My weekly commentary is up at Center for a Stateless Society. In A Trick and a Treat, I take a look at some recent stories to see how well government protection is working in reality, and contrast liberty and solidarity.

Violence is one of the main things that governments are supposed to protect the public from – just look at the funding of the United States Defense Department compared to the rest of the federal budget. Yet violence not only against military and civilian authorities, but against innocent third parties, is often inspired by aggressive foreign policies. A thorough study headed by University of Chicago professor Robert Pape recently concluded that suicide bombings are primarily triggered by foreign military involvement. And the Iraq War Logs, classified documents released last week by Wikileaks, detail killings and torture that ought to cause outrage.

I’ve been keeping up with one commentary a week at Center for a Stateless Society. I haven’t been keeping up with posting them here.

You Are Not Permitted To Speak comments on the draconian bail restrictions on Alex Hundert.

The authorities are clearly trying to marginalize Hundert. Unlike power-mad politicians or mouthpieces for corporate criminals, he is forbidden to persuade or influence people on any political issue. Any interaction he has, no matter how informal, can lead to his arrest if his persecutors label it “political.”

Since the commentary was posted, Hundert was indeed again arrested.

Last week’s commentary, Burning the Wrong Effigy in Mexico, comments on recent developments in the Drug War.

Mexican authorities recently burned 134 tons of marijuana in a display of Drug War success. The flames of the burning goods were a visible statist spectacle casting marijuana and the people who use it as villains, while the smoke from state propaganda conceals the real villain, which is authority.

I’ve also submitted some exclusive articles on behalf of Center for a Stateless Society. We’ll see what happens to them.

It hasn’t been all writing for me either. I had the pleasure of representing Center for a Stateless Society with a vendor table and literature at the New York Students for Liberty conference. A lot of attendees were unfamiliar with the Center, but most were interested and responded favorably. The conference itself was put together very well and presented a fantastic opportunity to network with liberty-minded people in academia.

The AltExpo YouTube channel now contains another video of the anarchist history talk I gave at Porc Fest 2010.

My latest commentary is up at Center for a Stateless Society.

In Renewable Killing Power, I comment on the US military looking into using more renewable energy sources.

The United States Military is trying to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Does this mean the world’s largest polluter is deeply concerned about protecting the environment – well, at least the environment of people they aren’t blowing up? Not really.

I found the story (NYT) from a Gizmodo post that Bile posted on Twitter. I was baffled by the Gizmodo author’s statement that “you and I” use solar chargers when we go camping. I really don’t know what about camping would involve electricity, unless it’s the setting up a tent next to your car kind of camping, which wouldn’t really need a solar charger. I’ve brought cell phones camping in case I had an emergency somewhere that cell phones actually function, but I didn’t turn them on. I guess if you use one of those fancy GPS machines you could power it with solar. Or maybe the solar-powered flashlight we tried to make for a high school science project took off when I wasn’t looking.

It’s also silly that the author would be astonished that “every 24 fuel convoys” into Afghanistan result in a death when the purpose of the convoys is to support an organization explicitly tasked with using violence. I guess it depends on whose deaths count.

In my latest Center for a Stateless Society commentary, Looking for Leaders – And That’s the Problem, I respond to an editorial by Thomas Friedman.

In “The Tea Kettle Movement” (New York Times, September 28th) Friedman laments that the Tea Party we hear about — which he dubs the Tea Kettle movement because it’s full of steam — “has no plan to restore America to greatness.” It focuses merely on symptoms of a country in decline. He contrasts this to the “important Tea Party movement, which stretches from centrist Republicans to independents right through to centrist Democrats.” Friedman’s important movement is looking for a leader to end decline and restore national power.

Presumably, Thomas Friedman also wants his leader to kill civilians to teach others a lesson about who is in charge.

After reading about mobile x-ray vans being purchased by US authorities and numerous human experiments, with one recently being exposed, I saw an ad on Facebook that appears to depict a barcode on someone’s neck being scanned.

Who comes up with this shit?