Special to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

In the western states forest fires are getting worse and worse, and contribute to pollution (with it attendant health issues) and carbon dioxide emissions. Part of the problem is that vast tracts of the western states are owned and (mis)managed by the federal government. Prescribed burns (i.e. deliberately managed and set fires) can help reduce the damage fires cause. Burn Back Better: How Western States Can Encourage Prescribed Fire on Private Lands From the Property and Environment Research Center, a pro-market and pro-private property environmental think tank in Montana. If you aren't familiar with them, you should be.

In This Issue

The title of L. Neil's blast from the past has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that this is 2023. But it is a meditation on SUVs and the use of ones property as one sees fit. Neil would have appreciated a resolution in the Wyoming legislature to ban electric vehicles.

Hospital pharmacist Fran Van Cleave noticed in some of her lab work some very interesting data, and draws the implications. Hard science here, folks.

Refute the 1619 Project? Not hard, of course, but one writer, a French liberal, has already done so, says Kyle Reynolds.

Events

February 22: Follow the Science: Lockdowns Go Viral (Premiere) hosted by Tom Woods "Follow the Science: Lockdowns Go Viral is a Netflix-caliber pilot episode of what will be a five-episode docu-series. The pilot is a crucial retrospective of what happened to the world in 2020. It focuses on the issue of lockdowns and explores the critical conversations that should have occurred, but never came to pass: do lockdowns prevent the spread of Covid-19? what is the fallout of these globally-implemented policies?"

One of the people involved in the project is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford), who first came to my attention with the Great Barrington Declaration.

Links! Have we got Links!

It’s official: Everywhere in science there’s a mysterious lack of ground-breaking papers

Yet another reason to get your children out of the government schools, as if you needed it. Chicago Public Schools Will Call Child Services if You're Late To Pick Up Your Kids From School Known by different names in different states, these agencies are monstrous.

Yet another reason to get your children out of the government schools, as if you needed it. The Loudoun County cover-up reveals the moral depravity of woke A schoolgirl was raped by a ‘genderfluid’ boy – and her school covered it up. And the parents' movement, dismissed by educrats and the media as cranks and extremists, are vindicated by a grand jury.

The inevitable and easily foreseen result of the feds using "free" federal education money to turn government schools into welfare agencies: As pandemic aid ends, many schools struggle to fund meals for kids. This is a classic fed manipulation of the states and localities: start a program which no local agency would start if they had to fund it themselves. Bribe local agencies to implement it ("Free money! Yay!"). Require "maintenance of effort" so the local agency can't end the program ever. Build up a constituency for the program. Wait a few years, then yank the funding. With the constituency for the program, the local agency dare not end it, leaving the local agency stuck with the costs of the program. OK, repeat after me: Yet another reason to get your children out of the government schools, as if you needed it.

Hundreds rally in support of Jordan Peterson outside Ontario College of Psychologists after they call for his re-education The Ontario College of Psychologists appears to have really stepped in it. How often do people picket a professional standards body?

Greenery is a luxury Germany can no longer afford. A Big Green Mess in Germany With Coal a Stunning 31 Percent of Electricity Coal provides a staggering 31% of German electricity production, up from 8% in 2015. And Green party ministers defend demolishing a village to make way for enlarging a coal mine.

For an inside view of the recent speakership kerfuffle in the U.S. House, see the first 13 minutes or so of Harriet Hageman (R-WY) addressing the Wyoming House.

What is the US “Gas Stove Ban” REALLY about? "What sounds like overeach in itself, is actually a cover for something potentially far, far worse." There's something unregulated out there! Quick, make an excuse to regulate it!

How to beat censorship,the old fashioned way. With A DVD Player And Paperbacks, Anybody Can Beat Big Tech Censors I knew there was a good reason I was keeping all those books!

The Free Press launched on December 8. Founder and editor Bari Weiss is probably best known for getting canceled from the New York Times for doing her job: bringing more conservative writers to the editorial page. This is a sign of sanity returning.