Kriminalitetsraten i Amerika [er] – efter indførelse af strengere straffe og bedre digitalt politiarbejde og uafhængigt af republikansk eller demokratisk ledelse i Washington – i dag den laveste i 50 år. En fremskrivning af situationen i 1992 viser, at hele 170.000 amerikanere ville være blevet dræbt af en morder, hvis udviklingen ikke var blevet vendt i mellemtiden. Før du tænker nå-ja-og-hvad-så, så husk lige på, at det tal er højere end antallet af døde amerikanere under Første Verdenskrig, Koreakrigen, i Vietnam og Irak – tilsammen.

http://blogs.jp.dk/frontalt/2010/03/10/strengere-straffe-virker/

Washington, D.C., March 5, 2010—Prominent climate scientists affiliated with the U.S. National Academies of Science have been planning a public campaign to paper over the damaged reputation of global warming alarmism, according to recently disclosed e-mail messages. Their scheme would involve officials at the National Academies and other professional associations producing studies to endorse the researchers’ pre-existing assumptions and create confusion about the revelations of the rapidly expanding “Climategate” scandal.
The e-mails were first reported in a front-page story by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times today. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has independently obtained copies of the e-mails and has posted them at GlobalWarming.org.
Climategate Reloaded

Climategate: Alarmist Scientists Plan a Snow Job

"E-mails from an internet list server maintained by the Nation Academies of Sciences for its members. "

Introduction to Climategate:
http://s-espersen.blogspot.com/2010/02/climategate-on-finnish-television.html

Rand’s morality of rational, enlightened self-interest defends the individual’s right to his own life, the power of his own liberty, and the glory of his pursuit of his own happiness. She said: “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive work as his noblest achievement, and reason as his only absolute.” Her message—that “man’s proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads”—is a message of the glory of the individual, unshackled and free.

We urgently need Rand’s vision of the moral nobility and greatness of a social system based on enlightened self-interest if we, the 21st century advocates of freedom, are to finally free the world from the death grip of collectivism. And that is a vision we must defend with “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

Can the free market be saved without Rand?

[A] new "Climategate" scandal is emerging, this time based on documents released by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in response to several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suits filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The newly released emails further demonstrate the politicized nature of climate science, revealing a number of questionable practices that cast doubt on the credibility of scientific data provided by NASA.

The emails reveal that GISS, like CRU, has done a poor job of preserving and managing its data. Although there is no evidence that GISS has destroyed its data, as CRU did in the late 1980s, Dr. Reto Ruedy of GISS admits in an email that "[The United States Historical Climate Network] data are not routinely kept up-to-date." In another email, he reveals that NASA had inflated its temperature data since 2000 on a questionable basis.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/02/climategate-this-time-its-nasa

More on climategate:

http://s-espersen.blogspot.com/search/label/Climategate

We are happy to announce that the conference “Gods & Politics” will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, june 18-20, 2010. The conference will be held at the Royal Danish Library also known as “The Black Diamond”. This prime venue will be the perfect frame around this fascinating and stimulating event. Religion and Politics… and then some

As the name implies, one focus of the conference will be on religion and politics – what challenges do we as non-believers face today, and do we have a strong enough voice in the debate? But the conference is much broader than that, and we have a fantastic line-up of speakers from all around the world and covering many different fields. You can look forward to presentations by some of the most influential psychologists, philosophers and biologists in the world – and that is just a small part of it.

http://atheistconvention.eu/

Israel har underskrevet frihandelsaftaler med EU, USA, Den Europæiske Frihandels Association, Tyrkiet, Mexico, Canada, Jordan samt Ægypten. I 2007 blev Israel yderligere det første ikke-latinamerikanske land, som underskrev en frihandelsaftale med Mercosur. De største industrielle sektorer i Israel inkluderer metalprodukter, elektronisk og biomedicinsk udstyr, forarbejdede fødevarer, kemiprodukter og transportudstyr. Diamantindustrien i Israel er verdens førende, når det gælder diamantskæring, forarbejdning og polering. Turismen må ikke glemmes! En rejse til Israel er en uforglemmelig oplevelse. Hvad enten du er historisk interesseret, søger aktiv ferie med sejlads, med surfing, med dykning, med fiskeri, med vandreture - eller bare ønsker at slappe af på en badeferie, så har Israel alle mulighederne. God fornøjelse.

http://www.support-israel.dk/

Mere om Israel her:
http://www.heritage.org/Index/Country/Israel

...The other basic defect of these parties is that the demands they raise for each particular group are limitless. There is, in their eyes, only one limit to the quantity to be demanded: the resistance put up by the other side. This is entirely in keeping with their character as parties striving for privileges on behalf of special interests. Yet parties that follow no definite program, but come into conflict in the pursuit of unlimited desires for privileges on behalf of some and for legal disabilities for others, must bring about the destruction of every political system. People have been coming to recognize this ever more clearly and have begun to speak of a crisis of the modern state and of a crisis of the parliamentary system. In reality, what is involved is a crisis of the ideologies of the modern parties of special interests. Ludwig von Mises

More in "Liberalism"

Det er altid glædeligt, når man som skribent bliver læst og forstået. Her er hvad Jesper Skovgaard skriver i sit speciale "EN MODENHEDSMODEL FOR VIDENSTYRING" udarbejdet ved IT-Universitet i København 2009:

"Grundlæggende er incitamentsstrukturen [...] anderledes i den offentlige sektor [end i den private], da man ikke i samme grad som i den private sektor er underlagt markedsmekanismerne. I den offentlige sektor eksisterer begrebet entreprenøren ikke, altså det menneske der med egne eller frivillige investorers midler investerer, udvikler og organiserer ud fra en forventning om at blive belønnet af interesserede forbrugere. Den offentlige sektors opbygning er mere formel og ufleksibel hvilket betyder, at organisationsformen har langt mere vanskeligt ved løbende at imødekomme forbrugernes behov, i takt med at de ændrer sig. Dette skyldes blandt andet, at man ikke får tilbagemeldinger om brugertilfredshed i form af salg og markedsandele, så man kan vurdere om det der leveres, har værdi for kunden eller ej."

Han henviser som kilde til COIN-artiklen fra 2007 Den offentlige og den private sektor af undertegnede, som naturligvis blot har forsøgt at formidle Ludwig von Mises indsigter jævnfør HUMAN ACTION - Part Six - The Hampered Market Economy (pdf).

(Forslag til gruppearbejde: Kan Søren Pind overtager entreprenørens rolle i Afrika? Diskutér.)

Liberalism is no religion, no world view, no party of special interests. It is no religion because it demands neither faith nor devotion, because there is nothing mystical about it, and because it has no dogmas. It is no world view because it does not try to explain the cosmos and because it says nothing and does not seek to say anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is no party of special interests because it does not provide or seek to provide any special advantage whatsoever to any individual or any group. It is something entirely different. It is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in order thereby to shield them from the external causes of pain and suffering as far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. To diminish suffering, to increase happiness: that is its aim.

No sect and no political party has believed that it could afford to forgo advancing its cause by appealing to men's senses. Rhetorical bombast, music and song resound, banners wave, flowers and colors serve as symbols, and the leaders seek to attach their followers to their own person. Liberalism has nothing to do with all this. It has no party flower and no party color, no party song and no party idols, no symbols and no slogans. It has the substance and the arguments. These must lead it to victory. Ludwig von Mises

Find the arguments in "Liberalism".

Fri Debat er et tværpolitisk netværk, hvis formål er at styrke bevidstheden om og forsvaret af ytringsfriheden i den offentlige debat. Netværket består af folk på tværs af det politiske spektre. Vores eneste fællesnævner er en uforbeholden støtte for den universelle ytringsfrihed for Loke såvel som for Thor. Foruden at være en stemme i den offentlige debat er det netværkets ambition at arrangere konferencer og gå-hjem-møder, der tager forskellige aspekter af ytringsfriheden under behandling.

Fri Debat blev grundlagt i januar 2010 af Jacob Mchangama, Frederik Stjernfelt, Jens-Martin Eriksen, Troels Heeger og Søren K. Villemoes. Det opstod i frustration over, at de to på daværende tidspunkt primære selskaber, der forsvarede ytringsfriheden i Danmark, Dansk PEN og Trykkefrihedsselskabet, havde problemer med at vise en klar afstandtagen fra indgreb i ytringsfriheden, der ramte politiske modstandere. Fri Debat skal dog ikke ses som en modsætning til disse to organisationer eller som en konkurrent. Vi værdsætter både Dansk PENs og Trykkefrihedsselskabets bidrag til kampen for ytringsfrihed. Vi udfylder derimod et vakuum i debatten, som er opstået de senere år.
http://www.fridebat.nu/

Første debatmøde den 1. marts:
Bør vi afskaffe blasfemi- og racismeparagrafferne?