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Bob Dylan is a personal favorite of mine and to be clear he’s not making some anarcho-capitalist statement here. He isn’t openly advocating a libertarian economic stance. It’s just common sense coming from an old man who has seen a whole lot of life, made a whole lot of money, and who has made his way observing the human condition.

Seems a reasonable position for the guy who once had a radical Marxist terrorist group name themselves after one of his lyrics and who once sang an ode to Woody Guthrie.

Times have indeed changed.

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Please forgive the vulgarity of the above headline, but this story is just great.

It didn’t happen on the Floor, but in email form.

I will say that Senator Leyonhjelm is now probably the most famous Australian Senator in the world. He is for sure in the States.

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Who are the “experts” that rate restaurants? In this new guidebook from Phaidon, the experts are actual chefs, more than 600 from all over the world who recommend 3000 legit restaurants from Austin to Zurich. Includes detailed city maps, reviews, reservation policies, key information and honest comments from the chefs themselves.

This man is so excited about his wifi-based phone that he can’t even look at it, lest he burst.

Regional cable operator Cablevision is jumping into the mobile fray in a big way this week, and they’re doing it an untraditional way. The new service is 100% based on a network of wifi hotspots: Cell phones without the cell.

New York tri-state area cable and broadband provider Cablevision announced the new service today, the Wall Street Journal reports. It’s called Freewheel. Everyone on it gets unlimited talk, text, and data via ordinary wifi. Existing Cablevision subscribers can add it to their bills for $9.95 a month, or customers who don’t use Cablevision at home can get it for $29.95 per month.

This is the first mobile offering to make actual use of those millions of hotspots that cable companies keep putting everywhere. Cablevision does the same thing Comcast does, creating a second wifi hotspot network out of subscribers’ home routers. That contributes to the 1.1 million hotspots the company has in the greater New York area, which would hopefully provide solid coverage to subscribers.

There are downsides. At launch, the program only works with one phone: the Motorola Moto G, as being sold by Cablevision for about $100. That phone will come with apps pre-installed that allow it to detect and authenticate with any Cablevision hotspot. Eventually, the company says, apps will be available on other phones that allow users to connect.

And Freewheel isn’t suited well for everyone. Though Cablevision claims that 80% of all current smartphone usage happens over wifi, that remaining 20% can be pretty critical. Stalled out on the interstate with a blown-out tire? There’s probably not a wifi hotspot there for your phone to connect to. And if you’re on the road, plenty of venues that technically have wifi — airports and hotels among them — still charge consumers big bucks to access it.

Even without a lot of long-distance travel, users are likely to hit some holes in coverage where networks don’t quite meet or overlap. And although Cablevision puts a great deal of stock in having their own hotspot network to use, some of that relies on residential customers both existing and playing along. Consumers who have hotspot-creating modems and routers in their homes can choose to disable the second network, or use their own hardware entirely, which could create holes in Cablevision’s coverage.

Still, Cablevision is right that wifi penetration is growing. Avoiding traditional 4G/LTE mobile data entirely means avoiding the caps and fees that come with it. Cablevision COO Kristin Dolan told the WSJ that the service should be well-suited to consumers who want a budget-friendly option but don’t necessarily travel far afield that often, like college students living on-campus or a senior on a fixed income.

Cablevision to Offer Wi-Fi Phone Service [Wall Street Journal]

Empire Today has been around as a shop-from-home flooring installation business for 55 years, spending 40 of those years getting its phone number jingle stuck in everyone’s heads. But until now, there were no physical stores for shoppers to visit and pick out flooring. After all that time priming potential customers with “588-2300, Empiiiire!” the company says it’s finally ready to open its first bricks-and-mortar stores.

First of all, my apologies for getting that jingle in your head for the bajillionth time, but it comes with the territory.

The Illinois-based company announced today that it’s planning to open its first store in Fairfax, Va. and two more next week, both on Long Island in Commack and Westbury, N.Y., the company said in a press release.

“Like a lot of other retailers, we’ve seen a steady improvement in the economy and the customer willingness to make change and upgrade their living spaces,” Keith Weinberger, Empire’s chief marketing officer told the Chicago Tribune.

The at-home model was popular, but he says many people like starting out in a store environment, as “they want to feel like they’re in control, they can select the styles themselves.”

“We’re able to offer those consumers who are looking for the retail experience something better than what’s out there.”

As for how Empire Today will be different from other stores that offer home improvement services and flooring, the company says there will be dedicated specialists guiding customers through their choices.

“Empire Today is using its 55 years of shop at home experience to create a better kind of flooring store,” Weinberger said in the company’s statement. “Empire Today wants to take the stress out of getting new floors. Empire’s new stores will have a personal flooring specialist who collaborates with customers throughout their project, a hand-selected product assortment, special warranties, and Empire’s great pricing and specials.”

Discounts and promotional prices offered in the company’s national TV ads will also be redeemable in stores.

Flooring retailer Empire Today to open first retail stores [Chicago Tribune]

China is setting up an entirely new, mandatory way to look at the world in yet another sign that as its economy grows, the country is closing itself off from the West in a significant way.

Directives on a new way of Chinese thinking have come out in the last few weeks, and Western ideas must be shut out if that thinking is incorporated.

This is a process that is meant to seep through all parts of Chinese society. Last week the government targeted think tanks: The Communist Party announced that all such organizations around the country have until the year 2020 to become "high-end" global think tanks that have fully adopted Chinese characteristics. They should be prepared to export these ideas around the world.

"Think tanks should stick to Marxist ideology, follow the CPC's leadership and provide intellectual support to help rejuvenate the nation," said a report by Chinese state media agency, Xinhua.

As the think tanks are being taught how to think, the thinkers — if they happen to think outside then constraints of Marxism — are being publicly shamed.

On Sunday, Communist Party magazine Qiushi Journal openly attacked a prominent Peking University legal professor, He Weifang. He has been critical of the government — calling high profile corruption trials "satire" and argued that Chinese Communism and strong rule of law don't mix at US institutions like Princeton University and the Brookings Institute.

He was called out by Quishi personally for his stance on China's rule of law — a rule of law the government itself has acknowledged is weak through the creation of Xi's anti-corruption campaign. The thing is, when He says anything about it's not a party directive, it's party defamation.

The Journal also attacked other legal scholars, writing:

"It will be a disaster if we fail to set up standards and a bottom line to prevent high school and university teachers spreading Western values through internet platforms to defame our communist ideology."

Like think tanks, Chinese universities were also directed to ramp up their teaching of Marxism last week. It was all capped off on Friday, when President Xi told the Political Bureau of the Communist Party's Central Committee what would replace all the thoughts now banished from China — an old Marxist ideology embraced by Mao called "dialectical materialism. "

Mao threw himself behind this idea in his 1937 work, On Contradiction. There he explained dialectical materialism as a way to look at the world as constantly in change from within. According to this theory, change is achieved when natural contradictions within an individual thing — a society, a person, an organization — are worked out.

This is one way to look at the new China as a country that will rise from no one and nothing's strength but its own. It will not change by adopting Western philosophies, or by understanding external principles. It will only rise by working out its own contradictions by itself.

Xi said during the meeting that "studying dialectical materialism and historical materialism will help CPC members get better understanding of Marxist philosophy," according to Xinhua.

It is the party embracing this ideology that will provide guidance in working out the contradictions that have kept China in a primary stage if its development as a society, Xi continued.

Everything else is just noise.

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Molyvos, Lesvos, Greece | Image: Jay 21310

This collection of photographs consists of streets that are glorious with natural adornment. Flowers and trees so lush and mature in their state of growth that they form colorful canopies which frame the streets.

This is a user-submitted list that invites readers to post other photographs matching the theme. I can think of of such a walkway that fits the bill but is not represented: The Mall, a row of gorgeous Elm trees lining a wide street in Central Park. Have you encountered any such streets in your travels that are missing from the list? See all the photos here.

Stockholm, Sweden | Image: Hector Melo

Tunnel of Love Romania, Caras-Severin | Image: Sue Hsu

Wisteria Tunnel, Japan | Image: Andreea Vintila Kostova

Bamboo Forest, Sagano Japan | Image: Andreea Vintila Kostova

 Grafton, New South Wales, Australia | Image: Jo Hitchin
 Valencia, Spain | Image: Visittheworld.tumblr.com

Orton Plantation Driveway, Smithville, NC | Image: Mia of Sky People

In the 18th century, Great Britain exerted its control over the American colonies by taxing and adding tariffs to certain goods and services entering North America. The often-surprising items specifically targeted by the Sugar, Stamp, Townshend and other Acts—calendars, molasses, hats—shed light on the priories and motives of the British Parliament. Here are 11 seemingly strange things that fell under repressive colonial taxation rules.

1. Hats

One of the earliest duties levied against the American colonists came in the form of the Hat Act of 1732. In an effort to tamp down competition between American and English milliners, Great Britain outlawed the manufacture and export of hats in the colonies as well as prohibited inter-colonial sale of finished hats. To add insult to injury, the Crown placed heavy taxes on the British hats that were being imported to the colonies.

2. Finished Iron Goods

In the same vein as the Hat Act, Great Britain passed the Iron Act in 1750 to encourage the exportation of raw materials from the colonies to England and quell the colonies’ own creation of finished products. Under the Iron Act, Great Britain was able to import raw pig iron and bar iron from the colonies duty-free. At the same time, the act prohibited colonists from using the iron they mined to create goods of their own, meaning colonists were forced to purchase heavily taxed finished iron goods from Britain.

3. 63 Types of Paper

The Townshend Acts of 1767 didn’t institute a blanket tax on all types of paper and paper goods shipped to the colonies. Instead, they imposed discreet duties on 63 different types of paper. A ream of paper called Atlas Fine came with a duty of 12 shillings, for example, while a ream of Blue Royal had a duty of one shilling and six pence.

4. Legal Papers

Under the Stamp Act of 1765, nearly every kind of legal document you can think of—from a will to a summons to a license—had a distinct stamp duty.

5. Molasses

Molasses may seem like an odd product to be taxed by the British—and to be deemed so important a good as to have its own act named after it (the Molasses Act of 1733), but the colonies’ production of molasses played a key role in the triangular trade between Europe, North America, and the West Indies, as molasses is a key ingredient in the production of rum.

6. Glass

The surprising thing about the tariffs on glass imposed by the Townshend Act was that they varied by color. The more frequently used white glass was taxed at a higher rate of 4 shillings and 8 pence for a hundredweight, while green glass had a tariff of 1 shilling and 2 pence per hundredweight.

7. Paint

Under the Townshend Act, a tariff of two shillings per hundredweight was imposed on paint (called “painters colors”).

8. The Use of a Pen Name

While not technically a tax, the Stamp Act placed a staggering penalty on using a pen name in pamphlets or newspapers. A person found using a pseudonym would be charged a whopping 20 pounds—equivalent to thousands of dollars today.

9. Playing Cards and Dice

In addition to legal papers, the Stamp Act placed a hefty tariff on playing cards and dice. And, much like the penalty for using a pen name, the price of failing to pay said tariffs (by selling illegal dice or manufacturing counterfeit cards) was steep: 20 pounds per offense.

10. Calendars and Almanacs

Calendars and almanacs were not only taxed under the Stamp Act, but were taxed by their length. Calendars and almanacs for one year or less than a year printed on one side of one sheet of paper were given a duty of two pence. Calendars and almanacs of one year longer than one page had a duty of four pence. And calendars or almanacs meant to serve for several years paid four pence for each year covered.

11. Pimento

Pimento is called out specifically by the Sugar Act, with the Crown placing a tariff of one halfpenny on every pound of what modern cooks know as allspice.

With repressive tax rates and penalties like these, it’s no wonder the colonists eventually decided they’d had enough. To see how the struggle played out, tune in to Sons of Liberty, a three-night event, premiering on HISTORY Sunday, January 25th 9/8c.