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“The UN food agency on Friday suspended all aid flights into Myanmar over ‘unacceptable’ restrictions by the junta, which has refused to allow foreign relief workers to help desperate cyclone survivors. The World Food Programme’s decision cast new doubt on the regime’s claim to be doing all it can to save the 1.5 million people at risk of starvation and disease after last week’s devastating storm. The situation on the ground is one of horror almost beyond imagining — with starving survivors picking for food in waterways littered with the bodies of the dead — and aid groups agree time is running out. But the military, deeply suspicious of any outside influence that could dilute the tight control it has kept on the nation for 46 years, insists that it will welcome supplies from abroad, but must distribute them itself.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/4tncgk | | Report Bad Link |
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“Administration officials have dashed hopes among farm-state lawmakers from both parties that President Bush will sign a nearly $300 billion farm bill that they finished Thursday. The veto warning sets up an effort by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, joined by many farm-state Republicans, to override a veto and defend government payments to farmers earning record incomes even as food prices soar. Administration officials said the bill, which would set U.S. food policy for the next five years, is loaded with budget gimmicks that disguise a $20 billion increase in spending. ‘At a time of record farm income, Congress decided to further increase farm subsidy rates, qualify more people for taxpayer support, and move programs toward more government control,’ Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said.” (05/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4qhh53 | | Report Bad Link |
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“A day after a top al-Sadr politician indicated about a military onslaught on the Shiite strongholds in Baghdad’s Sadr City, U.S. forces have killed 14 militants in the slum area of Sadr City …. U.S. military pounded heavily with air strikes and tanks …. militants attacked the heavily fortified Green Zone in downtown Baghdad with rockets and missiles.” (05/09/08) http://www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=601806 | | Report Bad Link |
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“A former Atlanta police officer testified Thursday that narcotics officers routinely lied under oath when seeking search warrants — a practice that led to police killing a 92-year-old woman. Former Detective Gregg Junnier told a Fulton County jury that detectives would tell judges that they had verified their informants had bought cocaine from dealers by searching them for drugs before the buy took place. … Junnier testified at the Superior Court trial of one of his former partners, Arthur Tesler, who was guarding the back of [Kathryn] Johnston’s Neal Street home on that day, Nov. 21, 2006. Junnier and Smith pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and face up to 10 and 12 years in prison, respectively, depending on their cooperation. Tesler faces 15 years on charges of lying in an official investigation, violating his oath as an officer and false imprisonment, a charge stemming from illegally surrounding Johnston’s house.” (05/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4stxqh | | Report Bad Link |
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“A bill that would allow the government to guarantee new mortgages for homeowners facing foreclosure passed the House on Thursday, but it faces a veto threat from the White House and an uncertain fate in the Senate. The bill was approved by a vote of 266-154. A companion bill that would send $15 billion to states to buy and fix up foreclosed properties also passed the House by a vote of 239-188.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/64hh3p | | Report Bad Link |
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“Gun battles raged across western and southern Beirut, leaving 10 people dead, as fighters from the Shiite group Hezbollah pressed their party’s challenge to Lebanon’s pro-Western government. Masked bands of Shiite gunmen were shown by television networks as they roamed neighborhoods dominated by Sunni Muslims, who largely back Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s administration. The army was deployed in parts of the capital to control the unrest. In addition to the deaths in Beirut in three days of violence, five civilians were hurt as fighting erupted in the Bekaa Valley, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.” (05/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4osqou | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Archbishop of Westminster has urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with ‘deep esteem.’ Believers may be partly responsible for the decline in faith by losing sense of the mystery and treating God as a ‘fact in the world,’ he said in a lecture. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor called for more understanding and appreciation between believers and non-believers. The leader of Roman Catholics in England and Wales said that a ‘hidden God’ was active in everyone’s life. The Cardinal’s lecture at Westminster Cathedral comes after a spate of public clashes over issues such as stem-cell research, gay adoption and faith schools.” (05/08/08) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7390941.stm | | Report Bad Link |
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“Americans rank last in a new National Geographic-sponsored survey released Wednesday that compares environmental-consumption habits in 14 countries. Americans were least likely to choose the greener option in three out of four categories — housing, transportation and consumer goods, according to the assessment. In the fourth category, food, Americans ranked ahead of Japanese consumers, who eat more meat and seafood. The rankings, called ‘Greendex,’ are the first to compare the lifestyles and behaviors of consumers in multiple countries, according to the National Geographic Society. It plans to conduct the 100-plus-question survey annually and considers trends more important than yearly scores, said Terry Garcia, executive vice president of National Geographic’s mission programs.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6lmhfn | | Report Bad Link |
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“The acting chief of Mexico’s federal police was gunned down outside his home early Thursday, marking a serious escalation of Mexico’s drug war. Edgar Millan Gómez, 41, was the highest-ranking officer among four senior policemen to be killed across Mexico in the last week. He was ambushed about 2:30 a.m. in the carport of his home near the center of Mexico City, the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) said in a statement.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/68lz5e | | Report Bad Link |
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“A Muslim girl in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia cannot skip co-ed swimming lessons because of religious prohibitions against wearing formfitting clothing, a German court ruled on Wednesday. The administrative court in Dusseldorf ruled that the state’s responsibility to educate the girl outweighed the potential infringement on her religious freedom. The 12-year-old girl’s parents sued her school in the northern German city of Remscheid after the school refused to allow the girl to skip swimming class. Citing religious reasons, the parents said they did not want their daughter to participate because her body would not be covered. The ruling means the girl must participate in swimming lessons starting next week, Sabine Ernst of the Alexander von Humboldt School told German news agency DDP. Ernst declined to state what the consequences could be if the girl declines to attend.” (05/08/08) http://www.thelocal.de/11755/20080507/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“Code Pink is now resorting to witchcraft to beef up the number of its supporters protesting Berkeley’s controversial Marine Corps Recruiting Center. The women’s anti-war group has told ralliers to come equipped with spells and pointy hats Friday for ‘Witches, clowns and sirens day,’ the last of the group’s weeklong homage to Mother’s Day. ‘Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we’re going to end war,’ Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com. The group’s week of themed protests, which included days to galvanize grannies and bring-your-daughter-to-protest, appears to have done little to boost its flagging numbers.” (05/08/08) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354400,00.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Firing rocket-propelled grenades and heavy submachine guns, Islamist fighters seized the police [sic] headquarters at the heart of the government’s [sic] stronghold in Mogadishu on Thursday in a bold attack that witnesses said killed two soldiers and two policemen. The insurgents have tried many times to attack the heavily guarded K4 district but Thursday’s raid was their first major success. The ambush could not be immediately be verified by Somali officials.” (05/08/08) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24526442/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“When he was laid up recovering from knee surgery, farmer Ralph Dull picked up a notebook dropped off by a friend that detailed how wind generators produce electricity. ‘I had plenty of time to read it,’ Mr. Dull recalls. ‘And I said, ‘That’s something we could do.” Dull has since become an Ohio pioneer in green farming and renewable energy, and his efforts have garnered the attention of Ohio legislators, who turn to him for creative ideas on agriculture’s role in environmental protection. ‘He is demonstrating through his farming practices that you can have a profitable farming operation while caring for the earth,’ says Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, who wants the state to rely more on alternative energy and is pushing a stimulus package that would earmark $150 million for advanced energy sources such as solar power, wind, and clean coal.” (05/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/5wm3cu | | Report Bad Link |
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“Seeking to referee a stalemate over how the CIA can interrogate prisoners, a top Senate Republican says Congress should ban waterboarding and seven other abusive methods of interrogation but allow the spy agency some leeway in how it questions detainees. Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, the senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, outlined his proposal in nonbinding language accompanying a bill that sets out the intelligence community’s policies, programs and spending for 2009. An unclassified summary was released Thursday.” (05/08/08) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24530188/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“A major Wall Street firm agreed to return $37 million to 17 cities and towns in the state, as well as to the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, after it allegedly misled them into buying investments they thought were as safe as cash. UBS Financial Services Inc. reached an agreement with Attorney General Martha Coakley after she found that the brokerage had not fully disclosed the risks of the investments, known as auction-rate securities. Cities were unable to get their hands on their money when the market for these investments evaporated almost overnight. Winchester, which had invested more than any other town, will receive $6.8 million in the settlement. The turnpike will receive $4.4 million, and the city of Holyoke and its retirement system will get $3.2 million.” [editor’s note: Fascinating, how if someone bilks consumers, all it is a reason to slap their hands, but if they bilk a government entity … it’s payback time? - SAT] [editor’s note: Even more fascinating is that these wise and all-knowing pols would believe that securities are “safe as cash.” Any investment that’s as safe as cash will be as “profitable” as stuffing that cash in your mattress to inflate. Profit comes from RISK - TLK] (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6hybbq | | Report Bad Link |
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“Speeding drivers in south China are getting clear away thanks to machines which switch the numbers on their licence plates in seconds, state media said on Tuesday. ‘More than 50 percent of cars caught on camera for speeding and other offences either cover up their plates or use a fake licence plate,’ a traffic policeman in the Guangdong city of Yangjiang was quoted by the Beijing Youth Daily as saying. ‘Our chances of capturing them is next to nil.’ The price of the remote-control device starts at around 800 yuan ($115), while a more advanced apparatus with the ability to flip over the numbers in less than three seconds costs more than double.” (05/07/08) http://tinyurl.com/4udhgo | | Report Bad Link |
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“Ohioans should have the ability to use force and, if necessary, deadly force to defend themselves and their family against a violent intruder in their home. That belief is the genesis behind an important bill passed by the Senate in recent weeks. Senate Bill 184, legislation I am proud to cosponsor, would establish Ohio’s ‘Castle Doctrine.’ For centuries, people have respected the idea that a man’s home is his castle, and he should have the right to defend it and those inside from harm. This age-old adage has initiated a push for stronger self defense laws in several states over the years, including Ohio.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/4mqth6 | | Report Bad Link |
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“When Boris Yeltsin left the Kremlin eight years ago, he gave Vladimir Putin the pen he had used to sign important documents and decrees, a gesture symbolizing the transfer of power to Russia’s new president. When Putin left the Kremlin, he took the pen with him. Putin, who became prime minister Thursday, has signaled that he intends to remain Russia’s principal leader, at least in the short term — and possibly much longer. He is keeping the trappings of his presidency and many of its powers as well.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6ew64a | | Report Bad Link |
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“A measure supporting residents’ right to own guns is under consideration in some area counties. A group of gun-rights advocates is bringing the non-binding resolution before county boards across the state. The measure would affirm citizens’ Second Amendment protections in order to send a message to state lawmakers. ‘It merely asks the legislators that if they’re going to propose a new law, they uphold their sworn oath by not passing any laws that would infringe on the rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution,’ Oswego Township Trustee Tom Yackley said Tuesday. … The force behind the measure is Illinois Pro 2A Resolution.” (05/07/08) http://tinyurl.com/4es9ju | | Report Bad Link |
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“Gordon Brown and Wendy Alexander, Labour’s leader in Scotland, have been taunted by political opponents over their split on whether Scotland should hold an early referendum on securing independence from the United Kingdom. Ms Alexander was involved in fiery exchanges in the Scottish Parliament with Alex Salmond, First Minister in the Scottish National Party administration north of the border, who ridiculed the public rift between her and the Prime Minister. Mr Brown has declined to endorse her call for an early vote, which could lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom.” (05/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/4lunl5 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied fresh accusations that he illegally accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a U.S. citizen, but said Thursday night that he will step down if he is indicted. The latest investigation into corruption allegations involving Olmert has distracted Israel for nearly a week and has the potential to derail delicate peace talks with the Palestinians.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/5lv8bs | | Report Bad Link |
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“After Leon Rozio got robbed, he vowed never to let it happen again. Three or four years ago, the 64-year-old owner of Miami-based H&L Wholesale Jewelry Inc. lost some $300,000 in gold and jewelry in a holdup, said his half-brother, Fernando Mirabal. Soon after, Rozio started bringing a gun on his sales runs, which took him and his priceless jewelry to shops across South Florida. About 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, not long after Rozio parked his red Ford Explorer outside St. Moritz Jewelers on Boca Raton’s west side, four men screamed up behind him in a silver car, boxing him in. They surrounded the Explorer, smashing out all four windows to get at the jewelry inside, witnesses said.’ ‘He opened up like I have never seen,’ said Greg Sanderson, manager of a nearby Omaha Steaks shop, who watched the shooting through the store’s plate-glass windows. ‘I couldn’t believe it. It sounded like the Wild West out there.”’ (05/08/08) http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/525249.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“The United States has signed off on a European plan that would offer increased incentives for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, senior State Department officials said Thursday. Leaders from Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany are expected to join European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana — the EU’s normal contact with Iran — at a meeting with Iranian officials to present the offer.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/5n2lyk | | Report Bad Link |
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“Seven more police officers were taken off street duty Thursday as investigators look into the videotaped police beating of three shooting suspects during a traffic stop. Thirteen of the estimated 15 officers on hand during the Monday incident have been taken off the streets as investigators pore over the television news footage, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey told a news conference Thursday.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6aa2ue | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Internet Archive, a project to create a digital library of the web for posterity, successfully fought a secret government Patriot Act order for records about one of its patrons and won the right to make the order public, civil liberties groups announced Wednesday morning. On November 26, 2007, the FBI served a controversial National Security Letter on the Internet Archive’s founder Brewster Kahle, asking for records about one of the library’s registered users, asking for the user’s name, address and activity on the site. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Internet Archive’s lawyers, fought the NSL, challenging its constitutionality in a December 14 complaint to a federal court in San Francisco. The FBI agreed on April 21 to withdraw the letter and unseal the court case, making some of the documents available to the public.” (05/07/08) http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/internet-archiv.html | | Report Bad Link |
COMMENTARY
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“Many people can only believe in humanity as Robert Heinlein did for so long, and eventually must either cling with Joe Klein to ‘the perfectibility of human nature,’ or give up altogether. (The same process can be seen among progressives when it comes to patriotism. Faced with an unlovable country, they either turn to loving it for its potential/perfectibility, or they give up trying.) Those who give up on humanism are finding something more transcendent waiting to take over the role of prime valuer: the environment. And with the advent of the Carbon Footprint, environmentalism stands ready to not only structure every aspect of your life (as religion is said to do), but to give meaning and importance to things that never mattered before (like what you eat for breakfast). Every decision takes on a life-or-death importance. Even your choice of windows or lightbulbs becomes a way for you to ’save the environment.’” (05/08/08) http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/003330.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“By 1997, some Christians decided to boycott Disney because Disney — which was never anything remotely like a Christian company — started to give out same-sex partner benefits to their gay employees. If your business employs large numbers of animators, make-up artists, costume designers, and dancers, this sounds like a sensible business decision. The new generation of Christians, however, demanded ‘wholesome’ entertainment from a ‘wholesome’ company, when their grandparents would have warned that seeking ‘entertainment’ was itself the problem. The very fact that a Christian boycott of Disney was called for was proof-positive that the Old Time Religion had died and the boycott could never work. The real problem was not Disney, but the fact that conservative Christians watched Disney videos and vacationed at DisneyWorld. … Had the old-time Christians been as vehemently against radio, records, and television as they were against cards, alcohol, and shows, conservative Christianity may actually have become a counter-cultural movement today, rather than a whiny, paranoid subculture within the mainstream culture that it has become.” (05/08/08) http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=2937 | | Report Bad Link |
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Root 2008: Anarchism, age of consent laws and the Dallas Accord
Third Party Watch by Wayne Allyn Root “People form governments to protect the majority against a small criminal minority. In a ‘perfect world’ loving, caring parents would always be the perfect guardians. But we do not live in a utopia. Unfortunately, many criminals also have children of their own. And these innocent children are often abused by criminal parents. In the real world that we live in, some parents either fail to protect their children, or are the predators and child abusers themselves. Anarchists may be fellow travelers with us libertarians in the sense that they want to cooperate with our efforts to dramatically reduce the size of government, but where we part company is in their desire to eliminate the state altogether.” (05/07/08) http://tinyurl.com/45bmyt | | Report Bad Link |
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“Mr. Root is new to the LP; he doesn’t understand how liberty works because he hasn’t done his homework. He doesn’t understand the hidden dangers in government’s monopoly on force; he scorns the notion that justice is best served when we have competition in everything, including courts, police, and national defense. He calls such competition ‘anarchy;’ I call it ‘freedom from government oppression.’ Had Mr. Root walked in Steve Kubby’s shoes and had his children ripped from his arms, he might consider more carefully the unintended consequences of bans and prohibitions. Instead, as Mr. Root freely admits, he reacts emotionally to the superstitious belief that passing a law ‘makes it so.’” (05/09/08) http://thirdpartywatch.com/2008/05/08/do-you-believe-in-liberty/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“First, I want to say how it warmed my heart to read the postings that accumulated on the article by Wayne Allyn Root, or WAR, as I think of him, on Third Party Watch. It was heart warning to see comments from so many people who understand what the Libertarian Party was intended to accomplish. Even better, one of the links lead to LP Radicals, a site that actually uses the phrase, ‘Radical Abolitionism.’ That brought back a wave of nostalgia.” (05/08/08) http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=1297 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Citing an Associated Press analysis ‘that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me,’ she went on to say: ‘There’s a pattern emerging here.’ There is indeed a pattern emerging — and it is a pattern that must dismay everyone who admires the Clintons and has defended them against the charge that they are exploiting racial divisions.” (05/09/08) http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/05/09/clinton_remarks/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“It’s probably no secret to anyone who reads my column regularly that I will not be voting for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton for president. But I also will not be voting for John McCain. I could tell you all the reasons and have expressed them already in a number of columns in recent months. But this time, I’ll let someone with whom I seldom agree express them for me.” (05/07/08) http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=26402 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Lie down with dogs and you wake up with fleas — so goes the old saying. And it is true. Ron Paul thought he had the racism issue behind him. … But [the] racist problem just won’t go away. And it won’t go away because Paul’s campaign or his campaign people won’t let it go away. … I still don’t think Paul is a racist himself. But I also believe he doesn’t mind hav[ing] the support of racists and that he is following the strategy that his good friend Lew Rockwell outlined some years ago.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6lsnyp | | Report Bad Link |
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“When Hillary Clinton questioned Gen. David Petraeus last September, she famously said that to believe his description of progress in Iraq required ‘a willing suspension of disbelief.’ After the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, the same may now be true about her case for winning the Democratic nomination. It’s not that she can’t win, but with only 217 delegates up for grabs in the six remaining contests, the scenario for victory has become more fantastical, narrow, and painful. Clinton won Indiana, but, as she pointed out repeatedly to Petraeus, individual victories — even a surge of them in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania — don’t change the whole story. The larger reality still holds. Barack Obama has the lead in elected delegates and the popular vote. Those leads increased Tuesday as he widened his margin by 15 delegates and roughly 200,000 more votes. For Clinton to move ahead in those numbers now, she must bring more states into the union.” (05/07/08) http://www.slate.com/id/2190780/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“Imagine this. You’ve built the better mousetrap. (Because lasers and pneumatic tubes are cool, let’s imagine it uses them.) You’ve persevered through years of trial and error in your garage, enduring sleepless nights, the mockery of friends, the eye-rolling of family, and the non-lethal laser wounds to the family cat. But it was all worth it. You take your invention and, with your last few pennies, manage to bring it to market. It’s a smash hit. It starts flying off shelves. You earn back the investment in raw materials and maybe something close to compensation for your time. Now you’re ready for the big payoff. There’s just one thing left to do: make an appointment with the regional Reasonable Profits Board to find out how much of your windfall is reasonable for you to keep. … Replace ‘Mousetrap’ with ‘oil,’ and you have a good idea of how some in Congress want to bring the oil industry to heel.” [editor’s note: Interesting analogy, but I’m not sure how demanding that the American taxpayer subsidize perpetual worldwide war to secure the oil for you so that you can sell it to them constitutes “building a better mousetrap” unless the “mousetrap” you’re trying to top is the Nigerian letter swindle - TLK] (05/09/08) http://tinyurl.com/6bv47d | | Report Bad Link |
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“I have written about MRSA in this space a number of times. It is a genuine epidemic that state agencies would rather not discuss; it didn’t come from Asia, after all, and those same agencies are largely responsible for it. Does that mean if grandma gets MRSA she’s history? Maybe so. I have mentioned VRSA a few times. It’s the variety of staph that can emerge after treating MRSA with Vancomycin. As far as I know it’s still confined to hospitals, as is another resistant bacteria called VRE. However, recently I read about another one that got out. It’s an old time bacteria called Clostridum Difficle and there is a deadly mutation running rampant across the country. … But I digress. The ‘flu pandemic’ mentioned above refers to Bird Flu, of course, the favorite political pandemic du jour. In ten years Bird Flu has infected 348 persons and killed 216 in 14 countries. In 2005 MRSA infected 94,000 and killed 18,250 in the US alone. Which one is a problem?” (05/09/08) http://www.lewrockwell.com/klassen/klassen112.html | | Report Bad Link |
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Cartoon. (05/09/08) http://www.reason.com/news/show/126414.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Since 2005, when the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the polar bear as a threatened species, a broad coalition of industry and conservative groups have watched, with increasing dread, as the petition slowly worked its way through the Interior Department, helped along by lawsuits filed by environmental groups. Almost since the ink dried on the ESA more than thirty years ago, conservatives have bridled at its strictures, viewing the law as an affront to free-market principles and an impediment to businesses seeking to develop land or extract natural resources. But, even in this context, the polar bear’s possible ESA listing has elevated the debate to a fever pitch. … unlike typical ESA listings, protections for the polar bear could extend well beyond its natural habitat in the US, along the Beaufort and Chukchi seas of northern and western Alaska. Based on scientific studies showing that global warming is rapidly deteriorating the Arctic sea ice that polar bears call home, the CBD’s endangered species petition was among the first to tie greenhouse gas emissions to the fate of a species.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6y7f29 | | Report Bad Link |
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“The war against global warming is producing collateral damage to family life. One American city may even ban the hearth — San Francisco is contemplating a prohibition on private fireplaces to reduce air pollution. But this is nothing compared to the family sacrifice of the future: babies. A new trend among some of the world’s most eco-conscious is to forgo children for the sake of the planet.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6cwtdc | | Report Bad Link |
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“After 60 years in power, Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party was pushed aside April 20 by a charismatic former Catholic bishop promising economic and political reform and power to the people. The election of Fernando Lugo as Paraguay’s new president was hailed by an official of America’s left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research as a sign of the ‘deep and irreversible … changes sweeping Latin America.’ But ‘change’ doesn’t always mean change for the better. And only time will tell whether Mr. Lugo will pursue an independent new course that improves conditions in the poverty-stricken nation of 6.5 million, or follow other recent populist politicians who, in the name of change, have curbed individual liberties and strangled their economies.” (05/08/08) http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2191 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Whatever Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama say about the fallout from free trade, producers in Indiana and North Carolina are enjoying a golden age of exports. Both Clinton and Obama promise to halt new trade agreements and force our trading partners to renegotiate their existing deals. Both candidates support actions that would ultimately hurt American producers, consumers, and investors. And both insinuate that our trade partners are actually adversaries.” (05/06/08) http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9382 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Perhaps the starkest measure of the car culture’s energy appetite is the fact that the state of Iowa, the nation’s leading corn producer, will soon be importing corn. If a meteorite were to land randomly in Iowa, there’s a 35 percent chance it would land in a cornfield; Iowa’s corn harvest last year contained more calories than the state’s human population would consume in 85 years of eating; yet Iowa will be hauling corn in from other states. The grain will be fed to a multitude of new fuel-ethanol factories, along with the state’s existing corn syrup and livestock industries. The world is learning fast that when fuel demand competes with food needs for the sun’s energy, it’s not a fair fight. The energy contained in the gasoline that fills a typical SUV’s tank contains approximately the same number of calories as are required in the annual diet of one adult.” (05/09/08) http://www.alternet.org/water/84628/ | | Report Bad Link |
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Tracing economic blight: The case of the Black Castle
Intellectual Conservative by George de Poor Handlery “Alas, the mystery shrouding the house found an amplifier. It consisted of the locals’ inability to understand the rational economic basis buoying its inhabitants who could travel and even had cars. Nowadays too, societies that remain destitute tend to hold that wealth comes from luck or crookedness. Misfortune does not come from ‘above.’ Like poverty, wealth also is the result of human action. Socialism, in its Red (Communist) and Brown (National Socialist) versions, capitalizes on the inclination of the failing, the misinformed, the insecure and the lazy, to be predisposed to accept this self-amputating economic theory. Locally, my grandfather’s success, although probably self-evident from your vantage point, could not be comprehended. Things might have been made worse by Grandfather’s policy to pay more than the going wage. Unfortunately, ‘public opinion’ agreed on an insane explanation that seemed logical to it. There was a gold mine under the mysterious Black Castle! Good for a laugh now, but one more endangering prejudice then. Once the scum of the earth came to power, the klieg-lights of suspicion were on us.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/3qda4g | | Report Bad Link |
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“As we ordinary folk go about our lives — paying bills, raising children, attending to the mundane and increasingly difficult everyday affairs that dominate our lives — our betters are planning a surprise. You might call it an October Surprise, although it may take place much sooner — rumor has it as early as summer. The second chapter in the Great Middle Eastern War is being written, and its authors in Washington have in mind an even more dramatic plot-line than we witnessed in chapter one, which was, of course, the invasion of Iraq.” (05/09/08) http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12812 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Every four years, during U.S. presidential elections, the same thing happens, except it’s always a little bit different. Some clever political operative injects ‘oppo’ into the campaign — some little ’scandal’ that supposedly speaks to the ‘character’ of a candidate — and the press corps obsesses on this marginal issue nearly to the exclusion of all substantive matters. This all-consuming event distorts the campaign, turning the targeted candidate into a laughingstock or someone who isn’t quite American enough. … Millions of voters become convinced, amid this intense negativity, that they simply can’t vote for this loser and the outcome of the election changes. Then, in the election aftermath, the American press corps goes through a period of self-reflection; some excellence-in-journalism group issues a scathing report about the superficiality of the news coverage; political journalists vow that in the next election they won’t get suckered again. Then, the process — which dates back at least to 1988 and Lee Atwater’s savaging of Michael Dukakis — begins anew, albeit always with some slightly new twist. All this might be quite funny if one doesn’t consider the consequences for the Republic.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/5hkpqb | | Report Bad Link |
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“Why would a smart woman like Hillary Clinton continue her campaign when the odds are against her? In her public appearances as a newly cast woman of the people she says she is doing it for us. If so, thanks but no thanks. Speculation assigns her pertinacity to other motives. Some are guessing that she is continuing to campaign as a means of crowbarring herself into being chosen as the vice-presidential candidate. … Others whisper that she hopes by soldiering on to make a deal with the Obama campaign that, in return for a.) her withdrawal and b.) her promise to stump for him against McCain, her campaign debts will be taken care of and she will be repaid the money she loaned herself.” [editor’s note: We can only hope it’s the latter scenario, fro all our sakes! - SAT] (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6xhwkt | | Report Bad Link |
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“The American work force has gone from 28 percent factory workers and 72 percent service workers in 1978 to 16 percent factory workers and 84 percent service workers today. But the service sector encompasses tens of millions of bad jobs — in routine clerical work, retail sales, fast food, low-end human services — and a relatively small number of very well compensated professional positions, among them doctor, lawyer, scientist, and investment banker. Here is a very straightforward proposal: Let’s have a national policy to make every human-service job a good job — one that pays a living wage with good benefits, and includes adequate training, professional status, and the prospect of advancement — a career rather than casual labor.” [editor’s note: A very honorable concept, but can you do it by convincing those who pay the salaries, rather than by legislating behavior? We do NOT need another gorram “national policy” … just some bloody common sense and persuasive effort! - SAT] (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/5hoe57 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Dear Hillary: Enough. You’ve reaffirmed your standing as a fighter, reconnected with blue-collar America, forged an identity as a woman of heart and steel. Now you can be a uniter, too, hailed for your toughness and grace in recognizing when a losing cause is just that. It’s time to bow out of the Democratic contest. Yes, you can fight clear through to the convention, demand that the Florida and Michigan delegations be seated; bring in your attack dogs to question Barack Obama’s — um — masculine fortitude; wink at another round of Internet whispers that question your opponent’s funny name, his patriotism, and his religion. … You can post more ads of that irritating red phone and revel in your ability to nick your opponent just enough to keep him slightly off stride. But you’ll still lose. And the Democratic Party may lose with you.” (05/09/08) http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0509/p09s02-coop.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Every time Barack Obama’s pastor got him in trouble, Hillary Clinton bailed him out. After victory in Ohio, she invented the story of coming under sniper fire in Bosnia. That reminded voters of the Clinton tendency to exaggerate or lie when necessary. After victory in Pennsylvania, she embraced the idea of a gas tax holiday. That reminded voters of the Clinton tendency to pander. In each case, she helped Obama change the focus from his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the country’s relationship with the Clintons. She squandered momentum from impressive victories by bringing back Clinton Fatigue.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/4jd5dz | | Report Bad Link |
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“Here at the U.S. Army’s biggest base on the east coast, soldiers and their dependents are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their ‘economic stimulus payments.’ It’s a good thing because, like most of us, these American heroes are going to need the extra money just to purchase their next tank of gas. This week, the IRS begins mailing rebate checks to budget crunching taxpayers. Bush Administration officials hope the checks will be used for a citizen shopping spree to resuscitate the U.S. economy. But instead of getting that new patio grill, consumers are more likely to apply Uncle Sam’s payments to their next purchase of petrol. When the price of oil hit $100 per barrel in January, I wrote in this column: ‘those who wish to lead this nation in the future need to put more than hot air into solutions such as clean, safe nuclear energy for electricity and hydrogen fuel cell technology for propelling people and products around the planet.’ Unfortunately, few politicians seem to have given a second thought to the fact that this country hasn’t had an energy plan for the last thirty years, and it doesn’t look like we will have one anytime soon.” (05/08/08) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354635,00.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“The state of Ohio says that I am now allowed to carry a concealed handgun. The license itself is a little plastic thing, similar to my drivers license. I keep looking at it, somewhat bemused. It bears a photo of me looking grim, some personal information, and a number that I can only assume represents my place in the line of people who have applied and been accepted before me, and those that will come after. Such a simple thing, and yet. … As we pulled out of the driveway and headed down the street, Mike said, ‘There. It’s official. You are a now free person, no longer a subject.’ I looked over at him and started laughing. I felt my world change. It’s a wild feeling — enormous freedom and enormous responsibility all at once.” (05/08/08) http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/5644 | | Report Bad Link |
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“In the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence — and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6lr6ue | | Report Bad Link |
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“After weeks of backroom negotiations, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) finally unveiled the latest plan for funding the Iraq War late Tuesday night. As the plan was unveiled, anti-war groups ranging from United for Peace and Justice to Win Without War to the Iraq Campaign 2008 joined voiced for the first time in their call to urge members to vote no on the funding. But while their messages are clear on the funding, the actual content and implications of the other provisions in the bill needs careful examination.” (05/08/08) http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5211 | | Report Bad Link |
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“If you’ve ever played the game of ‘Risk,’ you know that spreading yourself too thin is paramount to defeat. This is what the U.S. is doing by occupying 130 nations and currently warring with two. So this leads us to the coming draft. With our armed forces already strained from duty, more battle ready souls are needed. If the draft is incorporated into the picture to supply these needed bodies, I think you would see a drastic change in the attitude towards the administration(s) that want to continue drilling for oil, erm, I mean spreading democracy to other countries.” (05/08/08) http://www.nolanchart.com/article3721.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Let’s pull this sentence out of the civic pieties of our time and see what’s wrong with it: ‘We should all volunteer our time in charitable causes and give back to the community in a labor of love.’ We can’t argue with the instruction here, or the sentiment behind it. There is nothing wrong with giving and sacrifice. My argument is with the choice of language.” (05/08/08) http://mises.org/story/2962 | | Report Bad Link |
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¡Felices Cinco de Mayo! At least in Argentina
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition by J. Michael Jones “Money to Mexico for increased enforcement equals more guns and violence, a continuation of the violence that began decades ago. The simple way to put the cartels out of business, at least the drug business, is to legalize drugs for recreational use. There is no need to import marijuana when it is grown on so obviously a widespread basis throughout the US. Last week in Florida there was a massive sweep of grow houses. Do not put those people in jail; put them into business, legitimate business.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/5lmrxt | | Report Bad Link |
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“The road to Hell, the old adage goes, is paved with good intentions. So is the road to economic ruin. In the name of saving the environment and stemming global warming, a steady stream of disinformation has been fed into the public psyche. Aided and abetted by both radical environmentalists — who view humanity as a cancer in the natural order rather than an intrinsic part of it — and the political leftists who needed a new home once their Marxist utopia, the Soviet Union, collapsed, a new public policy has emerged, a policy which seems determined to undermine the republican principles upon which the United States was established.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/6fvaqg | | Report Bad Link |
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“In a prime time interview that aired on CBS two Sundays ago, ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Leslie Stahl reminded Justice Antonin Scalia that he has lamented his role on the highest court in the land. ‘You’ve apparently had some down times in your tenure on the court,’ Stahl said. And then, Stahl read from a note Justice Scalia had written: ‘I am beginning to repeat myself.’” (05/07/08) http://tinyurl.com/5rvbdh | | Report Bad Link |
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“Sami al-Haj is a free man today, after having been imprisoned by the U.S. military for more than six years. His crime: journalism. Targeting journalists, the Bush administration has engaged in direct assault, intimidation, imprisonment and information blackouts to limit the ability of journalists to do their jobs. The principal target these past seven years has been Al-Jazeera, the Arabic television network based in Doha, Qatar.” (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/4huzx3 | | Report Bad Link |
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“On Oct. 22, 2007 President Bush announced the $1.4 billion dollar ‘Merida Initiative,’ security aid package to Mexico and Central America. The initiative has fatal flaws in its strategy; instead of leading to a stable binational relationship and peaceful border communities, its military approach will escalate drug-related violence and human rights abuses.” (05/08/08) http://counterpunch.org/carlsen05082008.html | | Report Bad Link |
AUDIO & VIDEO
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Ned Parker, Iraq correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, joins host Scott Horton. 12:15pm Eastern on KAOS 92.7 FM, Austin, TX or live on the web. [live radio or stream] (05/09/08) http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“Bush’s law since 9/11,” featuring Eric Lichtblau. [MP3] (05/09/08) http://www.cato.org/dailypodcast/podcast-archive.php?podcast_id=617 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Man Faces Prison Over Snack Cakes / The State Kidnaps Grandma / American Politics / Want to be controlled? / The Watered Down LP / Video Games, ACDC, Dungeons and Dragons / Wussification / Helmets / The Military and Video Games / Saving the Federal Govt? / Stores may be forced to ID for video games! / Decentralized Activism / Lawyers / IN Porn Law / Federal Taxes / Jack Thompson.” [MP3] (05/08/08) http://media.libsyn.com/media/ftl/FTL2008-05-08.mp3 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Giant Govt vs Big Govt / Total GOP Destruction / Al Gore Disgusts Me / Medical Device Regulation.” [MP3] (05/08/08) http://tinyurl.com/4x5dpp | | Report Bad Link |
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Christine Smith, candidate for the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential nomination, joins host “Shabby” for an interview. [M4U audio] (05./06/08) http://tinyurl.com/4yr45v | | Report Bad Link |
MOVEMENT NEWS & EVENTS
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Check our sidebar calendar for this week’s freedom movement events. Don’t see your event? Drop us a line at info@rationalreview.com … or see: www.rationalreview.com/add-your-event-to-our-calendar … for instructions on adding your events directly! http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/4042/ | | Report Bad Link |
