The Little Brown Reader

This is What Your FEAR is Protecting

Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: L3
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 20%

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November 27, 2003

Kidd: This is What Your FEAR is Protecting

By Devvy Kidd

November 22, 2003

Millions of Americans have read the Joseph Banister story. For those who may not know of this courageous individual, a short refresher is in order. Joseph was an IRS CID agent (Criminal Investigation Division) for a little over five years. In late 1996, he happened to hear some information about the nature of the income tax on a radio show. After two years of trying to prove the so-called "tax protesters" wrong regarding their beliefs, he finally concluded that the "tax honesty" individuals were indeed correct in their analysis of the income tax and its voluntary nature.

Joseph had no choice but to resign his job, which at that time paid $80,000 per year. You see, this remarkable young man could no longer perform his duties as a CID agent after he discovered the truth. He could not look in the mirror every morning knowing that it was the IRS, his employer, who was breaking the law and committing fraud against the American people. How many people do you know would give up their $80,000 a year job for something called integrity?

With no paycheck coming in, times got tough for this young man; a husband and father of two young boys who attended private Catholic school. However, as a college graduate with a CPA license, Joseph began the process of building a clientele, appearing at numerous events throughout the country and in his soft spoken manner, he told his story and why he could no longer participate in this fraud against his fellow Americans.

As time has gone by, the IRS attempted to silence this courageous young man by making sure he knew a grand jury was sniffing around him. Then the IRS began contacting Joseph's clients and scaring them off so that his income began to once again dwindle. When that didn't work, suddenly the State of California took an interest in him. Stepping up this Nazi style persecution, the State of California is now attempting to take away his CPA license. Not because he has violated any law, but to shut up this courageous young man and deny him the right to work in his profession - all because he told a truth which threatens the powerful, global, banking cartel.

...

Full commentary

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 20%

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Mack Daddy

Local Libertarian gubernatorial candidate leans to the left and speaks to the right.

by Kristy Davis

Meet “Sheriff” Richard Mack: FBI Academy graduate, former militiaman and devout Mormon. Mack’s Libertarian Party leanings run the gamut. Down with leftie love, he wants to legalize marijuana and pimp-slap Sen. Orrin Hatch out of office. Uptight and right, Mack wants to can government welfare, public schools and public Section 8 housing. If Mack had his way, charity would be the sole domain of churches and private nonprofits.

“The bottom line is, I don’t fit the mold,” he says.

Mack wants Utah voters to punch his name on the 2004 gubernatorial ballot. But some politicos say the day a Libertarian takes office will be the day the Utah Legislature legalizes marijuana (insert Beavis laugh here).

Here’s the Libertarian platform in a nutshell: They are pro-constitution and antigovernment. They don’t like taxes. They favor open immigration. While they support the notion of national defense, they don’t like it when the United States pokes around in foreign affairs or goes to war without provocation. Most Libertarians, including Mack, oppose the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq. Party positions on some issues are still up for grabs, however, such as abortion and the legalization of drugs.

...

Tall, dark, handsome but inherently dorky, Mack has come a long way since his early-’80s, undercover-cop days. In the tradition of Starsky & Hutch, Mack—posing as “Gary Layton”—busted junkies, intercepted drug deals and made the streets of Provo a little bit safer.

“Are you going to ask me if I smoked pot?” Mack asks. “Well, never illegally, but [while] undercover, yes.”

Mack went on to become sheriff of Arizona’s Graham County, where he formed a 5,000-member posse to “help with traffic matters and parades,” he says. While working as sheriff, Mack challenged federal gun-control legislation, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, that required local police to run background checks on potential gun owners. In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mack’s favor, striking down background checks. Later, he co-wrote a book about the experience, titled From My Cold, Dead Fingers.

During a University of Utah forum on legalizing marijuana, Mack told the story of his transformation from a DARE instructor and police officer to a constitutionalist who wants government off your back.

...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 55%

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November 26, 2003

Guantanamo treatment is 'monstrous', says law lord

By Robert Verkaik
Legal Affairs Correspondent
26 November 2003

One of the country's most senior judges launched an unprecedented attack on US treatment of the 660 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay last night, saying they will become martyrs in the Muslim world.

Breaking with the convention that law lords do not speak out on politically sensitive issues, Lord Steyn described their imprisonment as a "monstrous failure of justice" and the military tribunals that will try them as kangaroo courts.

Lord Steyn, one of 12 judges who sits in the country's highest court, is understood to have been wrestling with his conscience for weeks. His comments would make it almost impossible for him to hear any appeal from the nine British prisoners held at the US naval base in Cuba if President George Bush agreed to send them for trial in this country.

...

"As a lawyer brought up to admire the ideals of American democracy and justice, I would have to say that I regard this a monstrous failure of justice. The military will act as interrogators, prosecutors and defence counsel, judges, and when death sentences are imposed, as executioners. The trials will be held in private. None of the guarantees of a fair trial need be observed."

...

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: L1
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 25%

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Probation Granted to 3 Who Grew, Sold Pot as a Medicine

By Jean Guccione, Times Staff Writer

In a victory for advocates of medicinal marijuana, officers of a defunct West Hollywood cannabis club were sentenced Monday to one year of probation for growing and selling marijuana to hundreds of people with cancer, AIDS and other serious ailments.

In imposing the minimum allowable sentence, U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz chastised the prosecution.

"To allocate the resources of the Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. attorney's office in this case … baffles me, disturbs me," the judge said.

...

The judge noted that 85% of the center's 960 members have AIDS or are HIV-positive; 10% have cancer; and the rest have various other medical conditions.

"It is difficult to imagine a case where a defendant has contributed to the distribution of a controlled substance for more humanitarian reasons than what occurred here," his defense attorney, Ronald O. Kaye, argued in court papers.

...

Under federal drug forfeiture laws, authorities seized $56,000 in the center's bank account and sold its building at 7494 Santa Monica Blvd. for $1.2 million.

The city of West Hollywood and Wells Fargo Bank, which financed the purchase, are trying to force the federal government to return a portion of the money.

Zero Patience for Zero Tolerance

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .5
Learning Percentage: 35%

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Zero Patience for Zero Tolerance

Tuesday, November 25, 2003
By Wendy McElroy

News shows recently showed video of 14 police officers charging a crowded high-school corridor with guns drawn in a drug sweep. Students at Stratford Creek High School in Goose Creek, S.C., were forced onto their knees or against walls, while dogs sniffed their backpacks for drugs.

None were found. Although the incident was extreme, it was not an aberration but the logical consequences of "zero tolerance" policies, defended by both the school and the police. Zero tolerance must be abandoned, especially in connection with children.

...

Kennedy presidency almost ended before he was inaugurated

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 25%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Buy The Little Brown Reader Here

This site is not The Little, Brown Reader, the popular English writing guidebook. If you're looking to get your hands on that, you can get it Amazon.com by clicking here, or below.

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November 25, 2003

Early suicide bombing attempt against President-elect Kennedy

3 years before he would die in Dallas, Kennedy escaped a man with a car packed with dynamite

By ROBIN ERB
BLADE STAFF WRITER

On a bright Sunday morning nearly 43 years ago, a ramshackle Buick crept through the posh streets of Palm Beach, Fla., toward a sprawling, Mediterranean-style mansion.

At the wheel was a disheveled, silver-haired madman. His aged right hand rested near a switch wired to seven sticks of dynamite.

Inside the two-story stucco home was his target - president-elect John F. Kennedy - readying for morning Mass.

Richard Pavlick stopped a short distance from the house and waited, unnoticed by U.S. Secret Service agents outside.

It was decades before today’s proliferation of suicide bombers, but Pavlick’s plan on Dec. 11, 1960, was as simple: ram the president-elect’s car and detonate the dynamite.

...

Clinton Releases List of Favorite Books

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 80%

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Bill Clinton's Favorite Books

President Clinton Releases List of 21 Favorite Books, Including Wife's 'Living History'

The Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. Nov. 21 — Ah, nothing like curling up in front of the fireplace with 21 of President Clinton's favorite books.

To coincide with the opening of a Clinton Library-related exhibit of books and gifts he received while president, Clinton has released a list of his 21 favorite books from his wife's "Living History" to Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" to Thomas a Kempis' "The Imitation of Christ."

Clinton's presidential library is to open next November on the south bank of the Arkansas River in downtown Little Rock. A nearby office building, the Cox Creative Center, has hosted a number of preview exhibits, and on Monday opens "America Presents: A Collection of Books and Gifts of the Clinton Presidency." The exhibit runs through Jan. 3.

Copies of Clinton's 21 favorite books will be on display at the Cox building.

Besides Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's autobiography, Ellison's soaring novel of a black man's journey through white America and Kempis' 15th-century treatise on Christian living, other books of note include Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again."

The entire list of Clinton's favorite books, listed alphabetically by author:

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," Maya Angelou.

"Meditations," Marcus Aurelius.

"The Denial of Death," Ernest Becker.

"Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963," Taylor Branch.

"Living History," Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Lincoln," David Herbert Donald.

"The Four Quartets," T.S. Eliot.

"Invisible Man," Ralph Ellison.

"The Way of the World: From the Dawn of Civilizations to the Eve of the Twenty-First Century," David Fromkin.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude," Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

"The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes," Seamus Heaney.

"King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa," Adam Hochschild.

"The Imitation of Christ," Thomas a Kempis.

"Homage to Catalonia," George Orwell.

"The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis," Carroll Quigley.

"Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics," Reinhold Niebuhr.

"The Confessions of Nat Turner," William Styron.

"Politics as a Vocation," Max Weber.

"You Can't Go Home Again," Thomas Wolfe.

"Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny," Robert Wright.

"The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats," William Butler Yeats.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

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November 24, 2003

Man chokes to death hiding pot

Man chokes to death hiding pot

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- A man changing a flat tire choked to death on a bag of marijuana he had stuffed down his throat in an apparent attempt to hide it from police who stopped to help him, authorities said.

Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 75%

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Review: "Waiting" by Doug Hoekstra

Doug Hoekstra is one of my favorite musical artists, and probably deserves to be considered one of America's greatest living singer-songwriters. All in due time, hopefully.

This is a short review of his album followed by an interview with Doug, from PennyBlackMusic.com:

Review & Interview: "Waiting" by Doug Hoekstra

‘Waiting’ is the sixth solo album of the much acclaimed Nashville-based musician and songwriter, Doug Hoekstra. Perhaps predictably for a singer-songwriter coming from the Tennessee capital, Hoekstra has strong roots in country. Hoekstra's other influences, however, include blues, avant-garde, jazz, folk, gospel and pop, and his albums are fluent, eclectic affairs, which flit effortlessly, sometimes several times in the same song, from one genre to another.

The subject matter of ‘Waiting’ , like its five predecessors, ‘When the Tubes Begin to Glow (1994)’, ‘Rickety Stairs’ (1996), ‘Make Me Believe’ (1999), ‘Around the Margins’ and “The Past is Never Past’ (both 2001), is typically broad in theme and scope. ’Theresa’ examines the plight of a Brazilian street child, while ‘Dark Side of a Pearl’, which is written from the slant of a baffled close friend, tells of the rapidly dissolving, violent relationship of a once perfect couple. ‘Screwball Comedy’, in contrast, however, is richly comical.

In all other senses though, even by the ever-eclectic Hoekstra’s standards, ‘Waiting’ , however, represents a change in direction. While previously Hoekstra, who has experimented with strings, horn sections and gospel choirs, has teamed up in the studio often with scores of other musicians to make his albums, ‘Waiting’, in contrast , is stripped down and bare. Recorded last winter at home while Hoekstra and his wife, Molly, awaited the birth of their first child, Jude Aaron, its tracks, while again diverse in tone,return to basics, and usually feature Hoekstra on his own, accompanied by just an electric and acoustic guitar.

...

Full article

Read It Rating: 7.5
Learning Percentage: 15%

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Austin Free Staters: Onward to New Hampshire!

Onward to New Hampshire!

By Mark Lisheron
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, November 16, 2003

Alan Weiss, Michael Badnarik and Rick McGinnis want to experience their ideal of liberty in their lifetimes.

To secure their freedom, they have pledged to move from Austin to New Hampshire along with men and women from all over the country.

Once there, these people, members of the Free State Project, intend to set about creating a place to prosper without government interfering in how citizens live. Now, if they can only put up with the cold.

...

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 30%

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November 23, 2003

F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies

By Eric Lichtblau
New York Times

Sunday 23 November 2003

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum.

The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law enforcement agencies last month in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed how protesters have sometimes used "training camps" to rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money and gas masks to defend against tear gas. The memorandum analyzed lawful activities like recruiting demonstrators, as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation to get into a secured site.

F.B.I. officials said in interviews that the intelligence-gathering effort was aimed at identifying anarchists and "extremist elements" plotting violence, not at monitoring the political speech of law-abiding protesters.

The initiative has won the support of some local police, who view it as a critical way to maintain order at large-scale demonstrations. Indeed, some law enforcement officials said they believed the F.B.I.'s approach had helped to ensure that nationwide antiwar demonstrations in recent months, drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters, remained largely free of violence and disruption.

But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960's and 1970's, when J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I. director and agents routinely spied on political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 20%

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E-Votes Must Leave a Paper Trail

By Kim Zetter
Wired News

Friday 21 November 2003

California will become the first state requiring all electronic voting machines produce a voter-verifiable paper receipt.

The requirement, announced Friday by California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, applies to all electronic voting systems already in use as well as those currently being purchased. The machines must be retrofitted with printers to produce a receipt by 2006.

With a receipt, voters will be able to verify that their ballots have been properly cast. However, they will not be allowed to keep the receipts, which will be stored at voting precincts and used for a recount if any voting irregularities arise.

Beginning July 1, 2005, counties will not be able to purchase any machine that does not produce a paper trail. As of July 2006, all machines, no matter when they were purchased, must offer a voter-verifiable paper audit trail. This means machines currently in use by four counties in the state will have to be fitted with new printers to meet the requirement.

...

Remains of Dean's Long-Missing Brother Found

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating:0
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 35%

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November 20, 2003

Students must take personal responsibility

Thursday Debate: What do you think about AU's new drug policy?

By Aaron Biterman

AU's new drug policy, which notifies parents of students for anything from a minor infraction to major abuse of illegal drugs, is a flawed policy. The administration appears to recognize the maturity level of its students in some areas of campus life -University bureaucrats aren't calling parents when their son or daughter is doing poorly in a class or doesn't attend enough classes. But such is not the case when it comes to drug or alcohol use.

...

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.2
Learning Percentage: 20%

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Remains of Howard Dean's Long-Missing Brother Found

By Jodi Wilgoren and Michael Slackman
New York Times

Wednesday 19 November 2003

BEDFORD, N.H., Nov. 18 — Every day on the campaign trail, Howard Dean wears an unfashionable black belt that belonged to his younger brother Charlie, a silent memorial to the man who vanished while traveling the Mekong River 29 years ago.

On Tuesday, Dr. Dean, who rarely mentions his family on the stump, interrupted his schedule to announce that a search team had found his brother's remains buried in a rice paddy in central Laos.

"This has been a long and very difficult journey for my mother and for my brothers Jim, Bill and myself," Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, said after a Democratic presidential candidates' forum at a hotel here. "We greet this news with mixed emotions, but we're gratified and grateful that we're now approaching closure on this very difficult episode in our lives."

The Pentagon will not try to make an official identification until after the remains are flown to a forensic laboratory in Hawaii next week, but personal items found with the bodies — shoes, a sock and a P.O.W.-M.I.A. bracelet with the name of a Texan, all similar to those worn by the 23-year-old Charles Dean — strongly suggest the crude grave was his. Remains believed to belong to his traveling companion, Neil Sharman of Australia, were also recovered at the site.

Charles Dean is one of 1,875 Americans, including 35 civilians, still missing in connection with the Vietnam War.

...

Full story @ TruthOut
NY Times original

Read It Rating: 6.6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 65%

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New Study Explains How Pot Kills Cancer Cells

This article by Steve kubby has some overlap with the previously posted article by Richard Cowan. Cowan's article is more extensive; Kubby's is more succinct.

New Study Explains How Pot Kills Cancer Cells
by Steve Kubby

A new study published in Nature Reviews-Cancer provides an historic and detailed explanation about how THC and natural cannabinoids counteract cancer, but preserve normal cells.

The study by Manuel Guzmán of Madrid Spain found that cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals. They do so by modulating key cell-signalling pathways, thereby inducing direct growth arrest and death of tumor cells, as well as by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels that supply the tumor.

The Guzman study is very important according to Dr. Ethan Russo , a neurologist and world authority on medical cannabis: "Cancer occurs because cells become immortalized; they fail to heed normal signals to turn off growth. A normal function of remodelling in the body requires that cells die on cue. This is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. That process fails to work in tumors. THC promotes its reappearance so that gliomas, leukemias, melanomas and other cell types will in fact heed the signals, stop dividing, and die."

"But, that is not all," explains Dr. Russo: "The other way that tumors grow is by ensuring that they are nourished: they send out signals to promote angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. Cannabinoids turn off these signals as well. It is truly incredible, and elegant." ...

Kubbys await refugee ruling

Read It Rating: 9.1
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.1
Learning Percentage: 15%

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If Cannabis Could Cure Cancer, They Would Tell Us, Right?

This is a somewhat clunky and jaded story, but it still makes for worthy reading, if for no other reason than the story which is embedded within it, entitled "POT SHRINKS TUMORS; GOVERNMENT KNEW IN '74". Also, this article by Richard Cowan (who has good cause to be jaded, as he has been fighting against the drug war for avery long time) is linked to a great many other articles and resources which offer a lot of background information.

If Cannabis Could Cure Cancer, They Would Tell Us, Right? No.
by Richard Cowan, MarijuanaNews.com

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L3
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 55%

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Kubbys await refugee ruling

by Pete Brady (10 Nov, 2003)
Courageous couple grow medical marijuana on television

Medical marijuana advocates Michele and Steve Kubby are anticipating a ruling "any day now" on their historic bid to become Canada's first officially-sanctioned reefer refugees.

...

Earlier this year, Michele Kubby acted as her own lawyer in hearings before an immigration judge. The Kubbys are seeking official refugee status. They argue that Steve would die in America if he was sent back to face incarceration or other actions relating to his earlier conviction, because authorities will not guarantee him access to medpot. They also claim they would be victims of political persecution as individuals, and as part of a persecuted minority - pot smokers - who are targets of a "genocidal" US-government war. If the Kubbys win refugee status, it will be historic, because the ruling will in effect mean that the Canadian government has acknowledged that the US is a country that routinely violates the human rights of its citizens.

The refugee hearings were contentious and controversial, with government lawyers accused of lying by the Kubbys. Michele Kubby, who has no formal training as a lawyer, won plaudits from attorneys for her skillful attacks on the government's attempts to send her and her family back to the United States, and for her spirited defense of the Kubbys' right to stay in Canada.

...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: L3
Freedom Rating: .4
Learning Percentage: 20%

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November 18, 2003

Arrested Development's Name Claim

by Lia Haberman
Nov 6, 2003, 9:30 PM PT

Arrested Development is:

A. What makes Ashton Kutcher tick.

B. An Atlanta-based hip-hop group.

C. The title of a new Fox sitcom.

And the answer is…to be determined in court.

Pioneering hip-hop ensemble Arrested Development has filed a trademark-infringement suit against Fox claiming ownership of the moniker, which the network is using for one of its new series.
...

Appeals court overturns machine gun conviction

Read It Rating: 2
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -.05
Learning Percentage: 40%

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November 16, 2003

Appeals court overturns machine gun conviction

So much for the idea that the 9th Circuit Court is some sort of liberal juggernaut I guess. This is a pretty impressive ruling -- I hadn't realized that there were still courts around who thought the Commerce Clause had limits to its reach. Good for them! It probably won't have much impact on the gun movement, as the lawyer asserts in the article, but it's still and interesting ruling, in the consitutional sense.

Next thing you know, some court might figure out that the DEA has no business busting medical marijuana clinics or growers that do all their business locally (meaning the commerce is not "among the several states", as the abused Commerce Clause specifies). But I digress.

DAVID KRAVETS
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court Thursday overturned a Mesa, Ariz. man's federal conviction of possessing five machine guns.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of San Francisco reversed the conviction, ruling that the congressional ban does not apply to homemade machine guns and their parts because they were never in the stream of commerce.

The court ruled that there was neither a transfer nor sale of the weapons or their parts, so Congress did not have the power under the Commerce Clause to regulate homemade guns crafted from scratch.

...

Elfin Singer Delights Viewers

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .1
Learning Percentage: 55%

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Elfin Singer Delights Viewers

I found this article in a search for Andy Milonakis' age. (27!)

by Jason Gay

On the morning of Jan. 26, an apple-cheeked unknown from Astoria, Queens, named Andy Milonakis crawled out of bed and made the most important decision of his life.

He decided not to attend a friend's Super Bowl party.

Instead, Mr. Milonakis picked up a guitar he can't really play, turned on a video camera in his bedroom and began to sing a really, really, really stupid song.

The Super Bowl is gay, he sang.
The Super Bowl is gay.
Super Bowl, Super Bowl, Super Bowl
Is gaaaaaaay.

At the top of his lungs, Mr. Milonakis went on to condemn the following things as "gay": the Oakland Raiders, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, water, cologne, DVD players, DVD's, stray cats, the sky, cottage cheese, yogurt, shirts, McDonald's, K.F.C., vacuum cleaners, dollar bills, coins, scanners and CD burners, among others. He concluded by singing, "We're all gaaaaaay!"

Then Mr. Milonakis posted the video, called "The Super Bowl Is Gay," on an Internet Web site, angrynakedpat.com, which contained a reservoir of his short, juvenile films.

That was it. Word spread, and "The Super Bowl Is Gay" received zillions of hits on the Internet. A writer for ABC’s new late-night show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, spotted it and got Mr. Milonakis on the program. Mr. Kimmel joked that he wants to adopt him. He’s shown "The Super Bowl Is Gay" and two other videos Mr. Milonakis made, and wants him to cover spring break in Florida. MTV is calling. A guitarist from Ozzy Osbourne’s band who’s starting his own group wants Mr. Milonakis to sing "The Super Bowl Is Gay" before he plays. Adult women are sending him their photographs saying, "We love you, Andy."

...

What some of Mr. Milonakis’ fans may not have known is that the Chunky Peanut Butter Boy and Cuppy and the "Super Bowl Is Gay" kid isn’t a kid at all. Mr. Milonakis has a medical condition—"a growth-hormone thing," he said—that makes him look considerably younger than his age. He could easily pass for a wise-ass junior high schooler.

But Mr. Milonakis isn’t a wise-ass junior high schooler. At 27, he’s a wise-ass network administrator at a midtown accounting firm who’s been quietly moonlighting in comedy for years.

Mr. Milonakis was completely up front about his age—it’s no secret—but didn’t want to go into great detail about his condition. Too "Barbara Walters Special," as he put it. "I do comedy," he said. Though his appearance did make it "harder to get girls," he said he’s in good health. "I don’t have any liver or kidney disease like Gary Coleman," he said.

...

U.S. war dead in Iraq exceed early Vietnam years

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 4.5
Learning Percentage: 55%

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November 14, 2003

DownsizeDC.com Radio Ads: Scripts and MP3s

Downsize DC: Radio Ads

These ads are pretty cool. They're put out by the American Liberty Foundation, which is also quite cool.

Read the ads, listen to them if you can, and then donate some money to help keep them on the air. Three simple steps to becoming an instant freedom activist. Who would have believed it could be so easy?

"We Believe..." Play believe.mp3 (935k)
"Talk Radio" Play talk_radio.mp3 (935k)
"Broken Promises" Play promises.mp3 (935k)
"Suzie and the Senator" Play senator.mp3 (936k)

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: R.5
Freedom Rating: 4.5
Learning Percentage: 20%

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U.S. war dead in Iraq exceed first 3 years of Vietnam

Thu 13 November, 2003 22:38

By David Morgan

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The U.S. death toll in Iraq has surpassed the number of American soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War, the brutal Cold War conflict that cast a shadow over U.S. affairs for more than a generation.

A Reuters analysis of U.S. Defence Department statistics showed on Thursday that the Vietnam War, which the Army says officially began on December 11, 1961, produced a combined 392 fatal casualties from 1962 through 1964, when American troop levels in Indochina stood at just over 17,000.

By comparison, a roadside bomb attack that killed a soldier in Baghdad on Wednesday brought to 397 the tally of American dead in Iraq, where U.S. forces currently number about 130,000 troops -- the same number reached in Vietnam by October 1965.

...

Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 35%

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Knapp on Party Loyalty of Libertarian Leaders, Part II

This is Tom Knapp's follow-up article to his first article about "Libertarians for McClintock", the break-off group that supported the conservative Republican in last month's recall election here. He does a good job of clarifying and responding to people who had problems with his first article -- which sort of includes me, although I wrote my response to his first commentary before I read his follow-up. In other words, he had answered my complaint before I wrote it. ;-)

He does make one factual error, however:

There was no particular reason that the California LP couldn't have said "none of the three registered Libertarians running represent our positions as well as Tom McClintock does. We're endorsing him."

There was a particular reason that they couldn't do such a thing: they are prohibited from doing so by the Bylaws of the California LP.

And he makes one error of judgment, in my opinion (though he seems to hedge this point in a way that corrects the error when he mentions these points elsewhere):

It's a matter of public record that the California LP's executive committee chose, instead, to endorse Ned Roscoe, one of the three registered Libertarians running in the election. Once that endorsement was undertaken, officers in the California LP had two reasonable and ethical options:

* Endorse and support Roscoe;

* Resign their positions of trust within the California LP and endorse or support McClintock.

There was a third reasonable and ethical option, in my opinion: to wash one's hands of the whole torrid waste of time that the recall ended up being, and take no firm position, nor engage in any substantial action, relating to the candidates in said election.

To say that because 10 people made a misguided decision via e-mail relating to a rushed, nontraditional election (that would be the LPC Executive Committee voting to endorse Ned Roscoe), that all the leaders of the California LP had to get behind them or resign their position, is going too far with the "positions of trust" angle. Nothing about my Chairmanship of the Nevada County LP, to my knowledge, mandates that I have to endorse and support anyone that the "higher-ups" choose to endorse. To borrow a popular phrase, they're not the boss of me. And that's especially true in an election that defies the conventional mold, as this past one did, big time.

My job is to support Libertarian candidates, and nominally, I did so. I didn't think it was a good idea to support Ned Roscoe's campaign, and I didn't think I had much of a chance of convincing anyone to vote for Jack Hickey. Our executive board, like most regjonal boards (I think), decided not to try and come up with an endorsement under the rushed schedule and weird format of the election. So, Hickey got my glancing support, for all the good it did. All things considered, there were better ways for me to serve the LP as a regional leader during that time, and that's what I focused on. The recall, candidate-wise, was a wash for the California LP, and that's being generous. Making us look silly and tiny, by campaigning actively for Jack Hickey, or making us look ridiculous and foolish by helping Ned Rosoce promote his "smoker's candidacy", would, in both cases, not have helped advance liberty, or the LPC.

It didn't have to be that way, but that's how it ended up. I don't oppose or disparage Tom Knapp's view that the "Libertarians for McClintock" who were currently holding LP offices were wrong to to do both things at once (though I think to include gubernatorial candidates from 5 years ago is an untenable stretch). I do oppose his view that leaders should have supported Ned Roscoe or left the party.

(As I noted, he does clarify this elsewhere by saying, effectively "or at least don't support the other party's candidate" -- but in his maxim about the "two options", he includes no such clarification, and implies that to do other than one of those options indicates a lack of integrity, among other things. That's wrong. It simply wasn't that simple.)

Tom's column:
Party loyalty redux:
The Life of the Party, part 10
by Thomas L. Knapp

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .9
Learning Percentage: 22%

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November 13, 2003

Ted Rall-- Iraq From the Other Side: WHY WE FIGHT

I'm posting the full text of this not because I'm a big fan of it, but because I suspect that the news sites will be pressured to remove it from their sites, and might give in to that pressure. I'm not going to endorse Ted Rall's extremely controversial column, but I think it's worth reading, and I think he has the right to write it.

WHY WE FIGHT
Iraq From the Other Side

Tue Nov 11, 7:58 PM ET

By UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE/TED RALL

NEW YORK--Dear Recruit:

Thank you for joining the Iraqi resistance forces. You have been issued an AK-47 rifle, rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an address where you can pick up supplies of bombs and remote-controlled mines. Please let your cell leader know if you require additional materiel for use against the Americans.

You are joining a broad and diverse coalition dedicated to one principle: Iraq for Iraqis. Our leaders include generals of President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s secular government as well as fundamentalist Islamists. We are Sunni and Shia, Iraqi and foreign, Arab and Kurdish. Though we differ on what kind of future our country should have after liberation and many of us suffered under Saddam, we are fighting side by side because there is no dignity under the brutal and oppressive jackboot of the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority or their Vichyite lapdogs on the Governing Council, headed by embezzler Ahmed Chalabi.

Because we destroyed our weapons of mass destruction, we were unable to defend ourselves against the American invasion. This was their plan all along. Now our only option is guerilla warfare: we must kill as many Americans as possible at a minimum risk to ourselves. As the Afghan resistance to the Soviets and the Americans' own revolution against our former colonial masters the British have proven, it will only be a matter of time before the U.S. occupation forces become demoralized. As casualties and expenditures rise, the costs will outweigh the economic and political benefits of occupation. Soon the American public will note that the anticipated five-year price tag of $500 billion, with a probable loss of some 4,000 lives and 10,000 wounded, is not a reasonable price to pay to get our 2.5 million barrels of oil flowing to the West each month. This net increase, of just 0.23 percent of total OPEC (news - web sites) production, will not reduce U.S. gasoline prices. At an average of 35 attacks each day, an hour does not pass without an American soldier coming under fire somewhere in Iraq. Ultimately the American public will pressure their leaders to withdraw their harried troops from our country.

It is inevitable. Our goal is to make that day come sooner rather than later.

It is no easy thing to shoot or blow up young men and women because they wear American uniforms. Indeed, the soldiers are themselves oppressed members of America's vast underclass. Many don't want to be here; joining America's mercenary army is the only way they can afford to attend university. Others, because they are poor and uneducated, do not understand that they are being used as pawns in Dick Cheney's cynical oil war.

Unfortunately, we can't help these innocent U.S. soldiers. They are victims, like ourselves, of the bandits in Washington. Nor can we disabuse them of the propaganda that an occupier isn't always an oppressor. We regret their deaths, but we must continue to kill them until the last one has gone home to America.

In recent months we have opened a second front, against such non-governmental organizations as the United Nations (news - web sites) and Red Crescent. A typical response of the Bush junta to these actions was issued by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice: "It is unfortunate in the extreme that the terrorists decided to go after innocent aid workers and people who were just trying to help the Iraqi people." Do not listen to her. True, many aid workers are well intentioned. However, their presence under American military occupation tacitly endorses the invasion and subsequent colonization of Iraq. Their efforts to restore "normalcy" deceives weak-willed Iraqi civilians and international observers into the mistaken belief that the Americans are popular here. There can be no normalcy, or peace, until the invader is driven from our land. From the psychological warfare standpoint, the NGOs represent an even more insidious threat to fight for sovereignty than the U.S. army.

In this vein we must also take action against our own Iraqi citizens who choose to collaborate with the enemy. Bush wants to put an "Iraqi face" on the occupation. If we allow the Americans to corrupt our friends and neighbors by turning them into puppet policemen and sellouts, our independence will be lost forever. If someone you know is considering taking a job with the Americans, tell him that he is engaging in treason and encourage him to seek honest work instead. If he refuses, you must kill him as a warning to other weak-minded individuals.

Take to heart this warning of Cuban revolutionary Ché Guevara: "The guerrilla fighter needs full help from the people of the area. This is an indispensable condition. This is clearly seen by considering the case of bandit gangs that operate in a region. They have all the characteristics of a guerrilla army: homogeneity, respect for the leader, valor, knowledge of the ground, and, often, even good understanding of the tactics to be employed. The only thing missing is support of the people; and, inevitably, these gangs are captured and exterminated by the public force." If the Americans are right about us, and we enjoy no popular support, we deserve to be annihilated. Fortunately, the U.S. has adopted Israeli-style retaliatory bombing, cordoning off whole villages and other tactics that are turning civilian fence-sitters to our point of view.

To victory!

(Ted Rall is the author of the graphic travelogue "To Afghanistan and Back," an award-winning recounting of his experiences covering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.)

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: ?
Learning Percentage: 2%

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Cancer survivor: Rosie O'Donnell told her liars 'get cancer'

Thursday, November 6, 2003 Posted: 4:36 PM EST (2136 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Rosie O'Donnell taunted a cancer survivor working at her now-defunct magazine by saying people who lie "get sick and they get cancer," the woman testified. O'Donnell said she later apologized.

Cindy Spengler, who was head of marketing at "Rosie" magazine, said Wednesday that O'Donnell made the remark after a meeting to discuss the magazine's problems. Spengler said O'Donnell told her that her silence in the meeting was tantamount to lying.

"You know what happens to people who lie," the witness tearfully quoted O'Donnell as saying. "They get sick and they get cancer. If they keep lying, they get it again."

Spengler testified in Manhattan's State Supreme Court, where O'Donnell and "Rosie" publisher Gruner Jahr USA are suing each other for breach of contract.

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Washington man admits 48 murders

ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEATTLE, Nov. 5 — Uttering the word “guilty” 48 times with chilling calm, former truck painter Gary Leon Ridgway admitted Wednesday that he was the Green River Killer and confessed to murdering four dozen women over the past two decades.

"I KILLED SO many women I have a hard time keeping them straight," he said in a confession read aloud in King County Superior Court by a prosecutor.

Ridgway, 54, a short figure with glasses, thinning hair and a sandy mustache, pleaded guilty to more murders than any other serial killer in U.S. history.

He struck a plea agreement that will spare him from execution for those killings and will result in a sentence of life in prison without parole for one of the most baffling and chilling serial killer cases the nation has ever seen.

"I wanted to kill as many women as I thought were prostitutes as I possibly could," he said in the statement. He said he left some bodies in "clusters" and enjoyed driving by the sites afterward, thinking about what he had done.

...

LP News Online: December 2003: Libertarians pick up 20 wins in local elections

Read It Rating: 3.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 65%

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Libertarians pick up 20 wins in local elections

Twenty Libertarians emerged victorious in local elections held around the country on November 4, including five who made a "clean sweep" of contested offices in Michigan.

LP Executive Director Joe Seehusen said he was "delighted" with the results.

"I'm especially thrilled that 16 of our 20 victories were higher-level offices such as city and county council, which means Libertarians are going to have a positive impact on many Americans' lives," he said.

In addition, several Libertarian candidates were victorious against incumbents, noted Seehusen.
"Libertarians booted out seven incumbents, which shows that when our candidates run aggressive, properly funded campaigns, they can compete with Democrats and Republicans," he said.

In all, about 210 LP candidates were on the ballot in local elections in 28 states.
Libertarian victories included:

* In Michigan, three incumbent Libertarian city council members were re-elected in a "clean sweep" for LP officeholders, said Oakland County LP Communications Director Greg Dirasian.

In addition, two other Libertarians were elected to city councils for the first time.

"The Libertarian Party of Michigan had the biggest night in its history on November 4," said Michigan LP State Chair Bill Gelineau.

...

Full Release

Read It Rating: 9.1
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2.65
Learning Percentage: 88%

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Electric Venom: 10 Things I've Learned About Blogging

10 Things I've Learned About Blogging

From Electric Venom

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .5
Learning Percentage: 50%

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November 12, 2003

Students Act Out Against Authoritative Principal -- He suspends them

This is the same school, same principal that suspended rapping student Sashwat Singh on October 29th. Word on the street is that he's a bit of an authoritarian.

Bad behavior at rowdy rally bans two students from Homecoming

Excerpt:

Members of the boys volleyball team read a lewd poem that ended with the word "masturbate." Cerutti said he did not hear the entire poem, but walked in toward the end of the reading.

"Appropriate and comprehensive disciplinary action was taken," Cerutti said, referring to the disciplined students.

He would not reveal the two students who were disciplined, however, two members of the boys volleyball team were suspended from three matches for unspecified reasons.

The two boys were banned from further participation in Homecoming activities last weekend. Cerutti would not say if the boys were suspended from school.

Another incident that occurred during the nearly two-hour assembly included a pie-eating contest among the Homecoming Court that devolved into a food fight, resulting in whipped cream being spilled on the gym floor.

"We are responding to specific incidents, and the leadership team will be examining the week of Homecoming activities," Cerutti, who is in his first year as principal at Central, said.

Students said that the assembly was not out of the ordinary and that it could be a case of students reacting to Cerutti's tougher style.

"Because Cerutti has been more strict than usual with the Homecoming events. People were a little more resistant to what he was doing, like the seniors standing up and turning around, that's not (what normally goes on)," junior Michelle Hoelker said.

...

Sashwat proves a good judge of music

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -1
Learning Percentage: 70%

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Column: Sashwat proves a good judge of music

I much prefer this column over the Journal Sentinel's crappy editorial from a few days ago.

Last Updated: Nov. 11, 2003
by Laurel Walker

Sashwat Singh is smarter than the raunchy rap CD that got him in trouble at Brookfield Central High School would lead you to believe.

"A lot of rap music is garbage, including mine," he told me Monday, after learning he would be returning to school Tuesday after a five-day suspension and wouldn't face a threatened expulsion.

Well, he's got that right.

A sizable segment of society eats up these kinds of vulgar, violent, homophobic and misogynic expressions that make up much of rap. That kids today imitate it - Brookfield's Singh, 15, among them - should surprise no one.

In fairness, one of Singh's raps is amusing - a campaign song used in his successful run for class treasurer, minus the gratuitous profanity he added to the recording.

But most of the compositions on Singh's homemade, 14-track CD are garbage - shocking in both the imagery and language used.

Singh's song about his principal, Mark Cerutti, and its perceived threat, is apparently what brought the administration down on his head. It's full of graphic sexual and homophobic images as well as some variation of the f-word 40-plus times in a spread of 2 minutes and 43 seconds.

There's reason, I think, to have disciplined Singh - for blatant disrespect of authority and extreme profanity - particularly since he handed out the CD to friends at school. But it's hardly threatening, and treating it on par with gun possession and a genuine threat was overreaction.

Singh, who admits he'd never talked to the principal before writing the rap, said the song is really about discontent with the principal's overuse of police at school. The message - if that's what it is - obviously got lost in all this.

Dilip Singh understands his son's frustration and shares his concern about principals who act like "highly paid 911 operators" by calling police rather than dealing squarely with issues on their own.

"But I don't agree with the way he (Sashwat) expressed it," Dilip Singh repeated.

After his family hired an attorney who defended Sashwat's First Amendment rights, the school district superintendent ruled the suspension was sufficient discipline, provided the junior meet with a counselor upon his return to school.

Worse than the song about Cerutti, though, was Sashwat's ode describing his mother in unspeakable terms. The same mother, I presume, whom he admirably portrayed in one line of another song: "My mother told me not to swear."

Sashwat explained: "I'd gotten grounded after a dance, and I was in a really bad mood" when he immediately wrote and recorded the denigrating song on his home computer. "It's not one of the songs I'm really proud of."

Dilip Singh said he's listened only to the song about the principal and the one about his wife, but his wife has not. At least not yet. Perhaps the lesson Sashwat needs most is to sit across the table from his mother while she listens, heartbroken and mortified, to the terrible things her son sang about her.

If Singh feels any remorse, "I mainly feel bad about the song I wrote about my mom because I don't feel that way."

A junior who entered school early and now is enrolled in honors and advanced placement classes, Sashwat Singh shares on one of his raps a particularly pertinent pearl of wisdom about purchasers of his CD:

"You know what sucks? You're (expletive) paying two cents for every one (expletive) minute I put on this CD so I'm kinda wasting your time right now. . . . I'm wasting your money and (expletive)."

Exactly.

Read It Rating: 9.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .7
Learning Percentage: 20%

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District won't seek to expel

Can someone illustrate to me the "victory for free speech" that this fool lawyer is talking about?

District won't seek to expel

But Brookfield student who made explicit CD must see counselor

By REID J. EPSTEIN
repstein@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Nov. 10, 2003

Brookfield - When Sashwat Singh returns to Brookfield Central High School today, he knows he'll be pegged with questions about the rap album that earned him a five-day suspension. He also knows he won't be able to answer most of them.

"I'm going to have to ignore most of it," he said. "Because if I make a disturbance in the school, they'll try to suspend me again for that."

An agreement Monday between the Elmbrook School District and Singh's family dictates that the district will not move to expel the 15-year-old junior, but requires him to see a school counselor to "make sure that he's not a Dylan Klebold-type kid," said Singh's Milwaukee-based attorney, Andrew Franklin.

...

Franklin called Singh's reinstatement "a victory for free speech and a relatively decent compromise."

...

Editorial: Strong rap on the knuckles

The above quote by the lawyer can be made accurate quite easily, don't worry. Just remove 'victory for free speech and a relatively decent', and voila!, it's accurate!

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3.5
Learning Percentage: 25%

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Editorial: Strong rap on the knuckles

The first half of this editorial is mostly wrong; the second half is half-right.

To dig into it deeper would send me on a very long rant, but some of my thoughts on this have been posted at my main blog here, and more will likely be posted there soon. This kid's punishment has really pissed me off.

From the Journal Sentinel
Last Updated: Nov. 7, 2003

In this post-Columbine world, Brookfield Central High School authorities had no choice but to suspend Sashwat Singh for creating a rap CD with violent and offensive lyrics, in which Singh denigrates classmates, his mother and his high school, and apparently threatens his principal.

As Ken Cole, executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, points out, schools can't afford to take lightly any threat, even one buried in lyrics and made outside school. It "isn't a matter of all in good sport or fun," Cole said. "If some incident occurs a month from now, someone will say, 'You knew back then.' We have to treat every incident very seriously."

Beyond that, authorities - from parents to schools to police - need to send the message that violence and obscenities are unacceptable, no matter how prevalent both are in popular culture. Too often, adults are willing to let that message slide, often in the interest of trying to "relate" to children. That's laudable, but sometimes kids just need to be told "no."

Thus, the suspension issued by the school seems entirely appropriate under the circumstances. It also seems to be sufficient, unless further investigation reveals more disturbing elements in this incident that would warrant expulsion.

Singh did not bring a gun to school or try to sell drugs. The junior is a member of the school's band and choir and is enrolled in Advanced Placement and honors courses.

What he did may have been no worse than what kids his age have been doing since time immemorial: being outrageous just to annoy adults and win the admiration of his peers. And while the lyrics he wrote are certainly disturbing, they are hardly more disturbing than the lyrics of award-winning rapper Eminem and other popular artists.

So if further investigation reveals that Singh's transgressions are limited to the CD, it would seem that he has paid his debt to society. Anything more would be overkill.

Read It Rating: 3
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 0%

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Campaigns No Longer Go Up In Smoke

Past Marijuana Use Now More Acceptable

by Lisa Wangsness
Concord Monitor

Near the end of the Rock the Vote presidential candidates' forum in Boston this week, the moderator posed a question that once filled politicians with dread.

"Which of you are ready to admit to having used marijuana in the past?"

Though Howard Dean joked that the candidates would "keep our hands down on this one," only former ambassador Carol Moseley Braun declined to answer the question. Dean, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said they had. The Rev. Al Sharpton said he had not.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich said he hadn't but added that he would decriminalize marijuana use.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman actually apologized - for not having smoked pot.

"I have a reputation for giving unpopular answers in Democratic debates," Lieberman joked. "I never used marijuana, sorry."

...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Learning Percentage: 40%

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Jim Peron on Fred Phelps and Public Property

Baptist Hate-Mongers

by Jim Peron

Fred Phelps says he's a minister of God. Indicative of this is the fact that he's a particularly vicious mullah of the fundamentalist sect. He's an old minister and perhaps his advanced age explains his faith: a form of Alzheimer's that makes one forget reality and believe fantasies instead. Phelps is a Baptist, and I don't say that to libel him. He's actually a Baptist minister and his congregation is loyal. They'll follow him around America to picket and demonstrate.

Instead of burning crosses he carries them and he doesn't actually wear sheetsâ€”that we know of. But nonetheless he is clearly one of the most vocal hate-mongers in America today. But Phelps does deserve some credit. Unwittingly -- wit and Phelps do not go together well -- he exposed the contradictions of public property.

Many people remember the vicious murder of Matthew Shepard. Shepard was just 21 years old when a group of thugs abducted him. They took him to a remote hillside outside Laramie, Wyoming and beat him viciously. They tied him to a fence and left him to die. Shepard was found in a coma but it was too late. On October 12, 1998 he died.

Shepard's death horrified most decent people. Fred Phelps was not one of them. Phelps is a verbal gay-basher. He's a man driven by his obsessive hatred of gay people. No doubt God whispers instructions in his ears much the way God instructs bin Laden to use air planes filled with innocent people as weapons against buildings filled with other innocent people. Phelps and his congregation, sans sheets, picketed Shepard's funeral. Phelps was seen screaming—he screams a lot—and carrying a sign that said: "God hates fags."

Of course if we believed the fundamentalists of the world today, we'd have to conclude that God's primary motivation for everything is hatred. These theological terrorists, not to mention their compatriots who use actual bombs, are very quick to rattle off an ever growing list of people and groups which are singled out for God's hatred. For Phelps gay people are at the top of the list.

Phelps wants to "commemorate" the murder of Shepard. But not because he finds such a murder reprehensible. He wants to place a granite monument in a city park in Casper, Wyoming—he picked Casper because Shepard was born there. The monument would say: "Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998, at Age 21 In Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22."

...

The city of Casper is not thrilled with Phelps putting his monument there. But Phelps can use the park in many ways. He can hold his rallies there and as long as the parks are open for use by the "public" then can't ban Phelps. Such conflict is inherent in "public" property.

Three churches in Casper have volunteered to have the Ten Commandments monument moved to their property. The Eagles Club said they'd be happy to take the monument back. They don't want to encourage Phelps either. The mayor wants the monument put on private property as well.

But the conflict is not caused by a monument—it's caused by the public nature of the park. It would make far more sense to sell the park to the Eagles Club and let them run it. The city of Casper might win this battle but as long as they have "public" parks they'll lose the war.

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .2
Learning Percentage: 65%

Posted by Lance Brown at 04:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Doug Powers: The Libertarians' only hope

I don't have time to get into it, but this guy is wrong. And wrong-headed.

WorldNetDaily: The Libertarians' only hope
by Doug Powers

Posted: September 1, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

As a former card-carrying Libertarian, I agree with much of the party's platform. No other political entity is closer to my personal belief system than the Libertarians, but I have never voted for one. They won't win big. They can't win big. Here are the drastic, and perhaps to them, unconscionable, measures they need to even the deck, and how this will win them a lot of new supporters, even while losing some current ones.

Since it's difficult to design a political system for people who loathe political systems, being a Libertarian is tougher to manage than most other political philosophies. Like a group called "Humans Against Heartbeats," to some in the party, its very existence tends to contradict its own cause. In this form of government, trying to change the entire system will usually require some help from within the existing system. The best way to do this would be to disguise themselves as members of the existing system, but Libertarian philosophy precludes this.

...

Read It Rating: 2
Left/Right Rating: R2
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 0%

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Ashcroft Slams Critics as Patriot Act Backlash Grows

By Tom Regan
Christian Science Monitor
Tuesday 16 September 2003

The war of words over the USA Patriot Act heated up considerably over the past few days, thanks in part to a recently completed "Patriot Act Tour" conducted by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. The tour, conducted in front of small, law enforcement friendly audiences, excluded participation from the general public. (At Faneuil Hall in Boston, Ashcroft addressed a crowd of 150, while outside the hall a crowd of 1200 chanted "This is what democracy looks like.") The tour was designed to create support for the act, but in some ways may have done just the opposite.

One of the main charges critics of the Patriot Act aim against Ashcroft is that rules designed to catch terrorists will be used against ordinary citizens. They also say police and prosecutors will use the laws created by the Patriot Act in other areas of law enforcement. These critics include people from both the left and the right of the American political spectrum.

Ashcroft blasted some of these critics on Monday, taking aim in particular at librarians. The Associated Press reports that Ashcroft said people are being wrongly led to believe that libraries have been "surrounded by the FBI," with agents "dressed in raincoats, dark suits and sunglasses. They stop everyone and interrogate everyone like Joe Friday."

The attorney general continues to insist that the Act "respects rights and increases security." USA Today looks at how the Act is at the heart of Ashcroft's powers as attorney general.

...

No more @#$%^&*! ping-pong

Original @ CSMonitor.com

Read It Rating: 8.1
Left/Right Rating: L1.5
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 20%

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L. Neil Smith: No more @#$%^&*! ping-pong

by L. Neil Smith

Having withdrawn as a potential candidate for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination (or any other nomination, for that matter), the next logical step is to tell the world -- as much of it as I can reach -- who I think is the best remaining would-be nominee.

And I will. Directly.

But first, it's important to get a few things straight about America's history and the old saw about "wasting" your vote.

For better or worse, the 227-year-old United States of America is inextricably associated in the minds of individuals everywhere with the notion, which was radical 227 years ago, of individual freedom. The dismal fact, that this association is no longer valid, and hasn't been since Abraham Lincoln, has done little to change people's minds.

Since the time of Lincoln, individuals and groups who realized the truth about America's lost freedoms have tried to do something about it, invariably falling short, either because they failed to eradicate every remaining trace of non-freedom from their philosophies, or because they thought they could be clever, cut corners, and make deals with the enemies of freedom. Genuinely conservative Republicans and the National Rifle Association come to mind.

Even the Democratic Party was originally organized, by no less an author of liberty than Thomas Jefferson, because of a need he saw to combat the statism of Alexander Hamilton and his Federalist buddies.

For a long while, the two major parties were truly antagonistic.

...

My choice, of course, despite the many and grievous faults I've chronicled over the years, is the Libertarian Party. And the choice to put my vote in escrow (the truth, of course, is that Republicans and Democrats will never straighten up and fly right) will be sweeter if I can vote for a candidate I really respect and admire.

That candidate, for the LP presidential nomination, is my friend Michael Badnarik. From the moment I met him this summer in New Mexico, I liked him very much. His philosophical background in the movement is genuine and deep. His application of principle is excellent. His dedication to individual liberty is sincere and implacable.

...

President Should Get His News From Newspapers

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 4.5
Learning Percentage: 15%

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Helen Thomas: President Should Get His News From Newspapers

by Helen Thomas
The Boston Channel
Friday 10 October 2003

Bush Tells Fox Interviewer He Gets News From White House Staff

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush recently gave an hour-long exclusive interview to Fox TV anchor Brit Hume, who tossed him a series of softball questions. Among them, Bush was asked how he gets his news.

Answer: He relies on briefings by chief of staff Andrew Card and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

He walks into the Oval Office in the morning, Bush said, and asks Card: "what's in the newspapers worth worrying about? I glance at the headlines just to kind of (get) a flavor of what's moving," Bush said. "I rarely read the stories," he said.

Instead, the president continued, he gets "briefed by people who have probably read the news themselves."

...

Original @ The Boston Channel

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: .2
Learning Percentage: 10%

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Deadliest Strike on U.S. Troops in Iraq Comes After 'Tough Week'

The Associated Press
Sunday 02 November 2003

Fallujah, Iraq - Insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter with dozens of American troops on board Sunday, killing 15 and wounding 21 in the deadliest strike against U.S. forces since the war began -- a sign of the increasing sophistication of Iraq's elusive anti-U.S. fighters.
The giant helicopter was ferrying the soldiers on their way for leave outside Iraq when, witnesses told The Associated Press, two missiles streaked into the sky, fired from a date palm grove, and slammed into the rear of the aircraft. It crashed in flames in farmers' fields west of Baghdad.
It was the deadliest day for U.S. troops since March 23 -- the first week of the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein -- and a major escalation in the campaign to drive the U.S.-led coalition out of the country.

...

Original @ NYTimes

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 55%

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Leaked Memo Exposes Rumsfeld's Doubts About War on Terror

By Julian Borger
The Guardian
Thursday 23 October 2003

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has admitted that Washington has no way of knowing whether it is winning or losing its "war on terror" and predicts "a long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a leaked document published yesterday.

The memorandum was sent to his civilian deputies and top military officers, calling for fresh thinking in US counter-terrorist strategy. Its sober tone is a marked contrast to the upbeat assessments offered to the public by President Bush and his administration officials.

The memo was published yesterday by the USA Today newspaper, and a Pentagon official confirmed its authenticity to the Guardian, describing it as one of Mr Rumsfeld's "snowflakes" (Pentagon slang for the daily blizzard of notes he sends to his subordinates).

Yesterday's memo is addressed to Mr Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, his chief policy adviser, Doug Feith, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Dick Myers, and his deputy, General Pete Pace, and it runs through a scorecard of US military engagements to date.

...

The Rumsfeld memo was leaked a few days after Mr Wolfowitz told supporters "we are winning" in Iraq. On Monday Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, told a Republican fund-raising meeting: "We are rolling back the terrorist threat at the very heart of its power, in the Middle East."

But Mr Rumsfeld warns: "The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions."

Original @ The GuardianUK

Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 45%

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Court OKs death for analog TVs

Court OKs death for analog TVs
Appeals court upholds rule requiring digital tuners by July 2007

Tuesday, October 28, 2003 Posted: 2:41 PM EST (1941 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a government rule requiring all but the smallest new televisions to have tuners that can receive digital TV signals by July 2007.

The makers of TVs, VCRs and DVD players tried to block the Federal Communications Commission rule, saying it would make sets more expensive and is unnecessary because cable and satellite viewers don't need the tuners.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the FCC, which said the requirement was needed because the industry was not moving quickly enough to make tuners available.

...

Conservative-Libertarian Split: Liberals Get It, Conservatives Don't

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 55%

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Conservative-Libertarian Split: Liberals Get It, Conservatives Don't

by W. James Antle III
15 October 2003

The left is aware of the emerging conservative-libertarian schism while the right for the most part remains in denial.

The truth is out of the bag: U.S. conservatives have conceded defeat in the battle for limited government and constitutionalism and have decided to change the subject. But the American right's flagging commitment to containing the state's ambitions comes at a price. It will be paid in lost liberty, smothered wealth creation and possibly irreversible changes in what it means to be a modern American conservative and what the project of conservatism can hope to accomplish.

Libertarians have primarily identified themselves as operationally members of the political right since the end of World War II. Today this broad coalition is in serious trouble, as many who think of themselves as libertarian do not identify with conservatives at all and growing numbers of them are finding much to identify with on the left. They are not just deserting conservative Republicans for the Libertarian Party. Some libertarians in good standing are actually thinking of voting Democratic.

Noah Shachtman is the latest pundit to point all this out. In a piece that appeared in the web edition of The American Prospect on October 7, the noted commentator on defense, politics and technology introduced readers to libertarians who are growing increasingly restive within the Republican Party. Some of them, like 25-year-old blogger and Institute for Humane Studies staff member Alina Stefanescu, could once legitimately be described as right-wingers. Today, they are steeling themselves for their 2004 presidential vote. The candidate who looks most attractive to them is not President George W. Bush...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: 1.1
Learning Percentage: 40%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Libertarians offer political alternative

By Karen Mortensen
Assistant Copy Editor
October 16, 2003

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
From the time most Americans are very young, this conceptual view of citizens' rights in the United States has been instilled in them.

Though many citizens take this idea for granted, the Auburn University Libertarians boast that their political views thrive on this belief, according to the AUL Web site.

"That's what makes our country the greatest, is for people in it to be free," AUL president Dick Clark said.

...

Read It Rating: 6.6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 3.5
Learning Percentage: 55%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Young boys rescued from slave-like labor

COTONOU, Benin (AP) -- Their bodies scarred by beatings and their hands callused from breaking rocks, 74 boys as young as 4 received medical treatment this week after their rescue from Nigerian granite quarries where they had been forced to work.

Nigerian police rescued the boys Wednesday and repatriated them to Benin under an accord between the two nations on child trafficking and other cross-border crimes.

Following their rescue -- only the second of its kind in West Africa -- the children told authorities that over the previous three months at least 13 other boys died, succumbing to exhaustion, disease, hunger and abuse, Nigerian police and aid workers said.

"We would break the stones, and the men would come take them away in trucks," one boy said. Skinny, filthy, scratched and heavily scarred, the boy looked no more than 10.

...

Read It Rating: 8.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 4
Learning Percentage: 65%

Posted by Lance Brown at 03:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reason.com: 2004 Presidential Candidates and the freshness test

Who Can Win in 2004?

Just use This freshness test

Jonathan Rauch

Last week, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida pulled out of the Democratic presidential race. It was sad but inevitable. Graham is a good man and a fine public servant, but he can never be president. Only four candidates have a shot next year. They are President Bush, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. The rest are history. Sorry, Dick. Sorry, John. Sorry, Dennis, Joe, Carol, and Al. Turn off the lights behind you.

How do I know? Am I psychic? Mad? Possibly and probably; but in this case I rely on two factors. Following the conventional wisdom, I assume that former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, and civil-rights activist Al Sharpton are too marginal to win, though I wish them luck. That leaves Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. Their problem is different. They've expired.
As every grocer knows, many products have sell-by dates. Bread lasts a day or two, milk maybe a week. Well, presidential aspirants have a sell-by date, too. They last 14 years.

...

Full commentary

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 50%

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November 11, 2003

INTERNET DIARIES: School discipline questioned

INTERNET DIARIES: School discipline questioned
Student punished for comments made in online journal

By LISA KIM BACH
REVIEW-JOURNAL

"Kill Alaina!"

The throwaway comment about an irritating friend is one that former Valley High School senior Wesley Juhl wishes he had never recorded in his blog, a personal Web site he used to chronicle daily life.

At the end of September, a month after he first posted it on his personal computer while in the privacy of his home, Juhl found himself sitting in the dean's office facing disciplinary action.

That journal statement, and another that included a vulgar comment about a teacher, earned Juhl an in-school suspension and a required parent conference. The disciplinary action also brought to light the fact that Juhl did not have a current zone variance to attend Valley. As a result, Juhl was sent to Chaparral High School, which is the school zone he resides in.

Juhl, 18, is still wondering what authority allowed the Clark County School District to punish him. His journal was not a school assignment and was not posted using a school computer or a school message board.

"The dean told me that what I'd written wasn't school appropriate," said Juhl, who was Valley's homecoming king this year and also was president of its drama club. "He said it wasn't appropriate for a journal. I just feel like I've been violated, like they've punished me for expressing my personal opinion."

...

Original (requires registration)

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: -2.5
Learning Percentage: 77%

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November 09, 2003

Deadline extended on student's discipline for rap CD

The Associated Press

Published November 8, 2003

MILWAUKEE - A school superintendent Friday delayed deciding whether to hold an expulsion hearing for an honors student who was suspended for making a rap CD with a lyric that officials say threatened the principal.

Matt Gibson, Elmbrook School District superintendent, said he extended Friday's deadline to Tuesday morning to gather more information about the case of 15-year-old Sashwat Singh.

Mark Cerutti, Brookfield Central High School principal, suspended Singh Oct. 29 for a lyric on Singh's homemade rap compact disc.

Gibson extended the timeline for the next step during a 90-minute meeting set up at the request of Andrew Franklin, the boy's attorney.

"We had a good two-way communication," Gibson said. "We gained some time to work through the issues."

Gibson and Franklin declined to talk about the specifics of the meeting, citing Singh's privacy.

Singh was suspended for "gross disobedience or misconduct," which would put Singh's actions on par with a bomb threat, arson or bringing guns to school.

His 32-minute, 14-track CD includes references to illegal drug use and explicit sexual acts, Franklin said.

The rap about Cerutti suggests that if the principal doesn't leave Brookfield, Singh will "(expletive) beat your ass down." It also uses sexually explicit slurs to describe the principal.

Singh will return to class on Tuesday unless Gibson seeks expulsion, in which case Singh would be suspended for up to 10 more days and a hearing would be held.

Franklin called the lyrics "absolutely not a threat" and said there were better ways to deal with the issue than suspension or expulsion.

"This was a simple situation where someone tried to express himself and they suspended him because of it," Franklin said. "The punishment didn't fit the conduct."

Franklin said Singh was enrolled in advanced placement courses and enjoyed music classes. Franklin said after Friday's meeting that his client wouldn't talk to reporters until a decision was made on the expulsion hearing.

Franklin said Singh recorded the CD on his home computer and distributed five copies to friends at the high school. Neither Gibson or Franklin knew how Cerutti received a copy.

Cerutti did not return phone messages from the Associated Press on Friday.

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 60%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Brookfield teen's CD ranted against principal; he's suspended

(Published Friday, November 7, 2003 08:58:45 AM CST)
Associated Press

BROOKFIELD, Wis. -- A high school honor student who created a rap compact disc with rants about drugs and sex faces possible expulsion over a lyric that officials say threatened the principal.

Mark Cerutti, principal of Brookfield Central High School, said he first became aware of the CD Oct. 29 and suspended 15-year-old Sashwat Singh later that same day.

"Content is one part of the rationale for the action that's being taken," Cerutti said.

Administrators said the disc amounted to "gross disobedience or misconduct," which would put it on a par with a bomb threat, arson or bringing guns to school.

...

The rap about Cerutti, who came to the school at the start of the school year after working in Madison schools and as a consultant, suggests if he doesn't leave Brookfield, Singh will "beat your ass down." It also uses sexually explicit slurs to describe the principal.

...

Andrew Franklin, the teen's attorney, said the boy was simply "expressing himself" and the school has no right to discipline him.

"They're kind of like love songs and fantasies," he said. "It's a long list of outrageous things that he throws out there. I think it's an attempt to make him look like a deviant or a threat."

"Nothing about this is inherently more threatening than an Eminem CD," he said.

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 35%

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School suspends teen for rap lyric

School suspends teen for rap lyric
Brookfield student says song not meant as threat

By REID J. EPSTEIN
repstein@journalsentinel.com
Last Updated: Nov. 6, 2003

Brookfield - A 15-year-old Brookfield Central High School student's homemade rhymes earned him a five-day suspension and could get the honor student expelled because of a lyric deemed threatening toward the principal - perhaps the first such case in Wisconsin.

Over the course of three months, Sashwat Singh wrote and recorded a 32-minute, 14-track rap compact disc featuring rants that made reference to illegal drug use and explicit sexual acts. He denigrates classmates, his mother and his high school. One track is a rap he used when campaigning to be class treasurer.

School administrators called the disc, which includes a song about the principal, Mark Cerutti, and conditions at the school, "gross disobedience or misconduct," an offense on par with making a bomb threat, bringing guns to school and arson.
But Singh's father, Dilip Singh, said he couldn't understand why his son was given the school's harshest penalty.

The other offenses "have to do with drugs and guns," Dilip Singh said. "When you look at what he did and compare one to the other, it doesn't make sense."

...

Lynch: Military manipulated story

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -3
Learning Percentage: 80%

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Jessica Lynch: Military manipulated story

PALESTINE, W.Va., Nov. 7 -- Former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch said the U.S. military was wrong to manipulate the story of her dramatic rescue and should not have filmed it in the first place.
THE 20-YEAR-OLD private told ABC's Diane Sawyer in a "Primetime" interview to air Tuesday that she was bothered by the military's portrayal of her ordeal.
"They used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff," she said in an excerpt from the interview, posted Friday on the network's Web site. "It hurt in a way that people would make up stories that they had no truth about," she said.
She also said there was no reason for her rescue from an Iraqi hospital to be filmed. “It’s wrong,” she said.
The former Army supply clerk suffered broken bones and other injuries when her maintenance convoy was attacked in the Iraqi town of Nasiriyah on March 23. U.S. forces rescued Lynch at a Nasiriyah hospital April 1.

‘I DID NOT SHOOT’
Early reports had Lynch fighting her attackers until she ran out of ammunition and suffering knife and bullet wounds. Military officials later acknowledged that Lynch wasn’t shot, but was hurt after her Humvee utility vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and crashed into another vehicle.
Lynch told Sawyer she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that her gun jammed during the chaos. “I’m not about to take credit for something I didn’t do,” she said.
“I did not shoot, not a round, nothing ... I went down praying to my knees. And that’s the last I remember.”

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: .05
Learning Percentage: 44%

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Australia: Police To Conduct Random Roadside Drug Tests

In an Australian first, the Victorian government today moved to give police powers to conduct random roadside drug testing.

Under legislation now before state parliament, from July next year roadside drug screening will be used to detect drivers affected by cannabis and speed with a saliva test.

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -2
Learning Percentage: 85%

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Fox News threatened to sue, claims Simpsons creator

Simpsons parody upset Fox News, says Groening

Ciar Byrne
Wednesday October 29, 2003

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of the Simpsons over a spoof news ticker, the show's creator Matt Groening has claimed.

Mr Groening said Fox News raised the unlikely prospect of suing a show broadcast by its sister channel, Fox Entertainment, because it wanted to stop the Simpsons parodying its famously anti-Democratic party agenda.

The alleged row centred on a parody of Fox News' rolling news ticker, which included headlines such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?"

...

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: L1.5
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 50%

Posted by Lance Brown at 02:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Welty brings Libertarian background to election

3rd Ward: Welty brings Libertarian background to election

Christy Ann Welty, who is running unopposed for the 3rd Ward city council seat, says serving on the council will be "a chance to make a difference in something real."

...
Welty's involvement with the Libertarian Party began when she was pregnant with her youngest child, who is now 6. When her children grow up enough to ask why things are the way they are, she said, she wants to be able to tell them what she did "instead of just sitting by and complaining."

Police Find Unusual Gift in Kid Rock Fan's Trunk

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 3.5
Learning Percentage: 95%

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November 08, 2003

Police Find Unusual Gift in Kid Rock Fan's Trunk

This is really only worth checking out if you like laughing at funny-looking idiots in the news. And I'm not talking about Kid Rock. ;-)

Reported by Anu Prakash

State police found an assault rifle in a Westland man's car after a routine traffic stop late Tuesday.
The owner says it was a gift he wanted to give to local rock star Kid Rock.

...

Read It Rating: 1.1
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 90%

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Man pleads guilty to killing friend who served him urine in beer can

David C. Shippentower takes a plea for involuntary manslaughter in an incident that started out as a prank

11/07/03
MARK LARABEE

A 46-year-old member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to unintentionally killing a friend who had served him a beer can filled with urine, presumably as a joke.

Read It Rating: 4
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 90%

Posted by Lance Brown at 10:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 07, 2003

Knapp (and me) on Party Loyalty and the California Recall

In this article, Tom Knapp makes what seem to me to be contrasting points: that he's not a stickler for "party loyalty at any cost", and that Libertarian leaders who support non-Libertarian candidates -- specifically, those Libertarians who supported Republican Tom McClintock in the California recall election -- should be booted from their leadership positions.

You can see the contrast yourself, in just a few excerpts:

I've never been a stickler for "Party loyalty at any cost." The proof of a political party is found in various puddings -- electoral viability among them -- and it doesn't surprise or, usually, offend me, to see Libertarian activists go "off the reservation" in support of a non-LP candidate.

...

Unlike some, I'm not inclined to question the libertarian credentials of those who choose to endorse conservative candidates like McClintock or Campbell. I can understand the reasons why one might be moved to do so, even if I disagree with those reasons.

Then the contrast:

However, I am moved to point out that the Libertarian Party is a political organization, distinct from other such organizations, with a mission that includes running its own candidates for office rather than endorsing the candidates of other parties. And I'm also inclined to a certain, very specific sentiment: those "Libertarian leaders" who do choose to go around endorsing non-LP candidates in races where the LP has a non-repugnant candidate should never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, be considered by the membership of the LP for election to Party office or nomination as candidates for public office under the LP banner. They've established that their loyalties are not to the LP, but to another party (or, alternatively, that they can't be relied on to have any loyalties at all).

So, he's not usually offended by Libertarians who support non-Libertarian candidates, and he doesn't question their libertarian credentials, but he does hold "Libertarian leaders" to a standard such that they shouldn't be permitted to be such leaders if they go off the reservation in races "where the LP has a non-repugnant candidate".

I think his case is complicated by the fact that the candidate who was endorsed by the California LP was plenty repugnant -- running a ridiculous, embarrassing "smoker's candidate" campaign (including having his website at SmokersParty.com -- speaking of "party loyalty"), and, it's largely believed, running more to promote his chain of cigarette stores than to win votes or bring in new Libertarians. Practically nobody supported his campaign, despite the party's endorsement, and personally I think it's good that they didn't. Ned Roscoe was a net negative candidate -- doing more harm than good for the LPC. A vote for him was sending a message to him and to the LPC that his campaign, and his endorsement, were good ideas. They were not good ideas.

Which leaves Jack Hickey, the other Libertarian candidate on the ballot. (The third "Libertarian" was only that because of his registration, and said he was not really a libertarian.) There was nothing particularly wrong with Jack, but there was also little to no point in working to advance his campaign. It was clear that he would only earn a handful of votes -- particularly without the party's endorsement -- and that he would have absolutely no effective impact whatsoever on the election. I voted for Jack Hickey, but I didn't see the point in actively supporting him. It's one thing when there are 5 or 6 candidates, and only the one Libertarian, and the goal is to make that person have the best showing possible. It's another thing entirely when there are 135 candidates, and the main/endorsed Libertarian is a joke who is damaging the party, and it's quite obvious that the two in-party candidates are simply not going to have a notable impact on the election. He wasn't "repugnant", to use Tom's term, but neither was he in any real way distinguished above the other 100-plus random folks on the ballot. With the party's endorsement (or at least, without the party dissing him as they did by endorsing the smoker's joker), he probably would have amounted to a more worthwhile candidate -- even though he wasn't a viable one, under any circumstances. Any way you slice it, he was hard to get fired up about.

I was all-but frothing at the mouth to actively support a candidate in this election, and frankly I just determined it would simply be a waste of time (in the case of Jack Hickey), or damaging to the cause (in the case of Ned Roscoe).

In such a situation, I can certainly see where some libertarians would come to believe that they would serve liberty, and even the Libertarian Party, best by supporting the visible candidate who has strong libertarian leanings, and who has long been friendly to the LPC itself -- in this case, Tom McClintock. I also agree with those that said it was only worth doing so if he had a real chance of winning, but I'll give those who did support him the benefit of the doubt and assume that they thought that he had that real chance. Even I went so far as to basically say that McClintock would be the best choice (of the front-runners) for Governor, but I didn't endorse him, and I didn't vote for him, because I refuse to support the Republican Party (or Democratic Party) in any way.

However -- and this might be the most important point -- there is nothing in my official responsibilities as a regional Chairman for the Libertarian Party that prohibited me from endorsing or supporting McClintock. There are rules about such things, and in this case the rule is that Libertarian Party leadership organizations aren't allowed to endorse or materially support candidates from other parties. Meaning, me and the Nevada County Libertarian Party executive board couldn't vote to endorse him, or use our resources to support him. There is no such prohibition on individual leaders, and since the regional bylaws are modeled after the state bylaws, I presume the same is true at the statewide level.

Why does that matter? Because in Tom Knapp's column, he asserts that these folks who supported McClintock are betraying the trust that goes with their elected leadership positions within the LP organization. And I'm saying that it's only his opinion that that's the case -- that the official rules don't make any such stipulation. They do make stipulations about such situations, but not with the restrictions that Tom is looking to have party members enforce.

He even goes so far as to include Steve Kubby, the 1998 LP gubernatorial candidate in California, in the group of "Libertarian leaders" who broke the faith -- seemingly implying that if someone was nominated to an office 5 years ago, that they still operate under some sort of party-based strictures on their political conduct. I think that's quite a stretch. Steve Kubby doesn't even live in California now, and as far as I'm concerned, he has more than fulfilled the obligation that he took on by being the 1998 nominee. Steve Kubby has done a great deal for liberty and for the Libertarian Party in the past 5 years, and I think he has long been off the hook in terms of his obligation from 1998.

To be fair, Knapp is not suggesting an outright purge of these disloyalists, he simply thinks they should be removed from their offices of trust at the next opportunity to do so, and that they should never again be entrusted with such positions.

Maybe that's so. But he states it as if they broke some hard and fast rule -- and I don't think he properly takes into account the unique nature of this recall election, nor the unique dismalness of the LPC's slate of candidates.

Sure, it's fair to question the party loyalty (and the good sense) of the folks who chose to actively support a Republican in this recent election -- but I don't think it was nearly as cut-and-dry as Tom Knapp was making it out to be.

That said, I believe that the Republican and Democratic parties are hopelessly corrupted and immoral institutions, and that to provide material support for them or their candidates is a bad thing for this country (and in this case, for the state of California). Not because it's an indicator of disloyalty to your "home party", if you're a Libertarian, or Green, or whatever -- but because they are organizations that are making things worse, and supporting them amounts to helping to make things worse. That's the reason I didn't vote for or endorse Tom McClintock -- because he is an agent of an organization that is harming individuals, communities, and whole nations. And if I was going to hold a grudge toward those who did support him, that would be the reason I would hold the grudge. The party loyalty issue pales in comparison, I think. What matters is what will make things better -- what will increase individual liberty. And providing support to Republican Party candidates or loyalists will not.

Tom's column:
Californication, LP-style:
The Life of the Party, part 9
By Thomas L. Knapp

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Learning Percentage: 20%

Posted by Lance Brown at 07:12 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

L.A. Times Bans 'Resistance Fighters' in Iraq News

Reuters
Wednesday 05 November 2003

LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Times has ordered its reporters to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as ``resistance fighters,'' saying the term romanticizes them and evokes World War II-era heroism.

The ban was issued by Melissa McCoy, a Times assistant managing editor, who told the staff in an e-mail circulated on Monday night that the phrase conveyed unintended meaning and asked them to instead use the terms ``insurgents'' or ``guerrillas.''

McCoy told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that the memo followed a discussion among top editors at the paper and was not sparked by reader complaints. The memo first surfaced on the Web site L.A. Observed``(Times Managing Editor) Dean Baquet and I both individually had the same reaction when we saw the term used in the newspaper,'' McCoy said. ``Both of us felt the phrase evoked a certain feeling, that there was a certain romanticism or heroism to the resistance.''

McCoy said she considered ``resistance fighters'' an accurate description of Iraqis battling American troops, but it also evoked World War II -- specifically the French Resistance or Jews who fought against Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.

"Really, it was something that just stopped us when we saw it, and it was really about the way most Americans have come to view the words,'' McCoy said.

...

Reuters original @ NYTimes

Read It Rating: 7.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -1
Learning Percentage: 85%

Posted by Lance Brown at 05:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

FCC: You Can Say That on Television

FCC: You Can Say That on Television

Saturday, November 01, 2003
By Eric Burns

We have come a long way.

Early in the 17th century in Jamestown, the first permanent British colony in the New World, cursing was considered a crime. For a first offense, a person was to suffer "severe punishment." For a second offense, he was to have "a bodkin [a small, pointed instrument used to make holes in cloth or leather] thrust through his tongue."

There would be no fourth offense; for the third, a curser would be put to death.

Now, early in the 21st century, the Federal Communications Commission has decided that the most common, if also most crude, four-letter synonym for the sex act may be uttered on television---if, that is, it is used "properly."

How do you say "f***" properly, you ask?
First, the background. On Jan. 19 of this year, on the nationally televised Golden Globes Awards program, the singer Bono, accepting an award, said either "this is really, really f***ing brilliant," or "this is f***ing great." As a result, 234 complaints were filed against the TV stations that carried the show, one of them from a watchdog group called the Parents' Television Council.

...

TruthOut permacopy/English translation

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2.2
Learning Percentage: 35%

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The Vietnam War on HistoryChannel.com

HistoryChannel.com: VIETNAM WAR

Here's what I found to be the most compelling portion, considering current events (and current events yet to come):

The U.S. response to Vietnamese communism was essentially to apply a military solution to an internal political problem. America's infliction of enormous destruction on Vietnam served only to discredit politically the Vietnamese that the United States sought to assist. Furthermore, U.S. leaders underestimated the tenacity of the enemy. For the Vietnamese communists, the struggle was a total war for their own and their cause's survival. For the United States, it was a limited war. Despite U.S. concern about global credibility, Vietnam was a peripheral theater of the cold war. For many Americans, the ultimate issue in Vietnam was not a question of winning or losing. Rather, they came to believe that the rising level of expenditure of lives and dollars was unacceptable in pursuit of a marginal national objective.

The rhetoric of U.S. leaders after World War II about the superiority of American values, the dangers of appeasement, and the challenge of godless communism recognized no limit to U.S. ability to meet the test of global leadership. In reality, neither the United States nor any other nation had the power to guarantee alone the freedom and security of peoples of the world. The Vietnam War taught Americans a humbling lesson about the limits of power.

The domestic consequences of the war were equally profound. From Truman through Nixon, the war demonstrated the increasing dominance of the presidency within the federal government. Congress essentially defaulted to the "imperial presidency" in the conduct of foreign affairs. Vietnam also destroyed credibility within the American political process. The public came to distrust its leaders, and many officials distrusted the public. In May 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen killed four Kent State University students during a protest over U.S. troops invading Cambodia. Many Americans were outraged while others defended the Ohio authorities. As this tragic example reveals, the war rent the fabric of trust that traditionally clothed the American polity. Vietnam figured prominently in inflation, unfulfilled Great Society programs, and the generation gap. The Vietnam War brought an end to the domestic consensus that had sustained U.S. cold war policies since World War II and that had formed the basis for the federal government's authority since the sweeping expansion of that authority under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Read the whole thing

Read It Rating: 10
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 40%

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Was Jose Couso's Death in Iraq a War Crime?

By Martine Silber
Le Monde
Monday 20 October 2003

"It's a small victory", David Couso declared when he learned that the judge in the Spanish National Audience had agreed to admit the family's complaint for a "war crime" against three soldiers of the United States Army's Third Infantry Division. His brother, José Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish private television station Telecinco, was killed along with Taras Protsyuk, a journalist from the American agency, Reuters, April 8 in Baghdad, after an American Army tank opened fire on the Palestine Hotel where the majority of the international press was staying.
...
Full story (in French)...

Read It Rating: 8
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -4
Learning Percentage: 55%

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(Form) Letters Home from Iraq

Letters Home

Soldiers’s Glowing Accounts of Success in Iraq Success Were Written by Commander

By Martha Raddatz

Oct. 13 — The letters appeared in roughly 12 newspapers across the country. From Massachusetts to California, and many places in between, family members and local newspapers received letters from soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment detailing their successes in northern Iraq.

Each letter was signed by a different soldier, but the words were identical...

Amy Connell, of Sharon, Mass., knew as soon as she received the letter from her son Adam that he did not write it. "He's 20 years old and I don't think his language or his writing ability would have entailed that kind of description," she said.

She was right. Her son didn't write the letter. In an e-mail to ABCNEWS today, the commander of the battalion, Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo, said the "letter-writing initiative" was all his idea.

...

Arnold's interview in Oui magazine, 1977

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 6.5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 50%

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November 06, 2003

Arnold Shwarzenegger interview with Oui magazine

To me, the funniest line was this one, when Arnold was talking about his then-new acting career, and where he wanted it to lead:

"I realize there's only one Arnold in the world, that there's never been an Arnold before, and the one thing that won't work on the screen is my being an ass-kicker."

Yeah...that would never work. ;-)

That links to a scanned-in bunch of pages from the magazine, courtesy of The Smoking Gun. This page here, at the same site, is a story about the article, featuring excerpts from the interview and weaving them into an article.

Read It Rating: 5.5
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 1.5
Learning Percentage: 25%

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Reason Online: Is Arnold good for the libertarians?

Muscled Out
Is Arnold good for the libertarians?

Tim Cavanaugh

Is there any good news for libertarianism in Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California? Not much, if the hope was to see the two major parties undermined in an electoral free-for-all. One of the fondest third-party wishes for the recall—and a critical selling point for voters disenchanted with both the Republicans and the Democrats—was that its 135-strong roster of candidates would open the field up to everybody, and possibly create a wild-card situation where a fringe ticket might actually win.

Fat chance. Schwarzenegger's win dramatically demonstrated the immovability of the major parties, and the absolute hopelessness of third-party challengers. The last-minute candidate not only received more votes, both in total numbers and as a percentage of the total electorate, than Gray Davis did in his re-election less than a year ago, but did so with a split Republican ticket, against a Democratic challenger who was widely (and wrongly) expected to lock up the Latino vote. (That Schwarzenegger, the pick of the statewide and national Republican establishment, was able to get a near-majority despite Tom McClintock's drawing more than a million hard-conservative votes should scare the Democrats even more than it discourages the third parties.)

...

In the longer term, Schwarzenegger's surprisingly total victory points to some interesting trends in voters' views toward governance. In a post-election dispatch, Slate columnist Mickey Kaus said of the governor-elect, "If he's going to keep our loyalty it will have to be by producing actual results: a slimmed down government, a balanced budget, better schools, a better business climate, etc." Kaus is a consistently interesting commentator on Golden State politics, but such good-government pieties seemed laughably out of place in the context of the recently concluded circus. If people had wanted good government, they'd have voted for Tom McClintock. Instead they voted for Schwarzenegger, and logic indicates that they voted for him not in spite of his lack of political experience, but because of it.

On the principle that any day people turn against the government is a good day for liberty, Schwarzenegger's win was good news indeed. It also takes some of the sheen off the Republican Party. If the Republicans had not brought in a Hollywood ringer, we would almost certainly be hailing governor-elect Bustamante right now. It was only the presence of an actor/bodybuilder with a funny accent that kept the vote from splintering 135 different ways and propelling a true minority choice into office with a tiny fraction of the vote.

Both parties should take note: They're selling a product fewer and fewer people want. If they want to stay in business, they should soon be reduced to bringing in some of the many co-stars Schwarzenegger has worked with over the years. As that group includes everybody from surfing legend Gerry Lopez to former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura to funnyman Sinbad to Verne "Mini Me" Troyer, the sky is definitely the limit.

Read It Rating: 4.5
Left/Right Rating: R1.5
Freedom Rating: .3
Learning Percentage: 9%

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Officers Say Bosnian Massacre Was Deliberate

By MARLISE SIMONS
La Liberation via NY Times
Sunday 12 October 2003

THE HAGUE, Oct. 8 -- Eight years after the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosnians, doubts have lingered about the degree to which the killings were coldly planned, or were improvised in chaos.

Most of those killed were unarmed prisoners, boys and men, shot in groups, or sometimes one by one.

Among the executioners, only a few foot soldiers have talked about the events that turned Srebrenica -- its name means the "place of silver" -- into a symbol of a modern European nightmare. No architect of the crime has ever explained in public what was in the killers' minds, or what made them believe that the murderous frenzy was acceptable to their own society and to their leaders.

But now, two senior Bosnian Serb officers, both crucial figures involved in organizing the bloodshed at Srebrenica, have spoken out at the war crimes tribunal here, describing the countdown to the massacre and depicting a well-planned and deliberate killing operation. They say it was largely coordinated by the military security and intelligence branch of the Bosnian Serb Army and militarized police, forces that were on Serbia's payroll.

The two, an intelligence chief and a brigade commander, recently pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity and have now given evidence against two fellow officers.

They provided so many names, firsthand accounts, documents and even a military log of the crucial days, that one court official blurted, "They've practically written the judgment."

NYTimes original

Read It Rating: 9.7
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: -9
Learning Percentage: 77%

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The Economist on Arnold: Flower power, three decades late

Flower power, three decades late

With Arnie's victory, some Republicans have at last acknowledged America's cultural revolution

Oct 9th 2003
From The Economist print edition

IN 1966, Californians elected a Hollywood actor as governor of their state. Fourteen years later, he changed America as the country's 40th president and the embodiment of a conservative revolution. Is history repeating itself? Perhaps as farce?

It is easy to count the reasons why Arnold Schwarzenegger's victory may be a special case, without wider significance. He won partly because of his exceptional celebrity, and partly because the recalled governor, Gray Davis, had all the popularity of a cat at a dog show. That circumstance may not repeat itself very often. He won as an outsider in a state that is peculiar anyway, in an election that was more than peculiar, when voters were uncommonly angry with elected officials.

Yet the fact remains that Mr Schwarzenegger has instantly become the second-best-known Republican in the country. He has become governor of a state with 55 Electoral College votes—a state, moreover, that many Republicans had almost written off (Al Gore won California by 1.3m votes in 2000, and 44% of Californian voters now register as Democrats, compared with 35% as Republicans). He brought a disaffected cohort of voters into the electoral process and into his party. Republicans would be foolish to write this off as merely another weird consequence of Californian voters spending too much time in the sun.

The key to the wider meaning of Mr Schwarzenegger's victory lies partly in his policies—much more liberal than those of most Republicans—and even more in the kind of person he is, including the sexual accusations that surfaced in the last days of the campaign. He is the first nationwide political figure to have embraced the counter-culture of the 1960s and 1970s (in its weaknesses as well as its strengths) and still stayed a Republican.

...

... the elected governor is a reminder that there is a strand of Republicanism which was always more in tune with the counter-culture than the Bible-thumping variety that has dominated the party for the past decade. This is the libertarian wing associated with Barry Goldwater, another western Republican. In some ways, Mr Schwarzenegger represents a return to that tradition. His victory could begin a contest, against the current dominance of southern conservatism, for the party's soul.

Full editorial

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: R1
Freedom Rating: 1
Learning Percentage: 8%

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Iraq War Swells Al Qaeda's Ranks, Report Says

By Peter Graff
Reuters

Wednesday 15 October 2003

LONDON (Reuters) - War in Iraq has swollen the ranks of al Qaeda and galvanized the Islamic militant group's will, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said on Wednesday in its annual report.

The 2003-2004 edition of the British-based think-tank's annual bible for defense analysts, The Military Balance, said Washington's assertions after the Iraq conflict that it had turned the corner in the war on terror were "over-confident."

The report, widely considered an authoritative text on the military capabilities of states and militant groups worldwide, could prove fodder for critics of the U.S.-British invasion and of the reconstruction effort that has followed in Iraq.

The N.R.A. Is Naming Names

TruthOut permacopy

Read It Rating: 5
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 20%

Posted by Lance Brown at 07:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Herbert: The N.R.A. Is Naming Names

By Bob Herbert
New York Times
Monday 13 October 2003

The National Rifle Association doesn't call it an enemies list, but deep in the recesses of the organization's Web site is a long, long compilation of the names of groups and individuals that the N.R.A. considers unfriendly.

I'm happy to report that I'm on the list, but my name is truly one among very many. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. is there, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The Children's Defense Fund and the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs are there. The United States Catholic Conference, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Y.W.C.A. of the U.S.A. are all there.

Among the celebrities on the list are Dr. Joyce Brothers, Candice Bergen, Walter Cronkite, Doug Flutie, Michelle Pfeiffer, Vinny Testaverde, Moon Zappa and the Temptations.

Also on the list are the Kansas City Chiefs, Hallmark Cards, the Sara Lee Corporation, Ben & Jerry's, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.

I'm sure there's a method to the N.R.A. madness, but to tell you the truth, all I can see is the madness.

...
Full commentary

NYT original

Read It Rating: 3
Left/Right Rating: L4
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 20%

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The ruins of another US try at democracy: Haiti

By Nick Caistor
csmonitor.com

LONDON -- The United States is committed to building democracies in Afghan-istan and Iraq. But there is a country much closer to home that is in desperate need of help - a country where the US and the international community have left a job half done and have abandoned millions of innocent citizens to poverty and despair.

That country is Haiti. ...

Read It Rating: 7
Left/Right Rating: L2
Freedom Rating: 0
Learning Percentage: 65%

Posted by Lance Brown at 07:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 05, 2003

US raises spectre of conscription

The American defence department has begun a recruitment drive for local draft boards, raising questions about a possible revival of conscription.
A notice on a department website invites United States citizens over the age of 18 to volunteer for the boards.

The board members will decide who can be exempted if a draft is needed.

The campaign comes as the US faces questions about the state of its armed forces at a time of costly operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There has been no draft in the US since it was ended by Congress in 1973, the year that US troops pulled out of Vietnam.