U.S. Is Said to Fail in Tracking Arms for Iraqis

While I haven't been to CLR in a couple weeks (I apologize guys) I found this article in the online New York Times and thought it particularly alarming and another explicit example of poor and dangerous management of the Iraq war/occupation. Again I'm sure there's enough Iraq war bashing but this is just a good explicit example. I can't help but be reminded of the movie "Lord of War" starring Nicholas Cage; it's crazy,--it's very likely that we're fighting insurgents that are using weapons they've either stolen, intercepted or bought (through bribes) from corrupt Iraqi agents and officials; weapons that were purchased with Defense funds funded by American taxpayers.

Here's an excerpt and the link to the rest of the article here (click link):

"The answers came Sunday from the inspector general’s office, which found major discrepancies in American military records on where thousands of 9-millimeter pistols and hundreds of assault rifles and other weapons have ended up. The American military did not even take the elementary step of recording the serial numbers of nearly half a million weapons provided to Iraqis, the inspector general found, making it impossible to track or identify any that might be in the wrong hands."

"Exactly where untracked weapons could end up — and whether some have been used against American soldiers — were not examined in the report, although black-market arms dealers thrive on the streets of Baghdad, and official Iraq Army and police uniforms can easily be purchased as well, presumably because government shipments are intercepted or otherwise corrupted."

Andrew Sullivan, Blogger/Pundit

Andrew Sullivan's work is hard to describe, but I believe him to be fundamentally libertarian (at least in the ways that matter to me. He's worked all over the place, but now is a blogger and columnist for Time magazine.

Sullivan's blog mixes direct political commentary by Sullivan himself with links and quotes from everywhere. Here are links to a few of the shorter posts from his blog:

An excellent quote from Barry Goldwater.
A Jefferson quote along similar lines.
A post on physics, certainty and morality.

De-westernization/Globalization

We'll do an intro coverage of the UVA "Globalization" initiative this week; next week, hopefully, Svantje Swider will come to talk about it. She's been following the whole subject fairly closely, and will have quite a bit to say on the subject. If anyone knows anyone else to invite, either do it or let me know and I can invite them too.

More on North Korea, from Nature

From the scientific journal Nature:

"They're an embarrassment to the nuclear club... this is supposed to be really easy"

Nuclear Brief

First Question on Ballot

When you vote, or if you're about to send in your absentee ballot, consider this point about the first question.

It Bans Gay Marriage. But Wait—That's Not All!
6:47 AM
by Jacob Sullum
Cato's David Boaz complains that the press is describing Virginia's Ballot Question 1, a constitutional amendment, as a "ban on gay marriage," when 1) gay marriage is already banned (by statute) in Virginia and 2) the initiative's language is so broad that it could be read to prohibit any employer policy, statutory right, or contractual arrangement that gives unmarried couples (gay or straight) "the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage." Nick Gillespie noted the potentially sweeping effects of the amendment last month. SurveyUSA numbers from mid-September indicated that supporters of the amendment outnumbered opponents by more than 2 to 1 among likely voters.

Arcane Tax Dynamics

SO! Bush cuts taxes, the economy goes into recession. Bush keeps taxes cuts, the economy doesn't really do much. But then tax revenues begin to rise, and the deficit shrinks-

because corporations and star individuals begin to make record amounts of money in our new world order. And everyone else doesn't make much more than they did than in 2000. This one's a doozy:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/16/AR2006101601121.html

Taking Land or Just Borrowing It with Interest?

Continuing on our discussion of eminent domain, here's an article from Ronald Bailey.

Libertarian Blogs and Podcasts

So, for my first post on this blog, I figured I'd share my favorite libertarian spots on the web.


Hit and Run is the blog run by the folks at Reason magazine. It's well run, and it's a good read.


Hammer of Truth is less professional than Hit and Run, but still has a refreshing libertarian spin on the news.

Penn Radio, is the radio show of Penn Jillette, which runs on Free FM weekdays from 2-3. You may know him as the big guy who talks from the magic and comedy duo Penn and Teller. In addition to stories from Hollywood and show business, he's a libertarian. Well, he calls himself a libertarian, but he's more of an anarcho-capitalist, and also has crazy opinions on all sorts of things that makes the show fun to listen to.

North Korea

Did North Korea fail its nuclear test? If it didn't, the test would be one of the smallest ones in history.

http://news.google.com/news?q=north+korea+nuclear+test&hl=en&lr=&sa=X&oi=news&ct=title

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_Korean_nuclear_test

Speaker on Eminent Domain Abuse

Students for Individual Liberty proudly presents

Steven Anderson

Attorney at the Institute for Justice and Coordinator of the Castle Coalition

BACKLASH: EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE IN THE POST-KELO WORLD

October 11th, 7:30pm
Clark Hall 107

For more information, please visit www.uvaliberty.org

Eminent Domain Abuse

Does anyone have any good links on Eminent Domain abuse? SIL's bringing in a speaker next week to give a lecture on the topic, and it'd be cool if we could coordinate our discussion in CLR with the speaker coming to UVA.

Here's a little something-something to get everyone started:
Summary of the relevant (recent) Supreme Court Case:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._New_London
Summary on Eminent Domain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain

CLR members rock the CD

One-two punch here in the Cav Daily-

Trevor:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=28013&pid=1488

Mark:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=28015&pid=1488

You guys have way too much time on your hands. Just kidding, we're all very proud of you. If you'd only get yourselves arrested too- for pride.

Social Production of Health

Would people be interested in discussing the social production of health and its implications for healthcare in the US?

Here is a short intro paper that references additional articles if people are interested.

Just to throw a little corn in the mill.

News from the Front

I was just at Ohill (its Tues at 1130pm) and I went to pay for my stuff at Crossroads and the card machine was broken so they were having us write down our student id (aka SSN) on a sheet of paper along with our name and the price of our purchases. These sheets of SSNs are just lying out in the open on the registar table (easily stealable). We can add this to our list of security breaches by the administration.
-Robbie

Fall Break

Is there any interest in having CLR this week, during fall break? I probably will not be able to make it, but if you guys feel like it, the room will be open. Let everyone know by commenting on this post.

- Patrick

Short Story on Linguistics, Perfect Language

This is a short story by my favorite Sci Fi author, Greg Egan. He's an Aussie. This story is about neurological enhancements that allow people to transcend the shortcomings of verbal language and communicate concepts directly. Read the story (it's a bit long, but totally worth it) and you'll understand what he's talking about. I can't do it justice in a 2 sentence summary.

China Tests Fusion Reactor

Is this real? The news source is reputable, but I don't know if I believe it. If China is really 10 years ahead of the US in fusion technology, what does that mean for us, economically, in 20 years?

Update about the Blog

So, to avoid a Facebook sized reaction against my changes, here they are in full:

1. The "About" text below the page title. Let me know if it's ugly or wordy. I actually think the wordiness contributes to the page's effect. It's possible to switch that huge chunk of text for the smaller bite of text at the bottom of our sidebar- that might work well.
2. New "Title" field in posts. I went back and titled most of the entries that had a bold item that was obviously its title. The links to previous posts are much neater now.
3. We're now co-linking with Cavblog.com; so we link to them, and they link to us. More about this in the meeting
4. There's a tiny new button on the bottom right of each post. It lets you send our posts in emails to people. So... perhaps we can engage in lazy marketing, which is what the new economy is all about.

Just to save you time, here's a premade group name for you guys:

I hate the News Feed and Mini Feed (Official Petition to CLR to change their website back)