A Reasonable week

This blog will endeavour to post for the next few days from the REASON in Amsterdam conference which is obviously in... Amsterdam. Two points if you guessed correctly.

I arrive early afternoon with plenty of time to get settled in. Tomorrow will be dinner with Matt Stone and Trey Parker the creators of South Park. I'm looking forward to the next few days immensely. I love Amsterdam and was only there visiting with Marc Victor (the libertarian attorney, powerhouse and gadfly from Phoenix) and his lovelier half, Amy, just a few weeks ago.

And once again this will be great fun as many old friends will be there and hopefully a new ones as well. Vince Miller and Jim Elwood of the International Society for Individual Liberty are coming in. It will be nice to see them especially since they are bringing my DVD of V for Vendetta. I've seen them several times in the last year. First, in Germany a year ago, then in Phoenix about 10 months ago, then again in Colorado Springs in the Spring, then last month in Prague. I think they're following me.

The libertarian Hobbits from Holland, Hubert and Rita Jongen are on the list to be there. I was disappointed they didn't make it to Prague in July so it will be doubly nice to catch up with them again on their home tuft.

Tom Palmer from the CATO Institute is speaking. Other than a brief visit in Phoenix few months ago the last time I saw Tom was quite sometime ago in Washington, DC when I was attending a CATO conference and stayed with Tom during my visit. Science write Ron Bailey is speaking and he's always interesting. I met Ron a few years ago at the World Conference on Sustainable Development in South Africa and had him speak there at a supper club I was organizing.

I will try to blog about the speakers and what they have to say. I have wireless in my hotel room but I won't be getting there much during the day. But each evening before I go to sleep I'll try to give you a report.

The first hurdle will be the flight but I believe the flight I'm one, not going through either British or US airspace, should be relatively easy without any of the silly regulations that the Blair/Bush twins are imposing. But it's really getting to be a pain to fly. I couldn't figure out if I'm allowed to take a folding umbrella or not in my carry on. And since I'm only doing carry on I decided that they probably have it listed as a weapon and will leave it. I hope it doesn't rain. I also left a small video camera tripod for the same reason. I'm assuming this flight will allow dangerous items like deoderant and toothpaste. We'll see. I know the flight to Amsterdam in July wasn't too bad. The insanity is localized to the US and Britain but they are using their pull to force others to follow suit.

All in all it will be a feast for the mind, a feast for the body and a feast of friendship. Not a bad combination.