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Saturday, May 31, 2003
How to Recognize a Skunk, Or, Why Most Americans Can't Think -- But You Can, By Aaron Zelman and Claire Wolfe "---Are we saying that every journalist working today is consciously lying with the goal of controlling us? No. But from journalism school onward, reporters are steeped in the premises of control -- the belief that the duty of the communications elite is not to find out the truth and convey information, but to mold the masses. "Even when they don't set out to deceive us, reporters often propagate false or misleading information. Because of time pressures, budget limitations, demands from their bosses, personal biases, and sometimes through sheer laziness, reporters often simply pass along "news" provided to them by corporations, foundations, political organizations, and government agencies. They may trim it, rearrange it, reword it a bit, and add an interview to it. But one thing they rarely do is seriously investigate the reliability of information that's handed to them. "And every one of those institutions producing those news releases and white papers has an agenda. They want your tax money, your submissiveness, your contributions, your faith, your purchases, your unquestioning belief in their causes, and ultimately they want to control what you believe, how you live, and what you think. "Or what you think you think.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moral of story: Learn how to recognize a skunk. (Read and study this article.) TCS: Tech - Mr. Deeds Goes to Wall Street "---However, I do object to the damage Sandler and his Hollywood peers are doing to the public. They are spreading misinformation and perpetuating ignorance about the underpinnings of the global economy. Capitalism has consistently outperformed all other economic systems because it allocates resources more efficiently. Yet, Sandler, DeVito, and the Sheen family have used their fame to advocate inefficient capital allocation. "High stock prices are not just a gift to the rich. More than half of all American families own stock in one form or another. Many other families rely on pensions that are funded with corporate stock. Even the pension funds of government workers rely on a healthy stock market. (I have personally prepared tax returns for the investment funds of the public school teachers of New York State.) Yet, Hollywood fails to grasp the positive aspects of equity markets.---" TCS: Tech - The Real Fat Cats "---Any restaurant or establishment that failed to so inform people of the nature of the infecting agents that they are consuming would be held liable for billions of dollars in payments to lawyers. This transfer of wealth from restaurants and their workers to the pockets of trial lawyers would itself have a beneficial effect on the obesity epidemic as has such a transfer in the fight against smoking. Just as fewer people can afford to smoke thanks to the tobacco settlement, so fewer people will be afford too eat out, lowering the general populace's caloric intake even as trial lawyers eat high on the hog and smoke big fat Cuban cigars.---" Boston Globe Online / Editorials / PETA's human victims "THE ''HOLOCAUST on Your Plate'' campaign, which compares images of captive and slaughtered victims of the Holocaust with the modern treatment of animals on factory farms, is a moral failure. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, the creator of the campaign, has placed itself beyond the pale of worthy charitable organizations with this spiteful exhibit.---" Can Lawsuits Make Our Kids Thin? - Center for Global Food Issues (CGFI) "American teen obesity has increased 10 percent in the last 20 years -- but they’re eating only one percent more calories. Unfortunately, they are also exercising 13 percent less. That’s the verdict from federal data bases at the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, says Dr. Lisa Sutherland of the University of North Carolina. "Most kids’ problem isn’t fast food, it’s too little exercise. So, why are trial lawyers suing fast-food restaurants for making our kids fat? Better we should sue Bill Gates -- again for making computer games more fun than tennis.--- "Trial lawyers don’t care about kids’ lack of exercise. They can’t sue anybody for $10 billion over lack of exercise. They’re hungry to repeat their multi-billion-dollar success in suing Big Tobacco. They hope to turn our guilt over liking hamburgers and French fries into yet more jury awards.---" Pressure Increases for Limiting Injury Lawsuits "Arguing that legal costs and big jury awards are overwhelming them, insurance companies and other businesses have stepped up efforts in the states to restrict medical malpractice lawsuits and other kinds of personal injury suits.---" Seattle Weekly: News: Media: Journalistic Downer by Philip Dawdy "A KIRO-TV food-safety investigation merely exposes deficient reporting and vacuous alarm.---" I Never Dream of Nicotine "Such is the intensity of tobacco litigation that every day somewhere in this great nation there's a judge, lawyer, or juror pondering the evils of the weed. The sun never sets on tobacco litigation. Tobacco is addictive, say the trial lawyers. All I know is that if this product is addictive, it's horribly flawed because at least 40 million Americans have shrugged off its clutches and turned to Lifesavers, chewing gum, or an extra slice of pie for dessert. Some narcotic.---" Does Prosperity Depend on Education? "---Naturally, politicians and state-employed educationists eagerly embrace any idea that lets them acquire more power and gain access to ever more tax money, especially when where there is little accountability for corruption and nonfeasance. "There are several problems with assigning so much importance to education as the basis for a community's prosperity. On the one hand, formal education is neither necessary nor sufficient for either an individual or a community to be prosperous. On the other, proposals to increase public spending on education ignore extensive theory and endless examples of the failures of government provision of goods and services.---" Court Gives Leeway to Interrogate Source "Justices deal a blow to Miranda right, say a person can be forced to talk in bid for evidence." By David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer May 28th, 2003 "---In one of my jail experiences, every time I said, "I stand on my Constitutional Rights," the police turned on electricity, and tortured me with four electric probes they shot into my body. "Under this Martinez standard, are we now to entertain this as appropriate police action to compel people to speak so long as they are not prosecuted criminally? Is this not like the archaic practice of raping a man's wife in front of him, or slaying his children before his eyes in order to compel him to speak? Only on the Martinez standard, you cannot prosecute him, just compel him to speak! "How oft have I said that their can be no police state in this country without concurance of the judiciary. This is way we must have judicial accountability, and soon.---" Rich Lowry: Heed Annika's lesson "Ernest Hemingway famously wrote, "The very rich are different from you and me -- they have more money." When considering the genders, Hemingway's line might be paraphrased, "Women are different from men -- they are women." This should be the epithet of the Annika Sorenstam episode.---" Debra Saunders: Ashes to assets "This much is clear: Among the casualties of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, you won't find the Spirit of Greed.--- "---And if Colaio thinks $5 million doesn't "feel right," how about: A bond trader's spouse gets more than the widow of the firefighter who died trying to save the trader. "Or: An executive's parent stands to reap more from the government than the mother of three whose U.S. Marine husband died in Iraq. "Or: There are Americans willing to burn federal dollars in a quest to squeeze a few extra million from Uncle Sam, while the families of military reservists, who are risking their lives in the Persian Gulf, struggle to get by on military pay." Capitalism Magazine: The Hazards of a Smoke-Free Environment by Robert W. Tracinski "---Traditionally, the right has attempted to override the individual's judgment on spiritual matters: outlawing certain sexual practices, trying to ban sex and violence in entertainment, discouraging divorce. While the left is nominally opposed to this trend--denouncing attempts to "legislate morality" and crusading for the toleration of "alternative lifestyles"--they seek to override the individual's judgment on material matters: imposing controls on business and profit-making, regulating advertising and campaign finance, and now legislating healthy behavior. "But the difference is only one of emphasis; the underlying premise is still anti-freedom and anti-individual-judgment.---" Straight shooting Taking aim at assault weapons, Second Amendment - Recordnet.com By Tom Allison [Second letter on page.] "In response to the editorial "Assault weapon ban must be renewed" (May 18), I'm disappointed The Record published such obvious gun-control drivel under the guise of an opinion piece.---" Straight shooting Taking aim at assault weapons, Second Amendment - Recordnet.com By Bob Walsh "I read your editorial page (May 18) with considerable interest. "As is common when gun control is discussed, there was a considerable amount of hyperbole and not a few technical inaccuracies.---" Friday, May 30, 2003
Libertarianism.com "---You may have noticed there is a LOT of information about libertarianism on the Web. In fact, if you typed "libertarian" into Google, you saw that there are over 1,240,000 places to go! "Whew! That can be overwhelming. Where do you start? "Here. "We've created this site specifically to make it quick and easy to grasp the basics of libertarian thought. "You'll find great resources here: concise definitions and explanations of libertarianism; short answers to common (and not-so-common) questions; libertarian positions on specific issues; famous libertarian figures; and much more. All created by some of the best minds in the liberty movement.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For those who really want to know "the rest of the story" about libertarianism. Believe it or not, you won't get factual information from the left or right media, from the DNC, RNC, or from the man or woman on the street.--TA Judge Allows Lawyer to Add Shell Oil as Nightclub Fire Defendant - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 pt. III Rhode Island: "Attorney Ronald Resmini, who sued for damages in federal court last month, said he added Shell Oil and its affiliate, Motiva Enterprises LLC, to his lawsuit because The Station nightclub owners distributed tickets to their club from a Shell gas station they owned. 'They were giving away free tickets if you bought so much merchandise,' Resmini said." Lawyers' quest for deep pockets has already resulted in the naming of brewer Anheuser-Busch and the town of West Warwick, among other defendants. (AP/MSNBC/7 News Boston, May 29)." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lawsuit abuse. "CAL THOMAS: European governments - let starving Africans eat" - Junkscience.com - "If Americans need another reason to intensely dislike certain European governments that undermined American policy to liberate Iraq from the mass murderer Saddam Hussein, here is one. Those same governments are not only opposing the sending of donated American bioengineered food to starving African nations, they are spreading disinformation and lies so that African governments will not accept any." (Tribune Media Services) "Europeans hoist on petard of Kyoto targets. New Zealand cannot meet emission goals either, writes Chris de Freitas" - Junkscience.com "---BBC News Online quotes the prominent UK global warming sceptic Professor Philip Stott as saying: "One of the most galling things about the whole climate change debate has been European duplicity. While lecturing everybody else, especially America, on the morality of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it has been abundantly clear from the start that most European countries didn't have a snowflake in hell's chance of meeting their own Kyoto targets." (NBR Business Today) "ActivistCash Profiles Pirate" - Junkscience.com - "We're pleased to unveil our newest ActivistCash.com profile -- on the group that gave some of the animal-rights movement's most infamous terrorists their start: The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS). The group's founder and president, "Captain" Paul Watson, is one of the fathers of environmental terrorism. Even Greenpeace, a group he helped to found, booted him for being too violent. Watson has been jailed numerous times and is currently under investigation in Costa Rica for attempted murder. Last year Watson told a group of animal-rights zealots that activists "really can't be too overly preoccupied" by the possibility that their violent tactics could cause human death." (Center For Consumer Freedom) TCS: Enviro-Sci - Gaia and Greenbacks Via: http://www.junkscience.com/ "---All of this greenspeak and the assertions of social responsibility would be little more than cynical and opportunistic posturing if there wasn't so much at stake. For starters, consider the ban on GM foods in Europe - a ban promoted by groups affiliated with CERES that stand to profit from stopping GM technologies in their tracks. It's been amply documented, as President Bush argued this week, that this ban has been disastrous for poor Africans who have been denied food aid from the United States and elsewhere because it contains GM foods. Africans have been understandably worried that Europeans will close off their market to African goods should they accept the food. And as a result, many are starving. "Or consider the Kyoto Protocol and other greenhouse gas reduction policies favored by CERES. The Clinton administration's Energy Department estimated such regulations could cost the overall American economy $300 billion annually. Kyoto-style regulations will significantly drive up energy costs, a change that disproportionately harms the poor as they spend a larger percentage of their income on immediate energy needs than wealthy people do. Of course, many of the companies and investment firms such as Green Century Funds allied with CERES stand to profit directly from these mandates, so their support for greenhouse mitigation makes economic sense - to them.---" Teacher’s unions in Tennessee stick it to home schooled children - NEALZ NUZE "That ought to teach them." Click here for story DEMOCRATS ARE UPSET - NEALZ NUZE "… about almost everything these days. But they’re really torqued about a proposed merger of Univision, the nation’s largest Hispanic television owner, with HBC, a Spanish language radio network. And just why are Democrats so angry .. and scared? Simple enough … it’s because the CEO of Univision is a registered Republican. Democrats, of course, are fighting the merger. There is simply too much danger here that Latinos might start getting something other than the leftist spin from this media conglomerate." Lawsuits instead of fixing schools - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: CSE Author: Stephen Spruiell "A brand new school choice initiative is attacked by the education establishment." (5/30/03) Is forced medication constitutional? - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: IHF Author: staff "The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics .... notes, 'the side effects of anti-psychotic drugs can be so agonizing that patients often find them harder to bear than their illness. Therefore even people whose illness causes them to behave irrationally can have very rational reasons for refusing these drugs.'" (5/22/03) You are worthy of defending yourself - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Colorado Freedom Report Author: Ralph Shnelvar "Take away a person's ability to defend themselves and watch as they change from proud human beings to frightened children who are willing to be slaughtered." (5/27/03) Belmonster disaster teaches California a lesson - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Pacific Research Institute Author: K Lloyd Billingsley "Last week the Belmont Learning Center in Los Angeles, the most expensive high school in history ... grew $111 million more expensive. While a disaster for students, the now $286 million 'Belmonster,' as some call it, provides clear lessons about what is wrong with California's government education system." (5/28/03) Appalling idiocy, part 2 - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Town Hall Author: Thomas Sowell "The slave memorial proposal has the support not only of liberal Democrats but also of Republicans, including some conservative Republicans who should know better." (5/30/03) Bush Tax Cut Unfair to Poor Families, Democrats Cry - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "Democrats, especially the ones running for president, are blaming President Bush for something Congress did." Read News on the Web ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` Democrats are upset because the tax bill doesn't contain enough outright income redistribution (aka socialism). Thursday, May 29, 2003
BSE scare sparks claims for natural, organic beef" - Junkscience.com "Organic and “natural” beef purveyors exploited news of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Canada to say their products are “a true alternative” for consumers worried about “mad cow” disease. "Organic cattle are “never fed rendered animal byproducts that could have been contaminated” with BSE, said Organic Valley Meats in Wisconsin. California’s Niman Ranch made similar claims. "But “it is against the law” to feed ruminant parts to all cattle, said University of Nebraska animal scientist Terry J. Klopfenstein. “It is incorrect to advertise one as better. I am not aware of any study that shows any difference.” BSE infected both organic and conventional cattle in the UK. (just-food.com)" "Greenpeace policies cause deaths in Africa" - Junkscience.com "Greenpeace, the radical international environmentalist group, recently came under attack from an unusual source, writes Richard Tren. The organisation that has spent decades attacking corporate interests and the institutions of capitalism wasn¹t attacked by the oil or chemicals industry, but by the New York based Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). In what is increasingly a black and white issue, CORE charges Greenpeace with being racist and keeping Africa poor, sick and underdeveloped." (Richard Tren, The Life Sciences Network) Push to fund DDT in fight against malaria in Africa | csmonitor.com "---Now, even as wealthy nations approve aid for Africa to fight malaria, critics say that by not explicitly authorizing the use of DDT, Western environmental standards are being applied to the developing world, where long-term, often unproven, risks take precedence over immediate needs - at a cost of thousands of lives.---" Language police bar 'old,' 'blind' in US textbooks - Boston.com / Latest News / Business / FEATURE- "Oh heck: Hell hath no place in American primary and high school textbooks. "But then again you can't find anyone riding on a yacht or playing polo in the pages of an American textbook either. The texts also can't say someone has a boyish figure, or is a busboy, or is blind, or suffers a birth defect, or is a biddy, or the best man for the job, a babe, a bookworm, or even a barbarian. "All these words are banned from U.S. textbooks on the grounds that they either elitist (polo, yacht) sexist (babe, boyish figure), offensive (blind, bookworm) ageist (biddy) or just too strong (hell which is replaced with darn or heck). God is also a banned word in the textbooks because he or she is too religious.---" Emmett Tyrrell: Shakedown "---The saga of Jesse Jackson is an amazing one. As Kenneth Timmerman chronicles in his excellent study of the man, Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson, Jackson began his career with some genuine achievements capable of easing the plight of poor and uneducated blacks. But the colossal frauds that he perpetrated from the start far outweigh the achievements, and the frauds have continued to this very day. Many of the frauds are prominent on the public record.---" Ann Coulter: Global warming: The French connection "Inasmuch as June is around the corner and it's still winter, it is time to revisit the issue of "global warming." A sparrow does not a spring make, but in the Druid religion of environmentalism, every warm summer's breeze prompts apocalyptic demands for a ban on aerosol spray and paper bags. So where is global warming when we need it?--- "Now environmentalists are in a panic that African nations will use DDT to save millions of lives. Last year, 80,000 people in Uganda alone died of malaria, half of them children. The United States and Europe have threatened to ban Ugandan imports if they use DDT to stop this scourge. Environmentalists would prefer that millions of Africans die so that white liberals may continue gazing upon rare birds. "Liberals don't care about the environment. The core of environmentalism is a hatred for mankind. They want mass infanticide, zero population growth, reduced standards of living and vegetarianism. Most crucially, they want Americans to stop with their infernal deodorant use." GOOD NEWS ABOUT VOTERS - NEALZ NUZE "The Social Democratic Party is not feeling too great these days. They've begun to conduct some polls to see how they're going to do in 2004, and they're not at all please with the results. Take, for instance, that intense loyalty that black voters have been showing to the Democrats for generations. In 2000 about 74% of blacks said that they were Democrats. That's down to 63% now, and the slippage is even greater among younger blacks. In 2000 about 4% of blacks said they were Republicans. That number is up to 10%. "In spite of the hundreds of millions of dollars labor unions spend to prop up their favorite Democrats .. more than 33% of union members vote Republican -- and that number is increasing. "Oh .. and there's reason for the government teacher's unions to worry here. Polls show that one of the things that is drawing minorities away from Democrats and to Republicans is the school issue. Minority parents want school choice. They want vouchers. I'm sure there gulping the antacid in the NEA offices." ANOTHER PRODUCT OF GOVERNMENT EDUCATION - NEALZ NUZE "This reader comment appeared in today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “We used to tax and spend to help the needy. Now we tax cut and spend to help the greedy.” "There you go. If you want the government to take money away from someone who earned it, and give it to you, [you are] NOT greedy. But … if you want to keep the money you worked for and earned then you ARE greedy. Every time you see a thought process like this at work you can thank our system of government education." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The leftist media deserves much of the credit. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE DRUGGING YOUR KIDS - NEALZ NUZE "In short … ADHD is a fraud. It’s a creation of the psychiatric-pharmaceutical cartel. Those are the thoughts of Fred Baughman Jr., MD. "They made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive--termed them a 'disease.' Twenty five years of research, not deserving of the term 'research.,' has failed to validate ADD/ADHD as a disease. Tragically--the "epidemic" having grown from 500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today--this remains the state of the 'science' of ADHD." "Here’s the website for Baughman. Click here Should Government Hand Out Economic Favors? [Mackinac Center for Public Policy] "---government picking of winners and losers or otherwise attempting to redirect or thwart market forces is a discredited concept in economic development. The best business climate is one in which government “sticks to its knitting” and does its particular assignments well, at the lowest possible cost while creating a "fair field with no favors” environment for private enterprise. This means fixing the schools, maintaining infrastructure, keeping the environment clean, cutting tax and regulatory burdens, protecting rights to contract and property, nurturing a free and peaceful labor market, and making sure the judicial system is not abused by special interests.---" Tax cuts and the triple crown - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Acton Institute Author: John Bolt "Forget the fact that class warfare seems so out of touch with the realities of American life; there is something even more profoundly disturbing about this tactic. And it has to do with geldings." (5/28/03) How males became 'the second sex' - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Town Hall Author: Suzanne Fields "[Y]ou don't have to be a major in women's studies to notice that the Alpha Male has become the Beta Bum. 'From kindergarten to grad school,' reports Business Week, 'boys are becoming the second sex.'" (5/29/03) Is There Chlorine for the Jury Pool? "---You have to admire John Banzhaf's tenacity, if not his opportunistic moral compass. Eager to follow through on his earlier promises that he would eventually find a sympathetic jury for his fast-food lawsuits, Banzhaf is setting out to grow that very jury from scratch.--- "As Banzhaf continues to taint the potential jury pool with his rhetoric, he has also become bolder about letting his agenda show. "The very fact that lawyers are going to be making money out of [suing restaurants]," he said last night, "is exactly what we're counting on 'cause that's what made it with tobacco." Ambulance chasers under attack - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Ronald Bailey "Pity the poor trial lawyers. Efforts to limit jury awards and cut their exorbitant fees are breaking out all over the country." (5/28/03) Quacks and flacks - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Chris Mooney "The pitfalls of seeking a scientific foundation for alternative medicine." (6/03) Cash money medical care - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: AAPS Author: Michael Arnold Glueck and Robert J. Cihak "[T]he success [of SimpleCare] illustrates a fact of health care life that the HMOs, insurance companies and bureaucrats don't want you to discover: A lot more wheels can be reinvented ... once we break the 'Big Business and Big Government and Brainy Experts Are the Only Answers' mindset." (5/20/03) Slaves to the teacher unions - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Strike the Root Author: Bernard Chapin "The teacher unions are a longstanding cancerous influence on the body politic. They are highly accomplished in the art of political pressure, and funnel money into the accounts of whatever political candidates will uphold their monopoly on public schooling." (5/29/03) TCS: Tech - 'No Matter What the Data Say' "---Nutritionist Lisa Sutherland of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill looked at data from the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, and the Department of Agriculture's Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, all of which have been following our national weight trends, activity trends, and food consumption trends for several years. She found that over the past twenty years, teenagers have, on average, increased their caloric intake by one percent. During that same time period, the percentage of teenagers who said they engaged in some sort of physical activity for thirty minutes a day dropped from 42 percent to 29 percent. Not surprisingly, teenage obesity over the twenty year period increased by 10 percent. The logical conclusion is that it isn't junk food that's making teenagers fat - it's their lack of activity.--- "Yet, nutrition experts expressed skepticism about the recent findings in teenagers. Dr. Nancy Krebs, the chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' committee on nutrition told the Associated Press, "We are pretty sure they are eating too much, no matter what the data say."---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ideology versus objective data and rational analysis. NCPA - Brief Analysis 440, Energy Bill Mistakes: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off "---Few policy issues have as direct a bearing on our well-being as a national energy policy. A bad energy policy can hamper economic growth. Thus, when shaping an energy policy, legislators should focus on economic growth and consumer choice. The policy provisions discussed above would restrict our sources of energy, burden the economy and limit consumer choice. They do not merit inclusion in a national energy policy." Nanotech Washington's big little pork barrel - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Cato Institute Author: Clyde Wayne Crews Jr "Republican advocacy of science pork is back. Exhibit A for 2003 is nanotechnology, the cutting-edge science of direct manipulation of matter at the molecular level." (5/28/03) Slave-raiding extensive in Sudan - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: BBC "More than 11,000 people have been abducted in 20 years of slave-raiding in Sudan, a new report says. Some 10,000 of these are still missing and many are being held as slaves ..." (5/28/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jesse Jackson doesn't complain about Sudan because he can't extort any money from that country. U.S. Congress helps themselves most with tax cut law - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: USA Today "As members of Congress watched President Bush sign a 10-year, $350 billion package of tax cuts into law Wednesday, many had extra reason to celebrate. They are among those who will benefit the most." (5/28/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Interesting example of the "framing technique" in propaganda [and media bias]. Many Americans, including some members of congress will benefit from the tax cut law because they have investment income, and high incomes, which means they are among those who pay most of the U.S. tax burden and contribute significantly to the health of our economic system and the creation of jobs. The USA Today article is a typical leftist "class warfare" piece. Video Games Good for You, Study Says - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "A new study says regular players of "shoot-em-up" video games develop better visual skills than the rest of the population and are better able to cope with confusing, distracting situations." Read News on the Web Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Vitamin class action: some questions for the lawyers - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 pt. III "Last month "appeal court justices in San Francisco did something unusual: They mailed out a letter asking lawyers in a massive vitamin price-fixing class action to explain a few things. Why, the 1st District Court of Appeal wanted to know, are so many law firms involved? How did the number of coordinated cases grow by 12 in one six-month period? How many out-of-state law firms are involved? Which of the defendants previously entered guilty or no contest pleas to criminal charges?" At least fifty class action law firms nationwide are hoping to split a $16 million fee pot, but Oakland, Calif. attorney Larry Schonbrun, the nation's best-known objector to class actions, says there's "no reason why much fewer law firms could not have handled this case". And: "This is a money machine. It's feeding at the trough." (Mike McKee, "Enriching the Record", The Recorder, May 27)." "Research 'stunted by our culture of protest'" - Junkscience.com "The UK is in danger of sliding back into the stone age unless the government tackles the growing anti-science culture, senior technology industry figures will warn today. Public opposition against high-technology and biotechnology companies has grown so strong that investors are no longer willing to back start-up companies commercialising genetic modification or working on animals. The stark warning comes in a survey of the UK's leading technology companies published today by Grant Thornton, the business advisers. Sue Staunton, head of technology at the firm, says only one in seven companies sees the UK as a centre for growth." (Financial Times) "The 13 May 2003 Testimony of Dr. John Christy Before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Resources" - Junkscience.com "Summary: In the wake of the recent publication in Science of a paper that purports to provide evidence for the reality of human-induced global warming, one of the scientists who oversees the processing of the satellite data that play a crucial role in this discussion presented his ideas on the subject to the American public via written congressional testimony, which we reprint here for all to see." (co2science.org) "VIRTUAL CLIMATE ALERT: May 20, 2003 Vol. 4, No.10"Junkscience.com "As further evidence that “the science of climate change” is anything but settled, we offer the following. Two papers, published within days of each other, contend the opposite of one another in the debate about aerosols providing more warming (or more cooling) than generally is assumed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate modelers, and others wrestling with how to characterize future climate." (GES) "Immune to the facts" - Junkscience.com "'Public duped by media over MMR' was the headline-grabbing claim emerging from a survey published on 19 May 2003 by the Economic and Social Research Council. On cue, the British press promoted yet another piece of junk science from the anti-MMR campaign. "According to research carried out at the Cardiff University School of Journalism, 53 per cent of those surveyed at the height of the media coverage of the MMR controversy in early 2002 believed that, because both sides of the debate received equal media coverage, there must be equal evidence for each. Though almost all scientific experts rejected the claim of a link between MMR and autism, only 23 per cent of those interviewed were aware that the bulk of evidence favoured supporters of the vaccine." (Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, sp!ked)" Nature not always what it may seem - The Border Mail "A FRIEND was horrified when I said I often treated my vegetable patch with dihydrogen monoxide contaminated with a cocktail of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus and containing trace elements of magnesium, copper, zinc, boron, molybdenum, sulphur, as well as plant and animal excrement. "She was mortified when I admitted I also washed my hands in molecularly-accelerated dihydrogen monoxide laced with carboxylic acid dissolved sodium hydroxide.--- "There followed a lengthy lecture about the evils of our chemical-dependant society and how we must get back to “natural” products and “organically” raised food. "Dihydrogen monoxide is of course a molecule of two hydrogen atoms attached to one of oxygen H2O water: and I had washed my hands in warm soapy water after I treated my vegetable patch with diluted organic compost.---" Capitalism Magazine: Inflation: Labor Unions and Wages (4 of 5) by Ludwig Von Mises "---Unfortunately, we have now, in almost all countries all over the world, a second power that is in a position to exercise force: the labor unions. The labor unions determine wages and then strike to enforce them in the same way in which the government might decree a minimum wage rate. I will not discuss the union question now; I shall deal with it later. I only want to establish that it is the union policy to raise wage rates above the level they would have on an unhampered market. As a result a considerable part of the potential labor force can be employed only by people or industries that are prepared to suffer losses. And, since businesses are not able to keep on suffering losses, they close their doors and people become unemployed. The setting of wage rates above the level they would have on the unhampered market always results in the unemployment of a considerable part of the potential labor force.---" Thomas Sowell: An appalling idiocy "---What a [slavery] memorial would do is perpetuate the fraud that slavery was something peculiar to the United States, when in fact it was one of the oldest and most widespread of all human institutions, existing for thousands of years on every inhabited continent, involving people of every race and color as both slaves and slaveowners. Even in the United States, there were thousands of black slaveowners, and in Africa many more. "The United States was one of many Western nations which turned against slavery in the 19th century -- while non-Western nations bitterly resisted efforts by the West to get them to abolish slavery. Only the fact that Western imperialists had more firepower enabled their revulsion against slavery to prevail. "Maybe we should have a monument to historical truth somewhere, though Washington hardly seems the place for it." Linda Chavez: Supreme Court decision on affirmative action is near "The University of Michigan (UM), in defending its use of race as a factor in admitting students to its undergraduate and law schools, argued that the resulting "diversity" in the student body benefited all students. This has long been the claim of affirmative action advocates who want to minimize the inherent unfairness of subjecting whites and Asians to higher standards than blacks or Hispanics, but the argument doesn't hold water.--- "Would even one Supreme Court justice accept at face value research by the tobacco industry showing the "benefits" of smoking? I doubt it. Let's hope a majority of the Supreme Court can see through the University of Michigan's subterfuge and recognize that it is never right for government to sanction racial discrimination, no matter who the victims happen to be." Michelle Malkin: Myth of the Muslim hate crime epidemic "Do you believe that a "post-September 11 backlash" has resulted in a nationwide wave of violence and bigotry against Muslims in America? The hype artists and book-cookers at the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) want you to think so. The group's new report purports to document "a massive increase" of hate crimes targeting Arab-Americans. "But in order to concoct a Muslim hate crime epidemic, the ADC report lumps together faulty citations, dubious anecdotes and grossly overinflated claims.---" THE CHECKS ARE ON THE WAY! - NEALZ NUZE "---These checks are going to be sent to parents regardless of whether or not they actually paid any federal income tax. This means that someone, a parent with two children for instance, who paid absolutely no federal income taxes last year – not one penny – will get a check from the feds for $800. Where does that money come from? It comes from someone who actually DID pay federal income taxes last year. It’s not a “credit” because there are no tax payments to credit the checks to. It is not a “rebate” because there were no taxes paid from with to issue a rebate. So, just what is it? Income redistribution. Pure and simple income redistribution. It is the government seizing property from someone whom the government has determined should not be allowed to keep what they earn, and then giving that property to someone the government has determined worthy of money earned by someone else. "Now that our government so boldly seizes income for redistribution – all for political gain – where will it end? The only thing that politicians need to do is to be careful that they seize the money from people who’s votes they don’t need .. and then transfer that money to people who’s votes they do need." YOU MAY THINK THIS IS AN UNIMPORTANT STORY - NEALZ NUZE "---This issue [banks charging non-customers to use their machines] is a great indication as to just how far the idiot virus has spread in our country. A bank goes out and spends the money for the computers, machines and telephone lines necessary to put these machines around the countryside. The bank then hires personnel to service these machines. Then along come the consumer advocates who believe that once the banks have spent all of this money they ought to offer the use of the machines to people who aren’t even customers of these banks .. for nothing! Just amazing." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It's called plundering. NEALZ NUZE "And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps." -- H.L. Mencken Race card stud - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Cathy Young "Issues such as affirmative action have many complicated layers, and both sides have valid arguments. But we should be able to discuss these issues without being browbeaten by charges of bigotry." (5/27/03) Affirmative action grading - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Town Hall Author: Walter Williams "The overriding principle of the matter is that a white student need not have ever engaged in discrimination to have points deducted and a black student need not have ever been a victim of discrimination to receive the white student's points. This is widely accepted political thinking, plus it's settled law." (5/28/03) Free market health care - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Ronald Bailey "No one is offering a true solution to the health care 'crisis.' First, how much of a crisis is it, really?" (5/28/03) Child use - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Hawaii Reporter Author: Richard O Rowland "'It's for the children.' .... Whatever the intent, the words have become a mantra which has been overused and misused to the extent it is like 'liberty.'" (5/28/03) Stopping The Next Jayson Blair - NCPA - Commentary "---This phenomenon first hit me when I went to work in Congress in the mid-1970s. For the first time, I was routinely able to read stories in papers like the New York Times about events that I had witnessed. The juxtaposition between what I knew to be the case and the often-distorted picture I read in the paper was a real eye-opener. But in those days, there was nothing one could do about it.---" WorldNetDaily: Downsizing jobs, outsourcing lives "---In the U.S., companies must, moreover, endure endless, punishing, government-imposed regulations, which make doing business and staying competitive increasingly difficult. To the cost of the assorted alphabet soup of regulatory agencies a corporation must pay off, add exorbitant corporate taxes and expenses like workers compensation insurance. "Factored into the wage price the corporation pays are large government-imposed costs. The company's before-tax wage package must offset the cost of the income-tax burden as well as the cost of a government rape known as Social Security.--- "Consider that the annual Social Security burden alone on an American high-tech employee, borne by the employer, is the equivalent of the annual salary of a high-tech worker living well in India, and the logic of outsourcing is self-evident!---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ How government helps us (down the road to serfdom). Supreme Court decision dilutes Miranda protections - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Mercury News "A splintered Supreme Court took another swipe at the landmark Miranda ruling Tuesday, saying the right to remain silent doesn't apply when authorities aggressively -- or even coercively -- interrogate someone they're not prosecuting." (5/27/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scary. Sounds real police state-like. Minnesota's concealed carry law welcomed with 'no guns here' signs - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Star Tribune "[A]round the state, ... signs popped up and sternly worded no-firearms memos appeared in employees' e-mails as businesses and institutions prepared for the first day of Minnesota's new gun law." (5/28/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You have to be an idiot to believe that criminals and homicidal psychopaths will obey the signs. Law abiding citizens will obey, and thus become potential victims. Irrational firearm phobia is not a good basis for private or public policy. Land grabs for private development easier in Kansas - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Kansas City Star "A Topeka contractor lost a legal dispute that challenged Shawnee County's right to take the site of his business to clear the way for a Target distribution center. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled that counties can use eminent domain to take land for economic development." (5/28/03) Colorado Town Finds Itself in Real-Life Hitchcock Movie -- 05/28/2003 "As if they were living in the famous Alfred Hitchcock film "The Birds," the residents of the Mapleton Mobile Home Park in Boulder, Colorado are under siege by a flock of nearly 4,000 European starlings. What's worse than anything Hitchcock could have imagined, however, is that the city government is not allowing the residents to fight back. Over the past decade, four months out of the year, the starlings roost in a stand of cottonwood trees that tower over the city-owned mobile home park. Officially called Sturnus vulgaris , the Audubon Society describes European starlings as "messy, quarrelsome, aggressive and noisy."---" Water is more expensive - Letter - Modbee.com | The Modesto Bee Published: May 28, 2003, 05:40:14 AM PDT "How come everyone is so upset about gas prices? You are not upset with paying $2 for a bottle of water. You don't realize what it takes to make a gallon of gas. There is a very long process from crude oil to gasoline and other oil products. It is a lot more than filtering water! I work for a refinery and get to see firsthand how much work it takes to make fuel. The refineries suggest a retail price, but the stations will sell it for whatever the market will bear in that area. California has some of the highest gasoline taxes in the United States. I toast you with a $4 bottle of beer!" I love California. LOL. MATT BOWMAN Vacaville Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Courtroom assault on drugmakers - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 pt. III "A week or two ago the New York Times somewhat belatedly discovered that trial lawyers have ginned up a large amount of well-organized litigation against pharmaceutical makers over alleged side effects. (Alex Berenson, "Giant drug firms may face lawsuits", New York Times/Oakland Tribune, May 18). Some reactions: Derek Lowe ("Because That's Where the Money Is", Corante, May 16), Ernie the Attorney (May 18), MedPundit (May 19), MedRants (May 19), William Murchison ("Lawyers Who Make You Sick", syndicated/TownHall, May 20) (the last of these via SickofLawsuits.org, a new health-focused site associated with the Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse tort reform groups)." "State is suing ex-dry cleaners" - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 pt. III "California Attorney General Lockyer is suing retired owners of Mom-and-Pop dry cleaners in the town of Chico under the federal Superfund law, accusing them of pouring dry-cleaning chemicals down their drains decades ago. "Bob and Inez Heidinger -- he's 87, has Alzheimer's disease and is blind in one eye; she's 83, has bone marrow cancer and needs shoulder surgery" -- are being sued for $1.5 million on charges (which they deny) of disposing of PCE in such a manner between 1952 and 1974, when they sold the business. Also being sued is "Paul Tullius, a 57-year-old retired Air Force pilot, and his wife, Vicki, who own a warehouse that last housed a dry cleaner in 1972 -- 16 years before they bought the building without knowing its entire history. "This is the most draconian law you could ever imagine," says Tullius. "...Can you imagine what that does to your life? I'm sort of thinking this isn't the country I thought it was." (Gary Delsohn, Sacramento Bee, Apr. 28). "Personal view: Be warned - fast food can make your lawyer fat" - Junkscience.com - "Now that the profits of the American tobacco companies have been transferred from the shareholders to the lawyers who sue those companies on a rotating basis, extracting huge sums but never quite bankrupting them (a fine and delicate balance, as marvellous in its own way as anything to be found in nature), it is the turn of shareholders in food companies to be shaken down and have their assets de facto expropriated by the litigation lawyers." (Theodore Dalrymple, Daily Telegraph) "Official: Gulf Syndrome 'is a myth'" - Junkscience.com - "Gulf War Syndrome does not exist, an official scientific report has concluded. "The Medical Research Council study found "little evidence" that multiple vaccinations were the cause of Gulf veterans' illnesses and declared: "There is no unique Gulf War Syndrome." "The report reviewed all scientific research into the condition and found no evidence of a link between the illnesses and the use of depleted uranium shells or nerve agents. "It is the second blow in a week for the veterans who recently lost a court claim for compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder. Last night, the veterans condemned the findings as "absolute rubbish." (Sunday Telegraph) Rich Lowry: The museum sacking that wasn't "---The Times originally reported that 170,000 pieces had been stolen. "Nonsense," says Deutsch. He points out that there would have to be "miles and miles" of display area for such a massive amount of material to be readily available for the snatching. "Subsequent reporting has cited roughly 30 items stolen from the museum's exhibition area, although hundreds more were taken from well-secured storage areas in an inside job (Saddam Hussein's cousin was the museum's director). But the most valuable pieces appear to have been kept safe, in what is shaping up as the "Great Civilization-Rattling Heist That Wasn't."---" Mike S. Adams: So you're a feminist?...Isn't that cute "---First, I placed a "Clinton/Gore '96" sticker prominently on my office door to see if anyone would take offense. After two years without any complaints, I decided to replace the sticker with one that said "George W. Bush for President." Within a few weeks I heard reports from two faculty members and one staff member saying that someone was preparing to file a complaint about the Bush sticker. "Since the faculty handbook specifies "appropriate disciplinary action, including discharge from employment" as one possible consequence of violating the aforementioned rule, I decided it was time to let the faculty in on my little experiment. I did this by sending an e-mail to everyone in the building which began as follows: "You have all been involved in an experiment in tolerance which, unfortunately, some of you have failed . . ."---" THE NEW EUROPEAN UNION CONSTITUTION - NEALZ NUZE "The European Union is unveiling its new constitution … complete with its bill of rights. So, it’s time for The Talkmaster to go out on a limb with a little wager here. I hope I’m wrong, but my guess is that this new EU constitution will either infer or flat-out state that all rights enjoyed by individuals are granted to those individuals by their governments. When our founding fathers wrote our Constitution they recognized that our rights existed by virtue of our existence as living human beings, and that government was formed to protect (not grant) those rights. By the time we got around to the repulsive Clinton presidency our policy makers had come around to the idea that our rights were given to us by government. Let’s see if the EU picks up on the old thought, or the new Clintonian theory." SOWELL ON “GREED” - NEALZ NUZE "Among the many other questions raised by the nebulous concept of 'greed' is why it is a term applied almost exclusively to those who want to earn more money or want to keep what they have already earned- never to those wanting to take other people's money in taxes or to those wishing to live on the largess dispensed from some taxation." -Thomas Sowell, "Visions of the Anointed". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And why is the concept of "gouging" applied to people who ask high prices for their products or services, but not to those who demand more taxes and tax increases to fund their private hobby horses?--TA AN ABSURD WASTE OF TAXPAYER FUNDING "Here’s the scenario. You have a relative, perhaps your father or mother, who is dying of cancer. The cancer is spreading … and so is the pain. Your relative has just a few weeks left. There are two ways the excruciating pain can be handled. Well, three … if you count putting a pillow over their face. You can drug them into a coma, or you can give them marijuana. There is no doubt that marijuana will, in situations like this, allow the patient to remain conscious and relatively comfortable during those final weeks. This means they can receive visitors from loved ones and talk over memories, dreams and plans. "Many state and local governments around the country have already legalized marijuana for medical uses. Others are exploring the idea. Now here comes the Republican Party. Believe it or not, Republicans in the congress are working right now to divert some taxpayer dollars to the cause of fighting these medical marijuana initiatives. They want the taxpayers to fund advertising against medical marijuana. "If you really want to see how ridiculous federal funding is .. consider this. The Imperial Federal Government of the United States considers marijuana to be as dangerous and destructive as heroin." TechCentralStation :: EUROPE :: Consensus Cons "It is a regrettable fact that most of the public is ignorant about science. Not just about current scientific theories and experiments, but about the scientific method in general. Yet science affects virtually every aspect of our lives. Nevertheless, we recognize this failure and have done something about it. As a society, we have delegated our duty to learn about science to the media. Yet when the media are pulled in other directions by other influences on them, we are left thinking that we know what's going on in the world when we don't. And that's a problem.---" Does Prosperity Depend on Education? "---There are several problems with assigning so much importance to education as the basis for a community's prosperity. On the one hand, formal education is neither necessary nor sufficient for either an individual or a community to be prosperous. On the other, proposals to increase public spending on education ignore extensive theory and endless examples of the failures of government provision of goods and services.---" Congratulations! You May Already Be a Winner - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service … "A new e-mail pitch making the rounds through cyberspace could become the biggest thing since the famed 'Nigerian Banking scam.' It holds out the promise of winning an international lottery without entering." Full Story Glorying in our freedoms - Recordnet.com - Letter "---Should flag-burners ever rise to substantial numbers, perhaps there would be something truly wrong in our government. We're already sliding down that slippery slope of erasing freedoms for which patriots of previous generations fought and died. If we take this step, what's next? Shall we jail those who fail to show proper reverence for government policy? Shall we ban criticism of the president? "That's the stuff of the totalitarian regimes we rightly despise." By Lee Johnson Mountain Ranch Monday, May 26, 2003
'Trial Lawyers Get Spanked' - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 pt. III "Our editor had an op-ed Friday in the Wall Street Journal celebrating the Florida appeals court's striking down of the absurd $145 billion class action verdict in the Engle tobacco case. (Walter Olson, WSJ/OpinionJournal.com, May 23). Other columns on the decision include Jacob Sullum, "Appealing Price", syndicated/Reason.com, May 23, on the appeals bond issue; and George Will, "The States' Tobacco Dilemma", syndicated/Washington Post, May 23, on the hypocrisy of state governments." Liberty and Security - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: LFA Editor Website: http://www.libertyforall.net "One must wonder how long the American people are going to put up with legislators, executive branches, and judiciaries who haven't the foggiest notion of what liberty means nor what it takes to establish security." "One must also wonder how long the American people are going to put up with the constant barrage of lies from the three branches supposedly balancing each other in order to avoid any infringements upon the liberty of the American people and the complete destruction of security." Marc Victor's Recusal - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "A judge is obligated to faithfully follow and apply the law. However, cases may arise where the applicable law is irreconcilably at odds with a judge’s strong sense of justice. In such a case, the judge is thrust into a moral dilemma. The judge is faced with either applying a law that is contrary to his or her strong sense of justice or failing to faithfully apply the law. This case presents such a moral dilemma for this judge pro tem." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A principled rejection of the rationale for the war on drugs. Freshman congresswoman fights gas tax - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "A freshman Republican congresswoman, backed by the White House and other GOP lawmakers, is taking on a powerful House committee chairman by staunchly opposing a 5.4 cents-per-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax." "The American people need their tax burden lifted, not shifted." Eco-Warriors Making House Calls - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: P. Jones "Animal rights activists showed up with blaring sirens and bullhorns at 3 a.m. one day at the home of an executive of a Los Angeles software company." " 'We'll be back, scumbag,' Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty said on its Web site later in the day. 'Denny, we know where you live, we know where you work, and we'll make your life hell until you pull out of HLS.' " ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Seems to call for harassment suits and baseball bats. Some misplaced support for assault-weapons ban (Letters) Submitted by: Morgan McKay "Thanks to all who responded to my request to write to the San Diego Union Tribune and condemn their ridiculous story on "Assault Weapons" last week. To my utter astonishment, they printed FOUR of your letters! They obviously were deluged by responses to have given this much space to your letters. This is a rather large paper and there were no letters printed in support of the ban. I think that says a lot." Backfire - Democrats discover that gun control doesn't win elections - OpinionJournal - Featured Article "---Keeping assault weapons off the streets was never the real issue. Proponents knew that all but a small percentage of crimes involving firearms were committed with guns that wouldn't fall under the ban. They also knew the ban was easily avoided by making small adjustments to the guns. "But liberals didn't care about these details because guns were simply a wedge issue designed to scare suburbanites, and particularly women, into voting Democrat. Now that elections have repudiated the strategy, the party's enthusiasm has waned.---" AND LET’S SAY A LITTLE HELLO TO SOCIALIZED MEDICINE - NEALZ NUZE "I’ve been saying for quite some time now that socialized medicine is an inevitability for the United States now. There is no stopping it. At some point in the not-too-distant future all Americans are going to be dependent on government (and that means dependent on politicians) for their medical care. Once Americans were taught to believe that health care was a “right” the die was cast. "If you want to see the future of health care in the United States just look at the VA hospitals today. In 1996 vote-seeking politicians opened the VA health care system to all veterans .. and doubled the caseload. The cost has become so great that now the Veterans Administration is playing the class warfare game. New enrollments have been suspended for “high-income” veterans. Those “high-income” veterans already in the system are paying higher enrollment fees and high co-payments than the rest. And just what do you get for your money? The Washington Times is reporting that many veterans are waiting up to six months for an appointment to see a doctor. "That, my friends, is your medical future … and it is your medical future because you have accepted the idea that you have a “right” to medical care, a right that politicians are all-too-willing to recognize." IT’S MEMORIAL DAY --- TIME [For Democrats] TO PLAY POLITICS - NEALZ NUZE "---On this Memorial Day Democrats are trying to spread the word that Republicans are trying cutting spending for veterans programs … all to pay for Bush’s tax cut. It really doesn’t matter whether or not there is any truth to this charge … just make the charge, get the media to report the charge, and hundreds of thousands of Americans will accept it as the truth. "So --- what is the truth? Well, it seems that the 2004 budget for veterans benefits is going up by $6.2 billion. Dollars for veteran’s health care are going up by $3.1 billion. The Washington Times reports that funding for veterans health care has gone up by an average of 7.9% per year since 1996. Does that sound like spending cuts to you?---" The Hazards of a Smoke-Free Environment -- 05/26/2003 "---Traditionally, the political Right has attempted to override the individual's judgment on spiritual matters: outlawing certain sexual practices, trying to ban sex and violence in entertainment, discouraging divorce. "While the political Left is nominally opposed to this trend - denouncing attempts to "legislate morality" and crusading for the toleration of "alternative lifestyles," - they seek to override the individual's judgment on material matters: imposing controls on business and profit-making, regulating advertising and campaign finance, and now legislating healthy behavior. "But the difference is only one of emphasis; the underlying premise is still anti-freedom and anti-individual-judgment. The tobacco bans bulldoze all the barriers to intrusive regulation, establishing the precedent that the rights of the individual can be violated whenever the local city council decides that the "public good" demands it.---" The Latest Spin on Global Warming - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "Batten down the hatches. It's going to be another year of major storms on the East Coast. How can we be sure? Well, the experts say so. "Federal forecasters marked Monday's start of Hurricane Awareness Week by predicting a busier-than-usual season," The Miami Herald reported on May 20, "with 11 to 15 named tropical storms that grow into six to nine hurricanes." Read the commentary Sunday, May 25, 2003
Quote of the Day - Foundation for Economic Education "The sole end of men’s entering into political societies, was mutual protection and defense; and whatever power does not contribute to those purposes, is not government, but usurpation." — John Trenchard & Thomas Gordon, Cato’s Letters Wrong Again - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age." -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970) Debra Saunders: The trivialization of compassion "---A new Gallup Poll suggests that the animal rights movement is gaining popularity: 25 percent of Americans polled agreed with the statement that "animals deserve the exact same rights as people to be free from harm and exploitation," while 35 percent strongly or somewhat support a ban on medical research on laboratory animals. "OK. Just figure most of the "yes" respondents aren't the smartest pigs on the farm. They apparently hadn't figured out that if animals can claim the same rights as people, there would be no ranching and no meat on the table. (A Time/CNN poll found that 4 percent of Americans call themselves vegetarians, but 37 percent of those "vegetarians" had eaten red meat within the previous 24 hours.)---" Capitalism Magazine: Ten Years Later by Thomas Sowell "---Local school districts are usually the worst when it comes to reckless diagnoses and dogmatic certainty. They offer free evaluations of children, but it can be the most expensive free thing a parent ever gets. "Perhaps the best advice to offer parents is from that column of a decade ago: "In this age of labels, when there is a government program for every label, parents have to be on guard against having their children pigeon-holed. The stakes are just too high." World's resources feeding California's growing appetite - Modbee.com | The Modesto Bee "---With 34 million people and the world's fifth-largest economy, California has long consumed more than it produces. But today, its passion for protecting natural resources at home while importing them in record quantities from afar is backfiring on the world's environment. "It is exporting the pain of producing natural resources -- polluted water, pipeline accidents, piecemeal forests and human conflicts -- to the far corners of the planet, to places out of sight and out of mind. California is the state of denial.--- "We Californians are really not very good conservationists -- we're very good preservationists," he said. "Conservation means you use resources well and responsibly. Preservation means you are rich enough to set aside things you want and buy them from someone else."---" 'Idiots' provide a very 'useful' history lesson - Recordnet.com "The term "useful idiots" has been attributed to Lenin, as a description of those mindless people in the Western democracies who always would find ways to excuse whatever the Soviet Union did. "Columnist Mona Charen's new book -- "Useful Idiots" -- shows such people still are with us. "Long after the Soviet Union's horrors had become too widely known around the world for their sympathizers in the West to be able to get away with whitewashing the USSR, new Communist dictatorships arose to become new objects of the affections of the Western intelligentsia and like-minded people in the media and politics.---" Saturday, May 24, 2003
QUOTES TO REMEMBER - Keep and Bear Arms "Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them." — WALTER MONDALE I Really Wish You Were Dead - by Cornet Joyce II - Sierra Times.com "---For example, we find an editorial on the Claremont Institute site that re-quotes her inflammatory rhetoric: Feinstein (D-Calif.), who said on CBS's 60 Minutes: "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it." (February 5, 1995)--- "I know some of you will throw up your hands in dismay, protesting: "that is not what she is saying. She is saying she will take them, but she is not saying how. Perhaps she is saying she will let the courts take them." To you granitic-brained obsequious mannequins I shout, HOW WILL THE G-D D (fair statement in their latest God-less-ness) courts do that without sending in the army or the police to TAKE THEM?--- "I assert that Diane Feinstein was saying that if it takes killing to get the guns, and she could get the votes, she did not care who got killed. I assure you that Rosie of daytime television would at least have you in PRISON. What difference is there between being imprisoned and being killed? Damned little, if you will.--- "How do you feel about a Senator who would just as soon see you dead to fulfill her desire to inflict upon you the UNITED NATIONS REQUIREMENT TO DISARM EVERY NATION????" More children left behind - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "Years of left-wing anti-academic influence by the nation's teachers' unions have left more than a generation of kids unprepared for adulthood." ... "This is not the kids' fault. This is the fault of American voters who continually put the same political charlatans in power, and it is the fault of those politicians who have bent over for years for education union cash (Democrats, are you listening?) ..." Vigilante injustice - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Sean Glazier "Arizona militia members, a Colorado Republican and a national group with white supremacist ties have made a remote stretch of the Mexico border a flash point for anti-immigrant hostility" ------- "The press again associating militia groups with white supremacy. These people are rightly defending US territory against invasion because the Border Patrol cannot handle the situation. For this they get the label "white supremacist" by the not-so-objective media." Pattern of Deceit by John R. Lott, Jr. "---The policy prescriptions put forward by the Times simply assumed that tighter gun laws would save lives. Fox Butterfield, another reporter who wrote part of the Times’ series, told me that no formal statistical tests were done because some academics had advised him that there was "no way that [they] would get any statistically significant results," and that the Times never checked to see whether that was true. "But more importantly Butterfield's answer also creates other disturbing problems for the Times study. Why would the newspaper, or any institution doing research, assert benefits to gun laws if they seriously doubted that their data would confirm their claims?--- "Unfortunately, much of the public policy debate is driven by lopsided coverage of gun use. The New York Times series played to the worst sensationalism by trying to scare people into thinking that there was an exploding crisis of "rampage killings."" A New Kind of Class Warfare - The Washington Dispatch "---Most professional politicians are democrats because they regard it as an industry which produces jobs, income and opportunity for advancement in society. Republicans, except for those aforementioned moderates, see government as a necessary evil which must be kept as small as possible and as least intrusive as necessary to carry out its business of defense, foreign affairs and road construction. "Professional politicians have brought us year round legislation and twenty four hour a day media frenzy, both of which this nation would be better off without. We ordinary citizens need a break from Tom Daschle acting like a pouting schoolboy with his fellows, filibustering judicial nominations because the nominees won’t bow, scrape and commit to make future rulings favorable to the democrats’ most sacred cows of abortion, gun control and the homosexual agenda.---" An Interview With Ron Paul Part 2 - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: paul raynolds "...I was talking on the House floor yesterday with two conservatives and I brought up the subject, gently, about the Patriot Act number one. I said, 'Would you two vote for that again if it were on the House floor?', and they said, 'No, we made a serious mistake.' I asked, 'Why did you vote that way?' They said, 'Well, it was the passion of the times; we had to do something after 9/11.' Truth is they could not possibly have read it because it was not even available to us before we voted on it. Members of Congress should not be voting on the fleeting passion of the moment. They should have more passion for their oath of office and passion for what the Constitution says. Then we would not be getting into these problems and wondering how we are going to repeal some of this legislation." QUOTES TO REMEMBER - Keep and Bear Arms "Most reporters are very sympathetic to gun-control agendas and will skew or lie outright about facts to promote them." — DENNIS CAUCHON, USA TODAY Gun law lies in the major news media - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "As a hunter and gun owner, it always amazes me how much outright lying makes it into the pages of major publications. All of us realize that commentaries and editorials are opinion pieces, and that we can differ on whether gun control is legitimate or not, about whether hunting is acceptable or not. But I'm not sure its OK for people to spout outright lies to try to make their case for or against an issue." Feds Shoot Blanks On Gun Laws - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "Gun-rights advocates’ knees jerk twice when they get within kicking range of gun-control legislation. Reflex Response #1: Guns don’t kill, people do. Reflex Response #2: We don’t need more gun laws; we need to enforce the laws already books." "The 'enforce the laws' camp got a boost last week from a study by the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation that documents the embarrassing extent to which federal gun laws are not, in fact, enforced." ... QUOTES TO REMEMBER - Keep and Bear Arms "If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government — and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws." — EDWARD ABBEY The Bias against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard about Gun Control is Wrong." - Keep and Bear Arms "The reason why is because almost everything we've heard about guns and gun-control is provided by the mass media. The startling, documented fact that 'Americans use guns to stop crime at least 4.5 times more frequently than to commit crime' is definitely NOT something that can be learned from watching TV or reading the newspapers. Lott stops well short of accusing the media of being manipulated by a gun-control conspiracy, but claims to be puzzled that their criteria for news-worthiness don't embrace the sort of statistics that excite him and other econometricians." Laws don't stop terrorists - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "In a last-ditch anti-gun Hail Mary, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., dispatched government researchers to ferret out every conceivable misuse of firearm freedoms that could be exploited by bad guys." ... "This foolishness brings to mind two images laughable to thinking Americans." "One, of terrorists shopping for rifles at a sporting goods store or a weekend gun show. And two, of the same terrorists deciding not to buy a gun because Lautenberg got this or that law passed." Businesses confused, angry over gun law - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Bruce W. Krafft Website: http://www.idcwebdev.com "Confusion, and dismay, abound among businesspeople about how to keep guns off their premises under Minnesota's new conceal-and-carry law." "By many accounts, businesses don't want firearms on site as the law goes into effect May 28, prompting an estimated 90,000 more Minnesotans to start packing." ------- "Here's a suggestion: print a huge sign that says, "No guns allowed on these premises." No doubt the criminals prefer their prey be disarmed. You'll be doing them a favor." Capitalism Magazine: American Gestapo: A Primer by Carter Laren "---The federal government's jihad army is divided into smaller factions, each with its own agenda: The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Department of Immigration and Naturalization (INS), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Park Service (NPS), and dozens of others. Employees of these agencies are the "harmless bureaucrats." They are, as one intellectual recently put it, "fellow citizens" who cannot be held responsible for any atrocities committed by the U.S. government. Let's look at some examples of what these "fellow citizens" have been up to.---" Gun "Safety" - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Bruce W. Krafft Website: http://www.idcwebdev.com "The most important thing to make sure your kids are safe is to talk to them." "If you have firearms in your home, make sure they are either locked in a gun safe or have safety locks on them." -- KABA note: Guess they missed the report that says most gun locks are ineffective and easily broken. "Every day, guns hurt or kill American children." -- KABA note: All by themselves? "The statistics paint a terrifying picture: guns cause 12 percent of fatalities among American children and teens, and 1 of every 4 deaths of teenagers ages 15 to 19." -- KABA note: And how many of those are suicides or crimes related to gang violence? Latest Armed Self-defense News Stories - Keep and Bear Arms • Gunshot Foils Burglary Attempt At Brevard Gun Shop (FL) • Burglar shot in church, by deacon (TX) • National Fugitive parolee critically wounded during dispute (UT) • Business owner fatally shoots burglar (AZ) • No indictment for man who shot accused bank robber (OH) • Armed store owner catches burglar (MI) • Crime Fighter Mom Fights Crime (MI) • Intruder Shot and Killed (CA) • Gun-toting homeowner, 75, thwarts attempted break-in (MI) • Activist's bond set in bar shooting (OH) • DA drops charges in fatal shooting (CA) • Robbery attempt was not a joke (OH) Wrong Again - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century." -- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 1976 the big scare was global cooling. Now it's global warming. What will it be 20 years from now? China is Decades Behind U.S. in Military Power - Cato Daily Dispatch for May 23, 2003 "The Chinese army is still an oversized, outdated Maoist guerrilla army with insufficient airlift, logistics, engineering, and medical capabilities to project power very far," Eland writes. "The speed of U.S. military modernization dwarfs the pace of improvements in parts of the antiquated Chinese forces." 'Old Europe' "---The epithet 'Old Europe' has another meaning, one that will be more determinate of the Continent's future than any perceived cultural advantage or inherited wisdom. Europe's population is aging: people are living longer, women are having fewer children, and the number of workers relative to retirees is shrinking. These trends will cause their Social Security systems and, more generally, the welfare state -- part of Europe's DNA -- to collapse. Old Europe, as we know it, is dying.---" If you don't have a gun, you have nothing - Dave Kopel & Richard Griffiths on CBS & Hitler on National Review Online "---After Lorinczi moved to Israel, he was often asked by other Israelis why the Jews had not fought back against the Germans. He replied that many Jews did fight. He then recalled the sudden change in the behavior of the Jews and the Germans at Auschwitz, once the Russian army's new "gun control" policy changed who had the guns there: "And today, when I am asked that question, I tell people it doesn't matter whether you're Hungarian, Polish, Jewish, or German: If you don't have a gun, you have nothing."" If not for gun control - Dave Kopel & Richard Griffiths on CBS & Hitler on National Review Online "---Indeed, right now in Zimbabwe, the Robert Mugabe tyranny is perpetrating a genocide by starvation aimed at liquidating about six million people. Mugabe is great admirer of Adolf Hitler. Mugabe's number-two man (who died last year) was Chenjerai Hunzvi, the head of Mugabe's terrorist gangs, who nicknamed himself "Hitler." One of the things that Robert Mugabe, "Hitler" Hunzvi, and Adolf Hitler all have in common is their strong and effective programs of gun control. "Simply put, if not for gun control, Hitler would not have been able to murder 21 million people. Nor would Mugabe be able to carry out his current terror program.---" Friday, May 23, 2003
United Nations "Week of Action Against Small Arms" - GOA Alert-- May 23, 2003 "---In early June, the United Nations will be sponsoring a global "Week of Action Against Small Arms." "Small arms" as defined by UN documents refers to many of the revolvers, pistols and rifles that millions of Americans already own. Lawrence Auster is a Newsmax.com reporter who covered a similar UN gun control conference in 2001. He says the disarmament agenda at the UN is so blatant that it "unembarrassedly admits that it wants to strip small arms from all non-government individuals [like you] because the possession of such weapons allows people to oppose the UN itself."---" Testimony - Legal Briefs Newsletter #24 - Fighting Lawsuit Abuse "My family had insurance when Tony was injured. We had good insurance. What we didn't have was a doctor." "-Leeanne Dyess, whose husband, Tony, suffered permanent, debilitating brain damage because high malpractice insurance rates forced doctors in their Mississippi community to abandon their positions, in testimony to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, February 10, 2003." See more: Click here That's More than Plumbers Get - Legal Briefs Newsletter #24 - Fighting Lawsuit Abuse "Legal fees awarded in the Price case amount to $13,100 per person per hour." For more details, see: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 4/3/03, as cited by Overlawyered.com at Click here Put Your Money Where Your Case Is - Legal Briefs Newsletter #24 - Fighting Lawsuit Abuse "A law firm that is to receive a large portion of $1.77 billion in fees and costs awarded in the Price case against Philip Morris -- should the case not be overturned or the verdict reduced -- donated almost $10,000 to the presiding judge in the case last year. Philip Morris made no donations to the judge." For more details, see: Wall Street Journal, 4/11/03 Tort D'Jour: It's Miller Time - Legal Briefs Newsletter #24 - Fighting Lawsuit Abuse "In the increasingly infamous Price case in which Phillip Morris was ordered to pay $10.1 billion (the issue: low-tar cigarettes aren't safer if smokers choose to inhale them more deeply than regular cigarettes), the lawyers stand to make $1.77 billion in fees and costs. Lead plaintiffs Michael Fruth and Sharon Price were awarded less than $20,000 each. Both plaintiffs still smoke. After seeing what their lawyers are getting, they probably drink, too." For more details, see: Belleville, IL News-Democrat, 3/22/03 Legal Briefs - Lawyers in Your Medicine Cabinet May Keep Needed Drugs Out - National Center for Public Policy Research "The growing litigation crisis is harming our health. Case in point: Class action lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies over prescription drug side effects." More Legal Briefs - It's Miller Time - National Center for Public Policy Research "In the increasingly infamous Price case in which Phillip Morris was ordered to pay $10.1 billion, the lawyers stand to make $1.77 billion in fees and costs. Lead plaintiffs Michael Fruth and Sharon Price were awarded less than $20,000 each." More Hollywood Goes Political Yet Again: "Issues Placement" Strategy Promotes Government-Run Health Care - National Center for Public Policy Research National Policy Analysis by David Ridenour "In the 1997 movie "As Good As It Gets," the single-mom waitress played by Helen Hunt delighted audiences when she cursed her HMO. The response was spontaneous and genuine, but Hunt's lines were far from spontaneous - they actually were written by a Washington, D.C. activist group pushing hard for a government-run health care system." Nonsense By Any Other Name: Calling Carbon Dioxide A Pollutant Doesn't Make It A Pollutant - National Center for Public Policy Research - National Policy Analysis by Gerald Marsh Wrong Again - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion." -- Paul Ehrlich in (1976) Mad Cow Mania: Where's the Beef? - FOXNews.com Via: http://www.junkscience.com/ “The evidence that has been amassed is directed towards confirming the [BSE-nvCJD] hypothesis rather than testing it. Salient contrary information has either been played down or ignored.” "BSE-infected cattle should be isolated and destroyed to ensure there is no further spread of mad cow disease among the animals. There is no dispute about that. "But nvCJD is a rare and apparently random disease of uncertain origin. That much knowledge doesn’t justify even the slightest concern about the safety of Canadian beef." A $145 billion award against the tobacco industry? - NEALZ NUZE "A $145 billion award against the tobacco industry? One of the ways you do this is to eliminate everyone from the jury who thinks that people are responsible for their own actions … and to play the race card." Click here “Palestinians” - NEALZ NUZE "I wonder if those of you who think that the so-called “Palestinians” actually had a flourishing homeland before those evil Jews arrived will have the guts to read this column." Click here Do we really care about what teacher’s unions have to say about education policy? - NEALZ NUZE "Now here’s a good question: Nobody ever asks the auto worker’s unions about federal transportation policy. Why, then, do we really care about what teacher’s unions have to say about education policy? They simply aren’t impartial on the issue .. so their opinions are worth little." Full story Who are the Neo-cons? - NEALZ NUZE "Just what or who are these “neo-cons” the left keeps whining about? Jonah Goldberg explodes some of the myths." Click here THE ANTI-ACHIEVEMENT MENTALITY - nealznuz "Yesterday you heard me give a list of some of the things that I’m passionate about. My family tops the list .. then comes freedom, both economic and social. Number three would be education. I truly believe that an uneducated populace is not capable of preserving freedom. Ignorant people are easily led and dominated. "There is no doubt in the world that our system of government education is an unqualified disaster. Is it at all possible that this is by design rather than by happenstance? Our education system is controlled by Democrats. Teacher’s unions overwhelmingly vote Democrat and about 90% of their political contributions go to Democrat candidates. Now --- another fact. The dumber you are; or, if you prefer, the more ignorant you are, the more likely it is you are going to vote Democrat. Can you see, then, that Democrats have a vested interest in making sure that our schools don’t do the job? "There is one group of Americans that Democrats know they can absolutely count on year after year after year for their votes. Black Americans. These same black Americans are being poorly served by our government schools. Again .. is this by design? "Today I’m going to discuss an article that explores why black children from rich families perform so poorly in the upscale suburban schools of Shaker Heights, Ohio. You may want to read the article when you hear the discussion. So … here’s your link." Click here STATE SPENDING - NEALZ NUZE "Virtually every state in the union is running a budget deficit. Most of these states, from California to Maine, are considering various tax increases to take care of the problem. As much as I read every day preparing for my radio show, I have yet to come across one story of any state government cutting a major spending program as a response to these deficits. In almost all states the state government and the budget are increasing faster than that state’s population and faster than the rate of inflation. Is anyone out there giving any thought as to just where this is going to lead? Are there no limits in this country to the growth of government? "The limits have to be placed by voters … but voters just love it when some politician spends money on them. If we don’t get a grip on the growth of government in this country we’re going to face a disaster." COMPLAINING ABOUT FOX NEWS - Nealz Nuze "Liberals just can’t stand hearing conservative or libertarian positions presented on major television newscasts. For decades the left had a virtual monopoly with the big three networks. When cable came along it brought CNN … but CNN was the brainchild of an avowed socialist who was unlikely to tolerate anything but a leftist slant to CNN’s coverage. CNN soon became known as the Clinton News Network. "Now we have Fox News Channel. Fox News certainly can’t be described as leaning to the left. But can it be described as conservative? Democrats and their leftist fellow travelers are apoplectic about Fox News .. they can barely contain their rage. The very idea of conservative ideas getting a hearing on a major news broadcast! It just shouldn’t be! "My question to you is this: Just what is the problem with Fox News? Does Fox News Channel actually lean to the right? Do they present a predominantly conservative view of the day’s news? Or is Fox News merely standing out because they present both sides, not just the liberal side, of the important stories? "Come on, folks. Give me some specific examples of a conservative bias in the news coverage on Fox." WAR FOR OIL? - NEALZ NUZE "Ask one of your “war for oil” friends this. If Bush and Cheney waged war on Iraq for the oil, how come they talked the United Nations into a resolution that requires all revenues from Iraqi oil be put into a Development Fund with the Iraq Central Bank? "Just wondering." McAULIFFE NONSENSE - NEALZ NUZE "The Democrats head dog washer, Terry McAuliffe, was bloviating on Fox News Channel last night … talking about jobs. He said that Clinton had created 22 million jobs during his 8 years in the White House, while Bush had destroyed over 2 million jobs in his first three years. "OK .. you expect this Clinton apologist to try to float this nonsense. The depressing thing is that so many people will hear it and accept it as the absolute truth. "Clinton didn’t create those jobs, and Bush didn’t lose them. Those jobs came from the dot-com, technology and telecommunication revolution … and those jobs went away when those revolutions fizzled. Who was sitting in the Oval Office had nothing to do with it …. Unless, of course, you sign on to the idea that Clinton triggered the technology bust with his anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft." AND HERE’S SOMETHING ELSE YOU DON’T HEAR ON THE NEWS - NEALZ NUZE "You will hear throughout the day about the checks that are going to be sent to parents. Every parent of a dependent child will be sent a $400 check. That check is part of the increase in the tax credit for children … from $600 to $1000. What these talking heads aren’t telling you is that many of the parents who receive these checks pay no income tax. None. So, in their cases, it’s not a tax cut, nor is it a tax rebate. It’s someone else’s money. Let me know if you hear any newscaster cover this little fact. "Wait … there’s more. This morning some CNN analyst said “unfortunately lower income people aren’t going to get a big break.” These lower income people already have their big break. They don’t pay any federal income taxes. They’re getting a totally free ride …and some cash to boot! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Creeping socialism. The Independent Institute | The Conservative Case against Tax Cuts, by Alexander Tabarrok "---To grasp the difference between a tax cut and a tax shift, we must first understand that what ultimately drives taxes is spending. If spending increases, as it has under the current administration, then sooner or later taxes must increase (or inflation, a type of tax, will go up). Milton Friedman, the libertarian-leaning Nobel prize-winning economist, has long reminded us to be suspicious of any tax cut not matched by a spending cut. If spending isn’t cut, then less taxes today means more taxes tomorrow. Thus, the Bush tax cut plan is really a plan for future tax increases.--- "Today it is evident that we have two political parties: the Tax and Spenders and the No-Tax and Spenders. Neither party is fiscally conservative. Is there no room at the inn for an honest conservative? A conservative who makes the case for smaller government on its merits and not just as the fallback option when fiscal bankruptcy threatens?" The coffee war - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: The Loose Cannon Libertarian Author: Garry Reed "---War Against Coffee is brewing right here in the very heartland of the nation." (5/15/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As John Stossel would say: "Give me a break!" Freedom Book of the Month, 5/03 - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: FMN Author: Sunni Maravillosa "'The Worm in the Apple' offers a revealing look at the workings of the teachers unions, and how they got the remarkable power they wield. Brimelow does so with style ..." (5/21/03) NCPPR: Covering the issues that others don't - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Insight Author: Stephen Goode Interview with National Center for Public Policy Research president Amy Ridenour. (5/22/03) Junk legislation can't solve junk email problem - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Cato Institute Author: Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. "Unsolicited commercial junk email, or 'spam,' is a huge problem. .... But junk legislation offered up to presumably solve the problem can make things worse." (5/23/03) If you tax them, will they leave? - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Buckeye Institute Author: Robert Lawson "Is it really good government policy to encourage high-income folks to move away and lower-income folks to move in? There is a large body of economic literature that demonstrates the deleterious effects of high state taxation on economic results." (5/22/03) School choice and education privatization: What's the difference? - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Hawaii Reporter Author: Lisa Snell "But [a] minor improvement over the status quo should never be confused with a real education market with competition and choice. The media confuses the two all the time." (5/23/03) Appealing Price - Reason A tobacco case shows the cost of justice can be prohibitive. Via: http://www.free-market.net/news/ "---Last Wednesday, Florida's Third District Court of Appeal threw out the $145 billion verdict that Kaye let stand when he presided over a class action lawsuit against five tobacco companies. The court said the "astronomical" award, the largest in U.S. history, was a "grossly excessive" judgment—"roughly 18 times the defendants' proven net worth"—from a "runaway jury" that was "swept along in lemming-like fashion" by a lawyer who "inflamed juror passion and prejudice" through "improper race-based appeals" that "irretrievably tainted the case."---" Critics: Medicare Report Is Smoking Gun for Fat Police - FOXNews.com Via: http://www.free-market.net/news/ "A recent study tying obese patients to skyrocketing Medicare and Medicaid costs is the “smoking gun” lawyers and bureaucrats need to drive the fast food industry into submission, critics of the report say. “You now have a report that says the taxpayer is being hurt because of obesity. Ah, now the federal government will have to step in to protect people from their habits,” said Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center (search), a civil libertarian watchdog group based in Virginia.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Should help our Police State grow fatter from eating our freedoms. Fact-O-Rama -- The Biggest Tax Cuts "The biggest tax cuts in U.S. history since World War II were the Kennedy tax cut of 1964 and the Reagan tax cut of 1981." (SOURCE: The Tax Foundation) Pulling the trigger - Recordnet.com "Vehicle license fees are going up -- way up." "---Californians would be better off if decision-makers would redouble their efforts to solve the state's larger problem of excessive spending." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Understatement of the century. Thursday, May 22, 2003
ASK DR. RUWART - THE LIBERATOR ONLINE April 22, 2003 Vol. 8, No. 7 "---Many widely-held beliefs about the Industrial Revolution are simply myths. For a quick refutation of some of the most common, see these two essays from our friends at the Future of Freedom Foundation: "Misreading the Industrial Revolution" by Lawrence W. Reed Click here and "Facts About the Industrial Revolution by Ludwig von Mises" Click here" THE LIBERATOR ONLINE April 22, 2003 Vol. 8, No. 7 Plans to bring Atlas Shrugged to the screen are once again underway "First published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged has sold many millions of copies, and continues to sell in huge numbers today. Incredibly, the hardcover edition has never gone out of print. "A 1999 Modern Library reader survey ranked it as the number one book published in the 20th century. In 1991, the Library of Congress commissioned a nationwide survey seeking books that changed the lives of their readers. First was the Bible; second was Atlas Shrugged. (Ironic, given Rand's outspoken atheism.) "The complex, epic and controversial work is, among other things, a thriller, a romance, and an uncompromising philosophical defense of the rights of the individual. Numerous leaders in many fields have cited it as a major influence on their lives.---" LP News Online: June 2003: Actor, funnyman Dean Cameron says he's a 'hardcore libertarian' "---Libertarian magician Penn Jillette has been vocal in his praise for Cameron's Bill of Rights invention. "My friend, Dino Cameron, is a genius," he said. "He got the idea to make playing card-size copies of the Bill of Rights printed on metal. With the Fourth Amendment in red. It's a great idea. It sets off the metal detectors and you get to hear the security person say, ‘I'm going to have to take away your Bill of Rights.' " "The Bill of Rights, Security Edition is available at: This site. THE LIBERATOR ONLINE PRESIDENT'S CORNER April 22, 2003 Vol. 8, No. 7 "The Libertarian Denominator" "The reason libertarians may sometimes sound like liberals or conservatives is because, on some issues, liberals and conservatives sometimes *sound like libertarians*. For example, conservatives have a tendency to sound *libertarian* on economic issues, and liberals have a tendency to sound *libertarian* on issues of personal liberty. In fact, virtually *everyone* is libertarian on some issues. "So, you might say that libertarianism -- or the belief in liberty -- is the common denominator!" Wrong Again - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Can you believe there are idiots who still believe this crap today? Biotech-Food Fight - National Review Online (http://www.nationalreview.com) "---Science and common sense favor the U.S. position on the EU's moratorium. Even the EU acknowledges that the ban is insupportable legally and scientifically. Three years ago, Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom called it "illegal and not justified," and Health Commissioner David Byrne has agreed. In response to fear mongering in the late 1990s by countries like France, Germany, and Italy, the commission performed an exhaustive, six-year study of the safety of gene-spliced foods, which concluded that they are actually safer and more environmentally friendly than traditional crops. "But even if the United States and its allies prevail at the WTO on the issue of the ban on new approvals, it is unlikely that the EU would revise the unscientific and discriminatory regulatory policies that underlie the moratorium; they are too entrenched, and have fomented too much public fear and antagonism towards gene-spliced foods.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Irrational fear versus reason. "Mercury, Schmercury. Eat Your Fish" - Junkscience.com - "A new study published in the Lancet, an international medical journal, decisively demonstrates that there is nothing to fear from trace amounts of mercury in fish. In February, the California Attorney General sued five supermarkets for failure to warn customers -- especially pregnant women -- about the dangers of mercury for their babies. Last month he followed up with another suit against restaurants. Both lawsuits were driven by activist fear-mongers like the Sea Turtle Restoration Network, the Zero Mercury Campaign, and the Mercury Policy Project, none of whom have commented on the Lancet's findings." (Center For Consumer Freedom) "Mad cow risk with your beef? Nearly nil" - Junkscience.com - "So, just what are the chances that the burger you're about to flip on your Memorial Day grill is not safe to eat? That question is being posed after the confirmation of a single case of mad cow disease -- bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- in Canada. The answer, says Larry Hollis, beef veterinarian at Kansas State University, is "virtually zero." (The Wichita Eagle) Coulter, Ann: Treason "---Now, in this stunning follow-up to her #1 NY Times bestseller, Slander, Coulter contends that liberals have stood with the enemies of American interests in every major crisis from the fight against Communism to today's war on terrorism. Re-examining the 60-year history of the Cold War and beyond -- including the career of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the Hiss-Chambers affair, Ronald Reagan's face-off with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Gulf War, the Clinton impeachment, and Operation Iraqi Freedom -- Coulter reveals the Left's shameful record of blindness to, and active cooperation with, the forces of totalitarianism and terror.---" DEMOCRATS WAILING ABOUT TAX CUTS - NEALZ NUZE "For decades the Democrats have been working to shift the burden for federal income taxes over to a small percentage of higher-income Americans. We’re now at the point where the bulk of federal income taxes are paid by about 25% of all income earners, and where the bottom 50% of income earners pay virtually none. "Gephardt’s statements on CNN this morning were a celebration of victory in the Democrats grand plan. Of course Bush’s tax cuts benefit a “favored few.” It’s the same “few” that actually pay income taxes! Of course Bush’s tax cut favors the “richest Americans.” They’re the ones paying the taxes. When the “average person” doesn’t pay income taxes, the “average person” shouldn’t expect to see more money in his pay check when taxes are cut! "Gephardt’s plan? Same old stuff. Just write checks. Give people a check for $300 .. or couples a check for $600 and call it a “tax cut.” Only in the wonderful world of leftist newspeak can you take give $600 to someone who doesn’t pay income taxes, and call it a tax cut." Most North Carolina families earn 'dying wage' - Carolina Journal | John Hood's Daily Journal "---Of course, no one in an actual labor market sets wage rates based on perceptions of need. Wages in a competitive market reflect the productivity of the worker, what the worker actually contributes to the production and sale of a good or service to a willing buyer. If a worker cannot command enough of a wage to live above the poverty line, then the problem lies in a failure to acquire the knowledge, skills, technology, and other capital necessary to be more productive. You can't just paper over the problem with a government regulation. It doesn't increase the value of the work being offered for sale.---" CEI.ORG: Competitive Enterprise Institute: Supporting a Risky Water Policy "---Chlorination is one of the world's most important public health tools; it saves thousands of lives every day of the year. About 98 percent of U.S. water suppliers use some form of chlorination, preventing outbreaks of disease. When officials reduced its use in Peru in 1991, thousands of people died. Rather than seeking ways to phase chlorine out, the truly humanitarian policy seeks to expand its use. "Yet environmental activists are supporting legislation—introduced by Sen. Jon Corzine, New Jersey Democrat, that seeks to mandate what environmentalists call "inherently safer technology," which the bill defines as phasing out or drastically reducing the use of chemicals. Key targets are chemicals necessary to provide food and water—chlorine, which cleans our water (and provides numerous other public health benefits) and anhydrous ammonia, which is used in fertilizers to grow our food. "They propose such policies in the name of preventing terrorist-produced releases from public and private industrial operations. But jeopardizing clean water and making food more expensive certainly won't make the world safer or healthier. "In any case, the concept of inherently safer technologies is pure silliness. We engage in "inherently unsafe" activities every day—driving, taking medicine, getting vaccines, and risking slipping in the shower—because of the tremendous benefits these activities bring.---" This Is Maine On Drugs - Reason If you loved rent control, you'll die for drug price controls "---The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) contested the Maine system on grounds that it violated the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Justice John Paul Stevens rejected this argument in favor of the public health rationale that Maine could set drug prices because it has an interest in protecting the health of its uninsured residents. This stretches the definition of public health way beyond the conventional notions of providing medical information, controlling communicable diseases, applying sanitary measures, and monitoring environmental hazards. If mandated lower prices are a public health measure, surely requiring doctors and hospitals to provide health care for free can be construed to be so, too. That would definitely save states a lot of money.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Socialized medicine - On the road to serfdom. Spinning the Tornado Story - www.cato.org "No doubt about it, it's been a good month for tornadoes even by the "spinny" standards of May, when most twisters occur. Even more predictable than the development of severe storms in spring, however, is the phenomenon of people trying to tie such bad weather to global warming.--- "It has become Standard Operating Procedure in climate change hype to never bother with inconvenient facts. Tons of tornado data are only a few mouse-clicks away.---" The U.S. is addicted to war on drugs - The Globe and Mail "---the principal impact of drug policies is not on levels of drug use but on death, disease, crime and the criminal justice system. By and large, the more punitive the approach, the greater the harms that result. Thus, the United States represents 5 per cent of the world's population and 25 per cent of the world's prison population. Almost half a million people are locked up for violating a drug law (more than all of Western Europe locks up for everything). This brutal incarceration rate is part and parcel of U.S. drug policy. Canadians, beware.---" TechCentralStation :: EUROPE :: Disciplined Pluralism "In the most extraordinary controlled experiment in the history of social sciences, a country was divided into two zones. The economic organization of one was based on planning and coordination, while in the other economic power was decentralized and no explicit coordination was attempted. After fifteen years, a wall was built to sustain the experiment and prevent citizens of one zone fleeing to the other. Twenty-five years later, the citizens of both zones tore down the wall.--- "The market economy offers feedback that is honest, and generally rapid. Central planning structures, by contrast, were neither pluralist nor disciplined: the single voice determined the course of action, and that course was continued long after its failure would have been evident to any objective observer. It is the contrast between single voice and disciplined pluralism that explains why, in the end, the Berlin Wall was bound to fall." Stossel wins journalism prize - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: MyInKy.com "Libertarian journalist John Stossel has been awarded a $10,000 prize by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, for his work focusing on media scare stories." (5/21/03) The Miami Herald | 05/22/2003 | Court voids big smoking case award "---The Third District Court of Appeal ruled that Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Robert Kaye erred by letting a jury hear the first-ever smokers' class-action lawsuit. The reason: Each of the estimated 700,000 plaintiffs had different smoking and medical histories. "In other words, each smoker should first have to win an individual claim for compensatory damages for illnesses such as lung cancer before joining a class action to seek punitive damages. Legal experts say such a process could take decades for everyone.---" Tort reform, R.I.P. -- The Washington Times "Tort reform is a popular issue for Republicans on the stump. At a March speech to the American Medical Association, President Bush said, "Without fair and reasonable limits, the legal system looks more and more like a lottery. And with trial lawyers getting as much as 40 percent of the awards and settlements, it's pretty clear who is holding the winning ticket." Tort reform is a major plank of the president's plan to reform health care. Unfortunately, Senate Republicans blew an opportunity to make progress on limiting excessive lawyers' fees. "By a vote of 61-37, the Senate last Thursday rejected an amendment authored by Jon Kyl to the tax-cut bill that would have capped the amount lawyers could receive when working on major tort cases for the government, such as in the anti-tobacco litigation.--- "Mr. Kyl's legislation was not radical or restrictive to the suing profession. It merely would have confined the lawyers' cut of awards of more than $100 million to 500 percent of "reasonable hourly rates." Poor chaps, the law would have pared their pay down to $2,500 per hour, from the $100,000 an hour some currently are making on the tobacco settlement.---" Vox Populi: Keep Teaching the Constitution - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "Readers applauded the efforts of a Virginia-based group dedicated to better teaching of the Constitution in high school and increasing the educational emphasis on the founders." Read Letters to the Editor Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Jayson Blair/New York Times episode - NEALZ NUZE "The proponents of that program of racial discrimination known as affirmative action are getting a bit concerned about the Jayson Blair/New York Times episode." Full story Auto-lease liability: deeper into crisis - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 pt. III "Honda has become the latest automaker to announce that it will stop leasing new cars to buyers in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island (see Mar. 12-14, 2003, Aug. 26, 2002). The problem is 1920s-era "vicarious liability" laws in those three states, fiercely guarded by the trial lawyer lobby, which expose leasing and rental car companies to unlimited personal injury claims when their customers get into accidents.---" Wrong Again - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." -- Paul Ehrlich in (1969) "The New Holocaust Denial" - Junkscience.com - "One of the more odious tactics of today's historical revisionists is the outright denial of the Jewish Holocaust. Beginning with the Nazis themselves, and continuing through modern Hitler apologists, it has always been fashionable among the desperately anti-Semitic to claim that the six million exterminated Jews simply never existed. Now a similar deceit surrounds the tragedy of starvation in Africa. And judging from the "Biodevastation" protest event held during the past few days in St. Louis, the new Holocaust deniers are today's anti-biotech campaigners." (Center For Consumer Freedom) "Coaxing nature to reveal 1,000 years of the Earth's climate" - Junkscience.com "Goodness! Even the Globe allows space for this heresy!" (Tounge in cheek comment by editor.--TA) "The 20th century may not have been so extraordinarily hot after all, according to a climate study of the last thousand years, which confirms historical accounts of fig trees growing in Germany and early grape harvests in England during medieval times." (Larry O'Hanlon, Boston Globe) An Inquiry into the General Lack of Violent Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust - Unpopular Speech by Ian McCollum "The Holocaust brings to mind visions of docile and helpless Jews being led to their demise in gas chambers, not visions of determined Jews fighting to defend their homes against German aggressors. Why is this? Why did six million Jews allow themselves to be slaughtered like so many sheep? Did they really just submit to the Germans’ orders?" The primary problem with government education - NEALZ NUZE "How many times and how many different writers and experts does it take to get this to sink in: The primary problem with government education in this country is the government workers unions that run our schools. Add to the mix, suburban parents. They’re part of the problem too." Full story ADHD price for 'psychological' child rearing - Bradenton.com - Your Bradenton Everything Guide "I am convinced that ADHD is one of many prices we are paying for adopting, 30 to 40 years ago, a "psychological" approach to child rearing, an approach that has absolutely nothing in common with the child rearing practiced before that time.---" What Would Scoop Do? - Fellow Democrats, get serious about defense or get used to losing - OpinionJournal - Featured Article BY DONNA BRAZILE AND TIMOTHY BERGREEN Wednesday, May 21, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT "---The American people agree with us on many vital issues--but they believe that we Democrats are weak and indecisive when it comes to standing up to dictators and terrorists, and when it comes to the primary responsibility of government: defending the nation. No matter how compelling our positions on the economy, health care, Social Security, the environment and privacy, if voters continue to see us as feckless and effete they will not listen to our message next year and they will re-elect Mr. Bush.---" HEIGHTENED ALERT - NEALZ NUZE "---The threat is coming from Arabs .. Islamic Arabs. Airport security screeners and other security personnel will not be allowed to single out people of Middle Eastern appearance for special attention. "Airport security screeners will continue to look for weapons and explosives, not terrorists. The world champs at handling these types of security concerns, the Israelis, look for terrorists, not weapons. "In other words --- government will continue to conduct itself with the same exemplary wisdom and logic that we’ve come to know and love over the decades." ANOTHER REASON TO END THE DRUG WAR - NEALZ NUZE "There seems to be some evidence that North Korea’s lead gargoyle, Kim Jong Il, may be in the drug trade. They found a North Korean ship loaded with a huge cache of heroin last month in Australia. The fear is that North Korea may be selling hard drugs to get money for their nuclear program. "This only works because drugs bring such high profits – profits in the range of 10,000% and more. And drugs only bring these huge profits because they are illegal! "If you even the slightest hint of an open mind, you know what the solution is here." www.privacyalert.us - Special Feature: MAKING IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG "---But, at The Times as in most of the guilt-ridden socialist left, "diversity" is only a code word. "Was the internship program used to bring into the newsroom more gun owners (who might have a differing view from the editorial board on one of the nation's most divisive issues), more fundamentalist Christians opposed to abortion (offering a divergent view on the nation's other most divisive issue), more militia members, more Reagan Republicans, more Libertarians, more property-rights advocates, more folks who agree with Gordon Phillips and John Kotmair and Irwin Schiff that current law requires no American to pay a federal income tax on his in-country wages? "Of course not. The monochrome leftist Times doesn't seek any "diversity" of political views. When it says it seeks "diversity," it means it's hunting for a few more highly visible "Puerto Rican and house Negro" faces — assuming they're of the proper collectivist persuasion — to grace the front window.---" Why central planning doesn't work - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Liberty for All Author: Mike Ruff "An economy in motion tends to stay in motion, and an economy at rest tends to stay at rest. A free market is constantly in motion. A centrally planned market slows until it eventually dies completely." (6/1/03) Chicken Little doesn't live here any more - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Carolina Journal Author: John Hood "Those politicians, activists, scholars, and journalists who issued dire warnings in the 1990s about the calamitous impact of welfare reform on poor families have yet to offer a coherent explanation for how wrong they were." (5/20/03) From parody to reality - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: TCS Author: James K Glassman "[T]he lawsuits, as crazy as they are, are simply one manifestation of the hysteria surrounding obesity -- not just an American, but a worldwide phenomenon. This hysteria is easy to dismiss, but it is important." (5/21/03) Our special responsibility - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: TCS Europe Author: Frits Bolkestein and Hans H.J. Labohm "[W]hat exactly does globalization mean? How is it likely to affect our lives? Is it a curse or a blessing? Should we fear globalization or should we acclaim it?" (5/21/03) A philanthropist goes to Washington - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: FEE Author: James L Payne "Over the years, a number of donors and foundations have targeted their giving not at helping people and solving problems, but at getting government to help people and solve problems. .... What's wrong with this politically oriented philanthropy?" (5/03) Anti-terror powers used too broadly, report finds - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Washington Post "The Justice Department has used many of the anti-terrorism powers granted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to pursue defendants for crimes unrelated to terrorism, including drug violations, credit card fraud and bank theft, according to a government accounting ..." (5/21/03) First Class Research on Second Hand Smoke - CNSNews.com Letters to the Editor "Editor’s Note: Author, CATO Institute scholar and Junkscience.com publisher Steven Milloy wrote in a June 2001 commentary that in 1998, “The WHO published the largest study ever done on secondhand smoke and lung cancer. The study reported no statistically significant association between secondhand smoke and lung cancer.” "He also noted in his column that on the WHO’s 2001 World No-Tobacco day web site list at that time, there was a section entitled ‘Comprehensive Reports on Passive Smoking by Authoritative Scientific Bodies.’ "Milloy noted “The WHO omitted its own report from the list of ‘comprehensive reports’ by ‘authoritative scientific bodies’ no doubt because the ‘wrong’ answer was reported.”---" School Board Settles Complaint by Pro-Gun Coalition -- 05/21/2003 "Public schools in Montclair, N.J., can't distribute gun control literature to students, then refuse to distribute materials explaining the other side of the story, a court has ruled. "A coalition of pistol and rifle clubs in New Jersey has settled its lawsuit against the Montclair Board of Education, which allowed an anti-gun group to hand out materials to students - then refused a request to distribute pro-Second Amendment materials.---" Tuesday, May 20, 2003
"A Grand Façade" - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 pt. II . "[Few Americans] have any idea about what the grand jury is supposed to do and its day-to-day operation. That ignorance largely explains how some over-reaching prosecutors have been able to pervert the grand jury, whose original purpose was to check prosecutorial power, into an inquisitorial bulldozer that enhances the power of government and now runs roughshod over the constitutional rights of citizens." (W. Thomas Dillard, Stephen R. Johnson, and Timothy Lynch, "A Grand Façade: How the Grand Jury Was Captured by Government", Cato Institute Policy Analysis #476, May 13 (executive summary; full paper in PDF format)) Suing 'til the cows come home. - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 "From a Forbes article on why the city of Fresno, Calif. and its surrounding Central Valley are so economically depressed: "Then there is the assault from the greenies. In Fresno's surrounding counties, the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment [a unit of the federally funded California Rural Legal Assistance -- ed.] has used lawsuits to halt 125 new and expanded dairy projects since 1998, projects that would have increased the state's milk cow population by a third." (Lynn J. Cook, "Economic Death Valley", Forbes, May 26). See also Larry Serpa, "Dairies can coexist with environment", Visalia Times-Delta, Nov. 3-4, 2001; Michael Boccadoro, "Activist groups do more to cause poverty than cure it", Dairy Business, Feb. 2002, both reprinted at DairyCares site." Wrong Again - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer." -- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968) NEALZ NUZE "We’ll just sit around and see if Bill O’Reilly takes this on … graduation parties and ceremonies for black students only." Full story NEALZ NUZE - From SFGate.com. "Adam Sparks wonders if the Democrats are just simply out of their minds. Here we have an election year coming, and they just can’t get the important stuff right!" Full story LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WILL PICK UP THE SLACK - NEALZ NUZE "---Remember -- if you run into budget problems you have three options. You can work harder to earn more money, you can cut your spending, or you can borrow some money and pay it back later. Not so for governments. When politicians figure out that they've spent themselves into a budget crunch they don't have to cut spending. They don't have to do anything to actually earn the extra money they need. If politicians need more money they simply step up to you and TAKE IT. This is the power that comes from being a part of the only entity that can use deadly force to accomplish its goals. With President Bush's tax cut at the federal level these local hacks feel even more emboldened ... after all, you have all that extra money now, don't you? "What can we do? Well, we can vote these big tax-and-spenders out, can't we? The problem is, they're probably using that money they took from someone else to do something nice for YOU! So you aren't likely to vote them out of office. "By the way ... how many of you have read "Atlas Shrugged?" How California's consumer laws legalize extortion - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: FEE Author: Steven Greenhut "[T]he state's consumer laws, designed to protect the 'little guy' from unfair business practices, are providing unethical predators the tools to unfairly take advantage of those least able to protect themselves. The biggest losers are the consumers ..." (5/03) Tough broads - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Cathy Young "Here's a newsflash: Girls, like boys, are only human. When girls are violent and cruel, we should hold them responsible just as we would boys." (5/20/03) Who killed Kyoto? - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: TCS Europe Author: Iain Murray "The Kyoto treaty was killed in November 2000, during the dying days of the Clinton-Gore administration. We didn't notice in the United States because something else was going on at that time." (5/20/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The French did it. JAMA drinks and number-crunches, with predictable results - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: CCF Author: staff "Through a number-crunching process impossible to divine from the published account, the [study] authors conclude that 'with every increase of 1 million teen readers, the amount of beer and liquor ads rose by 60 percent.' But the raw data tell another story." (5/19/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ideological junk science du jour. CNN rapped over gun segment -- The Washington Times "CNN has found itself the target of criticism for misleading viewers about the types of weapons prohibited by a federal law due to expire next year. "Two CNN broadcasts last week, which featured firing demonstrations by the sheriff's department in Broward County, Fla., suggested that firearms banned under a 1994 law are more powerful than similar, legal weapons. Yesterday, CNN admitted that was not true. "In fact, if you fire the same caliber and type bullets from the two guns, you get the same impact," CNN's John Zarella told viewers yesterday. "One of the Thursday broadcasts incorrectly reported that fully automatic weapons are included in the 1994 ban on 19 types of semiautomatic rifles. Fully automatic firearms have been federally regulated since 1934.--- "In the first of the two segments that aired Thursday, a Broward County detective fired the AK-47 in semiautomatic mode, and the camera showed bullets hitting a cinder-block target. The detective then fired a legal semiautomatic weapon, and CNN showed a cinder-block target with no apparent damage. On Friday, CNN admitted that the detective had not been firing at the cinder block. "Some law enforcement officers who saw the Broward County sheriff's presentation on CNN called the NRA to say they were "horrified that a law enforcement official would mislead the public this way," said "NRA Live" host Ginny Simone.---" Prize-Winning Businessman Lashed by OSHA - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "A factory owner who won a prize for complying with Massachusetts' Toxic Use Reduction Act is now fighting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration over the device that earned him prize in the first place. Read the story If it Takes a Village, Move to One - CNSNews.com Letters to the Editor “In Michelle Malkin's article she wrote, ‘But leave it to Hillary to attempt to ‘solve’ yet another non-problem through government central planning. ‘Right now, there is no single source of information,’ she complained. ‘We need a central clearinghouse.’” (‘Hillary's Big Nanny Hotline,’ May 14 commentary) "I have a better idea for Hillary. Let's just clear the house of all these Marxist-socialists and send them to Cuba, China, or Sudan where they would feel right at home in the socialist paradise of our choice. "Then, neighbor would be free to help neighbor without the burden of the mommy-nanny state taxing us to pauperdom so they can control us and live off of the sweat of our brows.” Jim F. Milwaukee, WI Sidebar: Gun Control and Racism in America - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "Scholars and academics have argued about whether American gun control laws are a form of institutional racism, but there's a body of evidence showing that gun control laws targeting blacks pre-date the Declaration of Independence." See Fact-o-Rama Author Accuses Media of Intentional Bias Against Guns - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - "The author of the most comprehensive and controversial research on civilians' use of firearms says he understands why negative stories about the use of guns tend to get more coverage than stories about people using guns to stop crime." Full Story Monday, May 19, 2003
Poverty For 'Those People' - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don't suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them." -- Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund "The Virtual Earthers" - Junkscience.com "IPCC proponents and environmentalists often like to characterise climate skeptics as akin to `Flat Earthers' - as if skepticism about the credibility of climate models were somehow equivalent to the denial of something so patently obvious as the spherical earth. The head of the IPCC recently used exactly that phrase in New Zealand. "That's just politics of course, much the same way as any political critic is demonised as a means to deflect attention from the criticism itself. While the term `Flat Earther' is obviouly mere political rhetoric, a much more accurate term can be applied to the IPCC and their supporters - `Virtual Earthers'." (Still Waiting For Greenhouse) "Maldives Joins the Frenzy" - Junkscience.com "For several years, the government of Tuvalu, egged on by GreenPeace activists, has led the international campaign over the `plight' of coral island nations like Tuvalu, warning they could sink below the waves due to `global warming'." (Still Waiting For Greenhouse) New York Woman Dies Following Mistaken Police Drug Raid - Cato Daily Dispatch for May 19, 2003 "A 57-year-old Harlem woman preparing to leave for her longtime city government job died of a heart attack Friday morning after police officers broke down her door and threw a concussion grenade into her apartment, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said. They were acting on what appeared to be bad information about guns and drugs in the apartment," The New York Times reports.--- "In "Another Drug War Casualty," Timothy Lynch, director of Cato's Project on Criminal Justice, writes, "The endless escalations of the 'drug war' have led to the militarization of police tactics and the dilution of constitutional safeguards. ..Dangerous as drugs may be to those who use them, that danger pales in comparison with the dangers of a police state. Yet little by little, that is what the War on Drugs is giving us." It can happen here, and already has - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Colorado Freedom Report Author: Douglas Bruce "The classic hallmark of a police state is the ability of armed police to stop citizens and to demand to see their identity papers. ... You may scoff, 'It can't happen here,' but it is happening, today ..." (05/08/03) Denver Post Pushes Agenda of Anti-Gun Lobby "---As I've reported (http://www.co-freedom.com/2003/04/tragic.html), other items are much, much more dangerous for children [than guns]. In 2000, here is the number of unintentional deaths for several categories for children ages 0-14: Transportation: 2,787 Drowning: 943 Fire-related: 593 Poisoning: 91 Firearms: 86 Falls: 81 "As I have argued, by stressing one type of danger and ignoring others, you give your readers a false sense of life's dangers.---" Let's go Dutch - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Strike the Root Author: Rex Curry "It is inspiring to walk into a Dutch smoke shop and see U.S. citizens quietly engaging in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is embarrassing to see less personal freedom in my country, 'the land of the free.'" (5/19/03) Achieving Bovocracy by Fred Reed "---Maybe we should stop kidding ourselves. Little pretense remains that reason or morality has much to do with government. Everything is done by groups. It is said to be unconstitutional to burn a cross, yet constitutional to burn a flag. Why? Because the first offends blacks; the second, conservative whites. (Personally I couldn’t care less about burning either.) Enormous pressure forced VMI to admit girls, yet Wellesley, admitting only girls, gets nary a hard word. Are black colleges forced to become 85% white? No. We believe in high principle, but only for some people. "It never stops. “Deadbeat dads” are persecuted, pilloried, denied passports, imprisoned. Women who give birth to twelve illegitimate kids by several dozen fathers, none of whose names they can remember, are victims. Why? We all know. It is because we are a government not of men, not of laws, not of principle, but of sacred cows." Heroin and addiction - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Jacob Sullum "Booth also declares that 'everyone ... is a potential addict'; that 'addiction can start with the very first dose'; .... Booth's description is wrong or grossly misleading in every particular. To understand why is to recognize the fallacies underlying a reductionist, drug-centered view of addiction ..." (5/19/03) Is the stock market a casino? - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: FEE Author: Sheldon Richman "A given person might approach the stock market as though he were gambling; he might rely entirely on luck rather than skill in picking his investments. But the fact remains that the underlying process is not a game ..." (5/19/03) SARS -- fear over reason - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: ACSH Author: Gilbert Ross "The specter of contagious disease often engenders a primal reaction based on fear, with resultant irrational behavior. SARS is no exception." (5/12/03) The paradox of 'affordable' housing - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: ASI Author: Daniel Moylan "Daniel Moylan exposes the fraud and error of the "affordable housing" debate, or, "Why 'Affordable Housing' Isn't." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Socialism creates problems rather than solving them. Setting the story straight: the truth about corporate inversions - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: ATR Author: Grover Norquist and Damon Ansell "Several Members of Congress have recently proposed offsetting the tax cuts in the Bush Economic Growth Package with something they are referring to as "revenue raisers." Unfortunately, despite the rosy image that these Members have attempted to create, the revenue raisers are, in fact, nothing more than a list of unjustifiable and unethical tax increases." (05/15/03) Junk science and the NAACP - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED "---The organization [NAACP] brought forward a pile of confusing data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) purporting to show that some gun manufacturers and dealers were more likely than others to have their guns used in crimes. The NAACP's goal was to use this data to get a federal court injunction putting new restrictions on the sale and manufacturing of handguns. "But, when subject to careful statistical analysis, the NAACP's case fell apart. The defense case included testimony from Nancy Mathiowetz, an expert on survey methods, who showed that the NAACP witnesses made numerous errors in methodology in interpreting the BATF data.---" Family Spends 17 Years Fighting IRS Error -- 05/19/2003 "Nancy Jacobs and her husband, Dr. Fredric Jacobs, were forced to spend 17 years fighting the Internal Revenue Service because of an internal problem within the federal tax-collecting agency.--- "The 17-year nightmare endured by the Jacobs family was the result of an IRS mistake. "Nevertheless, the IRS still would not publicly admit its error, so the Jacobses went to the media to tell their story. Approximately two hours after the story appeared in a local paper, an IRS employee called the couple and informed them that the IRS was in error. At that point, all liens were lifted and the IRS admitted fault for giving out the wrong EIN." Presidential Critics Named 'Porkers of the Month'CNSNews.com -- News This Hour (CNSNews.com) - "Citizens Against Government Waste has named three Democrats as "Porkers of the Month" for their "hypocritical stance" against President Bush's aircraft carrier landing. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) let partisanship get in the way of patriotism, CAGW said in a press release. The group noted that Sen. Byrd has brought $298 million in pork-barrel projects home to West Virginia in 2003 alone. His new office space in the U.S. Capitol cost taxpayers $150,000, CAGW said. Both Reps. Conyers and Waxman have poor ratings when it comes to government waste, CAGW said, making it particularly galling for them to demand a government investigation into the costs associated with President Bush's aircraft carrier landing. The General Accounting Office last week declined to investigate, saying such a probe would cost more than the president's trip did." Union Watchdogs Say Scandals Show Need for Reform -- 05/19/2003 "---The Miami-based United Teachers of Dade and the Washington Teachers Union have generated headlines for embezzlement scandals so big that the American Federation of Teachers was forced to take control of both affiliates in an attempt to restore order. "But these two episodes are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to financial corruption, said David Kendrick, who tracks union corruption as director of the Organized Labor Accountability Project at the National Legal and Policy Center. "Kendrick said other affiliates of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), its chief competitor, are responsible for abusing their members' dues.---" Sunday, May 18, 2003
The Sacramento Bee: Democrats side with lawyers over small-business owners By Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Friday, May 9, 2003 [Via: Overlawyered.com] "The state Assembly's dominant Democrats had a choice Thursday: help the thousands of small-business owners who have been clobbered by extortionate lawsuits or lawsuit threats under the state's broad unfair competition law, or stand with personal injury attorneys who are among the Democrats' most reliable campaign contributors. "The attorneys, to the utter surprise of no one, emerged as victors in a showdown hearing of the Assembly Judiciary Committee.--- "What happened is not surprising to anyone who knows of the close ties between the trial attorneys and the Democratic Party, but it is instructive nonetheless. It reveals who really counts when a well-heeled special-interest lobby collides with struggling small-business owners who don't contribute to politicians' campaign treasuries -- notwithstanding the flowery rhetoric about protecting those on the lower end of the economic scale." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Democrats protect the "little guy"?????????????????????? CEI.ORG: Competitive Enterprise Institute: In Gaia We Trust: White House Puts Faith In EPA "---Let us now visit the voices of greens past, present, and future revealing their "people are pollution" philosophy: • "To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem." Lamont Cole (as quoted by Elizabeth Whelan in her book Toxic Terror) • "This is as good a way to get rid of them as any." Charles Wursta, Chief Scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, commenting on the likelihood of millions dying from a global ban on DDT (also quoted in Toxic Terror) • "I got the impression that instead of going out to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the kids who shoot birds." Paul Watson, founder of Greenpeace (quoted in Access to Energy, vol. 10, no. 4, Dec. 1982) • "The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state." Kenneth Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept (quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982) • "The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species [man] upon the rest of the natural world." John Shuttleworth, Friends of the Earth manual writer---" CEI.ORG: Competitive Enterprise Institute: In Gaia We Trust: White House Puts Faith In EPA "---But the environmental movement, now more than ever, does represent the American Left at worship. The green crusade is now crafting a new way for its own troubling religion to pervert traditional faith. Having fought in federal court to deny its religiosity — and thus continue its life-sustaining flow of taxpayer dollars — the Down With People machine is donning religious vestments and teaming up with the Bush administration to tap the president's faith-based initiative. "CNSNews.com reports that "EPA is informally seeking 'ideas' regarding how religious groups who promote green causes like climate change and pollution controls, can qualify for the White House's faith-based funds." The very idea of green evangelizing infecting Bush's faith-based initiative should raise alarm, since the movement has far more in common with pagan themes than with traditional tenets of faith.---" Capitalism Magazine: Liberalism vs. Individual Rights by Andrew Bernstein "---Why do liberals pay lip service to supporting the poor, the elderly, the worker—while invariably endorsing the violation of the rights of those very individuals? The answer is that liberals repudiate the principle of individual rights in favor of collectivism. Only groups exist in their thinking, and only "group rights" are valid. They see life only in terms of collectives—the rich versus the poor, the young versus the elderly, the whites versus the blacks. Individuals have no reality and no meaning to them.--- "These injustices will continue until the liberals' collectivism is rejected in favor of the principle of individualism. Only when it is understood that each and every individual has inalienable rights can mankind eradicate the egregious violations perpetrated by the liberals or sanctioned by their silence." Capitalism Magazine: God, Buggery, and Mister Rogers by Ralph R. Reiland (May 15, 2003) "Summary: A few carloads of religious fundamentalists were swarming recently outside Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh to reveal the will of God regarding Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and a few other devilish things. And so, to understand what was bugging this traveling circus, I had to go to the demonstration to see what was making these insects tick." Capitalism Magazine: Capitalism for Doctors by Nicholas Provenzo (May 16, 2003) "Summary: Understanding how the principle of individual rights applies to our economic relationships is the first step in defending our right to the fruits of our productivity." Larry Kudlow: A Wall Street/Washington disconnect "---No doubt, there's a big disconnect between Wall Street and Washington -- which often happens. But this chasm is unusually wide. Why? The vast majority of political reporters in Washington do not believe in the markets. They are unwilling to listen to the forward-looking message from Wall Street and the investor class that better economic times are coming. This stubbornness reflects their belief that stock- and bond-market movements are either randomly capricious events or -- even worse -- they are rigged by a bunch of greedy rich people.--- "In stockland, if lower tax rates on investment capital and worker incomes are so ineffective, why are big and small-cap growth stocks leading the charge into the next bull market? "Most political reporters and commentators in Washington can't answer these questions. In short, they're economic nincompoops. They buy into the liberal line that tax cuts should temporarily put money into the pockets of lower-income folks -- those who don't even pay taxes in the first place. They don't understand (and if they do they won't tell you) that liberal politicians want to keep more money in Washington so they can spend it -- especially on Democratic interest-group causes.---" Jonah Goldberg: Liberals twist privacy arguments "---And so here we are. Liberals have rediscovered privacy, blamed their excesses on "Bennett's rules" and charged Bennett with hypocrisy for defying standards he never set in the first place. Only in America." Kathleen Parker: Jayson Blair: A study in compassionate racism "As newspaper editors convened emergency denial-control meetings and minority journalists circled their wagons, New York Times executive editor Howell Raines went ahead and admitted what was obvious to anyone without a blankie over his head: Of course it's about race. "Howell was talking about the Times' failure to properly handle the now-infamous Jayson Blair affair, regarding the 27-year-old reporter who fabricated many of the front-page stories he penned during his nearly four-year Times career.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Trouble in liberal land. David Limbaugh: Scapegoating to 'paradise' May 17, 2003 "The liability lawsuit against McDonald’s hamburger chain strikes me as frivolous, even laughable on its face. But I’m not laughing because it is not just some isolated, renegade, over-the-top lawsuit. It’s representative of a society-deadening illness in America.--- "You better believe this insanity will not stop with McDonald’s and it won’t stop with fast foods – because this really isn’t about nutrition. It’s about changing our societal relationships, restructuring our economic system and undermining the nuclear family. It’s about destroying our liberties by divorcing them from personal responsibility and accountability – freedom can’t long survive without them.--- "Why do I say that? Well, under cockeyed theories like this all manufacturers and vendors are at risk. It’s hard enough for businesses today with onerous taxes and stifling regulations, but what about their constant exposure to liability because a certain percentage of the population simply will not consume in moderation (fast foods) or because certain criminals will misuse lawful products (guns)?---" Debra Saunders: Testy, testy ''It's no mystery why teachers unions and school boards oppose standardized achievement tests and exit exams. When they're falling short, they're not eager to announce it.---'' Tax those who voted for Davis - Modbee.com | The Modesto Bee - Letter Published: May 18, 2003, 05:50:11 AM PDT "In the interest of justice, only those voters who voted for Gov. Davis should be taxed via sales tax and car registration increases. After all, those of us who voted for another candidate are innocent of such stupidity and are not responsible for the budget mess in which California now finds itself. "I wonder though just how many people would actually admit that they voted for that scalawag. Oh, wait a minute. Didn't The Modesto Bee recommend that we vote for him? Well then, The Bee can just pay for my next car license fee. How's that for justice? EARL WHITNER Modesto A chronicle of journalistic diversity - Recordnet.com By Jim Sleeper "Seven years ago, The Washington Post's Book World editor phoned to ask if I knew how 12 paragraphs from my June 2, 1996, Post review of Marshall Frady's ''Jesse: The Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson'' had wound up a few weeks later in the San Francisco Chronicle under another reviewer's byline. I was mystified.--- "When I called the ''author'' of the Chronicle review for his account, he stunned me: ''As an African- American, I would never 'lift' a story, because we are already under the cloud of Janet Cooke,'' he said, referring to The Washington Post reporter who had fabricated her Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of a young boy on heroin. "I said simply, ''I really don't care what race you are.'' He insisted his editor's story of a mix-up was true and promised to send me his original version. It never came. He remained at his post for several more years.--- "If people such as Blair and the Chronicle's reviewer weren't hired or kept on to assuage white managers' moralistic enthusiasm and guilt, there would still be many fine black journalists in American newsrooms. "Too many newspapers are driven by corporate policy to finesse the heavy lifting that should have been done for more black kids much earlier in life, at home and in school. "Professionals can't indulge double standards for the sake of appearances or moral relief. The harsh reality is that the soft bigotry of low expectations only worsens the situation. For every legitimate complaint a black reporter can make about the ceiling that blocks promotion, there arises another legitimate complaint by a reporter or manager -- black or white -- about having gone the extra mile for a young black reporter with insurmountable skill deficiencies or demons.---" Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics "---I don't think being a minority makes you a victim of anything except numbers. The only things I can think of that are truly discriminatory are things like the United Negro College Fund, Jet Magazine, Black Entertainment Television, and Miss Black America. "Try to have things like the United Caucasian College Fund, Cloud Magazine, White entertainment Television, or Miss White America and see what happens. Jesse Jackson will be knocking down your door.---" (Anonymous) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Check out O'Reilly on the idea of having a "White high school prom". Who needs Jesse Jackson? Saturday, May 17, 2003
ajc.com - Ideological foes agree: Privacy rights in danger "---By weeding out those anti-terrorism measures that unduly intrude on Americans' privacy rights, we would actually be fortifying our counterterrorism strategy by re-emphasizing the importance of better foreign intelligence-gathering and analytical capabilities relative to increased surveillance powers, which are already extremely broad. "Our Constitution and Bill of Rights provide all the guidance required to keep America a land of unparalleled domestic security and individual liberty. It just might be worth rereading them to remind us of that, except for fear the government might find out we're reading up on just what our "unalienable rights" are." QUOTES TO REMEMBER - Keep and Bear Arms "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." —Dwight D. Eisenhower Save the Assault-Gun Ban - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: Newslinks Admin ------- "...Mr. Bush is trying to gain credit with soccer moms for backing reasonable gun control, while counting on members of his party to perform the dirty deed of blocking the ban's extension." "If that happens, it would be a big step backward that would endanger the lives of both the police and public. Hunters and target shooters have no need for bullet-spraying Uzis or AK-47's." ["bullet-spraying Uzis or AK-47's" ???????? - Stuff that's made up.] ------- "Since when is it up to the NY Times to decide what law abiding citizens need? Since when is the Second Amendment to the US Constitution about hunting or plinking?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Comment by: codrea4@adelphia.net (5/16/2003) "The New York Times??? "You mean the discredited, scandal-plagued rag that prints stuff that's made up? "The paper where the editors are too incompetent and politically correct to verify a reporter's facts because of his race? "Proven liars tell more lies. And their anti-gun publisher has a gun permit." sunspot.net - letters to the editor - Makers of firearms aren't cause of crime [Fourth letter on page.] "The bill before the Senate would not prohibit people from suing gun dealers who illegally sell firearms. Any of our member dealers could still be sued for illegal sales to felons. We could also be arrested for such illegal activities ("Taking cover," editorial, May 12). "The Senate bill only immunizes gun manufacturers against lawsuits that have no basis in illegal activities.---" Statistics don’t support Highway Patrol’s fear of concealed-carry law - Keep and Bear Arms Submitted by: paul raynolds "The Ohio State Highway Patrol has, for several years, opposed numerous bills introduced in the General Assembly to allow private citizens to carry concealed firearms." ... "The facts show that the patrol’s fear is unfounded. Forty-three states issue licenses to private citizens to carry concealed firearms. Some 3.5 million such licenses are in force. To date, no peace officer in any state has ever been assaulted during a traffic stop by any licensee using a legally carried concealed firearm." Police Illegally Raid Homes with Tank; Prompts Federal Lawsuit - Press Releases at Liberty For All - Online Magazine "---Critics contend that military tactics, ideology and methodology are replacing traditional American civilian law enforcement. According to reports published by the National Lawyer's Guild and others, the number of people who have died at the hands of police increased 230 percent between 1990 and 1999. This frightening escalation of militarized police violence has led the cities of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Dinuba, California, to completely dismantle their SWAT teams, and Seattle, Washington, and Dallas, Texas, have curtailed the activity of their SWAT units, taking them off drug raids and suicide calls.---" There are no gun-free, safe zones - Keep and Bear Arms "The attack on Friday took place in an area where guns were already banned, a so-called 'gun-free safe zone.' Yet, suppose you or your family are being stalked by a criminal who intends on harming you. Would you feel safer putting a sign in front of your home saying 'This Home is a Gun-Free Zone'?" ... "Good intentions don't necessarily make good laws. What counts is whether the laws ultimately save lives. Unfortunately, too many gun laws primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals." Keep and Bear Arms - Latest Armed Self-defense News Stories [Links provided at site.] • Armed store owner catches burglar (MI) • Crime Fighter Mom Fights Crime (MI) • Intruder Shot and Killed (CA) • Gun-toting homeowner, 75, thwarts attempted break-in (MI) • Activist's bond set in bar shooting (OH) • DA drops charges in fatal shooting (CA) • Robbery attempt was not a joke (OH) • Storeowner kills burglar, police say (LA) • Big Lake pastor kills 2 men robbing chapel, troopers say (AK) • David Lee Roth Detains Unwanted Visitor (CA) • Robbery thwarted at Democrat campaign headquarters (IN) • Robbers demand money, man pulls gun (SC) • Homeowner cleared in fatal shooting (OR) • Police say fatal shooting likely was self-defense (VA) • Carjacking victim won't be charged for killing teen (IL) » More Stories Like This Poverty For 'Those People' - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "Every time you turn on an electric light, you are making another brainless baby." -- Helen Caldicott, Union of Concerned Scientists Sound Science Not Silence - www.agbioworld.org "---Anti-biotechnology groups have a history of lobbing emotionally charged allegations, but the reality is that none of these groups has actually provided any credible scientific evidence that would question the safety of foods derived from biotech crops or the demonstrated benefits to the environment. Instead, anti-biotechnology groups use their rhetoric and allegations to advance their agenda, not to provide factual, informed perspectives. "The reality is that crops developed through plant biotechnology are among the most well-tested, well-characterized, and well-regulated food and fiber products ever developed. This is the overwhelming consensus of the international scientific community, including the Royal Society (1), National Academy of Sciences (2), the World Health Organization (3), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (4), the European Commission (5), the French Academy of Medicine (6), and the American Medical Association (7).---" It's a Grand, Grand, Grand Jury - consumerfreedom.com "Fallout continues to accumulate from a recent "Revolutionary Environmentalism" conference at Cal State Fresno. The February conclave featured classroom visits from violent radicals like convicted arsonist Rodney Coronado, anti-American terrorist "spokesperson" Craig Rosebraugh, and Animal Liberation Front evangelist Gary Yourofsky. At first, it appeared that the event's harshest critics might be in the California legislature, where two state senators have threatened to withhold a portion of Fresno State's funding. But now it looks like the university is also answering to a federal grand jury.---" Trial Lawyers Still Looking For A Drive-Thru Payday - consumerfreedom.com " ... all these platitudes about, 'people should eat less,' 'responsibility,' all this crap!" -- John Banzhaf, May 8, 2003 "---Before you start stockpiling Whoppers in anticipation of the price increases that would accompany a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit settlement, consider this: the Reuters story that preceded Banzhaf's current flurry was headlined "Lawyers plan new fast food assault." Lawyers -- not doctors, nutritionists, biologists, or other scientists -- are behind this attack on restaurants. The real experts tend to show far more common sense.---" Friday, May 16, 2003
Hindsight is 20/20 - www.house.gov/pombo/pomboreport Information provided by www.gop.gov "Americans are catching on to the liberal media bias, especially after watching coverage of the war in Iraq. According to an article written by Dick Morris for the New York Post, TV viewership for CBS dropped 15 percent, ABC’s fell 6 percent, and NBC gained only 3 percent. What did these networks have in common? The doom and gloom reporting of the war, followed by pessimistic predictions and little support. "On the other hand, viewership for the cable news networks rose, with Fox topping off a whopping 236 percent gain. These stations had a tendency to feature their embedded journalists who reported the surprisingly easy advancement of the war, and the optimistic outcome. Perhaps the old guard of liberal journalism on the public airwaves will be rooted out the good old fashion way – supply and demand." to be governed...Actually, it doesn't "go to" anyone; it stays with those who earned it "Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner today vetoed a proposed estate tax repeal. . . . "Democratic Sen. Linda T. "Toddy" Puller (Fairfax) . . . said she would support upholding Warner's veto, even though she voted for the repeal bill in the winter session. "I've learned more about it, that most of the money goes to a very few people," Puller said. --Washington Post, March 25, 2003 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Political intelligence - An oxymoron. Poverty For 'Those People' - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "We, in the green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which killing a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels." -- Carl Amery "Confused States" - Junkscience.com "Many states want to do their bit to combat climate change. Over two dozen, from Maine to New York to California, are planning to make their residents pay more for energy, subsidise energy conservation practices, and even push nuclear power. It's all an attempt, say State Legislatures, to try and reduce the emission of gases into the atmosphere. "But according to a new report from the Chicago-based independent Heartland Institute, existing measures adopted in the greenest states like California are already costing taxpayers millions of dollars and new proposed measures could bankrupt states. Furthermore, the authors of the report say that the evidence for man-made climate change is too flimsy to warrant even current programs, let alone those planned." (Roger Bate, TCS) TCS: Enviro-Sci - More Equal Than Others "---Electricity companies deal with the ever-changing renewable output by "spinning reserve." That is, they keep regular turbines, powered by coal, gas or nuclear, spinning to take up the slack when the wind suddenly dies down. "So when a "green" utility says in its annual report that they generated so many millions of kilowatt-hours of solar and wind energy, they do not tell you that they had to burn so many extra tons of coal or cubic feet of gas to appear green to their stockholders.--- "While engineers debate the exact figure, it is likely that a grid with more than about 10% solar and wind would likely crash too often for decent reliability. This is why Denmark, touted by greens as the promised land of wind energy, probably will not get much beyond that 10% of its electricity supplied by wind at present.---" "No detectable risk from mercury in seafood, study shows" - Junkscience.com "An exhaustive study of 643 children from before birth to 9 years of age shows no detectable risk from the low levels of mercury their mothers were exposed to from eating ocean seafood, according to a study in the May 16 issue of The Lancet. Children born to mothers-to-be who ate an average of 12 meals of fish a week – about 10 times the average U.S. citizen eats – showed no harmful symptoms." (University of Rochester Medical Center) Wall Street Journal Attack on Sweeteners Leaves Bitter Aftertaste - Junkscience.com - "Dieters, diabetics, and health-conscious folk take cover -- the tabletop sweetener police are back, and they’re after your diet soft drink. "In the latest round of attacks against artificial sweeteners, a May 14 Wall Street Journal column reels off a number of false (and tired) accusations against aspartame, the sweetener marketed as Equal and NutraSweet. (JunkScience.com)" Junkscience.com --"Kooky Cookie Lawsuit" "Many are laughing at the just-withdrawn lawsuit to ban Oreo cookies as yet another example of frivolous litigation. But news reports have completely missed the lawsuit's fundamental deficiency — its basis in junk science." (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com) "---So the attack on Oreos has quite an infamous pedigree — from the hysterical McGovern to the junk science-fueled Walter Willett to a money-grubbing personal injury lawyer. Joseph says on his Web site, after all, "We are looking for corporate sponsors... we need all the financial backing that we can get." "Now you know about trans fats." See No Evil - Tongue Tied May 16, 2003 "Employees of a rape crisis center in Maryland walked out of a meeting of the Family Violence Coordinating Council of Cecil County because they didn’t want to watch a news report about women who abuse men, reports the Cecil Whig. "Karen Dunne, who oversees the county’s women’s shelter, said in a prepared statement that “the use of skewered, sensationalist materials, often based on misleading statistics, myths, and non-scientific research, is non-productive to our mission and provides a disservice to all victims of violence." "Dunne and her colleagues believe that not enough men are abused by their partners to justify the attention to the subject, a position that some members of the Council called a blatant example of gender bias." [Emphasis added.--TA] The Evidence of Things Not Seen A study that supposedly validates "diversity" may do just the opposite. OpinionJournal - Taste BY CHETLY ZARKO Friday, May 16, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT "---As it happens--through a Freedom of Information Act request--I was able to obtain a copy of the study's first "Executive Summary," submitted on May 24, 1994. It concluded that Michigan's racial preference programs actually "stigmatized" African-Americans and "increasingly polarized" the campus; that "self-segregation" was common; that "diversity of skin color" is not equivalent to "diversity of ideas" (financial disparities were more telling); and that diversity "quite simply . . . does not, in itself, lead to a more informed, educated population." "Supporting economically based race-neutral preferences, the report noted that "our results suggest that too often we tend to overemphasize differences in terms of the kinds of people we are, while underemphasizing real differences in resources (especially financial)." Ironically, the summary was co-written by Ms. Gurin's husband, Gerald, also a professor of psychology (now retired).---" Chris Edwards on the Bush Tax Cut - NRO Financial "---To sum up, the House tax-cut plan has a small budget effect compared to spending increases. But the plan packs a punch for economic growth by reducing tax rates on workers and entrepreneurs, cutting business financing costs with the capital-gains and dividend provisions, and spurring business investment with larger depreciation deductions. As a bonus, the dividend tax cut will improve corporate management and help quash continuing financial scandals. All that for just 1.8 percent of the government's huge budget is an investment that the country cannot afford to miss." Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice - Welcome to Encounter Books Online! By Sol Stern "Parental choice in education is the leading civil rights issue of our day, and Sol Stern's observations-drawn from across decades of experiences as public school student in World War II New York, sixties radical, writer, and father-explain why so many of us view school choice as a moral imperative." —William J. Bennett, Former U.S. Secretary of Education "What a powerful and timely book! The Supreme Court says school choice is constitutional. Now Sol Stern explains why it's the essential alternative to a smug, schlerotic and monopolistic public-education establishment that never puts the kids' or parents' interests first. If you didn't already understand the need to carve an exit door for children, Stern's harrowing tales will open your eyes and boost your blood pressure." —Chester E. Finn, Jr. Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University & President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Welcome to Encounter Books Online! - Coloring the News: How Political Correctness Has Corrupted American Journalism by William McGowan "This magnificent collection of awkward facts, troubling arguments and unfashionable opinion reveals a cloud of dubious orthodoxy behind the ostensibly just pursuit of diversity in the news and in the newsroom … As 'Coloring the News' argues and demonstrates, it would be far better for liberal democracy in the long run for journalists to stick to the facts-especially the ones that are the most difficult to hear." —New York Post "McGowan has written a very substantial book, one that tells the truth about a very disturbing—and sadly persistent—trend in U.S. journalism." —National Review AND JUST WHO IS SURPRISED BY THIS? - NEALZ NUZE "We learn today that 25 or so “federalized” and hence “professionalized” airport security screeners at Los Angeles International Airport have criminal records. It seems that the federal government didn’t do the required background checks of these wonderful professional employees. In New York they’ve found at least 50 security screeners at JFK International with criminal records. Now .. get this. Just how did they discover the criminal histories of some of those screeners in LA? They asked them! They gave them a questionnaire to fill out that had a question about criminal history … and the screeners answered “yes”. So .. this is what it means to “professionalize” by federalization." ANOTHER VICTIM GROUP - NEALZ NUZE "MSNBC's Jeannette Walls reports not everyone's happy about the new "Matrix" sequel: "The villains in the flick are a pair of white-skinned, white-haired, red-eyed twins, and groups representing albinos say the movie unfairly stereotypes pigment-challenged individuals." "Silly movie producers. Don't they understand that only straight white men can be used as villains in movies?" THE BILL O’REILLY PROBLEM? - NEALZ NUZE "It’s been ten days now, and Bill O’Reilly is STILL hammering on those kids who threw that all-white end of the year party. He's calling it a school function. It wasn't. There is no way that this story deserves this much coverage, so why is O’Reilly still hammering it? My guess … because he knows that he is wrong, he knows that he vastly overstated the case, and now he’s actually out there trying to turn this story into the juggernaut he first thought it was. His contention that this end-of-the-year party was a "school function" because the students made some of the arrangements while at school is laughable. Using that criteria every Friday night date arranged at school is a school function, as it a post-school gathering at the DQ or a sandlot baseball game. We'll let O'Reilly defend that ridiculous position.---" Thomas Sowell: A sign of the times "---The little boy with the sign and his fist raised in the air is just one of the millions of victims of a shameless education establishment. It is not just that he is not in class learning the things he will need for his own mental development. He is out in the streets learning dangerous lessons for the future. "The most dangerous lesson of all is that he doesn't need to know what he is talking about, that what matters is venting his feelings and being an activist. "He is learning to let himself be manipulated by others, setting him up for all sorts of pied pipers he is likely to encounter in later years, who may lead him into anything from personal degeneracy to movements like the Taliban or the cult that Jim Jones led to their doom at Jonestown.---" Balancing security and liberty - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Heritage Foundation Author: Paul Rosenzweig "A healthy mistrust of government is commendable. Indeed, one could argue that such skepticism has helped America remain a free nation for well over two centuries. But fears of a police state are overblown." (5/15/03) Saving the environment for a profit, Victorian-style - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: FEE Author: Pierre Desrochers "[A] surprisingly large number of Victorians thought it reasonable to expect both a higher standard of living and improved environmental amenities .... First among these were the tremendous successes of entrepreneurs and technologists in creating valuable byproducts from industrial waste." (5/03) Teen pregnancy: From the government with love - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Strike the Root Author: Bernard Chapin "The government will provide money for the baby, money for the student so that they'll never need to work and, with that cash in their oversized pockets, they'll be no reason for them to complete school at all. There it is. Societal psychopathology in three thrifty lines." (5/16/03) Weak link - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Jacob Sullum "In a political environment where ... extravagant claims are credulously accepted, it's useful to be reminded that the scientific debate about the hazards of secondhand smoke is far from settled. A study in the ... British Medical Journal shows once again how tricky it is to measure the effects of environmental tobacco smoke ..." (5/16/03) PETA's fraudulent fundraising - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: CCF Author: staff "PETA claims in its fundraising that 'your donation will go to work instantly to help animals.' A reasonable person might wonder how protecting the First Amendment, or Native American vestiges, or Rodney Coronado's hide, instantly helps animals." (5/15/03) New Budget Plan Takes Three Steps Back, None Forward - Carl DeMaio "Gov. Gray Davis' new budget plan, and the Republican plan that came before it, serve as the ultimate confirmation that there is only one way out of the state's budget mess: The governor and just about every lawmaker in the Capitol Building need to check into a rehab clinic. They are spending addicts. "Despite the dire budget crisis, state agencies still overspent their budgets by $2.6 billion in the last four months. Instead of closely monitoring these programs and identifying ways to improve their efficiency, the state just keeps on spending. Now, the political parties will try to come together on a plan that, in its essence, pays off one credit card with another, asks taxpayers to bail them out with a bevy of tax and fee increases, and slips in a few cuts so they can claim to be making the "tough" decisions.---" California whipsnake habitat action an 'unlawful land grab' - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: PLF "U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii has ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service engaged in an unlawful land grab when it designated critical habitat for the Alameda whipsnake." (5/15/03) Author McCullough challenges thought police, 'national amnesia' - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Washington Times "Thought police in American schools and rotten history textbooks are as great a threat to American freedoms as al Qaeda terrorists, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential biographer David McCullough said" at the annual Jefferson Lecture last night. (5/16/03) KLEIN'S LAWS, by Chuck Klein - Unpopular Speech KLEIN'S 1st LAW OF SURVIVAL: "The second to last thing a morally responsible, prudent person wants to do is kill another human being regardless of how reprehensible, villainous or dangerous that person might be. The last thing this morally responsible, prudent person wants to do is be killed by that reprehensible, villainous and dangerous person." [more] Search of Private Residence Yields Family Photos - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) - "The PBS television program "Antiques Road Show" has made countless Americans wonder if they may have a priceless lamp or table. The Internal Revenue Service does more than wonder. It has such an interest in the value of antiques that it will raid someone's home to assess their worth." Read the story Hold Criminals Accountable, Not Gun Makers - CNSNews.com Letters to the Editor “Regarding the liberal view that gun manufacturers must be held liable for misuse of their products; does this mean that auto manufacturers would be liable for the actions of drunk drivers? (‘Liberal Democrats Threaten Filibuster of Gun Suit Bill,’ May 14) I would like to see the media expose this ridiculous view for what it is.” Ron L Chandler, AZ Gun Group Blasts Senator's 'Double Standard' - CNSNews.com -- News This Hour (CNSNews.com) - "A pro-gun group says it's the height of hypocrisy for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) - a strong gun-control supporter - to walk around with an armed guard. "Chuck Schumer has been working overtime for years to deprive honest, law-abiding Americans the means with which to defend themselves from violent crime," said Alan Gottlieb, the chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. "Yet, here's Schumer unmasked, protected by an armed New York police detective, a luxury not available to average working class Americans. If Schumer is convinced that his fellow Americans don't need firearms, why does he feel the need for an armed bodyguard?" In the press release, Gottlieb called Schumer's actions "a deplorable double standard."" 'New Democrats' Plot Strategy to Retake White House -- 05/16/2003 "---"The pro-choice position of the Democratic Party is extreme, and it's cost them dearly, particularly in the South," he said. "And their position on guns is out of the mainstream of public opinion in the United States." 'Running away from their true beliefs on such key issues, Weldon predicted, will not help Democrats.--- "The American people are, by and large, conservative, including most Democrats," the Florida physician said. "When you talk to them about fundamental issues, they are on the Republican side."--- "Weldon also believes the DLC's efforts to move Democrats, including the party's presidential nominee, away from the party's far-left ideology will fail.---" Thursday, May 15, 2003
The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription - NARA | Exhibit Hall | "---We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.---" Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes - "Cannibalism is a 'radical but realistic solution to the problem of overpopulation.'" -- Lyall Watson, The Financial Times, 15 July 1995 NEALZ NUZE David Horowitz: "The American left has been consistently wrong on almost every issue over the past few years … yet they continue to attack." Full story The Old Gray Liar - www.anncoulter.org Source: NealzNuze "---As this episode shows, the Times is not even attempting to preserve a reliable record of events. Instead of being a record of history, the Times is merely a "record" of what liberals would like history to be – the Pentagon in crisis, the war going badly, global warming melting the North Pole, and protests roiling Augusta National Golf Club. Publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger has turned the paper into a sort of bulletin board for Manhattan liberals.---" A QUOTE OF THE DAY - NEALZ NUZE "Since I was reading Andrew Sullivan’s website (www.andrewsullivan.com) I thought I would share with you his quote of the day. These words were from Margaret Thatcher yesterday in New York. “For years, many governments played down the threats of the Islamic revolution, turned a blind eye to international terrorism and accepted the development of weaponry of mass destruction. Indeed, some politicians were happy to go further, collaborating with the self-proclaimed enemies of the West for their own short-term gain – but enough about the French. So deep had the rot set in that the UN security council was itself paralyzed. Our own Prime Minister was staunch and our forces were superb. But, above all, it is President Bush who deserves the credit for victory … There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it.” MORE ZERO-TOLERANCE STUPIDITY - NEALZ NUZE "You would think that after so many embarrassing episodes this “zero-tolerance” nonsense in schools would go away. Not so. James Taranto’s Wednesday column introduces us to Sarah Akins, a sixth grader at Connolly Middle School in Tempe, Arizona. Sarah discovered a two-inch pocketknife in a compartment in her backpack. She did what she thought would be the right thing … she showed it to her teacher. She ended up in the principal’s offices, denied the opportunity to call home or to even go to the bathroom, and has now been suspended for 12 days. "There is just no way we can raise a responsible generation of young people capable of rational and logical thought with this kind of mindless nonsense going on in our government schools. Adults have to know that all occurrences in their lives don’t happen in stark blacks and whites. There are infinite shades of gray in all situations. So, just when do we start teaching this to our kids?" When molecules fly - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: TCS Author: Clyde Wayne Crews Jr "Forthcoming technologies should be products of capitalism and entrepreneurship, not central planning, government R&D, and pork barrel. Tomorrow's nanotechnology markets have too much potential and are too important be creatures of government." (5/15/03) I never dream of nicotine - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: FEE Author: Ted Roberts "The sun never sets on tobacco litigation. Tobacco is addictive, say the trial lawyers. All I know is that if this product is addictive, it's horribly flawed because at least 40 million Americans have shrugged off its clutches ..." (5/03) Does it pay both spouses to work? - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: NCPA Author: Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence J. Kotlikoff "Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence J. Kotlikoff consider a hypothetical two-earner couple at various levels of income. They conclude that because working couples are required to participate in Social Security, they are worse off than they otherwise would be."(5/14/03) Giving students a new choice - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: CSE Author: Paul Hilliar "Giving parents the choice among the widest possible array of schools will provide these learning institutions with the incentives to make available the best education for every student. Without school choice, schools get students and funding regardless of how well they perform." (5/14/03) The Democrats' Preemptive War - www.cato.org "---"The "Supreme Court Countdown" (www.democrats.org/scotus) is part of an unprecedented political campaign to thwart a president from appointing any justices to the High Court. It is no secret that, for the past two years, Senate Democrats have been readying to oppose Bush's first Supreme Court nominee. But now they aren't waiting for an actual vacancy and nomination. The DNC's site boasts that it is part of a preemptive "campaign that is vital to defeating extremist nominees to the Supreme Court." Why now? Because the DNC fears that one or more justices might retire when the Court's term ends in late June. "The DNC is right about one thing -- core constitutional values are in danger. The threat, though, comes not from President Bush or his putative High Court nominees, but from those who seek to politicize our federal courts by undermining the president's ability to staff the federal judiciary with judges who follow law, not politics.---" Unfit to print - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Town Hall Author: Thomas Sowell "This is such an old story of the fundamental fraudulence of affirmative action, whether in the media, academia, or elsewhere. These stories are full of ignored warnings, arrogant self-righteousness by those who brush aside the warnings, and often the demonizing of anyone who dares to criticize ..." (5/15/03) From democrat to independent to republican - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Town Hall Author: Larry Elder "[A]fter much soul-searching, on Friday, May 9, 2003, I filed to change my voter registration to the Republican Party. Not because I find the party pure .... My libertarian principles remain unchanged." (5/15/03) Why I picked up a gun - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Ifeminists Author: Tiffany Hyatt "Unfortunately it often takes a traumatic event to make most women even consider carrying a handgun, whether the traumatic event was experienced personally or to someone we know [sic]." (5/13/03) Hype hazes message - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: GPPF Author: Benita M Dodd "Americans will continue to get a garbled message about asthma until the alarmists are deprived of their fund-raising media hype. The only way to raise awareness about asthma and to save lives is to remove the association with ozone and focus ... on community action." (5/8/03) WorldNetDaily: Why the U.N. can never bring peace "---Even our schools teach the [United Nations] globalist message that there is "nothing more horrible than war." This is a lie, as people who live under dictators well know. Consider the killing fields of Cambodia, or Mao's murderous reign. Consider the Soviet starvation of Ukraine. Consider the death camps of the Nazis, or China's destruction of Tibet, or just read the newspapers about Saddam's Iraq where parents were controlled through the torture of their children. Do this, and you will know we are teaching a deadly lie. "For if we teach only the horrors of war, and not also the horrors of tyranny, we teach cowardice. And cowards can never stay free." Tax cut support grows -- The Washington Times "---Despite the intensified, daily bashing from the Democrats, Mr. Bush's plan to accelerate the 2001 tax cuts and reduce taxes on stock dividends is gaining public support. "Several things are contributing to this dramatic shift that could be an omen of what is in store for the Democrats in next year's elections.--- "When investors hear the Democrats' tired, old mantra, "tax cuts for the rich," they tune out. They associate investments with wealth. If they are not wealthy now, most hope to become so. They know you need capital to grow the economy, and cutting taxes on capital yields more capital for business expansion and jobs.---" Discomfort for foes -- The Washington Times "---The current debate about President Bush's proposed tax cut is really a conflict about what size of government maximizes economic welfare for most citizens. If you look at the world as one huge social-science experiment where almost every form of political and economic organization devised by the mind of man has been tried, the results are now in. Communism and pure socialism were such colossal failures all serious people have ceased defending or advocating them. "The remaining struggle now is between limited government, free-market, democratic capitalism and the European form of semi-socialist welfare statism.---" IRS Seizes Property After Computer ErrorCNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) - "Behold the power of the IRS, when it makes a mistake - and a business must close its doors as a result." Read the story Lawmakers Press for 'Healthy Forests' Bill - CNSNews.com -- News This Hour "---Pombo and other critics say environmentalists file frivolous administrative appeals to support their inflexible "hands-off-the-forests" agenda. The appeals force months of delay in carrying out forest-thinning projects. A bill pending in the House - the Healthy Forests Restoration Act - would streamline the appeals process, something that's needed to protect lives and property, supporters say." Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans." -- Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project INTERESTING DEMOCRATIC TRICKS - NealzNuze "Democrats in exile in Texas. Over fifty Democrats, members of the Texas House of Representatives, have fled the state to exile in Oklahoma. And why? "Here’s the story: ~Texas voters put the Republicans in charge of the Texas legislature. ~The Texas legislature only meets once every two years. ~One of the responsibilities of the Legislature is to redraw the lines of congressional districts in Texas. ~For years the Democrats were in charge of drawing congressional districts in Texas. For all of those years the Republicans served in the legislature so that this vital business could be conducted. ~During these years the Texas Democrats would draw these congressional districts in such as way as to assure the election of as many Democrats to the Congress as possible. ~Now the Republicans are in the driver’s seat, and the Republicans get to redraw the congressional districts. They have drawn up a redistricting map that will make the Texas delegation majority Democrat. ~Instead of emulating Republican behavior during all those years when Democrats were in charge and calling the shots, the Democrats have fled en masse to Oklahoma. ~The Republican Governor of Texas sent the Texas Rangers to bring the Democrats back to do what they were elected to do, represent their constituents. ~The Democratic Governor of Oklahoma blocked the Texas Rangers from bringing the miscreants home, saying that the Rangers had no jurisdiction in Oklahoma. ~So, the Democrats, who are in a minority in the Texas legislature, are hiding in Oklahoma, refusing to participate in the process of redistricting. Why? Because they’re going to get the same exact treatment they’ve been giving Republicans for generations.---" OK, SO YOU DON’T HAVE ANY INSURANCE - NEALZ NUZE "Tornados and floods .. and people without homeowners or business insurance. There was George Bush in the Midwest yesterday telling the media that something needed to be done to help the victims of these disasters who didn’t have insurance. "Why? "It is clearly irresponsible for someone to fail to insure their home and their possessions against loss. Why, then, should I have to suffer the consequences of that irresponsibility? Bush is clearly talking about some sort of federal aid to these people. That federal aid will be paid with dollars that I earned – dollars that you earned. With the money that was left in our paychecks after these dollars were seized we actually went out and insured our homes, our cars, our boats and the rest of our stuff. "Decisions have consequences. If you make the decision to leave your property uninsured the consequences should be that you suffer the losses if that property is destroyed. The wonderful hand of government, however, is changing things. Now you make the decision to leave your property uninsured and other people, taxpayers, have to suffer the consequences.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Federal aid = socialism =police state = totalitarianism. A religious experience? - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: TCS Author: Glen Harlan Reynolds "Does science fiction compete with religion as a source of moral guidance in the public sphere? The answer, I think, would have to be 'yes.'" (5/14/03) The fallacy of female biological advantage - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Ifeminists Author: Carey Roberts "In a bygone era, arguments about the genetic superiority of racial groups appeared in the publications of extremist groups with a dubious political agenda. Now in 2003, claims of sex-based biological advantage are being promoted by the World Health Organization." (5/13/03) WorldNetDaily: Deficit disorders "---When you and I fall on hard times, often due to the policies of plunder, we economize or face the legal and economic ramifications of our excesses. When the parasites who feed upon us exhaust our resources, what do they do? "Answers Rep. Ron Paul: "Congress almost always spends more each year than the treasury collects in revenues." The budget passed in 2003, says Paul, is 22 percent higher than two years ago, a pattern that has been uninterrupted, and encompasses all federal programs, not only those concerned with homeland security. In the face of faltering revenues, government has continued to expand, and federal spending to rise.--- "When government sports a "surplus," this implies that the political pickpockets have stolen more funds than they can possibly dream of spending. The property is not theirs to keep! Conversely, when "deficits" are reported, this means that the kleptomaniacs have not been able to steal sufficient funds to cover their profligacy.---" Michelle Malkin: Hillary's big nanny hotline "When the Founding Fathers established the Constitution of the United States of America "to promote the general welfare," it is safe to say they could never have envisioned Hillary Clinton's latest welfare-promoting gimmick.--- "Centralize, centralize, centralize. From health care to education to the economy, it's the Clinton way. She views her constituents as hapless, confused victims -- unable to cope with information overload and in dire need of one-stop federal aid at all times.---" Walter Williams: Prescription for less wealth "---Preventing international trade does benefit some people. In my Mexico/U.S. example, Mexican computer chip manufacturers and U.S. tomato producers would benefit from outlawing trade. It would enable Mexican computer chip manufacturers and U.S. tomato producers to charge their customers higher prices, thereby making for higher profits and wages. "Trade barriers are an excellent means to higher wealth for the few but lower wealth for the many." WorldNetDaily: America is a police state "---First, a definition: The Internet's dictionary.com website defines "police state" as: "A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force." "Simple enough! All we have to do now is discern whether or not our beloved country exercises what might be called "rigid and oppressive controls" over our "social, economic and political life." I'm certainly not here to argue that America has become a police state in the image of any number of communist, fascist or theocratic regimes you could name. Let's just say that we need to look at this picture a bit more closely.---" 'Old Europe' and getting older -- The Washington Times "---In the United States, for example, the employee and employer combined Social Security tax in 1950, when there were 16 workers per beneficiary, was 3 percent on a wage limit of $3,000. This year, with only 3.3 workers per beneficiary, it is 12.4 percent on $87,000. The maximum tax has jumped from $90 to $10,788. By European standards, however, it is low. The payroll tax in France is 49.3 percent, Germany is 40.9 percent, Italy and Spain are 42.5 and 37.8 percent, respectively. And unlike the United States, in many cases, but not all, the tax applies to all earnings. Yet, these numbers actually understate the burden placed on European workers for in each country the payroll tax revenue is not enough to finance benefits. Additional taxes are levied to make up the difference.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Preview of coming socialist events in the U.S. Vox Populi: Doing Hard Time for Home Defense in UK - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) - "Our article about the British farmer whose parole was denied while serving time for having shot a burglar during a crime in his own home drew howls of outrage from readers as far away as New Zealand." Read Letters to the Editor ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Liberals' plan for the U.S. too. Liberal Democrats Threaten Filibuster of Gun Suit Bill - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - "Six liberal Senate Democrats have threatened to filibuster a bill that would prohibit lawsuits against gun makers, dealers, sellers and importers for the illegal actions of criminals who misuse their products." Full Story Introductory Note. Smith, Adam. 1909-14. Wealth of Nations. The Harvard Classics. "---The most notable feature of the teaching of the “Wealth of Nations,” from the point of view of its divergence from previous economic thought as well as of its subsequent influence, is the statement of the doctrine of natural liberty. Smith believed that “man’s self-interest is God’s providence,” and held that if government abstained from interfering with free competition, industrial problems would work themselves out and the practical maximum of efficiency would be reached. This same doctrine was applied to international relations, and Smith’s working out of it here is the classical statement of the argument for free trade.---" Tuesday, May 13, 2003
Potshots From a Hypocrite - FOXNews.com By Neil Cavuto "---First off, Mr. Krugman, let me correct you: I'm a host and a commentator, just like you no doubt call yourself a journalist and a columnist. So my sharing my opinions is a bad thing, but you spouting off yours is not? "Exactly who's the hypocrite, Mr. Krugman? Me, for expressing my views in a designated segment at the end of the show? Or you, for not so cleverly masking your own biases against the war in a cheaply written column?---" The Hijacked Grand Jury - The Cato Institute: Public Policy Analysis, Limited Government, Free Markets "In a new Cato Policy Analysis, W. Thomas Dillard, Stephen R. Johnson, and Timothy Lynch look at how the grand jury process, which was intended to be a check on prosecutorial power, has been co-opted by government and widely disrespects the constitutional rights of the accused. The authors warn that the war on terrorism has exacerbated the problem, and that without action, it's only likely to get worse." Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets...Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along." -- David Graber, biologist, National Park Service NEALZ NUZE "We’re Muslims. We’re peaceful. Our’s is a religion of peace. If you don’t refer to us as peaceful, if you don’t acknowledge Islam as a religion of peace, we will kill you." Full story NEALZ NUZE "A Republican president flies out to an aircraft carrier that is returning to port and Democrats go nuts. A Democratic president orders an aircraft carrier to put to sea just so that he can fly out to it, land on the deck, and make a speech .. and Democrats seem untroubled." Full story NEALZ NUZE "Are you wondering why the Democrats are working so hard to prevent George Bush from placing his nominees on the Federal appeals bench? Because they know the stakes, that’s why. They know that the furtherance of their leftist agenda depends in large part on judges who will ignore the Constitution." Full story DIFFERENT PRESIDENTS, DIFFERENT THOUGHTS - NEALZ NUZE "Tom Daschle is an amazing political animal. His political thoughts and philosophy change as the political parties in charge of the White House change. "In 1998, when Bill Clinton was disgracing the White House, Daschle was telling the media that we “knew” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and that it was imperative that the U.S. make certain that Saddam Hussein is disarmed. Daschle’s opinions changed with administrations. In 2003, with a Republican in the White House, Daschle was openly questioning whether Saddam had those weapons and fighting against Bush’s plans to enforce U.N. Resolution 1441. "Daschle is at it again. He’s in charge of the current filibustering of two Bush appeals court nominees. Daschle has changed the constitutional standard for confirming a presidential nominee from a majority vote in the Senate to a super-majority vote of 60. But, is this the way Daschle felt when there was a Democrat in the White House? It seems not. In 1995 Daschle was speaking in favor of a proposal by two Democrat Senators, Tom Harkin and Joseph Lieberman, to establish new rules on cloture votes. At that time Daschle said “Democracy means majority rule, not minority gridlock.”---" TAX CUT DEBATE THIS WEEK - NealzNuze "Democrats are going to fighting like hell to water down the Bush tax cut this week in Congress. They have a very good reason to try to stop the tax cuts. They know that meaningful tax cuts will most likely lead to stronger economic growth .. as they always have in the past. Stronger economic growth means Democratic losses in 2004. "Yes .. I firmly believe that Democrats would intentionally sabotage economic recovery for political gain. They truly believe that they have been “chosen” to lead this country into a socialist utopia, and virtually any tactics that would further that goal are permissible. You’ll hear a lot about the budget deficit, so I thought I would try to put some things in perspective again. The actual dollar amount of the deficit is not the most important figure. You would be better off considering the size of the deficit as it compares to the size of our economy. "Look at it this way. Let’s suppose you make our your family budget for the entire year. You are dismayed to see that you are going to come up about $2,000 short. If your family income is $20,000, this is a sizable budget deficit. It’s 10% of your annual income. But what if your annual income is $200,000? Then your budget is only 1% of the size of your own personal “economy.” It would be a tough job eliminating that deficit if you were only making $20,000 a year. You would have to increase your economic output by 1% to wipe out your budget. "The proposed current budget deficits stand at just a bit less than 3% of the nation’s gross domestic product – the size of our economy. These budget deficits are significantly lower than the deficits predicted by Bill Clinton’s White House in 1994 --- just before the Republicans took control of the congress and started turning back Clinton’s spending requests.---" An epidemic of legalized theft - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Tuccille.com Author: JD Tuccille "[I]f you raise your larcenous sights beyond home appliances and the few dollars in the till, and actually try to steal an entire building or parcel of land, you might well get away with your crime without consequence -- so long as you're a government official. That's the gist of 'Public Power, Private Gain' ..." (4/30/03) Trial lawyers still looking for a drive-thru payday - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: CCF Author: staff "Lawyers -- not doctors, nutritionists, biologists, or other scientists -- are behind this attack on restaurants. The real experts tend to show far more common sense." (5/12/03) Specter of fear - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: TCS Europe Author: James K Glassman "A spectre is haunting Europe. The spectre of fear and ignorance, cloaked in the garb of science, of pseudo-science." Transcript of a speech given at the "Panic Attack" conference. (5/13/03) Cut men: Do they not bleed? - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Ifeminists Author: Wendy McElroy "Male bashing -- the stereotyping of men as brutal, stupid or otherwise objectionable -- is commonplace. .... The assault against men must stop. But how?" (5/13/03) Lawsuit filed to ban Oreos in California - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Mercury News "The lawsuit, filed May 1 in Marin County Superior Court, seeks a ban on the black and white [Oreo] cookies, arguing the trans fats that make the filling creamy and the cookie crisp are too dangerous for children to eat." (5/13/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Police state action. Scientists urge EU to end genetically-modified food ban - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: ENN/CEI "A distinguished panel of international scientists will gather ... in Washington to speak out against the European Union's moratorium on trade in genetically engineered foods. Agricultural experts from around the world will discuss the negative impact of the EU moratorium on the developing world ..." (5/12/03) Taxation . . . or confiscation? -- The Washington Times "---The left in the United States defines "tax fairness" as soak the rich. If Britney Spears or Kobe Bryant earn too much money this year, according to the greed and envy warriors, tax it away from them. By contrast, most people define tax fairness as a policy wherein all Americans live by the same set of rules. And those rules or laws should be fairly applied to all. "This is the basis for a just society and one that allows Americans to keep the dividends from their hard work and enterprise. It is the American way.---" Everyone a criminal -- The Washington Times "Be warned: Law, once a shield of the innocent, is now a weapon in the hands of government. Conservatives generally ignore such warnings, feeling that criticism of the criminal justice system plays into the hands of criminals.---" SARS hysteria -- The Washington Times "---University of Toronto medical historian Edward Shorter calls SARS reaction "a media-fanned wave of mass hysteria" and "mass psychosis." He's right. "According to the World Health Organization, 6,903 cases of SARS were reported from mid-November to May 7. There were 495 deaths. It also reports flu causes between "three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250,000 and 500,000 deaths" per year, with 36,000 in the United States. "Thus, flu internationally inflicts far more serious illness and death in a single day than SARS has caused in 20 weeks. "Repeatedly, SARS is called "killer pneumonia," as if pneumonia normally causes hiccups. Yet 62,000 Americans died of pneumonia in 2001. The SARS stories often invoke the great flu pandemic of 1918-19, which probably killed 40 million people, according to WHO estimates. That's more than ten times as many people daily — among a global population a third the size of today's — as SARS has yet killed.---" Lineup of looters -- The Washington Times "---I was delighted in particular to see Jonathan Foreman's piece titled "Bad Reporting from Baghdad" because the narrative most American journalists have brought us in the month since Saddam Hussein's fall has been almost comically mournful, considering the circumstances.---" Reaganomics still wins the day -- The Washington Times "President Bush, having successfully dealt with Saddam Hussein, is now turning his attention to the economy, and particularly to tax policy. Unfortunately, even here he has to deal with the Sahhaf Phenomenon — the tendency of people who have seen something with their very own eyes to protest that it didn't happen. The Iraqi minister of information, Mohammed al-Sahhaf, was a comical example of this, but there are many editorialists and commentators who seem to be victims of the same willful blindness on basic matters of national economic policy. "This observation is called to mind by the declarations we hear and read today, in many cases by people who have spent years either as elected officials or otherwise in the economic policy business, to the effect that the deficits forecast for the next five years are a reason to reduce the size of the president's tax proposal. Their argument is that high deficits cause high interest rates, and these rates in turn will weaken the economy or slow the economic recovery. However, unlike most ideas in economics, which are difficult to prove in the real world, this idea has been shown by actual experience to be false.---" Daschle remembers to forget -- The Washington Times "---But when it comes to the level of tax relief a middle-income family of four will receive from Mr. Bush's 2001 tax-cut package, Mr. Daschle conveniently feigns ignorance. It is precisely the kind of reaction one would expect from such an aggressive class warrior who would rather plead implausible ignorance than acknowledge the significant tax savings middle-class families will realize.---" The gun control debate -- The Washington Times "---In the gun control debate, labels are often misleading. Assault weapon bans conjure up images of taking machine guns off America's streets, and the news media has often encouraged this view by showing machine guns in their stories on the ban. Yet, the 1994 federal ban has nothing to do with machine guns, only semi-automatics that fire one bullet per pull of the trigger. The ban arbitrarily outlaws some guns based upon their name or cosmetic features, such as whether the gun could have a bayonet attached.---" Closing the health insurance gap -- The Washington Times "The cost of health care continues to rise, as does the number of uninsured workers. In 2001 alone, health-care costs rose by $67 billion, almost 14 percent. Because of the steep increase in premiums, many small businesses have dropped their policies. This trend threatens the coverage of millions, as 52 percent of the private-sector workforce is employed by small businesses. Association health plans (AHPs) are one way to close the widening coverage gap without increasing government spending.---" Judges rap court on gun-rights case -- The Washington Times "Six federal appeals-court judges last week delivered an extraordinary argument for their view that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to own guns.---" Veterans' wait for doctors targeted -- The Washington Times "Many veterans must wait more than a year for an appointment with a primary care doctor at Veterans Affairs health facilities. Some die before even being seen by a physician.---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Socialist health care in action. IRS Whistleblower Raises Troubling Questions - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) - "IRS management does what it wants, to whom it wants, when it wants, how it wants with almost complete immunity," a retired IRS official told the Senate Finance Committee." Read the story Vox Populi: Has Media Bias Gone Beyond 'Liberal'? - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) - "Real and perceived liberal bias in the establishment news media is an increasingly high-profile issue, but some readers think the bias now goes beyond mere liberalism to something worse." Read Letters to the Editor New Report Fuels Health Care Debate - CNSNews.com "The nation's health care "crisis" may not be as dire as many Democrats say it is. In a study released Monday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 21 million to 31 million people have gone a year or more without health insurance - compared with the Census Bureau's estimate of 41 million uninsured people. The CBO study differentiates between the long-term uninsured and those who go without insurance for just a few months. Overall, the CBO said, 59 million people lack health insurance in any given year - but half of them go without insurance for less than four months. Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Rep. Dick Gephardt, Howard Dean, and John Kerry, are making much of what they call America's health care crisis, and they are pushing multi-billion dollar plans to provide health insurance to Americans who need it." Liberal Academics Continue Assault on Pro-Gun Research - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - "With "concealed carry laws" being passed in Minnesota and Missouri, a new book published by a liberal think tank in Washington attempts to discredit research indicating that such laws reduce violent crime." Full Story Monday, May 12, 2003
Sound minds... FIRE SANE "Indeed, in 1996 the World Wildlife Fund, at a media conference in Geneva, announced that 50,000 species are going extinct each year due to human activity. And the main cause of these 50,000 extinctions, they said, is commercial logging. The story was carried around the world by Associated Press and other media and hundreds of millions of people came to believe that forestry is the main cause of species extinction. "During the past three years I have asked the World Wildlife Fund on many occasions to please provide me with a list of some of the species that have supposedly become extinct due to logging. They have not offered up a single example as evidence. In fact, to the best of our scientific knowledge, no species has become extinct in North America due to forestry. "Where are these 50,000 species that are said to be going extinct each year? They are in a computer model in Edward O. Wilson's laboratory at Harvard University. They are electrons on a hard drive, they have no Latin names, and they are in no way related to any direct field observations in any forest." Patric Moore (Founder of Greenpeace) Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS" -- Earth First! Newsletter PATTY MURRAY ON DECK! - NEALZ NUZE "The Democrats are still trying to make an issue out of Bush’s visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln. One Democrat even sought a pledge from President Bush not to use any pictures of him in that flight suit on that aircraft carrier in any campaign advertisements. Meanwhile – you don’t read, see or hear ANYWHERE bout the Democrats who made a visit to that aircraft carrier as it neared its home port in Washington state. We had the Demcoratic governor of Washington, a congressman or two, and the two Demcoratic U.S. Senators. One of those Senators is none other than Patty Murray. Murray, you will remember, voted against the use of military force to dislodge Saddam Hussein. She’s also the wonderful Democrat who lectured a group of schoolchildren about the humanitarianism of Osama Bin Laden. "The rule, I guess, is that only Republican politicians shouldn’t visit Navy vessels at sea. I’ll try to remember that in the future." JUDGES HATE THIS - NEALZ NUZE "It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience." -- John Adams Use and abuse of science, part 2 - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Carolina Journal Author: John Hood "The public policy landscape is littered with corpses of 'scientific' hypotheses that manage to continue staggering around, like zombies, animated not by supporting data but by the fervent insistence of their masters that 'it must be true, it just has to be.'" (5/11/03) The Social Studies Wars by Chester E. Finn Jr. "---The overwhelming majority of September 11 curricular guidance that teachers received from the National Council for the Social Studies, the National Association of School Psychologists, the National Education Association, and many others focused on pop psychotherapy. A year after the attacks, the underlying assumption in the renewed flood of instructional advice was still that children needed to be comforted, reassured, and admonished not to cast blame or show bias toward any group, religion, or country. "One found little in the curricular suggestions about who attacked us and why. There was even less about America's core values of freedom and equality and why the world's fanatics and fundamentalists abhor these. There was nothing about the difference between democracy and theocracy. Although New York's noble firefighters and police came in for some praise, little was made of the many acts of heroism on September 11 and nary a word about the brutal villains who killed thousands of innocents on that bright September morning. Nor were there lessons from history about how America responded on previous occasions when its principles have been challenged, its freedoms attacked, and its sovereignty assaulted.---" The Energy Bill Follies "If you believe that government should by-and-large leave businessmen and consumers alone to govern their own affairs and that politicians should not be in the business of micromanaging the economy, then you're probably a Republican. If so, you're also probably ignorant because any resemblance between Republican rhetoric and Republican policy is purely coincidental. The passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2003 in the House of Representatives earlier this month demonstrates once again that the only real disagreement between the two parties, at least when it comes to economic policy, is which group of "Peters" ought to be robbed and which collection of "Pauls" ought to be awarded a place at the government trough.---" Connecticut family fighting second eminent domain home seizure - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Boston Globe "After one home was taken for a seawall that instead became private medical offices, Pasquale Cristofaro enlisted the help of the Insitute for Justice to fight a second land grab for a riverfront hotel. Government seizures for private development is on the rise nationwide, according to IJ." (5/12/03) Commentary: Fudging the Numbers on Home Ownership - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "A Washington, D.C., advocacy group claims, "None of America's elementary school teachers, police officers, licensed practical nurses, retail salespersons or janitors would qualify to purchase a median priced home based on median income," but as CNSNews.com Executive Editor Scott Hogenson points out, the data don't support such dire pronouncements." Read the commentary Vox Populi: Clinton and Whiteman AFB - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "(CNSNews.com) - Some Democrats are attacking President Bush for using an airplane to fly out to meet the USS Abraham Lincoln instead of a helicopter, but how does it stack up against the recollections of a veteran who wrote to us about the time Bill Clinton visited Whiteman Air Force Base?" Read Letters to the Editor Newspapers Lack Religious Accuracy and Context, Study Alleges - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "(CNSNews.com) - Daily newspapers have "significant gaps in providing readers with an understanding of religious beliefs and practices," a University of Rochester study said." Full Story Peter Jennings Again Accused of Liberal Bias - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "(CNSNews.com) - Another former ABC News correspondent has stepped forward to accuse long-time "World News Tonight" anchor Peter Jennings of inserting a liberal editorial bias in the news copy of reporters in the field." Full Story Sunday, May 11, 2003
"What do "feelings" have to do with the Constitution as written?" - Sierra Times.com "---The Million Moron's game plan is fueled by and relies entirely on feelings, opinions, hype, misinformation, misunderstanding, ignorance and outright lies. Ms. Davis and the Million Morons have not yet posed the question (nor do they WANT to): "What do "feelings" have to do with the Constitution as written?" Feelings have nothing to do with what is written. The MMs strategy is to whip the masses into such a frenzy over the “danger” of private ownership of guns, and bringing pressure to bear on the government that Congress will do literally anything to keep them happy, and thereby letting them keep their jobs.---" The "why" of gun ownership Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters "Whenever you hear about bans of this or that weapon, remember that no word on paper ever changed human nature. There are bad people out there who will prey on good people. They will not be deterred by words on paper in Albany, N.Y. or Washington. Good people, however, wishing to obey the law, will be deterred. That is why muggers, rapists and murderers know that in gun control havens like New York City and Washington, citizens are virtually helpless against them." Does Congress have the Constitutional Authority to Force you to get a Federal License to own a Handgun? - - Sierra Times.com by Robert Greenslade "---This proposed legislation is a showcase for the power hungry nature of federal politicians. These constitutionally challenged reprobates only care about the Constitution and system of government established by that document when they can manipulate it to their advantage. When these so-called "elected representatives" want to enact legislation not authorized by the Constitution, they either attack the Constitution as an out dated document or claim it is a living document that can be interpreted to fit the needs of modern society. It should come as no surprise that this bill is void of any reference to the constitutional provision that allegedly empowers Congress to enact the legislation in the first place.---" Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental." -- Dave Forman, Founder of Earth First! Real war heroes eat pork - The Miami Herald | 05/11/2003 | By Dave Barry "---According to The New York Times, many of these extra items were slipped into the bill at the last minute by the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-OINK), who represents Alaska, which is the largest state, which is good, because that way it has room for all the taxpayer money that old Ted ships there. The Times said that ''many senators never realized'' that these items had been stuck into the war bill they approved. (Members of Congress rarely read the bills they vote on; they're too busy serving the public.)--- "So, this time at least, these bold senators failed in their mission. But the point is, darn it, they had the courage to try. And I'm sure that, one day, they'll try again: They'll see their chance, and they'll make their move, swimming swiftly up to their prey and fastening their suckers onto the . . . "No, wait, sorry. I'm thinking of the lampreys." Saturday, May 10, 2003
Senate Democrats Strike Proposal to Limit Fees for Lawyers in Tobacco Case - from Tampa Bay Online "---[Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz] conceded the committee vote was a setback, but said senators may warm to the proposal after governors see how much money it could mean for their states. "It's a defeat. It's temporary. We'll still find a way to get it done," Kyl said. In 1998, Democrats and a few Republicans blocked three bids to cap the attorneys' fees, first at $250 an hour, then at $1,000 and finally at $4,000. "If the bill passes, California would get $1 billion back from its attorneys, according to figures from Kyl's office. Texas would get $667 million, New York $607 million." Senate panel nixes tobacco-fee clawback - Overlawyered.com archives May 2003 pt. II "Senators working on a tax bill Thursday stripped a proposal that would have forced attorneys in a landmark tobacco lawsuit to give $9 billion in fees back to the states they represented." Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., had proposed requiring plaintiff's lawyers in the tobacco affair to return to their state-government clients fees in excess of $2,500/hour or thereabouts. "But Democrats, led by Sen. John Breaux, D-La., and joined by Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Gordon Smith of Oregon, won a 12-8 vote to strike the language. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said that if Congress can change the terms of the tobacco settlement, there is nothing to stop it from telling every business in America to change the way they pay their executives." It's almost as if Sen. Kerry doesn't realize that 1) a host of federal laws already on the books, notably tax provisions, do purposely shape the way businesses compensate their executives; 2) lawyers, unlike business execs, practice under professional ethical codes which are supposed to bar them specifically from charging excessive fees; 3) lawyers who claim to represent the government (and thus the public) come under some of the most stringent ethical constraints of all.---" Misguided Political Assault Against Drugmakers - The Cato Institute "In a new Cato Policy Analysis, "Demonizing Drugmakers: The Political Assault on the Pharmaceutical Industry," Senior Fellow Doug Bandow writes that although some lawmakers are using political attacks against the drug industry to argue for lower drug prices through price controls, government intervention discourages the creation of innovative medicines and adversely affects consumers in the long term." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Price controls = socialism = mutual shared poverty and failure, not heaven on earth. FIRE FAQ "Are you saying the environmentalists have a hidden agenda? "Yes, and while it may not be true for all of them, a lot of these people are simply being used. Some want to live in a romantic past where wild animals roam freely in virgin forest. Others are opposed to meat eating and want to curtail cattle production but at the same time want the return of bison. Others are hostile to capitalism and oppose any activity that might bring about a profit, such as timber cutting. The most extreme actually worship the earth and trees and view all human activity as evil. Meanwhile, wealthy globalists use their tax-exempt foundations to fund these groups, seeking to bring America under the yoke of democratic socialism, a type of governance that is easier for them to control for their personal interests." Sound minds...FIRE SANE "In the 1920's we were cutting twice as many trees per year as we were growing; today we are growing 37% more trees per year than we are cutting." Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight." -- David Foreman, Earth First! Business Magazines Go Left-Wing - Capitalism Magazine by James K. Glassman (May 7, 2003) "Fortune and Forbes are sliding, in quality and respect." The Failed Education "Reforms" - Capitalism Magazine by Tom DeWeese (May 8, 2003) "From being arrested for stomping on a rain puddle to the ineffectiveness of both preschool and after school programs, and everything in between, the failure of the US education system continues to demonstrate how thoroughly trashed it has been in the past half century of "reform."" Introduction to Ludwig Von Mises' Economic Policy - Capitalism Magazine by Bettina Bien Greaves (May 9, 2003) "The ideal economic policy, both for today and tomorrow, is very simple. Government should protect and defend against domestic and foreign aggression the lives and property of the persons under its jurisdiction, settle disputes that arise, and leave the people otherwise free to pursue their various goals and ends in life." Capitalism: Mass Production and the Standard of Living (1 of 3) - Capitalism Magazine - by Ludwig Von Mises (May 10, 2003) "The mere fact that you are living today is proof that capitalism has succeeded, whether or not you consider your own life very valuable." War as Social Work? - Capitalism Magazine by Daniel Pipes (May 10, 2003) "The ultimate war goal is to enhance American security." Nobles and Knaves -- The Washington Times Noble: Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, proud patriot. "---Mrs. Schlossberg sees American citizenship as far more important than membership in a particular political party. "I certainly grew up feeling incredibly patriotic, and obviously I think service is a huge part of that," she told CBS' Harry Smith. "I don't think it's liberal or conservative. I think — you know, Ronald Reagan called for an informed patriotism that starts at the dinner table, and I think that's really what we want."---" [Her new book, "A Patriot's Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love"] Protest Planned Against Greenpeace's 'Eco-Manslaughter' - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service "An African American civil rights group is planning a Saturday protest against Greenpeace, alleging that the environmental group has committed "eco-manslaughter" through its support of international policies limiting development and the expansion of technology to the developing world's poor." Full Story Universal health care would inflict DMV-style pain - Recordnet.com "I think it's ironic that two articles concerning people without health insurance appeared in The Record on the same date (May 4) as Michael Fitzgerald's column "DMV issues license to kill time"." Friday, May 09, 2003
The Ravings of Madmen...Quotes from EarthFirst! - FIRE MENTAL "…Earth First!ers also use confrontation, guerrilla theater, direct action and civil disobedience to fight for wild places and life processes. " "…Furthermore, the whole economy of industrial affluence (and poverty) must give way to a hunter-gatherer way of life, which is the only economy compatible with a healthy land."Off-Road.com Ann Thropy–Earth First! (1987) Environmentalist Wacko Quotes - Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out "Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs." -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal Environmentalist Wacko Quotes - Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out "The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing....This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run." -- Economist editorial Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Springtime in Luddite land Source: CCF Author: staff "We'll say this much about activists who devote their lives to opposing genetically modified foods: they don't let a little thing like reality slow them down." (5/8/03) The Psychology of Crisis "---I'll conclude with one more observation. Ron Paul gets elected every two years because he's a Republican in a district with a Republican majority, not because he's a libertarian. I'm confident that other Ron Pauls, i.e., libertarians, could also get elected as Democrats in districts with Democratic majorities or as Republicans in districts with Republican majorities. It's a simple matter of libertarians accepting the reality of mass psychology, rejoining the herd, and contending for the herd's leadership. "Has any of this moooooooved you?" Habits and attitudes of free people - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Strike the Root Author: Kyle Standerfer "I have come up with three habits/attitudes that a particular population must predominantly hold to in order for freedom to last. By no means is this an exhaustive list." (5/9/03) Bush and the Republican gun grabbers - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Strike the Root Author: Mike Powers "[Bush's] sudden about-face should come as no surprise. Recent anti-gun legislation confirms that Republicans are just as eager to deprive peaceful Americans of their ability to defend themselves as Democrats. Consider the following legislation ..." (5/9/03) Ban aid - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Jacob Sullum "The 'assault weapon' ban sets a dangerous precedent precisely because the justification for it is so weak. It suggests that you don't need a good reason to limit the right to keep and bear arms, and it invites further restrictions down the road. As far as the gun banners are concerned, that is the whole point." (5/9/03) Humanists vs. naturalists - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: TCS Author: James K. Glassman "Not only are humanist policymakers worrying about the economic consequences of Kyoto-like measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions -- especially on developing nations -- but, just as important, the scientific foundation of the global-warming argument is under attack as well." (5/9/03) UK lawyers argue that criminals need protection from homeowners - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Independent "Burglars have the right to be protected from homeowners who threaten them with 'lethal force,' lawyers opposing the early release of the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin told the High Court ..." (5/8/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Where anti-gun laws are headed in the U.S. Canadian challenge to socialized medicine gets to Supreme Court - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Toronto Star "A Quebec doctor and patient who contend the province is violating their right to offer and receive private health care will get a hearing from the Supreme Court of Canada." (5/9/03) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DMV style health care. Alarm Sounded Over African Slave Trade - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service Nairobi, Kenya (CNSNews.com) - "Anti-slavery campaigners are calling on the international community to become more active in confronting the slave trade, which still exists in parts of Africa and elsewhere." Full Story Thursday, May 08, 2003
Supply Tax Cuts And The Truth About The Reagan Economic Record "This study assesses the Reagan supply-side policies by comparing the nation's economic performance in the Reagan years (1981-89) with its performance in the immediately preceding Ford-Carter years (1974-81) and in the Bush-Clinton years that followed (1989-95). "On 8 of the 10 key economic variables examined, the American economy performed better during the Reagan years than during the pre- and post-Reagan years. "Real economic growth averaged 3.2 percent during the Reagan years versus 2.8 percent during the Ford-Carter years and 2.1 percent during the Bush-Clinton years. "Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years. "Interest rates, inflation, and unemployment fell faster under Reagan than they did immediately before or after his presidency. "The only economic variable that was worse in the Reagan period than in both the pre- and post-Reagan years was the savings rate, which fell rapidly in the 1980s. The productivity rate was higher in the pre-Reagan years but much lower in the post-Reagan years. The Reagan Tax Cuts: Lessons for Tax Reform "During the summer of 1981 the central focus of policy debate was on the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA) of 1981, the Reagan tax cuts.--- "By reducing marginal tax rates and improving economic incentives, ERTA would increase the flow of resources into production, boosting economic growth. Opponents used static revenue projections to argue that ERTA would be a giveaway to the rich because their tax payments would fall. "The criticism that the tax payments of the rich would fall under ERTA was based on a static conception of human behavior. As a 1982 JEC study pointed out,[1] similar across-the-board tax cuts had been implemented in the 1920s as the Mellon tax cuts, and in the 1960s as the Kennedy tax cuts. In both cases the reduction of high marginal tax rates actually increased tax payments by "the rich," also increasing their share of total individual income taxes paid. Unfortunately, estimates of ERTA by the Democrat-controlled CBO continued to show falling tax payment by upper income taxpayers, even after actual IRS data had become available showing a surge of income tax payments by affluent taxpayers.---" Growth From Reagan Tax Cuts "---Politicians are expected to repeat the mantra, "Reagan tax cuts were responsible for declining revenues and soaring deficits in the 1980s," but no such thing occurred, according to budget analysts. "Receipts from individual income taxes rose to $446 billion in fiscal 1989 -- President Reagan's last budget -- from $286 billion in fiscal 1981, the year Reagan began to slash personal tax rates -- a 56 percent increase. "Annualized, tax receipts grew faster than that period's 4 percent inflation. During the same period, federal spending rose from $678 billion to $1.143 trillion -- a 69 percent increase.---" Political advocacy vs. freedom of speech - The Miami Herald | 05/08/2003 | Posted on Thu, May. 08, 2003 GEORGE F. WILL "A special three-judge panel has produced four opinions totaling 1,600 pages attempting to decipher the McCain-Feingold campaign-regulation law and decide whether it is compatible with this inconvenience from the Constitution: ``Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.'' "This is what happens when politicians expand restrictions on who may engage in political advocacy, when they may engage in it, how much of it they may engage in, and what they may say. The task of squaring that policing of speech with the First Amendment invites intellectual corruption.---" Blinded by Bush-Hatred (washingtonpost.com) "---But accepting the fact that Iraq had an extensive and continuing program for weapons of mass destruction doesn't require taking Bush at his word. The U.N. Special Commission, when it finished its work in 1999, concluded the same thing. So has Germany's intelligence service. So has the United Kingdom's. Indeed, the only people who seem to doubt it are either allies of Hussein or those who distrust Bush so much that they automatically assume everything he says must be false.---" Boston Globe Online / Editorials | Opinions / Castro's cheerleaders "---Colin Powell is right: Cuba's dictatorial regime is indeed an anachronism, cruel and repressive and backward. But it isn't only Castro who keeps the Cuban people down. It is also the groupies who sing his praises and the sycophants who ignore his crimes. They give aid and comfort to a tyrant, and their collaboration will not be forgotten." Joe Lieberman’s energy plan - NEALZ NUZE Take a look at Joe Lieberman’s energy plan. I’ll read along with you and we’ll see if there’s anything interesting enough to talk about. Click here ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Plans for a Democrat party socialist police state energy policy. AND WHAT IS THIS PICTURE [BELOW]? - NEALZ NUZE "Well, Golly! It looks like Clinton on the deck of the USS Theodore Roosevelt! Why, that's exactly what it is! And looky! He's wearing a flight jacket! Don't you think that it's just shameful that this particular Commander-in-Chief posed for these photo ops with the military? I guess this is OK for a president, if that president is a Democrat who "loathes" the military."  THE SO-CALLED “WHITE PROM” - NEALZ NUZE "The most important aspect to this story is that it was NOT a school function. When we hear about “proms” we all have a mindset of some school-sponsored dance to celebrate the end of the school year. That was not the case with this dance. It was a private function neither endorsed nor promoted by the school.--- "Across America during the coming months – in fact, just this weekend! – there are going to be thousands of private parties held in homes, hotel ballrooms, public parks and shower stalls that are going to be all-white, all-black, all-Hispanic, all-nerd, all-jock, all-gay and all-freak. It is not the place of the government, through government schools, to tell these kids who they can and cannot associate with off-campus." The Ravings of Madmen - Quotes from EarthFirst - FIRE MENTAL "…It is not enough to oppose the construction of new dams. It is time to free our shackled rivers and tear down Hetch Hetchy, Glen Canyon, New Melones, Tellico and other concrete monstrosities." Kill 'Em All And Let God Sort 'Em Out - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems." -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal A new force for economic and moral leadership - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Acton Institute Author: Anthony B. Bradley "What politics has failed to do in raising up diverse national leadership, the marketplace has done with amazing success. America's best kept secret is that many blacks are well-off and hold critical positions in America's largest corporations -- companies like Merrill Lynch, American Express, AOL Time Warner, Citigroup, Verizon ..." (5/7/03) Arguing the case for one six-pack - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Philadelphia Inquirer Author: John Grogan "Pennsylvanians buying beer remind me of those poor Soviets in Stalinist Russia waiting in line in the snow every week to get their state-issued loaf of stale bread. 'Comrades! You will buy your state-sanctioned beverages only from the government store, and you will buy them only in the quantities that we tell you to! Is that understood?'" (4/29/03) The beat goes on - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Town Hall Author: Larry Elder "Before the war, opponents urged patience. After all, they claimed, the 'inspections were working.' With major fighting concluded, however, the very same people demand an immediate 'smoking gun' to prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction." (5/8/03) Universal health care, part III - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Town Hall Author: Thomas Sowell "When and why did health insurance, paid by third parties, become widespread in the American economy? Like so many things that the government does, third-party health insurance grew out of problems created by previous government policies." (5/8/03) The need for regime change in black America - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: NCPPR/Project 21 Author: Kevin Martin "In our communities, black conservatives who speak out against the leaders and policies pushed by liberals who claim to speak for all black Americans are often bullied, lambasted and even physically assaulted. Like Iraq, we need regime change." (5/03) Ignorance of the law is the lawyers' excuse - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Carolina Journal Author: John Hood "It surprises me not in the least that the sort of trial attorneys gravitating to John Edwards' campaign would not have bothered to comply with a basic, and relatively straightforward, element of campaign finance law. For many of them, the law is almost infinitely maleable [sic], a tool to fit any number of wildly divergent jobs ..." (5/7/03) Fight restrictions on private schools - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Cato Institute Author: David Salisbury "[T]he school choice community needs to stress the importance of avoiding new regulations on private schools. If they don't, those new rules could destroy the very basis for school choice." (5/8/03) Panel OKs universal care bill - Recordnet.com "California inched toward Canadian-style universal health care Wednesday when a key committee approved a bill that would gather every Californian into a government-financed health system." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ California leads the way down the socialist road to serfdom. Wednesday, May 07, 2003
The Ravings of Madmen... - Quotes from EarthFirst! - FIRE MENTAL "…To begin with, we do not believe that it is enough to preserve some of our remaining wilderness. We need to preserve it all, and it is time to recreate vast areas of wilderness in all the planet's ecosystems: identify key areas, close roads, remove developments, and reintroduce extirpated wildlife." Attack Of The Socialist-Luddites - Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "What we've got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." -- Timothy Wirth, former U.S. Senator (D-Colorado) It's time to debate global warming again - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: NCPPR Author: Amy Ridenour "The theory that human activity is causing the planet to warm significantly is just that, a theory, and one that, so far, hasn't been coming true. Any serious discussion about global warming ... should include an acknowledgement that the best available scientific models of our atmosphere are not yet sophisticated enough to accurately predict ... humankind's impact upon clmate." (5/7/03) Unrecognized Abuse - ifeminists.com > editorial " In this article I want to talk about something that is not considered to be abuse but actually is. It is a form of abuse that is pernicious and vicious and very, very common. It is a form of abuse that is almost always carried out on men by women. Although there are exceptions to this rule, they are very few indeed. It is also a form of abuse that can have catastrophic effects on children as well as fathers. It is the abuse of men and kids by lying about fathers in order to exclude them from their children's lives or, by threatening to remove the children from the fathers if the mothers wishes are not met.---" Thomas Sowell: 'Universal health care': Part II "---Some believe -- contrary to all evidence -- that the government can provide things cheaper, that it can "bring down the cost of health care," for example. "Virtually everything that the government does costs more than when the same thing is done in private industry -- whether it is building housing, running prisons, collecting garbage, or innumerable other things. Why in the world would we imagine that health care would be the exception?---" Walter Williams: The morality of markets "---Once one accepts the principle of self-ownership, what's moral and immoral becomes self-evident. Murder is immoral because it violates private property. Rape and theft are also immoral -- they also violate private property. "Here's an important question: Would rape become morally acceptable if Congress passed a law legalizing it? You say: "What's wrong with you, Williams? Rape is immoral plain and simple, no matter what Congress says or does!" "If you take that position, isn't it just as immoral when Congress legalizes the taking of one person's earnings to give to another? Surely if a private person took money from one person and gave it to another, we'd deem it theft and, as such, immoral. Does the same act become moral when Congress takes people's money to give to farmers, airline companies or an impoverished family? No, it's still theft, but with an important difference: It's legal, and participants aren't jailed.---" Women, lepers, and Jews - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: TCS Europe Author: Todd Seavey "Before setting science aside, though, it's worth asking how good humanity's track record with intuition and 'common sense' is. After all, a health fear (or a cure) seen as reasonable by the public today might one day be regarded as lunacy if the data don't bear out the intuition." (5/7/03) Real-time dragnet - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: CEI Author: Braden Cox "Old-economy regulations shield established industries from having to adapt to new and better ways of doing business. All too often, regulators skew the regulatory process in favor of established, 'traditional' off-line companies." (5/6/03) The yard sale of the century - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Independent Institute Author: William F. Shugart II "The state budget crisis will be ameliorated over time by the resumption of a more vigorous economic expansion. Raising taxes and fees permanently would be counterproductive. Happily, there is another solution: sell off some of the state's assets." (5/5/03) A case for divided government - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Cato Institute Author: William Niskanen "Divided government is not the stuff of which legends are made. But the separation of powers is probably a better protection of our liberties when the presidency and the Congress are controlled by different parties." (5/7/03) Reforming campaign finance - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Brian Doherty "Yes, in a nation with the First Amendment in its Constitution, it is somehow considered proper for the government to pass a law telling people they cannot publicly promote, support, attack, or oppose candidates without following government mandates." (5/6/03) Ireland's feminism disservices the YWCA - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Reason Author: Cathy Young "Ireland now says that she will focus on 'women's empowerment' in her leadership role at the YWCA. But if her record at NOW is any indication, what she will bring to her job is a divisive brand of feminism that has outlived itself." (5/6/03) It's Pat! - Reason "---In 1998, discussing the news that women's average earnings had risen from 74 to 76 percent of men's, Ireland said on CNN, "Somebody is pocketing 24 cents. Somebody benefits from women's cheap labor." "But women are not paid 76 cents to a man's dollar for the same work. Economists have found that the pay gap is largely explained by differences in occupation, education, and time spent in the work force. It is far smaller for workers under 40, though women remain much more likely than men to curtail careers for family reasons and to take lower-paying, more flexible jobs. Of course these choices are influenced by cultural norms.---" Liar, liar - Freedom News from Free-Market.Net Source: Second Amendment Sisters Author: Maria Heil "Sylvia started out by saying that she doesn't own a gun, which is contrary to what John [Walsh] said during the [John Walsh] show introduction. She also blames guns for all the grief in her life. It was quite a show she put on." (5/6/03) Controversial Calif. gun decision stands -- The Washington Times "---Justice Alex Kozinski penned a sharp dissent to Tuesday's decision not to rehear the challenge to the California ban, taking particular issue with the notion that arming citizens in order to maintain a militia was an outdated relic of the Colonial period that did not apply to modern society where gangs and shootings are rampant in some areas. "In his lengthy and eloquent opinion, Kozinski said that all amendments of the Constitution were to be held in equal esteem.---" It's not the economy — stupid -- The Washington Times "---The current President Bush's position is almost the polar opposite of his father's. He possesses a united party, no challenger, and fervent — almost unanimous — Republican support. He is fighting his heart out for tax cuts and a growing economy. He doesn't have a regional, unthreatening war behind him, but is in the middle of a dangerous and ongoing war that the public supremely trusts him to execute. He is supported by the best political operative in the business, and he has sustained higher job approval numbers longer than any modern president. Of course, in politics , anything can happen. But short of another depression, in the next election, the decisive element is not going to be the economy — stupid." Kerry's revisionist history -- The Washington Times "Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was rather slippery on the "Imus in the Morning" radio show Monday, where he rewrote history — not long after his presidential campaign had accused Vermont Gov. Howard Dean of "pathological recklessness with the facts." "To hear Mr. Kerry tell it, in 1993 Bill Clinton inherited a lousy economy. Without the benefit of a single Republican vote, Mr. Kerry's fairy tale continued, Mr. Clinton's deficit-reduction plan, which congressional Democrats passed in the summer of 1993, singlehandedly destroyed the deficit monster.---" Where Did All the Money Go? - CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) - "The Blackfeet Nation Indian tribe in Montana has seen only a fraction of the billions of dollars owed to its members by the federal government, thanks to what Federal District Court Justice Royce C. Lamberth called the "most egregious misconduct by the federal government" he has ever seen." [He hasn't looked carefully enough.--TA] Read the story CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service - Vox Populi: Liberal Censorship (CNSNews.com) - "Readers went through the roof after reading about how a talent agency representing some of Hollywood's most famous stars sent a nastygram threatening legal action against a website critical of anti-war celebrities." Read Letters to the Editor UN Commission Counts Worst Rights Offenders as Members, Panel Says -- 05/07/2003 "The U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which recently elected Cuba to its membership, is increasingly home to some of the worst human rights abusers in the world, a panel of U.N. experts said. "Jeane Kirkpatrick, head of the U.S. delegation to the Geneva-based commission, said during a panel discussion at the American Enterprise Institute that there's been a marked trend over the past decade for offender countries to seek membership in the Human Rights Commission (HRC) as political cover.---" Tuesday, May 06, 2003
FIRE MENTAL - The Ravings of Madmen... "Monkeywrenching [unlawful sabotage of industrial extraction/development equipment and infrastructure] is not mindless–targets are carefully picked for their strategic value." - EarthFirst Environmentalist Wacko Quotes - Attack Of The Socialist-Luddites "The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world" -- John Shuttleworth Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - The theory of the corporation Source: FEE Author: Norman Barry "[T]he invention of the corporation is the great achievement of Anglo-American capitalism, contributing both to its prosperity and the freedom it promotes. But it has to be constantly defended." (PDF file) (3/03) The Heartland Institute - Advocacy Groups Inflate Number of Uninsured "---The number of uninsured in America is, without doubt, a major social issue meriting our concern and policymaking efforts. But by exaggerating and misrepresenting the reasons Americans are uninsured, the Cover the Uninsured propaganda blitz seems less aimed at helping the truly needy than it is designed to advance the threadbare statist agenda of price controls, insurance mandates, and expanding Medicare.---" Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Vaccine development a casualty of flawed public policy Source: Hoover Institution Author: Henry I Miller "With the discovery of the causative agent [of SARS] ... and researchers' ability to grow the virus in tissue culture, American drug and biotech companies should be burning the midnight oil to create a vaccine. But flawed public policy discourages vaccine development; even supplies of vaccines from common, epidemic infectious diseases are in jeopardy." (5/5/03) TCS: Tech - Talking Headaches "---Finally, we are often victims of manipulation of our environmental and health anxieties. Most Americans consider themselves to be "environmentalists," but the hidden agenda of many of those who have attempted the "greening" of Western societies and governments - environmental organizations, certain political leaders, and a large segment of the media - appears to be their own self-interest. An unfortunate by-product is increasingly widespread acceptance of junk science that denigrates the scientific method and the fruits of technology. "Distortion of risk perception increasingly causes us to lose the ability to discriminate between plausibility and provability, between plausibility and reality. The answer? We need to learn more about what we don't understand, and to seek out the advice of genuine experts for guidance. And, oh, yes, to take with a large grain of salt the pronouncements of TV's talking heads." Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Universal health care Source: Town Hall Author: Thomas Sowell "Before we even consider throwing away what works in favor of something that has failed repeatedly, we need to stop reacting to words and start looking at facts. Socialism by any other name is still socialism ..." (5/6/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Minority rules: Filibustering the Constitution Source: Cato Institute Author: James L. Swanson "If employed merely to guarantee a reasonable and limited period of debate before proceeding to an up or down vote, a brief filibuster might pass constitutional muster. But in the cases of Estrada and Owen, when the filibuster is being used not to debate, but to kill their nominations by denying the majority its right to consent to them, serious constitutional issues arise." (5/6/03) CEI.ORG: Competitive Enterprise Institute: Global Warming Bills Could Sneak Through Congress "The scientific case for global warming alarmism grows ever weaker, and President Bush has long since announced he will not submit the Kyoto global warming treaty to the Senate for ratification, but congressional liberals are still making mighty efforts to revive this dead horse. "In the next few weeks they will try to saddle several pieces of legislation with global warming amendments.---" ifeminists.com > editorial > Women With Guns Fight Back "---Maria is busy correcting statements Walsh made on the show. For example, he claimed "nine kids a day die in gun accidents in the home." Maria observes that, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, the 9-a-day number includes "children" as old as 24 and more than 50 percent of those young adults commit suicide. When you additionally factor out "children" who are killed outside the home while involved in crime, the death rate falls to the lowest in recorded history. In Maria's opinion, Walsh deliberately overstated the number for sensationalism.---" Monday, May 05, 2003
Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - Homeland Security's Mark of the Beasts Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "Of all the nonsense and outright insanity proposed in the wake of the 9-11 tragedy, this probably takes the cake. The idea, proposed by Tom Ridge of the 'Homeland Security' department, suggests the tagging and positive identification of each and every animal used in any kind of agriculture for food production in the US. The statistics are staggering, and so are the proposed costs of implementation and tracking." John R. Lott Jr.: Gun control advocates' credibility on line "Gun control advocates should fear the new concealed handgun law, but not for the reason that most people think. The law allows trained, law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns for their protection, but despite claims that it is "radical" and "is really a conceal and kill bill," here is a prediction: A year from now Minnesota's newspapers will report that all the horror stories about letting citizens carry concealed handguns were wrong. The real loser will be gun control advocates' credibility. "My prediction does not really involve going out on a limb. One needs only look at the other 32 states with similar laws where we have had enough time to see what happens. A year after the law goes into effect, newspaper articles in state after state announce that the supposed fears never materialized. It is particularly hard to see why these worries are taken seriously in Minnesota, some of whose neighbors have right-to-carry laws.---" Via: http://www.keepandbeararms.com/news/kabanews/disp.asp?d=5/5/2003 Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - MN: True Purpose of the Law (letter) Submitted by: Bruce W. Krafft Website: http://www.idcwebdev.com 4th letter on page Full text below: ------- An April 30 letter writer stated that "every time I board a Metro Transit bus, I will be worried about how many people are packing guns." That's the whole point. As anxious as you may be, think how this will affect the muggers. Every time you walk down a dark alley at night without a gun, you may be left unmolested because the muggers don't know you don't have one. Bruce W. Krafft, Woodbury FIRE MENTAL - The Ravings of Madmen... "Loggers losing their jobs because of the spotted owl legislation is, in my eyes, no different than people being out of work after the furnaces of Dachau closed." David Brower, former Sierra Club member, speaking at the World Congress on Adventure Travel & Ecotourism, Whistler, B.C. Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed." -- Pentti Linkola Junkscience.com -- Nanny super-state? Super nanny-state? "Smoky bacon crisps face EU ban"- "SMOKY bacon-flavoured crisps and other artificially smoke-flavoured foods are set to be outlawed under regulations being drafted in Brussels. The European parliament has declared that the chemical producing the distinctive taste, extracted from condensed woodsmoke, may contain cancer-causing agents. New rules would spell the end for artificially flavoured “smoked” foods from salmon to char-grilled burgers. Barbecue sauces such as those at McDonald’s and Burger King would have to be withdrawn." (The Sunday Times) [Subscription required outside UK] Junkscience.com -- "Tackling chemophobia" - "Nobody thinks routine daily exposure to synthetic chemicals causes cancer in humans. "Or rather, few who are experts in epidemiology, cancer etiology, or toxicology think so. But you wouldn't know that from the political and media debates on the topic, which often make it sound as if there's a greater than 50 percent chance that chemicals are responsible for an epidemic of cancer and other mysterious diseases." (Todd Seavey, sp!ked) Media Research Center Home Page - 5/5/2003 6:28:31 PM - CyberAlert: Exposing Media Bias Daily Monday, May 5: • SC Primary Arranged to Boost “Conservative” Candidate? • George Stephanopoulos: Raising Taxes Helps the Economy • ABC Touts Democratic Theme of Bush Vulnerability on Economy • Returning Sailors Face Bad Economy, Bush's “Giant” Tax Cut • CBS Backs Up Dean's Claim He's Not Liberal, But... • Belafonte and Glover Come to Castro's Defense Against Bush • “Top Ten Things Never Before Said By a Pulitzer Prize Winner” The Heartland Institute - U.S. Class Size Studies "Under former Governor Pete Wilson, California mandated classes no larger than 20 pupils through the third grade. The price tag has mushroomed to $4 billion, and school districts are putting the so-called 20-1 program on the chopping block in a desperate effort to find money to run the schools. "Research has failed to show that reductions in class sizes have yielded improvements in performance. The Class-Size Reduction Consortium found the large number of extra teachers necessitated by the mandate led to a lowering of teacher quality that could have wiped out any benefits of smaller classes. "Policy changes that started in the Golden State about the same time--including the virtual end of bilingual education and social promotion, and the start of statewide testing and a back-to-basics curriculum--may have been more responsible for student achievement gains. "A study by Louisiana’s Education Department, released in February, concluded that class size has much less impact on student achievement than the quality of teacher preparation.---" NEALZ NUZE "Can you believe it? NASCAR succumbed to Jesse Jackson’s extortion techniques. One quarter of a million NASCAR dollars paid to Jackson to keep him quiet. How long before the National Hockey League atones for its lack of black players?" Full story NEALZ NUZE "Every law school has one, and at the University of Georgia it’s law professor Donald Wilkes. One what? One illogical, hard core leftist who seeks refuge in academia because of the problems he would have actually earning a living in the private sector. Wilkes is upset because Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is going to deliver the commencement speech at the law school this year. Blacks, you know, just aren’t permitted to be anything but liberals. It’s a new law, I guess." Editorial NEALZ NUZE "A school textbook was rejected because there was a story about a blind mountain climber who scaled Mount McKinley. Why? Because the book suggested that blind people are at a disadvantage because they cannot see. It’s time to stop the politically correct cleansing of our government school textbooks. This editorial from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. NEALZ NUZE "And now for a trip into the dark, humid and rancid inner recesses of the mind of an anti-capitalist leftist. Read about Guy Taylor from Globalise Resistance. Believe me, folks, you are going to be amazed at the third-grade mentality of this socialist idiot." Globalise Resistance OpinionJournal - Outside the Box - Two Decades of Mediocrity "---Why is it, Ms. Hoxby continued, that the union bureaucracy in low-income schools so fiercely resists choice and performance pay? Unions don't resist performance pay in competitive industries--automobile manufacture, for example--because they know they have to survive in the marketplace to keep their jobs and higher pay encourages better performance. It is unions in protected monopolies that are the problem, for their members do not have to improve to survive. "The reason our public education system is failing our children is that monopolies don't work. Insulated from competitive pressures--with a guaranteed student body and annual income, as Mr. Finn noted--school-board, state administrative and union bureaucracies govern the educational system. "American education needs choice and competition and the freedom to innovate if it is going to improve. The rising tide of educational mediocrity so startlingly revealed in 1983 has not ebbed, and until the market forces that have propelled America to the top in other endeavors replace the establishment public education bureaucracies, it may even continue to rise." NEALZ NUZE - UH OH .. NOW WE’RE LEARNING THE TRUTH ABOUT THAT IRAQI MUSEUM "Pity the poor left. In the days following the liberation of Iraq leftists finally thought they had an issue they could exploit. The profoundly stupid and uncultured George Bush had failed to protect the Iraqi national museum. The entire history of the beginning of civilization had disappeared with the looting of tens of thousands of priceless artifacts from the museum .. all because of George Bush. "Well … looks like another oops for the left. The Chicago Tribune has now lowered that estimate of the number of precious antiquities looted from the Baghdad museum from 10,000 to ….. 38. That’s right, 38. The single most valuable artifact is a bowl. The remainder of the artifacts was found in the museum … largely unscathed.---" NEALZ NUZE - THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE "I know, you probably didn’t see it. Most networks ran it at obscure hours, few carried it live. If you did watch it you might have noticed something interesting. Virtually all of the candidates slammed George Bush on his “handling” of the economy. They all blamed Bush for our economic woes, such as they are. Oddly, though, not one single candidate told us what their economic plan would be. The only suggestions these so-called “candidate” could come up with was eliminating Bush’s tax cuts. Nothing else. Par for the course." NEALZ NUZE - WHY WAS HEALTH CARE SUCH A HOT ISSUE FOR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES? "---One issue that seems hot – and will remain so – is health care. Richard Gephardt has proposed one of the most insanely expensive government spending programs you could imagine … all in the name of universial health care. "Why is this issue so important to Democrats? Control. Control and dependency. If you take a look at the entire breadth of Democratic policy proposals you find one common thread. Every single Democratic idea for a government program will inevitably lead to greater citizen dependency on government, and greater government control of citizens. This is no truer anywhere than it is in the area of health care. Democrats and other big-government lovers know that when you control a person’s access to health care, you control that person absolutely.--- "There are many ways the health care costs could be contained and the availability of affordable health care expanded. We could expand medical savings plans, make health insurance premiums deductible to the individual, end idiotic and unreasonable mandated coverages, grand broader practice authority to nurse practitioners and other medical personnel. "Remember, though; the primary goal here is not to improve the delivery systems for health care, nor to make it more affordable. The primary goal is dependency and control." Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - The cost of not cutting taxes Source: Heritage Foundation Author: Norbert Michel "Properly constructed, they [tax cuts] result in more jobs, more savings and more income. Indeed, a tax cut that encourages long-term growth by making it cheaper for people to invest -- and eliminating the tax individuals pay on dividends would do that in spades -- is exactly what our fragile economy needs ..." (5/1/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Time for separation of sexuality and state Source: Liberty for All Author: Todd Andrew Barnett "The question before us is not whether the law should have been applied in this case or any other case. The question is not whether the state should have applied the law equally to all couples, regardless of sexual orientation and sexuality." (5/18/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Reasons to surrender Source: USTL Author: Paul Jacob "It's economically illiterate lawyers who concoct these anti-trust laws. And it's disgruntled businessmen and their political pals who pluck up the weapon to begin with." (5/2/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Social Security and its misunderstandings Source: FEE Author: Sheldon Richman "Social Security is subject to many misunderstandings. But none is more common than the belief that employers match their workers' 'contributions.' " (5/5/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Cato to NRA: Butt out of our case Source: Keep and Bear Arms Author: Angel Shamaya "Is NRA really this stupid? Or do they actually need help on their case -- help from the superior legal team at CATO? Or, worse yet, are they deliberately trying to sabotage the CATO case?" (5/5/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Making the world safe for mob rule Source: LVRJ "America is not a democracy -- was never meant to be a democracy -- and unfolding events in occupied Iraq are about to remind us why." (5/4/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - California Dems chipping away at Prop 13 tax protections Source: Contra Costa Times "Almost 25 years since Proposition 13 passed in June 1978, a score of Democratic lawmakers are chipping away at one of its most sacred tenets -- the two-thirds majority needed for voters to pass new local taxes." (5/5/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Post office inspector general accused of waste Source: CNN "In a scathing letter to the chairman of the postal governing board, Sens. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Ron Wyden of Oregon said Inspector General Karla Corcoran wasted 'millions of dollars' on 'bizarre staff retreats.' They also said her office spent about two dollars for every dollar in waste it identified." (05/05/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - PC madness Source: Fox News "The city of Lansing, Michigan is laying off police and fire personnel while hiring diversity consultants. The word "brainstorming" is being frowned upon in the UK because it might offend people with epilepsy. Similar silliness elsewhere is reported in the story." (05/05/03) Unpopular Speech - Book Banned In America While Troops Die For Freedom by NewsWithViews.com "Irwin Schiff is a well known author with over 500,000 books in print about the economy and the income tax. He is also now amongst the few who have had a book banned by the U.S. Government. On March 19, 2003, Federal Judge Lloyd George ordered Schiff to stop selling his book "The Federal Mafia" which has been in print for over 13 years." [more] THE FEDERALIST - THE LAST WORD "By now a succession of wars in the Middle East should have taught readers interested in maintaining some psychic balance this much: Put aside your daily copies of The New York Times at the beginning of any conflict. Let 'em stack up unopened, like Pandora's Box, lest all the Furies inside be unleashed. Then, once it's safe to read again, go through America's paper of dubious record, savoring each and every gloomy prediction that never materialized, lingering over every sad assessment that was never borne out. It's immensely cheering. From first to last: 'Hussein Rallies Iraqi Defenders To Hold Baghdad/Leader Says Allies Will Be Dragged Into a "Quagmire" by Guerrilla Warfare' --Page 1, March 25, 2003. 'Bush Peril: Shifting Sand and Fickle Opinion' --Page 1, March 30, 2003. 'Rumsfeld's Design for War Criticized on the Battlefield' --Page 1, April 1, 2003. 'The skeptics, who include some of the leading former Army commanders from the last war with Iraq, say the force the United States has deployed is not large enough to begin a decisive battle in Baghdad while simultaneously guarding ever-lengthening supply lines.' --Page 1, April 1, 2003. 'Iraq Is Planning Protracted War/Threat of Guerrilla Fighting in Cities and in Summer Heat' --Page 1, April 2, 2003. 'Defiant Iraqis Say U.S. Advance Has Been Broken' --Page 1, April 6, 2003. The Times' coverage didn't quite measure up to the ceaseless flow of victory proclamations from the Iraqi information minister, but there were days when it came close." --Paul Greenberg THE FEDERALIST - FOR THE RECORD "In the last twenty-five years, no one has killed more Muslims than Saddam Hussein. Yet, only two of 57 Muslim states lined up against him. In the same interval, no nation in the world has saved more Muslim lives than the United States (Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo and Kurdish Iraq); yet only 2 of 57 Muslim states recognized the debt enough to support America's war effort. The Arab world in particular is a collection of medieval theocracies and fascist regimes, who supported first Hitler and then the Communist empire. Its culture is xenophobic and its media is effectively controlled by the state. How could America conduct itself in liberating any Arab country or neutralizing any Arab threat without provoking a negative reaction?" --David Horowitz THE FEDERALIST - GOVERNMENT "The Constitution protects treasured privacy interests, but creates no general right of privacy. The First Amendment shields beliefs and associations from government snooping or impairment. The home, possessions, the person and reasonable expectations of privacy generally cannot be disturbed without reasonable cause under the Fourth Amendment. The right to silence is safeguarded by the Fifth Amendment. And religious test oaths as a condition of public office are condemned by Article VI of the Constitution. But a right of privacy finds no expression in the constitutional text. ... The Ninth Amendment advises that the enumeration of rights against the federal government should not be construed to create power where none was conferred by the Constitution. In other words, the federal government is a government of limited powers and cannot legislate at all unless supported by an affirmative grant in Article I or an amendment, such as the Article XVI Income Tax amendment. Accordingly, Congress enjoys no general authority to regulate marriage, private consensual sexual acts, or abortion. ... States, in contrast to the federal government, are governments of general power. They may legislate unless prohibited by the Constitution. The 14th Amendment, for example, prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, or denying any person the equal protection of the laws." --Bruce Fein THE FEDERALIST - THE GIPPER "Our status as a free society and world power is not based on brute strength. When we've taken up arms, it has been for the defense of freedom for ourselves and for other peaceful nations who needed our help. But now, faced with the development of weapons with immense destructive power, we've no choice but to maintain ready defense forces that are second to none. Yes, the cost is high, but the price of neglect would be infinitely higher." --Ronald Reagan THE FEDERALIST "---But what is really notable about this Leftmedia "news-frenzy of personal destruction" episode is that it is a page right out of the Clinton book on the "politics of personal destruction." The Leftmedia outlets now attacking Bennett are the same ones that defended Bill Clinton's vices when president, (sex with a subordinate female about which he lied under oath). Then, they argued that the vices of a president were a private matter but now they are arguing the vices of a citizen are a public matter." THE FEDERALIST "...[I]t is the students who will pay the price -- big time and for the rest of their lives -- for the fads and fetishes which substitute for education in our schools. ... Real teaching is hard work. Job fairs, play-acting, assigning students to keep diaries or write letters to public figures, or encouraging them to vent emotions in class -- all these things are a lot easier than teaching. Tests with consequences make it harder to play all these games. Moreover, these tests give parents, voters and taxpayers some way to keep track of how well or how badly the public schools are doing their work. No longer can a lot of cheery-sounding mush from teachers and administrators substitute for hard facts." --Thomas Sowell Sunday, May 04, 2003
FIRE MENTAL - The Ravings of Madmen... "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." Activist Stephen Schneider in the Washington Times [Emphasis added by TA.] FIRE MENTAL--The Ravings of Madmen... "Chain saws are more destructive than the atom bomb." Ted Turner, President, Cable News Network (CNN) Environmentalist Wacko Quotes "We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion -- guilt-free at last!" -- Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue Analysis Points to Global Warming "---"For years, the reluctance of satellite-measured temperatures of the lower layers of the atmosphere to warm dramatically has been held up as evidence that climate models for future warming are unrealistic," Michaels said today. "In a new twist on this argument, Department of Energy climatologist Benjamin Santer matched a new, 'adjusted' version of the satellite temperatures -- which shows a warming trend -- to a climate model from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and found a better correspondence than occured with the original,'unadjusted' data. "This finding is not science. In science, we make hypotheses (called 'models') and test them on data. We don't adjust the data to fit the model. More important, there is another set of atmospheric data to see whether the cooler or 'adjusted' hotter satellite data are correct -- weather balloons that are launched daily around the planet take the temperature of the same layer that the satellite senses. It turns out that they match the original, cooler data rather than the adjusted, hotter set. "Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this story is how little coverage it has generated. Normally, this would have been on page one or two of the Washington Post. Clearly, the environmental journalism community has looked at this paper too, and found it to be a curious inversion of science, where the data have been adjusted to fit a preconception, rather than an earth-shaking finding.---" ACCURACY IN MEDIA - For Fairness, Balance and Accuracy in News Reporting - Whitewashing Reds "There’s nothing wrong with socialism. Much of Europe is socialist. Much of Western Europe has socialist parties that have democratic roots going back to before the beginning of the 20th century." This is how Michael Powell, New York bureau chief of the Washington Post, tried to explain why he failed to note in an April 17 puff piece about anti-war organizer Leslie Cagan that she is a co-chair of a group called the "Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism." "But he left out something even more important—that the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) is an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA (CPUSA). "I call her a leftist," Powell protested, as if that were an accurate and complete characterization of Cagan’s ideology.---" We’re watching you: national security and privacy issues=TheHill.com= "---David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor who reviewed the draft legislation for the Center for Public Integrity, said the [USA PATRIOT] act “would radically expand law enforcement and intelligence gathering authorities, reduce or eliminate judicial oversight over surveillance, authorize secret arrests, create a DNA database based on unchecked executive ‘suspicion,’ create new death penalties and even seek to take American citizenship away from persons who belong to or support disfavored political groups.”---" Keys to the triumph -- The Washington Times "---Unfortunately, now that the embedded correspondents have returned home, it also appears we are also going to have "more of the same" when it comes to the reporting on the effort of America's Armed Forces still in Iraq. Those who now have their quills in barrels of poison ink have the forum. Expect fewer interviews with heroes — and more criticism of their commander in chief." A depressing situation -- The Washington Times "In the 1970s, the late Arthur Okun devised the "misery index" — simply adding together the inflation rate and the unemployment rate. It still remains a handy device for summarizing the overall economic discomfort of Americans. "From 1970 to 1979, the misery index averaged 13.4 percent, ranging from a low of 8.8 percent in 1972 to a high of 17.6 percent in 1975. From 1980 to 1989, the misery index averaged 12.8 percent, but it fell dramatically from 20.6 percent in 1980 to 8.9 percent by 1986. From 1990 to 1999, the index maintained an average 8.8 percent, while briefly hitting a record low of 6.1 percent in 1998. The misery index subsequently rose to 7.6 percent in the recession of 2001 but has been heading down since then. "This March, the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent. Inflation over the past three months was at an annual rate of 0.8 percent, if you leave out energy (which we must because oil prices have fallen). That puts the misery index at 6.6 percent, very close to a record low. Yet that cheerful fact seems to makes some people more miserable, particularly New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.---" Flaws in Gephardt's health plan -- The Washington Times "---In case Mr. Gephardt, the former House Democratic leader, happened somehow to have missed the consequences of those flawed strategies, he certainly must have remembered that one of the most politically disastrous initiatives ever undertaken cost him the House speakership. A key factor in the Republican Party's stunning 1995 assumption of control of the House after 40 years was President Clinton's convoluted, half-baked 1992 health-care plan designed by his wife. "The Gephardt plan is not only certain to create the bureaucratic nightmare of the Clintons' proposal, it has the additional drawback of ensuring that Americans would be faced with deficits into perpetuity — that is, if the country wanted to do anything else, like financing national security. Since Democrats officially have staked out the issue of deficits as the party's main domestic theme, it is startling for one of their leading candidates to be moving in the opposite direction.---" The AFT's malfeasance -- The Washington Times "---The AFT has clearly demonstrated that it is incapable of monitoring its affiliates. For the sake of the public trust and Washington teachers, who have already seen $5 million of their dues drained while the AFT looked the other way, a court-appointed monitor is necessary." Tax-cut stances portend problem for Democrats -- The Washington Times "What these Democrats are saying is that ... bigger government and higher taxes are better for America. So in a way they are going to provide a very clear choice for voters in the 2004 elections," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich." Lautenberg Gun Control Bill Compared to Nazi Policies -- 04/30/2003 "---"These are the very laws that were used by the Nazis to register everybody's guns, to confiscate the Jews' guns and then to commit genocide," said Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America. "Why the senator would want to do something as horrible as that, I can't understand." "Germany's "Law on Firearms and Ammunition" required all firearms to be registered with the federal government. Although the law was passed in 1928, prior to the Nazis coming to power, Hitler's regime used the registration lists to confiscate firearms belonging to Jews and suspected "sympathizers."---" Recordnet.com - Welcoming the homeless? I'd be willing to construct and deliver to all homeless advocates the following lawn/window sign: "Free bed and board to all homeless people. Inquire within." All homeless advocates should be ready to put their money where their mouths are. How many homeless advocates have nice comfortable homes with extra bedroom space? When was the last time a homeless advocate invited a homeless person in for a meal? Any bets available on the number of responses I get? All such generous people can reach me by e-mail at RFA 668 5915@aol.com. Richard Farago Stockton Saturday, May 03, 2003
Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - QUOTES TO REMEMBER "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." — Thomas Paine Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - The Forgotten Militia Amendment-The Real Collective Right Amendment Submitted by: Robin Herman "As shown above, the facts surrounding the forgotten militia amendment negate any assertion that the purpose of the Second Amendment was to grant the several States the 'collective right' to arm their militias. The failed 'collective right' militia amendment was unrelated to the one that became the Second Amendment and any attempt by organizations like the Brady Campaign to link the two is factually and historically dishonest." Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - Descent into Madness - 48 Hours in the California Legislative System "Stereotypes are a common part of American culture. Often as not they are based on a grain of truth wrapped in a mile of exaggeration. While most of us enjoy a good laugh at the wacky world of California politics, a rational man might think that accounts of strange thinking on the Left Coast, like any good bass fishing story, were a little larger than life. After spending two days in the halls of California state government in Sacramento, it is apparent that the inmates are running the asylum.---" Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - QUOTES TO REMEMBER "Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property . . . Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." — Thomas Paine, Thoughts on Defensive War (1775). FIRE MENTAL - The Ravings of Madmen... "The Northern Spotted owls is the wildlife species of choice to act as a surrogate for old-growth forest protection and I've often though that ‘thank goodness the spotted owls evolved in the Pacific Northwest for if it hadn’t we’d have to genetically engineer it." Andy Stahl, Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund @ University or Oregon Law Clinic address. Environmentalist Wacko Quotes - Attack Of The Socialist-Luddites "The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state." - Kenneth Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982) Environmentalist Wacko Quotes - Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views) By John Hawkins "Environmentalist wackos are anti-progress, anti-capitalism, anti-American, anti-poor, make spectacularly incorrect predictions about the climate, and quite frankly some of these people have MORE FRIGHTENING beliefs than al-Queda (I haven't heard any Al-Queda spokesmen talk longingly about a planet without humans on it). You may think I'm exaggerating, but you won't after you read these quotes..." Escaping “Submission" "---Contrary to popular belief, Islam is not flourishing; Islam is rotting out from its core. This is a culture in convulsions, using anything and everything from oil to airplanes and from stones to suicide bombs as weapons against the rest of the World. In my estimation, this is a sure sign of internal struggle, conflict and weakness. Instead of using reason to reform their religion and join the rest of the civilized world in peaceful co-existence, they choose violence through their ancient doctrine of Jihad.---" Unpopular Speech - Paving the way to Aztlán with propaganda, politics, racism by Linda Bentley "The textbook teaches high-school students that Mexico is supposed to regain the states of Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon and parts of Washington and that they rightly belong to the "mythical" homeland of Aztlán." [more] Unpopular Speech - When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History by Thom Hartmann "The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world." [more] Unpopular Speech - 'Most outrageous' ways feds spend money by WorldNetDaily.com "Awarding $170 million to a pornographer who wants to hand out condoms around the world is just one of the U.S. government's "top 10 spending outrages" this year, according to the Libertarian Party." [more] Unpopular Speech - Answer the damned questions by Larken Rose "It seems that people in power have no shame. Pam Olson is the new Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Tax Policy). She is the highest official with direct involvement in income tax regulations, so she seemed to be a good one to ask questions about what the income tax regulations mean." [more] Unpopular Speech - Americans have good reason to be afraid of their leaders by Barbara Sumner Burstyn "Freed from the oppression of their dictator, Iraqis are now free to complain. From tens of thousands of marchers chanting "down, down USA — don't stay, go away" to individuals spitting at soldiers, Iraqis are flexing a muscle that, paradoxically, had atrophied under Saddam Hussein. But now here's an irony that no one expected." [more] Unpopular Speech - We’re watching you: national security and privacy issues by Andrew Glass "During the go-go years of the Great Society, lopsided Democratic congressional majorities all but ensured that President Lyndon Johnson could work his will with the lawmakers. Despite his winning ways, at one point LBJ seemed thwarted in his efforts to expand inspections of meat-processing plants. Large packers, aligned with the Teamsters, strongly fought the plan on Capitol Hill." [more] Accuracy In Media - Media Monitor - "The Dove Is Red, Not White "The good news is that the Washington Post has finally told the truth about the Workers World Party, which staged several anti-war rallies in Washington. An April 17 story by Michael Powell, the paper’s New York bureau chief, said that International ANSWER, the Workers World front group, was a "Marxist-Leninist grouping that glorifies North Korea…" But the bad news is that he then concealed the communist connections of the head of a rival anti-war group, Leslie Cagan of United For Peace and Justice.---" JPFO Alerts "---And never forget: BOHICA is SOP for politicians, no matter what their party. We can't expect any different from them. It's up to US to change the culture. Only that way can we truly make the BoR our SOP in the USA.---" (BOHICA reference) Capitalism Magazine: The United Nations: United In Opposition to the American Ideal of Freedom by Tom DeWeese "---Our nation's decision to go it alone has the possibility of truly creating a real "New World Order." One much different from the global village envisioned by the UN and those like Germany and France who hoped their past glories could be renewed under its socialist dictates. Instead, this new order could be one of proud, free, sovereign nations, operating independently, looking out for their own interests in a true free market and limited government environment. In fact, it would simply be the re-establishment of the proper international order.--- "For those of us who desperately want to end American support of the UN, our greatest battle is directly in front of us. We must raise our voices in an unyielding scream; "get us out of the UN now!" Say it and keep saying it to elected officials, talk show hosts, letters to the editor and to your next door neighbor. Don't lose this opportunity to rid the world of the most evil regime ever known. No, not Saddam - but the United Nations." Capitalism Magazine: Ending the Double Taxation of Dividends by Don Luskin "---In "When Cities Go Broke, the Options Are Few," Sam Roberts wrote about the tough fiscal decisions facing New York City. He asked, is the city at "a tipping point at which taxes become so onerous that the individuals and businesses who pay the government's bills leave?" "Hallelujah! "When a liberal admits that you can't necessarily bring in big government revenues with high taxes — because people will eventually move away to stop paying them — you've got him started on a 12-step program leading to a supply-side epiphany, complete with visions of the Laffer Curve.---" Joe Scarborough: Capital Offense "I want to call your attention to fruit— specifically cherries. Did you know that your hard-earned tax dollars are going to pay for the annual Cherry Festival in Traverse City, Michigan?---" David Limbaugh: The Censorship Conspiracy? "---Only close-minded liberals would deny that liberals enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the major media, say, from the sixties until fairly recently. But they have watched it slip away since the advent of conservative talk radio, the Internet and now Fox News, and they're beginning to panic. "They dominated (and still do) the editorial boards of most of the nation's influential daily newspapers. They controlled (and still do) the three major television networks, including their news departments and anchors. Check the voluminous data provided at mediaresearch.org under "Media Bias Basics." No space here to set it all out, but the objective evidence is powerful and unarguable.---" Satire from the Lemon - Sierra Club Presents More Evidence of Global Warming "SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- The Sierra Club has released new data that reinforces the need for action in the fight against Global Warming. "According to the group, the Temperature across the United States has jumped over 25 degrees in the past three months. Said Dr. Nancy Gisel, member of The Sierra Club, "This is a catastrophic change in climate. To have the temperature change so drastically over so short a time could have devastating ecological consequences."---" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Seems pretty much like most of the Sierra Club "litany" of scare scenarios. Friday, May 02, 2003
www.house.gov/pombo/pomboreport “Ten million senior Americans receive some sort of dividend income. It certainly makes sense to me that if part of good policy is to encourage job creation with more capital, it's a nice dividend, so to speak, to allow our seniors to have more money, as well.” -Remarks by the President to Small Investors, February 12, 2003 THE FEDERALIST - On the Left... "If there is a universal truth when it comes to Leftist Démocrates, it is that they are, universally, hypocrites. Currently, they are simultaneously condemning Sen. Rick Santorum as an "intolerant bigot" for disagreeing with their homosexual agenda, while demanding "tolerance" for their anti-war agenda. "To wit, consider this rant from Sen. Ms. Hillary Rodham-Clinton-Rodham: "Republicans, you see...act as though they have a monopoly on the right to have answers. And that they have a monopoly on the exercise of power. So in their world, debate is not one of their higher values, because it exposes the weakness of their answers and it threatens the strength of their authority." "If you have heard any of Ms. Rodham-Clinton-Rodham's "debate" about Mr. Santorum's comments, you know why her assertions are laughably hypocritical. Of course, when she says debate, she means "the politics of personal destruction." THE FEDERALIST - News from the Swamp.. "---And why are Daschle-Pelosi, et al., so adamant about blocking Bush's appointments? Because they know that the real power of government now rests in the activist Leftjudiciary, which has appointed itself arbiter of the "living Constitution" to the detriment of the original intent its authors, our Founders." "Thomas Jefferson warned, "The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." THE FEDERALIST - Regarding the redistribution of your income.... "The State Department has approved spending $600,000 of your income to renovate the kitchen of the Waldorf-Astoria apartment for the U.S. ambassador to the UN." Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - NAACP Rests Case Against Firearms Industry Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "Having utterly failed to prove the baseless allegation that the firearm industry knowingly and willingly sells guns to criminals, the NAACP has rested its case after four weeks of testimony." TCS: Tech - 'Just Talkin' Crazy' "The question of whether the national media is ideologically biased has received a new lease on life with the publication of What Liberal Media?, the new book by Nation media columnist Eric Alterman. The book was heralded as the definitive rebuttal to the notion that the media is biased in a manner that favors the liberal side of the political divide. But while the bells and whistles connected with the publication and hyping of the book are impressive and guaranteed to get attention, the actual arguments contained in What Liberal Media? are weak and rather easily countered.--- "---When he appeared on the Daily Show to hype his book, Alterman made the claim that "American talk radio has less ideological diversity than Stalin's Soviet Union." This caused Daily Show host Jon Stewart-who identifies himself as a liberal, to remark to Alterman, "You know, I was with you there for a while, but now you're just talkin' crazy." Indeed." globetechnology.com: Your Canadian source for timely technology news and analysis - The GM labelling debate "---If a company wants to market a product that does not contain GM ingredients then that company can label their food GM-Free. However, that company must pay for the tests to prove their claim. This way there is more choice for the consumer and the price burden of labelling is put on those who are demanding the labelling in the first place. "Since there still is absolutely no evidence of any harm coming to anyone from consuming food biotechnology products there should not be a financial penalty put on the average consumer for the (scientifically unjustifiable) labelling demands of the few. "Remember that not one single illness has been attributed to the consumption of food biotechnology products. All claims to the contrary have been disproved. Considering over two trillion meals with biotechnology products have been consumed, the safety record speaks for itself.---" Junkscience.com -- "Demand for wood may lead to forest growth, not decline, study says" "Increased demand for forest products was a cause of increased forest cover in India during the last three decades, according to a joint study by researchers at Brown and Harvard University in the May 2003 Quarterly Journal of Economics. The finding contradicts the idea that economic development inevitably leads to deforestation." (Brown University) Junkscience.com -- "Environmentalists: False prophets of doom" "WASHINGTON -"Between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, will perish from starvation ... civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." These are actual predictions by environmentalists celebrating the first Earth Day -- April 22, 1970." (Christopher Burger, Knight Ridder/Tribune) Junkscience.com -- "'Trial of Kyoto' - or Trial of the CBC?" "Biases in the editing of the CBC program "The Trial of Kyoto" have been reported by Envirotruth and raise serious questions about the objectivity, impartiality, and even the competence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation." (Still Waiting For Greenhouse) Junkscience.com -- "Language police edict is bad for your elf" "SNOW White and the Seven Persons of Short Stature does not have the same ring to it. But according to the American thought police, the word dwarf is offensive and should be replaced with more acceptable language." (The Scotsman) Junkscience.com -- "Waistline Police Pull a Fasting One" - "A new report from the American Cancer Society says obesity causes 14 percent of cancer cases in men and 20 percent in women, but the study data are utterly unreliable." (Steven Milloy, FoxNews.com) When it Comes to Your Health Care, Who Decides? "The health-care debate has been raging in Congress for a decade. So why do things seem to be getting worse? When government micromanages health-care providers through regulation and price controls, health-care costs rise, employers cut benefits, and the quality of care for patients suffers. Only free-market competition puts the power back in the hands of consumers, and allows the unprecedented success of American medical innovation to thrive." Media Research Center Home Page - 5/2/2003 3:06:33 PM - CyberAlert: Exposing Media Bias Daily Friday, May 2: • Removing Helmet Saves Bush from Dukakis Moment • NBC Misleads Friends Viewers with Promise of “Brief” Speech • Matthews: “These Guys Would Take a Bullet for This Guy” • Lauer Upset Carrier Landing “Symbolism Overshadowing Safety" • Oh, Never Mind; Jennings Concedes Museum Looting Exaggerated • Jennings Dictated Pro-Sandinista Language to a Reporter • Garofalo Goes on Rant Mocking Intelligence of Fox News Staff • Hutton: Men in Charge “Shameful,” But Better in Bed Than Women Media Research Center Home Page - 5/2/2003 3:01:51 PM - ABC Indulges the Paranoid Left "After left-wing actor Tim Robbins claimed a McCarthy-esque "chill wind" is silencing Bush critics, Peter Jennings uncritically promoted his paranoid fears. Plus, taxpayer-funded Bill Moyers claimed conservatives were feeding "on the corpse of war," while Reuters decided it was fair to compare Saddam's Fedayeen death squads with the Minutemen who fought the British in 1776." The Volokh Conspiracy [Eugene Volokh, 8:14 AM] "KIDS AND GUNS: Reader William Sulik e-mails, referring to this post about CBS's "Kids and Guns" item including, in its first factoid, people up to age 24: "So according to CBS, President Clinton really did have sex with a “Kid” -- since Monica was 23 when they had intimate relations. "A kid and a juvenile, under the CBS approach." The Journalist's Guide to Gun Policy Scholars and Second Amendment Scholars: Calls for Gun Bans "---Is it true that no-one is seriously proposing broad gun bans? Is it true that the slippery slope concern is just a bogeyman? Here are a few relevant quotes on this point. (All of them have been verified by me, Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law, UCLA Law School, with help from our excellent law library.)---" Legality a la France? -- The Washington Times "What's the difference between America and France? In America everything is legal except what is explicitly prohibited, and in France everything is illegal except what is explicitly allowed. This old line is no longer as funny as it used to be, as America's legal system grows increasingly to look like the French.--- "30 percent of all federal criminal laws have been passed since 1970. Before 1950, most Americans could pretty well know whether an action they might undertake would violate the law. That has now changed. "For instance, are you absolutely sure that you have: Not violated any of the tens of thousands of pages of IRS rules and regulations? Never improperly disposed of any item (e.g., trash or even your own bodily waste) according to all of the environmental rules and regulations? Complied with all health and safety rules in your home and workplace, such as proper placement of fire extinguishers and smoke alarms? Known that the source of all funds you have ever received came from non-criminal sources (even though you did not engage in any criminal act) and have been properly reported? Have never told an off-color, ethnic or racial joke that someone might have found offensive; etc. etc? Few adult Americans could pass such a test, which means that anyone can be subject to malicious prosecution.---" Funding anti-U.S. demonstrators -- The Washington Times "---As elsewhere in Europe, we find here the same motley mash of anti-war protesters — anarchists, anti-globalists, greens, Marxist peaceniks — shouting "smash capitalism" and "Bush is Hitler." While rallying little support in a Croatia fresh with memories of Serbian aggression, these radicals compensate for their small numbers with anti-American fury, culminating in one march to the U.S. Embassy with a ritual burning of an American flag defiled with swastikas. The rub is that this hate-America crowd is sponsored by the U.S. taxpayer.---" OpinionJournal - Wonder Land "---So imagine how surprising it was to discover this past week that there is one subject about which the people of this country are in about as much agreement as statistical science ever achieves: America's public schools. They are widely and deeply regarded as awful.---" NEALZ NUZE "There is a growing sense of awareness in Washington and elsewhere that the Congress made a horrible mistake when they federalized airport and airline security. Well … too late now. When’s the last time you ever saw a massive federal bureaucracy like the TSA dismantled?" UNIONS FIRST, CHILDREN SECOND "We now have the mayor of Washington D.C. endorsing vouchers for D.C. students. Wouldn’t you know it, though. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the D.C. Delegate to the U.S. Congress, is outraged. Eleanor, after all, is a Democrat. With Democrats it’s always teacher’s unions first, the children second. "And what about the unions? Well you just know they have to be upset with this. Here is the statement from one Sandra Feldman, the president of the American Federation of Teachers: "It is disingenuous at best and duplicitous at worst to siphon money from the District's public schools to finance vouchers for private school education when there is already a proposal to cut $100 million from the city's school budget. If voucher advocates really want to help students and strengthen D.C. schools, they should stand with the citizens and teachers of Washington, D.C., who oppose private school vouchers and support the use of effective educational programs and strategies.” "Oh wow! So that’s it! Thank you so very much, Ms.Feldman, for giving us the secret of good education! All we need is support for the use of effective educational programs and strategies! And just how many years have you and your fellow unionized educators had to implement these wonderful effective educational programs and strategies? And for how many years has the quality of education been steadily declining in this country? "Americans are almost unanimous in their disgust with government schools. Now if Americans would unite in there determination to reduce the power and influence wielded by teacher’s unions they might actually be able to do something about it." NEALZ NUZE - OH THOSE POOR, POOR PITIFUL POOR PEOPLE "What is the number-one area for fraud and cheating on income tax returns. That one’s easy. It’s the insipid “Earned Income Tax Credit.” This income redistribution program takes money from people who actually worked for and earned it and gives it to people who neither worked for nor earned it. This program costs American taxpayers about $32 billion a year. About one-third of those payments are fraudulent --- made to people who have, in one way or another, cheated and lied on their income tax returns so they can get their hands on a check. "Well, the leftist Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s lead editorial this morning is complaining about new IRS requirements for people who claim the EITC. And just what is the big problem? It seems that the IRS is going to ask these people for marriage and birth certificates. Oh my God! How oppressive! These cheats are claiming dependent children in order to get their income redistribution check, and the IRS wants them to either prove that they’re married to the child’s mother or father, or that the child is actually theirs if they’re not married, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution thinks that this is just completely awful! "Lesson: Never, ever get in the way of a government income redistribution check. Liberals don’t like it." NEALZ NUZE - DEMOCRATS ACTING LIKE DEMOCRATS "---Well ... it didn't take long. Democrats are already calling Bush's trip a "stunt." And then there's this: You've heard me talk about the Democratic Underground. This is an internet message board and chat room for stalwart Demcorats. If you ever want to really experience the seething hatred that Democrats feel for George Bush, or for conservatives in general, just pay a visit to http://www.democraticunderground.com.---" WSJ.com - Mr. Corzine's Chemical Attack "The Senate is about to face off over how to secure the nation's chemical facilities from terrorism. On one side is Republican James Inhofe, who soon will introduce a bill to subject sites to oversight by the Department of Homeland Security. On the other is Mr. Corzine, who is using terror fears to sneak through an environmental agenda that has nothing to do with safety.--- "Senator Corzine's bill is about getting rid of chemicals, period. He'd give half of the responsibilities for coming up with new security regulations to the highly trained, highly motivated anti-al Qaeda special forces at . . . the Environmental Protection Agency. (The other half, and enforcement duties, would go to Homeland Security.)--- "Nowadays the first refuge of political scoundrels is "homeland security." While Congress can no doubt help shore up our defenses, Members can also help by taking a deep breath and sorting the useful proposals from such political Trojan Horses as Mr. Corzine's chemical attack." Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Heads vs. feds misses the point Source: Colorado Freedom Report Author: Brian Schwartz "The Heads vs. Feds debate on marijuana legalization held last Wednesday at the University of Colorado did little to clarify the principles behind prohibition." (05/01/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - The looters liberals ignore Source: Town Hall Author: Michelle Malkin "These are the looters liberals ignore: the greedy leaders of America's public teachers' unions." (5/2/03) Thomas Sowell: Work pays! "Those for whom indignation is a way of life often inform us of the fact that families or households in the top 10 or 20 percent in income make far more money than people in the bottom 10 or 20 percent in income. What they almost never inform us of are how much money they are talking about and how many people in these different brackets actually work. "These omissions are neither incidental nor accidental. If the full facts were brought out, those facts would completely undermine the picture presented by the envy zealots or, as they prefer to be called, advocates of "social justice."---" Freedom News from Free-Market.NetCongress $30 million bailout will hurt economy Source: ALEC Author: staff "If state governments would like to be a partner in our nation's economic recovery they can begin today by responsibly managing their spending. This radical idea has been embraced already by millions of American families for over two centuries." (4/30/03) The Times They Are a Changing "---Thus we now get angry when socialist apologists attack America, its president and its values. We get angry when politicians tell us we must pay more of our hard earned money in the form of taxes for boondoggle schemes that are guaranteed to go drastically over budget and ultimately fail. We are tired of the socialist lies that socialism works and is good for anybody but the politicians that implement it. We are fed up with being told that Capitalism, what makes America the great nation it is, is evil. We are sick and tired of our elected officials telling us we must pay to support those who won't be responsible for themselves, whether we like it or not. "And what the liberal socialists, typical Democrat politicians, and other fellow travelers are counting on, isn't going to happen. You see, they are so very sure that the American people are going to return to the same old complacency that existed before Sept. 11, 2001. They think that they can resurrect that old doubt if they just keep repeating the same tired lines. They have been playing the same game for so long they can't imagine it won't work in the future. They think they can continue to bash America, its president, its values, and work that old guilt trip. In this though, they are very, very wrong.---" American Lung Association 'State of the Air' Report is Designed to Scare - May 1, 2003 "The American Lung Association is an advocacy group. Its reports need to be judged with this fact in mind. For instance, last year's report harshly and one-sidedly criticized efforts to modify the EPA's "New Source Review" policies regulating emissions from power plants, calling these efforts a "rollback" that would "dilute the current level of protections." However, advocates of the modifications, which include the EPA itself, believe the changes improve air pollution protections. Regardless of who is right, the "State of the Air" report provided only one point of view on the matter. This unwillingness to present both sides exposes the report as a political document, not an evenhanded or scientific analysis." Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Decrying eco-scare tactics Source: Heartland Institute Author: Bonner R. Cohen "The report 'Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals?' evaluates the science behind well-organized scare campaigns aimed at convincing parents that their children are at risk from exposure to synthetic chemicals." (5/1/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Slippery salmon science on trial Source: PLF Author: Russ Brooks "Although government officials claimed that their clubbing expeditions were intended to clear the way for healthier development of wild salmon, skeptics observed that by killing salmon, it was easier for bureaucrats to grab headlines -- and expand their power over private property -- by claiming that salmon are in decline." (5/1/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Asbestos imbroglio Source: Cato Institute Author: Doug Bandow "Yet the enormity of the disaster created by asbestos litigation is finally pushing Congress to act. .... The litigation has overwhelmed many companies: 67 firms have gone bankrupt." (5/2/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - What Colorado can tell California about taxes Source: PRI Author: Lawrence McQuillan "When Californians were struggling with a $24 billion deficit in 2002, Coloradoans were enjoying a balanced budget and receiving $927 million in tax refunds. Colorado's economy surged in this fiscally responsible, business- friendly climate." (4/15/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - U.S. Department of Justice guts attorney-client privilege Source: Seattle Weekly "Ashcroft's provisions, announced and implemented without public notice or comment less than three weeks after 9/11 ... allow the monitoring of attorney-client conversations without a court order or supervision or even the suspicion of criminal behavior by the attorney, if the client is accused of terrorism." (4/29/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - Seattle docs trying retainer fees to help offset socialized medicine costs Source: Seattle Times "Citing decreasing "reimbursements" from insurance and government healthcare programs, four primary care doctors have begun charging retainer fees to patients. The doctors offer more service to patients, but the program is still controversial." (5/2/03) FOXNews.com - Homeowners Battle to Keep Their Property "---(S)ince the city of New London ceded eminent domain powers to the New London Development Corporation, the NLDC is trying to take the property for various private uses. "I'm not going to have somebody take it away from us," Dery said. "There's no legitimate reason anybody should lose their homes so that someone can put money in their pockets."--- "Eminent domain allows the government to take real estate to fulfill a public purpose, like building a police station or public road. Private residents are supposed to be compensated under eminent domain, however, owners are frequently not given market value. "Last week, the Institute for Justice released a report showing that in the last five years, state and local governments have taken or threatened to take more than 10,000 homes, businesses, churches and private land. But the property was not to be used for government projects.---" CNSNews.com: The Cybercast News Service - Blowing Smog: Annual Air Quality Report Criticized (CNSNews.com) - "The American Lung Association's annual report on air quality warns that nearly half of Americans are at risk from smog, but two conservative researchers are among those who say the study is flawed." Full Story Pro-Marxist Slant Pushed at ABC, Retired Correspondent Claims -- 05/01/2003 "Having kept quiet for 14 years, a former ABC News correspondent has gone public for the first time with allegations that network anchorman Peter Jennings manipulated news scripts during the 1980s in order to praise the Marxist-backed Sandinista government in Nicaragua.--- "The pro-Marxist spin at ABC News" "Basically what Mr. Jennings wanted was for me to make a favorable pronouncement about the 10 years of the Sandinista revolution and he called me up, massaged my script in a way that I no longer recognized it," Collins said. "A partial transcript of Collins' July 19th, 1989, segment on "World News Tonight" includes the following: "The Sandinistas brought with them Marxist ideas about spreading wealth and creating a new, unselfish society. And in the first few years, they did manage to reduce illiteracy, the infant death rate and launched the biggest land reform in Central America. But the Reagan administration saw the Sandinistas as a threat and forced them into a war with the U.S.-backed Contras."---" Thursday, May 01, 2003
NATIONAL POST - The United Nations: Unfit to govern Mark Steyn "---But if you want to turn a long-shot into a surefire failure, there's no better way than handing post-war Iraq from the Americans to the UN -- the successors to the Belgian school of nation-building. At best, you'll end up with Cambodia, where the UN has colluded in the nullification of democracy, or the Balkans, where once-functioning jurisdictions are reduced to the level of geopolitical tenements with the UN as slum landlord in perpetuity. At worst, you'll wind up with the West Bank "refugee" "camps,"the most extreme reminder of how the UN has little interest in solving problems, only in establishing bureaucracies to manage them. Washington should ignore the French, dare the Russians to veto, let the Iraqis turn on the spigots, and pay no attention to "do-gooders."" Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - MN: JOE SOUCHERAY: Legal guns won't increase illegal gun violence Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "It is not likely that the three teenagers wounded last week were shot by anybody with a legal permit to carry a legally owned weapon. It just doesn't make sense, based on the evidence that the thousands of Minnesotans who already have permits have not been implicated in any drive-by shootings in Berglin's district. It is just as unlikely, for example, that 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards, also of Berglin's proximity, was killed by a shooter with a legal permit to carry a weapon legally owned." Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - Three basic principles Submitted by: Newslinks Admin "The first basic principle you must understand is that it makes no difference what law you pass. It will not stop people who break the law." ... "The second basic principle is that laws only affect the lawful citizen in America. Criminals don't follow your laws or obey them." ... "The third and most basic of all principals is the need for each citizen to protect themselves and their families. This is a God given right..." Keep and Bear Arms - Gun Owners Home Page - 2nd Amendment Supporters - QUOTES TO REMEMBER "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." — Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers TCS: Enviro-Sci - State of the Scare "On May 1, the American Lung Association (ALA) releases its annual "State of the Air" report on air pollution levels in American cities. Like previous "State of the Air" reports, the news is alarming. The ALA claims "nearly half of the US population" lives in areas with dangerous levels of air pollution. Metropolitan areas from New York to San Diego are given letter grades of "F" for air quality. "Before taking this year's ALA report at face value, reporters should ask the ALA report's authors a few questions to clarify the report's biases.--- "Clearly "State of the Air" is designed to generate alarming headlines-and aid fundraising for the American Lung Association-rather than provide the media and the public with accurate information on air pollution. Last August Andrew Goldstein of Time magazine wrote: "Fuzzy math and scare tactics might help green groups raise money, but when they, abetted by an environmentally friendly media, overplay their hand, it invites scathing critiques. . ." (From "Too Green for Their Own Good?" Time magazine, August 26, 2002.)" TCS: Enviro-Sci - Science Steals a Base "---So is it true? Have the satellites been wrong about global temperature trends? The paper it turns out is mostly hot air, adding nothing new to the climate change debate. Evidently, the strategy being used by Santer et al. is that if their models don't agree with the data, then change the data.--- "Santer's team claims that their models' conformity with the RSS data and their success at modeling the stratosphere "[t]aken together…strengthen the case for pronounced human influence on global climate." However, two independent sets of temperature data say that this conclusion is unwarranted and that this is clearly a case where two wrongs do not make a right. The scientific debate over whether earth is warming dangerously due to man-made influences remains unresolved." GRRR... PETA Pitches Violence To Kids "If you've visited our sister site ActivistCash.com lately, you may have noticed an update profile of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Our new & improved look at PETA includes many of the group's most recent flirtations with bad taste and violent crime. It also points out an unpleasant fact about PETA's child-oriented magazine, called "GRRR! kids bite back." "The very name of this publication is intended to prep pre-teens to identify with the terrorist Animal Liberation Front (ALF), which has long used the phrase "bite back" as a rallying cry for violent crime.---" Junkscience.com -- "Capitalism is humanity’s most benign creation"- "Today is May 1, the International Day of Labour. It seems appropriate, therefore, to devote this column to the triumph of global capitalism. For if there is one social principle on which all economists, historians and politicians must now surely agree, it is that capitalism has done more than any other human construct to benefit working people around the world." (Anatole Kaletsky, The Times) NCPA - Daily Policy Digest - Class-Size Mandate Hampers Education Quality "---Class size has been studied extensively, and the evidence, so far, suggests that it is not closely related to student achievement, says Eric A. Hanushek. "Pupil-teacher ratios in public schools have fallen nationally from 26-1 in 1960 to under 16-1 today, while performance in math, science and reading among seniors has remained essentially stagnant since 1970.--- "The irony is reducing class size requires hiring more and more teachers -- a need that often sacrifices quality for quantity. Yet the available evidence suggests that the difference in benefits gained from a good teacher (even in a large class) and a mediocre one (even in a small class) is far larger than any difference produced by class size.---" Media Research Center Home Page - 5/1/2003 5:56:16 PM - CyberAlert: Exposing Media Bias Daily Thursday, May 1: • Networks Mischaracterize Greenspan as Opposed to Tax Cuts • Newsweek & Time Say Gephardt Plan Requires No Bureaucracy • NY Times' Burns Scolds Media for Not Conveying Terror in Iraq • NBC News Hires ABC's Richard “Peter Arnett” Engel • CNN Caught Live With FNC Showing on Navy Carrier's TVs The Volokh Conspiracy [Eugene Volokh, 5:22 PM] CONTRACEPTIVES AND ADULTERY: Hit & Run's Ron Bailey writes: Hoover Institution fellow Stanley Kurtz defends Senator Rick Santorum by pointing to the rise of divorce rates and adultery since the 1960s and suggests that the growing tolerance of homosexuality is undermining marriage. That as may be, but Kurtz completely ignores THE elephant in the room -- the pill. Surely, effective contraception had far more effect on things like divorce rates and adultery than a growing tolerance for homosexuality. I wonder what Kurtz' position on Griswold v. Connecticut is?" The Volokh Conspiracy - [Orin Kerr, 10:13 AM] TELEMARKETING REVENGE FANTASIES: My friend and former colleague Mark Eckenwiler received an automated telemarketing call at 5:24 am. Unfortunately for the telemarketer, he had picked the wrong guy to call at that hour. Fortunately for us, Mark has written up the story, which begins,"[i]n November 2002, a telemarketer called my home in D.C. at 5:24 a.m. This is the story of how that call cost him $500." Capitalism Magazine: On May Day Celebrate Capitalism by Edwin A. Locke "---All of these objections to global capitalism are just rationalizations. The giveaway, and the clue to the real motive of today's left and their hangers-on, is that all their protests are against--they are anti-capitalism, anti-free trade, anti-using the environment for man's benefit--but they are not for anything. In the first third of the 20th century, most leftists were idealists--they stood for and fought for an imagined, industrialized utopia--Communism (or Socialism). The left's vision was man as a selfless slave of the state, and the state as the omniscient manager of the economy. However, instead of prosperity, happiness and freedom, Communism and Socialism produced nothing but poverty, misery and terror (witness Soviet Russia, North Korea and Cuba, among others). Their system had to fail, because it was based on a lie. You cannot create freedom and happiness by destroying individual rights; and you cannot create prosperity by negating the mind and evading the laws of economics.---" Ross Mackenzie: Action and reaction, particularly in cable news "---Among the vaunted top 10 or 20 dailies these days, hardly one is known for even the moderation of its news side, and certainly none - except The Wall Street Journal - for the conservatism of its editorial operation. The leftist bias of network and cable news television is well chronicled, with swells in both sectors (network and cable) reacting in near-horror to "the Fox Effect," about which more below. "Liberal talk-radio seems to turn off listeners on a landscape dominated by Rush Limbaugh, Laura Schlessinger, Mike Reagan and Sean Hannity. Concerned, some rich lefties are pouring millions into trying to change that - with meager prospects of success.--- "It could be that American readers, listeners and viewers are not the idiots the supercilious left thinks they are. They are basically moderate conservatives who see the liberalism in so much of the coverage and "analysis" in mainstream journalism comprising newspapers (and newsmagazines) and network news. Tuning them out, they turned on to talk-radio and cable news, and now they are flocking to Fox - seeing it as fair and balanced, predominately conservative though it may be, as a counterpoise in an otherwise lopsidedly leftist media world.---" Walter Williams: Economic stupidity "---Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don't know whom to blame for their calamity. "According to a study by the Institute for International Economics, saving those 1,700 jobs in the steel industry cost American consumers $800,000 in the form of higher prices for each steelworker job saved. That's just the monetary side of the picture. According to a study commissioned by the Consuming Industries Trade Action Association, higher steel prices have caused at least 4,500 job losses in no fewer than 16 states -- over 19,000 jobs in California, 16,000 in Texas, and 10,000 in Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. In other words, industries that use steel are forced to pay higher prices, the products they produce become less competitive and they must lay off workers.---" NEALZ NUZE - SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. JUST GET READY FOR IT "Now that Richard Gephardt has come forth with his hideously expensive plan for wht he calls "universal health care," the other social-Democrats are scrambling to come out with their plans! Remember, my friends. Most Americans don't believe that they are responsible for their own health care. They believe that either their employer or the government should keep them healthy. This attitude is making socialized medicine in American a virtual certainty. It's just a question of when. In the meantime, if you know someone who is thinking of attending medical school, ask they why they want to be government employees." ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Didn't I read somewhere that socialism doesn't deliver the promised "heaven on earth"? NEALZ NUZE - NOW THE DEMOCRATS ARE FILIBUSTERING TWO APPOINTMENTS "The Constitution clearly provides for a majority vote of the U.S. Senate to confirm presidential judicial appointments. The Democrats have decided that it is so important to keep conservatives off the bench that they've changed the rules. They demand a super-majority of 60%, not 50%, for confirmation. Meanwhile, the listless Senate Majority Leader let's them get away with it without doing anything to hold their feet to the fire." Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - JPFO and assault weapons legislation Source: JPFO "JPFO's mission isn't to fight Second-Amendment brush fires. It's to create a world in which 'gun control' legislation would never be introduced in the first place." (04/29/03) Freedom News from Free-Market.Net - The Bias Against Guns review Source: Town Hall Author: Sunni Maravillosa "[Lott's] balanced tone in both setting up his questions and answering them makes "The Bias Against Guns" a book that could be an effective educational/outreach tool for those willing to consider the possibility that gun control is not the best means to a more civil society. That is, of course, if you can get them past the title ..." (4/30/03) After 'Liberation,' Democracy, by Nebojsa Malic "---Democracy's sinister nature has been addressed in this space before, as was its futility. The best scholarly dissection of the false religion is undoubtedly Hans-Herman Hoppe's Democracy: the God that Failed. Also well-documented is the distaste of America's founders for the damnable delusion, which unfortunately did not prevent their Republic from becoming the Democratic Empire. "Misconceptions of the beguiled masses aside, Democracy clearly destroys freedom, and its fundamental disrespect of property rights is unquestionably opposite to prosperity. To quote what is attributed to Ben Franklin, "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." Put that way, it seems humorous – but it is also lethal, more so because most people still believe in it.---" Reason - What the First Lady Saw: Why Hillary Clinton's Living History will be a deadening read By Nick Gillespie "---But there's every reason to believe that this book will simply be the latest episode in what's shaping up as Clinton's tedious, hectoring, and ultimately unreadable roman fleuve that already includes Dear Socks, Dear Buddy (think Cujo meets Millie's Book); An Invitation to the White House (Mrs. Dalloway meets Advise and Consent); and, most famously, It Takes a Village (Baby and Child Care meets Lord of the Flies). This last volume was aptly dubbed It Takes a Police State and It Takes a Bureaucracy for its insistence that child-rearing should be every bit as rule-bound and soul-sapping as working for the Internal Revenue Service. That Clinton won a Grammy for a spoken-word version of the book is an indicator of just how rotten it really is.--- "Will the woman who was quick to blame everything short of bad weather on "the vast right-wing conspiracy" deliver a book worth dragging to the beach? The smart money—if not Simon & Schuster's—isn't taking that bet." Thomas Sowell: A couple of clues "Two unrelated events last week provide some clues as to why our education system is failing. "First, Canada College in San Mateo, California, held a job fair -- for kindergartners! Apparently there is nothing too silly to spend the taxpayers' money on, even when the state has a record deficit.--- "Our "educators" seem desperate to find almost anything to do other than actually educate the children entrusted to them. Writing letters to public figures, play-acting events in history, "discovering" math -- anything other than acquiring the intellectual skills they will need in adulthood. "The other thing that happened last week was announcement of a study showing that forcing students to take tests that have real consequences for the students, the schools, and their teachers, seems to help minority students. This should not be a surprise to anyone but these results go completely against the grain of what our "educators" believe and practice.---" |
