Taxes have a long and ugly history. The pharaohs, of course, were big taxers and spenders. You don’t build pyramids stuffed with luxury goods for the next life by letting your constituents buy untaxed corn. Even Solomon the Wise squeezed his subjects like the vintners squeezed grapes. A thousand wives means a thousand wedding rings and a thousand peek-a-boo nighties, and a thousand honeymoon cottages. His administration rarely ran a surplus. “And he did evil in the sight of the Lord,” says that big black book found in hotels and courtrooms.

60 Minutes recently profiled what it called a conspiracy of hedge funds and stock research analysts to drive down the stock price of a Canadian drug company called Biovail. Joe Nocera of the New York Times did an admirable job of debunking this story and clarifying how markets actually work, versus the impression that markets are corruptly manipulated by “secretive,” “unregulated” hedge funds.

Today (via Drudge) we get a clear example of what radical environmentalists are about: University of Texas professor Dr. Eric Pianka -- who has just been named a “distinguished scientist” by the Texas Academy of Science -- has called for the elimination of 90 percent of the human population, preferably via disease. Here’s just a small taste of his distinguished views:

Score another one for voluntaryism and the free market in the fight against email spam. Tired of receiving tons of spam? Don’t want to join a coercive government registry or support any coercive government legislation? Then you might want to check out Blue Security.

A few of announcements regarding members of LvMI.

First, David Heinrich and BK Marcus have accepted analyst positions with the World Bank Tax Enforcement Division. Here they will also be working closesly with the United Nations Council on Capital Exploitation in preventing unfair distribution of incomes across the worlds social strata.

Webmaster David Veksler will shortly announce a re-engineered site for the Microsoft-free Linux-based LAMP platform. This will include a Personals section powered by Google Romance.

Here’s a message from an environmentalist who hides under the name “Tokyo Tom.” He says it comes “off of the web page of the world-renowned Wood`s Hole Oceanographic Institute”:

Some legislative efforts are being made to require the government to pay just compensation for takings done in the name of endangered species (example). But none of these efforts have so far considered the relevance of the third amendment.

The flag is Green now, instead of Red. And the lyrics are different. But the tune is still the same old tune.

When the Reds sang it, the lyrics were that the individual could not be left free because the result would be such things as “exploitation,” “monopoly,” and depressions. When the Greens sing it, the lyrics are that the individual cannot be left free because the result will be such things as destruction of the ozone layer, acid rain, and global warming. (Add an extra chorus now for global warming.)