Well, the IRS has sent a letter to my employer to take my checks, down to $168 per week, so I’m off to new adventures. I’m praying about a walk in the desert to visit with God on the matter. Being a homeless man is attractive to me in the world we live in. Lots of homeless people come from IRS issues, I’ve found.
I’ll attend LP and CP events, as I can, but God has clearly opened up a new direction for me, and His priorities are gonna be #1.
The Democrats passed it a while back, and Dubya rolled over like a little bitch. Everyone was like “OMG YAY NOW TEH POOR WILL FINALLY BE OKAY.” Hell, even Walmart, Soul-Sucking Corporate Enemy Of The People, was cheering for it. It was the feel-good political blockbuster of winter.
But it was a fucking stupid idea, and even though it hasn’t taken effect yet, it’s already started screwing over the poor.
Remember how I mentioned Walmart? Yeah, those bastardfucks were cheering this on because they realized that nobody with money would bother shopping at their store. However, raise the minimum wage and their core consumer base suddenly has a little more spending money… money they’d spend at Walmart. Not only that, but Walmart was already paying $7 and change an hour on average, so raising the minimum wage would only hurt their competition.
That’s not all though!
I went shopping with the $16.50 that the State of Nebraska thinks I earned over the last two weeks (yay severe underreporting of hours! I need a new job) the other day and went to buy soda. Knowing that I couldn’t afford the decent Cherry Coke that I usually buy for $.98, I was prepared to buy the fuck nasty Sam’s Cola because it was $.50. Lo and behold, when I got there, the Cherry Coke was $1.24 and the Sam’s Cola was $.62. Yes, that’s right. The minimum wage hasn’t even HIT yet and they’re already raising prices.
So let’s sum up. Minimum wage rises, throws about 7% of the poor out of a job. On top of that, before the wage even hits, prices for basic consumer goods go up to the point that it’ll negate any wage hike in the first place.
At least I can rest assured that the price of habañero lube that Big Government/Corporate America is using to fuck me up the ass hasn’t gone up. Either that, or they’re just sucking up the cost out of the goodness of their hearts. They rape because they care.
While the criminal Bush, giving himself a salary of one million dollars, takes many vacations on his illegal ranch in “Crawford” to oversee the child slave labourers in his salt mine, pistol whipping them with a discarded rusty water can, Dear Leader is visiting the factories of the west, the iron works in the north, giving the instructions to bring about the great upsurge in economic building of the nation under the banner of his “Speed of the Eighties” revolutionary campaign.
Dear Leader Comrade Generalissimo Kim Jong Il IS the shining sun and the hope of all humankind.
A bottle of Maker’s Mark says it’s a joke. Any takers?
There has been a lot of discussion on the blogs about supporting Ron Paul. Ron Paul is a libertarian running in the Republican Presidential primaries and needs support. Most Republicans will not support Ron Paul. I admire Dr. Paul immensely and finally got to meet him in Atlanta. I think libertarians should divide their support between Ron Paul and the declared LP candidates. Ron Paul is essentially like us and needs our support to get his message of liberty into the minds and hearts of millions of Americans.
His accessibility to bigger media markets is greater because he is a sitting Congressman. Are George Phillies, Steve Kubby or Barry Hess better libertarians than Ron Paul? All four candidates are well qualified to carry the torch of liberty and spread the libertarian message…it’s just one of these fine people is not running for the LP nomination. As for me, I have my preference for the LP nod BUT I won’t ridicule fellow libertarians for supporting Ron Paul as long as they support the LP candidate after Ron’s bid fails.
Here’s the solution: Since we are faced with this conflict, I propose that we split our support between the two camps. Instead of giving 50 dollars to one candidate, give 25 dollars to Ron Paul and 25 dollars to your preferred declared LP presidential candidate. I can already hear the nay-sayers out there wanting to hang me for concocting such heresy but for the love of liberty it makes sense to me.
Looks like National’s Fearless Leader is getting a tad fed up with our choices for President.
From… well, from us (damn, it feels good to break a story):
> From: shane.cory@lp.org
> To: lnc-discuss@lp.org
> Subject: [Lnc-discuss] Presidential Candidates
> Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:32:43 -0500 (EST)
>
> Dear LNC Members,
>
> If you have not already seen this, it is a recount of the first
> Libertarian presidential debate held in Nevada this past weekend.
>
> After reading it, I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry.
>
> The lady who wrote the piece summarizes her thoughts with this:
>
> In conclusion, here’s how I’d personally rank those candidates for the
> Libertarian presidential nomination:
> 1. Someone better, please!
> 2. George Phillies
> 3. Steve Kubby
> 4. None of the above (don’t run a presidential candidate at all)
> 5. Dave Hollist
> 6. Gene Chapman
>
> Sigh.
>
> As far as the debate performance, she rated and described our current
> batch of candidates as “whackjob”, “incoherent whackjob”, “charisma of a
> wet towel”, and the third one she could not really rate as he debated
> over the phone as he was not allowed to leave his state per the terms of
> his parole.
>
> I’m speechless. . . Read the rest of this entry »
We’re sending out an “open call” to drug law reform folks to support the LP and the Kubby campaign. We would like to make future appeals like this to the peace community, environmentalists, immigrants rights activists, and many others, but we have to start with a base. For anyone who is involved in drug policy reform groups and discussions, please help us distribute this widely, and whether you are or not, please send us some money (see the “read more” link) and some ideas so we can reach more folks with this message! Steve Kubby writes…
To my friends and comrades in the drug policy reform movement:
The last 10 years have been a decade of incredible progress toward ending the war on drugs. Twelve states have adopted medical marijuana legislation. Numerous communities have reduced marijuana to “lowest law enforcement priority.” More and more studies reveal both the medical efficacy of marijuana and the inefficacy and brutality of the war on drugs.
This progress is the result of your years of hard work: Your rallies. Your marches. Your petition drives. The letters to the editor. Your willingness to stand up and be counted. Your refusal to accept anything less than victory.
But it’s time to take the next step: We need to support a political party that recognizes these facts and acts on them instead of ignoring them and trying to wish them away. We need to support a party that stands up for our rights instead of using us as pawns on the chessboard of politics. We need to support the Libertarian Party.
Reading it over, I saw what was basically a recap of everything we’d been covering over on Hammer of Truth for the past year, but with the obligatory sheen that only National can put on stuff.
“Smither tanked” became “Smither diverted enough resources to the race to cost the Republicans two House seats.” Which is a fair enough point-and a brilliant side effect of helping out his campaign. “Guthrie tanked” became “Guthrie got some good mentions in the media.” They mentioned the shit outta Bob Barr, natch… but no mention of Michael Badnarik, interestingly enough. It’s gonna take years for National’s fundraising efforts to get over that curse. And, of course, there was the pitch for money-with the interesting take that to stay solvent, they need everyone who reads it to donate at least $54.
I think, on a whole, the report was encouraging. It did take the year’s successes and failures and craft them into a larger whole, minus ignoring the fact that Michael Badnarik ever existed. I would have to concur that saving the nation from two more years of unchecked Republican rule is worthy of every penny spent on the Libertarian Party, though. That’s not just grandstanding from a party desperate for everything you can spare. That’s the greatest, noblest task this party has ever undertaken and accomplished. I wish I had the cash to chuck at National myself.
I did notice their emphasis on 45-state ballot access, though. They’re writing off the most problematic ones, and it seems like there is some serious effort by National to get the more lethargic state parties back on their feet. (Hopefully this means Nebraska will be organized again!) But yeah. We should really stop squandering our cash on those same couple states that always give us trouble. Get on the ballot in every state where the cost-benefit ratio works out, which is thankfully most of them. But give up on goddamn Oklahoma.
And get National back in the black… which after Captain Spacepants rocked his shit will be harder than ever, but not unreasonable.
All in all, I think National’s doing the best they can do in the situation, and really the best they’ve ever done. I’m proud of the guys up top right now.
No, it’s not the technological state of the art — that’s not the point. The point is for a Libertarian presidential candidate to take up the tradition of the “weekly radio address” that’s been a staple of American politics since FDR’s “fireside chat” days, and to do so in a very accessible way.
So, no bumper music or cheap sound effects — just Steve Kubby, calling in from wherever he happens to be to chat with America.
It’s also not long — 3-5 minutes is what we’re shooting for. We want dialup users to be able to listen in conveniently.
You can listen to it right here, or at the campaign web site, or at the Gcast site. You can subscribe to it via iTunes, Yahoo!, Google, MSN, newsgator or your preferred RSS client. Oh, yeah — feel free to embed it on your blog too if you like. Gcast offers a variety of styles and sizes, and it’s maintenance-free. Once you’ve put the code in, updates for new episodes take care of themselves.
Sorry folks, I’m having concentration problems and can’t put together a decent article to save my life. A friend who wants to remain anonymous asked me to post this.
A new group has started that is trying to get an initiative on the ballot in New York City that would create a real, independent investigation into 9/11. Although the state of New York is not a citizen’s initiative & referendum state like California and 23 other states are, they do have citizens initiative & referendum at the local level in New York City. In order to make it on the ballot, they would have to collect 50,000 valid signatures on a petition from registered voters in New York City. The time frame to do this is 120 days and the latest that the signatures could be turned in is 60 days before the election. In order to ensure that they make it on the ballot they would have to collect extra signatures in order to survive a validity challenge, so they will probably need around 100,000 raw signatures.
I think that this is an excellent idea and I in fact had the same idea myself a few years ago. Just imagine the impact of having a 9/11 Truth ballot initiative on the ballot in New York City. It would be listed in the voter booklets sent out to millions of voters and people would be forced to confront the issue. The media would have a hard time ignoring it. It is obvious that there aren’t enough people in government with the guts to face this issue, so it is up to We The People to push for a real investigation. Even if the initiative fails just going through the process of trying to get it on the ballot is sure to generate publicity and bring more people into the 9/11 Truth Movement.
Right now, the initiative is in the planning stages. They need to find a lawyer or lawyers to consult with to make sure that the initiative is properly worded from a legal standpoint. They need to actually file the initiative with the election office in New York City. They are also going to need to raise money to ensure that they make it on the ballot and to run advertising to increase the chance that the intiaitve passes.
I urge everyone here to visit www.911initiative.org and do whatever you can to help get this project off the ground. There is still time to get this on the ballot for 2007 but if we don’t make it for 2007 we can always go for 2008. I think that it is very important to have this initiative on the ballot by the time of the 2008 Presidential election. Getting this initiative on the ballot could be the big breakthrough that the 9/11 Truth Movement needs.
While surfing the web I somehow came back to the Boston Tea Party Site. I discovered a thread regarding 2008 BTP Presidential Prospects, Kent McManigal threw his hat into the ring and I had never heard of him before. I proceeded to his blog and website. I eventually was able to email him and ask him some questions about himself and why he wants to run for President. He is FAR from a politician, more like a statesman or better yet an intelligent John Q. Taxpayer – my kind of guy! This brought to mind a lot of questions about the BTP. What are they doing with regard to restrictive ballot access laws? Do they still intend to have a presidential candidate in 2008? I believe that Kent has the right ideas on gun control, REAL ID, and governments place in the lives of it’s citizens. Please check out his blog and website for his platform and additional information. Also check out the Q & A Session below. Read the rest of this entry »
You know the saying, “the best nuts come from California”, right? The Terminator aka Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks he can ship his state’s criminals to another state to relieve the overcrowding in California’s prisons. Well, Mr. Terminator didn’t get his way because a judge stopped him from doing so. California should NOT be shipping its problems on to other states; they have problems of their own to solve!
The problem is not the criminal; it’s how the state determines who is a criminal and who isn’t and the ridiculous sentences they serve for these crimes. There is a proposal to release non-violent early to relieve the problem.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday he would consider releasing some inmates before they complete their sentences to alleviate prison overcrowding, marking a significant shift in position by the governor as he faces mounting pressure from federal judges to address the state’s jam-packed prisons. Schwarzenegger said at a news conference that he was open to discussing early release for some inmates without violent histories as a way to create space in prisons and to head off potential federal court intervention.
Release non-violent criminals early? Now there’s a concept. Why doesn’t Arnold pardon all the non-violent drug offenders first!
The state houses more than 86,000 inmates for nonviolent crimes, including more than 36,000 for drug crimes, although it is unclear how many of those inmates have past violent crimes on their records.
By doing this alone it would free up about a third of the prison space. The first pardon should go to Steve Kubby
Here’s another concept-stop punishing people who participate in victimless crimes like drug use and prostitution.
We’ve known for a while that Texas Governor Rick Perry is less than clever, and we’ve known that he’s corrupt for a few weeks. Now it appears he’s converted the Governor’s Mansion into the best little whorehouse in Texas – for Big Pharma executives, at least.
A few weeks ago, Perry signed an executive order requiring that all girls entering sixth grade be given Gardasil, Merck’s new vaccine against HPV, the virus that causes most cervical cancers. Gardasil is specifically required, even though rival GlaxoSmithKline is bringing a similar vaccine to market soon.
As many of you probably remember, the 2006 Texas governor’s race was interesting, to say the least. Perry was re-elected with 40% of the vote, the rest going to four other contenders. It now appears that Merck made a contribution to Perry’s campaign through their PAC.
Naturally, Perry is denying that this had any effect on his decision:
“When a company comes to me and says we have a cure for cancer, for me not to say, ‘Please come into my office and let’s hear your story for the people of the state of Texas, for young ladies who are dying of cancer,’ would be the height of irresponsibility,” Perry said, adding, “Whether or not they contributed to my campaign, I would suggest to you, are some of those weeds that we are trying to cut our way through.” When asked the date he decided to issue the executive order, Perry said, “I wish you all would quit splitting hairs, frankly, and get focused on, ‘Are we going to be working together to find the cure for cancers?’ No, I can’t tell you when.”
Now, first of all, cervical cancer usually doesn’t affect “young ladies”. More to the point, we Texans don’t need an idiot like Perry deciding what’s good for us. Many Texans have social objections to vaccinating their daughters against cervical cancer, believing that it will encourage promiscuity. Now, I think they’re idiots, but it is their right to be stupid, and Rick Perry and Merck should not force the vaccine upon them.
All right, Paulie’s been on my ass to post my opinion on the Nevada debates, specifically between Phillies and Kubby. So, lemme get on that now that I’ve got the time. (College would be awesome if there weren’t any classes or homework, but yeah.)
I’ll start off with some of the obvious issues. Gene Chapman was the first to go. He came off sounding like a nut, but not as much of one as I would have figured. I’m figuring that it’s just some trick of the human voice that de-escalates him to simply some John Bircher in supposedly Libertarian clothing, but yes. He’s not winning any votes, I’m honestly a bit surprised he was even invited. But he reminds me of my ex-wife’s pastor father… kind of a likable-but-confused bum who speaks a good bullshit game when it comes to theology but doesn’t know shit about politics when you get down to it. Interesting guy to bullshit with but you wouldn’t elect him for dog catcher, let alone President.
The questions that were asked to Chapman were asked with what seemed like an obvious air of “What the fuck are you even talking about, dude?” “Slave Freedom Alliance” my ass. Like getting the Constitution, Southern, and whateverthefuck other parties he mentioned to endorse him would do anything. Yay, now like five more people in Georgia would vote for us! I think I’ll just go ahead and stamp upon that cursed alliance. That and he supports farm subsidies? WTF?
Christine Smith is the great disappointment of this whole endeavor. She’s a no-show at the entire campaign so far. Not just this event, either. Given that she’s usually considered as third place, I tried to cover her. I’m not going to pretend that this is some fuck-huge blog (at least not yet) but I figured that with two of the editors here being representatives from the Phillies and Kubby camps, respectively, that I ought to try to give her some equal time. So I shot off an email and no reply. Either her campaign thinks that free publicity will hurt her campaign, or they think we’re such small potatoes as to not be worth it. Yeah, no. Next please. Read the rest of this entry »
The New York Times had an interesting piece about a recent attempt to undo the worst excesses of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.
The provision, signed into law in October, weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty. One is the doctrine that bars military forces, including a federalized National Guard, from engaging in law enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was enshrined in law after the Civil War to preserve the line between civil government and the military. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president’s use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights.
…
There is a bipartisan bill, introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri, and backed unanimously by the nation’s governors, that would repeal the stealthy revisions. Congress should pass it. If changes of this kind are proposed in the future, they must get a full and open debate.
It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. Keep bringing us back our civil liberties, Democrats, and we might just let you keep your jobs.
The NCAA had deemed Illiniwek — portrayed since 1926 by students who cavorted at home football and basketball games in buckskin regalia — an offensive use of American Indian imagery.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t get these claims that having American Indian mascots is somehow demeaning. I’ve seen many sports teams with Indian mascots and they’re always portrayed as brave warriors with fighting spirit, the kind of characteristics that a team wants to be viewed as possessing. Do teams ever choose mascots that would reflect poorly on themselves? (OK, Banana Slugs may be a rare exception.) Why else would lions, tigers, and bears be so often the mascot of choice in favor of sheep, doves, and butterflies?
I seriously wonder whether the primary impetus of these initiatives is really coming from the American Indian organizations or other groups who benefit from playing the identity politics game. I expect more schools to be coming under attack very soon.
At last, someone in the limelight has spoken out and provided great insight regarding education reform. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. thinks that principals should act more like CEO’s and review teachers based upon their performance. I wouldn’t be surprised if the NEA launches a boycott of Apple’s ingenious product line. His concept is something that has been discussed within libertarian circles since the inception of the party back in 1971. It’s too bad that folks like Steve Jobs and John Mackey are a rare respite from the mundane in today’s corporate world. Mr. Jobs, you make me proud to own an iMac!
AUSTIN — Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions today, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers.
Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.
“What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn’t get rid of people that they thought weren’t any good?” he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.
“Not really great ones because if you’re really smart you go, ‘I can’t win.’”
I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way,” Jobs said.
“This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.”
… in the all-important MySpace world, that is. I find it particularly interesting that the oldest of the Republican presidential hopefuls is kicking the others’ asses so badly in this predominately youth-oriented arena.
Let this serve as a reminder that the Internet has the potential to really shake things up within the established political order, as evidenced by outsider Howard Dean’s strong run in 2004. But, the downside for Ron Paul in this instance may be that the MySpace crowd is largely made up of people who won’t be voting in the Republican primaries.
I’m really looking forward to the upcoming debates where we’ll finally get to see some issues on the table that his statist opponents would prefer not be discussed.
Apparently an asteroid called Apophis has a 1 in 45,000 chance of running into Earth on April 13, 2036. This would suck. It also probably won’t happen.
What’s scary to me is not that there’s a minuscule possibility that a collision equivalent in damage to “six or seven or eight Katrinas” will happen in 29 years. What’s scary is that people are expecting the UN to solve the problem. From the article:
Delegates at an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in San Francisco this weekend learned an asteroid strike is an absolute certainty unless the international community rallies to prevent it.
Now, let’s take a look at what the “international community” has accomplished over the past few decades:
October 1935: Italy, a League of Nations member, invades Ethiopia, another member. Ineffective economic sanctions are imposed, and Ethiopia is subjugated.
World War II. Yeah.
July 27, 1953: The Korean War, pitting UN troops (essentially US troops) against North Korean and Chinese Communist troops, ends in a stalemate. Korea remains divided to this day.
HIV.
Somalia crisis. Food shipments are taken by warlords, eventually leading to the disastrous 1993 Battle of Mogadishu.
1994: Genocide in Rwanda. The United Nations does nothing; France assists those perpetrating the genocide.
July 1995: 400 Dutch peacekeepers stationed in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, fail to prevent the massacre of 8373 Bosniaks by Serbian troops. Srebrenica had been declared a “safe zone” by the United Nations.
1998: Second Congo War. Civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, continuing to the present.
Summer 2006: UN troops stationed in Southern Lebanon fail to do anything about fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah.
Reports of sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers and other staff also abound.
So, let’s review: the UN “peacekeepers” cannot keep the peace and have an annoying tendency to rape people, the UN frequently fails to do anything when its charter requires it to, and it occasionally helps out the bad guys. And now people expect it to stop an asteroid from hitting the Earth, something that there’s not even a good idea of how to do?
So, what happens when a couple decides to invest their own money in video cameras and radar speed detection equipment for the purpose of encouraging motorists to drive more slowly in front of their home? Well, they get accused of stalking (yes, STALKING!) when a cop happens to get caught in the act of speeding by!
Now, I thought I knew what the word “stalking” meant, but just to be sure, I checked with Dictionary.com:
1. to pursue or approach prey, quarry, etc., stealthily.
2. to walk with measured, stiff, or haughty strides: He was so angry he stalked away without saying goodbye.
3. to proceed in a steady, deliberate, or sinister manner: Famine stalked through the nation.
4. Obsolete. to walk or go stealthily along.
I’m wondering if the “stalking” defense will work for me next time I’m ensnared in one of the highway bandits’ despicable speed traps. Not likely.
When Barack Obama announced his intentions to run for President in my hometown of Springfield Illinois, many people have asked me whether we are ready for a black president. Convincingly and to surprise many who have asked me, I flat out said “NO!”
As an African-American and a Libertarian, I don’t see how we can talk about having a black president when our own communities are decimated with crime, unemployment, drugs, increasing high school dropout rates and increasing incarceration rates.
People must think that if we have a black president that all these problems mentioned above will go away? What real leader does the black community have now-a-days? It’s not Al Sharpton nor Jesse Jackson nor God forbid Louis “White People Are The Devil” Farrakhan. What happened to the Thomas Sowells, the Walter Williamses or even the Richard Boddies’?
Now as for Barack Obama, he is part of the problem not the solution. His voting record in Congress are the antithesis of freedom and liberty. He voted for the Real ID Act, the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, higher spending budgets, federal minimum wage increase,voted for gun confiscation during emergencies, the border fence and the list goes on.
Obama will fail just like Jesse Jackson did before him. There’s already talk that even elected black officials in South Carolina will not endorse him. Read the rest of this entry »
This was a key document in a rejected version of U.S. plans for Iraq. It was found, damp, crumbled in a State Department trash can.
Dear Iraq:
When I decided that we belonged together, I had the best intentions. Our relationship was never about control for me. I truly believe that if you love something, you ought to set it free.
I could see that Saddam was bad for you. You weren’t happy with him. He was abusive, he was controlling, and there’s no way you were better off with him than with me—though I slowly started to notice, you certainly seemed calmer with him than you have with me.
This is hard for me to admit. I’ve invested so much in this relationship—time, money, my highest ideals. But I’ve come to realize there’s a lot wrong with our relationship. Face it: we’ve become a seriously high-conflict couple. I never wanted to admit how violent our relationship had become. I thought it was just a phase, and that things would change if I just showed you how much I cared, how much I was willing to bleed to make this work.
But I’ve had some good advice lately from friends, and I even consulted some professionals who gave me a more objective outlook on what’s been going on between us.
They helped me see something I was afraid to face. I thought it was my duty to put up with how crazy things had gotten. I thought it was my fault, that I had to stick with you no matter how awful the relationship was for us both. Some serious co-dependency is at play here, Iraq. Despite my best intentions, we continue to bring out the worst in each other. Read the rest of this entry »
“We love our town and we want to protect it,” a local protester told the BBC.
“Other people want to impose with violence a base that nobody wants.”
The United States’s huge network of military bases in allied countries is one of the most pointless and drawn-out foreign policy-related outlays the US government throws our money into. There are 40,258 US troops in South Korea and 40,045 in Japan, both to counter North Korea as a service to two wealthy and populous nations perfectly capable of defending themselves.
Even more pointlessly, there are 75,603 troops in Germany, 13,354 in Italy, and 11,801 in the United Kingdom. These troops are all there to prevent the Warsaw Pact from taking over Western Europe, and now the Pentagon wants to add 2,000 troops to this random base in Italy. The locals don’t like it – meaning that this troop increase, as usual, leads to an increase in anti-Americanism – and, fundamentally, the US military has no business doing anything but defending the United States, except in the case of attack (in other words, I believe the original invasion of Afghanistan was, if poorly done, justified). Occupying Western Europe and East Asia is pointless, unpopular, and expensive.
I’ve recently been asked a number of times — by friends, fellow Libertarians, supporters of other candidates and even my own campaign volunteers — if my personal legal situation has any bearing on my presidential candidacy.
More pointedly, I’ve been asked if the fact that I’m on probation in the state of California might not disqualify me as a candidate, if for no other reason than that it might limit my ability to travel.
I’d like to turn these questions into an opportunity: An opportunity to explain my situation, and to explain why it’s not only not a problem, but a positive factor in my campaign.
I don’t know if any of you remember someone named Greg Dirasian, but if you do… apparently he’s taken enough time off writing Rothbard/Rand “purity” slashfic his political opinions to take a potshot at us.
Yesterday, I was doing a Google search on another topic and I came across a “Libertarian” blog, http://www.LastFreeVoice.com/. It made me embarassed that I was ever associated with the Libertarian Party. The authors on the blog were sitting around congratulating themselve on being great free speech advocates — and almost every single blog posting contained a profanity.
The semi-literate authors, seem to be short of adjectives. Thus, instead of describing something that is very big as either “enormous” or “vast” or “gigantic” or “massive” or “gargantuan” or “huge” or “mammoth” or “titanic” or “colossal”, they seem only to be able to describe it as “fucking big.” As advocates of free speech, these people cannot be taken seriously. The public will NEVER be swayed by people with such a poor grasp of the language and the public will NEVER take seriously those who cannot get past profanity.
Oh man oh man oh MAN where to begin. First off, while we’re on the subject of trying to sound like a goddamn Oxford professor, I could point out your use of the word “themselve” or the grammatically-incorrect “The semi-literate authors, seem to be short of adjectives.” But focusing on someone’s speech instead of their ideas would just be petty, now wouldn’t it bucko?
So let’s talk about ideas. The idea of this blog is to appeal to anyone and everyone who calls themselves a libertarian. Many of us DON’T swear, many of us are “purists” just like you when it comes to political philosophy. We’re pretty diverse, actually. Read the rest of this entry »
2008 is too late to end the Bush Republican War On Iraq.
By 2008, thousands more of our brave American men and women will have died totally pointless deaths. They won’t have died to protect America.
They’ll be dead because George Bush is afraid to admit that he was wrong.
By 2008, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis will have joined them.
They’ll all be together, united in the grave.
The Republican Party has taken party loyalty to new heights. That’s new heights of absurdity. No matter how outrageous the claim emitting from the bowels of the Bush Republican White House, the White House can count on its Congressional loyalists. Did the Iraqis have atomic weapons? Or was that last month’s claims? Did the Iraqis aid the 9/11 terrorists? Or was the 9/11 claim oh, so five minutes ago. No matter the claim, Congressional Republicans will line up directly behind George Bush, loyal unto political death to the Bush Republican Administration, no matter how the latest White House claims contradict the previous ones.
The Republican Party has created a record on Iraq. It’s a record of pathological dishonesty. No sooner is one lie justifying the War On Iraq discredited than the Republicans invent a new one. Their leading Presidential contenders offer them no opportunity for change. McCain, Giuliani, and Romney all stand solidly behind the new George Bush plan to escalate the war.
Once upon a time, real conservatives like Barry Goldwater stood four-square for protecting the civil liberties of the American people. Now Bush Republicans say we should give up freedom for safety. Let me tell you the truth: When you hear someone say that we should give up freedom for safety, when you hear someone refer to America as the ‘homeland’, you are listening to someone who hates the real America, hates our Constitution, hates our Bill of Rights, and hates our way of life. That person has no business anywhere near the levers of political power. It is time that the Libertarian Party unites American Patriots to send these people on their way.
So why are the Democrats offering a totally meaningless non-binding resolution to end the war? Read the rest of this entry »
You know it’s bad when a libertarian website has Obama fever this bad.
Not even the writers of the website. Just the website itself.
For the record… can someone tell me just WTF you, me or anyone could ever possibly do with a Barack Obama wristband? Or any politician’s wristband? I mean, I fucking love Ron Paul but I’d never, y’know, have “RON PAUL 2008″ around my wrist. That’d just be silly.
I don’t buy many books. The problem is, I read so darn fast, that I finish most books within a day of purchase, and seldom pick them up again. So, I don’t buy books unless I a) know I’ll reread the book, or b) want to support the authors.
This one is a B.
Last year, the UK passed a law called the “Terrorism Act of 2006″. One of the things that law did was to criminalize what they call “glorifying terrorism”.
That didn’t sit well with a group of science fiction authors. They set about writing an anthology of short stories which, you guessed it, “glorify terrorism”, and assembled them into a book appropriately titled Glorifying Terrorism.
I haven’t read even one of the stories in this collection, but I badly want to – not because I like terrorism, but because I like what these guys are doing. Even the cover of the book is a bitchslap to the free speech police.
The book, including shipping, is about $35. I say that’s a small price to pay to reward the authors for having the guts to spit in the face of the Terror State.
New Mexico’s newest weapon in its fight against drunk driving will be an expensive waste of tax dollars. It may even be discriminatory because the program targets men only.
The state has ordered 500 talking urinal cakes that will deliver a recorded anti-DWI message to bar and restaurant patrons who make one last pit stop before getting behind the wheel.
“Hey there, big guy. Having a few drinks?” a female voice says a few seconds after an approaching male sets off a motion sensor in the device. “It’s time to call a cab or ask a sober friend for a ride home.”
The urinal cakes, manufactured by Healthquest Technologies Inc., will cost the state taxpayer $21 each and will bear the state’s DWI slogan “You drink, you drive, you lose.” The state’s DoT spokesman S.U. Mahesh says if the pilot program goes well, NM will ask bars and restaurants to cover the cost of future orders.
I was curious about the cost of regular urinal cakes and found that one supplier, J&J Chemical Co., manufactures non talking cakes for about $0.40 each. Let’s see, 500 talking cakes cost $10,500 and 500 regular cakes are $200-which do you think a responsible business owner would purchase?
Can you imagine some of the problems that could come out of this? Food and drink prices aside, bars may have to beef up restroom security when a truly drunk patron thinks the guy next to him is hitting on him.
Update: Apparently news of this urinal cake is making waves in New Orleans. Mr. Ed LaRose said:
I would like to officially declare that I am offended. It is tacky, sexist, engages in profiling, invasion of privacy, humiliation, spying, encourages theft and puts men with weak hearts at risk.
It is also discriminatory as it only addresses English-speaking males (as far as I know there are no urinals in the ladies’ room).
What’s next, talking heads?
Maybe a weight-sensitive one? A husky male voice declaring, “Hey baby! Been hittin’ the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups a little too hard lately?”
5 votes to get kyhx banned!
fine if you are all going to spit in the face of democracy by not voting we won’t allow talking at all
* DemocracyDan sets mode: +m
* DemocracyDan is now known as NaziNorm
this is what happens when you don’t allow your voices to be heard
they get taken away
think about that for awhile
For those who aren’t familiar with IRC, setting mode “+m” means that nobody without special permission can talk.
This post goes out to all those who believe in freedom, or believe that the current system is broken, but refuse to say anything, for any multitude of reasons. The fewer people that are brave enough to speak their minds, the less politicians will pay attention to us. If you believe in something, say so! Do something about it! The sooner you do, the sooner the system will start to progress in a direction you like. You hurt yourself when you stay silent, and you hurt everyone else too.
Many Libertarians are jumping on the Ron Paul bandwagon. Ron Paul is a sitting member of Congress with the power to introduce impeachment resolutions. Why has he not done so, and
when is he going to do it? Since the spineless Democrats are predictably selling out the voters who gave them control of both houses of Congress to stop the war, and the LP is mostly MIA on this as well (having voted against impeachment, and having failed to even consider a real antiwar resolution at the Portland convention), perhaps someone will do the right thing?
Co-Dependent Congress Must Wake Up: The President Needs a Straight-Jacket and a Padded Cell
It’s time to simply admit the obvious: The president of the United States is crazy as a loon, and the Congress and the media are functioning as co-dependents as he runs the country off a cliff.
Bush says in his latest press conference that he is “certain” that Iran is providing “technically
sophisticated” roadside bomb weapons to Iraqi insurgent forces to help them to kill Americans.
He probably is “certain.” But nobody else of consequence in the government is, and the evidence to support his claim is simply not there.
Shaped charges are not sophisticated. They can be made in a garage. The technology was invented in 1888 by a Navy engineer. It was widely used in World War I and II, as well as in Vietnam, and was even provided by the British to the IRA in a botched sting operation that led to its being disseminated around the world to every conceivable resistance and terror organization. Instructions on how to make these weapons are available on the web. A high school student could do it in shop if the teacher wasn’t looking.
You may remember the ridiculous WA initiative that would require heterosexual couples to have children within three years of marriage or have their marriages anulled. The WA initiative was, in my opinion, a brilliant way for same sex couples to bring attention to their cause. It obviously has no chance of passing, but it seems to have inspired a TN representative to take the play for the pro-life camp. Recently proposed legislation in TN would require death certificates for aborted fetuses.
Rep. Stacey Campfield, a Republican, said his bill would provide a way to track how many abortions are performed. He predicted it would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate but would have a hard time making it through the Democratic House.
…
The number of abortions reported to the state Office of Vital Records is already publicly available. The office collects records _ but not death certificates _ on abortions and the deaths of fetuses after 22 weeks gestation or weighing about 1 pound.
The identities of the women who have abortions are not included in those records, but death certificates include identifying information such as Social Security numbers.
Campfield’s bill, introduced Monday, would give abortion providers 10 days following an “induced termination of a pregnancy” to file a death certificate.
Abortion is a subject matter that divides even libertarians but this should scare us enough to unite. I have always been decidedly pro-choice and believe this regulation, if passed, would do nothing to reduce abortion. It would be used to stigmatize the women who have had to make a painful decision. It would create a mountain of paperwork for the already few abortion providers and may prevent them from providing service. It would create another avenue for identity theft.
The WA initiative was obviously an attention grabber, but I worry that this abortion bill may actually have a chance to pass. We should watch very closely because if it does, TN women would be only the first to see their private medical decisions made public. Other states will follow quickly.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Monday stood by his comments from a day earlier when he said that terrorists should pray that Sen. Barack Obama and the Democrats take over the White House in 2008.
Both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. were telling Howard to butt out of American politics.
Speaking to Australia’s ABC News Radio, Howard said his comments were aimed at the Illinois Democrat’s plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq in March 2008.
“What I have done is to criticize Sen. Obama’s views on a particular issue, and I don’t retreat in any way from that criticism,” Howard said. “I think if America is defeated in Iraq that will be catastrophic for the West and it will have tremendously adverse consequences for Australia.”
…
On Sunday, Howard told an Australian TV program that, “If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats.”
Right now, I don’t care who wins the Kubby-Phillies pissing match. Unless it’s Gene Chapman.
Go look at this motherfucker’s crazy-ass site. This guy is fucking clownshoes, toys in the attic, all that and more. If Gene Chapman somehow manages to win the Libertarian nomination, then the Libertarian Party will just have been crashed. For good.
If the Kubby and Phillies campaigns bicker and fight among each other long enough, it might happen. Look at what happened with the Nolan-Russo fight in 2004. The two front-runners sabotaged each other to the point where another crazy-ass motherfucker won the nomination.
We can’t have that.
Both Phillies and Kubby are decent candidates, when you get down to it. Neither one would be an embarrassment to the party, although the partisans here will obviously declare that one will represent it better than the other.
So whatever you do, DO NOT let Chapman get anywhere near the nomination. He is deluded, and he says shit like this:
Mr. Kubby has some fan base in Las Vegas, but I think the Christians and the LP members who want to draw into the LP the 82% of Americans who profess faith in Jesus Christ mostly went for me.
A Mesa Arizona councilman has staged a silent protest against the War In Iraq by not standing nor reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. RIGHT ON! Tom Rawles has created quite a stir with his protest. He has even received death threats from his constituents.
These days, his safety has become an issue once again as he faces death threats from people deeply offended by his public protest of the pledge. Two weeks ago, police reviewed e-mails and phone calls from people who threatened to beat up Rawles outside the council chambers, bury him in cement near his workplace and “put a bullet” in him.
Now I believe we have the right to our opinions but to threaten bodily harm on those we disagree with is not right. Those who threaten to cause bodily harm on those who have dissenting views are no better than the Ku Klux Klan.
Angry constituents have called for him to step down from the City Council, and one has discussed starting a recall effort. He’s been called unpatriotic and a traitor to his country, and he was briefly under police surveillance for his own safety.
I see we indoctrinate our children at an early age to become good little fascists:
Hannah Alger, 13, sported an orange U.S. Marine shirt and had a handful of small American flags in her hand as her dad, veteran Frank Alger, faced Rawles.The younger Alger said that if everyone followed his protest, “kids would be rebelling against their parents.”
Rawles asked her: What would freedom mean if everyone were forced to salute the flag? And Alger’s wheels started turning.
Even if you lose your job Mr. Rawles, I applaud you for taking an unpopular stand pertaining to an increasing unpopular police action. Remember: Those who stand for nothing, fall for everything!
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — A U.S. Army official confirmed Monday that a small explosion took place outside an Army base south of Tokyo, according to a media reports. The Army could not immediately confirm what had caused the explosion, the Associated Press reported. The Kyodo News agency reported that police had found a “launch pad” near the base and suspected an attempted guerrilla attack, the AP said.
Even with the shaky details coming in so far, we all know how this one will turn out:
Blame terrorists or North Korea. Or both.
Spew angry militaristic rhetoric and send an angry letter to North Korea.
Announce an investigation.
Determine that the cause of the attack was what had been blamed originally – hatred of “our freedom” by people who speak funny languages and vow to do something.
Everyone forgets and goes to watch American Idol.
Here’s what I wish would happen:
Realize that the United States has been occupying Japan since 1945.
Realize that as a rich first-world nation, Japan can pay for its own defence.
Get US troops out of Japan.
There is no reason that isn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy (like North Korea being insane) to maintain troop presence in East Asia. Both Japan and South Korea are wealthy modern nations perfectly capable of defending themselves from poor, backwards North Korea (and big, awkward China too). Occupation of both those nations by American troops only serves to inflame anti-American sentiments in the region and waste lots of money.
Unfortunately, Kubby and Smith were unable to attend. Smith canceled apparently without giving a reason, and Kubby, a convicted felon, was unable to secure permission to leave his home in California. Kubby did debate by telephone. Gene Chapman apparently refrained from setting himself on fire and handed out copies of his book.
Kubby’s apparent inability to reliably leave the state of California raises some questions about the viability of his campaign – will he be able to make it to Denver in May 2008? I don’t know why he was not allowed to leave – hopefully his folks can answer that. (Update 2/14: They have, and much more, in the comments.)
UPDATE: Apparently Paul had already covered this earlier, though it was skillfully phrased to not point out that Kubby is a convicted felon. (A convicted felon under a stupid law, but one nonetheless.)
It’s now been over 1 year since LibertyMix.com, the so-called “Libertarian answer to DailyKos”, was announced. As of February 11th, 2007, it is still yet to materialize.
A year ago, big fundraising effort was introducted. Michael Badnarik, perennial failed candidate for Libertarian office, was trotted in to persuade you to donate to a new site being started by the creators of Hammer of Truth. He said (or rather LibertyMix consultant Thomas Knapp wrote and Badnarik “signed”) that the new site would “blaze new technical trails”, and change the results of some elections in 2006.
The elderly need better access to transportation services and legal services, but restrictions on who can own an inner city transit company deny the elderly access to such services and restriction on paralegals make legal services more expensive. Magazines on alternative healthcare might be receptive to ads criticizing the laws restricting midwives and I would definitely place ads in Ebony magazine on any number of issues that make life more difficult for members of the African-American community such as lack of adequate inner city transportation, occupational licensing and housing regulations. I have some of these issues on my website http://libertarianpeople.org (okay maybe it is more of a play toy than a website, but it’ll get better).
I think issues like this need to be emphasized a lot more by local LPs, to help build our ties to local communities and expand our diversity so we can be more effective. Contribute your thoughts and experiences in the comments!
A few months ago the cable news networks were all abuzz with the news that a former narcotics officer named Barry Cooper was on the verge of releasing a new DVD that would show people who smoke pot how to “Never Get Busted Again”. Needless to say many of us in the drug policy reform community were thrilled at the prospect of such valuable information being made available to us. But then some alarming discrepencies began to surface.
I gave Mr. Cooper the chance to address those discrepencies via a blog interview and he agreed to do the interview but never did it.
Steve Kubby got caught in a last minute snag with a temporary out of state travel restriction while his probation is being transferred from Placer to Mendocino county. Bad timing, he got caught in the gray zone within one county already abdicating jurisdiction, and the other one not fully set up yet.
Steve called in and we have audio available now, courtesy of the Chapman campaign, which we put up at Kubby’s website at http://kubby2008.com/node/27.
Steve’s email to me…”It’s hard to be sure, since I could only be there by phone, but it
seemed like I got the biggest applause. The debate was filmed and will be uploaded to YouTube soon. Will forward link when I get it.”
A revolt against a national driver’s license, begun in Maine last month, is quickly spreading to other states.
The Maine Legislature on Jan. 26 overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real ID Act of 2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver’s licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national databases.
Within a week of Maine’s action, lawmakers in Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked at Real ID. They are expected soon to pass laws or adopt resolutions declining to participate in the federal identification network.
“It’s the whole privacy thing,” said Matt Sundeen, a transportation analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures. “A lot of legislators are concerned about privacy issues and the cost. It’s an estimated $11 billion implementation cost.”
The law’s supporters say it is needed to prevent terrorists and illegal immigrants from getting fake identification cards.
States will have to comply by May 2008. If they do not, driver’s licenses that fall short of Real ID’s standards cannot be used to board an airplane or enter a federal building or open some bank accounts.
About a dozen states have active legislation against Real ID, including Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.
Missouri state Rep. James Guest, a Republican, formed a coalition of lawmakers from 34 states to file bills that oppose or protest Real ID.
Though most states oppose the law, some such as Indiana and Maryland are looking to comply with Real ID, Sundeen said.
The issue may be moot for states if Congress takes action.
There must be something in the water. Governments around the world, including our own, are jailing bloggers. Do bloggers enjoy the same rights as regular journalists? Congressman John Conyers believes that bloggers enjoy the same First Amendment rights as journalists. Unfortunately, our Supreme Court doesn’t.
One such blogger, who is currently incarcerated, is Josh Wolf.
Josh Wolf is an independent journalist and blogger who was jailed on August 1 when he refused to testify or turn over unpublished video out-takes to a federal grand jury investigating a July, 2005 anti-G8 demonstration. Josh has never been convicted of a crime. He is being held on civil contempt in an effort to coerce him to testify and turn over his unpublished material to a federal grand jury. Josh was released on bail September 1st but was ordered to return to prison on September 22nd pending a hearing before the entire 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Don’t think for one minute that this can’t happen here in America. Just remember that the Real ID Act gets implemented in 15 months. And if that doesn’t scare you Aaron Russo’s movie America: From Freedom To Fascism tells about the harsh realities of what is to come! So blog at will, don’t let these fascists dictate your blogging style. They can’t shut all of us down!
Well, well. On Thursday, a shocking thing happened. Traffic for LastFreeVoice.com skyrocketed. Suddenly, hundreds, if not thousands of readers were flocking to the site. Their destination? The Five Second Political IQ Test. The source? Fark.com.
This is why some people hate liberals. Dude, you’re making the rest of us look bad. You suck.
He also posted an animated gif of Ned Flanders getting punched in the stomach.
To clarify – I am an anarchist. I am the farthest from a commie liberal you’re ever gonna find, friend.
User DeadZone said:
So the guy in the article used the phrase.
Which explains a lot about the article.
And the person who wrote it.
Of course, the political test is not 100% accurate, just like condoms aren’t 100% effective. It doesn’t cover those who use the phrase illustratively or ironically. I’d think that’d be obvious.
Farker LoveRBS commented:
When a politician says “we live in a post 9/11 world” they’re probably pushing something that goes against our rights.
When anyone else uses it, they’re just trying to act smart and smarmy.
When they use it to fight against Aqua Teen Hunger Force ads, they’re just retarded.
That user got it. The entire point of what I was trying to say. Too often 9/11 hysteria is used by either pundits trying to sound smart, the unwashed masses, trying to make themselves feel smart, and government “officials” scheming to take away our freedoms. A fool can see that.
To close this up:
User blahpers said:
Mentioning a “post-9/11 world” is almost universally a sign of pathos-ridden jingoism and fearmongering.
If the warmongers were smart, they’d strike that hackneyed phrase from their lexicon – it’s becoming painfully obvious what it truly means.
I’m ghost-posting this for Michelle
because she’s in the land of the rising sun and having technical issues starting posting here. Also because I’m her puppet . Oh, yes, and as Marv Albert says….YESSSSSS!
Several weeks ago I wrote about the court martial of First Lt. Ehren Watada, the soldier accused of conduct unbecoming. You may remember that he enlisted in the military after 9/11 only to consider it farther and refuse to deploy with his unit to Iraq. I said then that he was fighting FOR our constitution and I wondered what February would bring him.
Well, I am in Tokyo and unable to get full news, but it is my understanding that his court martial resulted in a mistrial. Some legal experts claim a Watada victory for round one.
To the extent that the Army would have liked to have shut down the case and sent it on its way, by now it’s a short-term defeat for the Army,” said Eugene Fidell, a lawyer in Washington, D.C., practicing military law and president of the National Institute of Military Justice.
Obviously I am not an attorney and I cannot even hope to know what this actually means for Watada, but this seems like a situation better flushed down one of Japan’s “smart” toilets. This was to be an answer to the the legality of the Iraq invasion. With the mistrial Watada may escape prison, but the most pressing question can remain unanswered.
Was Watada correct when he refused to deploy?
I wonder if this soldier is feeling relief. And if he is not retried, I wonder if he will feel justice was served.
Are you an attractive female motorist? Then you better watch out for cops with “loose cannons”, because it’s open season. At least, that is the verdict of a Laguna Beach jury. From the OC Weekly:
No one disputes that an on-duty Irvine police officer got an erection and ejaculated on a motorist during an early-morning traffic stop in Laguna Beach. The female driver reported it, DNA testing confirmed it and officer David Alex Park finally admitted it.
There was a really good article on Alternet about the return of fascism, as predicted by a man who lived through the Nazi regime and smuggled documents from the Confessing Church (which stood up to the Nazis) out of Germany. That guy saw this fascism coming twenty-five years ago. Anyway, the leading snippet:
Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told his students that when we were his age — he was then close to 80 — we would all be fighting the “Christian fascists.”
The warning, given 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and television evangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts toward taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global Christian empire. This call for fundamentalists and evangelicals to take political power was a radical and ominous mutation of traditional Christianity. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.
It’s got a lot of thoughtful things to say, comparisons to make. It’s a liberal writer doing this article, so of course the obvious answer involves cash handouts to the poor and banning religious schools and other such crap. Read the rest of this entry »
Presented for amusement, possible enlightenment, and for no direct polemical purpose, the first-person tale of Susan Smith, as told to the British Guardian, who wants to be legless, and has gone through a fair amount of personal difficulty to get halfway there. Is she:
a) a screwed-up nut who ought to be locked up to prevent her from hurting herself;
b) suffering from the identifiable medical disorder “body identity integrity disorder,” probably because of the chemical make-up of her brain, who doctors have an obligation to help achieve her stated “need” to lose her limbs;
c) a woman with an unusual preference who should be permitted to contract with a willing professional to achieve her desires about her body;
d) who cares what she is or how she gets her jollies as long as I don’t have to pay for her fun and games?
Staggeringly odd, that. I gotta say that I wouldn’t do it myself if I were a doctor, but if she wants it done and can find a willing doctor, by all means. I’d have to say that her own words, in the article Reason linked, convinced me: Read the rest of this entry »
You may remember a while back New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg set up his own private sting operation to entrap gun sellers. From the story:
Bloomberg announced the filing of a federal lawsuit last May against 15 gun dealers, who he lambasted as the “worst of the worst.” The city later filed a similar lawsuit against another 12 dealers.
In both cases, the city sent private investigators to gun dealers and secretly videotaped them making what Bloomberg called illegal “straw purchases.”
However, the ATF not only determined that the sales “do not rise to a level that would support a criminal prosecution,” but they’re investigating Bloomberg himself for “potential legal liabilities” arising from the stings. I know that’s only because they feel he’s stepping on their toes with his stings, but the total vindication of the entrapped gun dealers is such a slap in the face to Bloomberg that I can’t help being happy about this story.
That title is paraphrased, of course. The actual title of the story is Move’s afoot in N.Y. to force iPod pedestrians to unplug, and it tells the story of some lame-ass know it all politicians who want to give people tickets for crossing the street while listening to headphones, using cellphones, or other electronic devices.
It’s all about safety, of course. When you’re crossing the street distracted, you might get hit by a car, they say.
You MIGHT get hit anyway, by a drunk driver or speeding cop. You might trip down the stairs and break your neck. You might slip in the shower. There are a million dangerous things that MIGHT happen. Trying to mitigate all of those blatantly infringes upon our rights and liberties, and we ought to recognize that as such.
If they wanted us to be REALLY safe, they’d outlaw crossing the street while talking to someone, or while wearing a hood or glasses that might restrict one’s peripheral vision. Heck, they could just mandate “street crossing escorts”, specially trained individuals who determine when it is safe to cross. It’s the old slippery slope – when does this slope end?
Even though Ron Paul is running for the Republican nomination, the Libertarian Party race is still happening. George Phillies recently released a statement detailing his thoughts on Ron Paul’s candidacy:
I will be happy to welcome Ron Paul to the Presidential campaign, if as rumored he finally declares. I know there are people who expect the Libertarian Party to close up shop during a Ron Paul campaign. I am not one of them. My stand on the Ron Paul campaign is:
(i) I am running for the Libertarian nomination. Ron Pal is running for the Republican Party nomination. We are not competing with each other.
(ii) I am a major contender for our nomination. He is not a major contender for his nomination. As time approaches, I will welcome his supporters into my camp and our party: We are in agreement on a wide range of important issues.
(iii) Ron Paul is highly unlikely to win the Republican nomination, because his party is dominated by the religious right, neocons, militarists, and the like.
(iv) I will not withdraw. Withdrawal would be a craven act proving to all Americans that we are a gaggle of Republican sock puppets. It would be a complete disaster if our Presidential candidate quit during the race. We would become a joke. No matter who my opponents are, if nominated I will campaign vigorously for our party.
(v) I am running to build an effective Libertarian political movement in America. To do that, we must have effective campaigns from top to bottom. Only Libertarian candidates can move us toward this goal. An isolated Libertarian who is elected while running as a Democrat or a Republican may leave a few footprints in the sand, but they will be washed away by the next wave of candidates from his party.
When Ron Paul, as expected, does not win the nomination after a hopefully strong start (maybe winning NH?), George Phillies is the man to draw these newly Libertarian-minded Republicans into the Libertarian Party.
I wanted to drop a quick line while I am sober. It seems that Last Free Voice has been quite busy the last few days and I have to say congrats on the new site.
I was in Argentina eating good steak and drinking great reds until I was silly. I arrived in Sydney this morning and think that tonight may also be a blur. GregInOz is taking us out and we all know that nobody parties like libertarians. Hopefully I will have pics and libertarian news from Down Under when I log back on.
I am going to read our new site and will see you guys online soon!
That’s me next to Loretta Nall this past weekend. Not the best pic (we’re both in profile) but
you can find a few more (I did not come out well in any of them) at
If we can do this in Alabama, and I believe we can, we can win in any and every state. Those of you in Alabama, give us a holler and for any of you living in states where Medical Marijuana is not yet legal…I hope you do something like this in your state!
We’ve got quite the libertarian menagerie going on here, and I think it’s great.
Robert Mayer is joining our ranks. I’ll let him introduce himself in further detail, but yes. I’m really happy with the support that’s been coming in from every corner of the libertarian blogosphere for this site. I may be the admin, but it’s you guys that make this place work… stepping up to help us host the site, blog here, all that. We’re going to build this place into something impressive, and it’ll be all your fault.
So yeah, thanks to Robert for stepping up, and thanks to everyone else for making this place work. Ciao!
GreginOz shot off an email to me today, with a fascinating link. It’s an article on AlterNet about the planning for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about the Bush Administration’s obliquity concerning the 9/11 commission.
I’ll come out and say that I doubt the government was directly behind the 9/11 attacks. But they certainly have used the attacks to their fullest potential, and have been less than forthcoming about what happened, and the paper trail certainly raises some intriguing questions.
I’m not a believer in any 9/11 conspiracy theories, but I sure would like those questions answered. And, thankfully, this article doesn’t delve into speculation; it merely presents all the facts known to date and lets the reader come to conclusions (or not come to conclusions) on their own.
I’ve always been of the opinion that places like tshirthell.com, and the people that patronize them, naturally lean towards libertarian values. Whether you agree with what amount to shock-value t-shirts or not, there remains the fact that there are people in this world that would like to ban such things. So long as those people exist, the fringe of acceptability will always be our natural ally.
Anyway, I moseyed down to their site the other day to see if there was anything new. I liked what I saw, and I’ve got more than a few t-shirts I’d like to order from there one day, when I’ve got money. Make the jump to see them, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Read the rest of this entry »
Go on over there. That is the new site. The look isn’t quite finished yet but it’s functional enough for government work. When it’s done, it’ll look like this place does, hopefully.
Editors, you should have an email in your inboxes from me, telling you how to login over there. Oh yeah, the URL to go login is http://www.lastfreevoice.com/wp-admin , just like here but without the wordpress in the title. Yep.
We’re still sorting everything out, but by and large it looks like we’ve made the transition well enough.
A few notes, to authors and readers alike:
-Don’t post any images wider than 400px. I have to stress this because it can mess with the tables.
-When posting YouTube or Google videos, use the HTML code they have on the site itself, stop using the WordPress.com unique codes. They won’t work here.
-If something’s fucking up, lemme know about it by emailing me at princepsaugustus@hotmail.com . I’m gonna dedicate tomorrow night to making sure this bitch works.
And with that, I’m off to anime club to take a break. Please enjoy the site!
I’ve known that the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, was a moron long before today. I knew that when he thought it was a cool idea to sign a bill in a church, every time I’ve heard him talk, and especially today. Yesterday, February 3rd, Perry issued an executive order requiring that all rising sixth-grade girls in the state of Texas be vaccinated against several strains of HPV, the virus which causes many cervical cancers. He did this by executive order to get around opposition in the legislature, mainly based on concern that this will encourage premarital sex.
Part of Perry’s idiocy is that he is horrible at hiding his special-interest sponsors – he does things like signing bills in churches. I have no problem with churches (just as I have no problem with HPV vaccination; in fact, I think it’s a great idea), but is there any more obvious way you can show that you’re a shill of the radical Christian right? Read the rest of this entry »
We’re in the process of setting up the new site. Now, this means that we need to upload .xml files and the like, meaning that you blog authors oughtn’t post anything here that 1) you’re not willing to lose or 2) you’re willing to repost without any new comments.
This’ll be done by this weekend, and then we can promptly resume our backbiting political drunken ways.
Oh, and if all of you give me $25, I’ll start this awesome site that’ll kick Kos’ ass in the face, and we can start the motherfucking revolution.
We’re in the process of setting up the new site. Now, this means that we need to upload .xml files and the like, meaning that you blog authors oughtn’t post anything here that 1) you’re not willing to lose or 2) you’re willing to repost without any new comments.
This’ll be done by this weekend, and then we can promptly resume our backbiting political drunken ways.
Oh, and if all of you give me $25, I’ll start this awesome site that’ll kick Kos’ ass in the face, and we can start the motherfucking revolution.
I’d like to have some LFV bloggers on the ground. All of us, if at all possible-treat it as a meetup and a journalistic thing. But I’d like to plan for it NOW, instead of rocking it like HoT and being all “THERE’S A CONVENTION OMGWTFBBQ WHO’S THERE LET’S GET HIS TAKE.” Which worked really well, everything considered, but then again it was HoT. They could get away with that shit.
So far Chaz (C.E. Oberg, but I give up trying to refer to him with a monogram, it’s so… weird) and I have plans to go. It’d be sweet if everyone could come up.
Basically my plans are tentative, but they go like this. I live in Chadron, Nebraska. I know you don’t know where that is, so with MS Paint my state-of-the-art cartographic equipment, I made you all a map.
There is a silly side to me. I got the original idea from NaDruBloDa a blog dedicated to a National Drunk Bloggers Day. There is no doubt in my mind that Libertarians LOVE to drink! I went to Atlanta for the 2004 LP National convention and I swear that there was a huge crowd in front of the cash bar and every campaign suite we visited the night before the nomination, there was not one person without some kind of alcoholic beverage in their hands.
As for me, well, my preference is to stay home and drink. I like beer, I’ll drink just about any beer except Coors (Rocky Mountain Piss Water doesn’t touch my lips). I’m a Vodka man but I will on occasion drink Rum, Southern Comfort and Amaretto. I will not do Tequila again. It used to be my favorite until I got really mean when I drank it.
So, what would be a great day to celebrate this new-found day I created. I think February 15th, April 16th, August 30th (my birthday) , December 11th (LP Founding Day) or every day might be appropriate. Just some suggestions. What do you suggest?
There is a silly side to me. I got the original idea from NaDruBloDa a blog dedicated to a National Drunk Bloggers Day. There is no doubt in my mind that Libertarians LOVE to drink! I went to Atlanta for the 2004 LP National convention and I swear that there was a huge crowd in front of the cash bar and every campaign suite we visited the night before the nomination, there was not one person without some kind of alcoholic beverage in their hands.
As for me, well, my preference is to stay home and drink. I like beer, I’ll drink just about any beer except Coors (Rocky Mountain Piss Water doesn’t touch my lips). I’m a Vodka man but I will on occasion drink Rum, Southern Comfort and Amaretto. I will not do Tequila again. It used to be my favorite until I got really mean when I drank it.
So, what would be a great day to celebrate this new-found day I created. I think February 15th, April 16th, August 30th (my birthday) , December 11th (LP Founding Day) or every day might be appropriate. Just some suggestions. What do you suggest?
I've had my share of stories and I've heard too many to even begin
from other people.
It is getting a lot worse with over 100,000 SWAT Team raids a year
now, most for simple stuff like routine warrant service, and they get
very out of control.
If the MSM does not want to cover it we can raise up a stink in the
blogsophere. Just recently Toby Iselin in Keene, NH wrote a polite
letter to his state representative in favor of a bill in the
legislature to decriminalize marijuana and Rep. Burridge wrote back
and CC'ed the Keene PD, called Toby a dumb pothead and said it is
"thrilling to snitch on your friends" and "you would make a great
snitch." Read the rest of this entry »
Some legal experts say prosecutors will have a hard time proving that two men intended to cause a scare when they planted blinking electronic devices around Boston in a publicity stunt for a cartoon show.
They say the key difficulties prosecutors face are demonstrating that the men intended to cause fear, and that the devices, which depict a cartoon character, looked dangerous. The state must prove both to win felony convictions for placing a hoax device, the experts said.
“Their intent was to place these devices as part of an admittedly idiotic advertising campaign,” said defense attorney Edward P. Ryan Jr., a former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association. “Just because people got scared doesn’t mean there was intent.”
Yes, that’s right. A bunch of ads for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, with the show’s villain giving Boston the finger, resulted in the Department of Homeland Security shitting itself and closing down the city. The best part, though, was the public reaction of the two guys who put these ads up. They didn’t get pinned down for shit else but 70s hairstyles. Well, here, just watch for yourself.
She was a liberal, not a libertarian. She advocated a lot of stuff I didn’t agree with, but then again, I never read more biting political satire and I never saw anyone stand up more vehemently to the Iraq war, which I think is the defining issue of American politics today. She’s definitely one of my heroes as far as blogging goes, and she will definitely be missed.
My entire dorm is suffering from norovirus. That’s the thing that’s incapacitated several cruise ships recently since everybody was having raging vomiting and diarrhea. I came down with it at 1 AM yesterday. About twelve hours later, I went to the medical center on campus and was prescribed something called “Compazine” for nausea. It does work. But then I looked it up on Wikipedia. Apparently it was originally an antipsychotic and has a host of other highly unpleasant side effects: blurred vision, sunburn, prolonged and painful erection, etc. (I have, thankfully, only experienced the first.)
Of course, this being a college campus, there’s a lot of another anti-nausea drug going around: marijuana. It certainly has side effects, but none as severe or unpleasant as those of this crap. And, since I can’t seem to understand how to do an integral on compazine either, it’s not like I would hurt my grades any more than I am now. It would probably also be cheaper.
But, the last person I want to talk to right now is a self-righteous cop, so here I am, taking stuff that warns you about some really weird side effects.
Kinda on the conspiracy theorist fringe, which isn’t really my scene, but done really well nonetheless. What really sold me was two things: GreginOz’ recommendation (seriously, if you ever want anything posted on here, your best bet is to be GreginOz); and the fact that it mentioned Project MKULTRA, the CIA program that invented LSD and the only time in history to my knowledge that anyone in the CIA was ever convicted of human rights violations. (C.E. Oberg and I are writing a script about it, actually.) But yeah… with no further ado, the video.
Thanks for the great introduction fellas! I better make myself known to those who don’t know me. I’m Chris Bennett and I have been active in the LP since 91. I live in the Republic of Daley, Madigan and Blagojevich aka Illinois. I’m also on the State Organizing Committee of the Libertarian Party of Illinois. I am also one of a handful active African-Americans in the libertarian movement; there aren’t many of us, but we will be making headways soon. I also attend an ultra-liberal university here in Springfield, Illinois getting my bachelors in political studies and a minor in economics. According to my Facebook facts there are only 18 libertarians on my campus and most liberals think we are conservatives.
I did miss this blogging stuff. So, I begged Stuart to let me mess up his blog for awhile until the readers hang me for my unorthodox libertarian values. My own personal blog doesn’t get much traffic and the last person to comment on it basically accused me of being a liberal. I would have posted an entry here earlier but I didn’t know how to break the ice on a new blog, especially one that wasn’t my own. So I thumbed through old posts here and thought this blog wasn’t as rigid as Hammer of Truth. So after sipping on a Miller Lite and drowning my ears to the tunes of Faith No More, Pink Floyd, Sir Mix-A-LOT, Cat Stevens and Alice Cooper….I had this to ponder. Does the libertarian movement have the best looking women?
I’m going to be a bit biased because I think my wife is a beauty-in fact I transformed her from an apolitical woman to a really active out-spoken libertarian woman. I could get in trouble for writing this but it’s a question that could be asked. Now, if we were to publish a calendar like the “Hotties for Liberty”, who would you include? And yes ladies you can vote for other women as well. My vote obviously would be my wife BUT that’s my opinion. I’m not suggesting anyone else because I like my bed and the couch is rather uncomfortable.
I know Rachel Mills from North Carolina a few years back made this idea happen and it was rather sucessful. Maybe someone might turn this post into a reality? BTW I want 10 percent of all the profits.
Serbia must be taking plays straight from the US War on Drugs playbook. In a campaign to persuade smokers to quit, a Serbian media blitz equates smoking to suicide bombing.
Huge billboard pictures show a man strapped with a vest of oversized cigarettes that look like sticks of dynamite, under the slogan “One Smoker, Many Victims”.
I don’t think they are going to have much success. More than 50% of Serbians smoke and see it as an enjoyable habit.
Laws exist banning smoking in public places such as hospitals and government buildings, but are routinely ignored by a people long used to the pungent haze of tobacco smoke in every cafe, bar, bus and office.
There is no social stigma attached to smoking, and little financial incentive to quit: a pack costs as little as 50 dinars (39 pence) for domestic brands, making it affordable even on the average salary of 300 euros a month.
Hmmm, now that France is to ban smoking in public, perhaps I will need to look into Serbia as a vacay spot.
This video (hat tip: Lew Rockwell) is revealing in a number of different ways. First of all, it shows up Hillary Clinton for what she truly is: an opportunist who is only tenuously acquainted with the truth. She now claims that if she had known then what she knows now, she would never have voted for the war: but in this video, in which she meets with members of Code Pink, the antiwar women’s group, she downplays the “weapons of mass destruction” rationale for war, and emphasizes, instead, the brutality of Saddam’s dictatorship.
Secondly, I would note the unctuousness of Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin, who shamelessly kisses up to Hillary in her introduction, and even declares that she “knows you secretly agree with us” about the war. The fun begins when Hillary sternly disabuses Ms. Benjamin of this illusion, lecturing her about the absolute evil represented by Saddam’s Iraq, and reminding her of the Clintonian war against the Serbs, which, as all good liberals know, was a righteous war. Poor Medea — talk about having the rug pulledout from under you!
The best part is when one of the Code Pink women approaches Hillary, at the end, and tries to hand her a “pink slip” — some pink underpants of a decidedly delicate character. This is when Hillary bares her fangs, and lashes out: “I am the Senator from New York,” she intones, wagging her finger at the woman like a schoolmarm, “and if you think I’m going to endanger the security of my constituents you are very much mistaken!”
The latest Libertarian mailer carries a link to a story about how a newly-elected Libertarian majority on some local soil board somewhere (the article didn’t specify) managed to shut down a complete waste of tax money, and how the bureaucrats turned out in droves with threats and sob stories aplenty.
Chairman Jack Tanner quickly moved through the agenda until he opened the floor to discuss the termination of the mobile irrigation laboratory and our two employees. The next 45 minutes or so were consumed by a series of earnest and emotional pleas by the government managers. Phrases like “millions of gallons wasted” and “billions of gallons saved” were used. Papers were pushed around with columns, charts and graphs. A case was cited in which an elderly, feeble, poor woman, unable to manage her lawn sprinklers, was “saved” by our wonderful program.
The process was disturbingly familiar as I have witnessed this play acted out in many state, county and city boardrooms over the years. Politicians eager to be re-elected are unable or unwilling to stand up to intimidation and embarrassment that comes with a difficult or unpopular decision.
The Cape Coral utilities manager was impressive and forceful. At one point he said, “Citizens don’t protect themselves so we have to.” He concluded, “You may as well keep this program because if you don’t we will find a way to continue, and the taxpayers won’t save a dime.”
Long story short, the Libertarian majority ended the program, the two workers were fired, and the bureaucrats began debating how to foist some evil onto the local populace yet again. We won this round, but big government may yet rear its ugly head. Keep voting Libertarian and we’ll be able to keep the Man down.
As I was sifting through the net for free Camel Turkish Gold coupons and free Newcastle promotions for “drink three, get one free” stubs, I found a gem of a short from Memri-TV with an interview with the Bahraini Intellectual, Dhiyaa Al-Musawi. You can find the short video here.
The dialog of the interview was mostly about the state of the Arab culture and how it has become a backward society in the light of modern society.
As Dhiyaa Al-Musawi states:
I do not believe in the gallows of Ideology. Our problem in the Arab World is that we have many gallows of ideology, and of accusations of social betrayal, on which we try to hang an intellectual, a thinker or a poet everyday, just like in the case of Naguib Mahfouz and others. We, I’m sad to say, are against creativity and civilization, and against any language that seeks common ground in society.
Political Futility / Endless Conflict / System Worship / Big Government Reagan / Leave Us Alone / Fall of Communism / Civil Disobedience / Anti Immigration Protectionist / Standing Armies / The Roads / Ron Paul Joins Us / Keene Visit / Immigration / Whiners? / Slavery / Public Exposure / Freedom
Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zones / Taking Risks / Freedom to Travel Activist Arrested Again / Drug War Deaths / Campaign Advertising / Acetone Gas Tank Bunk / Things Everyone Needs to Know / North Korea / License Plates / Salvia Prohibition
Shelly Roche joins us to discuss bringing women to liberty, her personal path to freedom, and more. / Govt Assuming Responsibility / Minarchy vs. Freedom / Using the System / Liberty-oriented Lawyers? / InjusticeEverywhere.com / Comfort Zones / Auditing the Fed / Agorism
UK Socialist Dental Care / Police Harassment and Standing Up For Your Rights / Socialist Health Care / Unemployment / Health Care Prior to Government Intervention / Black Man In KKK Robe Disrupts City Council Meeting / Miltary Man Refuses to Deploy / Swat Team Called to Back Yard Crew / Nightmare Story
Jim Babka joins us from Downsize DC / Failblog / Persuasion vs Arguing / Minimum Wage / Stamped Dollar Bills / Billing a Court? / Magic Incantations / Fully Informed Juries / Paytriot Scam Artists / More Extraordinary Claims Without Proof / Violent thugs don't care about words. / NH Hard Sell
Cutco Update / Disturbing Internet Speech Regulations Proposed / Government, Tool of Violence / Flag of Distress / Tax Freedom / Free Speech and Private Property / Excited Delerium / Unemployment / Abomination? / China and Freedom / Big Activist Weekend in NH / Police Chief Advocates Lowered Drinking Age / Medical Marijuana Failure / Guns and Canada / Las Ve […]
Mind Meld With Miles… Over Migas! Back in the day… when I was fresh out of high-school and working at Austin’s downtown public library, my boss had a party for me. To promote the little day-job shindig she’d created a flyer with a picture of Star Trek’s Jean Luc Picard all Borged-out with the caption, “Mind [...]
ANOMALY Magazine Welcome’s Brian Worsham! In late 2001, some friends and I were talking about our desire to see more and better quality paranormal and parapolitical TV shows on broadcast and cable television. We wanted our own Anomaly TV Network. We felt certain we had the drive, the skills, the equipment and the network of real [...]
Watching the ARGonauts Play If you’ve followed the Elfis Network from the beginning then you know of my early interest in Alternate Reality Gaming and their potential for “mucking up the works” for paranormal and parapolitical researchers. You may also know that my interests were rekindled in 2007 by the provocative hypotheses of blogger D […]
Anomaly TeleVision » Blog Archive » 60 Minutes - Mind Reading Tech 60 Minutes - Mind Reading (video) cnettv.cnet.com/2001-1_53-50004855.html How Technology May Soon “Read” Your Mind www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/31/60minutes/main4694713.shtml www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4697682n
Big news regarding evidence of evolution: Fossil Discovery Is Heralded In what could prove to be a landmark discovery, a leading paleontologist said scientists have dug up the 47 million-year-old fossil of an ancient primate whose features suggest it could be the common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes and humans. Anthropologists have long believed that h […]
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Apparently we can add 
