• Squatting in a 28-Story Walkup. Stephen J. Smith, Hit & Run (2011-03-02). The New York Times calls the squatter-filled skyscraper in Caracas a 45-story walkup (there’s no working elevator), but as of yet, only the first 28 floors are occupied. Some floors don’t even have walls, but satellite dishes abound: "That building is a symbol of Venezuela's decline," said Benedicto Vera, 55, an activist in… (Linked Monday 2011-03-07.)

• Forced Consent & Our Present Attitude. rechelon, Invisible Molotov (2011-02-20). "Forced Consent" by Lysander Spooner "The idea that, although government should rest on the consent of the governed, yet so much force may nevertheless be employed as may be necessary to produce that consent, embodies everything that was ever exhibited in the shape of usurpation and tyranny in any country… (Linked Monday 2011-03-07.)

• Waiting for Mubarak. Neverfox, Instead of a Blog (2011-02-10). Egyptians, There is no need to wait for Mubarak to "step down." If you have decided that your government is illegitimate (as all states invariably are) then, in the words of Charles Johnson, "you have already completed the revolution: no government on earth has any legitimate authority to bind you… (Linked Monday 2011-03-07.)

• feministhulk: HULK HAVE NO RIGHT TO CONTROL ANYONE ELSE’S BODY. HULK SMASH LATEST ROUNDS OF ANTI-CHOICE + RAPE-APOLOGIST LEGISLATION! Twitter / feministhulk (2011-03-06). feministhulk: HULK HAVE NO RIGHT TO CONTROL ANYONE ELSE’S BODY. HULK SMASH LATEST ROUNDS OF ANTI-CHOICE + RAPE-APOLOGIST LEGISLATION! (Linked Monday 2011-03-07.)

• Travelin' Man. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2011-03-08). This semester is shaping up to be the most conference-intensive I've had. In January I had a double conference in La Jolla (a Liberty Fund on contemporary classical liberal thought, followed by a workshop on John Tomasi's forthcoming book Free Market Fairness) and an IHS conference in Fredericksburg. Then this… (Linked Tuesday 2011-03-08.)

• What I want from a restaurant website. Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal – Comics, Quizzes, & Stories (2011-02-08). A list of things I’d like restaurant websites to provide.View (Linked Wednesday 2011-02-09.)

• Tesla Predicts the Portable TV (1926) Matt Novak, Paleofuture Blog (2011-02-07). In 1926 Nicola Tesla gave an interview to Collier’s Weekly in which he predicted something that sounds remarkably like portable television. Perhaps most interestingly, he mentions that this technology would be used to watch war unfold, “just as though we were present.” NEW YORK, Jan 25 – (AP) – Application… (Linked Wednesday 2011-02-09.)

• Kindlebility. Phil, philwilson.org (2011-02-05). In my attempts to find better ways of getting long-form content onto my Kindle to read offline, I've mainly been using two tools: Instapaper and the Later On Kindle Chrome extension. Instapaper has great formatting, and repeated delivery works like a new issue of a periodical, but as far as… (Linked Wednesday 2011-02-09.)

• Breaking the Web with hash-bangs. Isofarro, isolani: weblog (2011-02-08). Update 10 Feb 2011: Tim Bray has written a much shorter, clearer and less technical explanation of the broken use of hash-bangs URLs. I thoroughly recommend reading and referencing it. Update 11 Feb 2011: Another very insightful (and balanced) response, this from Ben Ward (Hash, Bang, Wallop.) , great job… (Linked Wednesday 2011-02-09.)

• i'll tell you why the obama admin is shitting bricks right at. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2011-02-10). i'll tell you why the obama admin is shitting bricks right at this moment. they were hoping to preserve the whole damn thing – the military and intelligence establishments, the basic control of the population – minus mubarak, as politicians the world over like to believe that swapping symbols or… (Linked Thursday 2011-02-10.)

• Which Government Employees Cause More Harm: Docs or Cops? cherylcline, der Blaustrumpf (2011-02-08). Robin Hanson's post today, "How Med Harms," prompts me to ask whether docs or cops cause more harm and death.  Cops are a favorite target of liberals, anarchists, and some libertarians:  they're of moderate status, usually of average intelligence, and they're heavily and conspicuously armed in a country that equates… (Linked Thursday 2011-02-10.)

• Chamber of Corporatism. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-02-07). President Obama will be speaking today at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Tim Carney comments: This visit will spur a slew of articles on how Obama is "tacking to the center," becoming more "pro-business," and "mending relationships." This will mostly be bunk. The president is still selling the same Big… (Linked Thursday 2011-02-10.)

• Stuck in the Middle. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2011-02-10). (Linked Friday 2011-02-11.)

• Obama Speech Emphasizes Competition Among Nations. Foundation for Economic Education, The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty (2011-01-26). "President Obama challenged Americans on Tuesday night to unleash their creative spirit, set aside their partisan differences and come together around a common goal of outcompeting other nations in a rapidly shifting global economy." (New York Times) The idea that nations compete with one another leads inexorably to government-business management… (Linked Friday 2011-01-28.)

• Boston Anarchist Thinking Brigade, Part 4. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2011-01-28). The Molinari Society panels that were cancelled in Boston owing to weather have been resurrected! The spontaneous order panel is moving to the Austrian Scholars Conference (March 10-12 in Auburn), while the session on Gary Chartier's book is moving to the Pacific APA (April 20-23 in San Diego). Thanks to… (Linked Friday 2011-01-28.)

• Revolution on the Nile: Rebellious Cops, Lethal Aid, and Off Switch Envy. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-01-28). The most hopeful news to come out of Egypt today are the reports of officers fraternizing with protesters, removing their uniforms, refusing to fire their weapons. That's when a popular revolt succeeds: when the storm troopers won't follow orders. The question is how widespread that is — how many cops… (Linked Friday 2011-01-28.)

• is there anything more obnoxious than davos? nowhere in human. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2011-01-29). is there anything more obnoxious than davos? nowhere in human history has such a gaggle of egomaniacs, oppressors, exploiters been gathered, and they do it every year. they congratulate each other on the brilliance of their mechanical rehashing of the commonplace, ride around in limousines pretending not to be particular human… (Linked Sunday 2011-01-30.)

• STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2010 > Features > Clelia Mosher. www.stanfordalumni.org (2011-01-12). In 1973, historian Carl Degler was combing the University archives, gathering research for a book on the history of the family. Sifting through the papers of Dr. Clelia Duel Mosher, who taught in Stanford's hygiene department around the turn of the 20th century, he came across a mysteriously bound file. Degler… (Linked Wednesday 2011-01-12.)

• Common Sense, or a functioning economy has no underclass. Marja Erwin (2011-01-12). 1. A government can’t solve systemic unemployment through stimulus. It can create temporary boosts which *mask* systemic unemployment; it may even have significant effects depending how easily it responds to spending and how slowly the unemployment rate approaches its normal level relative to the economic system.2. A functioning economy has… (Linked Wednesday 2011-01-12.)

• Reading Chomsky. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2011-01-12). The Good (in churlish brevity) I've just finished reading Noam Chomsky's Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World (it was a Christmas gift). Unsurprisingly, nearly all of it is excellent, and I highly recommend it. Chomsky lucidly explains how u.s. foreign policy is not only imperialist now but has been… (Linked Wednesday 2011-01-12.)

• The Taxpayers Won't Benefit. Sheldon Richman, The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty (2010-12-15). Why does everyone say the taxpayers will be winners when the banks, AIG, and GM repay their TARP and other bailout money with interest? The taxpayers won't see a dime! I doubt if any money will even go toward reducing the debt. The only real winners will be the politicians… (Linked Thursday 2011-01-13.)

• What "Undercover Boss" Could Be. Steven Horwitz, The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty (2010-12-15). Recently I stumbled across the TV show Undercover Boss.  A CEO poses as a new employee at one of his firm's factories or stores in order to see how the company really runs.  In the episode I watched, the CEO of the Johnny Rocket's restaurant chain spent time working in… (Linked Thursday 2011-01-13.)

• Winner of Beth A. Hoffman Prize for Economic Writing Named. Foundation for Economic Education, The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty (2011-01-12). The first annual Beth A. Hoffman Memorial Prize for Economic Writing has been awarded to Kevin A. Carson, the Foundation for Economic Education announced. Through the generosity of a FEE donor, the prize has been established to honor the memory of Beth A. Hoffman by recognizing the best article on… (Linked Thursday 2011-01-13.)

• If Martin Luther King Were Alive Today, He’d Be Just Like Me. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-01-13). You know all those articles that purport to say what George Orwell would believe if he were alive today, in which Orwell turns out to have had a change of heart on every significant subject where the author disagrees with him? You can do that to Martin Luther King too:… (Linked Thursday 2011-01-13.)

• Food:Class:Working Class. bfp, flip flopping joy (2011-01-03). I've been wondering why food for working class people is always represented as "manly man food" that is greasy, heavy, thick food. I mean, I get the origins of working class food as thick greasy meat based food—fish and chips, for example, has enough heaviness and calories to last through… (Linked Thursday 2011-01-13.)

• Szasz in One Lesson. Sheldon Richman, Free Association (2011-01-13). (First posted in 2006, and now amended. The relevance to the Tucson massacre is self-explanatory.)This is something I came up with some time ago to summarize a good deal of what Thomas Szasz, a great libertarian and hero of mine, has been saying for half a century.If neuroscientists discovered that… (Linked Thursday 2011-01-13.)

• Radio Theater. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-01-14). Get ready to suspend your disbelief. One of the most resilient acts in theatrical history has returned to the D.C. stage: the We're Going To Defund Public Broadcasting show. Every time this play gets revived, the director alters the story slightly to reflect recent events. This time the performers are… (Linked Friday 2011-01-14.)

In logic, a non sequitur is the fallacy of asserting a conclusion which simply does not follow from the given premises. The world being what it is, I noted a while back that that isn't a strong enough criticism for some popular arguments; we need a new category, the contrarium sequitur (or contra-sequitur for short), which is the fallacy of asserting a conclusion which is exactly the opposite of the conclusion that you should draw from the given premises.

The New York Times Op-Ed page has always a particularly fertile field for picking ripe contra-sequiturs. That’s no doubt partly a function of the sort of people they employ. But I don’t think it’s just those particular guys; it’s really a feature of the house style, and perhaps an inevitable product of the intellectual environment when Very Serious People set themselves to issuing important opinions about matters of public concern.

Any political hack can churn out something that tries to shoehorn unruly facts into a predetermined party line, but it takes a special kind of environment to go beyond mere hackery day after day, to maintain such consistency in coming up with conclusions so exquisitely opposed to what the facts obviously suggest. For example, consider the recent online battle over Wikileaks, and the ongoing government efforts — led by the Obama administration and by Senators like Joe Lieberman — to pressure corporations like Amazon, Dyn Inc. (EveryDNS), et al. into cutting off the Internet services that Wikileaks needs to keep its website running, and to pressure payment processors like PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and Bank of America to cut off their access to funding, in the interests of national security and the alleged public interest. Many people see this and offer opinions which are better or worse informed, better thought out or worse thought out.

But only the New York Times Op-Ed page could take this government-driven campaign of intimidation to shut down Wikileaks and take it as proof of a crying need for more extensive government regulatory controls, which would allow the United States federal government to take a more active role in directing the business decisions of banks and payment processors. So that they can protect irksome bloggers, risky organizations, and unpopular opinions from being shut down by risk-averse banks, you see. This decision should not be left solely up to business-as-usual among the banks — so, instead, they’ll leave it up to someone you can always count on to stand up for open debate and a free press for organizations like Wikileaks — the United States federal government.

All in the public interest, of course.