|
Update, 03/19/10: Tap … tap … is the ChipIn meter broken? Nope. It’s stuck at $310, and we’re stuck at $365 in “Spring Fling” contributions toward our $1,000 goal. We did have a monthly “subscribing contributor” payment from long-time supporter DD, who also kicked in $100 for “Spring Fling” — thanks as always for your support, DD! — but on this short, reasonable-goal fundraiser, we are dead in the water. Folks, the quicker we get to $1,000, the quicker I can stop hectoring you. We’re coming up on 7 1/2 years of reliably bringing you the freedom movement’s daily newspaper; we need you to support it if you want it to be around for another 7 1/2 years. Please, click the ChipIn meter, or one of the “donate” buttons in the sidebar of most pages at rationalreview.com, and return a little value for value received - TLK We’ve been avoiding the “in your face” fundraising for awhile (since early last fall, in fact) but it’s time for a bump. For the last few months, our part-time editors have been taking home less than $100 a month; I’ve been working nearly full time for less than $200 a month. I’ll keep this short, sharp and sweet: Our goal is $1,000 in two weeks — that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 cents per reader — after which we’ll revert to the more passive fundraising approach again. Please return value for value to the people who bring you the freedom movement’s daily newspaper. Yours in liberty, | | Report Bad Link |
|
“[A]t least seven Iraqis were killed and 10 more were wounded in the latest violence. Also, one U.S. soldier was killed in combat in Baghdad today.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/y93vsv4 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Operations to push the Taliban out of their Afghan stronghold of Kandahar are under way and will steadily build in the months ahead, military officials said Thursday, APA reports quoting AFP. The military and political efforts against the Taliban around Kandahar, Afghanistan’s third biggest city and the militia’s spiritual capital, are the next step in the US-led strategy to end a war now in its ninth year. NATO was also planning an anti-Taliban offensive in the north this year, a German general told German ARD public radio from Kabul.” (03/19/10) http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=118287 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“A rocket launched from the Gaza Strip killed a Thai farmworker in southern Israel on Thursday, the first such fatality in the area in more than a year. The blast occurred in a clump of greenhouses in the farming community of Netiv Haasara, just north of Gaza. The 30-year-old victim was not immediately identified. Rocket and mortar fire into southern Israel from Gaza, which once occurred daily, has been dramatically reduced since the Israelis’ 22-day assault on the coastal strip at the end of 2008 and early last year. But in recent days, the number of attacks has increased, including five in a 48-hour period, military officials said.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/ykgtgm3 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Taking aim at the tobacco industry’s youth marketing machinery, the Food and Drug Administration Thursday outlawed free samples of cigarettes and banned the use of tobacco brand names on promotional gear and in the sponsorship of concerts and sporting events. The agency also added a federal ban on the sale of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to people under 18, imposing a uniform standard on varying state restrictions already in place. … The new rules ‘will help our kids stay healthier by making it harder for tobacco companies to target them,’ said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a press conference announcing the new marketing rules.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yb2ojwz | | Report Bad Link |
|
“An Iraq war veteran and vocal opponent of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy was arrested by police officers after chaining himself to the front gate of the White House, in apparent protest of that policy. Lt. Dan Choi, a gay Arab linguist whose case for possible discharge from the New York national guard is still under review, has long opposed this policy. A second soldier, James Pietrangelo II, a plaintiff in the case turned down in the Supreme Court last year, also chained himself with Choi to the White House gate and was arrested.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yzj9vzb | | Report Bad Link |
|
“State Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, made a slight change to his proposed constitutional amendment to ban an income tax this morning, a move that will have the practical effect of delaying the Senate floor vote by about a week. Kelsey added language meant to clarify that the anti-income tax amendment trumps other tax provisions of the constitution and a statement that any taxes on the books as of Jan. 1, 2010, would not be affected by the amendment. The rules for amending the state constitution require three readings of the final version before the Senate can take a vote. The changes to the wording this morning reset the clock, meaning the vote cannot take place until next Wednesday at the earliest.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/ycphlgf | | Report Bad Link |
|
“The dramatic shift in poll numbers in the California Senate race — a surge for former US Rep. Tom Campbell for the GOP nomination and a double-digit drop for Senator Barbara Boxer (D) since January — has serious national implications, according to political analysts. A California Field Poll released Thursday shows Mr. Campbell running ahead of businesswoman Carly Fiorina by six points and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore by 19 points among likely GOP primary election voters. Perhaps more important, say analysts, is that more voters now have an unfavorable than favorable view of the incumbent Ms. Boxer, and she is essentially tied when matched against Campbell (44 to 43 percent) or Ms. Fiorina (44 to 45 percent). Poll director Mark DiCamillo told the Sacramento Bee that ‘the tenor of political discourse’ has clearly changed in California since Republican Scott Brown registered an upset victory in the Massachusetts Senate race in January. Others agree.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yk9hhwb | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won’t take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement. The company, which operates 121 stores in the state, will continue filling Medicaid prescriptions for current patients. In a news release, Walgreens said its decision to not take new Medicaid patients stemmed from a ‘continued reduction in reimbursement’ under the state’s Medicaid program, which reimburses it at less than the break-even point for 95 percent of brand-name medications dispensed to Medicaid patents.” (03/18/10) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011367936_walgreens18m.html | | Report Bad Link |
|
“A teacher at a failing Rhode Island school where he and all his colleagues were fired hung an effigy of President Barack Obama in his classroom, apparently in reaction to Obama’s support of extreme measures to ensure accountability in schools. The teachers union on Thursday condemned the effigy, discovered Monday in the teacher’s third-floor classroom at Central Falls High School, saying it was wrong and cannot be condoned under any circumstances. The effigy was found in the unidentified teacher’s classroom by Superintendent Frances Gallo, Nicole Shaffer of the Rhode Island Department of Education told The Associated Press. Shaffer said the department would not have any further comment.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yhrytxx | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Voters in the upstate New York birthplace of the women’s rights movement have approved a proposal to dissolve their village government. Tuesday’s ballot proposal to merge the village of Seneca Falls into the surrounding town of the same name passed by a vote of 1,142 to 1,037. Absentee ballots still must be counted, but if the vote stands the nearly 180-year-old Finger Lakes village government will dissolve at the end of 2011. Supporters say dissolution will do away with costly duplication of governmental services and reduce property taxes. The village was the site of the first known women’s rights convention in 1848. It also claims to be the model for Bedford Falls, the mythical community depicted in the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.” [editor’s note: Take that, Mr. Potter! Today Seneca Falls, tomorrow … - SAT] (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/ykj9hsd | | Report Bad Link |
|
“European researchers have taken the world a step closer to fictional wizard Harry Potter’s invisibility cape after they made an object disappear using a three-dimensional ‘cloak,’ a study published Thursday in the US-based journal Science showed. Scientists from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and Imperial College London used the cloak, made using photonic crystals with a structure resembling piles of wood, to conceal a small bump on a gold surface, they wrote in Science. ‘It’s kind of like hiding a small object underneath a carpet — except this time the carpet also disappears,’ they said.” (03/18/10) http://rawstory.com/2010/03/researchers-invisibility-cloak/ | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Two soccer teammates took the field on a recent Saturday afternoon: one made shot after shot while the other played goalie. The shooter, wearing a distinctive uniform dotted with colorful spots, had just taken a powerful kick when something went wrong. The call went out to stop practice — and to find a hot glue gun. ‘Something is hanging off,’ Svilen Kanev, a Harvard University sophomore and member of Robotic Futbol Club Cambridge, said as fellow students picked up the cylindrical black robot to administer first aid. When most people think about robotics and artificial intelligence what comes to mind are individual robots — whether it is one that vacuums the floor, a rover that explores Mars, or the computer that beats a human chess champion.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/ycuy35n | | Report Bad Link |
|
“An international fleet of warships is attacking and destroying Somali pirate vessels closer to the shores of East Africa and the new strategy, combined with more aggressive confrontations further out to sea, has dealt the brigands a setback, officials and experts said Thursday. The new tactics by the European Union naval force comes after Spain— which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, and whose fishing vessels are frequent pirate targets — encouraged more aggressive pursuit of pirates and the coalition obtained more aircraft and other military assets, said Rear Adm. Peter Hudson, the force commander.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/ygl8sp8 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Dozens of Iraqi journalists waited hours for results in Iraq’s election. What they finally got was a single CD containing all the information and instructions to make copies themselves, prompting a mad dash to the nearest Internet cafe where they paid $1.20 each to find out who was ahead in the ballot count. It was the latest example of the ongoing chaos in Iraq’s postelection count, which has fueled uncertainty and allegations of fraud. Questions about the vote’s validity could undermine U.S. ambitions to set a standard for democracy in the Middle East.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yhrzfo5 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Crouched on packed earth at a barricaded Marine encampment, the village elders issued their complaint: U.S. troops had killed an innocent 14-year-old boy. Secretly, the Marines didn’t believe them. No matter. They apologized, called the death a tragedy and promised to offer a condolence payment to the boy’s family. It’s all part of a strategy that sometimes involves swallowing their pride in an effort to persuade wavering Afghans to turn away from the Taliban.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yj9xzn5 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“The deal looked simple enough: U.S. military equipment suppliers bribed an African defense minister’s salesmen to secure part of a $15 million gig to outfit a presidential guard. But the salesmen were actually FBI agents. And the operation resulted in what U.S. authorities in January called their biggest foreign bribery sting to date, netting 16 indictments and 22 arrests of small arms and military equipment makers.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yh4wh6u | | Report Bad Link |
|
“A recent increase in border patrol along side streets dividing Derby Line, Vt., and Stanstead, Canada, are causing confusion and animosity between locals and border patrol agents. The situation came to a head recently when a local man was arrested while walking down a street he said that he has walked down for years without a problem. ‘I walked over to Canada on a Saturday night around quarter to nine to get a pizza,’ Buzz Roy explained. Roy lives and works in Derby Line. He walked down Church Street to the nearest pizza shop, which happens to be in Canada, and said that to his surprise he was stopped by state police and told that crossing on Church Street is illegal. … Fed up by what he perceived as hostility from the officer, Roy walked down the street, crossing the border a second time. And then a third.” [editor’s note: The politicians and their enforcers take those imaginary lines on the ground and associated superstitions VERY seriously - TLK] (03/15/10) http://www.wptz.com/news/22826310/detail.html | | Report Bad Link |
|
“By early 2008, top U.S. military officials had become convinced that extremists planning attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq were making use of a Web site set up by the Saudi government and the CIA to uncover terrorist plots in the kingdom. ‘We knew we were going to be forced to shut this thing down,’ recalled one former civilian official, describing tense internal discussions in which military commanders argued that the site was putting Americans at risk. ‘CIA resented that,’ the former official said.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yz99n78 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“A Chicago man charged in two international terror plots, including the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, pleaded guilty Thursday to a dozen counts against him and now will not face a trial. David Headley, 49, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Chicago to a dozen federal terrorism charges. Authorities said he scouted out targets for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people and planned an attack on a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/ybjfpbp | | Report Bad Link |
|
“A four-star general will testify at a pretrial hearing in the biggest criminal case against U.S. troops to arise from the Iraq war, a Marine Corps spokesman said Thursday. Gen. James Mattis is scheduled to address a military judge Monday on a defense motion to dismiss charges against Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich on grounds of undue command influence, said the spokesman, Lt. Col. David Griesmer.” (03/18/10) http://www.elpasotimes.com/nationworld/ci_14703929 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her Russian counterpart clashed openly Thursday over the planned launch this summer of Iran’s first, Russian-built nuclear power plant, highlighting a split in views over how to steer Iran away from nuclear weapons. Clinton did not criticize the long-delayed project directly but said the Obama administration is opposed to the timing of the nuclear plant’s startup.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yljrjwk | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Working for Uncle Sam comes with some great perks, like job stability, posh benefits packages, and in many cases, average salaries that are higher than what the same job pays in the private sector. That’s why Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, is irked that nearly 100,000 civilian federal employees owe the IRS $962 million in back taxes. He thinks they should pay up or be fired.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yf9l2gb | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Two state employees, working for the Department of Motor Vehicles, have been arrested for knowingly using stolen personal information to issue driver’s licenses to convicted felons and sex offenders. The DMV employees allegedly had a deal with a guy known as the ‘License Man.’ Felons, sex offenders, even a fugitive featured on America’s Most Wanted, would pay him up to $10,000 to get a drivers license using someone else’s stolen identity.” (03/17/10) http://tinyurl.com/yg2rawj | | Report Bad Link |
|
“New York authorities, agencies, and local governments that pay public workers some of the highest salaries and benefits in the state must explain how they are calculated, the attorney general said on Thursday in a new bid to root out abuses. Pension payments to retirees in two funds that are funded by the state’s $129 billion Common Retirement Fund more than doubled to above $7.3 billion in 2009 from $3.5 billion in 1999, Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. By working extra overtime before they retire, public workers can often increase their pension benefits. Cuomo, on a conference call, said that was a ’scam’ that had gone on for decades.” (03/18/10) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1824431920100318 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“More than 100 car owners in and around Austin, Texas recently discovered that their cars wouldn’t start. Or that their horns wouldn’t stop honking — all night long. Or that their vehicle leases were suddenly (and luckily, temporarily) transferred to deceased rapper Tupac Shakur. All of these annoyances were thanks to a former collection agent for Austin-based car dealership Texas Auto Center, who is accused of taking revenge on his former employer by remotely disabling more than 100 customer cars. Twenty-year old Oscar Ramos-Lopez reportedly gained unauthorized access into the dealership’s remote vehicle immobilization system, which allowed him to stop customer vehicles from starting or cause their horns to honk continuously. Ramos-Lopez is also said to have deleted customer accounts and swapped celebrity names for the names of actual customers, according to a report by Austin NBC affiliate KXAN.” [editor’s note: Six scariest words … “the dealership’s remote vehicle immobilization system.” WTF? - TLK] (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yeo9oy2 | | Report Bad Link |
Commentary
News | Audio and Video | Events and Movement News
|
“What Goldsmith and Wittes are saying is that the war on terrorism is a real war, just like World War I and World War II. Therefore, since prisoners of war in a real war can be kept incarcerated until the war is over, there’s no problem with holding terrorists until the war on terrorism is over, which isn’t likely to happen for a few decades. … Where does such a power come from? It’s certainly not included in my copy of the Constitution. I wonder what Goldsmith’s and Wittes’ position would be if the feds decided to do the same thing in the war on drugs. After all, as Mexican officials will attest, the alleged drug lords are killing many more people than the alleged terrorists. Would it be acceptable for U.S. officials to suddenly convert drug offenses to acts of war, enabling them to circumvent trials and the Bill of Rights for those crimes too?” (03/18/10) http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-03-18.asp | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Unlike the nonfiction book to which it gives writing credit, Green Zone classifies itself as fiction. There is an unambiguous statement in the movie’s end credits saying that it’s completely fiction. Yet, this movie tells a fictitious story about the origins of a real war.” (03/18/10) http://jneilschulman.rationalreview.com/2010/03/greengrass-zone/ | | Report Bad Link |
|
“It baffles me why so many people are apologetic about the U. S. having a self-interested foreign policy. When President Obama recently declared that the U. S. ‘is not a self-interested empire,’ the part about being self-interested, pace Obama, sounded just right to me. (It is the ‘empire’ portion that would be disturbing since an empire is a country that aims needlessly to lord it over other countries.) Being self-interested could mean no more than being vigilant in the defense of one’s country, making sure it is safe from invasion or attack. Who can dispute that self-defense is self-interested?” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/y9umdwx | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Late last week, the Texas Board of Education, meeting in Austin, the state capitol, made some preliminary decisions about what the next generation of students will learn about subjects like history, economics, and sociology, when they take courses in those subjects in any of the Lone Star State’s public schools. The board decided, for example, to make a fairly significant change in the existing official description of what a successful Texas student should know about the influence of 17th- and 18th-century ideas after completing a required course in world history in a Texas public school.” (03/18/10) http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=699 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“It’s natural to fear freedom. Tell most Americans that we’d be better off if we clear-cut the regulatory jungle and simply let the market decide what products are sold, and you’re likely to be told how dangerous the world would be. Most people think government keeps us safe. It’s why the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is regarded as absolutely necessary. It protects us from snake-oil sellers. Who could argue with that?” (written 06/05; posted 03/18/10) http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3974 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“When I first heard of the FairTax three or four years ago, I was excited — as excited as one can get about the subject of tax, that is. I went on line and printed out the entire bill, and, from time to time over the next couple of days, I read it. It seems I have time to do this kind of thing because I don’t go to the ballet or play golf. My first reading left me underwhelmed, but reading any kind of tax code will leave you that way. I didn’t like the fact that the FairTax was to be revenue neutral, but I realized that revenue neutrality was required for it to have any chance of passage. I’m not a strict ideologue; I’m willing to achieve goals incrementally. Incrementally is how we became a welfare state, after all. If the FairTax would simplify the tax code, I saw that as an improvement worth supporting. If I have to pay the federal government a bunch of money, I might as well do it as quickly and with as little paperwork as possible. The issue of tax reduction could come later. But, try as I might, I couldn’t make myself become a supporter of the FairTax. I don’t hate it. But neither do I support it.” (03/19/10) http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/stanley-b3.1.1.html | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Part of the problem in writing a column such as this, where I have to write about events as they unfold and at a very rapid pace, is the danger of going too fast — of failing to follow up on stories that once seemed of such pressing interest that I devoted 2000-word columns to the subject, and often a whole series of pieces, only to leave my readers with a lot of loose ends. So let’s clean up some of those longstanding loose ends, why don’t we?” (03/19/10) http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/03/18/follow-that-story-2/ | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Gore People who commit their lives to going green are just better people. They’re more moral, more honest. At least, they keep telling us that, and apparently many students believe it, say University of Toronto psychologists. They initially quizzed the students on their impressions of people who buy eco-friendly products, and for the most part, they considered such consumers to be more ‘more cooperative, altruistic and ethical’ than ordinary consumers. Then the researchers took it an extra step: They ran a test to see who would be more likely to cheat and steal: Greens? Or conventional shoppers? They divided the greens and conventional shoppers, and then gave the students a test that tempted them to steal money. The researchers found: The green consumers were more likely to cheat than the conventional purchasers, and they stole more money when asked to withdraw their winnings from envelopes on their desks.” [editor’s note: While I’d question the validity of this particular study overall, given the “entitlement mentality” of many “progressives” regarding “social justice” … the results are hardly surprising - SAT] (03/18/10) http://stossel.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2010/03/18/green-crooks | | Report Bad Link |
|
IKEA, Sweden & the inheritance tax: Lessons for the US
Christian Science Monitor by Anders Ydstedt & Dick Patten “America sits at the same economic crossroads today that Sweden faced five years ago. Sweden’s experience in eliminating the death tax could help the United States save businesses and add jobs at a critical time. Once known as Europe’s socialist paradise, Sweden still has one of the world’s highest top income tax rates (57 percent). But like the US, it no longer has an inheritance tax, or what Americans commonly refer to as the estate or ‘death’ tax. The Swedish Parliament abolished its inheritance tax in late 2004. … The country’s entrepreneurs were moving offshore — and taking their companies with them. The death tax was only making a bad situation worse.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yjodnsv | | Report Bad Link |
|
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her henchpersons are whipping Democrats to secure 216 votes to pass the Senate’s healthcare reform bill. The Senate then would approve a companion ‘reconciliation’ measure to deodorize some of the more pungent legislative bribes and corrupt deals that helped grease the Senate legislation’s passage last Christmas Eve. Nebraska’s so-called ‘Cornhusker Kickback,’ the ‘Louisiana Purchase’ and Florida’s ‘Gator-Aid’ are among the most sinus-piercing payoffs. Before they vote, however, wavering Democrats should wonder: ‘What if the Senate doesn’t deliver?’ … ‘House Democrats are being asked by the president to hold hands, jump off a cliff, and hope (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid catches them in the Senate after the bill is law,’ Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., told CBS’ Face the Nation last Sunday.” (03/17/10) http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/senate-239918-house-democrats.html | | Report Bad Link |
|
“In the first half of the 20th century, Cleveland was an economic powerhouse. … Today that golden age is just a memory. Cleveland’s population now is not even half of what it was at its peak. Its median household income is less than $28,000, far below the national average of $50,300. One out of every five homes in Cleveland stands vacant. ‘The economy is in trouble, the schools are in trouble, and people have been leaving the city in droves for a long, long time,’ says TV star Drew Carey, a Clevelander born and bred. Carey appears in Reason Saves Cleveland, a wonderfully incisive series of mini-documentaries produced by the Reason Foundation and airing this week at reason.tv, its video website. … The Reason Foundation’s approach is libertarian. Its video series repeatedly contrasts the sclerotic, top-down culture that so often stifles innovation in Cleveland with the decentralized, entrepreneurial approaches that would encourage it.” (03/17/10) http://tinyurl.com/ylb4t36 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“When President Obama asked a group of senior executives for suggestions on streamlining government, it’s unlikely that any of them suggested layers of new bureaucracy, vague marching orders, or management by committee. Yet Sen. Dodd’s ‘compromise’ financial reform proposal does all these things. The likely result? Banks and other financial institutions will still be tightly-run, aggressive organizations that can develop and sell complicated and risky new products in a heartbeat. But the agencies tasked with their oversight will be complicated and slow, encumbered by hard-to-follow rules and divided lines of authority. … Banks shouldn’t be too big to fail, and bureaucracies shouldn’t be too big to succeed.” [editor’s note: if it is indeed a “bureaucracy” (rather than a tiny “steering group” of advisors?), it’s already by definition “too big to succeed” - SAT] (03/17/10) http://tinyurl.com/yl3jgfw | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Like a specter, the unpopularity of Congress’ reform proposals haunted the ultimate goal of universal health care all winter long. This issue weighed heavily on the minds of Democratic senators as they moved toward a final pre-Christmas vote on their version of reform; it became explosive after Scott Brown’s unexpected win in the Massachusetts special election. Brown’s victory needn’t have been a devastating blow to reform — there’s always been a clear legislative path forward — but the message it sent to Congress, rightly or wrongly, was that the bad poll numbers associated with health care could have real consequences on Election Day. And that’s made a big difference ever since. But a funny, though little noticed, thing happened as the wounded cause of reform limped toward the finish line: The polling started to turn around.” (03/18/10) http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=breaking_unhealthy_habits | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Property is that beautiful foundation from which libertarians approach conflicts. Accepting that the rights to property come through the rights of original homesteading, appropriation, and exchange eliminates the need to question motives or intentions in action. Without defined property rights, the public is left squabbling for some other rubric from which to judge action.” (03/18/10) http://mises.org/daily/4175 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“A standardized national curriculum wouldn’t make California’s kids smarter or well equipped to compete in the global economy, or even better citizens. But a national, one-size-fits-all curriculum would be highly political, beset by special interest lobbying, and almost certainly diluted by teachers unions and education bureaucrats unaccountable to parents and voters.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yzrporh | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Many aphorisms and common expressions take on a different meaning when seen through the lens of economics. One of my favorites is: ‘If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we …’ followed by some earthly concern that needs to be addressed. What that expression seems to miss is the idea of opportunity cost: Perhaps the reason we can’t solve the particular earthy problem is precisely because we sent a man to the moon.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yamoxzx | | Report Bad Link |
|
“On Wednesday, the Senate passed a $17.6 billion spending bill. It needs only President Obama’s signature to become law. The hope is that the new spending will create jobs. But hope is not the same as reality. Remember: anything that Washington giveth, it must first taketh away from somewhere else. This jobs bill is a zero-sum game. All those new jobs that politicians will be showing off for the cameras will have come at the expense of other jobs elsewhere. On net, they’re not creating a thing.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yjytzx7 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Not a single person in either chamber voted no on this bill. They celebrated their bipartisanship and I heard some were even making out in the halls. But I think that was just a rumor. So what led to such a love-in? A bill for revisions to the current ethics law. When a law is more about preserving the system than anything else you will almost always find both parties in agreement. Ethics laws can pass easily when things are looking bad for government as a revered system of order because politicians understand that, above all else, they must maintain the system that provides the power.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yblw2eq | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Boris Johnson says that he’d like to give ‘one almighty head-butt’ to Ed Balls over the Minister’s refusal to give more support to Latin classes in state schools. At its core, this spat is a case of two politicians fighting over what other people’s children should be taught, and it demonstrates the folly of having a state-designed national curriculum.” (03/18/10) http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/education/balls-vs.-johnson-vs.-parents/ | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Lawfare Project (LP) claim: ‘The abuse of the law and legal systems (is used) for strategic or military ends.’ Fact Check …. International law is clear and unequivocal. The UN Charter explains under what conditions violence and coercion by one state against another are justified. Article 2(3) and Article 33(1) require peaceful settlement of international disputes. Article 2(4) prohibits force or its threatened use, and Article 51 allows the ‘right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member …. until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security.’ In other words, justifiable self-defense is permitted, and Articles 2(3), 2(4), and 33(1) absolutely prohibit all unilateral threats or use of force not allowed under Article 51 or authorized by the Security Council. Even then, under Fourth Geneva, civilians are ‘protected persons’ off-limits to attack. Doing it is a war crime.” (03/19/10) http://tinyurl.com/ychv7zl | | Report Bad Link |
|
“According to the Washington Post, taxpayers are now financing, via a $321,000 HHS grant, a pilot program at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center-Presbyterian Hospital and Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh to obtain organs from emergency room patients, a practice heretofore ‘considered off-limits in the United States because of ethical and logistical concerns.’ The goal of the project, reports the paper, is to ‘investigate whether it is feasible and, if so, to encourage other hospitals nationwide to follow.’ The article is somewhat obtuse about the longstanding moral problem at the center of organ transplantation, which is that the donors aren’t actually dead.” (03/18/10) http://spectator.org/archives/2010/03/18/the-futures-shadow | | Report Bad Link |
|
“It is my belief that in most cases there is time to react once the die is cast. It takes time for markets to react to changes that will impact a cross spectrum of prices. The Fed adding reserves would be a signal that the Fed has changed course from deflationary to inflationary. It would not be a signal that would be fully understood as to its significance by most market participants. For example, once a Fed adding reserves becomes clear, it would be unlikely that gold would jump by $100 an ounce, but such a jump could be clearly justified. So there will be time to move into inflationary positions, once a Fed stance that way is clear. So am I expecting accelerated inflation right now? No. But I realize Bernanke could turn the kaleidoscope soon, so I am beginning to think about what such a turn of the kaleidoscope would mean, and how to position for it.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/y9szpo2 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“A friend recently asked about libertarianism and social justice. Particularly, the question of slavery and racial discrimination. The concern is that the libertarian movement does not address these things often or adequately, which hinders its ability to persuade and attract minorities.” (03/18/10) http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3428 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“The important claim here is not the stated argument that terrorist lawyers should be publicly revealed, or that they shouldn’t be working for the DOJ. It’s the assumption that they are representing terrorists. The assumption permeates conservative rhetoric on issues of torture and detainee rights. … Thiessen makes explicit the position that the rhetoric about ‘terrorist lawyers’ is meant to imply — namely, that terrorists should not have lawyers at all. The conclusion flows naturally when you begin by defining the defendants as ‘terrorists.’ The truth, though, is that a good number of these ‘terrorists’ are not terrorists at all.” (03/18/10) http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/lawyer-up | | Report Bad Link |
|
“This ruling basically says that a government regulation, one that is onerous and harmful, is not punitive because the government calls it a regulation instead of punishment. The court also said that the state may place people on the sex offender list, for public scrutiny and harassment, even if they have never committed a sex crime in their life. As the Justice (sic.) put it, ‘it is of no consequence’ whether or not a sex crime was committed. I am going to rename my cat Fido, because that will apparently, miraculously turn him into a dog, at least if the logic of the court is accurate.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yekshha | | Report Bad Link |
|
“The Democratic leadership’s struggle to pass the Senate health-care bill in the House looks like a great case study for political scientists. They have many examples of the leaders of a majority party trying to push controversial legislation through a balky chamber. But seldom have the political incentives of the party leadership and the party’s members been so differently aligned.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yllljny | | Report Bad Link |
|
“For almost a full year, scores of progressive House members vowed — publicly and unequivocally — that they would never support a health care bill without a robust public option. They collectively accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars based on this pledge. Up until a few weeks ago, many progressive opinion leaders — such as Moulitsas, Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann and many others — were insisting that the Senate bill was worse than the status quo and should be defeated. But now? All of those progressives House members are doing exactly what they swore they would never do — vote for a health care bill with no public option — and virtually every progressive opinion leader is not only now supportive of the bill, but vehemently so. In other words, exactly what Rahm said would happen — ignore the progressives, we don’t need to give them anything because they’ll get into line — is exactly what happened.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yj8a93p | | Report Bad Link |
|
“I’ve noted any number of times that government taxes comprise 14% of the national income and government spending is at 25% of the national income. That’s as high as its been since WWII I believe. The point, of course is there are three obvious choices here — cut spending to the income level (and beyond, really, if you plan on paying off debt) or increase taxes to the spending level (and beyond, again, if you plan on paying off the debt) or a combination of both. Watching this current administration, it appears option two is in the works. Lots of lip service about ‘unsustainable’ spending, etc., but the only movement I’ve seen is legislation that increases that. And, also, plans to increase taxes.” (03/18/10) http://www.qando.net/?p=7540 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“The case of an Albuquerque woman’s disappearance inspired calls for a new law to make sure it never happens again. The headline says the new law will help ‘missing persons cases,’ but that is missing the target. It does nothing to help the missing person. By the time a person is realized to be missing and the ‘law’ comes into play, it is too late. The only way to help the person is to make certain they never go missing in the first place.” (03/17/10) http://tinyurl.com/ycgvg4r | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Does it make sense to buy insurance against, say, a nuclear attack on Washington — if all the insurance providers’ headquarters are inside the Beltway? Of course not. So why do investors buy insurance on U.S. government debt?” (03/17/10) http://www.slate.com/id/2247590/ | | Report Bad Link |
|
“During the Tea Party protests on Capitol Hill this week, conservative activists warned that if Congress manages to pass health care legislation, their movement would become more formidable than ever. Mark Meckler, a national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots — one of the larger and better-organized national groups — predicted that if the bill passes, ‘the tea party movement will double in size almost instantaneously.’ But far from fueling the tea partiers’ cause, a sweeping new health care law could suck the air right out of their movement. Many tea party activists have a lot to gain from reform — because their ranks are dominated by aging baby boomers.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/yzpq5r5 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“The 14th amendment was diverted from its original purpose of guaranteeing the civil rights and liberties of Black Americans and applied to guarantee the personhood of corporations and their rights as such. This led to the decision earlier this year that laws and bureaucratic regulation denying corporate free speech by limiting corporate buying of air time to exercise free speech is unconstitutional. The left has been howling bloody murder ever since. They claim that the deep pockets of corporate donors will overwhelm the airwaves and the corporations will buy the voters souls, or something like that. While I see where they are coming from I have to call my left wing buddies on this one. Until and unless corporations are stripped of their status as persons under the law by Constitutional Amendment or by very carefully worded Court decision we are stuck with protecting their rights.” (03/14/10) http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle561-20100314-05.html | | Report Bad Link |
|
“All votes have still not been counted from the election on March 7, but the political landscape of Iraq after the poll is beginning to become clearer. Maliki has done well, but possibly not well enough to hold his post, since the Sadrists, who may have as many as 40 seats in the new 325-member parliament, are insisting that he should not head the next government. Once his allies when he became Prime Minister in 2006, the Sadrists blame him for co-operating with an American drive against them in 2008. Maliki might look to split the INA and seek an alliance with ISCI, which appears to have polled badly.” (03/18/10) http://counterpunch.org/patrick03182010.html | | Report Bad Link |
|
“The question is not: Is it time to change the $50 bill? The question is: What’s taking us so long, and why are we considering only one bank note? The current lineup of faces — George Washington ($1), Thomas Jefferson ($2), Abraham Lincoln ($5), Alexander Hamilton ($10), Andrew Jackson ($20), Grant ($50), Benjamin Franklin ($100) — has been around since 1929. The world has changed beyond recognition, but you’re carrying around bills that look pretty much the same as the ones your great-grandfather carried around during the Great Depression. Money was not always synonymous with monotony.” (03/18/10) http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/18/in-for-a-dime-in-for-a-dollar | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Every great American boom and bust makes and breaks its share of crooks. The past decade — call it the Ponzi Era — has been no different, except for the gargantuan scale of white-collar crime. A vast wave of financial fraud swelled in the first years of the new century. Then, in 2008, with the subprime mortgage collapse, it crashed on the shore as a full-scale global economic meltdown. As that wave receded, it left hundreds of Ponzi and pyramid schemes, as well as other get-rich-quick rackets that helped fuel our recent economic frenzy, flopping on the beach.” (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/ylpqohp | | Report Bad Link |
Audio and Video
jump to News | jump to Commentary | jump to Events and Movement News
|
Doug Marks, the Libertarian Party candidate for Congress from Illinois, joins host Kenneth John. 9-10am Central on WRMN 1410 AM, Elgin, IL or live on the web. [live radio or stream] (03/22/10) http://freedomrings.net/ | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Ian, Mark, and guests live from the 2010 New Hampshire Liberty Forum.” [MP3] (03/18/10) http://media.libsyn.com/media/ftl/FTL2010-03-18.mp3 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Afghanistan and conservatives,” featuring Joe Scarborough. [MP3] (03/18/10) http://tinyurl.com/cato031810 | | Report Bad Link |
|
“Jesse Walker, managing editor of Reason magazine, discusses his experience at the recent Left-Right anti-empire/antiwar conference in DC, the large contingent of writers featured at Antiwar.com in attendance, finding an alternative to mundane and ineffective peace marches and the stumbling blocks that prevent broad coalitions from uniting around a common issue.” [Flash audio or MP3] (03/17/10) http://antiwar.com/radio/2010/03/17/jesse-walker-2/ | | Report Bad Link |
|
“After World War II, Cleveland was booming, thanks to its leadership role in heavy industry and a business-friendly climate. Today, the city’s high taxes and onerous regulatory demands make it nearly impossible for new businesses to set up shop while choking the life out of existing companies. While relatively laissez-faire cities such as Houston are growing even during the current recession, Cleveland remains stuck in a rut. How can city officials make the city a more welcoming place for entrepreneurs to thrive?” [Flash audio] (03/17/10) http://reason.com/blog/2010/03/17/take-care-of-business-reason-s | | Report Bad Link |
Movement News & Events
News | Commentary |Audio and Video
|
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 |
