October 14, 2003

Recommended: In the Domain of the Lake Monsters

In the Domain of the Lake Monsters: The Search for the Denizens of the Deep
by John Kirk, 1998

In the Domain of the Lake Monsters is an excellent and enjoyable Canadian book by the president of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club. The author’s approach is rational, and the more rationality in any book, the more interesting it is.

In the first part, the author concentrates on his own successful attempts to observe the B.C. Okanagan Lake monster called “Ogopogo”. I believe him.

The second part of the book overwhelms the reader with reports of lake-dwelling creatures all over the world – other than Nessie.

The book covers accounts from many Canadian provinces and U.S. states and discusses prominent lake monster sightings. Then it discusses Ireland, Wales, and some major sightings and research in Norway. There are also accounts from Sweden, Iceland, Austria, France, Spain, South America, Asia, the Pacific, Australia, Africa and Japan. The topic of the sea serpent called Cadborosaurus is touched on.

Part 3 is a comparison of Ogopogo and the famous Scottish Loch Ness Monster, discussing their likely characteristics and differences. There is also an 11-page appendix with a more complete list of worldwide locations where such creatures have been sighted.

 

Liberty, War & Politics

 

Lifting the Wool: Governments Are Mafias, War Is Their Racket
by Alan Bock, Antiwar.com, September 16, 2003

…Nock argued that there are basically two ways people interact – through voluntary agreement or through the use of force. What he called the economic means were voluntary and consensual – trade, mutual agreements (some explicit and some implicit) – and the sum of the agreements, transactions and decisions to tolerate others made up what Nock called society and what some have called civil society. The political means involve the use of force or threats of force…

 

Pay No Attention to This Day
by Harry Browne, harrybrowne.org, September 17, 2003

…And so government was transformed in the public mind from a necessary-but-dangerous evil into “the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else,” as Frédéric Bastiat described it…

 

***What’s in an Election?***
by Butler Shaffer, LewRockwell.com, September 16, 2003

…What is implicit in every political system is that the powers of the state will be used to coerce others to behave as those in power want them to, even as to matters of purely personal conduct. Politicized people are like dogs that have never become housebroken, making messes for others to clean up. Those who respect the inviolability of others – which represents the essence of liberty – will content themselves with conducting their lives according to their interests and values, without trespassing on the lives of others….

 

Days of Deceit – Sept. 11, 2001 and Dec. 7, 1941 (http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/days_of_deceit.htm)
by Bill Walker, The Laissez Faire Electronic Times, January 6, 2003

About Pearl Harbor and World War II

…I believe there may be ways to restrain dictators, but fire-bomb and nuclear bombing campaigns against their civilian subjects are not among the most efficient methods of promoting freedom….

 

***Empire of Lies***
by L. Neil Smith, The Libertarian Enterprise, June 15, 2003

Lincoln’s war and mass arrests, Spanish-American War, Lusitania, Roosevelt, Operation Keelhaul, Johnson, Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq.

…Today, human civilization is drowning in a sea of lies. We are expected, for example, to believe that the awful events of September 11, 2001 happened, not because we’ve been murdering people’s children and distorting the survivors’ lives in the Middle East for almost a century, but because they’re all evil over there and envy our freedom—as if we had that much left to envy…