explanations for both adapted complexity (already achieved fit) and adaptive complexity (ability to achieve new fit) in our world--existing puzzles of fit and the emergence of new ones that are just about everywhere we look, and that we have yet to find anywhere else in the universe. A quite simple and compelling explanation for the puzzles of fit demonstrated by the structure and behavior of living organisms was proposed over 130 years ago and is still regarded as the central unifying principle of biology. No comparable explanation, however, is generally accepted for all other puzzles of fit of the type mentioned above. The purpose of this book is to present a case for just such an explanation--and one that works without recourse to miracles.

			ef glyph 033 Universal Selection Theory — the Second Darwinian Revolution - Without Miracles, by Gary Cziko

			Department of Labor issues a withdrawal notice •••, canceling a rule forbidding children from working on their family’s farm.

			New Journal on Disruptive Science and Technology launching in 2012 ••• — “New Rochelle, NY, November 14, 2011 - Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers announces the launch of Disruptive Science and Technology, a highly innovative, bimonthly peer-reviewed journal that seeks to publish game-changing research that has the potential to significantly improve human health, well-being, and productivity. The Journal will present new and innovative results, essential data, cutting-edge discoveries, thorough syntheses and analyses, and publish out-of-the-box concepts that will improve the way we live.”

			Joel Oppenheimer, Inc. ••• — Hudson River School, Audubon - an art gallery worth a visit. Wrigley Building, Chicago. -ls

			zenpundid.com ••• — interesting blog. -ls

			“Discovering Charles Morgan, a forgotten British author” ••• (article by Little Nell •••, who writes of herself, “I am a freelance writer living in Somerset, England. I run a smallholding, raising Shetland sheep, and poultry and growing vegetables. I work as a lecturer in animal biology.” — There are wonderful passages in Morgan’s writings about explorers and the spirit of integral, active, creative life. Mary McDermott Shideler ••• (Iowa Women’s Archives, University of Iowa) introduced us to this writer. -ls See also ef glyph 524, on Charles Morgan, added today.

			Daniel Hannan defines “Anglosphere” ••• (8 minutes)— Excellent! -ls Hannan, Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999, on his blog, April 5, 2012: “I think I’ve decided what to do when I put myself out of a job as an MEP. The next big task, once we’re safely out of the EU, will be to repair the Anglosphere: the community of free English-speaking democracies.” For more about the Anglosphere see ef’s vortex Beowulf, and James C. Bennett’s booklet, “The Third Anglosphere Century” (Heritage Foundation publication) — note: “anglosphere”is not about loving everything English, nor does it have a racial basis. It is interesting to Explorers Foundation (and we have invested significantly in it) because it has been one of the rare instances in human history of an accidental and partially intentional creation of social space good for explorers. It has been one of the great steps in the ongoing development of freeorder, and it is probably leading to the next wave of that development. -ls Bennett’s first article on the Anglosphere, “An Anglosphere Primer”.

			Charles Morgan, on being a great writer: “And that means the courage to cross out and cross out and re-write and re-write; and be damned to everything but the absolute best and finest that’s in you. The world’s in a miserable mess. I’m not at all sure that artists can’t do more to save it than anyone else. Art is one of the two things in the world that can’t be bought.” -a letter of 13 April 1922 to Hilda Vaughan, who later became Charles’s wife. From “Selected letters of Charles Morgan”, pg. 53.

			“Nothing is so certain as that, in the present condition of the world, there can be no deeper betrayal of civilization than to blur meaning, and, in art, to substitute chaos for form. The betrayal is committed, in nine cases out of ten, as an excuse for incompetence the draughtsman who cannot compose breaks his picture into disordered fragments, as one who is losing at chess might overthrow the board; but sometimes the betrayal is deliberate so that serenity may be banished from the earth and the forces of evil dictate to the inhabitants of a snake-pit.” -Charles Morgan, “The Word ‘Serenity’” •••

			Samuel Ullman, “Youth” (added today as ef glyph 523)

			Tal Golesworthy: How I repaired my own heart ••• — a process engineer revolutionizes aortic repair by putting together a requisite adhocracy. A TED Poland talk. Mr. Golesworthy perfectly expresses the virtues characteristic of the master explorer, combining them with the patience and wisdom required to inspire a team of masters of varied expertise. This is a magnificent achievement! Not only for the problem that was solved, but for the way it was solved, and for the simple communication of that method by Tal Golesworthy. What he did might be called the just-in-time assembly of a requisite adhocracy (thanks for that word, Matt Taylor). Not only technical skills, but understanding of human systems was required. This goes in Explorers Foundation’s library of truly great things. Thank TED. Unreasonables on Fast Company “We are elated to have partnered with Fast Company to launch a 19 part web series focused on the stories of our entrepreneurs in the summer of 2011. Friday morning of every week we will send you a newsletter with the two-featured episodes of that week. To get you started, we recommend that you watch the Trailer!” — from The Unreasonable Institute •••

			Early in his book, Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton writes: “To show that a faith or a philosophy is true from every standpoint would be too big an undertaking even for a much bigger book than this; it is necessary to follow one path of argument; and this is the path that I here propose to follow. I wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering this double spiritual need, the need for that mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly named romance. For the very word ”romance“ has in it the mystery and ancient meaning of Rome. Any one setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating what he proposes to prove he should always state what he does not propose to prove. The thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to take as common ground between myself and any average reader, is this desirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of a poetical curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always seems to have desired. If a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking. If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing. But nearly all people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is THIS achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages.” Orthodoxy, by Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936, made available by Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/130 The above quotation is the substance of ef glyph 502

			An arcade made of cardboard boxes by Caine Monroy, age 9, East LA •••

			“The Center for European Renewal is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, educational and cultural organisation dedicated to the promoting and protecting the Western ideal of a civilised, humane, and free society. We wish to renew the spirit of Europe.” ••• “Communism and Liberal Democracy: An East European Perspective,” ••• by Ryszard Legutko.

			“Mandates vs. Free Riders” •••, by John C. Goodman, a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute ••• and President and Kellye Wright Fellow in Health Care at the National Center for Policy Analysis ••• — “The case for trying to force everyone to buy insurance is not an easy one to make.”

			Wendy McElroy’s review ••• of J. Neil Schulman’s 1979 novel, Alongside Night ••• (book’s page on Laissez Faire Books •••)— a dystopian (from a libertarian point of view) future. Wendy McElroy •••, on facebook.

			Mary McDermott Shidler’s Consiousness of Battle: An Interim Report on a Theological Journey, and her archives at Iowa State University ••• — “To me also was given, if not Victory, yet the consciousness of Battle, and the resolve to persevere therein while life or faculty is left.” -Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus ••• (at Project Gutenberg); Shideler on courage and integrity, from Consciousness of Battle ••• Andrew P. Napolitano, on Easter and Freedom ••• — “Human aspiration can exist only where freedom flourishes”

			“Former cowboy flies free health care to the needy” ••• (thedenverchannel.com) — noted by Pat Wagner, who says, “Lots of ways to spend your time on this earth. This guy has a pretty good plan.” Team Rubicon activates team in response to Dallas tornadoes ••• Cat on boat playing with dolphin ••• — “one of the best animal videos I’ve seen” -pat wagner

			Alvin Rabushka reports that Thailand is considering a flat tax •••, citing this article ••• in The Bankok Post. The proposal, if implemented, would simplify, lower rates, and raise additional revenue. Rabushka’s pioneering work on the flat tax contributed to the adoption of the flat tax in Jamaica, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Mongolia, Mauritius, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Kygyzstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Trinidad and Tobago, Pridnestrovie (Transdniestra), several Swiss Cantons, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has also drafted flat tax plans for Austria, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Canada, and Slovenia. —http://www.hoover.org/fellows/10563

			CATO is giving it’s Milton Friedman prize in May 2012 to Mao Yushi, President of the Unirule Institute of Economics, one of whose principals wrote this article: “China Should Coordinate the Gradual Fall of the U.S.” •••, by Sheng Hong — “When a giant is about to fall, you should give him certain support to help him to fall down slowly instead of his falling down all of a sudden, or you would be the one who suffers. That’s why I said ‘China should coordinate the gradual fall of the U.S.’ instead of allowing her to collapse all at once.”

			“Competition Can Make Cities Better” •••, Esther Dyson •••, in Slate •••, an article from Project Syndicate ••• — “cities are increasingly behaving like companies, becoming intimately involved in their citizens’ quality of life, and, in an increasingly mobile world, competing for ‘customers.’” ef vortex openworld : freezones, freeports, free cities

			Cafe Hayek ••• (where order emerges), Quotation of the Day … is from page 230 of the 2003 edition of Benjamin Constant’s 1815 work Principles of Politics Applicable to All Government (Dennis O’Keefe, trans., Etienne Hoffman, ed.): “If the State wished to oversee individuals in all the operations through which they might potentially harm each other, this would amount to restricting almost all freedom of action. Once having set itself up as the citizens’ guardian, it would soon become their tyrant.”

			Rhetological Fallacies •••, “errors and manipulations of rhetoric and logical thinking” — a chart of ways to wrongly, although sometimes effectively, argue a point. [thanks Bill Casey] Information Is Beautiful ••• — source of the above graphic.

			Kodak LIVEPrint ••• — a remarkable innovation in printing...

			Wind Map ••• — a brilliant interactive visualization of patterns of wind in real time, covering the entire United States.

			The Wind Map dynamic graphic is the product of Fernanda Viegas Martin Wattenberg •••

			Free zones based on local land grants, proposed by Open World innovations for a free, resilient, and generous world ••• — “Development of local land grants as free zones provides a means to awaken assets for partnering education, health care, and other civil society initiatives. As the initially small demonstration areas scale up to larger zones, countries can generate skills, jobs, investments, and innovations on a success-sharing basis.” — and a diagram,“Seeds of Change,” showing how it can work •••

			Use of the commerce clause in the U. S. Constitution ••• — leads to the question: “Can government force you to eat broccoli?,” by Andrew P. Napolitano, Washington Times, March 29, 2012

			Randy E. Barnett, constitutional law, “Three Federalisms” ••• (click on “One-Click Download for pdf)— limits of government power

			Team Rubicon ••• — “unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with medical professionals to rapidly deploy emergency response teams into crisis situations.”

			Louis L’Amour: interviewed by Hank Nuwer, “Louis L’Amour: Renaissance Man of Western Novels” ••• Quotations ••• from L’Amour’s The Education of a Wandering Man •••, a book about books and a lifetime of reading. Young explorers may benefit from reading a dozen or so of L’Amour’s books, with The Education of a Wandering Man as a companion and reminder of how his stories came to exist. -ls

			Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) — We have been told that the debate is over, that the science is settled, that there is concurrence. Then we read something like this interview with Zbigniew Jaworowski: “’Global Warming’: A Lie Aimed At Destroying Civilization” ••• and wonder how can we make up our minds when apparently things are not as “settled” as we previously believed? Drexler’s Engines of Creation addresses this issue and proposes a solution. K. Eric Drexler, in Engines of Creation, notes the use of scientific claims to justify restriction of our actions through governmental authority, and asks how can we (the public) decide whether such claims are justified by science, or are instead being used to acquire and consolidate power and wealth? He proposes a solution based on the concept of due process, conducted through fact fora, journals, and structured debates. Chapter 13 of Engines of Creation: Finding the Facts •••. Here is the entire book: Foreward by Marvin Minsky, table of contents, and links to chapters ••• — this is one of the important and interesting books of the last century, and it will repay reading and re-reading for a long time to come. -ls

			“Marie Sklodowska Curie: The Woman Who Opened The Nuclear Age •••,” by Denise Ham, “21st Century Science & Technology •••,” Winter 2002-2003 — recommended by Oliver K. Manuel •••

			Michael Strong ••• writes, “Jonathan Haidt increases his standing as another contender for the title of ‘Hero of Intellectual Integrity’,” and refers us to Haidt’s notes ••• of March 19, in which Arnold Kling quotes from Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind ••• (Amazon book page) — These notes are worth reading. -ls (thanks, Michael) I responded to Michael, on Facebook, “Glad to see this. Thanks! Goes into Explorers Foundation News today. We try to give glimpses into the emergence of freeorder (what’s good for explorers). It is possible, with conceivably achievable entrepreneurial and artistic energy and imagination to turn a slowly simmering emergence into a worldwide explosion celebrating the too long unrecognized magnificence of the human race.” -ls Andras Schiff’s lecture •••, illustrated with piano, on Beethoven’s 31st piano sonata, in which we are given a sonic image of an improbable recovery from a nearly fatal illness. When you listen to this think of the history of the 20th century and of the recovery we may be able to achieve if only we have sufficient imagination and do not give up. The great chance is before us. The account of illness and recovery starts at 19:30 into the recording, with a remark on the feeling of a closed window being opened. -ls

			Anatomy in Clay Learning System Quarterly Newsletter ••• — “The mind cannot forget what the hands have learned.™”

			Brain Plasticity ••• — Brains On Purpose™, Neuroscience and conflict resolution, Stephanie West Allen, JD, in collaboration with Jeffrey M. Schwartz, MD “A mania for dumbing down,” ••• by Tanveer Ahmed — “It’s not always clever to use brain science as an explanation for the most complex human problems.” An article found on Stephanie’s site, Brains on Purpose ••• The analog always outruns the digital. -ls

			Cold Sun, by John L. Casey ••• — decades of cold weather coming. It’s going to be interesting to watch governments and their well-funded collaborators remold fear mongering to convince us to fund them to save us from cold instead of heat. This crisis too will not go to waste. In fact, any crisis will serve. However, the only thing that can allow us to deal well with climate change, from whatever cause, is mobility of capital and people, freedom of enterprise, and the competition of discordant conjectures. These freedoms are incompatible with fear-driven tax machines. -ls Oliver K. Manuel’s theories ••• of the origin of the solar system, the iron sun, and neutron repulsion. Pierre de Rochemont, Frontier NanoSystems, LLC, was recently on a radio program with John L. Casey, author of Cold Sun, and suggested that Manuel’s theory of the sun and neutron repulsion might account for the changes noted by Casey in his book.

			David Rumsey Historical Map Collection ••• — thanks, Tracy, for this treasure chest of extraordinary maps and graphics.

			SLIM: Lean Thinking for Local Government ••• — a presentation by Steve Elliott, Boulder County Treasurer’s Office, Colorado ef vortex Slim : lean & open government

			Institute for Justice ••• — “… we challenge the government when it stands in the way of people trying to earn an honest living, when it unconstitutionally takes away individuals’ property, when bureaucrats instead of parents dictate the education of children, and when government stifles speech. We seek a rule of law under which individuals can control their destinies as free and responsible members of society.” ef vortex Blackstone : law that seeks truth and only truth

			“The Use of Knowledge in Society”, by F. A. Hayek ••• — a foundational essays underlying the concept of freeorder, (what’s good for explorers), published in “American Economic Review,” September 1945. -ls

			Superwealth, a nonfiction project, Austin, TX, by Max Borders ••• (Facebook), as presented on Kickstarter ••• — “Income differences across individuals and families are an enduring source of concern for scholars, politicians, and citizens. In this brilliant volume -- with humility, humanity, and careful reflection -- Max Borders calms those concerns.” —Donald Boudreaux, Professor of Economics, George Mason University, blogger at Cafe Hayek.

			In “Fueling the Rise of the Anglosphere” •••, Peter C. Glover reviews the thesis of James C. Bennett’s The Anglosphere Challenge ••• (Amazon), and argues that the development of new energy resources around the world supports Bennett’s point of view.

			See also, “Fuelling The Rise Of The Anglosphere” ••• (Canada Free Press)

			ef vortex Beowulf: more on Bennett, the Anglosphere, and related topics. Explorers Foundation is funding the writing of Bennett’s next book, America 3.0 •••, about the third major evolution of the USA, fitting a pattern that’s good for explorers of all kinds and levels of ability. -ls

			Max Borders reports that on March 7 this item about free cities was recently posted to FLOW:

			Irshad Manji ••• — ‎“@ALL: Hello from London, UK! During my British tour of Allah, Liberty & Love, I’m also speaking w/potential investors about an exciting new project: Moral Courage TV, a web-based TV channel that will teach moral courage and, in so doing, shake up how higher education is delivered. What do you think? What kind of programming do you want? What would keep you coming back to the channel?” —Irshad is a recipient of an Explorers Foundation Cobden-Bright Award.

			Oath Keepers ••• — Oath Keepers is a non-partisan association of currently serving military, veterans, peace officers, and firefighters who will fulfill the oath we swore to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help us God. Our oath is to the Constitution, not to the politicians, and we will not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders, such as orders to disarm the American people or to place them under martial law and deprive them of their ancient right to jury trial. We Oath Keepers have drawn a line in the sand. We will not “just follow orders.” Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. ••• — “Thomas Jefferson said, ‘Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.’ It turns out that at least two thirds of congressional spending is absent of any constitutional authority. That means that at the very least, it is going to take the vigorous use of nullification to restore the American republic. Anyone in the Tea Party movement or elsewhere who really wants to limit government ought to start with this highly readable and informative book.” —Walter E. Williams, John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, George Mason University

			A different way of thinking about insider trading ••• — an article by Warren C. Gibson in the Freeman for Jan/Feb 2011. His conclusion: “In summary, insider trading is not the problem it is made out to be. Freely adopted bylaw provisions that impose selective restraints would be superior to arbitrary one-size-fits-all regulations imposed by a politicized bureaucracy. This idea is just one example of a wider argument in favor of contract law over government law. The free market allows for discovery of the best ways to inhibit and punish undesirable behavior—ways politicians and bureaucrats never could discover.”

			Jésus Huerta de Soto’s great book, Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles. He is Professor of Political Economy, King Juan Carlos University of Madrid, Spain. The outline of the book and the full text are accessible through ef’s vortex Mulligan ••• thanks to the Mises Institute.

			Minaret of Freedom, “calling the faithful to freedom” ••• — “To build upon the words of Thomas Jefferson, ... we are pledged to wage unending holy struggle (jihâd) against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

			Eco-Fuel Africa Limited ••• — Vision: To be the number one producer of organic charcoal from waste and the number one manufacturer of low-cost briquetting machines in Africa by 2020. Mission: To bring clean and affordable cooking energy closer to every household in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to save trees. Goals: Enable at least 40 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa to have access to clean and affordable cooking energy by 2020; Plant at least a quarter of a billion trees in Africa by 2020. Management: Mr. Moses Sanga is our Chief Executive Officer. Moses is an experienced African entrepreneur. He is a graduate of Business Administration from Makerere University and is also a founder of 4 other businesses in Uganda. Moses is also an Unreasonable Fellow ••• (about Moses Sanga) 2011 and was among the top 50 young entrepreneurs trained by Private Sector Foundation Uganda in 2010. He brings a rich experience in business management and team building to Eco-Fuel Africa Limited.

			Hyperion Power Generation Inc. ••• Plans to Deploy an Advanced Hyperion Reactor at the DOE Savannah River Site — Press Release

			Hyperion Power Generation Inc. Plans to Deploy an Advanced Hyperion Reactor at the DOE Savannah River Site DOE Savannah River Site agreement establishes the next steps toward deployment DENVER, CO March 5, 2012 - Hyperion Power Generation Inc. (HPG), the Department of Energy - Savannah River (DOE-SR), and Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) have announced their commitment to deploy a privately-funded first-of-a-kind Hyperion reactor at the DOE Savannah River Site. “This is an important value-creating event for the company,” said Hyperion Power Generation’s CEO, Bob Prince, “Securing a first site is a key contributor toward our continued forward progress.” Prince also stated “The Savannah River Site and the Southeast region have the skilled workforce and an optimal site to support the next generation of advanced nuclear power technology.” “We have a unique combination of nuclear knowledge and laboratory expertise, infrastructure, location and much more to make the Site a natural fit for advancing the small modular reactor technology,” said Dr. Dave Moody, DOE-SR Manager. “I am extremely pleased to announce this exciting and promising new initiative for Savannah River Site.” The recent DOE announcement of the partnership is based on an executed Memorandum of Agreement between the parties that establishes next steps towards deployment. These steps include working toward target dates for Land Use, Site Services, and Technical Assistance agreements, with licensing to be accomplished under the authority of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). “It is important that we achieve NRC licensing to provide worldwide confidence in the technology and design of our advanced Generation 4 reactor” said Dave Carlson, COO and Chief Nuclear Officer with HPG. Hyperion Power Generation Inc., based in Denver, Colorado, was founded in 2007, and is working with Los Alamos National Laboratory to design a nuclear reactor referred to as the Hyperion Power Module (HPM). The HPM is designed to power remote mining or oil and gas operations, large government complexes, and isolated or remote communities and islands. The HPM design intent is to produce 25 megawatts (MW) electric and to use uranium nitride fuel and lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) coolant. The reactor vessel is to be sealed at the factory, sited underground, and replaced with a new module after a designed core life of ten years. The reactor vessel, including internals, will be transportable by truck, ship, and rail. The HPM will provide safe and reliable power that is available 24/7, emitting no greenhouse gasses, and operate without on-site refueling.

			Books by Iain Murray: Stealing You Blind: How government fatcats are getting rich off of you and The Really Inconvenient Truths — I have not yet read either of these books, but based on Iain’s contributions to a discussion of Anglosphere matters these are books are worthwhile. -ls — descriptions from Amazon follow (if not visible, click disclosure arrow).

			They’re Stealing Us Blind Publication Date: July 11, 2011 \| ISBN-10: 1596981539 \| ISBN-13: 978-1596981539 \| Edition: 1 Remember when we used to call government employees “public servants”? They’re servants no more—now they’re bureaucratic masters of the universe, claiming inflated salaries (up to two times as much as private sector employees) and early retirement with unparalleled pensions and benefits. And how do they spend their time? When they’re actually working, they spin red tape and regulations that make your life harder (and their lives easier), your taxes higher, and your share of the nation’s debt unsustainable. Like true bureaucrats they like to scurry around in the dark, doing their mischief outside of public scrutiny. But no longer: Iain Murray—author of the rollicking exposé The Really Inconvenient Truths—knows all about bureaucrats and their lairs, because he used to be one himself. In Stealing You Blind he blows the whistle on the out-of-control bureaucracy whose greed could actually tip our country into a financial abyss. In Stealing You Blind, you’ll discover: Why the wealthiest congressional district in America is in a recession-proof suburb of Washington, D.C. How the Department of Transportation went from having one employee making $170,000 or more to having nearly 1,700 making that much—during the peak of the recession Why even FDR thought federal workers shouldn’t be allowed to unionize How state, local, and federal bankruptcy could be coming your way thanks to public employee union greed Why bureaucrats regard taxpayers as sheep to be shorn—and how they do it Ten steps to fight back and regain control of our government from the parasitic bureaucratic class Filled with devastating facts about how government workers are living large off the rest of us and driving our country to financial ruin, Stealing You Blind is a rousing call to reclaim our rights as taxpayers and save our economy from the bureaucrats who are choking it to death for their own benefit. *** The Really Inconvenient Truths Publication Date: April 22, 2008 Iain Murray’s rollicking exposé reveals how environmental blowhards waste more energy, endanger more species, and actually kill more people than the environmental villains they finger.

			Inflation: “The Fall of The Roman Denarius” •••, an article from The Economic Collapse •••, introduced by Gary Gibson ••• , managing editor of Whiskey & Gunpowder ••• — Gibson writes: “It is a continual tax on every single dollar that you own. As your money sits in the bank, it is constantly losing value. Over time, the effects of inflation can be absolutely devastating. For example, if you put 100 dollars in the bank in 1970, those same dollars today would only have about 17 percent of the purchasing power that they did back then.” ef vortex Mulligan : the market for media of exchange. If you are new to thinking about money, I recommend Rothbard’s What Has Government Done to Our Money? A link to the full text will be found at Mulligan. -ls

			“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” —Dorothy Sayers ••• (from “The Other Six Deadly Sins”) [thanks to Bill Nelson] “Hope is not merely an emotion that comes and goes. It is a virtue, resulting from a conscious, deliberate choice and long practice.” —Mary McDermott Shideler ••• (on courage and integrity, from Shideler’s Consciousness of Battle) “Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.” —Dorothy Sayers

			John Robb’s Resilient Communities ••• — Robb asks, “Hey folks. Here’s a simple, but powerful, question: can I get paid to become resilient? I think the answer to this question is YES YOU CAN. Further, I believe it’s a smart way for both you and your community to increase your future success through the production of: Food, Energy, Water. The big questions […]”

			“Fueling the Rise of the Anglosphere” ••• — an article quoting James C. Bennett •••, found in Canada Free Press ••• Explorers Foundation is funding the writing of a book by James C. Bennett ••• (ef vortex Beowulf, articles by Bennett) and Michael J. Lotus (Lexington Green •••, at chicagoboyz.net •••, America 3.0 •••, to be published next year by Encounter Books •••, New York. ef vortex Beowulf : evolution of a network commonwealth

			Team Rubicon ••• — “Team Rubicon unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with medical professionals to rapidly deploy emergency response teams into crisis situations.”

			Minaret of Freedom ••• Statement of Methodology ••• — “The basic premise behind our methodology is to take seriously the theme expressed in our book Signs in the Heavens that the Islamic epistemology is predicated on the belief that absolute certainty belongs only to Allah, and that the best that humans can do is to seek a convergence of the three sources of knowledge Allah has granted to us: reason, experience, and transmission from reliable sources. Within that epistemological framework, we are committed to the most rigorous academic research. Every hypothesis, every idea, every argument, and every conclusion shall be subjected to the most thorough questioning to seek its weakness with the intention of reformulating our analyses until they can withstand any rational scrutiny or empirical test.”

			The Long Now ••• — designing, building, and maintaining a clock to run 10,000 years

			Robert Haywood’s and Roberta Spivak’s new book on piracy, Maritime Piracy (Global Institutions) ••• — book description, from Amazon: “Maritime Piracy is now a pressing global issue, and this work seeks to provide a concise and informative introduction to the area. Never truly having receded into a romanticized past, seaborne banditry’s rapid growth was stimulated by low risks and increasingly high rewards. Currently, obsolete, incomplete and complicating structures and norms of governance, together with advances in technology, enable a lucrative business model for pirates, as they effectively operate with impunity and claim increasing ransoms.” “Beginning with an overview and historical development of piracy and the relevant maritime governance structures, this work progresses to examine how 20th century shifts in global governance norms and structures eventually left the high seas open for predatory attacks on one of the worlds fastest growing and essential industries. Moving through contemporary debates about how to best combat piracy, the work concludes that the solution to a chronic global problem requires a long-term, holistic, and inclusive approach.” “Examining militaristic, legalist and humanitarian strategies and offering a critical evaluation of the various problems they bring, this work will be of great interest to all students and scholars of international law, international organizations and maritime security.”

			Inklings of Another World, ••• by Mary McDermott Shideler ••• — the significance of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings

			Jim Bennett: interviewed, part 1 ••• (mp3: 11 min), part 2 ••• (mp3: 9 min), by Joshua Sharp on Backbone Radio — James C. Bennett is the author of The Anglosphere Challenge, The Third Anglosphere Century, and co-author with Michael J. Lotus of America 3.0, to be published in 2013 by Encounter Books, New York, and financially backed by Explorers Foundation.

			Three good pages on Eric Hoffer:

			Personal surveillance drone ••• — Francis Fukuyama ••• builds his own, possibly looking for the end of history: it’s out there somewhere. The Diamond Age •••, a novel by Neal Stephenson, the CyberPunk Project •••

			“Excellent essay”: Beyond Blue 5: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, ••• by Walter Russell Mead, Jan 20, 2012 — recommended by Michael J. Lotus The Once and Future Liberalism: We need to get beyond the dysfunctional and outdated ideas of 20th-century liberalism, ••• by Walter Russell Mead, from the March/April issue of The American Interest •••

			Mining Animations ••• — industry, computer animations, where metals for our use come from

			‘At Bronze Doors we create each student’s education around their passion and interests. They are much more likely to engage with high level academics, if the course material is introduced in a way that is vital to the student. I tell the students one of my core values is that happiness is worth working towards, validating the idea of creating ones life versus letting life happen to you. I find this takes an ever present dialogue to get to the core of who the student is, while supporting them in knowing the deepest parts of themselves. We celebrate vulnerability because it so nurtures this process, which makes the culture (and celebrating happiness) hugely important. As a former Divinity student, I love looking at words from other languages that represent spiritual concepts, the term Marga in Sanskrit, for example. Eudaimonia is especially interesting to me because it combines the idea of happiness with daimon, a spiritual concept. I spent a year of my seminary program studying sacred geometry and the specific mathematics/geometry/physics of a vortex. I believe the symbol of a torus tube represents this and is key in manifestation, creating a specific vibrational resonance. This seems to be what you are referring to when you say “but also on what you choose to allow to surround yourself.”’ —Ariel Dochstader Miller, Bronze Doors Academy •••, Austin, Texas ef glyph 517 : Bronze Doors, Ghiberti’s Work of Forty-Eight Years - A Model for Living? — by Michael Strong, co-founder of Bronze Doors Academy efVortex Eudaimonia — an Explorers Foundation vortex is a region of Explorers Foundation research and investment. This vortex concerns the pursuit of happiness, by single persons, and in organizations.

			Fergus Hodgson says, “Last night’s Stateless Man show on the Honduran special development regions—the frontier of competitive governance—was a great success.” Clipped down audio is now available. First hour ••• (35 minutes) with Carlos Pineda of CoAlianza (government of Honduras); Second hour ••• (45 minutes) with Michael Strong of the Free Cities Institute ••• and Conscious Capitalism ••• — Michael speaks of the opportunity to create a “Hong Kong” in Honduras. He cogently describes a real prospect for solving many of the world’s problems. -ls Universidad Francisco Marroquin •••, Guatemala — this university is a fountainhead of liberty. -ls

			The Lily, by Daniel Cloud ••• — a marvelous book about a topic of crucial importance: how can we solve problems more complex than we know how to solve, and in what ways do over-designed efforts to solve such problems prevent them from being solved at all?

			A vision of education, as manifested since 1931: The Harkness Table ••• , an article by Tyler C. Tingley, former Headmaster at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire. This article is offered with permission of Phillips Exeter Academy ••• and Scholar Search Associates •••

			New tools for using, creating, and distributing interactive text books ••• — this is a video of a January 19, 2012 Apple event dedicated to advances in tools for learning and teaching.

			Life Extension Foundation reports on a new form of magnesium to reverse neurodegeneration ••• Finland is the tango center of the world ••• (The Telegraph)— something in the “I always knew that” category, an article by Peter Culshaw, June 7, 2004, but suddenly relevant to Explorers Foundation.

			Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput’s view of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ recent mandate and “accommodation” ••• (Philadelphia Inquirer, 12 Feb 12 — “… no similarly aggressive attack on religious freedom in our country has occurred in recent memory.”

			“Diebold Accidentally Leaks 2012 Election Results” ••• — a shocking story from the most acute and reliable news source known to me. -ls

			“Iron Giant” ••• — The story of Alcoa’s 50,000-ton press. —Atlantic mobile, March 1, 2012, by Tim Hefferman.

			The Collegiate Way seeks to improve campus life by creating small, faculty-led residential colleges within large universities. It’s the leading resource on the worldwide residential college movement. Here are four foundations for the renewal of university life ••• — This site, by Robert J. O’Hara, is inspiring. -ls [ef glyph 487] The Mission of Liberal Education - St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland & Santa Fe, New Mexico The Purpose of Education ••• — a weblog by Michael Strong.

			“Sometimes focusing on what’s heroic, beautiful and dignified, regardless of the context can help magnify these intangibles, in three ways: in the protagonists of the story, in the audience, and also in the story teller. And that’s the power of story telling: focus on what’s dignified, courageous and beautiful, and it grows.” —Ryan Lobo, photographer, storyteller ••• — These are the concluding words of a TED talk By Ryan Lobo, “through the lens of compassion” •••. His facebook page •••

			“More and more often, I’m finding ‘too good to be true’ technologies that are, in fact, very true. It is, I think, the hallmark of our era. Things we thought were impossible are coming to pass on a regular basis. To prosper, we’ll all have to re-examine practically everything we thought we could take for granted.” “The reason, as you know, is the growing impact of Moore’s law. It is the exponential increase in the power of microprocessors and its transformation of technologies ranging from biotech to entertainment.” “I realize that the economic situation created by our feckless ruling class tends to cast a cold pallor on the world. It is depressing, I admit, but it will pass. The real story going on behind the scenes is an unbelievable number of technological breakthroughs. These are not hypothetical breakthroughs. They have already occurred, but are not yet fully deployed. They will, in turn, drive astonishing progress and growth, as well as enormous wealth for those with the vision to help it along through investments.” “Seriously. If you doubt me, tell me after reading the next issue that optimism is not rational. I consider myself perhaps the most fortunate person on the planet, by the way. I think of economists, like my friend John Mauldin, who spends his time dwelling on the government-derailed economy. If I had to think for more than a half hour a day about international debt and entitlement statistics, I suspect I’d be far down the road to substance abuse. My friend Ray Blanco and I, however, get to spend time our learning from the people who will actually solve the problems that politicians have created. For that, I am profoundly grateful.” ••• (Agora Financial, Breakthrough Technology Alert) — Expensive newsletter. Some will find it worth the money. -ls

			Trends in Chinese business education ••• (Financial Times) — experienced entrepreneurs seeking MBA degrees. Prism Quartet ••• and Music From China •••, review ••• (New York Times)

			Transform Your Bookkeeping Mess Into A Tax Accounting Masterpiece, Tuesday, Feb 14, 12 pm Denver time ••• — a free webinar by Libby Smith, of Accounting for Success, and Pat Wagner, of Pattern Research, Inc. “This is mostly for people who feel like beginners, but some old timers might find good advice as well. Obviously, we won’t be giving specific financial or legal advice, but general questions during the program are welcome.” —pw

			Jim McNelly, Renewable Carbon Management, LLC, has won an award from the U. S. Composting Council for his contribution to the industry ••• (Renewable Carbon Management); USCC Awards •••

			An editorial in the January 25, 2012, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine strongly supports the FDA’s proposed New Dietary Ingredient guidelines that would ban most of the effective nutrients you use today. ••• (Life Extension Foundation’s Action Center) — a tool for self-defense. Life Extension Foundation

			Ice Age Death Trap: Scientists race to uncover a site in the Rockies packed with fossil mammoths and other extinct ice age beasts. Aired February 1, 2012 on PBS ••• [thanks, j erickson] “India really has outgrown the need for UK aid,” by Mihir Bose, London Evening Standard ••• [thanks, a3.0]

			Support some of the world’s most unreasonable entrepreneurs ••• through Boulder’s Unreasonable Institute •••

			The Coming Higher-Ed RevolutionEducation •••, Stuart M. Butler in National Affairs ••• (about)

			“Media magnate Ricardo Pinto is this week launching the Script Road, the former Portuguese colony’s first literary festival, with the help of writers, filmmakers, musicians and artists from China and the Portuguese-speaking world.” ••• (Scene Asia, Wall Street Journal)

			SpaceX’s Dragon will become the first privately developed spacecraft to visit the International Space Station •••

			“Hyperion Power Generation Inc., based in Denver, Colorado, is working in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory to develop an advanced design nuclear reactor. The HPM produces 25 MW of electricity to power remote mining or oil and gas operations, large government complexes, or remote and island communities. The design intent for the HPM is that it will provide safe and reliable power that is available 24/7, emitting no greenhouse gasses, and operate for 10 years without refueling. It will be manufactured in a factory, transported to the installation site completely sealed, and after its useful life replaced with an entirely new power module.” ••• — a Denver VC ••• is one of the backers of Hyperion.

			“A husband-wife team of researchers at Washington State University can manufacture bones with 3D printing technology” •••

			John Robb’s new “Resiliant Communities” website ••• Senegal’s Magatte Wade, a self-described serial entrepreneur, is convinced that Africa’s future depends on its ability to develop a strong manufacturing sector •••

			Printing a house ••• — “contour crafting”

			America 3.0, a new blog devoted to the next phase of American history ••• — America 3.0 will be published by Encounter Books later this year or early next year.

			Alan Macfarlane’s website ••• — whose work has been an inspiration and guide to the writers of America 3.0

			A Life Extension Conference organized by Chris Peterson of the Foresight Institute, Personalized Life Extension Conference, San Francisco, March 31-April 1 ••• — speakers: Terry Grossman, Bill Andrews, Patrick Cox, Dave Asprey ...

			Jim McNelly reports, “Last Thursday, at the annual meeting of the US Composting Council, an organization I founded in 1989, I received the ”Special Service Award“ a high honor which has been given out only once before. I was truly touched to be recognized by my contemporaries and glad it was not their ”Lifetime Service Award“, as in many ways, I am just getting started.” — Jim’s work: Renewable Carbon Management •••

			The Law, by Frederick Bastiat ••• (The Online Library of Liberty, a project of the Liberty Fund, Inc.) — a great book on liberty, free audio download

			The Rise of the Praetorian Class •••, by Pete Kofod — what can happen when Bastiat’s The Law ••• is not understood.

			Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association: Stand Up for the 10th Amendment & Attend the Constitutional Sheriffs Convention, Jan 29-31, 2012 •••

			Cole Patterson, Dallas, sent this link to a fascinating theory of human evolution being worked out by Christopher Stringer, one of the world’s foremost paleoanthropologists. ••• — “… we’re having to re-evaluate that now because genetic data suggest that the modern humans who came out of Africa about 60,000 years ago probably interbred with Neanderthals, first of all, and then some of them later on interbred with another group of people called the Denisovans, over in south eastern Asia”

			“The Rise of the Praetorian Class,”, by Pete Kofod — “The Praetorian Class is formed and grown to defend the Political Class and in time becomes the dragon that rules its master. It represents a highly disturbing trend because it foretells the decline, not the advance, of a society.” ••• (David Galland’s “The Room,” part of Casey Research’s “Casey Daily Dispatch,” 13 Jan 2012)

			“Inklings of Another World,” by Mary McDermott Shideler ••• — “… a new element is entering our careful calculations, and is threatening to change them. Into this highly secular, scientific and rational world have come the Nine Walkers who constitute the Fellowship of the Ring: Frodo the hobbit, carrying the great ring of Sauron, and his companions: an elf, a dwarf, a wizard, two men, and three other hobbits (or halflings, as they are sometimes called). And they are not being ignored or laughed at or relegated to the company of children.”

			Final paragraph: ‘It is good for us to confront steadily the ugliness in our world, to follow the histories of anti-heroes, to explore the caverns of meaninglessness, and to be confined within the secular city. But eyes that are fully dark-adapted will be blinded by sunlight, and the imagination and intellect that can discern every subtle variation among evils may not be able to discriminate at all between evil and good. As G. K. Chesterton once said: “we are face to face with the problem of a human consciousness filled with very definite images of evil, and with no definite images of good.” But neither physically nor mentally is man a nocturnal creature. He is not only able to see light; he hungers for it; and when he finds it, he runs forth to call his friends to see it and share his joy. So it is when the Inklings dazzle our eyes with their appeal to our imaginations and their definite images of good. “Come, look for yourselves. Take and read.”’

			NASA: presentation on current work in low energy nuclear reactions ••• — “cold fusion” [kim long]

			Due out in April is The Only One Living to Tell: The Autobiography of a Yavapai Indian by Mike Burns, edited by Gregory McNamee (University of Arizona Press) ••• (Indian Country Media Network)

			Many Foresight members have an interest in human longevity in general and in being healthier and living longer personally. If we want to continue developing and guiding nanotech and other advanced technologies in the decades to come, we need to apply our high-tech knowledge and judgment to keeping our own bodies and brains functioning optimally. Should we be eating and exercising differently, taking supplements, getting our DNA read and telomeres measured, using sleep-monitoring or stress-reduction devices? These are challenging questions with new information arriving continually — let’s pool our efforts to come up with good answers. It was great to see so many Foresight folks at the 2010 life extension meeting. This spring I am organizing a second conference on this topic, Mar 31-Apr 1, here in the Bay Area: http://lifeextensionconference.com —Chris Peterson, Foresight Institute •••

			Yasuhiko Kimura comments on “J.S. Bach. Toccata and Fugue in D minor. BWV 565. Brilliant recording (1956) of Helmut Walcha playing the Van Hagerbeer/Schnitger organ at the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk in Alkmaar.” ••• (YouTube) — ‘After listening to many great performances of this supremely great piece of music by (or attributed to) Johan Sebastian Bach over the years, I still come back, as my favorite, to the performance by the brilliant organist and great master, Helmut Walcha (who was blind). His 12-set recording of Bach’s entire organ works is a must for Bach lovers. Claude-Achille Debussy said, “There are musicians and composers who believe in God and those who don’t believe in God, but all of them believe in Bach.”’

			Audio clips from Dennis Miller’s interview with Chris Mortensen, director of documentary “Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged,” ••• — see the Jan 10 item for more on this movie.

			Inscribed in stone above the entry hall of the Chicago Tribune.

			All the inscriptions are recorded here ••• (ef glyph 223)

			New vortex: sheridan : free press, radio, tv, web, in defense of liberty: http://explorersfoundation.org/sheridan.html

			“Ayn Rand and the Prophesy of Atlas Shrugged ••• (home page) — a documentary film

			A note from director Chris Mortensen •••

			Dennis Miller will interview Chris Mortensen, 11 January at 11 am ET ••• (audio clips from the interview)

			Showtimes, Jan 17 & 26 only, advance tickets recommended •••

			Facebook page •••

			“On the Economic Value of Ecosystem Services” ••• — Mark Sagoff raises questions about the application of fundamental economic concepts to the services provided by nature that are not explicitly priced. Arguments in this realm quickly cause extreme confusion about the use of the words we use to think about economics. This is potentially a very productive confusion.

			Chuck Vollmer’s presentation of the Charter City concept ••• — brief, part of Vollmer’s Jobenomics vision.

			http://www.worldchanging.com/ http://www.spacex.com/ http://www.journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html http://www.sandcounty.net/foundation/mission http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/01/06/nyregion/100000001266018/brooklyns-rube-goldberg.html

			Conquest of the Land through Seven Thousand Years, by W. C. Lowdermilk ••• — What has happened to the soils of our planet, how, who, and why. Thanks to Jim McNelly of Renewable Carbon Management ••• for this. Jim has figured out what it takes to rebuild soils on a massive scale by making use of the network of intermodal shipping terminals and their millions of containers.

			The Finns have something they call sisu. It is a compound of bravado and bravery, of ferocity and tenacity, of the ability to keep fighting after most people would have quit, and to fight with the will to win. The Finns translate sisu as “the Finnish spirit” but it is a much more gutful word than that. Last week the Finns gave the world a good example of sisu by carrying the war into Russian territory on one front while on another they withstood merciless attacks by a reinforced Russian Army. In the wilderness that forms most of the Russo-Finnish frontier between Lake Laatokka and the Arctic Ocean, the Finns definitely gained the upper hand. —Time magazine, January 8, 1940, quoted in Wikipedia, at •••

			Executive Leadership Group, Inc. (ELG, “Accelerating Strategy Execution”) creates Human Performance Systems to implement organizational strategy and programs. For over 20 years, ELG’s Assessment, Assistance and Training services have helped executives of small and large companies realize their goals. — Bill introduced me to the concept of “requisite hierarchy” as formulated by Elliott Jacques •••, adding something important to my own concept of freeorder, i.e. balance among designed and spontaneous orders that serves quest. -leif

			Quick reference to our 10 most useful -- based on feedback -- blog articles. If you didn’t see all of them, we hope this list will be useful. See the links below.

			When Failure Leads to Innovation, and When It Doesn’t How leaders can create organizations that fail productively, and then innovate! Part One (http://bit.ly/sw2wNF) & Part Two (http://bit.ly/sYijeT) Organizational Planning & Execution Strategic Assumptions – A Prerequisite to Great Strategies: 10 Tips Good strategic assumptions enable good strategic plans. Here are 10 tips for crafting good strategic assumptions. http://bit.ly/in4BPh The 3 C’s of Accountability The right definition of accountability can help diagnose accountability problems AND find the cure. Here is a 3-part definition that works. http://bit.ly/3CsAccountability Measuring Strategic Outcomes? Instead of Metrics, Try the Bar Bet! Don’t start with, “Do we have metrics?” Instead, lead with, “Are our goals clear enough that we could bet money on them?” http://bit.ly/BarBet Accomplishing More with Less, Instead of Doing More with Less Three questions that lead to less busy-ness and more accomplishment. http://bit.ly/AccomplishVsDo 8 Transformational Levers for BIG Organizational Change Big organizational changes require detailed plans. Here’s an 8-point checklist to help ensure that the “people side” of big changes is included in those plans. http://bit.ly/l8Q8iQ Linking Strategy Execution to Strategy Planning Three ingredients link strategy execution to strategy planning: (1) accountability, (2) project management, (3) innovation. Here’s how . . . http://bit.ly/jP5gMo Leadership Self-Development Slow Courage and Doing the Right Thing Why do some bureaucracies succeed while many others fail? There are endless explanations for this, and we will add one more: SLOW COURAGE. http://bit.ly/jK0wCR Leadership Transition: Leave Your Campsite Better Than You Found It Four ways transitioning leaders can leave their “campsite” for their replacements. http://bit.ly/tui7Sz The Formula for Good Judgment (and The Cure for Bad Judgment) Day-to-day decision-making is based on human judgment. There are two kinds of bad judgment, but combining them nets GOOD JUDGMENT. http://bit.ly/kZZSYF

			The following is from Mary McDermott Shideler’s Consciousness of Battle: An Interim Report on a Theological Journey, pages 196-97, part of the last chapter, “Doing It Yourself Theology”. ——————— Failures of courage lie at the roots of epidemic conformity and doctrinaire nonconformity alike: we permit our integration to be fashioned in terms of others’ integrities by submitting to or rebelling against theirs. Every person has his own style of integrity, his own manner of uniting his temperament, experiences, and reflections into a coordinated whole, and his own way of responding to the call of his Lord. At best it is not easy for most of us to discover our own styles, and when we do, we tend to universalize them. It is hard enough to be ourselves, God knows. It is harder still to free others, particularly those we love, to find their own integrities in their own times, their own ways, and to their own ends. It requires the great courage of great integrity to think clearly and to live in love, and so far as I know, there are no rules upon which we can surely depend, and only one guide — which is not very helpful in concrete situations. He who loves because he knows himself to be loved will be less apt to err than he who loves in order to obtain love. He who has received his integrity as a gift from God will not be prone to overbear the integrities that God has given to others. The courage to keep going, to refuse premature solutions, to wait in darkness, to reject what does not ring true: these only hint at the forms of courage which are needed for living, and therefore for theologizing. In addition, there is one other which may be the most important of all: the courage to make mistakes. Few errors are as disabling as the fear of being wrong; consequently, our sins from timidity frequently outweigh our sins from boldness. Because we are finite and sinful, we are wrong whatever we do. But, also, if we do nothing we are wrong, and what we do may very well be right. Therefore it behooves us to walk humbly on our journey, but also to walk bravely. Common sense. Social responsibility. Discipline. Courage. The exercise of these qualities — which are the cardinal virtues of both classical and Christian tradition: prudence, justice, temperance (as steel is tempered), and fortitude — will not guarantee that we shall know the truth and attain integrity within the truth. They are means for growing and defenses against the most vicious enemies of growth: unreality, isolation, fragmentation, and despair. And they are preparatory exercises for developing the virtues that traditional Christianity has said are the highest of all: faith, hope, and love. The cardinal virtues carry no inviolable promise. Nothing that we can do, however, does carry such a guarantee. We cannot bargain with life, much less with God — at least, not with the Christian God. We can plant the seed, but it is he who gives or does not give the increase, and often the one who reaps is not the one who had sown. The covenant that we make with him by responding to his covenant with us is not a treaty or a pledge, but a decision to respond to Love with love. It is the choice to live by incarnating love whatever the situation and consequences, and we are not told in advance what the consequences will be. ... Do not ask for anything less than fullness of life, or seek anything smaller than truth, or knock at any door that is too low or too narrow for you to enter when you stand at your full height. Fight the good fight; finish the course; keep the faith.

			‘Indeed, the moral universe to which fairy tales introduced him became an abiding metaphysical staple. “My first and last philosophy,” he wrote in Orthodoxy, “I learnt in the nursery. . . . The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. . . . They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic.”’ ••• (September 2011, G. K. Chesterton: master of rejuvenation, on the vitality of the Jolly Journalist’s work, by Roger Kimball

			“I think that there is only one way to science—or to philosophy, for that matter: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it and to live with it happily, till death do ye part—unless you should meet another and even more fascinating problem or unless, indeed, you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution, you may then discover, to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting, though perhaps difficult, problem children . . .”—Karl Popper, Realism and the Aim of Science (1983) ••• — posted by Yasuhiko Kimura ••• on Facebook

			“Hope is not merely an emotion that comes and goes. It is a virtue, resulting from a conscious, deliberate choice and long practice.” —Mary McDermott Shideler, author of Consciousness of Battle

			Paul Stamets, Mycologist how mushrooms can save the world Paul Stamets has been a dedicated mycologist for over thirty years. Over this time, he has discovered and coauthored four new species of mushrooms, and pioneered countless techniques in the field of edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation. He received the 1998 “Bioneers Award” from The Collective Heritage Institute, and the 1999 “Founder of a New Northwest Award” from the Pacific Rim Association of Resource Conservation and Development Councils. —from bio on www.fungi.com Paul Stamets on 6 ways mushrooms can save the world \| Video on TED.com ••• ef glyph 199: Paul Stamets, Mycologist •••

			Ludwig Van Beethoven, Missa solemnis in D Major, Op.123. Never forget the first time hearing this in the winter of 1978, conducted by Arturo Toscanini (recorded in 1953 in Carnegie Hall). This is by Leonard Bernstein, an equally great conductor. —Yasuhiko Genku Kimura, on facebook Beethoven - Missa Solemnis (D-Dur, opus 123) Kyrie ••• (YouTube video of a 2006 performance, Edda Moser - Sopran Hanna Schwarz - Mezzosopran Rene Kollo - Tenor Kurt Moll - Bass Concertgebouw Orchestra Conductor, Leonard Bernstein ‎“THE hope Beethoven inscribed on the manuscript of his ‘’Missa Solemnis’’ -- ‘’From the heart -- may it return to the heart!’’ -- is at once touchingly simple and vastly bold.” — a fine New York Times article by Paul Griffiths, “’MISSA SOLEMNIS’; The Heartfelt Mass of a Humanist,” published: March 07, 2004 •••

			“Mexico: A Very Interesting Talk by General (ret.) Barry McCaffrey” ••• —Michael Yon

			The Ludwig von Mises Institute has made Murray N. Rothbard’s four volume history of colonial America, Conceived in Liberty, available as a Kindle book, for only $9.99 •••

			Farmer Fights Monsanto and Wins ••• — “Canadian canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, was sued by Monsanto for patent infringement in 1998, after his fields were found to contain Monsanto’s patented GM canola. But rather than accepting Monsanto’s bullying ways, he decided to fight back—and won. In March 2008, Monsanto agreed to pay for cleanup costs.” — Posted By Dr. Mercola, December 25 2011

			Frank Chodorov’s was a unique mind, rationalist and perfectly individualist — worth knowing.

			“Christmas — Amidst Despair, Hope” ••• (Quin Hillyer, in “American Spectator”) ‘Nearly a century ago, miles and miles of entrenched soldiers gave us one answer. Many of us are familiar with the story of the “Christmas truce” during World War I. The story is true. Without direction from their superior officers, and indeed against the wishes of some of those officers, soldiers on both sides of the horrible trench lines near Flanders stopped firing their weapons, crossed the barren no-man’s land, sang carols, exchanged cakes, tobacco, even cognac, and in some places even played soccer. Imagine breaking bread and playing games with foreign warriors who, in just a few short days, might well become your executioners. The spirit of Christmas works wonders.’

			The full meaning of regulatory arbitrage is not just the selection of the most favorable regulatory environment for some purpose, but to take advantage of a multiple number of venues and use the lowering of transaction costs via the Internet, jet transport, and other means to create a networked system operating simultaneously in many venues, doing each part of a task in whichever venue is optimal for that particular subpart. Individuals do this on a small scale by, say, living in Washington state where there is no state income tax, but shopping for big-ticket items in Oregon where there is a high income tax but low sales tax. Networked organizations might use a wide variety of venues for complex tasks. —Jim Bennett, Dec 19, 2011

			Labor and Silk, by Grace Hutchins, 1929 ••• — “Hands of Japanese and Chinese girls and children have plunged silkworm cocoons in practically boiling water before unwinding the delicate threads. This process kills the moth which would otherwise escape by breaking through the cocoon fiber. The writer has seen an overseer standing over little children in a silk filature in China, to make them put their hands down into the steaming water with the valuable cocoons. Hands are cheap in the East.” —page 13

			Liberation Capital ••• — “Once you learn to see waste streams as sources of potential value, you immediately understand the vast market potential in converting Waste-to-Value” —Jeff Garwood •••, Managing Member Bio-Conversion •••, by Jim McNelly, Renewable Carbon Management •••

			Agua Via ••• — “Agua Via Ltd is in the process of developing desalination, purification and filtration products based on a unique, one atomic layer thick membrane - the ultimate low energy/high purity technology.” Unbounding the Future The Nanotechnology Revolution ••• (entire book, free, at the Foresight Institute •••), by K. Eric Drexler and Chris Peterson with Gayle Pergamit

			A “masterpiece of supine gloom” by Whittaker Chambers, according to William F. Buckley, Jr.

			It is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of Western civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to do little more now than snatch a fingernail of a saint from the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots, and bury them secretly in a flowerpot against the day, ages hence, when a few men begin again to dare to believe that there was once something else, that something else is thinkable, and need some evidence of what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there were those who, at the great nightfall, took loving thought to preserve the tokens of hope and truth.

			William F. Buckley, Jr. invited Whittaker Chambers to become a founding writer for National Review. In a foreword to Chamber's Witness ••• (review on brothersjudd.com), Buckley recalls:

			"In the fall of 1949, Herbert C. Cornuelle, president of the Volker Fund, asked Rothbard to write an economics textbook that would present the main ideas of Mises's Human Action to the intelligent reading public. We can follow the unfolding of the work in Rothbard's correspondence, memos, and reports dealing with the project." ••• (the rest of the story, from the Mises Institute site)

			‘“Democracy’ as Meritocracy, Tolerance, and Rule of Law rather than Majoritarian Electoral Systems”, by Michael Strong, February 19, 2010 ••• (Let a Thousand Nations Bloom)

			“A Byzantine Empire of the West?” by Frank Chodorov ••• — “Frank Chodorov published this article in analysis for April 1947. It was one of his most widely read, and Rep. Howard Buffet was so impressed that he put it in the Congressional Record for April 29, 1947”

			"December 8 2011, marked the one year anniversary of Dragon’s first Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration flight. The flight made history as SpaceX became the only commercial company to successfully return a spacecraft from orbit. This feat had previously been accomplished only by five nations and the European Space Agency. We are now preparing the Dragon spacecraft for yet another historic flight – becoming the first commercial vehicle in history to visit the International Space Station (ISS)! NASA recently announced February 7, 2012, as our new target launch date for the upcoming mission. In addition, NASA officially confirmed that SpaceX will be allowed to complete the objectives of COTS 2 and COTS 3 in a single mission." http://spacex.com

			"Two young filmmakers, Jason Sussberg and David Alvarado, are in the process of creating a 3D documentary titled The Methuselah Generation about the science, philosophy, and implications of the coming age of extremely long-lived humans. "It profiles the lives and work of scientists who are attempting to create new technologies that can bring about a new age in human longevity. The four scientists featured in this film include Dr. Robin Hanson, Dr. Aubrey deGrey, Dr. Greg Benford and yours truly, Dr. Terry Grossman and the film explores our ideas, motivations and personal beliefs. "This films asks (and provides answers to) profound questions about longevity as they pertain to human condition, the environment and economics. "The filmmakers need to raise a little more than $20,000 in the next few weeks to be able to take this film to the next level. They are utilizing a web-based donation program known as Kickstarter. "I invite you to go to ••• (Kickstarter) and view a trailer of this important film and then make a TAX DEDUCTIBLE donation." —Terry Grossman, Grossman Wellness Center •••

			The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz — on knowing and not knowing ••• (Ruiz' books) — recommended by jl.

			Hans Rott •••, "founder of the new symphony", friend of Gustav Mahler, Vienna, late 1800s.

			Michael Yon Online Magazine online is blunt and informative. Michael's travels and writing are entirely supported by his readers., and friends of Explorers Foundation are among his investors. ••• (Michael Yon Online Magazine) From the magazine today: "This weekend I spoke for several hours with a retired Special Forces Soldier. Much of the numerous conversations revolved around the terrible Army policy of sending unarmed Dustoff helicopters into combat. These helicopters are emblazoned with Red Crosses. The Red Crosses are intended to alert the enemy that the helicopters are unarmed. The Taliban and other enemies in Afghanistan do not abide by the Geneva Conventions and they shoot at the unarmed helicopters." … continued ...

			Peace Through Commerce ••• — “Peace Through Commerce (“PTC”) is a global, nonprofit, strategic organization committed to creating a world in which all people enjoy peace and prosperity. PTC seeks to end war and poverty by empowering people to lead lives that cultivate inner peace, create businesses to meet their own needs, and learn about the legal and economic conditions that foster peace and prosperity. PTC gives special attention to women and girls entering these three tracks of empowerment through its Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs (“AWE”) program. PTC and its affiliated partner organizations operate primarily in the U.S., Israel and the Occupied Territories with staff based in Austin, Texas and Israel. PTC offers its empowerment tracks to U.S. and Israel based organizations of women.”

			"I Love New York, and the First Law of Journalism," ••• by Claire Berlinski ••• — what's not broken in America and how important it is that journalists cover these things.

			Bill Casey & Wendi Peck, of the Executive Leadership Group •••, have published two excellent articles: "When Failure Leads to Innovation, and When It Doesn’t" — the quest for error and making the best use of it when found is a key principle advocated by Explorers Foundation. Ideas such as these are proving useful to one of Executive Leadership's principal clients, the U. S. Navy. Both articles are on the ELG blog •••

			Vortex Eudaimonia : productive joyful life ••• (includes management, organizational development)

			Sarah, at Windward (near the Columbia river) reports on rabbit care and breeding for 2011 •••

			Socratic Conversations at the Gottesman Libraries at Columbia University ••• The spirit of Socrates is alive and well at the Gottesman Libraries at Teachers College, Columbia University. Socratic Conversations are held twice a month, conducted by Ronald Gross, author of Socrates Way, and co-chair of the University Seminar on Innovation in Education (www.columbiaseminar.org). The program is directed by Jennnifer Govan, assistant director of the Libraries.

			Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, March 6-12, 2011 •••

			Ezekiel 4:9 - Food for Life ••• "When sprouting occurs, the grain is partially predigested. This creates vitamin nutrients which help your body digest and absorb the healthy content of the grain. As well, the starches have already started being converted into maltose during the sprouting process, reducing the final maltose content and producing a lower glycemic response." — added this to vortex Methuselah : healthy long life

			Astonishing paper sculptures left by anonymous creators in Edinburgh Libraries •••

			Science House ••• "has a simple mission: bring people together to promote and advance science. We have three primary components: Creative, Capital, Foundation."

			Ten principles of the Code of the West •••

			Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West, by James R. Owen •••

			Interview with James R. Owen, author of Cowboy Ethics ••• (Wyoming Signatures, video)

			Center for Cowboy Ethics and Leadership •••

			David R. Stoecklein, photographer of the American West •••

			The Virginian, a Horseman of the Plains, by Owen Wister ••• (Gutenberg) — a fine book about ethics.

			The Tao of Roark, by Peter Saint-André ••• — The Virginian and Hank Rearden would like this book.

			EF vortex Mulligan ••• — This web page tracks a few key items in our ongoing discussion of good and bad money and our search for opportunities to do something that makes a positive difference in the supply of sound money. In forge-speak, ef's preferred language, a vortex is a region of research and investment that contributes to the emergence of freeorder (what's good for explorers within each of them and among them).

			A lucid introduction to the origins and workings of money: What Has Government Done to Our Money?, by Murray N. Rothbard, available here as a free pdf download from the Ludwig von Mises Institute •••

			"Bank of Texas continues to be a stable and reliable financial partner. We are part of $24 billion BOK Financial (NASDAQ:BOKF), the largest commercial bank in the country to decline participation in the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)." ••• — their motto, Long Live Texas, and the refusal of TARP money may be related. -ls

			America 3.0: ••• — financial support for the writing of this book is provided by Explorers Foundation.

			America 3.0: the next phase in American history James C. Bennett, author of The Anglosphere Challenge (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), and Michael J. Lotus (who blogs at Chicagoboyz.net as “Lexington Green”), are proud to announce the signing of a contract with Encounter Books of New York to publish their forthcoming book America 3.0. America 3.0 gives readers the real historical foundations of our liberty, free enterprise, and family life. Based on a new understanding of our past, and on little known modern scholarship, America 3.0 offers long-term strategies to restore and strengthen American liberty, prosperity and security in the years ahead. America 3.0 shows that our country was founded as a decentralized federation of communities, dominated by landowner-farmers, and based on a unique type of Anglo-American nuclear family. This was America 1.0, as the Founders established it. The Industrial Revolution brought progress, opportunity and undreamed-of mobility. But, it also pushed the majority of American families into a new, urban, industrial life along with millions of unassimilated immigrants. After the Civil War, new problems of public health, crime, public order, and labor unrest, on top of the issues of Reconstruction, taxed the old Constitution. Americans looked for new solutions to new problems, giving rise to Progressivism, the ancestor of modern liberalism. America 3.0 shows that liberal-progressive solutions to the challenges of America 2.0 relieved some problems, and kicked others down the road. But they also led to an overly powerful state and to an overly intrusive bureaucracy. This was the beginning of America 2.0, the America we grew up with, which dominated the Twentieth Century. America 3.0 argues that the liberal-progressive or “Blue State” social model has reached its natural limits. Even as it continues to try to expand, it is now dying out before our eyes. We are now living in the closing years of the 20th Century “legacy state.” Even so, it has taken the shock of the current Great Recession to make people see the need for change. As a result, more and more Americans are calling for a return to our founding principles. Freedom and individualism are on the rise after a century-long detour. America 3.0 shows that our current problems can be and must be transcended with a transition to a new America 3.0, based on modern technology, decentralized communities, and self-reliant families, and a reassertion of fiscal responsibility, Constitutionally limited government and free market economics. Ironically the future America 3.0 will in many ways be closer to the original vision of the Founders than the fading America 2.0. America 3.0 gives readers an accurate, and hopeful, assessment of our current crisis. It also spotlights the powerful forces arrayed in opposition to the needed reform. These groups include ideological leftists in media and the academy, politically connected businesses, and the public employees unions. However, as powerful as these groups are, they have become vulnerable as the external conditions change. A correct understanding of our history and culture, which America 3.0 provides, shows their opposition will be futile. The new, pro-freedom, mass political movement, which is aligned with the true needs and desires of Americans, is going to succeed. America 3.0 provides readers a program of specific “maximalist” proposals to reform our government and liberate our economy. America 3.0 shows readers that these reforms are consistent with our fundamental culture, and with our Constitution, and will make Americans freer and more prosperous in the years ahead. America 3.0 provides a “software upgrade” for the Tea Party and for all activists on the Conservative and Libertarian Right. It provides readers with historical evidence and intellectual coherence, to channel the energy and enthusiasm of the rising mass political movement to renew America. America 3.0 shows that our capacity for regeneration is greater than most people realize. Predictions of our doom are deeply mistaken. We are now living just before the dawn of America’s greatest days. Within a generation, positive changes beyond what we can currently imagine will have taken place. That is the America 3.0 we are going to build together.

			Audubon's Watercolors: The Complete Avian Collection, New York Historical Society Edition, from Oppenheimer Editions, Chicago & Charleston ••• — a masterpiece of publishing. -ls

			The essential work of Explorers Foundation is this: Reveal a pattern, demonstrate it's existence, accelerate it's emergence, name it. The pattern that we work to reveal is the emergence of freeorder, of what's good for explorers, within each of us, and among us. Order is the result of freedom, not the cause. — a paraphrase of something said by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), French philosopher and journalist.

			Creating Libertopia, by Michael Strong ••• (free cities and free zones)

			vortex Openworld : freezones, freeports, free cities •••

			The Stevia Shibboleth (addressed to the FDA regulators) ••• (full article; excerpts from the end of the article below)

			One has to wonder why aspartame, sucralose, and high fructose corn syrup -- all with proven major negative health effects -- are approved by regulatory agencies in the US, Canada, and Europe and are currently in widespread use; whereas stevia is not. Not to be cynical, but perhaps the companies behind aspartame, sucralose, and high fructose corn syrup (G.D. Searle, Royal DSM, Tate and Lyle, and ADM) have a political clout that small independent stevia producers cannot muster for a non-patentable natural sweetener. If that's true, we can be fairly sure that we will never see stevia approved for commercial use in Europe, Canada, and the US until one of those large corporate entities finds a way to patent it. But wait! Forgive my cynicism! Cargill and Coca Cola are doing just that even as we speak! I think we can look forward to an approval of stevia -- in a patented form -- in the not too distant future. Will this version be safer? No, of course not. It will merely have a different name, Rebiana. Oh yes, and Coke and Cargill will back it. In the world of nutrition regulation, it appears that money talks... and real nutrition walks. It's enough to give you high blood sugar, tiny thymuses, brain tumors, and shrunken sex glands! I titled this newsletter the Stevia Shibboleth. A shibboleth, as described in the Bible, was a secret word used by the ancient Gileadites to identify outsiders who were unable to pronounce the word correctly. In a sense, we can see that stevia is being used as a shibboleth by regulatory agencies to separate the insiders (the large commercial entities with major political influence) from the outsiders (the purveyors of all-natural healthy products). And just as the Gileadites put outsiders who failed the test to death, so it would seem our regulators would do the same to manufacturers such as Celestial Seasonings who fail the modern Shibboleth test and pronounce their sweetener: stevia. As I said, this newsletter has been written for those regulators. Guys, as long as you approve aspartame, sucralose, and high fructose corn syrup as healthy and refuse to allow stevia to be used, calling it unsafe, despite all reasonable evidence to the contrary, you will have no credibility among thinking people. It is tantamount to an open admission that approval has nothing to do with safety -- only what's bought and paid for.

			vortex Methusela : long & healthy life •••

			Tiosanno: The purpose of our profits ••• — investment in Senegal: the educational philanthropy of the Tiossano Learning Tribe LLC vortex Cheetah : entrepreneurial Africa •••

			Eco-Fuel Africa Limited •••

			vortex Cheetah : entrepreneurial Africa •••

			Nutrition: Jon Barron explains how minerals are absorbed through digestion and then actually used by cells -- or not. This article is the clearest and best I've read on the topic, and although it promotes one of the author's products I regard it as honest ••• -ls (added to vortex Methuselah : healthy and long life •••)

			"The law which defines jurisdiction of the Courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC Court •••) was amended on 31 October 2011 according to the Court's press release. The change in the law allows parties in the region and internationally to incorporate freely the jurisdiction of DIFC Court into their contracts." ••• [thanks to Landon Synnestvedt & Michael Strong]

			"The things people know that ain’t so" •••, by Leon Louw (on AfricanLiberty.org ••• (the team))

			Spreading a message of liberty and free markets across Africa, where corruption and nepotism are depressingly common, is a daunting task - but not for Adedayo Thomas. Thomas, a Nigerian political activist and publisher of AfricaLiberty.org, has embarked on a cross-continent speaking tour to introduce to some of the most remotest areas of Africa to the ideas of libertarianism. ••• (video: Q&A with Adedayo Thomas)

			Free Market Foundation (South Africa) increasing use of Facebook ••• (FMF's Facebook page)

The Tao of Roark, by Peter Saint-André •••

"Millions of people have been inspired by The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand's story of architect Howard Roark and his epic struggle for creative freedom. Yet inspiration is not enough: you need a blueprint for turning that vision into a flourishing life of joy and reason and meaning. The Tao of Roark provides that blueprint. It builds the foundation for greater freedom, dignity, depth, and beauty in life. It reveals the hidden connections between serenity and enthusiasm, passion and wisdom, independence and security, idealism and maturity, practicality and commitment. It shows the true harmony of self and other, inner and outer, the personal and the social. It lights the path to clearer thinking, better choices, greater achievement, and deeper emotions. It honors the sacred fire of individuality. It helps you find and keep the name of your soul." —the website

vortex Eudaimonia ••• — on living well

			TerraPower began as a series of explorations related to many energy technologies. Out of these explorations came an advanced nuclear energy solution that presents a new path toward an affordable, safe form of carbon-free energy •••

			The Lion Rock Institute's mission is to promote free market thought in Hong Kong through: a direct and demonstrable impact on government policy; educate policy makers, active political participants and the general public on the benefit of adopting free market values in building a prosperous Hong Kong; and promote Hong Kong's best free market practices to the world.

			Lion Rock Institute, Hong Kong •••

			"How to Make Hong Kong Uncompetitive", Dan Ryan, April 2008 ••• (Lion Rock)

			Every monopolistic, i.e. governmental, regulatory agency will eventually become an enforcer of rules that favor the largest and best established firms. -ls

			The Champion of Hong Kong's Freedom: Sir John Cowperthwaite, 1941 to 1971, by Christian Wignall ••• Water added to land allows crops to grow. Freedom added to land allows everything to grow. -ls

			The Historical Origins of Post-Individuation Community: James C. Bennett, on Macfarlane ••• — The work of Alan Macfarlane is a treasure house mostly unknown. -ls

			Tarek Heggy's website ••• — "“Tarek Heggy is one of the most creative and prolific writers in the Arab world. His writings probe the political and social limits and present a refreshing message of self-reliance that challenges the prevailing sense that regional ills are largely made abroad.” —Professor Shibely Telhami, Maryland University, USA )

			John Hasnas' proposed thought experiment : 'contemplate what would happen if our contemporary judicial system were altered so that trial judges would no longer “instruct the jury or other decision-maker on the law, but would simply charge it to do justice to the parties,” and “[a]ppellate judges would review the procedural decisions of their trial court brethren to ensure that both sides had received a fair trial[, but] would not . . . review the substantive decisions of the jury or other decision-maker for consistency with the established rules of law .” I suggest that such a reform might, by removing the potential for judicial legislation, convert our current judicial system into a modern equivalent of a system of customary law, one that is likely to produce rules of just conduct.' — from "Confusion About Hayek's Confusion: A Response to Morison" •••, in NYU Journal of Law & Liberty.

			John Hasnas' website ••• — thanks to Peter Saint-André

			Interview with Michael Strong, "Free Cities: The Institutional Roots of Development" ••• (YouTube, 11 minutes)

			Michael Strong's "Free Cities Institute" website •••

			Vortex Openworld ••• (background on free cities: Frazier, Wignall, Haywood, MacCallum, Bennett, Strong)

			Dynamic Periodic Table of Elements ••• — superbly done, worth exploring the many options.

			"Economic Freedom Defined •••," an article by Leon Louw, a founder of Free Market Foundation •••

			"George Orwell could not have predicted when he wrote 1984 that his fictional concept of words being mangled by “newspeak” to mean their opposites would ever become a reality. Well, it has, right here in South Africa. Just as he imagined that “freedom” became to mean slavery in his fiction, so “economic freedom” has come to mean economic slavery in South Africa.(1) That the ANC Youth League has stolen our term is a sick compliment to our success at popularising economic freedom." —Leon Louw Free Market Foundation •••, South Africa, presents solutions to unemployment ••• — 8 November 2011

			Start something in New Jersey •••, a day with Rising Tide Capital •••, November 17, 2011

			An electric drill, a painting ••• ; Logan's blog •••

			Live Free or Die Antique Tool Auctions, Martin J. Donnelly Antique Tools •••

			The Independent Institute is hosting "A Gala for Liberty" ••• on Tuesday, 15 November 2011, honoring Lech Walęsa, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Robert Higgs. At the Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco.

			Lech Walęsa

Mario Vargas Llosa

Robert Higgs

			“A World Without the FDA” by Russell Roberts

			The Dutch Act of Abjuration, or Declaration of Independence, 1581, was an important part of the path to the American colonies Declaration of Independence, 1776. Compare with the Oath of the Aragonese Lords to their King, above.

			The States General of the United Provinces of the Low Countries, to all whom it may concern, do by these Presents send greeting:

			As it is apparent to all that a prince is constituted by God to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects (without which he could be no prince), to govern them according to equity, to love and support them as a father his children or a shepherd his flock, and even at the hazard of life to defend and preserve them. And when he does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects are to consider him in no other view. And particularly when this is done deliberately, unauthorized by the states, they may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another prince for their defense. This is the only method left for subjects whose humble petitions and remonstrances could never soften their prince or dissuade him from his tyrannical proceedings; and this is what the law of nature dictates for the defense of liberty, which we ought to transmit to posterity, even at the hazard of our lives. And this we have seen done frequently in several countries upon the like occasion, whereof there are notorious instances, and more justifiable in our land, which has been always governed according to their ancient privileges, which are expressed in the oath taken by the prince at his admission to the government; for most of the Provinces receive their prince upon certain conditions, which he swears to maintain, which, if the prince violates, he is no longer sovereign. The above is the first paragraph of the document, available in full at ••• (Fordham University, from the Modern History Sourcebook); and in Dutch-English comparative translation ••• — thanks to Mike Lotus, co-author of a book to be published by Encounter Books next year, America 3.0.

			Explorations Curriculum, Birmingham-Southern College ••• — General Charles Krulak, commandant of U.S. Marine Corps, 1995-1999, is the president of the College.

			From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, by Sebouh David Aslanian, 2011

			Midnight Ride, Industrial Dawn: Paul Revere and the Growth of American Enterprise (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

			Conspiracy Theories in Aerospace ••• — a free online program presented by Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

			From Dictatorship to Democracy: a conceptual framework for liberation, by Gene Sharp, first published in 1993, has been an effective guide to peaceful revolution in many parts of the world. The entire book ••• for free download, in many languages, from The Albert Einstein Institution; the table of contents •••

			A link to the cartoon version of F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom ••• (glyph 518) — the briefest possible introduction to a classic of liberty.

			Denver's new Studios at Overland Crossing — First public event: A Benefit for the Colorado Youth Symphony Orchestra (CYSO ••• (on Facebook))

			The 2012 Moon Almanac •••, by Kim Long, author of the Moon Book •••

			Peter and the Wolf, at the Broad Stage, Santa Monica, California •••

			Autobiography of Booker T. Washington ••• (link to free audio, iTunes) — one of the greatest men America ever produced, a hero not for what he opposed but for what he built. "Criticize by creating." —Michelangelo

			Hudson River Sloop Clearwater ••• — "the next generation of environmental leaders"

			Life Extension Magazine, November 2011 issue, has a long article about the damage done by a pro-inflammatory molecule called nuclear factor kappa beta (NF-kB). Members of the Life Extension Foundation ••• have access to this article now; non-members will have access in a month.

			The Bruges Group opposes British involvement in a single European state •••

			A map of the United States showing "phone zones as alternate states" ••• (BigThink.com)

			"Here's To the Crazy Ones", a video made by Apple Computer in praise of dreamers who were also practical innovators ••• (video); ••• (words)

			Gary Hoover 4 Hour Class Entrepreneurial Thinking for Students October 29 OR November 5, Austin, Texas •••

			"Neutron Repulsion" •••, by O. Manuel

			Rising Tide Capital ••• — Rising Tide Capital, Jersey City, NJ, transforming lives and communities through entrepreneurship.

			Recoverings Replica Dust Jackets for Edgar Rice Burroughs First Editions •••, and on Facebook •••

			"Government by Waiver" •••, Richard Epstein •••

			"Government by Waiver" •••, Richard Epstein •••

			"Why There Are Public Schools" •••, from Sheldon Richman's Separating School & State: How To Liberate American Families

			Explorers Foundation is neither left, right, nor center. We are dedicated to what's good for explorers, adventurers, creatives. Meaning for all those, potentially all of us, who use to the fullest our powers of imagination and thought. In pursuit of this objective we have been led more and more away from systems of command and control, and toward systems based on individual and shared domains and negotiation of exchanges.

			Vortex Eudaimonia updated •••

			Anatomy in Clay: the mind cannot forget what the hands have learned™ •••

			Caleb Gattegno teaching fractions to first graders with Cuisinaire Rods ••• (video)

			Vortex Lancaster updated ••• — education for explorers

			SpaceX To Develop Fully Reusable Rocket, Make Humanity a Multi-Planet Species ••• (report on interview with Elon Musk, founder/ceo)

			India, heavy rain, wild rivers, bridges made of living roots ••• — a video worth watching: a child is instructed in the care for a living bridge, entrusted with something intended to last for generations.

			SpaceX, space exploration technologies •••

			Britain's Labour Party is suggesting that journalists should be licensed and "struck off" a professional register if they are guilty of malpractice. ••• (The Guardian) — extremely bad idea.

			Areopagitica ••• (extracts, and notes on their significance): A speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England is a 1644 prose polemical tract by English author John Milton against censorship. Areopagitica is among history's most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression, which was written in opposition to licensing and censorship and is regarded as one of the most eloquent defenses of press freedom ever written. —Wikipedia

			Richard Brinsley Sheridan, on freedom of the press — read aloud, slowly, until the full power is felt. Inscribed in stone above the entry hall of the Chicago Tribune. Chicago Tribune, entry hall inscriptions on freedom of the press ••• (glyph 223)

			The Great American Techno Festival 2011 starts September 29th in Denver. Dozens of acts from around the country are arriving. For someone like myself who stopped following the music scene in 1970, getting interested in this genre has cleared out some major cobwebs. If you are not cool, never been cool, or maybe feel it slipping away, if you love to dance, or even if you have only an anthropological interest, I invite you to join the fray. ••• (article by Pat Wagner)

			Experiment: listen to Mahler 6 while reading Homer's Illiad. —leif

			China, first gold vending machine ••• (Breitbart)

			The effect of the introduction of steam powered steel nail making machines. From the autobiography of Sir Henry Bessemer (1813-1898) ••• — the short text here was scanned and is a bit difficult to read, but it's worth it for the historical perspective, and for an introduction to the character of Sir Henry, reflected throughout his autobiography. Our lives are better because of his work. Links to the full autobiography and commentary will be found here too.

			Ken Miller ••• "is a GOVERNING ••• contributor, blogging for GOVERNING Public Great •••. … founder of the Change and Innovation Agency … author of GOVERNING's book We Don't Make Widgets: Overcoming the Myths that Keep Government from Radically Improving. — recommended by Steve Elliott, vortex SLIM ••• (Society of Lean Implementation Malcontents)

			The Unreasonable Institute ••• — entrepreneurs from all the world doing the "unreasonable"

			Economic Freedom of the World: 2011 Annual Report ••• — Press Release, September 20, 2011 ••• —"Hong Kong again ranked number one for economic freedom, followed by Singapore and New Zealand, Switzerland, and Australia."

			Free the World.com - Fraser Institute ••• (creators and publishers of the Economic Freedom report)

			The Lion Rock Institute ••• (what we do), Hong Kong

			Photo of Ludwig von Mises on Arabic liberty site ••• — second row, left column.

			Tom Palmer reports: "Arabic libertarianism … just concluded (September 16) Minbaralhurriyya.org Summer School in Egypt." ••• — use Google's translate button for a rough idea.

			Charlemagne, Muhammad & the Arab Roots of Capitalism, ••• by Gene W. Heck, Published by Kalima •••

			"Complexity versus Lean" ••• — a slideshow by Jurgen Appelo. Beautifully done, thought provoking and a pleasure just to navigate through the 92 slides. (thanks to Flemming Funch)

			Passionate Minds, by David Bodanis ••• — "This great love affair of the Enlighenment, featuring the scientist, Émilie du Châtelet, the poet Voltaire, sword fights, book burnings, assorted kings, seditious verse, and the birth of the modern world" (from the cover of the book).

			Dr. Ivar Giaever ••• resigns from American Physical Society, September 13, 2011, disputing their view of climate change •••

			http://explorersfoundation.org/popper.html — non-politicized science

			EF vortex SLIM (Society of Lean Implementation Malcontents)

			Our choice is not compassion or no compassion, our choice is centralized forced aid or non-centralized voluntary aid, concentration under single control or distribution of control.

			"The Legacy of the Lodges: Mutual Aid and Consumer Society" ••• — includes a review of From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State, by David T. Beito ••• (wikipedia)

			Mutual Aid, by Peter Kropotkin ••• (table of contents & complete book)

			Irshad Manji — A video on her new book, Allah, Liberty and Love: The Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom ••• (this was found on page one of the Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2011). It seems to me that Irshad is channeling Karl Popper. -leif

			G-Wiz, July 4 - 8, 2012: "The G-Wiz is a gathering of students of Green Wizardry. We come together to learn and to teach, to share and to support each other in the quest to master old skills and new ways. The gathering will happen in the Windward Center's campground. The Center lies north of the Columbia River, east of Portland, OR and near the Klickitat river. … The event site is a transitional forest where wetland Douglas firs compete with highland Ponderosa pines and ancient copse oaks bear witness to the endless struggle. We come together because creating a critical mass of sustainable skills requires a broad community of arts and crafts. And so we join together to learn almost-forgotten crafts and newly-learned ways that we can take back to our home communities to help our neighbors and ourselves weather the coming storms of change, storms that will never, ever clear."

			"New Blue Nightmare: Clarence Thomas and the Amendment of Doom" •••, August 28, 2011, in "The American Interest", by Walter Russell Mead, commenting on a recent New Yorker article ••• (subscription) by Jeffrey Toobin, who "... suggests, Clarence Thomas may be the Frodo Baggins of the right; his lonely and obscure struggle has led him to the point from which he may be able to overthrow the entire edifice of the modern progressive state."

			We have begun work on vortex Blackstone : law that seeks truth and only truth •••

			glyph 003 Youth Arts Collective (YAC) •••, Monterey, California Truth & Beauty •••, by Meg Biddle •••, of YAC