1. During this blog’s “Month of Geopolitics,” I should thank
Deroy Murdock among others for keeping me informed about the activities of the
Atlas Foundation, which has helped tell people about the ideas of liberty and
free markets even in seemingly-inhospitable spots like Iran and some of the more-authoritarian corners of Latin America.
2. But it was the humble Dionysium that this
week happened to have both an anarcho-capitalist and an actual politician from India
in the audience at the same time (but no fistfight).
3. I also manage to have associates ranging from radical
atheists to a writer for Cardinal Dolan, one of the people who’s been talked
about this week during the conclave in the
Vatican as a possible new Pope. The
writer’s also an alternative rock fan, to whom I dedicate this apt link
(to an eighteen year-old song hovering somewhere between Dinosaur Jr. and
Sinatra).
4. Killer
dolphins once controlled by Ukraine
are on the loose, trained to attack with knives and guns (h/t Lankford
Jackson) [UPDATE: a hoax, it turns out]. Scary as a Sharktopus.
5. Far more relaxing is this meditative footage of a
cat at the beach, possibly in Japan.
(By contrast, the tenacity of this small orange cat in
attacking a much larger cat is both inspiring and stupid.)
6. If you were calmed by that, you’re ready to face (at most
3 minutes, I’d suggest, of) this oddly Hitchhiker’s-like
video that disturbs me not so much because it lumps together every insane
conspiracy theory you’ve ever heard – including one about gold from the Middle East being essential
to creating superbeings and powering flying saucers – but because (if nothing
else) it proves even the crazy people have great video production and graphics
packages these days.
(Similar forms of paranoia were briefly touched upon at the
Dionysium, but this will be my last dip into this form of insanity for now as I
turn my attention to more mainstream issues, like comic books.)
7. Those Russians
can be gloomy at times, but they can also be so optimistic
and unrealistic about the future it’s wacky (h/t Virginia Postrel).
8. So many of our earthly conflicts seem small when we
contemplate this segment
from the inspiring 1980 science series Cosmos,
though you may not recall hearing about “The
Meat Planet” (or laughing really, really hard) the first time you watched
the show.
9. That comedy remix may be further proof that, much as it
pains me to deliver this news, “Trolls
Are Bad for Science” (h/t Scarlett_156), and that could be bad for the whole human race.
10. But many looming problems fade away without us even
having to take action. It’s not popular
to say that these days, but level-headed, reasonable Calvin Coolidge
understood, and maybe you will too if you read
Charles C. Johnson’s new book on the greatest president – yes, greatest – of
the twentieth century. If the Rand
Era that we entered with Rand Paul’s epochal Senate filibuster last week
climaxes with him becoming president of the
United States, we may find ourselves looking to past laissez-faire
presidents as models to help us understand.
In honor of Presidents of the United States of America, let’s watch a video (directed
by Roman Coppola, of all people) by that band, who formed twenty years ago. (And in the days after that, in the second
half of my “Month of Geopolitics,” let’s take a look at books on East Germany,
the CIA, and Earth 2.)
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