Media Reviews and Recommendations

Share your news, blogs, news criticism, etc. websites here

youngcynic — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:08:14 GMT

So I'm proposing this thread to be a list of everyone's news. I know that people here seek independent journalism that isn't warped by corporate & gov't opinion (really one and the same anyway). If you have your blogs and such bookmarked you can list them here by going to Bookmarks>Organize Bookmarks>Select your bookmarks>Ctrl-C>Paste here... Here are the sites that I follow and a little about each one. I've hastily divided them up in categories, though they ...

My Reading List

vichy — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:15:51 GMT

Since I don't have my own computer, and can only get on this one for a couple of hours after work, I have decided to print out materials and read them at home. Given that this also seriously restricts my forum free time, I have also decided to try and keep a basic posting so that those of you interested will know, at least, what I am reading these days. I will update - whenever I get new stuff to read. Most of these you should be able to find online, if you want them yourself, since I am cheap ...

Mr. Death

T.E.M. — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:09:03 GMT

"Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr." http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=654178281151939378# Just watched this on google vids and found it quite stimulating. It's basically a biographical documentary of Fred Leuchter, designer of execution technologies including electric chairs, gas chambers, lethal injection machines and gallows. The first part of the movie deals with Leuchter's career designing all of the above and his mindset and sentiments ...

Life as a Trained Monkey by Karen De Coster

vichy — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:17:14 GMT

Original http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/life_as_a_trained_monkey/ I received a very interesting email from a reader. He said he is helping a friend�s daughter write a college essay on xxxx speech, and �after much mutual painful time spent, she still didn�t seem to grasp it�not the language, but the principle and its application. They were only sentences to her, not statements she could understand. She is an honors grad, with many plaudits and by all accounts an excellent student. ...

Ian Freeman, Stefan Molyneux, Marc Stevens - a roundtable

NonEntity — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:17:02 GMT

SamIam from ObscuredTruth.com has just posted on his YouTube page an hour long roundtable discussion between himself and the three mentioned in the title. Enjoy. HERE - NonE Stefan's point at the beginning of Part 2 is really important, I think.

Werner Herzog

Conrad — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:34:15 GMT

Zeb and I have been watching Werner Herzog movies, and plan to watch most (possibly all) of them this summer. Last year we'd watched (and reviewed!) Rescue Dawn, and saw the movie about the people in Antarctica, and Grizzly Man before, and now we've been watching Little Dieter Needs to Fly and the Enigma of Kaspar Hausen, and we're so fascinated by them. I hope we'll get to podcast about them! Anybody else a Herzog viewer?

Michael is both brilliant and happy in this performance

Conrad — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:31:24 GMT

also check the zipper incident at 1:30 and how Michael responds. if video don't work, check here

Vote China White

vichy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:38:41 GMT

I don't know if you guys have seen this before, but it was pretty funny to me.

Jeffrey Friedman on the Financial Crisis

vichy — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:11:15 GMT

http://arnoldkling.com/econ/book/JFintro.pdf Thanks to Arnold Kling, Jeffrey Friedman's introduction to the most recent Critical Review, "A CRISIS OF POLITICS, NOT ECONOMICS: COMPLEXITY, IGNORANCE, AND POLICY FAILURE" is online. It continues in a similar theme to his critique of bureaucracy and democracy. If you're interested in an analysis that isn't the same 3 hacks going over inflation (which is not to say that inflation isn't a big part of it), give it a read. If you have money ...

on the State and Statism

vichy — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:17:45 GMT

Some analysis on the history, sociology and politics of the modern State that I found interesting. Anyone else know of interesting stuff? Bastiat - Government Buchanan - Limits of Liberty, the ~ Between Anarchy and Leviathan (Collected Works vol 7) Creveld - The Rise and Decline of the State De Jasay - The State Mises - Nation, State, and Economy Mises - Omipotent Government ~ The Rise of the Total State and Total War Morris - The Modern State in "Gaus and Kukathas (ed.) - ...

Great great Daily Show clip about Iran

Conrad — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:08:15 GMT

Makes me think: 'Can't we all just fucking get along?' I mean, it's the friggin' governments that create hatred. But people are okay. The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cJason Jones: Behind the Veil - Minarets of Menacethedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorJason Jones in Iran but yeah, I get all sentimental like that

Anthony de Jasay, also Despotism

vichy — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:59:26 GMT

Quote:There are two distinct strands in this retreat to the past, or rather to the wishful image that is now made of it. One is technocratic, the other is popular and even frankly populist. The technocratic view is that the dysfunction that was set off in August 2007 and has since grown to alarming proportions, was due to reckless deregulation of the financial system and more generally to the withdrawal of governments from their controlling and safeguarding role. Since the invisible hand ...

Duke Nukem Forever Review

Conrad — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:55:57 GMT

Industrial Evolution: Clark, Cowen and DeLong

vichy — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:40:27 GMT

Greg Clark, Tyler Cowen and Brad DeLong discussing the ideas in Clark's new book A Farewell to Alms, a fascinating attempt to explain the English industrial revolution along lines of evolutionary biology. "In contrast with Christianity, it was actually the greedy who inhereted the Earth. In England it was actually those who gave the least to charity who had the most offspring." Yeah, fuck you, stupid tribal altruism.

The Myth of Science as a Public Good

vichy — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:36:47 GMT

Terence Kealey, Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, bringing arguments to bear against the need for government science-funding. Kealey has long promoted the seperation of science, higher education and state. He wrote a book called Sex, Science & Profits. He goes into a digression of eugenics and leftism in the Q&A section that's pretty funny. Terence Kealey - 'The Myth of Science as a Public Good' from oxford libertarian on Vimeo.

Robert Nisbet and the Conservative Intellectual Tradition

vichy — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:05:53 GMT

A google video of a lecture at Mises.org about Nisbet, Conservatism and Libertarianism.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=846702507470603312

Baby bear vs. Cougar (the animal, not the MILF)

Conrad — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:57:25 GMT

Bizarely perfect camera and directing work (it almost seems fake), not sure what is up with the sound effects. Relatively happy ending

Here's a cute song for you libertarian dorks

vichy — Tue, 12 May 2009 00:08:46 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRucwqmsdRo&feature=PlayList&p=9387324FFE2BCCD5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2 Kenny Loggins -I'm Alright I'm alright Nobody worry 'bout me Why you got to gimme a fight? Can't you just let it be? I'm alright Don't nobody worry 'bout me You got to gimme a fight Why don't you just let me be Do what you like, Doing it nat'rally But if it's too easy They're gonna disagree It's your life And isn't it ...

Vichy, you'd like this

Conrad — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:48:39 GMT

footage from WWII here God, all those soldiers, taken from their families and then killing or getting killed one clip

George Reisman's Blog: Soon to Be Silenced?

vichy — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:37:36 GMT

From May 3, Quote:IF THIS BLOG IS SILENCED BY GOOGLE, PLEASE BE SURE TO VISIT WWW.CAPITALISM.NET FOR INFORMATION ON ITS NEW LOCATION. Here is the question: Would Google have any reason for silencing George Reisman, or is this his imaginary Kantian Conspiracy in action? Reisman's blog isn't bad, if you know how to parse Objectivist.

HL Mencken Speaks

vichy — Sat, 02 May 2009 16:25:16 GMT

From the Lew Rockwell blog, the only known voice recording of HL Mencken.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4bYv3uwDqc

South Park creators interview

Conrad — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:09:13 GMT

So yeah, Stewart (I think) was right in saying they make the show in a week or less. Incredible.

Watchmen

skeptic — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 04:52:36 GMT

I thought this film was amazing. I'm glad that they actually made the "superheroes" have flaws. I felt that some of the violence was over-the-top, but I guess it adds to the movie's dark vibe. I recently finished reading the graphic novel for the first time. The novel is definitely superior to the film (which is generally the case for novel to film adaptions). However, I was surprised by how loyal the film was to the comic. Dr. Manhattan is my favorite character (he's basically ...

(Video) Bernard Williams - Unavoidable Human Prejudice

vichy — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:07:59 GMT

A series of videos where Bernard Williams discusses things such as moral and existential significance, and what these things amount to in our world. 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9xtDbW3p74&feature=channel_page 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bC9AHjMQFc&feature=channel_page 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjdtGXLVUME&feature=channel_page 4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlCI2GyJq6w&feature=channel_page 5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaMhaL5Hxvw&feature=channel_page 6. ...

To catch a predator

Conrad — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:06:29 GMT

I don't know. These guys are obviously, at least often, planning to do immoral things.

But the punishment they receive by being broadcast on national tv is pretty damn severe too. I mean, their lives are basically over.

I'm not sure what to think.

"Might is Right" free PDF

vichy — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 21:24:21 GMT

I just found a pdf of "Might is Right" by Ragnar Redbeard. A couple years ago I had to pay $70 for a 1940s copy of Might is Right, it was the only one I could find. This book is pretty awesome, it's got all this sort of mixture of prose-poetry and regular prose. It might have been written by some racist Australian guy. So you know it's going to be brilliant. http://www.libertinepress.net/products/mightisright.html He was almost certainly influenced by Nietzsche and/or Stirner, ...

Manuel DeLanda on Gilles Deleuze and Materialism

vichy — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:44:22 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1136D7A086BFBDDA
A fascinating lecture series on Deleuze, whom I'd never heard of until today. Materialism is so rare in academic philosophy, it should be nice to actually grapple with some of it.

Gigapedia is awesome.

W.V. Quine Discussion Block Panel

vichy — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:09:41 GMT

An philosophy discussion between W.V. Quine, a philosophy professor and a neuroscientist from MIT. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=926639CC3E3228AB An extremely interesting piece. Quine's empiricist physicalism quite interesting and, although I disagree with his radical empiricism, I find he frequently has very interesting arguments to make against the idealists and material-skeptics. I especially liked part 2, where he argues that neurological states are the only evidentiary information ...

'Idiot Savant' with transcendental voice

Conrad — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:20:09 GMT

here

the new Paul Potts

Atlas Shrugged: Awesome 50's Pulp Fiction

vichy — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:21:46 GMT

Atlas Shrugged is kind of a ridiculous book if you take it to be philosophy. But if you're the sort of person who likes science fiction, like Heinlein, Asimov or HG Wells, I recommend reading it with this in mind: Atlas Shrugged is 1950's pulp fiction. If you don't know pulp fiction you might grab some of the stuff I've got at the bottom. A lot of it can be bought at a good used book store, or got online. Atlas Shrugged has really typified characters, grandiose imagery and terminology, ...

Pirates and Presidents

Conrad — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:37:31 GMT

Great video

The Triumph of Conservatism by Gabriel Kolko

vichy — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:21:04 GMT

If you haven't read The Triumph of Conservatism by Gabriel Kolko, it's a great primer on the political economy of the Progressive era. Kolko is, I believe, a Neo-Marxist and this book is a wonderful examination of State Capitalism in the Progessive era, much of which mainstream historians and journalists would do well to learn. Even more profit would be gained by the 'vulgar' libertarians and Objectivists, with their fetish for Big Business and delusions that the US of America was ever a free ...

MTV is Schizophrenic

vichy — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 23:06:01 GMT

I just saw an episode of Punk'd where they screw with a guy by convincing him his drinking partners are underaged. More interesting to me was the preface, "Do to the fact that we do not promote underaged drinking, the drinks aren't real alcohol." IE, implying that they agree (at least in principle) with drinking age laws. MTV is also, however, home to a vast array of media-figures who are adamantly anti-drug war, keeping with its left-liberal build. It's kind of pathetic how ...

Billy Bob...Petty

ExyPhylo — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 05:33:05 GMT

...talk about uncomfortable..

Jessica Simpson dropped by her label

Conrad — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:31:35 GMT

here

Battlestar Galactica

Paul — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:18:13 GMT

Does anyone here watch Battlestar Galactica? I am curious what you guys have to say about the shows ending.

I thought it was frakking incredible! I don't want to start rambling off into incoherency, but the ending just blew me the fuck away. BSG has got to be the best show I have ever seen...

All this has happened before. All this will happen again.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb on EconTalk

vichy — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:05:03 GMT

I was listening to an EconTalk on the business cycle ( http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/03/taleb_on_the_fi.html ). I tend to disagree with Taleb on various elements on economics, but he's pretty smart as well as being quite unusual - one of few, perhaps the only, billionaire ever interviewed on EconTalk. Quote:Taleb appeared to be vindicated against statisticians in 2008, as he reportedly made a multi-million dollar fortune during the Financial crisis of 2007�2008, a crisis which ...

Non-Characters and Stephen Bond

vichy — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:10:29 GMT

I was reading Stephen Bond's movie reviews and discovered that I agree with much of the general tenor of it. He seems to have many of my same movie pet-peeves, such as the Jesus-Moral and solipsist-as-wise tropes. I recommend looking at it for the purposes of reviews. http://plover.net/~bonds/index.html But I wanted to make a sort of meta-movie criticism: Why is it that whenever academics, intellectuals or philosophers are portrayed in movies they are not at all academic, intellectual or ...

What I Read Online

vichy — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:00:00 GMT

The following is a list of blogs and newsites where I get most of my online reading done. Some are probably familiar to everyone (Lew Rockwell's domains) but I figured not many of you have checked out Antinatalism or the China Daily. Austrian Economics Forum Bureaucrash Cheap Talk Blog Foundation for Economic Education George Reisman's Blog Ludwig von Mises Institute Marginal Revolution Blog Austrian Economists Blog Think Markets Blog The Economic Way of Thinking Blog Al ...

Overcoming Bias (A Cool Website)

vichy — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:01:22 GMT

Earlier, I spent some time browsing around http://www.overcomingbias.com/. I found the work in psychology, rationality and bias-testing really interesting. A lot of it resembles thoughts I have had before, and if you're interested in "Why people believe stupid things" this is a good place to start. Also nice info on how to avoid bad habits like rote-reasoning.

Interesting John Stossel episode on bailout, American dream

Conrad — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:53:55 GMT

here

final bit (6 of 6) may actually be the most interesting one. It takes on Barbara Ehrenreich's book

Cypress Hill's "Illusions"

Conrad — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:18:38 GMT

brilliant opening lyrics (starting at about 1:30 in the video) Quote: Some people tell me that I need help Some people can fuck off and go to hell

"I need drugs"

Conrad — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:13:43 GMT

about 7 years ago a friend sent me an audio of this song (amateur version of LL Cool J.'s "I need love")and in a way I was very impressed (and memorized the lyrics pretty quickly)

What are you currently listening to?

ExyPhylo — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:40:26 GMT

Some things are simply worth repeating...

"The New Totalitarians" by Roland Huntford

vichy — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:43:43 GMT

For anyone interested in a critique of social democracy in action, I would recommend picking up/downloading The New Totalitarians by Roland Huntford. The original came out in '72, and it has been revised since then. The central theme is that the democratic socialists and their successors in the Swedish government have engaged an individuality destroying, conformity inducing Statization of society by using welfare, education, mass media and the legal system to drive all resistance to it out. ...

Gulag Archipelago by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

vichy — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 05:27:29 GMT

If you haven't read Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, and you have the stomach for works like The Black Book of Communism, I highly recommend picking it up or getting it off the internet. The book is not only highly informative on the nature and details of the Gulag system, it is also extremely well written. Although many people today are aware of the existence of Soviet Gulags, the sheer scope of them is probably lost on them. Solzhenitsyn, in a style as unreplicable as Bastiat's, ...

Grounding Political Debate by Benjamin Marks

vichy — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:06:24 GMT

I just read Grounding Political Debate by Benjamin Marks in the journal Libertarian Papers. It addresses many of the erroneous statements libertarians are wont to make, not infrequently ignoring their own methodology and theory. Asinine statements within the libertarian movement being one of my pet peeves, I thought I'd share. http://libertarianpapers.org/articles/2009/lp-1-18.pdf Reading some of his quotations and citations, it's interesting to me how strikingly similar views from Acton, ...

Putin to the West: Take Your Medicine (Antiwar.com)

vichy — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:08:46 GMT

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=14178 This is an interesting article about Emperor Vlad I making valid economic criticisms of US economic and military policy. Quote:I lived to see an American president red-baited by the Kremlin! That, in itself, is utterly amazing, and proof positive that we have indeed slipped into an alternate universe, a Bizarro World where history runs backward � and in reverse.

Quentin Tarantino

Conrad — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:04:05 GMT

there is a lot I like about Quentin Tarantino. He may be annoying at times but he seems utterly genuine and genuinely enthusiastic about things in general. Take e.g. this Charlie Rose interview

Great irreverent talk by Peter Boettke at FEE

Conrad — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:40:25 GMT

Socialism and Transition
although the title may suggest a single thesis, the talk really is a bunch of delightful put together which makes for amusing listening. a sort of common theme is 'why the anti-capitalist mentality?'