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But if one takes into account just how much the top 50 companies earn, it puts matters into perspective. How well did the Fortune 50 do? Well, on average, they generated $4.58 billion in profits from $64.2 billion in revenue — not too shabby. That means that, on average, a top 50 CEO made 0.016% of the revenue his company generated, or 0.23% of their profits. That’s not too much, now is it?

All emotional arguments aside, I thought this was an interesting article from - of all sources - AskMen.com (just like you read Playboy for the articles…).

Via Order From Chaos.

- BK Western Burger 911 call - a nutty lady calls the cops to have them force Burger King make her a Westernstyle hamburger.

- Bezos to booksellers: No new sales taxes - The five-year-old quote from Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos regarding sales taxes and protection.

- digg - If you like Slashdot, Arstechnica, News.com and the Sci/Tech category for Google News then you will enjoy a semi-new service called digg.

Think back to when you had to write an essay test in junior high and highschool. If you did not know something, odds are you probably tried to either state something that was generic (i.e. Hoover’s life affected the lives of many people both in his time and ours) or was just flat out wrong.

Humor site DribbleGlass.com (known for their fake billboards) managed to compile a list of some whiz-bang historical revisionism that would certainly prove why there are still Lincoln lovers running feverishly around:

- Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
- Zorroastrologism was founded by Zorro. This was a duelist religion.
- Christianity was just another mystery cult until Jesus was born. The mother of Jesus was Mary, who was different from other women because of her immaculate contraption.
- Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door.
- Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
- Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.
- Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis.

They found some great science quotes as well, many of which explain why ‘Intelligent Design’ exists:

- The body consists of three parts—the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowls, of which there are five—a, e, i, o, and u.
- When you smell an oderless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.
- To keep milk from turning sour: Keep it in the cow.
- A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more extinct it is.

I never saw the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson gufaw back in the day — not a huge fan of the NFL unless the Cowboys are in the game.

However, this year I bumped into Bob Parson’s blog right after the bowl game. He’s the creator of GoDaddy.com, the company that sells more .com domains than anyone else. Their ad was a spoof of the congressional hearings about ad indecency and was pulled from the remaining ad slots after it first was shown.

You can find it along with dozens of other weird videos over at Big-Boys.com

So, oddly enough, I actually refrain from talking to anyone I know in real life about any of my views (unless of course, you knew me in highschool). Of late, a couple people have wondered why I actually don’t discuss economic issues much on this blog, so here’s the secret: goto the Mises Blog — I post there quite frequently.

Study: Many virgins take other risks:

The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse. That behavior, however, “puts you at risk,” said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor of sociology at Yale and one of the study’s authors.

Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge, according to the study. Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex.
[...]
Leslee Unruh, president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, called the study “bogus,” disputing that those involved had pledged true “abstinence.”

“Kids who pledge abstinence are taught that any word that has ’sex’ in it is considered a sexual activity,” Unruh said. “Therefore oral sex is sex, and they are staying away.”

Did the study come from TechnicalVirgin.com?

Trade Deficit Nonsense:

I myself am facing similar “imbalances.” My trade deficit with the local pizza parlor is staggering: for all the pizzas I have purchased over the past year, they have not purchased a single good from me. I have tried increasing my savings rate and making sure that I don’t run a deficit, but nothing seems to work. Perhaps the only solution is for some third-party to make it more difficult for me to purchase pizzas.

Pretty damn good if I say so myself. Though, to be perfectly honest, I’m partial to old Freddie B’s example.

Those of you who have met me, know that I have reddish-blond hair. That red part of course belongs to some Irish vixen that met a Norwegian viking many moons ago (hence my last name). At any rate, Gene Callahan points to a surprisingly accurate illustrated timeline of Irish ancestry. The Irish Panda is quite fascinating.

Radical Economics: An Interview with Walter Block:

There are objections to private roads, but none of them hold water. No, private roads will not cause people to be shut up inside their homes. The economic incentives are the reverse: to get people to drive on them. The reason to own a large capital good like a road is to get people to use it. Similarly, owners of websites want people to access them so they do everything possible to attract attention to themselves.

Speaking of road socialism: Nation’s Infrastructure Crumbling, Experts Say. Be sure to check out the detailed report card too.

I have been feeling a bit under the weather lately and have enjoyed reading through all the AEN interviews. You can get a better understanding of where Austrianism has traveled, as seen through the eyes of dozens of individual academics that had personal and professional relationships with both Mises and Rothbard. Quite fascinating (and free).

Aside from the outbreak of World Wars 1 & 2, several good “what-ifs” that could be batted around:

- What if Mises had moved to America or England prior to the outbreak of WW II and in doing so, manage to save all of his papers that would later be confiscated by the Nazi’s and then by the Soviets (Sennholz suggested that some of Mises’s papers may have actually been stolen in the interim, let alone translate all 40 years worth).

- What if the Foundation for Economic Education had been more proactive in sponsoring and promoting Miseanism/Rothbardianism (would it not have been interesting to have had the relatively temperate FEE become the anarchistic LvMI of today?).

- What if Lachmann had not been invited to NYU in the late ’70s, saving both time and head-aches from his nihilistic uber subjectivism (and employ Rothbard instead…)?

- What if Kirzner, Hayek and Schumpeter had embraced the “radical a prioristic” approach of Mises et al.?

- What if Rand had been more open to building bridges with Rothbard and other libertarian Austrians?

- What if either Menger or Böhm-Bawerk had lived through the ’20s and ’30s to see Mises (and others) develop — and possibly even critique Keynes?

Lastly, I enjoyed this biography by Hayek on Mises. His style and language helped paint a vivid picture of what one great thought of another.

[Photo courtesy of BK Marcus]

You are Paul Krugman! You’re a brilliant economist
with a knack for both making sense of the
current economic situation and exposing the
Bush administration’s lies about it. You
somehow came out as the best anti-war writer on
the Op-Ed staff. Other economists hate your
guts for selling out to the liberals. To hell
with ‘em.

Which New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Eh, oh well. He has written at least one decent article. Here is another interesting quote and him beating off a bigger douche.

Suspicious Minds:

Jesus taught Christians to “love thy neighbor.” According to a recent survey by researchers at Cornell University, however, the more religious the American, the less likely he is to love (or at least trust) his Muslim neighbors. For instance, 42 percent of the highly religious (versus only 15 percent of citizens who are “not very religious”) believe that American Muslims should have to register their whereabouts with the government; 34 percent (versus 13 percent) say that U.S. mosques should be monitored; and 40 percent (versus 19 percent) look favorably on government infiltration of Islamic civic and volunteer organizations. The highly religious are also more distrustful the more attention they pay to TV news. While it’s true that all the 9/11 terrorists were Muslims, none of them were Americans. So why do the religious mistrust American Muslims? The survey contains a hint: 65 percent of “highly religious” Americans believe that Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence.

Think this is a little nutty? Try to remember journalist Michelle Malkin defend internment camps. Sexy. Right?

First there was Friendster, then Orkut and Myspace. About a year ago some nerdy girl-less Harvard students put together a social networking system exclusively for college students (and staff/faculty). At A&M and hundreds of college’s across campus, hundreds of thousands of students have registered and created accounts similar to what you might find at an online dating site.

In a nutshell: you create a profile which includes your picture, contact information, the high school you attended, interests, clubs and jobs you are in, favorite quotes, books and movies and a minutiae of other trivialities including classes you are enrolled in. From here you can now begun finding out who that annoying know-it-all that sits in the back of your English class is, or if that sexy scantily clad sorority girl is single or even bicurious. And one of the most exciting features is simply adding individuals from other schools onto your buddy list — because it’s an easy painstakingly-free way of keeping tabs on people in case you lose your cell phone, address book or forget your IM password.

Amazingly in the past few months I have found a best-friend I had not seen since 4th grade (oddly enough he is a senior at A&M now), a guy I used to ride the bus with in elementary school, another good friend that dropped off the planet in 8th grade and guys I used to play little league baseball with — and even friends of next door neighbors. I’ve even invited people to meat-space parties and get-togethers after having “befriended” them on it. Other rando’s I’ve virtually befriended include several from Mises University (like David Heinrich) and Jacqueline Passey.

It is called TheFaceBook and can only be accessed with a legitimate school email address. Do it.

Just to clarify my earlier post: to the best of my knowledge Lew does not send anyone an outline of libelous accusations that he is accused of. There is no Party Line. There is no Pledge Class and there are no Purges. There is no Official Movement which means there is no official Rockwellian movement — at least, that is what Lew told me in the meeting last night.

For sure, there are yearly gatherings of like-minded individuals, but cry-me-a-freaking-river: I will personally pay for the escort who turns you into a man so you can stop groveling like a little baby boy. Seriously.

My next door neighbors are stoners that moan and groan about not wanting to be a Tool for The Man. A bunch of pathetic self-loathing that accomplishes nothing. And that is exactly how I would describe guys that spend any amount of time concocting intricate conspiracies involving Lew and others (apparently even me somehow).

If you do not want to be affiliated with Lew and whomever he employ’s, links to, or otherwise is involved with: good news, you are not. And regarding one fellow in particular, that blogs about individualism and cliché freedom musings yet makes continuous claims about not wanting to be part of a bigger movement: you are a nihilistic moron. Just associating yourself with any label and communicating that to anyone else, puts yourself into a camp.

And I really don’t want to argue about this. I am not going to sit here and try to convince you to like Lew, Rothbard or what either man thinks Mises believed.

File under: douche-bags that need to get bent because they obviously are not getting any if they are blogging and posting on forums all day long.

From: Lew Rockwell
To: Movement Members and Pledges

Subject: Party Line Update #327

Twenty-three members of the Pledge Class successfully completed all events in Rush this past month and they are now planning several events to fulfill their requirements for Active Status. The fundraiser will be a Cow Plop on that Negroes property down by the ye-old river. All proceeds will benefit Pure and Chaste orphans of heterosexual blood, or the local Diosese — whichever has the most ties to the Old Right. Speakers will most probably come from - like usual - the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization we have grown inconspicuously close to in the last few years. Topics of course, will be over the Lincoln Lunacy and Garet Garrett. The social will be a hoe-down in the tradition of the Confederacy and in accordance to the Vatican I accords. Hoochie-coochie.

In the general meeting last week, Komrade Karen brought my attention to yet another individual who must be Purged from The Party so as we can run like a well-oiled machine — free of contaminating, dissenting and derogatory thoughts. His crime was the most Heinous of ones, deviating from Rothbardian norms - criticizing his very Word. Those in attendance unanimously agreed to Cleanse the Untermensch from our midst — at this time his name has been thoroughly removed from The Charter, bathroom stall walls and that brick he purchased in memory of Menger.

Is it worth it, some of you might ask?

In response, I must pose another question: is a diet worth it? I think we all know the answer to that question — unequivocally yes. We all know that Mises’s failed attempt to Purge the Third Reich ended his tenureship in academia. Knowing that he would become a historian of decline meant he must take action immediately. And he paid the ultimate price. While some may label this a revisionist exaggeration of the past, the point remains: Popper-inspired Empiricists are anywhere and everywhere looking to Pervert and Subvert our Holy Crusade against the State. Always be watchful.

And for those of you unfamiliar with the latest Positivist attack on our endowed brethren, Hans Hoppe successfully beat off a degenerate libertine homosexual.

I close with the following message of Hope and Determination from Cliff Calvin:

“A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”