James Altucher, one of the best bloggers of all time in my book, has a new post out about 10 rules for blogging. All YAL bloggers would be well served to read it:

10 Rules About Blogging 

Posted by James Altucher

Blogging is really painful for me. I’ve had over 400 posts. I’m not really news driven. I’m more “heart driven”. I don’t even read the news. So I have to keep finding parts of my heart that I haven’t explored yet. I have to keep bleeding until it hurts. But I’m a bit addicted to it. Not always for the right reasons. Sometimes I simply want approval. Sometimes I want to be creative. Sometimes I want to help people. And sometimes I feel bad if I haven’t posted in awhile.

Every day it’s usually a soup of all of the above. And the people around me are sick of it if I can’t come up with a post idea by 8am. Then I’m unhappy. Blogging is painful if you want to be good at it. So I’m all in favor if you want to be bad at it.

Nor am I going to say you should pay attention to me. I would prefer if you didn’t follow any of these rules. Blogging is a drag. Every day. I look at my favorite short story writer ever, Denis Johnson. He wrote around 10 good stories in a LIFETIME. And if I write one bad post I get emails about it. So I really hope people do the opposite of these rules and be bad bloggers. I sometimes bleed too much when I blog. When you bleed too much it gets painful for yourself or for the people around you (“Ugh,” I can hear Claudia saying, “I have to put up with him all day saying ‘I have nothing to write about’ 

Read the whole post here

On Monday, April 23rd as part of their Economic Liberty Lecture series, the Future of Freedom Foundation will be hosting economics professor Benjamin Powell, who will be speaking about how sweatshops improve lives and economic growth. 

The event will start off in Student Union Building II, Rooms 3 & 4 of George Mason University at 5:30 with pizza, followed by the lecture and Q&A at 6pm and a social hour at Brion's Grille at 8pm.  Check out the event details on the YAL calendar here.

As you hopefully know by now, for this April, YAL National is offering not just one, but three activism ideas -- the reYALity Check Quiz Show, Occupy the Honor Roll, and Visualize the Debt -- for your chapter to consider.  Each activism project includes a $100 Activism Grant to help you purchase supplies and educational materials to distribute to students (apply here now!).

After doing your activism (preferably later that same day, or the following day, so people don't forget) your chapter should have a fun yet educational meeting with something like a speaker -- or, better yet, a film screening! 

You should definitely have free food (and bottled water with custom YAL labels) to pull in more students!

Stand-up economist Yoram Bauman doesn't usually swear, but it's unavoidable in this routine ("Sh*t happens: the economics version").

Here is a taste: "Keynesian macro:  Sh*t happens because of animal spirits. ... Supply side economics: Cut taxes and get more  sh*t!" 

The world could use more thought provoking comedians like Bauman, Bill Hicks, and George Carlin (RIP). That's one of the main reasons I started doing pro-liberty stand-up comedy recently. 

Bauman's take on the Austrian school, "Sh*t happens because of the fractional reserve banking system" is a bit inaccurate, and a commenter was quick to critique this -- he even offers a replacement punchline!:

With regard to the Austrian School reference, fractional reserve is inaccurate; most Austrians have no real problem with fractional reserve. (As long as the banks using it are subject to free market forces, i.e. no government deposit insurance.) It would be more accurate to lay blame on fiat money or to be more lay-friendly, central banking. Working even better perhaps for a punch line might be, "Gold is good sh*t."