The Humble Libertarian original

Seeing your kid's Legos floating in water in their room in the middle of the night is such bullshit, but try telling that to a rainstorm. We are all safe and doing fine! We have plenty of help from family and friends. But early this morning our house was in the middle of a lake, and we had to be pulled out of there by the local volunteer fire department . We both heard gurgling in our HVAC at 12:50am. My wife walked over to the window, froze, and said, "You're not prepared to see what's out there." Water was up above our floor level outside the house, nearly to the bottom of our window, flowing like a river right past our window sill! She was a very quick and clear thinker in the midst of this, and said we should shut down the house's electricity so it doesn't electrocute us. Then quickly gathered all the essentials we would need to save and triple wrapped them in plastic garbage bags. I was good at keeping everyone calm. I think we did very ...

Jesse Walker has some words of wisdom for us at Reason. These ideas are relevant in the aftermath of any terrible tragedy as it becomes a media spectacle: 'As soon as those two explosions tore through the Boston Marathon yesterday, dubious rumors and other false reports started surfacing in the press and in social media. So here's three tips for following stories like this one—lessons to keep in mind not just as events in Boston unfold, but the next time something this terrible happens...' Read the rest at Reason.

On Tuesday I reported some disturbing news in a post entitled " FEMA Camps Go Live in All 50 States ." THL reader Dustin Richards (who is also a good friend of mine and one of my debate partners in high school) left the following reply: Non causa pro causa, Wes. I'm usually one of the first people in line to bemoan the habits of government overstepping it's bounds but this seems like borderline conspiracy theorism. Until there is a little more than just the temporal cercumstances these events share it might behoov us to exercise patience in our obsevation of the government before jumping to conclusions built firmly attop one the classic informal falacies Is it fair? Do libertarian concerns about FEMA camps border on conspiracy theory? A lot of people on the outside, and maybe even some people on the inside of the libertarian movement might feel that way. Let me clarify that my concern is not over some intentional conspiracy in the sense that a bunch of corporate ...

LewRockwell.com reports : As many of our readers know, the U.S. Senate recently passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which, it has been argued, authorizes the establishment of domestic war zones and the subsequent detention of those who are suspected of engaging in terrorist-related activity – including, arguably, U.S. citizens. What you may not know, however, is that just days after the passage of the act reports are surfacing that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, is requisitioning private contractors to provide services for government, defense & infrastructure pertaining specifically to FEMA activities with respect to emergency services. At first glance, this may seem like no big deal. Why shouldn't the government prepare for emergencies? However, a review of an email made available through Info Wars from Kellogg, Brown & Root Services (KBR), a subsidiary of mega government contractor Hali...

Photo: Actual image of the damage caused by the earthquake in Virginia ( source ). Americans on the West Coast have relished the opportunity to make fun of East Coast residents this week after an earthquake struck Virginia. Late Wednesday night, Californians had another laugh when aftershocks struck Virginia and residents took to Twitter to report " another earthquake " on the East Coast. While it might be funny to West Coast residents, it is worth considering how scary it might have been to feel a heavy rumble in Washington D.C. mere days before the ten year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Thank goodness that wasn't what caused the rumble, but what did? One of my colleagues, Jared Fuller, founder of YAL's Year of Youth program, said: "Don't worry America - in D.C., that rumble we just felt was the debt ceiling collapsing, that's all." But I've got another theory: I think the earthquake they felt in Virginia and Was...

So according to ThinkProgress , a top climate scientist has said that "it is irresponsible not to mention climate change" in connection with the devastating storms that rampaged through southern states this week (hat tip: memeorandum ) . Just like the birthers, climate alarmists will interpret anything and everything as validating their dogma. Lots of storms? Must be global "climate change" --as if devastating storms did not exist prior to the Industrial Revolution. Earthquake hits Haiti? Yeah, celebrity climate alarmist Danny Glover pinned that one on global warming. It's getting warmer? Global warming. It's getting colder ? Global warming-- er-- climate change-- yeah-- that's it! Climate change! Remember that earlier this week in my discussion of the "After-Birther" movement I wrote: That is the hallmark of a true "wingnut," "barking moonbat," or whatever other dysphemism you want to use for someone who has decid...

Thank you! In the video below, Congressman Ron Paul has agreed that the media- driven at least in part by the agendas of the regulatory state and environmentalists- is politicizing the earthquake damage in Japan by hyping fear over nuclear power. In an unrelated discussion, Paul spends the second half of the interview answering questions about monetary policy and the Federal Reserve... noting interestingly at the very end that the Federal Reserve ordered a bunch of his books and distributed them to Fed workers to read and study. All at once, the Fed's actions please me, aggravate me, and amuse me to no end. Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Amid heavy media fear mongering over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last summer, James L. Payne published a piece at the Independent Institute entitled "What's a Disaster?A Citizen's Guide to Surviving the Fear Mongers." In it Payne offers some excellent and concise explanations for the perpetual panic attack that is 24-7 media coverage, and proposes an objective scale with a scientific ranking system to help us assess the real damage and magnitude of a disaster. The scale ranges from a Category 1 disaster to a Category 9. A Category 1 disaster would involve: "One billion or more people killed. This is the kind of disaster that a medium-sized meteorite might cause, like the one that supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs." A Category 9 disaster entails: "Few or no people killed, but some harm, or possible harm, to industry, tourism, or the environment." Payne argues that "the BP oil spill" was merely a Category 9 disaster consisting of...

The devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan proved once and for all that nuclear energy is a remarkably, I daresay, miraculously safe source of clean and reliable energy-- though you wouldn't get that impression from watching the mainstream media coverage as events unfold at the earthquake-stricken Fukushima power plant in Japan. With overblown scare headlines using loaded words like " Nuclear Disaster " ( m ) , " Nuclear Nightmare " ( m ) , and " Dramatic Escalation " ( m ) , you'd think the media was trying to sell more newspapers and garner more viewers. While body counts as a result of the earthquake and tsunami number into the tens of thousands, establishment media outlets shamelessly try to outdo each other in their alarmist and sensational rhetoric for a bigger piece of the public's attention. But the truth is often less dramatic, exciting, or scary. Another reason for the brazenly biased coverage of Fukushima is a strong unde...

"In President Sebastián Piñera’s shoes, Barack Obama would have undeniably acted much differently. He would have turned to his 'community organizing' background and been hamstrung by his naive and far-left, us-versus-them philosophical roots. He would have been paralyzed by a toxic combination of arrogant professorial theory and lack of real-world executive experience. He would have attacked the mining company for the entire 69-day affair. He would have done so right off the bat. He would have copped out and stuck to a rigid, defeatist, backwards ideology. And in his failing, he would have put responsibility on everyone around him, except himself." Read Tim Daniel's entire article at Pajamas Media . Wes Messamore , Editor in Chief, T H L Articles | Author's Page

Yeah things are a little crazy here in Nashville as a very slow moving storm has dumped more water on this city than it has ever seen in a single day of precipitation. CNN has more details (and some other pretty crazy video footage) here . Sorry for the lack of other content today. I was stranded in Kentucky yesterday by the storm system, decided to brave the storm to get home this morning, and had to contend with floods and road closings all over the city to somehow get safely home. Your regularly scheduled programming starts back tomorrow :)

Over at Samizdata , Michael Jennings writes : President Lech Kaczyński of Poland was probably best described as a conservative rather than a liberal, and was not someone who the people on this blog would agree with on everything. However, he was someone who lived under tyranny, and when faced with the question of whether you give in to such a tyranny or stand up to it, he stood up to it, and he spent a considerable time in prison as a consequence. Most of us are fortunate not to be tested in such a way, but here was a man who was tested and passed the test. For that he deserves immense respect. He was also about as pro-American and pro-Western as possible. For that also, he has my thanks. Original post here .

Even though the earthquake that struck Chile Saturday was nearly 100 times more powerful than the one that struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti this January, the Chilean death toll was only in the hundreds, while Haiti's was upwards of 200,000 according to estimates. Why the difference?

After yesterday's horrific earthquake rocked the Caribbean nation of Haiti, there are calls everywhere for people to help, from the USA's largest Registered Nurse union calling for volunteers to assist in Haiti, to " Help Haiti " trending on Twitter, to the American Red Cross 's call for "text donations" (via HuffPo ) , to the White House's thoughts and prayers . It's heartwarming to see such an outpouring of love and help for the troubled island nation. This desperately needed emergency and medical aid will certainly make a huge impact on the lives of the people in Haiti, but let's also ask what we can do over the long term to help Haiti. You see, by just about any economic standard, Haiti is the poorest nation in the entire Western Hemisphere. But it doesn't have to be that way. How to Help Haiti Emerge From Poverty The carnage and devastation wrought by the earthquake in Haiti would have been horrifying if it had occurred in Miami, b...