What I’m proposing here is nothing short of the worldwide Vehicular Thomas Crowne Affair.
more:
By way of Wendy McElroy
Also posted at
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/the-vehicular-thomas-crowne-affair-how-to-creatively-defeat-photo-radar/
Cory Maye has lost his motion for a new trial. The opinion is half-assed and poorly argued. Reads like a guy who had already made up his mind, and didn’t want to be bothered with the damned facts. I can’t believe the same attentive judge I saw at the hearing last December cobbled the shabby thing together.
Via Rodney Balko: The Agitator
Also at Balko:
DWI Checkpoint Video
A 19-year-old in St. Louis videotaped his encounter at a DWI roadblock. The officer asked where he was coming from and where he was going and the guy — fully within his rights — answered that he’d rather not answer that question. The pull him out of the car. When he — again, fully within his rights — asks if he’s being detained, an officer replies, “You better stop runnin your mouth or the other officer will find a reason to lock you up tonight.” They then search his car without probable cause.
This is why it’s essential that private citizens be permitted to photography and videotape on-duty police officers. Video sharing services like YouTube and Google Video can go a long way toward cracking down on this kind of behavior.
Also posted at:
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/cory-maye-denied-new-trial/
Some Libertarians, such as recent Connecticut Congressional Candidate Phil Maymin
http://mayminforcongress.com/index_old.htm
Support white house resident Dubai-ya’s “Great Wall with Mexico” boondoggle.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6088084.stm
This is wrong for many reasons.
Some of my favorite principle-based arguments against this huge waste of stolen taxpayer money are at
http://radgeek.com/search?search=immigration
Especially
http://radgeek.com/gt/2004/03/22/freedom_is
and
If those don’t convince you, what about the practical arguments?
Consider what the following had in common:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_wall_of_china
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_wall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_line
The answer of course is that they were all giant failures!
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Also posted at:
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/lpa-repost-great-wall-of-america/
AP via Dallas Morning News reports that Saddam Hussein was hanged today. He was convicted a mere 56 days ago for the murders of 148 Shiite Muslims. His appeal request was rejected and US courts refused to grant relief.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dismissed pleas for Saddam’s life to be spared:
“Our respect for human rights requires us to execute him, and there will be no review or delay in carrying out the sentence,” al-Maliki’s office quoted him as saying during a meeting with relatives before the hanging.
Some even called for the public viewing of the filmed hanging:
Mariam al-Rayes, a legal expert and a former member of the Shiite bloc in parliament, told Iraqiya television that the execution “was filmed and God willing it will be shown. There was one camera present, and a doctor was also present there.”
and “holy” men prayed for God’s revenge upon Saddam:
“Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam,” said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
There is no question that Saddam did horrible things to some Iraqis, but some of you may remember that over at Hammer of Truth- way back when the trial started- I called the court proceedings a joke of justice. I complained then about the witnesses who were granted the opportunity to testify without facing the accused. The entire court seemed the epitome of a kangaroo court.
We are all too familiar with the side effects of most remedies. We are bombarded with commercials for drugs that promise to cure all sorts of ailments, and we have all laughed at the line, “If you experience an erection lasting more than four hours…” Well folks, I can tell you that we are going to wish that Priapus be the only god that comes to minds of people. Sadly, I predict that the many Iraqis will bring to mind a god associated with war rather than pleasure and fertility.
Saddam will now be viewed a martyr and he knew this as he penned his farewell.
In a farewell message to Iraqis posted Wednesday on the Internet, Saddam said he was giving his life for his country as part of the struggle against the U.S. “Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs,” he said.
I took some heat for my views over at HoT, as I am sure I will now. But I ask you to keep this in mind: The day that a man can be executed without due process and it be accepted as legitimate is a dark day for humanity. If you can honestly look at yourself in a mirror and cheer Saddam’s sham of a trial and subsequent execution, then tell yourself while you are there, that it could happen to you too.
http://pauliecannoli.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/trall061221.gif
Lots of people say “you can’t say fire in a crowded theater” but fewer people know that this phrase comes from a 1919 court decision in which an antiwar protestor was jailed for handing out leaflets against the war.
By way of Wendy McElroy.
Thanks to Seth Cohn for saving these and mailing me an archive.
What’s Offensive in the Boortz FairTax Book
by Jim Cox
Beyond the proposal for the “FairTax” itself, the Neal Boortz/John Linder book has even more verbiage to offend libertarians than it does points we can cheer.
The following is a comprehensive recounting of the bad to be found in The FairTax Book:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/cox/cox8.html
UPDATE: Mark Thornton of the Mises Institute also posted these other articles at LPA activists yahoo group.
The Fair Tax Fraud – Mises Institute
There is No Such Thing as a Fair Tax – Mises Institute
Mises Economics Blog: The FairTax Rally
The Fraudulent Tax – Mises Institute
Mises Economics Blog: The Fair Tax Fraud
Mises Economics Blog: There is No Such Thing as a Fair Tax
Mises Economics Blog: Libertarians for a National Sales Tax?
Mises Economics Blog: Comment on The FairTax Rally
Also posted at:
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/30/first-of-the-lpa-reposts-the-fraud-tax/
For my last birthday I was offered jewellery or shotguns. I chose the guns.
from: http://www.samizdata.net/blog/
Also posted at:
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/functional-gift-giving/
Some people are passing this around as money, and every once in a while it actually works.
This is bad, because only government should pass around monopoly money.
Or something like that.
Also posted at:
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/usa-deserves-a-tax-cut/
full text of article at
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061226_robert_scheer_ike_was_right
The public, seeing through the tissue of Bush administration lies told to justify an invasion that never had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 or weapons of mass destruction, now has begun a national questioning: Why are we still in Iraq? The answers posted most widely on the Internet by critics of the war suggest its continuation as a naked imperial grab for the world’s second-largest petroleum source, but that is wrong.
It’s not primarily about the oil; it’s much more about the military-industrial complex, the label employed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower 45 years ago when he warned of the dangers of “a permanent arms industry of vast proportions.”
The Cold War had provided the rationale for the first peacetime creation of a militarized economy. While the former general, Eisenhower, was well aware of the military threat posed by the Soviet Union, he chose in his farewell presidential address to the nation to warn that the war profiteers had an agenda of their own, one that was inimical to the survival of American democracy:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Ponder those words as you consider the predominant presence of former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney in the councils of this White House, and how his old company has profiteered more than any other from the disaster that is Iraq. Despite having been found to have overcharged some $60 million to the U.S. military for fuel deliveries, the formerly bankrupt Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root continues to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in lucrative contracts.
Also posted at:
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/robert-scheer-ike-was-right/
By way of Claire Wolfe
http://www.clairewolfe.com/blog.html
Also posted at:
http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/ted-rall-bush-plan-to-win-in-iraq/
by Sheldon Richman, December 5, 2006
Large-scale terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons have exposed the sham of government protection.
Article continues at:
By Way of BK Marcus
My friend Dan is a big big fan of Penn & Teller. Besides the fact that Penn is involved with the World Juggling Federation (yes, I actually sit at rapt attention for hours while watching grown adults play with their balls on national television), they do this lovely little show called “Bullshit.”
Dan got all three seasons of Bullshit right before Christmas break and he was showing me some episodes. I went hunting for some of the online episodes and this is one of the especially enlightening ones. I want to save the environment as much as the next guy, which is why I was so fascinated. (They also did another one on the environmental movement in general that was good.) But anyway, here it is. Half an hour but so worth it.
As I read this, I heard the sound of a thousand yellow ribbon magnets committing suicide because they’ll never quite reach that level of patriotic kitsch.
I think maybe the settings here should be changed so that longer posts are not on the front page in their entirety.
Kinda like at HoT, you could make a long post like I just did, but only the beginning of it would be on the front page?
So let’s try this instead.
http://lastfreevoice.wordpress.com/2006/12/28/wtf-is-our-ex-vp-candidate-doing/
Here’s further illustration of the differences between Kochtopus-style faux-libertarians and real libertarians, as also explained by Anthony Gregory at
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory127.html
So remember Koch… y’know, of the “Clark-Koch ‘80″ fame? He bankrolled the most successful Libertarian presidential bid in history.
Well, now he wants the government to bankroll him, apparently. Free market my ass:
While the tracks are privately owned, G-P at least has been ringing phones all the way up to the governor’s office. On Friday, the company’s Portland-based lobbyist also called up Rep. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, and suggested that if times get too tough, G-P’s Coos Bay mill, which employs 140 people, may cut operations. Two-thirds of that company’s lumber heads out on rail.
If you will recall, Georgia-Pacific is owned by our own Koch, ever since last year.
So why you asking for a government handout, Koch? You’re better than this… or so we thought.
posted by Loretta Nall at
http://nallforgovernor.blogspot.com/2006/12/hold-up-before-you-buy-never-get.html
Hold up before you buy ‘Never Get Busted’
Some new information is coming to light in the uproar over Barry Cooper’s Never Get Busted video and website.
From all indications it appears Mr. Cooper was never granted permission from LEAP or NORML to use their names in connection with his video.
There is a HUGE discussion going on in the drug policy reform community about all of this. It seems pretty evenly divided to me with half saying it has the potential to be a wonderful thing, if it is legit, and the other half saying that this guy has no right to profit from information that the public has already paid for. They also say that if he wanted to atone for his sins as a narc he would give the info away for free.
I, on the other hand, know first hand how difficult it is to be an activist and find funding for this work. If this guy is now on our side and is making this information available, and it is real information that could keep people out of jail (even if we have to pay for it) then it is a good thing.
A few things that bother me though. Read the rest of this entry »
From 2003.
—————–
The “Constitution Party” has the ideas you seek from the LP. They
support a “theocracy” and stopping immigration, and are conservative.
They are not nearly as successful as the LP. What the LP needs to do
to be succesful is to stop trying to appeal to disaffected
Republicans, which is a losing strategy. Republican leaning voters
tend to be older and wealthier, and thus less likely to change voting
patterns, having time and money invested in preserving the statist quo.
Even if and when they do [change affiliation], they are more likely to die (and
thus stop voting at all) soon.
Where the LP has an opening is by competing against the Democrats,
Greens and apathy/non-voting (granted, some non-voting is based on
legitimate anarchist principles, but most is simply apathy) for the
youth and immigrant vote, which is less likely to be firmly tied to a
political party or ideology.
The way to do this is by emphasizing the pro-civil liberties and
antiwar (pro-peace) aspects of the LP platform, on such issues as
opening the borders, stoping the “war on terrorism” and other abuses
of civil liberties, ending the drug war, promoting religious and
sexual freedom, defending free expression in controversial cases such
as pornography and sedition, and defunding the military-industrial
complex and corporate welfare. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON DC USSA
For Immediate Release -
After the success of bringing freedom and democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, Our Glorious Leader has set his sights on bringing liberation to the long suffering people of another tyrannical enemy regime: France.
“France was the home of Ayatollah Khomeini,” administration spokesman Aanton Snauer noted, “and is beleived by our intelligence operatives to be the present hiding place of Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Ladin, along with millions of other suspected Islamo-fascists. They have long been aiding Islamic terrorism throught the world, and are believed to have weapons of mass destruction. Recently, alert FBI agents foiled a plot by the dastardly French to set fire to the Capitol building.” Read the rest of this entry »
http://pauliecannoli.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/kubbybrochure120506.pdf
Testing. If this works it should be the new Kubby trifold brochure.
For context see
http://thirdpartywatch.com/2006/12/24/merry-christmas-2/
OK, I can see a case for the Armadillos.
I’ll have to kill one soon so that I don’t allow this nagging sense of sympathy to make me weak in the new year.
As for the city inspectors, well, it’s like Jo Dee Messina says in My Give A Damn’s Busted
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/jo+dee+messina/my+give+a+damns+busted_10150338.html
I really wanna care
I wanna feel something
Let me dig a little deeper
No, sorry, nothing
———————————————————————-
Now, as for the Tulapoki holiday, we will not allow your Eurocentric culture to marginalize our beliefs and defang us, like some sad looking natives performing in a traveling carnival for the amusement of the booboise, or left to sell trinkets by the side of the road and sniff glue.
We will break our chains like King Kong, sacrifice armadillos and city inspectors in the traditional way, much as our ancestors have done since way back in the 1980s, and we will do our funky fire dance. Read the rest of this entry »
You can use a Google English-to-English translation to route around proxy servers, fooling them into thinking you’re looking at a Google web page rather than the banned URL you’re actually surfing.
Now, you can just hope they are not monitoring your keyboard strokes, taking video of your monitor, or monitoring your cubicle on hidden camera…
http://futurafish.com/blog/?p=54
By way of
Via volokh:
Today the war in Iraq passed a very sad milestone: the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq has now exceeded the number of persons killed in the 9/11 attacks. The number believed to have been killed in the 9/11 attacks is 2,973 (not including the 19 hijackers). The deaths of seven Americans announced today brings the U.S. military deaths in Iraq since 2003 to 2,978, five more than the number killed in the 9/11 attacks.
Good stuff, as usual.
1. Left, Right, Moderate and Radical
2. Will the Democrats Save Our Civil Liberties?
Lots more here:
A few days ago Michelle posted an article about the “Never Get Busted Again” Video
This video is now out.
Get your copy here:
http://www.nevergetbusted.com/
Commentary by Loretta Nall is here:
http://nallforgovernor.blogspot.com/2006/12/never-get-busted-is-here.html
Other good videos, books, and other materials along similar lines are at:
Take a vacation to beautiful Somalia! This lovely anarchist’s paradise hasn’t seen the ravages of peace for at least fifteen years or so, and the locals are friendly and enlightened. The Minister of Tourism welcomes you with outstretched arms! Just, ah… don’t step on the Ethiopian military on your way in.
From Reuters:
Ethiopia said on Tuesday it was half way to crushing Somali Islamists as its forces advanced on the religious movement’s Mogadishu stronghold after a week of war in the Horn of Africa.
Somalia’s envoy to Addis Ababa said Ethiopian troops were within 70 km (40 miles) of the capital and could capture it in 24 to 48 hours.
slamists countered that they were ready for a long war and any attempt to oust them would prove disastrous for their foes.
The Red Cross said more than 800 people had been wounded and thousands were fleeing the combat zone, with the United Nations saying the displacement could trigger an aid crisis in a region where relief resources are already stretched.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his forces supporting Somalia’s weak interim government had killed up to 1,000 Islamist fighters. There was no independent verification. The Islamists also say they have killed hundreds.
“We have already completed half our mission, and as soon as we finish the second half, our troops will leave Somalia,” Meles told a news conference in the Ethiopian capital.
“We will not keep a single fighter in Somalia once our mission getting rid of the terrorists is completed.”
So Ethiopia’s doing the whole terror-fighting thing too, but at least they’re being smart about it. They’re not getting bogged down; they’re gonna go in and get out ASAP. This whole thing’ll probably be done in a month, most likely. And what’s more, they’ll probably get their targets. We could learn a thing or two from them. Granted, it’s not as awesome as not starting wars in the first place, but… eh. You take what you can get.
Oh well, so much for ULTAMITE ANARCHY OH NOES. Although Somalia’s admittedly been developing more swiftly than its statist neighbors, it hardly ever seemed like the glorious homeland that some hardcore anarcho-capitalists have raved about. Anyway, just because a country is most aligned with my political views doesn’t necessarily mean that I’d want to live there. A slightly greater degree of theoretical liberty, or running water. Well hmm.
If I ever do emigrate for political reasons, I’m headed to Estonia. A minarchist government holds far more encouraging prospects in my mind than an anarchistic area. For one thing, they won’t be overrun by worried neighbors in the space of two weeks. Jus’ sayin’ is all.
Allen Hacker is the topic of a Free State Project Forum thread:
http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?topic=12953.0
Apparently, some of the “Free (of Libertarians on the ballot in 2004 or 2006) State” geniuses want to bring in Allen to run their campaigns.
What Dumbasses!
The Galactic Emperor is, apparently, the hot new consultant for libertarian candidates.
The flies are still buzzing around the fresh carcass of a 4.3% showing, massive debt, and half baked excuses.
I guess some people never learn.
After all, as George Squyres explains, No one is going to say Allen Hacker is not a damned competent campaign manager.
Why not, you may ask?
Well…..where better to get the answer than the horse’s ass, er, mouth?
“Face it. You guys have taken a wrong turn, and I’m your mentor toward getting back on track. I know you don’t like it, but you appointed me and I am trilled at the prospect of helping you find your way, one way or another.”
-A. Allen Hacker
It’s snowing on the moon of Jupiter, I mean, New Hampshire.
from: Liberty Crusader
He sounds like a real asshole. It’s a shame that he has to treat human beings that way, given the fact that over half, if not two thirds, of inmates in prison (sic) are really only innocent political prisoners (sent there due to the government’s insane drug prohibition policies, for one major example). I’d like to release all those who aren’t in jail for real crimes and replace them with those of the political elite ruling class, such as presidents, legislators, judges, cops, bureaucrats. THEN this sheriff can go on and proceed to mistreat all he wants! (except that I’d probably want to turn the tables and put HIM inside too!) – Gary
—–Original Message—–
From: markleyva1959Subject: This Guy gives New Meaning to “Hard Time”
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 15:20:47 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)If all our prisons and jails was run like this one, we would have less
inmates. Crime would be at an all time low.Carleton
This guy must have to wear a bulletproof vest to bed at night!!!
FOR THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO,
HE IS THE MARICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF
AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER.
These are some of the reasons why:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Maricopa County, Arizona) created the
“tent city jail”He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the
Inmates for them.He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails.
He took away their weights and cut off all but “G” movies.
He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on
County and city projects.Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn’t get
Sued for discrimination.He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal
Court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked
Up the cable TV again but only let in the Disney channel
And the weather channel.When asked why the weather channel he replied, “So they’ll
Know how hot it’s gonna be while they’re working on my
Chain gangs.”He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value and when the
Inmates complained, he told them, “This isn’t the Ritz-Carlton.
If you don’t like it, don’t come back.”He bought Newt Gingrich’s lecture series on videotape that he pipes
Into the jails. When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture
Series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture
Series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails
In the first place.More on the Arizona Sheriff:
With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116
Degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports:About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent
Encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given
Permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer
Shorts. On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were
Either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents. The
Inside temperature of these tents reached 138 degrees the
Week before. Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as
Sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.“It feels like we are in a furnace,” said James Zanzot, an inmate
Who has lived in the tents for 1 year so far. “It’s inhumane.”Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and
Long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna
Sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. He said Wednesday that
He told the inmates: “It’s 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are
Living in tents too and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn’t
Commit any crimes, so shut your damned mouths!”Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe if all prisons were like this one there
Might well be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals
Should be punished for their crimes… Not live in luxury until it’s time
For their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can
Get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers
Can’t afford to have for themselves.Sheriff Joe was just reelected Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.
So we’re apparently the 95th-fastest growing blog on WordPress. Suck it, Tiffin Tin.
What else… in other news, archaeologists found a cuneiform tablet in an excavation of ancient Babylon. Carbon-dating has confirmed it to be the oldest example of writing in the history of the world. The translation reads as follows: “Sorry guys, LibertyMix is gonna be a little late, my bad. -SVD“ The tablet then goes on to discuss an announcement of the pre-release of Xenosaga III and finishes with a prophecy regarding the Annunaki being slain by a god known only as the “Galactic Emissary,” who then reigns over the moons of Jupiter for ten thousand years.
(Sorry SVD… you know we love you.)
Anyway, this blog is the result of boredom and Christmas. So Merry Christmas, everyone, or whateverthehell you happen to celebrate on or around this day. I just got a metric fuckton of foreign language dictionaries so I’m off to figure out how to say “non-initiation of force” in Sanskrit or some shit, LOL.
A SURE WAY TO END TERRORISM
Editor — It’s time to get serious about terrorism. Here’s a simple plan:
First, identify terrorist suspects. And please dispense with legal technicalities that protect the guilty, like “proof beyond reasonable doubt” and “unanimous verdict of the jury.” Civil liberties are a peacetime luxury. Am I the only one who remembers Congress declaring war?
And forget secret military tribunals: they’re irrelevant, time-consuming; a complete waste of taxpayer money. If our government suspects someone, it’s good enough for me. “Due process of law” is code for terrorist sympathizer.
Second, identify the suspects’ relatives.
Third, find those relatives and bulldoze their houses into rubble. When they resist, shoot them.
Civil-liberties fanatics complain that two wrongs don’t make a right. Attacking innocent people is unjust? Maybe so-called “innocent victims” should think twice before getting related to terrorist suspects!
Here’s the beauty of the plan: It’s already working. Israel has been doing it for years. It must be successful. When’s the last time you heard of terrorism in Israel?
I rest my case.
MARK READ PICKENS
San Francisco
Don’t blink or you’ll miss Kubby! (near the end)
I can’t copy/paste due to a messed up computer here, so that makes it a pain to say a lot of things I like saying. See “Delay of Game” at http://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com
I’ll get down to the University later (not sure if it will be today) but it’s less convenient, since I don’t have a car and it might be closed for Xmas anyway.
Happy holidays everyone. Maybe I’ll have wordpress figured out better by the New Year!
OBTW I added Michelle as a user at pauliecannoli’s a while back, if anyone else is interested in blogging there too just ask.
Hey one other thing…if you haven’t had wine made of muscadine grapes I highly recommend it. Absolutely delicious, and it has 5x the good stuff for the heart as regular red wine.
It shouldn’t take me a week to figure out how to add someone to this blog as a contributor.
Nigel, I’m still working on you. I promise I haven’t forgotten.
But at any rate, Paulie Cannoli is now an editor here, and I’m happy to have him aboard at long last. Thanks for bearing with me.
Looks like a real piece of work just bit the dust.
Turkmenistan is officially a nation of orphans. Government officials announced Thursday morning that President-For-Life Saparmurat Niyazov, self-proclaimed “Turkmenbashi” — the Father of all the Turkmen — had died overnight of cardiac arrest. The much-feared ruler’s death came as a shock to his five million subjects, who for 21 years had been living in near-total international isolation under his Alice-in-Wonderland dictatorship. Niyazov fought AIDS and cholera by simply outlawing any mention of them or other infectious diseases. He banned from employment, public or private, anyone who had received a degree or a diploma from a foreign educational institution over the previous decade, and had most of the domestic school curriculum replaced by studies of his book Rukhnama (Spirituality), the reading of which, he assured, was a ticket straight to Allah’s paradise. But there was nothing orthodox about the tightly controlled forms of Islam he allowed: he banned beards and mustaches, as well as long hair. And lest his subjects forget their “father,” he renamed days of the week and months of the calendar after himself and members of his family. He even ordered bread renamed by a word derived from his mother’s name.
Niyazov has gone, but his 46-foot-tall gold-plated statue (one of several hundreds of thousands of his likenesses dotted around the country) which completes a slow rotation every 24 hours atop the 230-foot tower in downtown Ashgabat will watch the resulting struggle over the world’s fifth-biggest reserve of natural gas, which Niyazov had controlled as if it were his private property.
Holy fucking shit, this asshat renamed bread. That’s pretty much the pettiest thing I’ve ever heard. That’s going down in history with “Sorry haters, God isn’t finished with me yet.” Jesus fucking Christ.
Anyway, I hope they can resolve this impending doom but quick, because the Turkmen have evidently been through enough. The last thing they need is a war on top of this guy using an entire nation as his own personal Viagra for the past twentysomething years.
Andrew Sullivan had this to say, in summation:
That’s what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn’t. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It’s time the quiet majority of believers took it back.
God is not Democratic or Republican… or, let’s be honest, even Libertarian. If one believes that God exists, as I happen to, it’s gotta be pretty obvious that our pathetic human squabbles do not concern him. You are not going to Hell for voting for gay marriage, and Pat Robertson can fuck himself raw if he says otherwise.
That, and the fundies (both Christian and otherwise) have finally been given a bloody nose this year. Good times, good times.
It looks like liberty’s homeland is growing faster than all the others.
Arizona replaced long-time leader Nevada as the fastest growing state in the union during the 12 months ended July 1, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The population of the Grand Canyon state grew 3.6 percent during that period. Nevada grew by 3.5 percent.
Regionally, the West grew faster than any other area, 1.5 percent. The South was next at 1.4 percent, with the Midwest third (0.4 percent) and the Northeast trailing (0.1 percent).
The libertarian West is surging ahead of the rest of the country, and the fastest-growing states in the second-fastest growing region (Texas and Georgia) have strong Libertarian Party organizations in their states. Good news for liberty? I think so!
He’s done gone signed a bill that’ll preserve certain historic sites. Which is a good thing… these camps were already federal property; might as well help out historians and economists by preserving our historical legacy and making them turn a buck for us so the taxpayers have an easier time of it.
But anyway, these sites were used to… oh how did they explain it? Ah yes.
The law is intended to help preserve the camps as reminders of how the United States turned on some of its citizens in a time of fear.
Fifty years from now, there’ll be bills set out to preserve Guantanamo Bay and all those camps where our allies conducted their “extraterritorial renditions” for us.
Meanwhile, kids, we’re still losing the War on Stupid if we don’t learn from the mistakes of a previous generation and allow this torture shit to continue.
The Queen made Bono of U2 a… um, hold on, gotta copy-paste this… “Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.” Yeah, that. Oh hell, I’ll just quote it.
Bono — the Irish rock star, anti-poverty campaigner, and philanthropist — has been awarded an honorary British knighthood, the British Embassy in Dublin said on Saturday.
“The British Embassy in Dublin takes great pleasure in announcing that Her Majesty The Queen has appointed Bono to be an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to the music industry and for his humanitarian work,” according to an embassy news release.
The British ambassador to Ireland, David Reddaway, is to give Bono — a member of the rock group U2 — an “insignia of this honorary award” after New Year’s in a ceremony in the Irish capital.
Funny timing, I’d say the Queen’s got a sense of humor. Apparently something’s changing on New Year’s Day.
At any rate, I’m happy for Bono. The guy’s done a lot of good. Yeah, he’s advocated a lot of shit policies over the years… the embargo on South Africa (because restricting freedom will, um, help liberate people?) and then expecting the American taxpayer to subsidize all his plans… which I disagree with on a moral basis, even though the causes are good.
However, let’s be realistic here. He’s also corralled a lot of private-sector aid for the world’s poor, downtrodded and generally fucked-over. He got a bunch of Christian rockers to do something useful. He’s generally “done more good for the Third World than most nations,” according to Kofi Annan. Kept in the private sector, Bono’s one of the greatest humanitarians of this age. And even in the public sector… yeah it sucks that all that money was taken from us at implied gunpoint, but I’d rather be forced to pay to stop a famine than be forced to pay for a war that I don’t agree with.
So yeah. Congrats, Bono.
He did an excellent piece on homelessness that I’m shamelessly cribbing off of Jake Porter’s blog.
I am skiing premium powder this week, and haven’t much time but this is too good not to write up. It seems that a former narc- one of the best in Texas- is planning to market a new “how to” video. How to not get busted that is. The reason? Glad you asked.
My main motivation in all of this is to teach Americans their civil liberties and what drives me in this is injustice and unfairness in our system,” Cooper told the newspaper.
Naturally some people are pissy about his plan.
News of the video has angered authorities, including Richard Sanders, an agent with the Tyler Drug Enforcement Agency. Sanders said he plans to investigate whether the video violates any laws.
“It outrages me personally as I’m sure it does any officer that has sworn an oath to uphold the laws of this state, and nation,” Sanders said. “It is clear that his whole deal is to make money and he has found some sort of scheme, but for him to go to the dark side and do this is infuriating.”
This is good news to me. I hate the drug war and everything it represents. When cops see the light, recognize that non-violent offenders hurt nobody but themselves, and then go on to speak out against the drug war, I feel like fighting a little harder for this thing called personal liberty. The war on drugs is one of the biggest affronts to liberty, and you don’t have to be high to know it. And, FTR, I am skiing Utah powder.
THE LP’S COMING TO MY NECK OF THE WOODS!
The Libertarian National Committee has announced that Denver, Colorado will be the host city for the 2008 Libertarian National Convention. The LP presidential nomination convention will be held between Friday, May 23 and Monday, May 26 at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. Adam’s Mark Denver is Colorado’s largest hotel, with over 1225 rooms and 133,000 sq. ft. of meeting and exhibit space.
“We are extremely proud to serve as the venue for the 2008 convention,” said Libertarian Party of Colorado Chairman Travis Nicks. “We look forward to showing the nation’s Libertarians what the birthplace of the Libertarian Party has to offer.”
While Libertarians hold a Libertarian National Convention every two years, on presidential election years the Party selects its presidential and vice presidential candidates though the convention process.
“With all of the recent media interest about the libertarian vote in western mountain states, Denver will provide an excellent opportunity for us to show the voters what is meant by smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom,” said LNC Chairman William Redpath. “Additionally, the Libertarian National Convention won’t be a coronation of some pre-determined candidate held at taxpayer expense.”
The Libertarian Party, which recently celebrated its 35th birthday, was founded in Colorado in 1971. Libertarians do not accept public funding for their national convention, while the Republican and Democrat conventions generally cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
I’m making plans now to go. I want in on this action. And I won’t actually have to travel that far-Denver’s only like 6 hours away from Chadron. This is gonna rock.
There’s an article in WaPo discussing some windbag Congressman who’s getting all pissy that one of his number isn’t using the Bible.
BIGOTRY COMES in various guises — some coded, some closeted, some colossally stupid. The bigotry displayed recently by Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., a Republican who represents a patch of south-central Virginia, falls squarely in the third category. Mr. Goode, evidently in a state of xenophobic delirium, went on a semi-public tirade against the looming peril and corrupting threat posed by Muslim immigration to the United States. “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America,” he wrote in a letter to constituents.
The inspiration for Mr. Goode’s rant is Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who last month became the first Muslim elected to Congress. Mr. Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam in college, has decided to use the Koran during a ceremonial swearing-in, as is his constitutional right. This does not sit well with Mr. Goode, who, obnoxiously referring to his congressional colleague-to-be as “the Muslim Representative from Minnesota,” warned ominously that current immigration policy would lead to an outbreak of elected Muslims in this country and unfettered use of the Koran.
Yeah… Virginia, WTF were you thinking electing this douchebag? Weren’t you kids the same lot that gave us Washington, Lee and Jefferson? None of those guys (not even the Confederate general) would have stood for this kind of abject bigotry. So what gives?
Well, I figured I’d say it. News has already hit that ex-congressman Bob Barr has not only joined our ranks, but become a regional representative within the party itself.
He’s already had to deal with uneasy questions in regards to stances on things he’s still working out, like the drug war and gay marriage. He’s hedging, but it’s not the hedge of a slick politician, at least not to me it doesn’t sound like. It sounds like the hedge of a guy who honestly isn’t sure what he believes, but is thinking that liberty might be the answer.
I’ve had friends join the LP before and they’ve gone through the same process. Where the concepts of supporting an act and supporting the legality of an act begin to separate themselves. Where they see that we’re not all pot-smoking gun-toting crazies who want Objectivist government/anarchy/whatever yesterday. I’ve seen these wheels turn inside peoples’ heads before, and the answer isn’t to keep hammering away and to be an asshole, the answer is to be nice and give responses when asked.
There once was a movement whose people despised a man. With good reason, too-he was the antithesis of everything they stood for, he did everything in his power to drive their ideas from his homeland. But he had a personal crisis, and a change of heart… and wanted to join this new movement. The people there didn’t trust him at first, figured it was a trick, wanted nothing to do with him. But they were persuaded to not only open their hearts to him, but they even made him one of their leaders.
The Apostle Paul went on to write the majority of books in their New Testament.
So in that spirit, welcome to the Libertarian Party, Mr. Barr. We’ve got a lot of good people, and a lot of kooks… and a lot of good people who are also kooks. We’re well-meaning and I apologize in advance if anything here scares you, or if people seem a little too insistent on protecting their favored corner of libertarian philosophy. They’re just worried, and they have some reason for it… but if we succumb to fear and distrust, well, we probably shouldn’t be running a government anyway.
Once again, welcome to liberty Bob Barr.
Stu mentioned magnetic ribbons the other day, and then I come across this musical group in my inbox. (Thanks Mike-I have gotten jack done today watching these vids.) Anyway, check out this take on yellow ribbons. You will love it, I am sure.
The Onion has a hilarious piece up about third-party cola manufacturers.
Claiming the American consumer is in crisis, third-party soft drink Royal Crown Cola called for an end to two-brand dominance, demanding an equal playing field for all and urging sweeping restrictions on the amount Coke and Pepsi are allowed to spend on advertisements.
“Over the past several decades we’ve seen smaller, independent brands pushed to the sidelines,” RC Cola President John Sunderland said Monday. “We cannot compete with the massive amounts the big sodas spend on their ad campaigns—campaigns that obscure the truth and drown out alternative voices in American cola. Rather than an honest, open dialogue, we are instead subjected to a horse race between two giants that ignores the key issues of improved taste and refreshingness.”
The money quote, though:
“It’s all too easy to marginalize lesser-funded labels, especially when Coke and Pepsi can rely on huge war chests funded by the financial backing of corporations like PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola Company,” Sunderland said during a sparsely attended press conference. “In many cases, these corporations have a vested interest in these colas, and are able to saturate the media with their status-quo beverage message. That is just not fair.”
I posted this over at my site, but Stu seems to be better at getting the word out. Thank you Medical Economics for Dr. Geller’s thoughtful piece.
Anil gets several magazines that I trash without review. Medical Economics is not one of them. As a former slave to the medical workforce and wife of a practicing physician, I find this mag to be quite useful. This month’s News&Views has a very well written article on patient responsibility and healthcare.
My favorite part of the article has to be this:
At the heart of the debate lies a fundamental question: Is healthcare a right or a privilege? The Declaration of Independence refers to our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But, over time, Americans who’ve come to take for granted an expanding number of entitlement programs have added other “rights” to this list, including the right to healthcare.
The problem with that expectation is that, when everything is labeled a right, then the concept itself loses any meaning. It’s like the student who highlights the entire page of a book, thereby losing all distinction between what’s crucial and what’s incidental.
There’s another problem with calling healthcare a right. It imposes an obligation on the government to fulfill that right—something our government is neither economically nor functionally equipped to do. In contrast, the Bush administration reform plan would shift at least part of the healthcare burden from employers and government back to the consumer. By coupling a high-deductible policy with a tax-free health savings account, policy makers believe that Americans will become more efficient and discerning consumers of healthcare. Part and parcel of this cost-savings approach is price transparency, objective measures of quality, and tort reform.
I felt a warm sensation when I read that. (Where would be my business.) It seems that there are people who get it.
You see those cheapass chintzy little magnetic bumper stickers saying “Support the Troops” when you’re out driving. Suggesting that if you don’t buy into the lies of Bush and at least one of those guilt-laden bumper sticker companies, you’re a Bad American. (Bad American! No American treats for you!) If you’re against the war, you’re not Supporting the Troops.
Well, it looks like the Troops aren’t Supporting the Troops. Not only the Troops, but everyone else stuck in Iraq. It looks like the Onion wasn’t so far off the mark when they drafted up Operation Screw This. At least, that’s what a hefty amount of private soldiers’ correspondence seems to suggest.
From the Asia Times:
The situation in Iraq has reached such a point of degradation and danger that I’ve been unable to return to report – as I did from 2003 to 2005 – from the front lines of daily life. Instead, in these past months, I have found myself in a supportive role, facilitating the work of some of my former sources, who remain in their own war-torn land, to tell their hair-raising tales of the new Iraq. While relying on my Iraqi colleagues to report the news, which we then publish at Inter Press Service and my website, I continue to
receive e-mails from others in Iraq, civilian and soldier alike.
What I know from these e-mails is that the articles on Iraq one normally reads in the local newspaper, even when, for instance, they cover the disintegration of the Iraqi health system or the collapse of the economy, provide you, at best, but a glimpse of what daily life there is now like. After all, who knows better what’s happening than those who are living it?
I thought I might just give you a taste of the sort of private communications I read every day.
He then goes on to offer up some of those emails. This one’s from a Kurd, in one of the more “developed” areas.
It is worse than ever. The problem is that our US government and the Iraqi “government” tell the world that things are improving here when they are not. All of the rebuilding bull is nothing but a scam that is worse than the oil-for-food program [of the post-Gulf War years]. We have one hour of electricity a day now. I have power to turn on some lights and my computer by way of a little generator that I hooked up to my office today. A gallon [3.8 liters] of [gasoline] costs over $4 now, when the salary of an engineer is less than $200 a month.
And here’s one from the mother of a soldier over there:
You can see how the war is destroying my son’s morale, and whittling away at his spirit. Now it’s just a killing game.
We need less Supporting the Troops and more supporting the troops. These are human lives, not political grandstanding. Get our darling girls and boys the hell out of there, and let the Iraqis take hold of their own future.
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to live in this fucked-up shithole either.
Well, it’s good that in a nation where you can be barred from running for office on the grounds of not being crazyfucking Muslim enough, there is nonetheless enough sanity to clip some wings. Yeah, I like that Ahmadinejad said a few things I agree with, but that changes not the fact that he’s a Holocaust-denying, would-be genocidal maniac.
Iran, you’re a wonderful country. You keep trying to get your scumbags outta power, and we’ll keep trying the same on our end.
I want sooooo badly to blog about some really interesting stuff. In my neighborhood alone, there is an abundance of stupidity. There is the 4 year old who was given in school suspension for sexually assaulting a teacher. There is a bill presented to allow the blind to hunt. And, the biggest news would be how kind I was to the Texas State Trooper who pulled me over and cited me for driving 89 in a 60 mph zone. I swear that I thanked him for my ticket. I had been at a happy hour and had a couple of drinks- I was not impaired- but I was worried enough to call Anil to tell him that there were flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I told him to check Collin County Jail if I did not make it home.
Readers’ Digest version of the rest of the night is that I got home and then got wasted. I spilled a half glass of good red onto my keyboard. I took the thing apart and cleaned it to the best of my hungover ability, but the ‘m’ and ’space’ keys are not functional. I am stuck using Anil’s Mac to do everything I need, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to copy and paste links on this thing. What I know is this: there are many computer geeks in the Libertarian Party, but none close enough to fix my laptop. The 4 year old was unjustly suspended for hugging his teacher. I don’t want to be anywhere a blind person is shooting, and I am damn lucky that the cop was questioning me from the passenger side of the car. You see, in Texas, you can go to jail for being tipsy in a bar. Three drinks over four hours and being behind the wheel could probably mean life.
Some ex-Congressman yahoo is tossed in jail for falling hardcore for those fucking Nigerian email scams.
Ed Mezvinsky, a former Democratic Congressman from Iowa, is serving a seven-year sentence for fraud after getting caught up in a series of Nigerian e-mail scams.
Initially, Mezvinsky became the victim of “just about every different kind of African-based scam we’ve ever seen,” federal prosecutor Bob Zauzmer told 20/20 for a report to be broadcast this evening.
But then, says Zauzmer, Mezvinsky began to steal from clients and even his own mother-in-law to raise the money to try yet another scheme.
“He was always looking for the home run. He was always trying to find the business deal that would make him as wealthy as all the people in his social circle,” said Zauzmer.
Yes, you heard me right. A Democratic Congressman not only fell for this Nigerian Mickey Mouse bullshit, but he also stole from people in order to do it.
This is the best news ever, kids. Let me explain how we can make this shit work for the Libertarian Party. First off, find the personal email addresses for like every sitting Congressman and Senator. Spam them with this Nigerian crap-they won’t know the difference, right? it’s just a series of tubes-and when they give us access to their bank account info, take all their cash and donate it to the Libertarian Party through some “trusted intermediaries” of our own… like, I dunno, some banks down in the Bahamas? Then report EVERY SINGLE ONE of those motherfuckers for embezzlement-chances are pretty fucking good these scumbuckets would’ve taken some cash out of some program or another-and fuckblamo! we’ve just made it about twice as likely that the Libertarian Party could maybe win something, sometime ever.
I just need $200,000 to make it work. Like it or not, you NEED my bullshitting expertise to make the Party grow. I take checks and money ord-hey, where’re you going? Hey, HEY! This is about freedom for the next ten thousand years, you know! GET BACK HERE!
So a juvenile gay libertarian and the Galactic Emissary of Aescir walk into a bar…
Sometimes the best part of being a libertarian blogger is watching two living, breathing fart jokes go at each other in the comments section. Sucks that we’re the punchline, though.
Antiwar.com has an interesting article bashing the concept of the “pro-war libertarian.”
The libertarian movement appears close to suing conservatives for divorce. The vaunted “fusion” between liberty-oriented and virtue-oriented conservatives that helped propel Ronald Reagan into the presidency is breaking down. If Republicans are going to spend like Democrats, expand government like Democrats, and centralize power in Washington like Democrats, then why should someone with libertarian inclinations vote Republican?
An increasing number of voices are now pressing for a libertarian-liberal alliance, or at least a dialogue between libertarians and the Left. But so far the discussion has largely ignored foreign policy.
…
But among professed libertarians there’s been largely silence on the role of foreign policy in deciding on whether to fuse with either conservatives or liberals.
I am most definitely a “dove.” I do find it hard to reconcile libertarianism and the Iraq war. However, many people do… and while I strongly disagree with them, I hope the LP remains a big enough tent that they can find room here too.
“…a list of 205 people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party, and who, nevertheless, are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department.” -Senator Joseph McCarthy, February 9, 1950.
I wouldn’t usually quote someone whose chief contribution to American history was flopping a steamer on the Constitution, but it just seemed so apropos in light of what I just read.
Looks like Gene Chapman’s done gone shat himself in public again. The latest antic of his is calling the Phillies campaign a pack of Communists. Check it out:
Questions for George Phillies
1) Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party or of a Communist cabal (i.e. Republican, Democrat or Green Party member)?
2) Are you or have you ever been, as reported on the internet, a member of the American Civil Liberties Union?
3) Do you get any bit of your paycheck from tax payers to teach?
4) Do you, as reported on the internet, support a child tax credit rather than the abolition of the unconstitutional public school system (10th Plank of “The Communist Manifesto”)?
5) Why have you not responded to the approximately 6 attempts my campaign and I have made in the past 3 1/2 months to interact with you?
respectfully,
Gene Chapman
ChapmanForPresident08.com
This guy is clearly nuts and needs to be laughed out of the movement before the movement is laughed out of mainstream politics. Oh yeah, and he can’t get chicks either.
In an era when the only thing you hear coming out of Big Christendom is oppression, it’s nice to see that I’m not the only Christian out there that gets the whole liberty thing.
I got ‘em in the mail last night, and as promised, I’m offering a review. It’s my opinion that, to a certain extent, a campaign is generally well-reflected in its bumper stickers.
So yes. It’s nothing too flashy, but it gets the job done. No Statue of Liberty graphics, just the word “George Phillies: Libertarian for President” or somesuch. A solid, but kinda ho-hum, sticker. You know exactly what you’re getting-isn’t too much, isn’t too little. But the fact that they’ve already got bumper stickers printed out (and that they sent me five!) is pretty impressive.
So what this screams to me, in general, is that the Phillies campaign, if nominated, will be pretty standard, almost boring, Libertarian fare. But it will excel at the job-I remember getting a single Badnarik bumper sticker when I asked for it in 2004, but already they’ve got quite a bit more to offer. Yeah, the Badnarik stickers were flashier… but, eh. Sometimes slow and steady wins the race, and I doubt any of us are in the mood for Badnarik’s edition of “flashy” anymore.
If any other Libertarian campaigns out there would like to send me their stickers, I’d be delighted to offer my impressions. princepsaugustus@hotmail.com and I’ll hit you up with my mailing address. 
South Dakota Democratic Senator Tim Johnson is going to have brain surgery, raising the acute possibility that he might be unfit for Senatorial duty.
From CNN (I wish I could quit you…)
A Democratic senator from South Dakota was in critical condition Thursday after undergoing surgery to repair a brain hemorrhage.
Sen. Tim Johnson is being treated at George Washington University Hospital, about two miles from the U.S. Capitol where Johnson is set to be part of a slim Democrat majority in the Senate from next month.
…
Democrats gained a 51-49 Senate majority after last month’s election. A GOP appointee would result in a 50-50 split and allow the GOP to retain Senate control through Vice President Dick Cheney’s tie-breaking vote.
Senate Democrats, however, squashed the idea that Johnson’s illness would result in Democrats losing control of the Senate, noting that many senators have had extended absences throughout history.
“We’re not changing hands any time soon,” a Senate Democratic leadership aide told CNN.
The aide then went on to reassure CNN that Democratic Senators do not, in fact, need brains in order to fulfill their roles as elected officials, and have not required them since approximately 1916. He then reportedly ate a stem cell sandwich and rolled around luxuriantly in your tax dollars, exclaiming “It feels so pretty because it’s stolen!”
Check this shit out.
So I get an email from Paulie (are you validated yet man? I wanna make you a contributor) and it’s got a bunch of Scientology crap about Allen Hacker.
Let’s see… there’s this, where Allen Hacker “talks about his up coming program, the State of Aescir. He explores his understandings of the Galactic Consciousness and how we each play a role in it.”
Then we’ve got this bad boy, where Hacker is basically starting his own religion with (imagine that!) himself as the messiah figure. Campaign funds locked on a moon of Jupiter indeed. So that’s why he was talking about freedom for the next TEN THOUSAND YEARS.
Hail Xenu!
Something’s just not right in Russia.
First there was the whole ex-spy poisoning thing, and now someone appears to be getting his kicks by burning down mental hospitals. I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but the temptation to snark this bad boy up is just too great. Perhaps Putin’s burning them down? He IS ex-KGB, after all-he might miss the taste of dead human. Or maybe one of the crazies happened to accidentally come across the latest harebrained scheme of the Russian government in between bouts of drooling, and they had to be “silenced.” Or maybe his government’s just too fucking poor to sustain mental hospitals anymore, and this is how they close businesses in Russia.
Smart money’s on the dead human theory.
In other news, it appears that Stephen Colbert is the man. Truthiness ftw!
It looks like international auction house Christie’s is expecting the Hitlermobile to go for at least $10 million. Seriously, how fucking cool would that be? I’ll bet it’s powered by the crushed spirits of fascism-Bush would be able to break some sort of land speed record in that mofo.
I’m definitely all for people to have the right to say/do anything that doesn’t harm others, but Jesus fursuiting Christ… what the hell? We’re making up minority groups now?
What else can be mentioned… some dude in Chicago flipped out and killed people over a toilet, the Taliban is trying to look more professional, and France can’t play a soccer match without killing the Jews.
If your comment doesn’t show up, it’s not my fault. I go through the filters every time I get on here and end up having to approve a couple each time.
Oh yeah, and is anyone else having trouble accessing Third Party Watch? I haven’t been able to get on there for two days, which is kind of a problem given that I’m supposed to be contributing over there now.
I love that there’s an investigative reporter out there who finally gives a shit about liberty.
Srsly. ABC News did a piece on some nanny-statist legislation in New York City, and for once a major media network in this country wasn’t all “YAY FASCISM” about it. That makes me all warm and happy inside.
From the golden tongue of Stossel:
This week, New York became the first big city to ban trans fats.
Gee, I’m all for good health, but shouldn’t it be a matter of individual choice?
The New York Times front-page story “New York Bans Most Trans Fats in Restaurants” has the sub-headline: “A Model for Other Cities.”
“A model for what, exactly?” asks Don Boudreaux, an economist at George Mason University. “Petty tyranny? Or perhaps for similarly inspired bans on other voluntary activities with health risks? Clerking in convenience stores? Walking in the rain?”
Thank you, Big Media, for finally hearing the cries of your consumers.
In America, you’ve got tabs on your browser. But in Communist China, browser has tabs on YOU!!
Awesome to see how much power that people like us have, and scary to see just how much that small minds fear us.
I’m still not sure who I, Stuart Richards, want to personally endorse for the Libertarian Presidential nomination. Right now I’m torn between Doug Stanhope and George Phillies.
Stanhope is a celebrity who could bring in a lot of attention and cash, but he’s got some negatives that could hurt us in the eyes of the average voter. He has no problems with public speaking, but I don’t know how many people are gonna pull the level to make the Girls Gone Wild guy become the next leader of the free world.
Phillies isn’t quite a celebrity, to put it mildly, but he does have a lot of intra-party experience and he’s building a network of activists and laying groundwork now, and he might actually be able to contribute to the public debate in the same way that Aaron Russo did on the draft in 2004. But he’s got to get enough cash to put together some high-quality TV spots if he wants to do that. I’m still unsure of his fundraising capabilities.
I discount Kubby because, honestly, the stoner hippie vote is all he’s really got access to. I highly respect the man and all he’s done for the cause of liberty, but I don’t think that this is going to be his forte.
If we could combine Phillies’ activist base with, say, Badnarik’s fundraising base (which is probably burned all to Hell now), I think we could have at the very least a Nader-like impact on the Presidential election.
I will be voting Libertarian if it is at all possible to do so in the state of Nebraska in 2008. However, this doesn’t mean that I’m not gunning for my favorites in other parties. Specifically, I really really hope that Chuck Hagel gets the GOP nod. The man’s close enough to libertarianism for government purposes. Kind of a social conservative, but not off the deep end. Has supported some pork here and there, but on the whole is a strong force for fiscal responsibility. Definitely an improvement over Bush, and certainly an improvement over whatever the hell Hillary Clinton might want to do to this country.
Liberty For America has an interesting writeup on the LP’s role in determining the 2006 elections.
Having gone on at considerable length about the Republican Party and its War on America, we now reach the momentary denouement: The Republicans have lost. They lost the House. The lost the Senate. With the Senate, they lost the ability to install far-right judges. With Congress, they lost the ability to field ultraright legislation. In the next two years, there will be no more Patriot Acts. There will be no more Military Commission Acts. There will be no more Real ID acts.
…
Of course, there are a few things that Libertarians might reasonably ask from the Democratic Party in exchange for our help, recognizing that we all live in the America that we just saved.
Let’s see if the Democrats give us jack shit. Smart money says no, but then again you never know. Rick Santorum used the Green candidate in a last-ditch effort to undermine the Democratic vote. Although we can easily campaign from the left (far more easily than Greens can campaign from the right), we do tend to siphon away more Republicans on average.
Methinks thou doth protesteth too much?
A four-year-old hugged his teachers aide and was put into in-school suspension, according to the father. But La Vega school administrators have a different story.
Damarcus Blackwell’s four-year-old son was lining-up to get on the bus after school last month, when he was accused of rubbing his face in the chest of a female employee.
Without the government there to take such things way too seriously, who knows what could have happened? Children are so unruly these days; the boy might have chloroformed her and drug her back to his mommy’s house. God knows what could have happened after that… he could have tied her down and offered her a juice box, or forced her to read him a bedtime story.
Thank God we’ve got the government here to protect us from these ferocious, precocious serial snugglers.
Yeah, so I’ve been added as a contributor over on Third Party Watch. For anyone who’s been following that site for a while, they’ll understand the sheer usefulness it’s offered to people not just in the Libertarian Party, but in the Green, Constitution, Reform and all the various Socialist Parties too. It’s a useful site for anyone who gives serious credence to the concept of third parties and Austin Cassidy’s done a great job with it.
TPW was the site that brought us coverage of the 2006 LP Convention and has served us well in this interim “wherethefuck did HoT go” stage. So I’m really proud to be aboard that team.
We’re also in the process of getting Paulie Cannoli up on here as a LFV contributor. Agree or disagree with him, he’s a fascinating guy with a lot of interesting stuff to say, and we’ll be honored to have him onboard. Now to just get WordPress to finally work so he can post.
I found myself reading through Peter Bagge’s comics lately.
For those not in the loop, Bagge’s one of the cartoonists for Reason. He does a damn good job, in my haughty opinion. By all means, check him out. My favorite so far has got to be the one about the Libertarian election party.
Thank you, Reason, for winning at life yet again.
So when do I get my job in the gub’mint?
Seriously, it took the Republicans two whole fucking years to come around and write an exit strategy for Iraq. And whaddya know? Just like the Democrats before them, they’re ripping off the Libertarian Party’s IES.
Maybe it’s not so much that the Libertarian Party has direct influence over the political process in eventuality as it is that the Libertarian Party, whatever wing of it you care to talk about, has a virtual monopoly on common sense in American politics. Seriously, we figured out a way to GTFO of Iraq like two years ago. So you changed like three details of our plan or whatever, big fucking deal. We’re smarter than you, and if the voting public had just voted for us two years ago, we’d already be out of there.
The thing about common sense is, even though it’s not common, eventually you have to come around and possess some minimal level of it in order to keep your job/life/whatever. If you don’t learn it on your own, it will be beat into you by the sheer force of life. So when Dubya was a total fucking failure at international politics and the Iraqi insurgency was in his base killing his d00dz kicking our asses, finally his dad had to step in and put one of his more competent lackeys in charge to save the situation. And that’s where we got the Baker Report-a plan that not even Dubya can criticize, if for no other reason than that it came from his own “team.”
And that now means that every party on Capitol Hill basically agrees on what needs to be done, which means it should only be a year or two before they work out the politics of which party and what senators get blamed for what, they figure out a comprehensive plan that’s basically the IES/Baker Report but with a different name on the header, and we finally get the well-deserved fuck out of Dodge.
There’s more on the whole Badnarik/Hacker dustup on Third Party Watch. Git on over and check it out.
The best part was, in my estimation, Paulie’s comment. Read it after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Finals week ftw!
No seriously… there’s so much crap I’ve gotta get done between now and December 15, it’s sickening. You can blame these guys for it.
In the meantime though, it looks like Hammer of Truth is making a comeback. Isn’t up yet but I’m hopeful.
All right, catch you all later. I gotta go blather on about Sylvia Plath or something.
Kenneth Starr doesn’t really have much to do these days, apparently.
The Supreme Court agreed to step into a dispute over free speech rights Friday involving a suspended high school student and his banner that proclaimed “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.’’
Justices agreed to hear the appeal by the Juneau, Alaska, school board and principal Deborah Morse of a lower court ruling that allowed the student’s civil rights lawsuit to proceed. The school board hired former Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr to argue its case to the high court.
The incident occurred in January 2002, as the Olympic torch relay wound through Juneau, en route to the winter games in Salt Lake City. As the torch passed by the school, student Joseph Frederick and friends unfurled the banner across the street from campus apparently to attract the attention of television cameras.
First Amendment done owned this, how the hell is this even an issue? Let’s review WTF it says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Fo’ sheezy, my Jeezy.
…when this guy is making more sense than our President.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to the American people on November 29. It’s 80% common sense, with some crap about the Jews and monotheistic government thrown in.
But seriously, I have to admire the guy’s statesmanship, immoral statist though he be. Just read the letter and lemme know what you think, noble readers.
Call it me being out of the loop for a month, but this is just plain awesome.
A libertarian in Pennsylvania kicked out 40% of the state legislature.
From Wonkette:
Some random guy in Pennsylvania decided to get rid of every single incumbent in the Pennsylvania House and Senate and actually managed to evict a total of 47 legislators through primary losses and retirements forced by voter outrage.
How did Russ Diamond pull this off? He spent less than $200 to start a web-based political action committee called PA CleanSweep and recruited 97 oddballs to run on a simple anti-incumbent platform, all because the Pennsylvania politicians had given themselves a huge pay raise atop an already huge pile of benefits.
Reason Magazine has more about it:
Diamond’s gubernatorial campaign turned out to be a bust, but his larger crusade has been a tremendous success. His efforts show that even if a third party is doomed to failure, a third political brand can work wonders. Diamond’s campaign has run candidates in both parties’ primaries and as independents by staking out a single-issue identity. With that small initial investment of $182.47, he successfully built a political identity and sold it to working-class Pennsylvania voters. Nationally, Diamond’s campaign could serve as a model for others trying to overturn entrenched incumbents and bring fresh faces—and fresh ideas—into politics.
You know, more and more, it’s looking like the success of the libertarian movement will take the shape of the success of earlier broad-based political movements. Yeah, there was a Progressive Party and a Socialist Party and whatever. Yeah, they earned a lot of votes. But there was also a Non-Partisan League and a metric fuckton of progressives in both parties agitating for change.
The libertarian movement will have come of age when we’re welcome voters in both parties… and by the looks of it, they’re all starting to wake up to us. The seeds that Milton Friedman and Barry Goldwater planted are finally coming to fruition.
We heard a lot of hogwash from the Democrats about how they were gonna change the lobbying system once they got into power.
The reception thrown by Nancy Pelosi at the Capitol a week after the Democrats prevailed in congressional elections was a party some power players had been waiting more than a decade to attend. The fête was for newly elected freshmen lawmakers, but Pelosi’s invited guests included big-name Democratic lobbyists like Jack Quinn, Tony Podesta and Steve Elmendorf. Said a partygoer: “I thought to myself, they’re all back, all the same old faces. It was just like old times.”
Nancy Pelosi is a lying scumbag, and though we play this game of politics and though I consider her mildly less evil (for now) than the alternative, let’s not pretend otherwise.
I hope the Democrats lose one of the houses of Congress in 2008, and I hope it’s Libertarians running from the left that doom them.
So I guess we caught a Department of Homeland Security official screwing the pooch?
From CNN:
A federal immigration official pleaded guilty Thursday to receiving more than $600,000 in bribes for falsifying documents for illegal immigrants.
Robert Schofield, 57, could face 25 years in federal prison when he is sentenced in February.
He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, to issuing fraudulent documents to at least 184 illegal immigrants who falsely received U.S. citizenship.
First off, I’ll state the obvious: corruption in government sucks, and to an extent it’s unavoidable-hence why government ought to be minimized as we libertarians claim.
But secondly, there is another aspect to all this: supply and demand must be satisfied. If it cannot be satisfied in a legal manner, it will be satisfied in an illegal manner. Many good people want very badly to get into this country; if we restrict them from doing so with quotas and other unreasonable controls, then they will meet this demand illegally, by bribing people in the DHS.
I’m not saying we need absolutely no immigration controls whatsoever; I want to know that al-Qaeda and convicted murderers aren’t coming into the country. But we need to significantly raise or abolish our yearly quotas of people coming in… and keep on busting corrupt officials while we’re at it, too.
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