Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate for President, and David Cobb, the Green Party candidate for President, were arrested today for attempting to serve papers to the Commission on Presidential Debates, when they tried to get through a barricade. Two previous attempts to serve the CPD with the papers were thwarted by guards in a clearly criminal attempt at evasion.

On October 4, the privately funded SpaceShipOne climbed to an altitude of over 70 miles, clinching the $10 million “X Prize.”  Many analysts were excited by the prospects for commercial space travel, and the day when orbital or even interplanetary flights would be affordable for the average person.  As if to rebut the naysayers who dismissed SpaceShipOne as a mere tourist attraction for millionaires, Las Vegas hotel magnate Robert Bigelow capitalized on the event by announci

A very interesting article by Franklin Foer appears in today’s NY Times: “Once Again, America First.” Foer talks about how conservatives, with their typical distrust of government power, have begun to turn against the Bush administration’s neo-Wilsonian desires to “democratize the Middle East.” The critics include George Will, Patrick Buchanan, “the libertarian Cato Institute and the traditionalist Chronicles magazine,” as well

There’s apparently been quite a panic about the introduction of non-indigenous snakeheads (originally from Asia) to the United States. These beautiful and impressive fish have several properties that are bothersome to many. Firstly, they’re large and carnivorous; when introduced into the US, they have no natural predators.

Krassimir Petrov, an alumnus of Mises Institute programs, presents China’s Great Depression, an Austrian analysis of China’s economic situation based on the principles of the Austrian business cycle theory. Petrov’s view is influenced by Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression

For a government as vast and powerful as America’s, $60 billion is hardly a substantial amount of money, considering it boasts a large populace and economy to plunder; such a sum is a mere three-fifths of what the U.S. Army alone requested for fiscal year 2005.

Here is a beatification web site devoted to Karl of Austria, the last Habsburg emperor. Karl was named blessed last Sunday in Rome by Pope John Paul II. See especially, in the photo section, the pictures of Karl’s son Otto as a young boy (and Crown Prince). Otto, who visited the Mises Institute in 1997, was a close friend of Ludwig von Mises. His portrait graces the offices of the Mises Institute in Auburn.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports West Europeans may have to retire abridged workweek: Free time imperiled by EU’s ndustrious new members. In some European countries, where weeky work hours have been regulated to 40 or fewer hours, labor unions are consenting to more hours for the same pay, rather than see their employers move the work to Eastern European countries where workers are willing to work longer hours and for less pay.

Via MarginalRevolution comes a betting site on the Nobel Prize, including the economics prize to be announced on Monday. Edward Prescott is in the lead, followed by Robert Barro, Paul Krugman, Oliver Williamson.