I recommend visiting a new project, Commerce 21, which offers European liberals more opportunities and resources to advance freedom.

Commerce21 (http://www.commerce21.org) is a new online forum dedicated to those who share the principles of individual liberty, free market and the rule of law. Its aim is to give an online space for dialogue where young libertarians from Europe at large will be able to discuss, socialize, learn and exchange ideas and best practices to advocate liberty.

Commerce21 is a free and integrated platform that provides a lot of forum categories (Events, Action, Politics & Society, International, Science & Technology, Economics & History, Business, Books, Arts and Culture, Chit Chat Café, Arts in Liberty) where you can exchange ideas and start thinking about actions to promote them.

Commerce21 was created on November 9, 2009 by Liberaux.org, an independent and non-partisan organization which has been running a forum in French for libertarians since 2002.

It’s definitely worth a visit.

www.Guominliyi.org

DoiMoi.org

(I hope you like the small video on DoiMoi.org of my friend Sascha Tamm, which I made with my flip camera in the Steinbräu brewery and pub in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.)

My OrdemLivre.org colleagues Diogo Costa, Bruno Garschagen, Gabriel Gallo, Lucas Mafaldo, and Rodrigo Constantino just finished their gigantic tour through Brazil, with seminars and programs at 17 universities in 13 cities. More details here.

(Anyone who cares to donate to support such events, drop me a note at tom.palmer@atlasnetwork.org!)

Russia’s new code-breaking game

Not as physically challenging as Parkour, mind you, but mentally challenging in interesting ways:

A friend, Bright Simons, who is a member of the AfricanLiberty.org team, is featured in The Economist article (September 24, 2009) “Beyond voice: New uses for mobile phones could launch another wave of development“:

Bright Simons, a Ghanaian social entrepreneur, has devised a phone-based system called mPedigree to tackle the problem of counterfeit drugs. Some 10-25% of all drugs sold are fakes, according to the World Health Organisation, and in some countries the proportion can be as high as 80%. Under Mr Simons’ scheme, which is being implemented in Nigeria and Ghana, a scratch-off panel on the packaging reveals a code which can be texted to a special number to verify that the drugs are genuine. Most mobile-health projects are still at the trial stage, but a report compiled in 2008 by the UN Foundation and the Vodafone Foundation documented around 50 such projects across the developing world. Studies are now under way to quantify their benefits.

Bright is a voice for freedom, prosperity, justice, and peace, not only in Africa, but around the world. He is pioneering ways to help Africans to avoid the misery and death attendant on poor enforcement of trademark laws, drug falsification, and criminal fraud. (I spent some time with him this summer, as he was a participant in several programs in which I was involved last month in France, including the European Resource Bank, the Summer University, a Liberty Fund conference on “Universal Values and Cultural Pluralism,” and an international meeting on strategies for advancing liberty.)

NOTE: Bright is also a teacher at the Students and Young Professionals African Liberty Academy in Ghana. Anyone who’d like to help to fund the work of AfricanLiberty.org or the Students and Young Professionals African Liberty Academy, please do write to me. I can get your donations directly to them.

BBC: “Car harnesses fighter jet technology”

Bravo to Ford for not taking government money! This is a far better approach: actually make a quality product and sell it to people at a low price.

And this sounds nice:

Ford also demonstrated the self-park technology on its Lincoln brand.

Using sensors, the car will find a parking space and reverse park. The driver takes their hands off the steering wheel but still operates the accelerator and the brake.

I’m still happy with my Smart, which I can parallel park into some very tiny spaces.

Another project on which I’ve been working for about a year launched today: Azadi.me. It’s BEAUTIFUL. (IMHO)

Kudos to Ajay, Baishali, Parth, Manu, Lee, Jude, Swami, and all the others involved in this effort!

Stay tuned for updates on similar projects in Urdu, Bahasa, Vietnamese, and Chinese. We are busy people.

BBC: “Cats ‘exploit’ humans by purring“

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has nnounced “Human Achievement Hour” to coincide with “Earth Hour”

From the Wall Street Journal: “Backup System Helped Pilot Control Jet”

Another example of the growth of wealth that most people don’t notice, or don’t consider a part of being wealthier. (For more on that theme, see below.)

Hat Tip: Bud Garner

My older cat, Wolly, has been ill for two years with kidney problems, which are common for cats. She’s been in hospital a few times with crises (and is alive because she got better medical care than the vast majority of humans can access, which is a constant reminder of the importance of wealth creation) and I’ve had her on a regular program of infusions of liquids to increase the flow through her kidneys. I recently started her on Azodyl, a treatment that is intended to supplement the function of her kidneys. (There’s an explanation here.) I don’t know for sure whether it’s the treatment that’s responsible, but she’s much healthier and happier and she, at least, is convinced that it’s the pills. Anyone who’s given a pill to a cat knows it’s not an easy process. But Wolly thinks that the pills make her feel much better, so when I tell her it’s time for a pill, she comes over and sits on my lap and takes it. (And it’s a pretty big pill for a cat.)

If you have a dog or a cat with chronic renal failure, you should try Azodyl.

2,100-year-old gadget tracked Olympics

Hat Tip: Cyril Morong

Second Amendment Foundation and Smith & Wesson Partner on Commemorative Revolver

The Institute for Humane Studies has announced their first annual essay contest for high school seniors: “2008 Essay Contest Topic: George Orwell’s Animal Farm.”

Essays should address the following question:

Could the animalsâ?? revolution have succeeded? Why or why not?

The BBC reports on the opening of Octavian’s House!

It’s involved a lot of work from a lot of people, but the Cato Institute’s Center for Promotion of Human Rights is pleased to announce six new projects, involving seven languages, to promote libertarian ideas and policies around the world. The ideas of liberty are now being promoted by the Cato Institute in:

Arabic
Spanish
Russian
Kurdish
Persian
Chinese
Portuguese
French
English
and throughout Africa in English, Swahili, Portuguese, French, and Arabic

And…coming soon, Azeri!

(Cato is already working in one of the most hostile of environments: American universities.)

The projects involve book publishing, syndication of articles to newspapers and magazines, podcasting, websites, video, seminars for students, policy conferences, lecture tours, public forums, and much, much more.

I was in London last week and sat next to John Fund of the Wall Street Journal at the Stockholm Network dinner where I presented an award. He discussed our programs in his WSJ column:

While the Stockholm Network focuses on Europe, that doesn’t mean that free-market think tanks in developing countries are being ignored. This week the Cato Institute is launching a series of international Web sites to build support for the ideas of liberty and to promote the work of local think tanks. Web sites in French, Portuguese, Chinese, Kurdish, African languages and Persian will join existing Cato Web sites in Russian, Spanish and Arabic.

The project is the work of Tom Palmer, who 20 years ago as a young libertarian scholar smuggled photocopiers into the Soviet Bloc so dissidents could produce their own samizdat publications. “In many countries there is a clear need for private efforts not subject to or tied to any government entity,” he told me. “Clearly, the government-led efforts aren’t doing such a hot job of promoting the ideas of liberty at the moment.”

Free Order….in Portuguese

I’m at home long enough to get reacquainted with my girls (felines, both), do laundry, take care of lots of business, and then hit the road for Denver and then China, for a very full schedule. In the meantime, over a year of work will be unveiled on Wednesday, December 12. Watch Cato.org and this space!

(The conference on legal history and jurisprudence was great. A really nice break from all my other work.)

Thanks to the hard work, dedication, and intelligence of my colleagues Fadi Haddadin and Ghaleb Hijazi, and our Jordanian internet magicians, the Lamp of Liberty (MisbahalHurriyya.org) has a completely new look, brilliant new features, and much, much more to offer. (It was just relaunched today and it takes time to redirect all the servers around the world to the new site, but the new one should look like the image above. If not, wait a few hours; the photo at the top need not be the one of the lady with a camera; they rotate every minute.)

I am proud to be associated with such people.

I’m working on a lecture to deliver in Hamburg on “Freedom Properly Understood,” so I’ve been reading up on various theories of “positive freedom,” including Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom and, naturally, the works of Thomas Hill Green. I wanted to find his “Lecture on Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract” but did not have it in my editions of his works. I figured I’d have to trek to a library and spend a half a day getting a copy. Then… I thought I’d check Google Books. I’ve just finished printing chapter from the facsimile of the 1906 edition. Eureka!

(It’s pretty awful stuff, though. As he concludes his attack on freedom (in the name of freedom),

“The danger of legislation, either in the interests of a privileged class or for the promotion of particular religious opinions, we may fairly assume to be over. The popular jealousy of law, once justifiable enough, is therefore out of date. The citizens of England now make its law. We may ask them by law to put a restraint on themselves in the matter of strong drink. We ask them further to limit, or even altogether to give up, the not very precious liberty of buying and selling alcohol, in order that they may become more free to exercise the faculties and improve the talents which God has given them.”

Ugh.