I was just having a conversation with a visiting political philosopher from Northern Italy. He asked about a sense he has picked up from American political philosphy literature and culture. He said, and he was cautious in saying so, that he sensed that “Rothbard seems to be somehow ostracized by the profession.” He meant that mainstream books and articles do not typical deal with Rothbard’s contributons as a libertarian who hammered out a property-rights-based case for stateless society. He wondered how to account for this.

Murray Rothbard offers this challenging observation about socialism in his 1964 piece from Continuum, featured on LRC today:

I highly recommend that everyone watch or listen to the wonderful series of lectures being given right now at the Mises Institute by Walter Block. I had the pleasure of attending the lectures on Monday. Although Dr. Block was not talking about war, he made a joke about Canada’s military that I thought was profound.

From Zenohockey

The Encyclopedia Britannica, once synonymous with knowledge, is apparently feeling threatened by the spread of free information on the Internet -- including sites like Wikipedia, where literally anyone can contribute anything. Britannica’s brilliant idea for returning to the zenith of its prestige and influence? Says the Boston Globe)

This has to be the barmiest idea yet — in thrall to the Ecofascists’ Boiling Frog fantasies, but frightened that ‘economic growth’ will falter (along with campaign contributions if they take on the airline lobby) should they actually hike travel taxes again, Britain’s Jacobins now want the nation’s Great Unwashed to fork over the cost of an onboard lager voluntarily in order to ‘save the planet’ from the effects of their unthinking hedonism!