Must read: P.J. O'Rourke speech from 1993

The Liberty Manifesto:

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

There are just two rules of governance in a free society: 

Mind your own business.  

Keep your hands to yourself.

Chicken

Chicken.

Thursday links

1955 article: Ancient War Machines, with schematics for models.

A 78-year-old woman famous for streaking on an airline information video has rescued a man who fell into a creek he was trying to urinate in.

A few million virtual monkeys are close to re-creating the complete works of Shakespeare.

Pakistani Truck Art.

The Origins of 7 Common Superstitions.

A Short History of the Income Tax

WSJ on the separation of the corporate and personal tax.

Troop demographics: Who fights for America?

Busting the myth about the "fact" that those who serve in the U.S. military typically have no other career options. "America's soldiers, they said, were poor and black".  

Indeed, the Heritage report showed that "low-income families are underrepresented in the military and high-income families are overrepresented. Individuals from the bottom household income quintile make up 20.0 percent of Americans who are age 18-24 years old but only 10.6 percent of the 2006 recruits and 10.7 percent of the 2007 recruits. Individuals in the top two quintiles make up 40.0 percent of the population, but 49.3 percent of the recruits in both years."

What about the charge that our Army is disproportionately black? This too is false, as is clear from data for fiscal 2010 available on the Army's website: Whereas blacks comprise 17% of Americans ages 18-39 with high school degrees, they represent only a slightly larger proportion of enlisted soldiers, at 21%.