In memoriam

A very sad announcement below just received from Sean Gabb. I knew Chris Tame personally and find it hard to realize that someone of his vitality is gone. His good cheer and positive attitude together with his unflinching libertarianism was truly memorable

"It is with the deepest regret that I must announce the death of Dr Chris R. Tame, Founder and President of the Libertarian Alliance. Chris founded the Libertarian Alliance in the early 1970s. During the next 30 years, he worked tirelessly to recover the British libertarian tradition as a seamless heritage of freedom. He took issue with those Conservatives who saw freedom in terms purely of pounds and pence - and often not even as that. He took issue also with those who demanded freedom in all matters but those involving the getting and spending of money. He believed that freedom should be defined in the traditional English sense, as the rights to life, liberty and justly acquired property.

In July 2005, Chris was diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of bone cancer. Though only 55 at the time, and though he had avoided all those vices commonly believed to be dangerous, he took this diagnosis with great calmness. During the next eight months, he faced his approaching end with a fortitude and good humour that was an inspiration to those around him. To the very end, he retained a keen interest in public affairs and in the welfare of his friends and loved ones. On his last day, he made sure to check his e-mails.

Chris died peacefully in his sleep at 3:37pm GMT on Monday the 20th March 2006. He was never alone during his last six days. Mrs Helen Evans and Dr Sean Gabb were by his side at the end. Chris was married and divorced twice. He left no children. Dr Gabb will make a further announcement in the next few days of the funeral arrangments."

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Brookes News Update

The US economy and the Fed's credit binge: what does it mean for Americans?: So long as economists confuse GDP with growth, argue for a "stable price rule", teach that money is neutral and that it is possible for central banks to calculate a "neutral rate of interest" economies will be plagued by the so-called boom-and-bust cycle
Australia's term of trade boom and recession: Our unsustainable housing and consumption boom was not the result of a surge in the terms of trade but a surging money supply the consequences of which have yet to work their way through the economy
George Clooney's moral grandstanding and the viciousness of the Hollywood left: Celluloid intellectual George Clooney is out of touch with history as well as mainstream America. Hollywood's vicious leftists have betrayed their country more than once, not that Clooney cares
Australian protectionists do not even know what they are talking about: Some of our protectionists obviously do not know what they are talking about. Nevertheless, the media still publishes them
Leftist revisionism calls Crusaders 9/11 terrorists: It has been open season on Western civilization and Christianity for some time and now it's getting worse with leftist propaganda in our schools being used to rationalise Islamic terrorism
Bracks' Bill of Rights is an attack on basic rights: The Bracks' Government intends to use its phony Bill of Rights to undermine the common law and basic right by transferring power from the legislature to activist judges with a leftist bent. So where is the Victorian Liberal Party on this issue?
Can money supply be an economic indicator?: Regardless of the demand for money, once the money stock increases it sets in motion an exchange of nothing for something and thus economic impoverishment

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ELSEWHERE

On Australian Politics I have just put up a coverage of the recent big cyclone in North Queensland, Australia -- a big blow that was bigger than the Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans in the USA. Guess how many people died in the Australian big blow? Hint: There was essentially no underclass in the area of Australia concerned.

An Afghan man is facing the death penalty for becoming a Christian: "Abdul Rahman was arrested last month after his family went to the police and accused him of converting from Islam. He has gone on trial for rejecting Islam - an offence punishable by death under Shariah law. During the hearing, the defendant allegedly confessed that he converted from Islam to Christianity 16-years-ago. He had been working as a medical aid worker for Afghan refugees in neighbouring Pakistan. The judge said: "We are not against any particular religion in the world. "But in Afghanistan, this sort of thing is against the law. "It is an attack on Islam. The prosecutor is asking for the death penalty."



Since when does an Anglican Archbishop care about the Bible anyway?: "The Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, says he does not believe creationism -- the Bible-based account of the origins of the world -- should be taught in schools. "I think creationism is ... a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories ... if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other theories I think there has just been a jarring of categories," Dr Rowan Williams told The Guardian newspaper. "My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it," the most senior clergyman in the Church of England added."

France bewails British invasion: "the Duke of Westminster's purchase of a famous Paris flea market is the latest rout in what is being decried on the French side of the Channel as a British invasion. "Not only have you stolen `our' Olympic Games, you are also shamelessly occupying our towns and countryside," writes Jos,-Alain Fralon, author of Help, the English are Invading Us, which is shortly to go on sale. "The English . . . have their own airports, their newspapers, their pubs, their lawns, their grocer, sometimes their own French wife." He suggests that the influx of Britons is causing profound damage to relations between the two nations: "How the Entente Cordiale is fading in our own beautiful countryside." He has a point: in Dompierre-les-Eglises, a village of 400 inhabitants situated 30 miles from Limoges in central France, 54 British families have bought houses."

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. On Social Security see Dick McDonald and for purely Australian news see Australian Politics (mirrored here). I also post several times a week on "Tongue-Tied". There is an archive of my "Tongue-Tied" posts here or here

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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