John Baker’s Blog

I was at the National Railway Museum yesterday to formally launch the opening of the York Literature Festival.
The festival runs from the 1st to the 15th March. Although not on the scale of Cheltenham or Edinburgh, there is a varied programme on offer, mainly involving local writers and readers, of whom there are many. Among [...]

Under the title, Four Types of Government Operatives: Bullies, Muggers, Sneak Thieves, and Con Men Robert Higgs, Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute, considers why the beginning of political wisdom is the realization that despite everything you’ve always been taught, the government is not really on your side; but is, instead, out [...]

Viscount LaCarte at Newcritics has a song he wants to share:
There are too many guns in the USA.
They are too easy to get.
I’m sick of the NRA.
I’m sick of listening to blathering shills telling me over the airwaves that this is the price of freedom, that gun control won’t work, that the Second Amendment means [...]

The opening is astounding. Some three to four pages of small print in which Camus attempts to describe his Oran, the setting of the novel. The following is an extract:
Certainly nothing is commoner nowadays than to see people working from morn till night and then proceeding to fritter away at card tables, in cafes, [...]