The New Yorker has published an article on the influence of the Koch bros. Jesse Walker responded at Reason. I found both at Roderick Long’s blog, where they are discussed here and here.

Radley Balko brings a useful counterpoint when he says “I’d like to thank the Koch brothers for six years of funding my right-wing, corporatist work on police abuse and criminal justice reform.” Cato also hosted Roderick Long’s Corporations Versus the Market article. There is more to the story than the pursuit of corporate profits.

Of course, Samuel Konkin, who invented the word Kochtopus, talked about this thirty years ago in New Libertarian Manifesto and elsewhere.

The story reminds me of politicians who conflate their personal interests (exercising power) with the common interest.

And it is pronounced “Coke-topus.” “Cock-topus” is the lovable mutant who pulls the strings at Thinking Liberty. His henchman is a bear from Canada rumored to be an ultra-rich marijuana tycoon.

Viking Zombies seem to have magical powers in this Ensiferum video.

Aus-Rotten: “The System Works for Them”

This:

Thank you Bosco.

There is a reason this band is called Overkill.

Horns will be raised for Ronnie James Dio, July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010.

I think I like Black Sabbath, but not Ozzy Osbourne so much. So this cover by Bruce Dickinson is pretty cool.

I’ve got a new commentary up at Center For a Stateless Society.

Saturday’s car bomb attempt in New York saw the response of numerous government officials, who evacuated the area, investigated the scene, and made an arrest. So how can I say that we don’t need the state to keep us safe?
Read the rest.

I’m trying to make Tuesday my regular commentary day. This week’s might be a little cumbersome for an editorial, but the topic required a lot of ideas be packed together to address it sufficiently.

Provision of security is one of the key things that people expect the state to do. Showing that the state is at best unnecessary to keep us safe undermines a major justification for its existence. In the short term, widespread distrust of state security policy can at least slow the expansion of murderous empire-building and the police state apparatus.

In other news I was at a metal show the next block over from where the bomb was found. It’s going to take more than a carbomb to stop an Overkill show.