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The Nader 2004 "threat", and those poor, pitiful Democrats
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April 30, 2004
New Iraq poll: US seen as an 'occupying force'This page is an in-depth update on many aspects of the war, with extensive links to original sources. New Iraq poll: US seen as an 'occupying force' US soldiers are seen as 'uncaring, dangerous and lacking in respect.' US military in torture scandalGuardian Unlimited | Special reports | US military in torture scandal Dean campaign metricsThe Seattle Times: As campaign struggles, backers say Dean's value lies online excerpt: Last year, Dean raised about $41 million from more than 95,000 people, about half of that through online donations. Supporters posted more than 314,000 comments on Dean's Web log last year, according to the campaign, and 180,000 people used Meetup.com to organize and find Dean meetings around the country. As of yesterday, the campaign said, 638,121 people have registered on the Dean Web site, www.deanforamerica.com Libertarian presidential candidate speaks at UIDaily Illini | Libertarian presidential candidate speaks at UI Gary Nolan, front-runner for the Libertarian presidential nomination, covered a range of issues concerning the bureaucracies, economy and civil liberties of the country at Noyes Lab on Tuesday. ... US 'plans' to pull out of FallujaBBC NEWS | World | Middle East | US 'plans' to pull out of Falluja US marines have agreed a framework plan to withdraw from the besieged Iraqi city of Falluja, says the local American military commander. Lt Col Brennan Byrne said this would allow a newly created all-Iraqi force to take control of the city. He said this would happen on Friday, but US defence officials in Washington denied knowledge of a firm deal. Deal to End Falluja Standoff Takes Shape; 10 Americans DieFALLUJA, Iraq — American military officials said today that a new Iraqi security force made up of former Iraqi soldiers and commanders will replace the American troops now in Falluja and assume responsibility for the city's security. The new force, known as the Falluja Protection Army, will include as many as 1,000 Iraqi soldiers led by a former general from the army of Saddam Hussein, American military officials said. A Marine commander, Col. Brennan Byrne, said the force will be a subordinate command of the American military, according to news services. |
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April 28, 2004
Marines Find Evidence of Suicide Squads
Marines Find Evidence of Suicide Squads (washingtonpost.com)
Excerpt:
"When I saw those [suicide] vests, I thought those people obviously don't value life," said one staff sergeant, shaking his head in bewilderment. A 20-year-old corporal, Philip Dennis, said he had expected to be building schools in Iraq, not dodging mortar shells.
"I'm a humanitarian person, and I don't believe in killing for no reason, but I guess this is the job that needs to be done," he said. On his first day of combat, Dennis recounted, he climbed onto a roof and was astonished to see dozens of black-robed insurgents with AK-47 rifles. "I had no idea they had so many people, and I realized this was very big." He paused and added, "We killed a lot of them."
Secret Service questions 15-year-old about anti-war drawings
eTaiwanNews.com/U.S. Secret Service questions 15-year-old about anti-war drawings
2004-04-28 / Associated Press /
Secret Service agents questioned a high school student about anti-war drawings he did for an art class, one of which depicted President George W. Bush's head on a stick.
Another pencil-and-ink drawing portrayed Bush as a devil launching a missile, with a caption reading "End the war - on terrorism."
The 15-year-old boy's art teacher at Prosser High School turned the drawings over to school administrators, who notified police, who called the Secret Service.
"We involve the police anytime we have a concern," Prosser Superintendent Ray Tolcacher told the Tri-City Herald newspaper.
Secret Service agents interviewed the boy last Friday. The student, who was not arrested, has not been identified.
The school district disciplined him, but district officials refused to say what the punishment was. Tolcacher said the boy was not suspended.
The artwork was apparently part of an assignment to keep a notebook of drawings, according to a friend of the boy's family.
The drawing that drew the most notice showed a man in what appeared to be Middle Eastern-style clothing, holding a rifle. He was also holding a stick with an oversize head of the president on it.
The student said the head was enlarged because it was intended to be an effigy, said Kevin Cravens, who said he is a friend of the boy's family. The caption called for an end to the war in Iraq.
A message left by The Associated Press with an after-hours duty officer with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., was not immediately returned on Monday.
"If this 15-year-old kid in Prosser is perceived as a threat to the president, then we are living in '1984'," Cravens said.
April 27, 2004
Pat Boone: Censorship in arts 'healthy'
Censorship in arts 'healthy,' Boone says - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 21, 2004
Juanita Ramirez: The California Libertarian Party State Convention…My Impressions
The California Libertarian Party State Convention…My Impressions
by Juanita Ramirez
Group puffs against pot laws
Group puffs against pot laws - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 25, 2004
The LFA Interview: President and Vice President I
The LFA Interview: President and Vice President I (LP candidates)
The LFA Interview: President and Vice President
The LFA Interview: President and Vice President [select LP candidates]
April 26, 2004
April 25, 2004
Unplugging the stupidity of TV Turnoff Week
Ghosts of Ted McGinley
Unplugging the stupidity of TV Turnoff Week
by Nick Gillespie
Reason
April 24, 2004
Raimondo: (Invading Iraq was) Worst Idea Ever
The Worst Idea, Ever
Invading Iraq, that is…
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto
Yahoo! News/Business Week - The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto
President George W. Bush could not have been more emphatic in his remarks about Iraq before editors at the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention in Washington, D.C., on Apr. 21. "We're not going to cut and run if I'm in the Oval Office," Bush declared. Of course, the U.S. wouldn't cut and run even if Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) occupies the Oval Office in January, either. If anything, Kerry is even more adamant about bringing international help to police Iraq for years to come.
Here's one Presidential campaign issue Republicans and Democrats can agree on (the only exception: failed Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio). Stay the course, they say. As the motivations and wisdom of the invasion are still hotly debated, leaving Iraq early, the argument goes, would be a dangerous sign of weakness that would embolden terrorists, abort the drive for political reform in the Arab world, and undermine U.S. credibility around the globe.
Yet at least one veteran geopolitical thinker, Century Foundation Senior Fellow Morris Abramowitz, wonders if all of this is just taken on faith, without adequate examination. He questions whether an early exit would be the disaster so widely assumed. It's one man's opinion, but it's worth pondering.
...
Public financing of stadiums unnecessary, study shows
CBS.SportsLine.com - Public financing of stadiums unnecessary, study shows
The LNC Gravy Train
by George Squyres
Excerpt:
The difference is that Congress actually does ride on that gravy train and the LNC does not. I explained that he was mistaken in his understanding of how expenses at the LNC worked, and that I paid all my expenses out of my own pocket, and that there was no reimbursement by the national office or the party for the expenses incurred by LNC members going to the quarterly meetings. Zip! Nada! It costs me about $2500 a year, not including meals at a restaurant, to go to the four quarterly LNC meetings around the country, and it comes out of my own pocket. It is one of the donations that I make to the LP along with the time I spend. That time spent in my shop would earn me about $1500 per weekend, or about $6000 annually.
'Nader nation' - who are these voters?
Perhaps the strangest thing about this article is that it poses two seemingly conflicting notions: that Nader's base could be both broader than it was in 2000, and smaller than it was in 2000. It sounds strange, but I think it could end up being proven true.
Commentary: Hip-hop politics must look beyond 2004
Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Hip-hop politics must look beyond 2004
What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
The rush to war in Iraq echoes Reagan's Iran-contra scandal
by Sidney Blumenthal
"It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels
This is one of the most interesting articles I've read about the modern income tax resistance movement.
Reason: "It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels
April 23, 2004
Libertarians reflect on Jefferson's influence
Libertarians reflect on Jefferson's influence
By JOHN SULLIVAN of the Tribune’s staff
Published Sunday, April 18, 2004
Thomas Jefferson’s influence on libertarian thought served as a backdrop for Libertarian candidates seeking to build momentum for state and national campaigns at a social gathering yesterday in Cosmopolitan Park.
"People who don’t like Jefferson don’t like small government, and people who do like Jefferson favor small government," said Lloyd Sloan, a St. Louis radio talk-show host who argued Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, was a libertarian.
...
April 21, 2004
April 20, 2004
Jim Crow Laws
Martin Luther King, Jr., NHS Jim Crow Laws
From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.
Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
Yahoo! News - Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A senior Republican lawmaker said that deteriorating security in Iraq (news - web sites) may force the United States to reintroduce the military draft.
"There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq.
"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."
...
Kerry's Consigliere
The Atlantic | May 2004 | Kerry's Consigliere
For the legendary strategist Bob Shrum, a lifetime in Democratic politics comes down to John Kerry and a final shot at the White House
April 19, 2004
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms - Columbia Missourian
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Schwarzenegger surprises
Schwarzenegger surprises - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 19, 2004
Is Oliver Stone's latest film soft on Castro?
Oliver Stone's Twist - Is the director's latest film soft on Castro? By Ann Louise Bardach
April 17, 2004
Student survives 100-foot fall
The Auburn Plainsman Online - Student survives 100-foot fall
'For me to be alive shows God has a purpose for my life'
By Michael J. Thompson
Assistant State & Local Editor
April 15, 2004
Standing on the 100-foot Wildcat Falls in Northern Greenville County, SC, Dick Clark flashed a peace sign as his brother, Trevor, took a picture.
Moments later, the Auburn senior lost his footing and fell the equivalent of a 10-story building, landing at the bottom of the falls. On his head.
"The last thing I remember was looking at an American flag graffito on a rock at the top of the fall as I stood on the edge of the precipice," Dick said.
...
April 15, 2004
April 14, 2004
Scarce More Than Apes
Scarce More Than Apes
by Ryan McMaken
When any group of human beings gets in the way of imperialists, one can always be sure that the group of human beings in question will soon be demoted to some subclass of humanity.
In the nineteenth century, for example, during the period of reckless State expansion politely termed the era of Manifest Destiny, many American dreamers of empire found their plans being inconvenienced by the residents of New Spain living in the west. These Americans quickly found reasons to explain why the Southwest must be taken by force of arms as was eventually done in 1848. New England attorney Thomas Jefferson Farnham reasoned:
Thus much for the Spanish population of the Californias; in every way a poor apology of European extraction; as a general thing, incapable of reading or writing, and knowing nothing of science or literature, nothing of government but its brutal force, nothing of virtue but the sanction of the Church, nothing of religion but ceremonies of the national ritual…In a word, the Californians are an imbecile, pusillanimous race of men, and unfit to control the destinies of the beautiful country.
The Texan Noah Smithwick was more blunt when he declared that "I looked on the Mexicans as scarce more than apes." Yet, no one could have made the point better than one Santa Fe trader who remarked that Mexicans shouldn’t even be considered as part of "humanity" but as a separate race to be known as "Mexicanity."
While the roots of Anglo hatred of Spanish culture stretch back to Reformation England, it would be difficult to believe that Americans would have wasted their time even thinking about the question of subhuman Mexicans had their alleged inferiority not served the political purpose of convincing other Americans that the unconstitutional territorial expansion of the United States was essential in "liberating" a land enslaved by tyranny, primitivism, and superstition.
The American State and its servants have always been quite happy to endorse such sentiments, and today we are forced to endure the same rationalizing, lying, and stereotyping about Iraqis in order to save yet another race of men from themselves and to grant them the blessing of American "liberty" at the point of a bayonet. The Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Haitians, the Panamanians, and numerous others have all been saved in a similar fashion by the kind hand of American military might
Sadly, the modern conservative movement has been quite susceptible to this sort of wishful thinking about ready-made classifications for human beings that always seem – magically – to buttress government claims for increased power. The bogeyman these days of course is "Islamo-Fascism." Yet, if we were to take some old books about "the international Communist conspiracy" and replace "Communist" with "Islamo-Fascist" while updating some names and dates here and there, we would fine ourselves with a fine variety of timely new books on current events.
...
April 13, 2004
For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Boston.com / News / Nation / For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Buchanan on Iraq: Is failure now an option?
WorldNetDaily: Is failure now an option?
by Pat Buchanan
Kathleen Parker: You say Fallujah, I say Rambo!
The below-linked (reckless, deplorable) article by Kathleen Parker is fairly well rebuked by Ryan McMaken in his piece "Scarce More Than Apes".
April 11, 2004
April 10, 2004
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
April 09, 2004
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
Marines Find Evidence of Suicide Squads
Marines Find Evidence of Suicide Squads (washingtonpost.com)
Excerpt:
"When I saw those [suicide] vests, I thought those people obviously don't value life," said one staff sergeant, shaking his head in bewilderment. A 20-year-old corporal, Philip Dennis, said he had expected to be building schools in Iraq, not dodging mortar shells.
"I'm a humanitarian person, and I don't believe in killing for no reason, but I guess this is the job that needs to be done," he said. On his first day of combat, Dennis recounted, he climbed onto a roof and was astonished to see dozens of black-robed insurgents with AK-47 rifles. "I had no idea they had so many people, and I realized this was very big." He paused and added, "We killed a lot of them."
Secret Service questions 15-year-old about anti-war drawings
eTaiwanNews.com/U.S. Secret Service questions 15-year-old about anti-war drawings
2004-04-28 / Associated Press /
Secret Service agents questioned a high school student about anti-war drawings he did for an art class, one of which depicted President George W. Bush's head on a stick.
Another pencil-and-ink drawing portrayed Bush as a devil launching a missile, with a caption reading "End the war - on terrorism."
The 15-year-old boy's art teacher at Prosser High School turned the drawings over to school administrators, who notified police, who called the Secret Service.
"We involve the police anytime we have a concern," Prosser Superintendent Ray Tolcacher told the Tri-City Herald newspaper.
Secret Service agents interviewed the boy last Friday. The student, who was not arrested, has not been identified.
The school district disciplined him, but district officials refused to say what the punishment was. Tolcacher said the boy was not suspended.
The artwork was apparently part of an assignment to keep a notebook of drawings, according to a friend of the boy's family.
The drawing that drew the most notice showed a man in what appeared to be Middle Eastern-style clothing, holding a rifle. He was also holding a stick with an oversize head of the president on it.
The student said the head was enlarged because it was intended to be an effigy, said Kevin Cravens, who said he is a friend of the boy's family. The caption called for an end to the war in Iraq.
A message left by The Associated Press with an after-hours duty officer with the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., was not immediately returned on Monday.
"If this 15-year-old kid in Prosser is perceived as a threat to the president, then we are living in '1984'," Cravens said.
Pat Boone: Censorship in arts 'healthy'
Censorship in arts 'healthy,' Boone says - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 21, 2004
Juanita Ramirez: The California Libertarian Party State Convention…My Impressions
The California Libertarian Party State Convention…My Impressions
by Juanita Ramirez
Group puffs against pot laws
Group puffs against pot laws - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 25, 2004
The LFA Interview: President and Vice President I
The LFA Interview: President and Vice President I (LP candidates)
The LFA Interview: President and Vice President
The LFA Interview: President and Vice President [select LP candidates]
April 26, 2004
April 25, 2004
Unplugging the stupidity of TV Turnoff Week
Ghosts of Ted McGinley
Unplugging the stupidity of TV Turnoff Week
by Nick Gillespie
Reason
April 24, 2004
Raimondo: (Invading Iraq was) Worst Idea Ever
The Worst Idea, Ever
Invading Iraq, that is…
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto
Yahoo! News/Business Week - The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto
President George W. Bush could not have been more emphatic in his remarks about Iraq before editors at the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention in Washington, D.C., on Apr. 21. "We're not going to cut and run if I'm in the Oval Office," Bush declared. Of course, the U.S. wouldn't cut and run even if Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) occupies the Oval Office in January, either. If anything, Kerry is even more adamant about bringing international help to police Iraq for years to come.
Here's one Presidential campaign issue Republicans and Democrats can agree on (the only exception: failed Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio). Stay the course, they say. As the motivations and wisdom of the invasion are still hotly debated, leaving Iraq early, the argument goes, would be a dangerous sign of weakness that would embolden terrorists, abort the drive for political reform in the Arab world, and undermine U.S. credibility around the globe.
Yet at least one veteran geopolitical thinker, Century Foundation Senior Fellow Morris Abramowitz, wonders if all of this is just taken on faith, without adequate examination. He questions whether an early exit would be the disaster so widely assumed. It's one man's opinion, but it's worth pondering.
...
Public financing of stadiums unnecessary, study shows
CBS.SportsLine.com - Public financing of stadiums unnecessary, study shows
The LNC Gravy Train
by George Squyres
Excerpt:
The difference is that Congress actually does ride on that gravy train and the LNC does not. I explained that he was mistaken in his understanding of how expenses at the LNC worked, and that I paid all my expenses out of my own pocket, and that there was no reimbursement by the national office or the party for the expenses incurred by LNC members going to the quarterly meetings. Zip! Nada! It costs me about $2500 a year, not including meals at a restaurant, to go to the four quarterly LNC meetings around the country, and it comes out of my own pocket. It is one of the donations that I make to the LP along with the time I spend. That time spent in my shop would earn me about $1500 per weekend, or about $6000 annually.
'Nader nation' - who are these voters?
Perhaps the strangest thing about this article is that it poses two seemingly conflicting notions: that Nader's base could be both broader than it was in 2000, and smaller than it was in 2000. It sounds strange, but I think it could end up being proven true.
Commentary: Hip-hop politics must look beyond 2004
Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Hip-hop politics must look beyond 2004
What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
The rush to war in Iraq echoes Reagan's Iran-contra scandal
by Sidney Blumenthal
"It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels
This is one of the most interesting articles I've read about the modern income tax resistance movement.
Reason: "It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels
April 23, 2004
Libertarians reflect on Jefferson's influence
Libertarians reflect on Jefferson's influence
By JOHN SULLIVAN of the Tribune’s staff
Published Sunday, April 18, 2004
Thomas Jefferson’s influence on libertarian thought served as a backdrop for Libertarian candidates seeking to build momentum for state and national campaigns at a social gathering yesterday in Cosmopolitan Park.
"People who don’t like Jefferson don’t like small government, and people who do like Jefferson favor small government," said Lloyd Sloan, a St. Louis radio talk-show host who argued Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, was a libertarian.
...
April 21, 2004
April 20, 2004
Jim Crow Laws
Martin Luther King, Jr., NHS Jim Crow Laws
From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.
Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
Yahoo! News - Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A senior Republican lawmaker said that deteriorating security in Iraq (news - web sites) may force the United States to reintroduce the military draft.
"There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq.
"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."
...
Kerry's Consigliere
The Atlantic | May 2004 | Kerry's Consigliere
For the legendary strategist Bob Shrum, a lifetime in Democratic politics comes down to John Kerry and a final shot at the White House
April 19, 2004
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms - Columbia Missourian
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Schwarzenegger surprises
Schwarzenegger surprises - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 19, 2004
Is Oliver Stone's latest film soft on Castro?
Oliver Stone's Twist - Is the director's latest film soft on Castro? By Ann Louise Bardach
April 17, 2004
Student survives 100-foot fall
The Auburn Plainsman Online - Student survives 100-foot fall
'For me to be alive shows God has a purpose for my life'
By Michael J. Thompson
Assistant State & Local Editor
April 15, 2004
Standing on the 100-foot Wildcat Falls in Northern Greenville County, SC, Dick Clark flashed a peace sign as his brother, Trevor, took a picture.
Moments later, the Auburn senior lost his footing and fell the equivalent of a 10-story building, landing at the bottom of the falls. On his head.
"The last thing I remember was looking at an American flag graffito on a rock at the top of the fall as I stood on the edge of the precipice," Dick said.
...
April 15, 2004
April 14, 2004
Scarce More Than Apes
Scarce More Than Apes
by Ryan McMaken
When any group of human beings gets in the way of imperialists, one can always be sure that the group of human beings in question will soon be demoted to some subclass of humanity.
In the nineteenth century, for example, during the period of reckless State expansion politely termed the era of Manifest Destiny, many American dreamers of empire found their plans being inconvenienced by the residents of New Spain living in the west. These Americans quickly found reasons to explain why the Southwest must be taken by force of arms as was eventually done in 1848. New England attorney Thomas Jefferson Farnham reasoned:
Thus much for the Spanish population of the Californias; in every way a poor apology of European extraction; as a general thing, incapable of reading or writing, and knowing nothing of science or literature, nothing of government but its brutal force, nothing of virtue but the sanction of the Church, nothing of religion but ceremonies of the national ritual…In a word, the Californians are an imbecile, pusillanimous race of men, and unfit to control the destinies of the beautiful country.
The Texan Noah Smithwick was more blunt when he declared that "I looked on the Mexicans as scarce more than apes." Yet, no one could have made the point better than one Santa Fe trader who remarked that Mexicans shouldn’t even be considered as part of "humanity" but as a separate race to be known as "Mexicanity."
While the roots of Anglo hatred of Spanish culture stretch back to Reformation England, it would be difficult to believe that Americans would have wasted their time even thinking about the question of subhuman Mexicans had their alleged inferiority not served the political purpose of convincing other Americans that the unconstitutional territorial expansion of the United States was essential in "liberating" a land enslaved by tyranny, primitivism, and superstition.
The American State and its servants have always been quite happy to endorse such sentiments, and today we are forced to endure the same rationalizing, lying, and stereotyping about Iraqis in order to save yet another race of men from themselves and to grant them the blessing of American "liberty" at the point of a bayonet. The Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Haitians, the Panamanians, and numerous others have all been saved in a similar fashion by the kind hand of American military might
Sadly, the modern conservative movement has been quite susceptible to this sort of wishful thinking about ready-made classifications for human beings that always seem – magically – to buttress government claims for increased power. The bogeyman these days of course is "Islamo-Fascism." Yet, if we were to take some old books about "the international Communist conspiracy" and replace "Communist" with "Islamo-Fascist" while updating some names and dates here and there, we would fine ourselves with a fine variety of timely new books on current events.
...
April 13, 2004
For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Boston.com / News / Nation / For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Buchanan on Iraq: Is failure now an option?
WorldNetDaily: Is failure now an option?
by Pat Buchanan
Kathleen Parker: You say Fallujah, I say Rambo!
The below-linked (reckless, deplorable) article by Kathleen Parker is fairly well rebuked by Ryan McMaken in his piece "Scarce More Than Apes".
April 11, 2004
April 10, 2004
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
April 09, 2004
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
Unplugging the stupidity of TV Turnoff Week
Ghosts of Ted McGinley
Unplugging the stupidity of TV Turnoff Week
by Nick Gillespie
Reason
April 24, 2004
Raimondo: (Invading Iraq was) Worst Idea Ever
The Worst Idea, Ever
Invading Iraq, that is…
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto
Yahoo! News/Business Week - The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto
President George W. Bush could not have been more emphatic in his remarks about Iraq before editors at the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention in Washington, D.C., on Apr. 21. "We're not going to cut and run if I'm in the Oval Office," Bush declared. Of course, the U.S. wouldn't cut and run even if Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) occupies the Oval Office in January, either. If anything, Kerry is even more adamant about bringing international help to police Iraq for years to come.
Here's one Presidential campaign issue Republicans and Democrats can agree on (the only exception: failed Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio). Stay the course, they say. As the motivations and wisdom of the invasion are still hotly debated, leaving Iraq early, the argument goes, would be a dangerous sign of weakness that would embolden terrorists, abort the drive for political reform in the Arab world, and undermine U.S. credibility around the globe.
Yet at least one veteran geopolitical thinker, Century Foundation Senior Fellow Morris Abramowitz, wonders if all of this is just taken on faith, without adequate examination. He questions whether an early exit would be the disaster so widely assumed. It's one man's opinion, but it's worth pondering.
...
Public financing of stadiums unnecessary, study shows
CBS.SportsLine.com - Public financing of stadiums unnecessary, study shows
The LNC Gravy Train
by George Squyres
Excerpt:
The difference is that Congress actually does ride on that gravy train and the LNC does not. I explained that he was mistaken in his understanding of how expenses at the LNC worked, and that I paid all my expenses out of my own pocket, and that there was no reimbursement by the national office or the party for the expenses incurred by LNC members going to the quarterly meetings. Zip! Nada! It costs me about $2500 a year, not including meals at a restaurant, to go to the four quarterly LNC meetings around the country, and it comes out of my own pocket. It is one of the donations that I make to the LP along with the time I spend. That time spent in my shop would earn me about $1500 per weekend, or about $6000 annually.
'Nader nation' - who are these voters?
Perhaps the strangest thing about this article is that it poses two seemingly conflicting notions: that Nader's base could be both broader than it was in 2000, and smaller than it was in 2000. It sounds strange, but I think it could end up being proven true.
Commentary: Hip-hop politics must look beyond 2004
Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Hip-hop politics must look beyond 2004
What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
The rush to war in Iraq echoes Reagan's Iran-contra scandal
by Sidney Blumenthal
"It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels
This is one of the most interesting articles I've read about the modern income tax resistance movement.
Reason: "It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels
April 23, 2004
Libertarians reflect on Jefferson's influence
Libertarians reflect on Jefferson's influence
By JOHN SULLIVAN of the Tribune’s staff
Published Sunday, April 18, 2004
Thomas Jefferson’s influence on libertarian thought served as a backdrop for Libertarian candidates seeking to build momentum for state and national campaigns at a social gathering yesterday in Cosmopolitan Park.
"People who don’t like Jefferson don’t like small government, and people who do like Jefferson favor small government," said Lloyd Sloan, a St. Louis radio talk-show host who argued Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, was a libertarian.
...
April 21, 2004
April 20, 2004
Jim Crow Laws
Martin Luther King, Jr., NHS Jim Crow Laws
From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.
Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
Yahoo! News - Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A senior Republican lawmaker said that deteriorating security in Iraq (news - web sites) may force the United States to reintroduce the military draft.
"There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq.
"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."
...
Kerry's Consigliere
The Atlantic | May 2004 | Kerry's Consigliere
For the legendary strategist Bob Shrum, a lifetime in Democratic politics comes down to John Kerry and a final shot at the White House
April 19, 2004
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms - Columbia Missourian
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Schwarzenegger surprises
Schwarzenegger surprises - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 19, 2004
Is Oliver Stone's latest film soft on Castro?
Oliver Stone's Twist - Is the director's latest film soft on Castro? By Ann Louise Bardach
April 17, 2004
Student survives 100-foot fall
The Auburn Plainsman Online - Student survives 100-foot fall
'For me to be alive shows God has a purpose for my life'
By Michael J. Thompson
Assistant State & Local Editor
April 15, 2004
Standing on the 100-foot Wildcat Falls in Northern Greenville County, SC, Dick Clark flashed a peace sign as his brother, Trevor, took a picture.
Moments later, the Auburn senior lost his footing and fell the equivalent of a 10-story building, landing at the bottom of the falls. On his head.
"The last thing I remember was looking at an American flag graffito on a rock at the top of the fall as I stood on the edge of the precipice," Dick said.
...
April 15, 2004
April 14, 2004
Scarce More Than Apes
Scarce More Than Apes
by Ryan McMaken
When any group of human beings gets in the way of imperialists, one can always be sure that the group of human beings in question will soon be demoted to some subclass of humanity.
In the nineteenth century, for example, during the period of reckless State expansion politely termed the era of Manifest Destiny, many American dreamers of empire found their plans being inconvenienced by the residents of New Spain living in the west. These Americans quickly found reasons to explain why the Southwest must be taken by force of arms as was eventually done in 1848. New England attorney Thomas Jefferson Farnham reasoned:
Thus much for the Spanish population of the Californias; in every way a poor apology of European extraction; as a general thing, incapable of reading or writing, and knowing nothing of science or literature, nothing of government but its brutal force, nothing of virtue but the sanction of the Church, nothing of religion but ceremonies of the national ritual…In a word, the Californians are an imbecile, pusillanimous race of men, and unfit to control the destinies of the beautiful country.
The Texan Noah Smithwick was more blunt when he declared that "I looked on the Mexicans as scarce more than apes." Yet, no one could have made the point better than one Santa Fe trader who remarked that Mexicans shouldn’t even be considered as part of "humanity" but as a separate race to be known as "Mexicanity."
While the roots of Anglo hatred of Spanish culture stretch back to Reformation England, it would be difficult to believe that Americans would have wasted their time even thinking about the question of subhuman Mexicans had their alleged inferiority not served the political purpose of convincing other Americans that the unconstitutional territorial expansion of the United States was essential in "liberating" a land enslaved by tyranny, primitivism, and superstition.
The American State and its servants have always been quite happy to endorse such sentiments, and today we are forced to endure the same rationalizing, lying, and stereotyping about Iraqis in order to save yet another race of men from themselves and to grant them the blessing of American "liberty" at the point of a bayonet. The Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Haitians, the Panamanians, and numerous others have all been saved in a similar fashion by the kind hand of American military might
Sadly, the modern conservative movement has been quite susceptible to this sort of wishful thinking about ready-made classifications for human beings that always seem – magically – to buttress government claims for increased power. The bogeyman these days of course is "Islamo-Fascism." Yet, if we were to take some old books about "the international Communist conspiracy" and replace "Communist" with "Islamo-Fascist" while updating some names and dates here and there, we would fine ourselves with a fine variety of timely new books on current events.
...
April 13, 2004
For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Boston.com / News / Nation / For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Buchanan on Iraq: Is failure now an option?
WorldNetDaily: Is failure now an option?
by Pat Buchanan
Kathleen Parker: You say Fallujah, I say Rambo!
The below-linked (reckless, deplorable) article by Kathleen Parker is fairly well rebuked by Ryan McMaken in his piece "Scarce More Than Apes".
April 11, 2004
April 10, 2004
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
April 09, 2004
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
Raimondo: (Invading Iraq was) Worst Idea Ever
The Worst Idea, Ever
Invading Iraq, that is…
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com
The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto
Yahoo! News/Business Week - The Case for Leaving Iraq Pronto
President George W. Bush could not have been more emphatic in his remarks about Iraq before editors at the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention in Washington, D.C., on Apr. 21. "We're not going to cut and run if I'm in the Oval Office," Bush declared. Of course, the U.S. wouldn't cut and run even if Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) occupies the Oval Office in January, either. If anything, Kerry is even more adamant about bringing international help to police Iraq for years to come.
Here's one Presidential campaign issue Republicans and Democrats can agree on (the only exception: failed Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich of Ohio). Stay the course, they say. As the motivations and wisdom of the invasion are still hotly debated, leaving Iraq early, the argument goes, would be a dangerous sign of weakness that would embolden terrorists, abort the drive for political reform in the Arab world, and undermine U.S. credibility around the globe.
Yet at least one veteran geopolitical thinker, Century Foundation Senior Fellow Morris Abramowitz, wonders if all of this is just taken on faith, without adequate examination. He questions whether an early exit would be the disaster so widely assumed. It's one man's opinion, but it's worth pondering.
...
Public financing of stadiums unnecessary, study shows
CBS.SportsLine.com - Public financing of stadiums unnecessary, study shows
The LNC Gravy Train
by George Squyres
Excerpt:
The difference is that Congress actually does ride on that gravy train and the LNC does not. I explained that he was mistaken in his understanding of how expenses at the LNC worked, and that I paid all my expenses out of my own pocket, and that there was no reimbursement by the national office or the party for the expenses incurred by LNC members going to the quarterly meetings. Zip! Nada! It costs me about $2500 a year, not including meals at a restaurant, to go to the four quarterly LNC meetings around the country, and it comes out of my own pocket. It is one of the donations that I make to the LP along with the time I spend. That time spent in my shop would earn me about $1500 per weekend, or about $6000 annually.
'Nader nation' - who are these voters?
Perhaps the strangest thing about this article is that it poses two seemingly conflicting notions: that Nader's base could be both broader than it was in 2000, and smaller than it was in 2000. It sounds strange, but I think it could end up being proven true.
Commentary: Hip-hop politics must look beyond 2004
Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / Hip-hop politics must look beyond 2004
What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
The rush to war in Iraq echoes Reagan's Iran-contra scandal
by Sidney Blumenthal
"It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels
This is one of the most interesting articles I've read about the modern income tax resistance movement.
Reason: "It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels
Libertarians reflect on Jefferson's influence
Libertarians reflect on Jefferson's influence
By JOHN SULLIVAN of the Tribune’s staff
Published Sunday, April 18, 2004
Thomas Jefferson’s influence on libertarian thought served as a backdrop for Libertarian candidates seeking to build momentum for state and national campaigns at a social gathering yesterday in Cosmopolitan Park.
"People who don’t like Jefferson don’t like small government, and people who do like Jefferson favor small government," said Lloyd Sloan, a St. Louis radio talk-show host who argued Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party, was a libertarian.
...
April 21, 2004
April 20, 2004
Jim Crow Laws
Martin Luther King, Jr., NHS Jim Crow Laws
From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.
Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
Yahoo! News - Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A senior Republican lawmaker said that deteriorating security in Iraq (news - web sites) may force the United States to reintroduce the military draft.
"There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq.
"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."
...
Kerry's Consigliere
The Atlantic | May 2004 | Kerry's Consigliere
For the legendary strategist Bob Shrum, a lifetime in Democratic politics comes down to John Kerry and a final shot at the White House
April 19, 2004
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms - Columbia Missourian
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Schwarzenegger surprises
Schwarzenegger surprises - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 19, 2004
Is Oliver Stone's latest film soft on Castro?
Oliver Stone's Twist - Is the director's latest film soft on Castro? By Ann Louise Bardach
April 17, 2004
Student survives 100-foot fall
The Auburn Plainsman Online - Student survives 100-foot fall
'For me to be alive shows God has a purpose for my life'
By Michael J. Thompson
Assistant State & Local Editor
April 15, 2004
Standing on the 100-foot Wildcat Falls in Northern Greenville County, SC, Dick Clark flashed a peace sign as his brother, Trevor, took a picture.
Moments later, the Auburn senior lost his footing and fell the equivalent of a 10-story building, landing at the bottom of the falls. On his head.
"The last thing I remember was looking at an American flag graffito on a rock at the top of the fall as I stood on the edge of the precipice," Dick said.
...
April 15, 2004
April 14, 2004
Scarce More Than Apes
Scarce More Than Apes
by Ryan McMaken
When any group of human beings gets in the way of imperialists, one can always be sure that the group of human beings in question will soon be demoted to some subclass of humanity.
In the nineteenth century, for example, during the period of reckless State expansion politely termed the era of Manifest Destiny, many American dreamers of empire found their plans being inconvenienced by the residents of New Spain living in the west. These Americans quickly found reasons to explain why the Southwest must be taken by force of arms as was eventually done in 1848. New England attorney Thomas Jefferson Farnham reasoned:
Thus much for the Spanish population of the Californias; in every way a poor apology of European extraction; as a general thing, incapable of reading or writing, and knowing nothing of science or literature, nothing of government but its brutal force, nothing of virtue but the sanction of the Church, nothing of religion but ceremonies of the national ritual…In a word, the Californians are an imbecile, pusillanimous race of men, and unfit to control the destinies of the beautiful country.
The Texan Noah Smithwick was more blunt when he declared that "I looked on the Mexicans as scarce more than apes." Yet, no one could have made the point better than one Santa Fe trader who remarked that Mexicans shouldn’t even be considered as part of "humanity" but as a separate race to be known as "Mexicanity."
While the roots of Anglo hatred of Spanish culture stretch back to Reformation England, it would be difficult to believe that Americans would have wasted their time even thinking about the question of subhuman Mexicans had their alleged inferiority not served the political purpose of convincing other Americans that the unconstitutional territorial expansion of the United States was essential in "liberating" a land enslaved by tyranny, primitivism, and superstition.
The American State and its servants have always been quite happy to endorse such sentiments, and today we are forced to endure the same rationalizing, lying, and stereotyping about Iraqis in order to save yet another race of men from themselves and to grant them the blessing of American "liberty" at the point of a bayonet. The Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Haitians, the Panamanians, and numerous others have all been saved in a similar fashion by the kind hand of American military might
Sadly, the modern conservative movement has been quite susceptible to this sort of wishful thinking about ready-made classifications for human beings that always seem – magically – to buttress government claims for increased power. The bogeyman these days of course is "Islamo-Fascism." Yet, if we were to take some old books about "the international Communist conspiracy" and replace "Communist" with "Islamo-Fascist" while updating some names and dates here and there, we would fine ourselves with a fine variety of timely new books on current events.
...
April 13, 2004
For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Boston.com / News / Nation / For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Buchanan on Iraq: Is failure now an option?
WorldNetDaily: Is failure now an option?
by Pat Buchanan
Kathleen Parker: You say Fallujah, I say Rambo!
The below-linked (reckless, deplorable) article by Kathleen Parker is fairly well rebuked by Ryan McMaken in his piece "Scarce More Than Apes".
April 11, 2004
April 10, 2004
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
April 09, 2004
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
Jim Crow Laws
Martin Luther King, Jr., NHS Jim Crow Laws
From the 1880s into the 1960s, a majority of American states enforced segregation through "Jim Crow" laws (so called after a black character in minstrel shows). From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race. The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.
Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
Yahoo! News - Senator says US may need compulsory service to boost Iraq force
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A senior Republican lawmaker said that deteriorating security in Iraq (news - web sites) may force the United States to reintroduce the military draft.
"There's not an American ... that doesn't understand what we are engaged in today and what the prospects are for the future," Senator Chuck Hagel told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on post-occupation Iraq.
"Why shouldn't we ask all of our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel said, arguing that restoring compulsory military service would force "our citizens to understand the intensity and depth of challenges we face."
...
Kerry's Consigliere
The Atlantic | May 2004 | Kerry's Consigliere
For the legendary strategist Bob Shrum, a lifetime in Democratic politics comes down to John Kerry and a final shot at the White House
April 19, 2004
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms - Columbia Missourian
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Schwarzenegger surprises
Schwarzenegger surprises - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 19, 2004
Is Oliver Stone's latest film soft on Castro?
Oliver Stone's Twist - Is the director's latest film soft on Castro? By Ann Louise Bardach
April 17, 2004
Student survives 100-foot fall
The Auburn Plainsman Online - Student survives 100-foot fall
'For me to be alive shows God has a purpose for my life'
By Michael J. Thompson
Assistant State & Local Editor
April 15, 2004
Standing on the 100-foot Wildcat Falls in Northern Greenville County, SC, Dick Clark flashed a peace sign as his brother, Trevor, took a picture.
Moments later, the Auburn senior lost his footing and fell the equivalent of a 10-story building, landing at the bottom of the falls. On his head.
"The last thing I remember was looking at an American flag graffito on a rock at the top of the fall as I stood on the edge of the precipice," Dick said.
...
April 15, 2004
April 14, 2004
Scarce More Than Apes
Scarce More Than Apes
by Ryan McMaken
When any group of human beings gets in the way of imperialists, one can always be sure that the group of human beings in question will soon be demoted to some subclass of humanity.
In the nineteenth century, for example, during the period of reckless State expansion politely termed the era of Manifest Destiny, many American dreamers of empire found their plans being inconvenienced by the residents of New Spain living in the west. These Americans quickly found reasons to explain why the Southwest must be taken by force of arms as was eventually done in 1848. New England attorney Thomas Jefferson Farnham reasoned:
Thus much for the Spanish population of the Californias; in every way a poor apology of European extraction; as a general thing, incapable of reading or writing, and knowing nothing of science or literature, nothing of government but its brutal force, nothing of virtue but the sanction of the Church, nothing of religion but ceremonies of the national ritual…In a word, the Californians are an imbecile, pusillanimous race of men, and unfit to control the destinies of the beautiful country.
The Texan Noah Smithwick was more blunt when he declared that "I looked on the Mexicans as scarce more than apes." Yet, no one could have made the point better than one Santa Fe trader who remarked that Mexicans shouldn’t even be considered as part of "humanity" but as a separate race to be known as "Mexicanity."
While the roots of Anglo hatred of Spanish culture stretch back to Reformation England, it would be difficult to believe that Americans would have wasted their time even thinking about the question of subhuman Mexicans had their alleged inferiority not served the political purpose of convincing other Americans that the unconstitutional territorial expansion of the United States was essential in "liberating" a land enslaved by tyranny, primitivism, and superstition.
The American State and its servants have always been quite happy to endorse such sentiments, and today we are forced to endure the same rationalizing, lying, and stereotyping about Iraqis in order to save yet another race of men from themselves and to grant them the blessing of American "liberty" at the point of a bayonet. The Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Haitians, the Panamanians, and numerous others have all been saved in a similar fashion by the kind hand of American military might
Sadly, the modern conservative movement has been quite susceptible to this sort of wishful thinking about ready-made classifications for human beings that always seem – magically – to buttress government claims for increased power. The bogeyman these days of course is "Islamo-Fascism." Yet, if we were to take some old books about "the international Communist conspiracy" and replace "Communist" with "Islamo-Fascist" while updating some names and dates here and there, we would fine ourselves with a fine variety of timely new books on current events.
...
April 13, 2004
For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Boston.com / News / Nation / For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Buchanan on Iraq: Is failure now an option?
WorldNetDaily: Is failure now an option?
by Pat Buchanan
Kathleen Parker: You say Fallujah, I say Rambo!
The below-linked (reckless, deplorable) article by Kathleen Parker is fairly well rebuked by Ryan McMaken in his piece "Scarce More Than Apes".
April 11, 2004
April 10, 2004
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
April 09, 2004
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms
Libertarian Party candidates outline campaign platforms - Columbia Missourian
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
2 local Libertarians lead charge to earn respect for Missouri party
Schwarzenegger surprises
Schwarzenegger surprises - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 19, 2004
Is Oliver Stone's latest film soft on Castro?
Oliver Stone's Twist - Is the director's latest film soft on Castro? By Ann Louise Bardach
Student survives 100-foot fall
The Auburn Plainsman Online - Student survives 100-foot fall
'For me to be alive shows God has a purpose for my life'
By Michael J. Thompson
Assistant State & Local Editor
April 15, 2004
Standing on the 100-foot Wildcat Falls in Northern Greenville County, SC, Dick Clark flashed a peace sign as his brother, Trevor, took a picture.
Moments later, the Auburn senior lost his footing and fell the equivalent of a 10-story building, landing at the bottom of the falls. On his head.
"The last thing I remember was looking at an American flag graffito on a rock at the top of the fall as I stood on the edge of the precipice," Dick said.
...
April 15, 2004
April 14, 2004
Scarce More Than Apes
Scarce More Than Apes
by Ryan McMaken
When any group of human beings gets in the way of imperialists, one can always be sure that the group of human beings in question will soon be demoted to some subclass of humanity.
In the nineteenth century, for example, during the period of reckless State expansion politely termed the era of Manifest Destiny, many American dreamers of empire found their plans being inconvenienced by the residents of New Spain living in the west. These Americans quickly found reasons to explain why the Southwest must be taken by force of arms as was eventually done in 1848. New England attorney Thomas Jefferson Farnham reasoned:
Thus much for the Spanish population of the Californias; in every way a poor apology of European extraction; as a general thing, incapable of reading or writing, and knowing nothing of science or literature, nothing of government but its brutal force, nothing of virtue but the sanction of the Church, nothing of religion but ceremonies of the national ritual…In a word, the Californians are an imbecile, pusillanimous race of men, and unfit to control the destinies of the beautiful country.
The Texan Noah Smithwick was more blunt when he declared that "I looked on the Mexicans as scarce more than apes." Yet, no one could have made the point better than one Santa Fe trader who remarked that Mexicans shouldn’t even be considered as part of "humanity" but as a separate race to be known as "Mexicanity."
While the roots of Anglo hatred of Spanish culture stretch back to Reformation England, it would be difficult to believe that Americans would have wasted their time even thinking about the question of subhuman Mexicans had their alleged inferiority not served the political purpose of convincing other Americans that the unconstitutional territorial expansion of the United States was essential in "liberating" a land enslaved by tyranny, primitivism, and superstition.
The American State and its servants have always been quite happy to endorse such sentiments, and today we are forced to endure the same rationalizing, lying, and stereotyping about Iraqis in order to save yet another race of men from themselves and to grant them the blessing of American "liberty" at the point of a bayonet. The Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Haitians, the Panamanians, and numerous others have all been saved in a similar fashion by the kind hand of American military might
Sadly, the modern conservative movement has been quite susceptible to this sort of wishful thinking about ready-made classifications for human beings that always seem – magically – to buttress government claims for increased power. The bogeyman these days of course is "Islamo-Fascism." Yet, if we were to take some old books about "the international Communist conspiracy" and replace "Communist" with "Islamo-Fascist" while updating some names and dates here and there, we would fine ourselves with a fine variety of timely new books on current events.
...
April 13, 2004
For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Boston.com / News / Nation / For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Buchanan on Iraq: Is failure now an option?
WorldNetDaily: Is failure now an option?
by Pat Buchanan
Kathleen Parker: You say Fallujah, I say Rambo!
The below-linked (reckless, deplorable) article by Kathleen Parker is fairly well rebuked by Ryan McMaken in his piece "Scarce More Than Apes".
April 11, 2004
April 10, 2004
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
April 09, 2004
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
Scarce More Than Apes
Scarce More Than Apes
by Ryan McMaken
When any group of human beings gets in the way of imperialists, one can always be sure that the group of human beings in question will soon be demoted to some subclass of humanity.
In the nineteenth century, for example, during the period of reckless State expansion politely termed the era of Manifest Destiny, many American dreamers of empire found their plans being inconvenienced by the residents of New Spain living in the west. These Americans quickly found reasons to explain why the Southwest must be taken by force of arms as was eventually done in 1848. New England attorney Thomas Jefferson Farnham reasoned:
Thus much for the Spanish population of the Californias; in every way a poor apology of European extraction; as a general thing, incapable of reading or writing, and knowing nothing of science or literature, nothing of government but its brutal force, nothing of virtue but the sanction of the Church, nothing of religion but ceremonies of the national ritual…In a word, the Californians are an imbecile, pusillanimous race of men, and unfit to control the destinies of the beautiful country.
The Texan Noah Smithwick was more blunt when he declared that "I looked on the Mexicans as scarce more than apes." Yet, no one could have made the point better than one Santa Fe trader who remarked that Mexicans shouldn’t even be considered as part of "humanity" but as a separate race to be known as "Mexicanity."
While the roots of Anglo hatred of Spanish culture stretch back to Reformation England, it would be difficult to believe that Americans would have wasted their time even thinking about the question of subhuman Mexicans had their alleged inferiority not served the political purpose of convincing other Americans that the unconstitutional territorial expansion of the United States was essential in "liberating" a land enslaved by tyranny, primitivism, and superstition.
The American State and its servants have always been quite happy to endorse such sentiments, and today we are forced to endure the same rationalizing, lying, and stereotyping about Iraqis in order to save yet another race of men from themselves and to grant them the blessing of American "liberty" at the point of a bayonet. The Mexicans, the Filipinos, the Vietnamese, the Haitians, the Panamanians, and numerous others have all been saved in a similar fashion by the kind hand of American military might
Sadly, the modern conservative movement has been quite susceptible to this sort of wishful thinking about ready-made classifications for human beings that always seem – magically – to buttress government claims for increased power. The bogeyman these days of course is "Islamo-Fascism." Yet, if we were to take some old books about "the international Communist conspiracy" and replace "Communist" with "Islamo-Fascist" while updating some names and dates here and there, we would fine ourselves with a fine variety of timely new books on current events.
...
April 13, 2004
For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Boston.com / News / Nation / For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Buchanan on Iraq: Is failure now an option?
WorldNetDaily: Is failure now an option?
by Pat Buchanan
Kathleen Parker: You say Fallujah, I say Rambo!
The below-linked (reckless, deplorable) article by Kathleen Parker is fairly well rebuked by Ryan McMaken in his piece "Scarce More Than Apes".
April 11, 2004
April 10, 2004
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
April 09, 2004
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Boston.com / News / Nation / For Kerry aides, McCain would fit bill as running mate
Buchanan on Iraq: Is failure now an option?
WorldNetDaily: Is failure now an option?
by Pat Buchanan
Kathleen Parker: You say Fallujah, I say Rambo!
The below-linked (reckless, deplorable) article by Kathleen Parker is fairly well rebuked by Ryan McMaken in his piece "Scarce More Than Apes".
April 10, 2004
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
April 09, 2004
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
"We interrupt your self-indulgence"
By Paul Harris
YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)
The United Nations declared April 7, 2004 to be an international day of reflection on the genocide that killed in excess of 800,000 Rwandans 10 years ago. In the 13 weeks or so that followed April 6, 1994, the ruling Hutus slashed and slaughtered their way through the Tutsi community of Rwanda in a fit of killing that was even more prolific than the Nazi extermination camps during the Holocaust.
Better than 8,000 people a day were being killed in some of the most barbaric and cruel acts ever visited by one man on another. Pregnant women were mutilated and their unborn children ripped from their wombs to be chopped into pieces. Bleeding bodies were pitched into latrines to die. No one was spared because of age or gender. Tutsis actually paid Hutus to shoot them and their families (the going rate was about $32 per person) to avoid being hacked to death by machete.
An international day of reflection … think about the dead, think about the inhumanity and brutality, think about the needless slaughter and the innocent victims.
But don’t think about why this catastrophe happened in the first place. Don’t think about the monumental gall of the U.N. to sanctimoniously urge the world to feel sorry about all this when it was the complete failure of the U.N.’s moral authority and its will to act that allowed these people to die in the first place. And don’t think about the fact that it was the recalcitrance of the United States who vetoed any moves by the Security Council to act. The U.S. forbade the U.N. to use the term "genocide" in 1994 because, under international law, acts of genocide require certain responses from the U.N. and the Americans were just not interested. Letting the Rwandans die was easier.
This crisis had its origins, as so many African crises have, in the residue of European colonialism. ...
Patrick Sabatier: Rout
Editorial: Rout
By Patrick Sabatier
Liberation
(English translation from TruthOut)
Faced with uprisings that multiply, grow, and harden, the "coalition of the willing", that disembarked in Iraq in the wake of the US Army with flowers in their rifles, is revealing itself to be a "coalition of the irresolute." The Ukrainians have beaten a retreat. Japanese and South Koreans have gone to earth in their bases. Spaniards and Kazakhs wait for promised withdrawal. The Bulgarians cry for help. The Poles are asking themselves why they stay. The Italians negotiate with the enemy. All with the bitter certainty of having been swindled by the United States about the risks of the adventure as well as the reasons for embarking on it. ...
...
Bush is effectively counting on the UN (alas, too late) to get him out of a bad situation by legitimizing the Iraqi Authority to which some simulacrum of power is supposed to be transferred June 30 and by organizing elections on the heels of that transfer. He has begun to sound out the countries whose opposition to the war he derided- including France - to ask them to participate in a multinational force that would protect the UN in Iraq. One may imagine that these countries will think twice before jumping in to pull Bush out of the trap he fell into after having dug it himself.
April 08, 2004
April 07, 2004
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid
Dean Calls on Voters to Reject Nader Bid (washingtonpost.com)
April 06, 2004
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
April 05, 2004
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
Are rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
Political Points | 4.4: We Got a Check From Whom?
ARE rich Republicans conniving to help George W. Bush by bankrolling Ralph Nader's campaign?
A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Keep and Bear Arms - A Gun Rights Reply to the Bush-Cheney 2004 Fundraising Letter
Cookies and property rights
Which right is right?
Do property rights really take precedence of religious liberty? Yes.
April 02, 2004
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
April 01, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis
CNN.com - Slain contractor's brother doesn't blame Iraqis - Apr 2, 2004
Ruling deals blow to music industry
Ruling deals blow to music industry
A much-anticipated court decision released yesterday was supposed to clarify the rights of Internet access providers to protect the privacy of their customers. But in a surprising twist, the Federal Court's decision went far beyond privacy issues, dealing a huge blow to the Canadian music industry and its efforts to stop Internet users from sharing music files.
Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled yesterday that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) failed in all respects to make a case for requiring Internet companies to turn over the identities of big music downloaders. CRIA, he said, didn't prove it could identify who had shared the music files, nor whether the specific music files at issue in the current lawsuit infringed copyright rules, nor whether there was any other way the music companies could have found the identities of the Internet users.
But the biggest blow to the music industry came when Judge von Finckenstein addressed the broader question of whether there was evidence of a legal violation that would justify revealing the private identities of Internet users. He concluded that sharing music files doesn't constitute copyright infringement at all.
...
