Anthony Gregory just sent me an image that would make an appropriate banner for any libertarian blog:

From today's qotd mailing:

Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512)

Amerigo Vespucci was born at Fiorenze (Florence, Italy) on this day in 1451. As a youth he read widely, collected and copied maps, and studied briefly under Michelangelo. He became an agent of the Medicis and was dispatched to Spain in 1492. While there he learned of ships and navigation, and made four voyages to the New World, exploring far more of the coast than Columbus, but his first voyage wasn't until 1499. Although he wasn't the first, he was the first to comprehend that this was not the Indies — Columbus died believing he had reached Asia. One German cartographer labeled South America as "America" in Vespucci's honor, and even when he changed his mind the name had stuck…

In honor of the birthday boy, I republish this lowercase liberty classic:

Monday, November 27, 2006 proud to be misnomerian I'm proud to be an American. I won't try to defend that pride: it's based mostly on things I had no responsibility for and no control over, which puts the pride in the same camp as many other collectivist emotions, but I can't pretend I don't feel it just because I think it's irrational. One of the things I'm proud about is that "American" is a contested word — contested by another entire continent (not to mention 2 other nation-states on my own continent). There's something very fitting to me about the label being so over- and underdefined. No one calls me a United Statesian, even though that would be a more accurate description of my official statist citizenship. Another thing I'm proud of about the American label is that it comes from the phenomenal PR genius Amerigo Vespucci — not because he discovered anything, but because his maps and stories promoted curiosity and fantasy about this New World back in the Old World. (And I'm proud to descend from the cultural and economic history of that Old World.) We United Statesians somehow managed to get primary claim to the term "American" even though Amerigo's maps were of SOUTH America. The nerve of us. Meanwhile, the people of the extended gene pool of those the Pilgrims feasted with are called Indians (unless you're politically correct enough to call them "Native Americans," which would make you a sequacious numskull, since the term literally means anyone born in America — wherever that is (as you know, my own favorite term is Amerindividual, but that's not very helpful, since I'm a native-born Amerindividual myself)). They're called Indians because Columbus thought he found them in India. To distinguish them from the real Indians in real India, they came to be called American Indians, which still begs the where-is-America question. Lest we let the Europeans get too smug about this absurd tangle of longstanding misnomers, let me point out that France and England are both named for German tribes (which isn't so much a misnomer as it is a little confusing), Scotland literally means "The Land of the Irish," (and Ireland does not mean the Land of Ire — though it sure sounds like it does), and finally, the name "Spain" comes from the Phoenician word I-Shaphan, meaning "The Island of Hyraxes." Is Spain an island? No. What's a Hyrax, you might ask? Wikipedia tells us that they are any of 4 species of small, thickset, herbivorous mammals living in Africa or the Middle East — but not in Spain. That's like naming my part of the world "the satellite of penguins." I'd love to hear more examples of misnomerian nationalities. posted by bkmarcus on Monday, November 27, 2006 (permalink)

"A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness." – Alford Korzybski, 1879–1950

Ian Bernard, host of the internationally syndicated radio show and podcast "Free Talk Live" has produced a free audiobook of Linda and Morris Tannehill's The Market for Liberty (print version available here).

Here is Bernard's introduction to the audiobook:

Government: An Unnecessary Evil

There was once a time when it was widely believed the world was flat and the sun revolved around the earth. Now we know better and most reasonable people have rejected these ideas. Similarly, most people have rejected the once widely accepted idea of slavery, and rightfully so. If you're like most people, your government high school history classes probably taught you that slavery was abolished years ago. Government people wouldn't lie to you, would they?

The book you are about to listen to explodes the myths of government. Its message is simple:

"Government is an unnecessary evil and freedom is the best and most practical way of life."

Spread this idea, and we can change the world. That is why I've taken the time to create this audio book. These days, many people do not have time to read and it would be a shame to allow such a brilliant work to continue to gather dust on the shelves of history.

Morris and Linda Tannehill's iconoclastic The Market for Liberty is one of the most important books of our time. Written originally in 1970, it is even more relevant now as I record it as an audio book at the end of 2007. The Market for Liberty is the antidote to years of government indoctrination, lies, and misinformation.

Unless you already consider yourself a voluntaryist, anarcho-capitalist, or free marketeer, prepare yourself for a major paradigm shift.

Well over a quarter century old, The Market for Liberty stands up well to the test of time. There are only a few places where the book dates itself, like any reference to prices, considering the federal government has substantially inflated the money supply since it was written. There are also a few dated historical references particularly in chapters 15 and 16 as since this book's publishing the Soviet Union has been broken up, the draft has been suspended, Americans are now able to own gold, and the US dollar has no more metal backing.

$18

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did. Please don't keep it to yourself. Please spread these audio files far and wide.

In the final part of the book, the Tannehills point out that the two variables factoring into how soon a laissez-faire society can be established are, "the rapidity with which the idea of freedom can be spread and how much longer our economy can withstand the effects of governmental meddling." Certainly no one can predict the latter but in this information age, the rapidity factor has been virtually eliminated.

Thanks to the proliferation of the Internet and personal audio players, this brilliant work can finally get the attention it deserves.

Download and listen to this great book now at http://book.freekeene.com/.

Ian Bernard is the host of the internationally syndicated radio show and podcast, Free Talk Live. Send him mail. Comment on the Mises blog.

I posted this a couple years ago:

Saturday, December 24, 2005 Christmas reading list Let's put the X back in Xmas! from lowercase liberty putting the "chi" back in chiMas from lowercase liberty The Economics of Santa's Workshop from Mises.org Scrooge Defended from Mises.org And the Christmas viewing list grows longer and longer but must always include some historical context. I make my reservations explicit in "Let's put the X back in Xmas!" but I still consider the History Channel's Christmas Unwrapped to be the seasonal must-see. posted by bkmarcus on Saturday, December 24, 2005 (permalink)

And now, to put my HTML where my mouth is, I've created a "Christmas Unwrapped" page to let you see the movie on YouTube:

Christmas Unwrapped: The History of Christmas Part 1 of 5 (~ 10 min) Part 2 of 5 (~ 10 min) Part 3 of 5 (~ 10 min) Part 4 of 5 (~ 10 min) Part 5 of 5 (~  5 min) History Channel Product Page Classroom Questions

More free stuff from Mises.org:

(Or if you want to listen to it on your iPod, you can download it here.)

Today, Mises.org features the final chapter of Murray Rothbard's The Betrayal of the American Right:

This means all chapters have been published in HTML and I can now make another free book page, thanks to the Mises Institute.

As I said in "free books, first installment,"

The idea is to give you a single portal to all the formats of all the chapters of all the multi-format books that the Mises Institute already makes available for free.

The Betrayal of the American Right is only "multi-format" if two counts as "multi," but here it is:

The print version of Murray Rothbard's The Betrayal of the American Right is gorgeous and well worth the price, but Mises.org has made the entire book available for free online in PDF and HTML:

$20 "How many Americans realize that, not so long ago, the American right wing was almost the exact opposite of what we know today?" Introduction by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Preface to the 1991 Revision by Murray N. Rothbard Two Rights, Old and New Origins of the Old Right I: Early Individualism Origins of the Old Right II: The Tory Anarchism of Mencken and Nock The New Deal and the Emergence of the Old Right Isolationism and the Foreign New Deal World War II: The Nadir The Postwar Renaissance I: Libertarianism The Postwar Renaissance II: Politics and Foreign Policy The Postwar Renaissance III: Libertarians and Foreign Policy The Postwar Renaissance IV: Swansong of the Old Right Decline of the Old Right National Review and the Triumph of the New Right The Early 1960s: From Right to Left The Later 1960s: The New Left

You'll never think of Left and Right the same way again.

(The permanent link to the book page is here.)

This weekend Mises.org posted the last chapter of Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty as a weekend edition (HTML) and as an audiobook chapter (MP3) directly downloadable from the media library or available through the "Ethics of Liberty" audiobook podcast.

You'll notice that I didn't put any links in the previous paragraph.

That's because you can find all the relevant links to all the chapters of the book here, on my Ethics of Liberty book page.

I hope this will be the first of many such pages. The idea is to give you a single portal to all the formats of all the chapters of all the multi-format books that the Mises Institute already makes available for free. Enjoy.

A flattering IM:

Stephen Carson
9:26
Look at what hit the front page of Digg! http://digg.com/design/Why_Do_Some_Coins_Have_Ridges_Around_the_Edges
I believe I remember a much better article on the same topic by you. Oh well.

He's referring to this:

See also:

I'll use this excuse to link to "The Three Austrian Pigs."

Apropos the the last time I said "apropos," Lew Rockwell just posted this to the LRC blog:

October 05, 2007
Operation Wikipedia
Posted by Lew Rockwell at October 5, 2007 08:17 AM

I linked to this great article on CIA manipulation of the mass media the other day. Now apparently the CIA, which was exposed recently as trying to "edit" articles about itself on Wikipedia, wants to put it down the memory hole. (Thanks to Gary North for the heads-up.)

A new feature at the Mises Blog allows you to look at every brilliant thing I've ever posted over there.

(It also offers an easier way to review previous Weekend Editions.)