Reuters today reported that an internet player on EVE — a popular virtual world game — stole virtual money, cashed it in for real money and now is banned from the game.
According to the rules of the game, if the player, Ricdic, had stolen only the online money he wouldn’t have been thrown out. His venture into the real world for real cash got him excluded. Here’s that part of the story:
Ironically, if Ricdic had merely stolen the online money he…
Three-time champion and Boxing Hall of Famer Alexis Arguello was found dead of a gunshot would this morning, at his home in Managua, Nicaragua, of which he was mayor, in what authorities are calling a suicide. What political repercussions, if any, Arguello’s death may have remains to be seen, but the impact of his life and career upon my native Nicaragua is not in doubt.
Arguello, who had opposed Nicaragua’s Sandinista government during the 1980s, recently joined President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista…
It is truly amazing to me that some people who call themselves “liberal,” “progressive,” and “tolerant,” are so irrationally afraid and intolerant of anyone who holds a differing viewpoint to the degree that they feel the need to lash out, discredit and attempt to purge them from the intellectual discussion of ideas. Recently, I was shocked to discover that such people were trying to accomplish this by employing methods I thought hadn’t survived beyond the Nuremberg trials.
I saw this spectacle…
My innocent, childlike faith in the wisdom of the Internet has been ruthlessly shattered. Drag Me To Hell, which received widespread raves and a coveted 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, could not have been more disappointing. When unoccupied by grade school barf humor, director Sam Raimi spends most of his time pushing the rising-strings-followed-by-loud-noise trope to new frequencies. But while I came ready for my bowl of cinematic oatmeal, I was completely unprepared for the new lows of popular economics.
The plot of…
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is demanding to know why the “Obama Justice Department took the unusual action last month of dismissing a default judgment against the New Black Panther Party in connection with a case of voter intimidation on Election Day on November 4, 2008. Members of the NBPP were caught on film blocking access to the polls and physically and verbally intimidating voters, even going so far as to wield a nightstick in front of voters and poll…
H.R. 2854, a proposed bill making its way through committees, would require the Treasury Secretary to give the greenback a makeover. The bill aims to replace the Great Seal of the United States (which Franklin Delano Roosevelt incorporated in 1935) on the reverse of the dollar with excerpts from the U.S. Constitution including the preamble, a list of Articles, and a list of Amendments in the founding document. The bill, cited as the “Liberty Bill Act,” states that Congress believes…
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a difficult film to watch, but worth taking the time to do so. The film, which several CEI colleagues and I saw at a preview screening last night, depicts the stoning death of a young Iranian woman falsely accused of adultery. It highlights the outrage that the barbaric practice of stoning continues to occur anywhere, but at times does more than that.
The film illustrates the way in which a closed, illiberal society can close…
If you’re searching for a good piece of bizarre, whacked-out political “analysis,” look no further than William Greider’s latest column in the Nation. Greider, a veteran journalist, is known for coining the term “Nader’s Raiders” in the late ’60s, and for authoring a book on globalization, One World, Ready or Not, which even the progressive economist Paul Krugman described as “a thoroughly silly book.” Greider’s column is really just another bad sales pitch for his latest train-wreck tome, Come Home, America, but it should…
China is a very different place than it was twenty years ago. It was on this day in 1989 that one anonymous, brave soul halted those tanks in their tracks during the Tiananmen Square protests.
Slow but steady economic liberalization has lifted as many as half a billion people out of poverty in China since Mao’s death. Most of that progress has happened since the Tiananmen massacre. And the process has accelerated in recent years.
Economist Alex Tabarrok, speaking at a TED conference,…
The crusade against film depictions of tobacco smoking is once again gaining momentum. The American Medical Association Alliance, in coalition with several other well-funded special interests, has launched a campaign called “Which Movie Studios Will Cause the Most Youth to Start Smoking This Summer?” The campaign, among other things, calls for an automatic “R” rating for any movie that depicts tobacco smoking.
The New York Times reports:
Studios, under pressure from health groups, have been urging filmmakers to trim tobacco scenes but…
California legislators, along with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, are still trying to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. Now, they’re taking their fight to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Similar state bans on violent games have been deemed unconstitutional by the courts again and again and again (and again). But knowing that the law is in blatant violation of the First Amendment hasn’t stopped the “Governator” (who, ironically, has starred in more than a few violent movies over the last couple decades) from trying to impose his parenting…
John Stuart Mill was born on this day in 1806. He is best known for classical liberal writings like On Liberty and The Subjection of Women. College students today also learn about his philosophy of utilitarianism, inherited from father James Mill and family friend Jeremy Bentham.
Mill had an unusual life story, told in one of the most compelling autobiographies in literature. John’s father gave him an intensive education that, for example, had him reading ancient Greek at age three. John never had…
Our good friend and CEI alumna Kendra Okonski is looking for writers and journalists to enter the distinguished and lucrative Bastiat Prize Competition, presented by the International Policy Network. The competition is designed for writers whose published works promote the institutions of a free society. This year, the Prize has been expanded and includes a new category for online journalism (including blogs and self-published articles). The first place winner will take home $10,000 and a lovely crystal candlestick.
Past winner have…
“Meet Bronze!” “Bronze is Your Friend!” “Bronze is Brilliant; User-Friendly; and Multi-Purpose!” “Stone is Dead, Prepare for the Age of Bronze!”
Having solved all of America’s other problems, Congress is turning its attention to how college football’s national championship is decided.
In a bit of unintentional comedy, Rep. Joe Barton literally compared the current system to communism.
I love it. Yes, Congress has no business here. But any time wasted on issues like this is time that Congress can’t spend further ruining the economy.
There are worse trade-offs than that.
Cato Institute President Ed Crane says to conservatives, you’re doing it wrong. I couldn’t agree more.
Conservatives are supposed to be the opposition to progressives. Their problem is that opposing something requires philosophical disagreement. At heart, left and right are variations of the same theme.
There are three main currents of conservative thought. All three have their progressive analogues:
Supply-side conservatives have a laser-like focus on tax cuts and economic growth. Both are good things, true. But they forgot about spending, and about…
In the next 48 hours, Chrysler is expected to file for bankruptcy because, according to press reports, a significant minority of its creditors object to the Obama administration’s planned takeover in which the government and unions would own a majority stake. The Obama administration hopes to persuade the court to ratify and rubber-stamp its plan. But the bankruptcy courts should exercise independent judgment instead, as they do in any typical bankruptcy case.
The expected Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing of Chrysler LLC is…
Isolated from the rest of the world, Kim Jong Il’s bankrupt North Korean regime appears to have stumbled upon a new gimmick to stay afloat: cornering the world supply of floral baskets. The North Korean government’s propaganda front to the outside world, the pretentiously named Korean Central News Agency, regularly features sycophantic accounts of the Dear Leader. One true and tested cliche is the presentation of floral baskets to him, but today’s batch of stories seems to set a record:
Floral…
My good friend and Bureaucrash ally Xaq Fixx recently altered me to an interesting story on the intersection of politics, technology and free speech. It seems that the state government of California, through the California Employment Training Panel, is paying contractors who train in-state workers in new skills - an effort to boost the Golden State’s notoriously sagging economy. Nothing too unusual there.
Enter SF Weekly’s Matt Smith, who noticed that the list of recipients of this state-subsidized training were employees of Cybernet…
‘Though there’s uncertainty about the exact date, April 23 is observed as William Shakespeare’s birthday, and Reason’s Nick Gillespie and National Review Online celebrate the Bard. Here’s a quote for today:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.(Hamlet, Polonius)
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