I have a weak spot for the sea. I have always lived near the sea and love the people who live on it. When I was a boy, my grandfather told me stories of the four great Queens who ruled a pirate kingdom in Thailand. I came to love the Queens of Pattani in Southern Thailand through his stories; during Pattani's golden age the reign of its four successive queens from 1584,were known as Raja Hijau (The Green Queen), Raja Biru (The Blue Queen), Raja Ungu (The Purple Queen) and Raja Kuning (The Yellow Queen), where the kingdom's economic and military strength was greatly increased to the point that it was able to fight off four major Siamese invasions with the help of the eastern Malay kingdom of Pahang and the southern Malay Sultanate of Johore. After the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 to the forces of Burma, King Taksin asked for military assistance from Pattani against Burma but the Sultan did not send help to him. After the founding of the Chakri dynasty Rama I sent Prince Surasi to p...

For those of you who cannot keep up with our blog whose posts move faster than the Nasdaq ticker, I wrote an article about the potential benefits and drawbacks of poverty or favela tourism and while it seems a little brave new worldish, it can have its benefits for the very poorest people in the world. There is a controversy over the practice in Thailand, but from a strictly libertarian perspective, exposing the rich to the discomfort of poverty can be a cause for philanthropy as it should be . I appreciate the criticisms of the Europeans, but would like to ask them to ask their businessmen and governments, just as I ask American business people and the government-frequently- what have you done to help the poor in this country or Thailand, or Bolivia, or Latin America, or the former Soviet Union lately? Taste of poverty for the rich: Thai hotel stirs controversy over lavish feast By Jocelyn Gecker ASSOCIATED PRESS 7:47 a.m. April 5, 2008 BANGKOK, Thailand – A Bangkok luxury hotel trea...

... then you are missing the funniest blog on the Net ( Hube and Thoughts on Freedom agree). Here, just for a flavor, is Knowing What's Best for Poor People : White people spend a lot of time of worrying about poor people. It takes up a pretty significant portion of their day. They feel guilty and sad that poor people shop at Wal*Mart instead of Whole Foods, that they vote Republican instead of Democratic, that they go to Community College/get a job instead of studying art at a University. It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things. A great way to make white people feel good is to tell them about situations where poor people changed how they were doing things because they were given the ‘whiter’ option. “Back i...

To continue with my wildly erratic journey in search of interesting Libertarian-related blogs: Nanny Knows Best will explain to you (with snarky good humour) exactly why, even if the Brits now have a per capita GDP slightly higher than ours, it is difficult to live your live inside a P. G. Wodehouse novel. Recent posts cover the town council that refused to pick up an old lady's garbage because of a four-inch step outside her house, and park wardens who keep parents from snapping pictures of their children in public parks. Outright Libertarians is one of several organizations attempting to support the inclusion within the Libertarian Party of "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and other self-identified "queer" (LGBTQ) Libertarian Party activists and supporters." I agree completely with their cause, although I do wish they had some sense of humor. I got to Prettier than Napoleon because a blog key-word search turned it up with "Libertarian." Ot...

Just because not only does Cara get into some essential issues, but also because she can write. From today's The Darfur of America (or not) : Following the trend of increasingly manipulative and stupid arguments against abortion comes this story about African-American anti-choice activists calling the high rate of abortions among black women “the Darfur of America.” Because where’s the fun in protesting if you can’t pointlessly and falsely pit against each other two groups who already have a lot of justifiable tension and negative history? The only thing more underhanded, dishonest and obvious than making abortion a men against women issue is to make it a whites against blacks issue. As if we don’t have enough issues in this country that actually are. You may not always agree with her [I don't, but I'm somehow afraid to tell her when it happens ;)], but she will always challenge you to think.

I keep finding interesting places out there. I was looking for information on drinking ages around the world, and I found Chris O'Brien's Beer Activist Blog ("Drink beer. Save the World"). Then I stopped, read The Dog Flies to Frederick. No Shit. And I was hooked. At Freedom Democrat s I discovered that not all the folks leaning into the Libertarian movement are leaning out of the Republican wing of the Demopublicans. That's a good thing. Try Shifting Sovereignty for an appetizer. From the Barrel of a Gun is edgy and pragmatic at the same time. I love Simon just for coming up with "fuckwittery," a very descriptive term that I'm sure I'll use occasionally when I'm sure I know what it means. Boys will be Boys gives you a flavor of this one. My favorite find (I appear to be operating alphabetically tonight) is Becky's Just a Girl in Short Shorts Talking About Whatever . You'll see it quoted (including her profile descriptio...

The power of the blogosphere is the power to connect you to that which you might not necessarily [choose] to encounter. Over the past week: Curvature on New Hampshire's new law on gay civil unions . Waldo Lydecker's Journal brings us a link to the Denver Post story on how Immigration and Naturalization openly discriminates against separated same-sex partners. If you read it, be sure not to miss the enlightened comments that follow. Waldo also has several stories about immigrants who came to America to fulfill their religious duty , which is apparently killing gay men. Phucking Phabulous Phlamer not only brings us coverage of a major California Supreme Court ruling on the property rights of domestic partners , but also a searing piece on the murder and/or imprisonment of gays under the government we're propping up in Iraq : (Baghdad) The Iraq government is considering the release of some 5,000 prisoners but a spokesperson said it would not include terrorists or homosexua...

I've been uncomfortable with blogrolls from the very beginning (which was, by the way, .001667 of a century ago). Within the DE blogosphere it seems essential to list those blogs you check into or comment upon, and that's OK. And what criteria do you use for the rest? Obviously, here at Delaware Libertarian I want to hit the standard Libertarian sites, not that anyone reading this is likely (A) not to have ever visited them if the reader is a libertarian, or (B) to visit them if the reader is not a libertarian. Still, I guess it's expected. But I also wanted to cast the net a bit wider than that. Just one problem, I thought: will anybody see placing links on these blogs as endorsements? Then I thought: why the hell should I care? Because placing them here IS an endorsement that you should be aware of what's going on at these places, and if you aren't savvy enough to realize that I don't agree with everything (or anything) running down the left side of the p...