Preliminary Disclaimer: The Country Pundit's degree is in Political Science, and he only had one economics class in college. Although I received a high mark, it was not that I was so good but rather that everyone else in the class had to be reminded to breath at times, when they came to class. Therefore, these great "theories" of economics are largely alien to me.

That being said, I recently took a test to indicate whether or not I was an Austrian in terms of personal economic belief. After half an hour or more of working on the thing, I still made at least one mistake in marking it. Some of the questions are so abstract that I didn't understand them very well, and my personal answers occasionally ran to the "For pete's sake, who cares about the details? The point is is that it happened..." school of thought best espoused by Smith in The Matrix: Reloaded right before he (and his clones) attack Mr. Anderson.

Anyways, the score I got was (more or less) 55. That places you as a Chicago-school devotee, and this was refreshing. Why's that? Well, it shows I've learned something at law school, and I'm happy to identify with the "law and economics" concept that Judge Richard Posner (and a lot of other really intelligent people) fall within. Admittedly, I defaulted to liking any answer where there was a positive suggestion of the merging of law and the economy (must've been that inherent Randian [yuck!] self-interest at work) and so maybe I didn't take the thing in an "honest" frame.

Why am I writing all this? Because it's important to know from what angle some of the next few posts may be about. Broadly, they're about people who would probably fit within the little-l libertarian political sphere. They consider themselves "Austrian" economists, under the lineal descent of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek.

I won't go farther, primarily because I'd have to expend more neurons now than I'm willing to. Future posts on this will be forthcoming, because it seems that the "Rothbardians" (devotees of one Murray N. Rothbard, an economist of this "Austrian" school) don't like fighting Islamists. Of course they'll howl about this not representing their positions and so forth, but when I try and slice through their turgid and abstract prose, I don't always see clear-and-cut support for American victory over the Islamists.

TCP's favorite Rothbardian stance: National defense should be handled by private companies. No word on whether or not these chaps have read the Constitution.

Anyways, this whole trend may be over, but I'm not sure. We shall see; perhaps long-term investigation of things is something I might be good at.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 06:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've actually got substantive content for today, but I'm clearing a backlog of quiz results that piled up over the weekend. Here's today's:

Numenorean

To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla

Bother. I'd prefer to be one of the folks hanging out in Lothlorien amid Liz Fraser vocals, softly filtered camera lenses lit by eerie amounts of white light, lots of snotty people with bows and arrows, and a barefoot Cate Blanchett.¹ Of course, having a fanboy's attraction to Lothlorien means that I've got like zero scenes of interest in the last two Lord of the Rings movies. They're just not as cool as the first one, for whatever reason. Of course, if the rumors of the return of the ringwraiths are true, then that'll be cool.

Anyways, this test comes, one or two steps removed, courtesy of Julie Neidlinger, and she gets the tip of the Wisconsin hat.

¹ Be still, my beating heart. True story: I was in the theater watching FOTR with an early-in-the-release-date crowd, and of course there were the obligatory fanboys, who made noise throughout the flick like "That's not the Balrog!!!!" and who probably had a heart attack when Liv Tyler (Look, in twenty years she'll look like daddy. Talk about coyote ugly!) came onscreen. Luckily for me, they shut up (for whatever reason) when Miss Blanchett drifted onto the screen, and let me sit there, watching in rapt attention watching Galadriel do the whole "witch of the woods" thing. Call it the Reeves-Skywalker Response: "Whoah. She's beautiful." Celeborn, you lucky devil.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It's a slow day, and thus quiz results will be posted en masse.

First up:

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
Rum and Monkey.

See the Extended Entry for further details, some of which are quite shocking, and aren't me at all. This one came courtesy of DiVERSiONZ.

Next up, a retro-identity question:

I forgot where that one came from.

There are some other ones to be posted shortly, hopefully with attribution. If anyone knows where the Rat Pack one came from, I'd appreciate a holler. more...

Posted by: Country Pundit at 04:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I no longer know where these came from, unfortunately.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 12:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Spurred on by John of Argghhh!!!'s post on the subject, I went and partook of Quizilla's bandwidth yet again. The result?

You are Professor Charles Xavier.

You are a very effective teacher, and you are very committed to those who learn from you. You put your all into everything you do, to some extent because you fear failure more than anything else. You are always seeking self-improvement, even in areas where there is nothing you can do to improve.


Which X-Men character are you most like?

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to John of Argghhh!!!, even if I have mysteriously disappeared from his blogroll.

NB: John, the Fonda-Clinton thing you've got is inaccurate at one level: Thirty-five years ago, Jane Fonda was close to being a babe. Hillary Clinton has never been a babe. She's always been, from the evidence I've seen, in the "If she were the last woman on Earth, the human race will shortly be extinct" category. Even thirty years ago, at the height of the left-wing feeding frenzy called 'Watergate', she was something to write home about as being a horror you've seen.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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