07/28 -- US House passes funding to escalate Afghanistan fiasco, cuts educrat welfare bucks; Obama tries to co-opt Wikileaks Afghanistan material
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Thomas L. Knapp
Jul 28, 2010, 12:54:57 AM7/28/10
to Rational Review News Digest
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In The News:
0) RRND/FND 3rd quarter fundraiser
1) US House passes funding to escalate Afghanistan fiasco, cuts
educrat welfare bucks
2) Obama tries to co-opt Wikileaks Afghanistan material
3) US Senate Republicans block DISCLOSE Act
4) Iraq: Seven killed, 38 wounded
5) Afghanistan: US sailor's body recovered
6) Army begins probe of leaked secret Afghan war files
7) Mexico: Four journalists reported missing
8) Iran will pay for new babies to boost population
9) France declares war on al Qaeda
10) Venezuela: Police nab six Colombian paramilitary suspects
11) Seychelles: 11 Somalis convicted of piracy
12) Congress passes trade bill extending tariff relief
13) Study: Receipts could be harmful to your health
14) Audit: Pentagon mismanaged $2.6 billion in funds for Iraq
15) TN: Lawsuit claims man fired for obeying police during flood
16) CO: Backers of "personhood" measure regroup
17) NH: Nation's oldest running family farm put on market
18) UK court blocks extradition of Bosnian ex-leader
19) US House to vote on bill to protect guns in bankruptcy cases
20) MO: Woman uses railroad spike in self-defense
21) AL: Man shot in self-defense
22) Netherlands: Court ends state abduction of 14-year-old sailor
23) NYC: Bloomberg regime to pay $7 million settlement in police
murder case
24) UT: Supreme Court overturns Jeffs convictions, orders new trial
25) Blagojevich lawyer: Government didn't prove case
Everybody Has An Opinion:
26) Why is the antiwar movement stalled?
27) Yes, this is a litmus test
28) My next career move: Professional rent-seeker
29) The myth of the common good
30) Good news, bad news
31) The TSA's Port-o-Porns: Ogling you everywhere, not just at
airports
32) Anarchists at the Tea Parties "want to kill us all in public
office?"
33) Ready to work for political change you can count on?
34) Shouldn't high unemployment = less work to do?
35) US nuke plants: Old & incontinent
36) The great wind power bait and switch
37) Scare tactics
38) Could WikiLeaks offer a way out of war?
39) The Afghan war leaks don't tell us the truth
40) Down to the last trillion
41) The Plunderbund's persecution of Phil Hart
42) Worse than Hiroshima?
43) Evil is as evil does
44) Book Review: With My Rifle by My Side
45) The unlimited power of suppressing the interest rate
46) Building a better business climate
47) DISCLOSE Act assault on First Amendment continues
48) Government has run amok since 9/11
49) Why are we discussing racism?
50) The establishment protection act
51) Our big-government war on terror
52) Copy fight
53) Respect which authorities?
54) The Gulf's invisible villain: Natural gas
55) More libertarian bashing from the Groupthink Left
56) Baked in the cake
57) Why Kosovo still matters
58) Wikileaks, resistance, genuine heroes, and breaking the goddamned
rules, part 1
59) The no-matter-what tax increase
60) A lopsided warning
61) What the Wikileaks tell us about Pakistani loyalties
62) Stay here, there's something to see ...
63) Growing health crisis in the Gulf
64) How to regulate banks
65) Was the American Revolution just?
66) Your master's voice ...
67) Legislation with benefits
68) Wikileaks: Time to celebrate, time to mourn
69) Fiscal Responsibility Act: Will spending cuts hurt politicians?
70) Open Source Ecology: Getting ready to build
See No Evil, Hear No Evil:
71) Was classical liberalism a "strife of interests masquerading as a
contest of principles?"
72) Cato Daily Podcast, 07/27/10
73) Anarchy & Efficient Law
74) Free Talk Live, 06/26/10
75) Philip Giraldi on Antiwar Radio
What's Up In The Freedom Movement:
76) Today's events
***************
* In The News
***************
0) RRND/FND 3rd quarter fundraiser
Update, 07/28/10: Thanks to CF, whose $15 contribution yesterday
brings our fundraiser total to $1,443.82 ($198 higher than the ChipIn
meter shows due to contributions coming via other avenues)! $639.18 to
go and then we're done with this fundraiser!
Today may be the last day that we publish the email edition of RRND
via Google Groups. We're moving to TrafficWave. If you haven't
received a confirmation message, if you need another one, or if you
aren't an RRND subscriber and want to be, visit:
http://www.trafficwave.net/lcp/rationalreview/rrnd
Several hundred subscribers have confirmed. We'd like to get as many
as possible over before switching systems, but that will happen
absolutely no later than the end of this week, and very likely
tomorrow - TLK
http://www.rationalreview.com/content/83890
-----
1) US House passes funding to escalate Afghanistan fiasco, cuts
educrat welfare bucks
CBS News
"The House is sending to President Barack Obama a bill to fund the
troop surge in Afghanistan after accepting the reality that adding
money for domestic programs was unfeasible. House Democrats
reluctantly voted for the $59 billion measure Tuesday that will pay
for Obama's 30,000-troop surge and other programs such as replenishing
disaster funds. But the bill was stripped of money to keep teachers on
the job or boost student aid. The vote comes a week after the Senate
soundly rejected the larger House-favored bill." (07/27/10)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/27/world/main6718896.shtml
-----
2) Obama tries to co-opt Wikileaks Afghanistan material
Guardian [UK]
"Barack Obama today claimed the disclosures about the mishandling of
the Afghanistan war contained in leaked US military documents
justified his decision to embark on a new strategy. ... His first
public comment on the leaks came as the US army announced a criminal
investigation into their source. Obama chose to play down the leaks'
significance, saying: 'These documents don't reveal any issues that
haven't already informed our public debate on Afghanistan.' But he
went on to say the material highlighted the challenges that led him to
announce a change in strategy late last year that involved sending an
additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan." [editor's note: Even for a
charlatan of Obama's caliber, that whopper is going to be a hard one
to put over - TLK] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/23kalec
-----
3) US Senate Republicans block DISCLOSE Act
Los Angeles Times
"Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a vote on a bill that would
force special interest groups to disclose their donors when purchasing
political ads, defeating an effort to impose new campaign finance
regulations before the November congressional election. As the
Senate's 41 Republicans voted in unison to filibuster the bill,
Democrats vowed to bring the legislation up again." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/25gsn9v
-----
4) Iraq: Seven killed, 38 wounded
AntiWar.Com
"Admiral Mike Mullen arrived in Iraq, where he lauded Iraq's 'stunning
progress' in security over the last three years, while new attacks
left at least seven Iraqis killed and 38 more wounded. Parliament
again delayed meeting thanks to a political impasse that threatens
long-term security." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/23d5blr
-----
5) Afghanistan: US sailor's body recovered
Fox News
"The body of one of the two U.S. sailors missing in Afghanistan has
been found, according to U.S. officials. A NATO press release said
that the body was discovered in Eastern Afghanistan Sunday. U.S.
officials vowed to continue searching for the other missing sailor. A
Taliban spokesman claims insurgents have captured the other sailor --
whom U.S. officials have not identified." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/25v7y9r
-----
6) Army begins probe of leaked secret Afghan war files
USA Today
"The debate over America's longest war was fueled Monday by history's
most massive leak of classified documents. Now, it's a criminal
matter. The Army is leading the Pentagon's inquiry into the source of
leaked classified intelligence logs from the Afghanistan war, said
Marine Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2c8po65
-----
7) Mexico: Four journalists reported missing
USA Today
"Mexico's National Human Rights Commission called on the government
Tuesday to find four Mexican journalists reported missing in or near
the violence-wracked northern state of Durango. The journalists
include two cameramen from the Televisa network, a reporter for
Multimedios television and a reporter for the newspaper El
Vespertino." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2a8vprb
-----
8) Iran will pay for new babies to boost population
MSNBC
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy on
Tuesday to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran's decades of
family planning as ungodly and a Western import. The new government
initiative will pay families for every new child and deposit money
into the newborn's bank account until they reach 18, effectively
rolling back years of efforts to boost the economy by reducing the
country's runaway population growth." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2ck26v9
-----
9) France declares war on al Qaeda
Tuscaloosa News
"France has declared war on al-Qaida, and matched its fighting words
with a first attack on a base camp of the terror network's North
African branch, after the terror network killed a French aid worker it
took hostage in April. The declaration and attack marked a shift in
strategy for France, usually discrete about its behind-the-scenes
battle against terrorism." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24n6nl3
-----
10) Venezuela: Police nab six Colombian paramilitary suspects
Southern California Press-Enterprise
"Police apprehended six alleged far-right paramilitary fighters from
Colombia, including a militia leader wanted in the killing of a
Venezuelan mayor near the border with Colombia, authorities said
Tuesday. Johnny Marquez, a federal police investigator in the western
state of Tachira, said officers arrested the militiamen during a sting
operation near the town of La Fria." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24r39ar
-----
11) Seychelles: 11 Somalis convicted of piracy
CNN
"Eleven Somalis convicted of piracy-related crimes are heading to
prison in the island nation of Seychelles, the archipelago's
department of legal affairs said in a press release. The Seychelles'
Supreme Court Monday convicted and sentenced eight of the Somalis for
committing an act of piracy and the other three for aiding and
abetting an act of piracy. Each of the 11 was sentenced to 10 years in
prison, said the statement." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2cea2fr
-----
12) Congress passes trade bill extending tariff relief
Houston Chronicle
"Congress has passed legislation that temporarily reduces or suspends
tariffs on 639 items, mostly components that American manufacturers
use in their production processes. The Miscellaneous Tariff Bill comes
up periodically. On Tuesday it passed the Senate without opposition or
a recorded vote. The bill passed the House last week, and now goes to
the president for his signature." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2dy4p32
-----
13) Study: Receipts could be harmful to your health
AOL News
"Cash-register receipts from many fast-food outlets, groceries,
pharmacies, big-box stores and U.S. post offices contain high levels
of the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A. A study released
late today by the Environmental Working Group reported that a
laboratory analysis it commissioned found the plastic component BPA on
40 percent of receipts from McDonald's, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, Wal-
Mart, Safeway and other businesses. BPA is used to coat thermal paper,
which reacts with dye to form black print on receipts handled by
millions of Americans every day. In laboratory tests, the chemical has
been linked to a long list of serious health problems in animals.
Several environmental activists, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-
Calif., also have called for removing BPA from canned
goods." [editor's note: Umm ... excuse me, but isn't the main reason
for keeping receipts from purchases ... to use them to offset alleged
"tax liabilities" to the Gestap ... err, IRS? - SAT] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/247oa3w
-----
14) Audit: Pentagon mismanaged $2.6 billion in funds for Iraq
Washington Post
"Because of poor record-keeping and lax oversight, the Defense
Department cannot account for how it spent $2.6 billion that belonged
to the Iraqi government, according to the inspector general for Iraq
reconstruction. An audit of a $9.1 billion fund of Iraqi oil proceeds
showed that most American military agencies entrusted with spending
the money on reconstruction projects failed to adhere to US rules on
how such money must be tracked and spent, the inspector general found.
US officials failed to create bank accounts for $8.7 billion in the
Development Fund for Iraq, as mandated by the Treasury Department,
creating 'breakdowns in controls [that] left the funds vulnerable to
inappropriate uses and undetected loss,' according to the report,
which is scheduled to be released today." [editor's note: So not only
are they imperialist warmongers, they can't even do it well? Are you
still "proud to be an American taxpayer?" - SAT] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2ce3faq
-----
15) TN: Lawsuit claims man fired for obeying police during flood
Tennessean
"An ex-employee is suing a hospital linen delivery company after he
says he was fired for not breaking through police barriers during the
Nashville flood. According to the lawsuit filed last week in Davidson
County Circuit Court, Donald 'Donny' Jones, a supervisor with Shared
Hospital Services, Inc. on Mainstream Drive, said the company's
president ordered him to violate the police roadblocks at MetroCenter
and direct employees to work. The business district north of downtown
had been evacuated for fear that its levee would break. When Jones
expressed hesitation, the president told Jones to tell police that
their work was urgent to sterilize Vanderbilt Hospital surgical
equipment, 'an untruthful statement to suggest a false urgency,'
according to the lawsuit." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26mx569
-----
16) CO: Backers of "personhood" measure regroup
Denver Post
"Supporters of Colorado's proposed constitutional amendment on
'personhood' announced their grass-roots campaign strategy yesterday.
Colorado is the only state in the union with a 2010 ballot proposal to
redefine what a person is. Organizers of Amendment 62 are hoping to
turn their 3-to-1 defeat at the polls in 2008 into constitutional
change. If approved, the measure would define the term 'person' and
rights in the state Constitution 'to apply to every human being from
the beginning of the biological development of that human being.' The
2008 ballot proposal, disapproved by almost 73 percent of Colorado
voters, sought to define personhood as beginning with a fertilized
human egg. Organizer Keith Mason said the 2010 campaign strategy
entails a revolutionary tool called MyCampaignTracker.org. More than
1,300 people have connected to work for Amendment 62." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2e69orw
-----
17) NH: Nation's oldest running family farm put on market
Boston Globe
"Like generations of Tuttles before him, Will Tuttle has spent his
life on the family farm, working its tree-lined acres from seed to
harvest. He learned by the side of his father and grandfather and,
like them, chose to make his living off the land. But after years of
toil and dwindling demand for the crops he produced, the thick-armed
63-year-old has decided the family legacy will end with him. His
landmark property -- passed from father to son since 1632 and billed
as the country's oldest continually operating family farm -- is up for
sale. Yesterday, as he looked over a rolling field that could be in a
brochure for local, sustainable agriculture, Tuttle said that like
many small farms, his had probably seen its best days." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/35szudh
-----
18) UK court blocks extradition of Bosnian ex-leader
ABC News
"A British judge has thwarted an attempt to force former Bosnian
leader Ejup Ganic to stand trial for war crimes in Serbia, blasting
Belgrade's attempt to extradite him as abusive and politically
motivated. Ganic's release ends a five-month-long legal battle that
reignited tensions between the former Balkan foes, who have been
making fitful progress toward reconciliation after the end of the
1992-1995 Bosnian conflict." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26p398t
-----
19) US House to vote on bill to protect guns in bankruptcy cases
Common Dreams
"The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote tomorrow
(Tuesday, July 27) on a bill that would protect guns from the claims
of creditors in bankruptcy proceedings (H.R. 5827). The national gun
violence prevention organizations Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, GunFreeKids.org, Legal
Community Against Violence, Protest Easy Guns, and Violence Policy
Center are adamantly opposed to the legislation." (07/26/10)
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/26-9
-----
20) MO: Woman uses railroad spike in self-defense
KFVS News
"The homeowner didn't have a baseball bat, a gun, or a kitchen knife
handy to defend herself when police say Dover tried to break in, so
she grabbed the first thing she saw; it just happened to be an old
railroad spike! She says she hit Dover once in the head, and it was
enough to keep her and her roommate safe." (07/26/10)
http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=12872982
-----
21) AL: Man shot in self-defense
Troy Messenger
"'It appears at this stage the actions of the shooter were in self
defense,' Anderson said. 'There has been from what I understand a
history of calls (to the police department) from the female in prior
occasions regarding the male.' Anderson said there is a 10-year-old
witness to the crime who confirmed the shooter had been struck by
Jones." (07/26/10)
http://tinyurl.com/27mrq4q
-----
22) Netherlands: Court ends state abduction of 14-year-old sailor
Voice of America
"A Dutch court has cleared the way for a 14-year-old girl's
controversial bid to become the youngest person to sail solo around
the world. In a ruling Tuesday, the court in the city of Middelburg
ordered an end to supervision of Laura Dekker by child care [sic]
authorities. Officials had blocked the teen's earlier sailing plans as
too risky. The judge said it now is up to Dekker's estranged parents
to decide whether the girl can embark on the voyage. Both parents have
expressed support for the mission." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2wds7ez
-----
23) NYC: Bloomberg regime to pay $7 million settlement in police
murder case
New York Times
"Closing a key chapter in one of the most controversial police
shootings in recent memory, New York City agreed on Tuesday to pay
more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the family
of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man who was fatally shot by the
police outside a strip club in Queens on his wedding day in
2006." (07/27/10)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/nyregion/28bell.html
-----
24) UT: Supreme Court overturns Jeffs convictions, orders new trial
CNN
"The Utah Supreme Court has reversed Warren Steed Jeffs' two
convictions on charges of rape as an accomplice and ordered a new
trial, saying that instructions given to jurors were erroneous. Jeffs,
the 'prophet' of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints, or FLDS, was sentenced to two consecutive terms of five
years to life after he was convicted in September 2007. He was accused
of using his religious influence over his followers to coerce a 14-
year-old girl into marrying her 19-year-old cousin." (07/27/10)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/27/utah.polygamy.ruling/
-----
25) Blagojevich lawyer: Government didn't prove case
MSNBC
"Rod Blagojevich is insecure, he talks a lot and he's a bad judge of
character -- but he is not a criminal, the ousted Illinois governor's
defense attorney told jurors at his corruption trial Tuesday during a
theatrical closing argument. Sam Adam Jr. told jurors right as he
began that he did not call Blagojevich to testify, as he had promised
when the trial started, because the government did not prove its
case. ... 'I had no idea that in two and a half months of trial that
they'd prove nothing. ... They want you, you and you to convict him'
with no evidence, he yelled, moving along the jury box and pointing to
individual jurors." (07/27/10)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38434086/ns/politics/
*******************************************************************
* HEALTH-OF-THE-STATE-O-METER, 07/28/10
*
* Reported Civilian Deaths in Iraq: Min - 97,129 ... Max - 105,977
* (source: www.iraqbodycount.org)
*
* American Military Deaths in Iraq: 4,413
* (source: www.antiwar.com/casualties/)
*******************************************************************
****************************
* Everybody Has An Opinion
****************************
26) Why is the antiwar movement stalled?
AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo
"A recent gathering of the remnants of the antiwar movement, sponsored
by something calling itself the United National Antiwar Conference,
underscores the reasons why there is almost no effective organized
opposition to the present administration's occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan. One has only to look at the conference program to see why
the antiwar movement remains marginal, at best: a keynote address by
perennial leftist icon Noam Chomsky, who was paired with Donna Dewitt,
a left-wing labor official, and also featuring workshops -- reflecting
some of their primary concerns -- on 'Health Care is a Human Right,'
'Deepening the Base & Building Bridges between the Climate Change,
Peace & Economic Justice Movements,' and -- most telling of all --
'The Rise of Right Wing Populism & the Tea Party: Do We Need a Right-
Left Coalition?' That this question is in dispute tells us how
misguided, and out of it, these people are. It also shows how immoral
and narcissistic they are: while Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis are
being blown to bits, they are wondering whether we ought to be
building a broad-based movement that transcends their petty sectarian
concerns, or whether what passes for the antiwar movement should be
their own personal sandbox." (07/28/10)
http://tinyurl.com/28ph2q2
-----
27) Yes, this is a litmus test
KN@PPSTER
by Thomas L. Knapp
"If you support private property rights and freedom of religion, you
may be a libertarian. If you don't support private property rights and
freedom of religion, you aren't a libertarian. Period." (07/27/10)
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2010/07/yes-this-is-litmus-test.html
-----
28) My next career move: Professional rent-seeker
Show-Me Institute
by Christine Harbin
"It may be time for a career change for me. Although I enjoy working
at the Show-Me Institute very much, I am beginning to think that I
would be better off if I became CEO of a mega-corporation and tilted
the playing field to my favor with the help of my friends in Jefferson
City. I will attempt to have more benefits concentrated on me, and
more costs diffused away from me. As the first part of my strategy, I
would hire a team of lobbyists in order to enact rules and regulations
that discriminate against products from other states that compete with
mine. If I could keep firms from other states from entering Missouri,
I would not have to work as hard to compete with them." (07/26/10)
http://www.showmedaily.org/2010/07/my-next-career-move.html
-----
29) The myth of the common good
The Partial Observer
by James Leroy Wilson
"What if the paleolithic diet is best for most people? Maybe three
vegetables a day is too much. We've seen this in the War on Drugs as
well. In certain situations, heroin, Ecstasy, marijuana, and LSD can
work miracles as pain relief and/or to treat psychological problems.
Their prohibition forces the drugs onto the black market where those
who need them most will either never get them or be at risk of getting
dangerous, tainted doses. The problem with Tomasky's position is at
the root: there is no 'common good.' There is no value that can be
objectively discerned and universally applicable to
everyone." (07/27/10)
http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3494
-----
30) Good news, bad news
Liberty For All
by Lady Liberty
"Some of you know that I used to work in the news media. Maybe it's
that insider viewpoint that makes it especially disgusting to me when
I see the state of journalism -- and I use the term loosely -- today.
It wasn't so very long ago that news was news, editorials were
editorials, and the line between the two was both clear and
sacrosanct. Today, there are times I'm hard pressed to tell the
difference." (07/27/10)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=4604
-----
31) The TSA's Port-o-Porns: Ogling you everywhere, not just at
airports
LewRockwell.Com
by Becky Akers
"The TSA already invades 'the Nation's transportation systems' with
its 'VIPR [Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response] Teams.' In New
York City, they 'assist' the NYPD 'in random bag searches in the
subway.' No love's lost between 'real' cops and the TSA's Barney
Fifes, but I predict brotherly cooperation once Barney lugs the Port-O-
Porn down the D-train's steps to catch all the secretaries and
receptionists -- sorry, terrorists commuting to work. How long before
bureaucrats at other agencies envy the Warriors on Terror their fun?
Will it be one nanosecond or two before their union demands the same
'benefits' for them? Expect the Port-O-Porns to pop up in DMV's,
Social Security's offices, public schools and universities, the
hospitals and banks that our rulers are nationalizing, courthouses and
police precincts." (07/28/10)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers130.html
-----
32) Anarchists at the Tea Parties "want to kill us all in public
office?"
Center for a Stateless Society
by Ross Kenyon
"How would the NAACP respond if a politician or other public figure
had said this about all black people? Recently, US Representative John
Boehner (R-OH) odiously mischaracterized anarchist philosophy and
painted an inaccurate portrait of its core values, saying that at Tea
Party events there are 'Always a couple of anarchists who want to kill
all of us in public office.' Anarchism is an ideology based on
individual freedom and opposition to institutionalized aggression, not
on some insane love of public mayhem." (07/27/10)
http://c4ss.org/content/3279
-----
33) Ready to work for political change you can count on?
Christian Science Monitor
by Tom De Luca
"Two years ago, Barack Obama electrified the nation with a promise of
'change we can believe in.' That was the wrong pledge. Americans need
far more than change we can believe in. We need change we can count
on. And the only kind of change we can really count on is change that
empowers us to count on ourselves. Yet a program for that kind of
change is nowhere to be found on the American political agenda. The
best hope average citizens have to fight for their interests and
beliefs is to take back the institutions of representative government.
Our most important problem isn't the size of government -- it is how
to achieve governance that's far more democratic." [editor's note: And
knocking some or all of the imperialist oligarchs who run the show now
onto their respective keisters ... is a good start - SAT] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2aa4ofh
-----
34) Shouldn't high unemployment = less work to do?
Our Future Blog
by Dave Johnson
"Simple question: have we reached a point where machines and computers
leave us with less work to do? If so it can mean a lot of people are
left without jobs and incomes, losing their homes and health, while
the rest have our wages dragged ever downward. Or we can make some
changes in who gets what for what, and every one of us ends up better
off. Cake or death? Which will it be? ... Somewhere around one in five
of us is un- or under-employed while at the same time so many of the
rest of us, still employed are stressed, tired, doing the work of
those laid off. With too few employed many stores, restaurants, hotels
and many other businesses are falling behind." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2erbzdt
-----
35) US nuke plants: Old & incontinent
In These Times
by Terry J. Allen
"America's nuclear power plants are more incontinent than a
nonagenarian with an enlarged prostate. Given the industry's long
record of leaks, fires, rust-outs and lax oversight, catastrophic
failure at one of the aging nuclear power plants is a real
possibility. If a major accident occurred, the resulting millennia-
long radiological devastation would make the oil-devastated Gulf look
like an organic garden." [editor's note: Add the fact that thanks to
Price-Anderson, a disaster around any of these rotting hulks would not
even pay its victims properly ... and you begin to wonder how anyone,
left or right, would fall for this scam - SAT] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/27ab2lt
-----
36) The great wind power bait and switch
Boston Globe
by David G. Tuerck & Jonathan Haughton
"How much are you willing to pay for green energy? Almost any
ratepayer would say that if the electric utilities could obtain a
significant amount of their power from a renewable source, and do so
without raising rates, then that would be a good deal. It would
certainly appear to be a good deal if they could obtain the power and
at the same time reduce their rates. For years Cape Wind Associates,
which plans to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, told us
that it could supply renewable energy to the New England market and
save ratepayers $25 million a year. ... Now we learn, however, that
ratepayers will pay more for their electricity if Cape Wind builds and
goes online." (07/28/10)
http://tinyurl.com/27zgw9u
-----
37) Scare tactics
The American Prospect
by Paul Waldman
"What we're seeing now isn't racism; it's race-baiting. ... The latest
installment in our never-ending 'conversation' about race is underway,
thanks to the Shirley Sherrod affair. But before we get to the week's
developments, a bit of history. In June of 1988, George H.W. Bush
started telling a very scary story about his opponent, Michael
Dukakis. Or rather, not so much about Dukakis, but about a man named
Willie Horton. Horton, a prisoner in Massachusetts, had skipped from a
furlough while Dukakis was governor and victimized a young couple,
raping the woman and assaulting the man. There were some key points of
the story Bush left out: The furlough program had been started by
Dukakis' Republican predecessor, and Dukakis had ended it, for
instance." (07/27/10)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=scare_tactics
-----
38) Could WikiLeaks offer a way out of war?
The Nation
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
"The war in Afghanistan just got a little foggier -- or a little more
transparent, depending on how you choose to see the weekend's 92,000-
item document dump courtesy of Wikileaks. As London's Guardian
editorialized, 'These war logs ... show a conflict that is brutally
messy, confused and immediate. It is in some contrast with the tidied-
up and sanitised 'public' war, as glimpsed through official
communiques as well as the necessarily limited snapshots of embedded
reporting.' The futility and frustration illustrated in these
documents should provide a fairly wide opening for a much-needed 'what
are we doing there, anyway?' debate." (07/27/10)
http://www.thenation.com/blog/37962/could-wikileaks-offer-way-out-war
-----
39) The Afghan war leaks don't tell us the truth
Spiked
by Brendan O'Neill
"So we finally know the truth about the Afghan War, do we, courtesy of
the 90,000 leaked military documents simultaneously revealed by the UK
Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel? Rubbish. Truth is not
something that is handed to us on a silver platter by know-it-all
whistleblowers. It is something we discover for ourselves through a
process of critical investigation and by quizzing and querying
received wisdoms. The media's pant-wetting excitement about these
leaked documents only shows what a parlous state journalism is in, and
how much journalists have become the passive recipients of information
rather than active seekers of the truth." (07/27/10)
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9348/
-----
40) Down to the last trillion
Information Clearinghouse
by Paul Craig Roberts
"The White House is screaming like a stuck pig. WikiLeaks' release of
the Afghan War Documents 'puts the lives of our soldiers and our
coalition partners at risk.' What nonsense. Obama's war puts the lives
of American soldiers at risk, and the craven puppet state behavior of
'our partners' in serving as US mercenaries is what puts their troops
at risk. Keep in mind that it was someone in the US military that
leaked the documents to WikiLeaks. This means that there is a spark of
rebellion within the Empire itself." (07/27/10)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26032.htm
-----
41) The Plunderbund's persecution of Phil Hart
Pro Libertate
by Will Grigg
"During his long reign as West Virginia's pompadoured paladin of pork,
Byrd never never faced an ethics inquiry. This is because the
erstwhile Klansman was a dutiful servant of the Plunderbund. By way of
contrast, Idaho state representative Phil Hart finds himself arraigned
before the ethics commisariat because he provoked the hostility of the
tax-extraction bureaucracy." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24o2nsv
-----
42) Worse than Hiroshima?
CounterPunch
by Patrick Cockburn
"Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the
Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004,
exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being
overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects,
ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower
limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did
before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and
insurgents." (07/27/10)
http://counterpunch.org/patrick07272010.html
-----
43) Evil is as evil does
The Libertarian Enterprise
by Jim Davidson
"On the one hand, there are a small number of very wealthy people
making enormous fortunes by selling weapons and ammunition to the
military. The military then goes around the world slaughtering
children. For the last nine years, they have been slaughtering little
children in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and they must
be getting tired of it. Or perhaps they are running out of defenceless
women and children to attack in these places, so they have screwed
their courage to the sticking point and turned their baleful glare to
Costa Rica." (07/25/10)
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle580-20100725-07.html
-----
44) Book Review: With My Rifle by My Side
The Trades
by R.J. Carter
"This hardcover children's book, With My Rifle by My Side, sets out to
be a lesson about the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Told
in rhyme from the perspective of a young hunting enthusiast, author
Kimberly Jo Simac quickly diverts toward homily-centric verse about
God and country and family, leaving very little in the core of the
book about gun use, gun safety, and the right to bear arms.
(Fortunately all that is covered in the appendix.) As the young
narrator describes why fall is his favorite time of year, we watch as
he watches the geese begin to fly south, and joins his father and
younger sister." (07/26/10)
http://www.the-trades.com/article.php?id=12026
-----
45) The unlimited power of suppressing the interest rate
Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Thorsten Polleit
"Under today's fiat-money regimes, central banks, as a rule, control
short-term interest rates. They do so by setting the interest rates on
short-term loans extended to commercial banks (typically with
maturities of one day, one week, two weeks, or one month). By
determining short-term interest rates, a central bank exerts a strong
influence on longer-term interest rates (such as, for instance, 10-
year bond yields)." (07/27/10)
http://mises.org/daily/4573
-----
46) Building a better business climate
Heartland Institute
by Joseph L. Bast
"The latest numbers on unemployment show the nation is still in the
grips of the deepest economic recession since the Great Depression.
Economists are predicting a 'double dip' recession, meaning things may
get worse before they get better. As voters and active citizens, what
should we be asking elected officials to do in order to restore
prosperity to our nation and to our particular cities and
states?" (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26pklsc
-----
47) DISCLOSE Act assault on First Amendment continues
Hawaii Reporter
by Hans von Spakovsky
"The Framers of our Bill of Rights are probably rolling over in their
graves as they contemplate what may be about to happen in the United
States Senate. If Daniel Webster asked 'How stands the Union?' as he
did in the famous story by Stephen Vincent Benet in The Devil and
Daniel Webster, it would be hard to give him the answer he would want.
When members of the United States Congress believe they have the power
to violate the First Amendment with impunity and censor the political
speech of those who they believe should not be able to speak, then the
Union no longer stands 'rock-bottomed and copper sheathed, one and
indivisible.'" (07/26/10)
http://tinyurl.com/25rda5k
-----
48) Government has run amok since 9/11
Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman
"Those who understand the exploitative nature of big government
suspected that the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks had little to do
with the security of the American people and much to do with power and
money. Still, the magnitude of the scam, as revealed by the Washington
Post last week, is astonishing. Naturally, the politicians justify the
growth in intelligence operations on national security grounds. To
make sure such attacks never happen again, they said, new powers,
agencies, personnel, and facilities were imperative." (07/27/10)
http://www.fff.org/comment/com1007j.asp
-----
49) Why are we discussing racism?
Freedom Politics
by Star Parker
"Can anyone tell me why suddenly race is the hot topic of national
discourse? According to Gallup polling of last week, the issues most
on the minds of Americans are the economy and jobs followed by
dissatisfaction with all aspects of government. I didn't notice racism
on the list anywhere. The NAACP says it was 'snookered' by Fox News on
the Shirley Sherrod story. I say we've all been snookered by the
NAACP." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24jhvjm
-----
50) The establishment protection act
Campaign For Liberty
by John Tate
"The so-called DISCLOSE Act currently under consideration in the
Senate is an affront to personal liberties protected under the First
and Ninth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. This knee-jerk reaction
to Citizens United v. FEC constitutes a clear and present danger not
only to the expressly stated freedom of speech listed in the First
Amendment, but to the reasonable expectation of privacy and freedom of
association American citizens have held throughout this country's
proud history." (07/27/10)
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1034
-----
51) Our big-government war on terror
Cato Institute
by Gene Healy
"Guess what happens when you combine a crisis atmosphere with a gusher
of federal funds? You get a dangerous, wealth-gobbling bureaucracy
that fails to achieve its ostensible goal, whether that's better
health care, ending drug abuse -- or uncovering terrorist threats.
That's the lesson of 'Top Secret America,' last week's high-profile
Washington Post series on the post-9/11 'Intelligence-Industrial
Complex.' You'd think a classic story of government overreach and
incompetence would resonate with conservatives, but their reaction was
mostly muted and dismissive." (07/27/10)
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12005
-----
52) Copy fight
Reason
by Greg Beato
"As a freelance writer, I have a predictable attachment to the old-
fashioned idea that content creators should be able to largely call
the shots on how their work is disseminated. And a strong desire to
see those who unfairly appropriate the work of others get their just
deserts. But if the sites Righthaven has sued to date represent the
worst threats to the Review-Journal's ongoing viability, then the
destructive force of copyright infringement has been
overstated." (07/27/10)
http://reason.com/archives/2010/07/27/copy-fight
-----
53) Respect which authorities?
The American Conservative
by Patrick J. Buchanan
"Public confidence in Congress has plummeted to the lowest level of
any institution since Gallup began asking the question in 1973. One-
half of all Americans have little or no confidence in the Congress.
Only 11 percent have a 'great deal' or 'a lot of' confidence in what
is, given its place of primacy in the Constitution, the first branch
of government and the branch most representative of the
people." (07/26/10)
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2010/07/26/authority-earns-respect/
-----
54) The Gulf's invisible villain: Natural gas
Mother Jones
by Kate Sheppard
"Waves thick with crude, tar-slicked beaches, and oil-soddened
wildlife -- it's all visible evidence of the havoc that oil has
wreaked in the Gulf. But marine scientists now fear that colorless,
odorless natural gas that escaped from the ruptured well is also
destroying the delicate ocean ecosystems -- and BP might never be held
accountable for the damage this 'invisible villain'
causes." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/29f8aqc
-----
55) More libertarian bashing from the Groupthink Left
Libertarian News Examiner
by Garry Reed
"Libertarianism has indeed been a single-cultural movement -- the
culture of individual non-coercive freedom. Within that single
cultural ideal all other non-coercive cultural pursuits are possible,
and that makes libertarianism truly multi-cultural as opposed to the
left's fake multi-culturalism, which champions a mono-cultured
coercively established statist collective. Further along Wallis
objects to libertarianism because 'Emphasizing individual rights at
the expense of others violates the common good.' There are, of course,
no rights other than individual rights, making 'the common good' just
another one of those nonexistent lefty feel-good locutions like
'social justice' and 'collective consciousness' that have no actual
meaning in the real world." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2g4d2qj
-----
56) Baked in the cake
The Weekly Standard
by Peter Wehner
"During the 2008 campaign, it was clear that Barack Obama would govern
as a liberal on several important issues. But it seemed possible that,
at least in other areas, he might govern as what he insisted he was:
something of a centrist, pragmatic and reasonable, nonideological and
relatively bipartisan. It was not to be. And it turns out that there
were several moments in the campaign that revealed what an Obama
presidency would be like." (for publication 08/02/10)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/baked-cake
-----
57) Why Kosovo still matters
Slate
by Christopher Hitchens
"The impressive decision last week by the International Court of
Justice in The Hague -- to reject the claim submitted by Serbia that
Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence was unlawful -- was mostly
either ignored or reported in articles festooned with false alarmism
about hypothetical future secessions. Allow this precedent, moaned
many, and what is to stop, say, Catalonia from breaking away? This
line of thinking is wrong twice." (07/26/10)
http://www.slate.com/id/2261779/
-----
58) Wikileaks, resistance, genuine heroes, and breaking the goddamned
rules, part 1
The Power of Narrative
by Arthur Silber
"At the age of 22, Bradley Manning has attained a moral stature most
people never reach in an entire lifetime. He came to understand the
unforgivable brutality and horror of what the U.S. government is
doing, and he sought to stop it in any way he could. He wanted to do
the right thing, he 'wanted people held accountable,' and he wanted to
make sure 'this didn't happen again.' This is the man the U.S.
government now seeks to destroy. Bradley Manning is a remarkable hero,
but most of us will not acknowledge the heroes who appear in our
lives." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26ljvr8
-----
59) The no-matter-what tax increase
National Review
by Rich Lowry
"The Democrats figure they can tag Republicans who oppose the
expiration of the tax cuts as deficit-hypocrites, even after running
up $1.47 trillion in red ink this year. In the recent fight over
extending unemployment benefits, the GOP wanted to pay for them, while
Democrats insisted on adding another $35 billion to the deficit, and
prevailed. Despite the scorn they heap on the 'Bush tax cuts,'
Democrats want to extend the vast majority of them on the middle
class, at a ten-year cost [sic] of $1.5 trillion." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/3a996sh
-----
60) A lopsided warning
A Passion for Liberty
by Tibor R. Machan
"The president of the AAUP -- American Association of University
Professors -- issued a lengthy declaration warning the membership
against getting involved with BP, the giant oil company whose
operations have gone awry in the Gulf of Mexico and whose management
is suspected of numerous failures and malpractices that have lead to
the disaster in the Gulf. Of course, this, like some other high
visible corporate infelicities have provoked innumerable people,
pundits, government officials, bureaucrats, and, of course, most of
all the cheerleaders of extensive government regulation of business,
to chime in with a chorus of condemnation not only of BP (way before
any serious scrutiny of its conduct has been carried out) but of big
business itself." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/3af98mf
-----
61) What the Wikileaks tell us about Pakistani loyalties
The New Republic
by Reuel Marc Gerecht
"I am uncertain about which documents released by WikiLeaks should be
believed -- some of the damning information about Pakistani/Taliban/Al
Qaeda ties is so detailed that it suggests either an intelligence
competence that neither the United States nor the Afghan intelligence
service possesses, or a fictive imagination. It also underscores the
anti-Pakistani paranoia that is both understandable and common within
Afghan security and intelligence circles. Understandable because, as
is now well known, though at one time adamantly ignored within the
U.S. government, Pakistan was deeply involved with the Taliban, and
had liaison ties with a variety of Islamic terrorist organizations in
Afghanistan, including Al Qaeda, which co-located some of its training
camps with radical Kashmiri groups favored by former Pakistani
generalissimo, Pervez Musharraf. Yet Mr. Gelb glides over the fact
that Pakistanis themselves, including officers of the much-feared
Inter-Services Intelligence agency and the regular army, have become
victims of official Pakistani support to Islamist groups." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/374lhbj
-----
62) Stay here, there's something to see ...
The Libertarian Alliance
by Christopher Houseman
"The nature of legal/judicial 'business as usual' in the British state
is plain to see. G.K. Chesterton's criticism that the British
governing class invariably omits itself from the laws it passes
remains at least as true today as it was when Chesterton pointed it
out no later than 1909. Nostalgic supporters of the rule of law here
in the UK are badly in need of a large pinch of salt." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/338zb52
-----
63) Growing health crisis in the Gulf
Freedom's Phoenix
by Stephen Lendman
"Besides other toxins, crude oil contains benzene, in even small
amounts associated with leukemia, Hodgkin's Lymphoma, other serious
blood and immune system diseases, ventricular fibrillation, congestive
gastritis, toxic gastritis, pyloric stenosis, myalgia, kidney damage,
skin irritation and burns, swelling and edema, vascular congestion in
the brain, and lethal central nervous system depression among others,
depending on length and degree of exposure. The EPA's safe level is 4
parts per billion (ppb), yet Gulf levels reach or top 3,000, smelled
hundreds of miles away, meaning residents inhaling fumes are ingesting
dangerous toxins, raising their risk for serious future health
problems, some potentially lethal." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/27uftzd
-----
64) How to regulate banks
Adam Smith Institute
by Dr. Eamonn Butler
"I may not be a banking expert -- I put my money into IceSave -- but
the solutions seem clear to me. Bring market principles back into
banking. Don't regulate with FSA tick-boxes, which just raise costs
and so reduce competition. Regulate with chunky reserve requirements
and forget the rest. Have even chunkier requirements on the bigger
institutions which pose the biggest systemic risk. Don't try to
legislate the structure of banks, but make them tell their customers
how safe, or otherwise, their money is. And let's have sound money, so
politicians can't get us into the same boom-bust cycles
again." (07/27/10)
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/how-to-regulate-banks/
-----
65) Was the American Revolution just?
The American Spectator
by Mark Tooley
"Americans of all stripes recently celebrated our country's 234th
birthday. But it is fashionable by some on the Religious Left to
discredit the American Revolution as primarily the selfish reaction
against reasonable taxation. In their eyes, the original Tea Partiers
of 1773 are as offensive and today's Tea Party rebels against big
government. And since the Iraq War, if not before, the Religious Left
has tried to reinterpret traditional Just War criteria into impossibly
stratospheric standards, so that no war can ever be moral. Just War
teaching thereby becomes a reflexive rebuke to all force, rather than
a careful reasoning tool." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26pqngg
-----
66) Your master's voice ...
Center for a Stateless Society
by Thomas L. Knapp
"Kay Granger doesn't give a damn about 'risking American lives.' She
does so with abandon. She does so with presumed impunity. She does so
without visible skepticism or self-doubt. And the blood of thousands
of Americans stains the floor wherever she walks. She's already killed
more Americans than will ever die due to the Wikileaks document
release. It's not the risk to American lives that has Kay Granger
upset. It's the fact that Wikileaks has outed the actual results of
the policies she -- and a majority of the 534 other US Representatives
and US Senators she works with -- supports and enables." (07/27/10)
http://c4ss.org/content/3271
-----
67) Legislation with benefits
Nolan Chart
by GT Slade
"Whether growers, manufacturers, trade unions, trade associations,
government agencies, or other special interests, all are welcome to
promote self-serving bills. Often they work with lawyers in the
Legislative Counsel's office to write the text, then testify for it
and, of course, throw money around to grease the wheels. Bay Area News
Group discovered $1.2 million in the last session contributed by
sponsors to legislators who introduced their bills. Sponsored bills
are more successful. Nearly half of 1,883 sponsored bills passed in
the last session. Only about 20% of the 2,982 bills with no listed
sponsor became law. Not surprisingly, requirements to disclose when a
private company or group is sponsoring legislation are murky and
inconsistent, with some committees not listing sponsors at
all." (07/27/10)
http://www.nolanchart.com/article7876.html
-----
68) Wikileaks: Time to celebrate, time to mourn
Huffington Post
by Jeff Cohen
"Today, the 'most dangerous man in the world' may be Julian Assange of
WikiLeaks. At least that's how he's seen by the various governments
that have threatened to prosecute him for revealing their secrets. But
as a stateless and office-less news organization operating in
cyberspace, WikiLeaks is almost untouchable. ... This is also a time
to mourn. Because some things don't seem to change -- like endless
war, based on deceit." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/367w93m
-----
69) Fiscal Responsibility Act: Will spending cuts hurt politicians?
Downsize DC
by Jim Babka
"H.R. 4336, the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) would trigger a
Congressional pay cut for every year the federal government runs a
deficit. This is only fair. After all, when the country runs a
deficit, that's proof Congress isn't doing a very good job. The FRA
would give you a personal incentive to get federal spending under
control. In other words, the FRA will force you to DO YOUR JOB
BETTER." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24xc4m6
-----
70) Open Source Ecology: Getting ready to build
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
by Marcin Jakubowski
"[W]e've seen full product release of the open source CEB press, The
Liberator, and we've had significant progress on the open source
tractor, LifeTrac Prototype II. We also deployed the first prototype
of the heavy duty, open source drill press, which we're now using as
part of our fabrication infrastructure. We just reported on Prototype
I of the 150 ton hole puncher. We look forward to using these tools
towards optimizing production runs of The Liberator. We also got the
first working prototype of Hexahatch, the automated chicken incubator,
in operation. Four pips hatched as of now, and we have 70 eggs in
there at present. We also deployed Prototype I of a honey
extractor." (07/26/10)
http://tinyurl.com/248whul
*****************************
* See No Evil, Hear No Evil
*****************************
71) Was classical liberalism a "strife of interests masquerading as a
contest of principles?"
Ludwig von Mises Institute
Mises Institute podcast featuring Jeff Riggenbach. [Silverlight or
MP3] (07/27/10)
http://mises.org/media/5218
-----
72) Cato Daily Podcast, 07/27/10
Cato Institute
"Venezuela's faltering central plan," featuring Juan Carlos Hidalgo.
[MP3] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/cato072710
-----
73) Anarchy & Efficient Law
Let A Thousand Nations Bloom
Talk by David Friedman at the first Mises Brazil Forum. [Flash video]
(posted 06/26/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2c7qlkq
-----
74) Free Talk Live, 06/26/10
Free Talk Live
"Helicopter Slaughter :: Military Sickos :: Exiting the Military ::
Free Staters in New Hampshire :: Crime in the Free Market :: Pvt.
Bradley Manning :: Immigration Crackdown Coming :: Witchcraft :: AZ
Exodus :: Restaurateur Hires Undocumented Workers :: Foreclosures and
Bankruptcy." [MP3] (07/26/10)
http://media.libsyn.com/media/ftl/FTL2010-07-26.mp3
-----
75) Philip Giraldi on Antiwar Radio
AntiWar.Com
"Philip Giraldi, columnist for Antiwar.com, contributing editor at The
American Conservative magazine, contributing writer to the Campaign
for Liberty member of the American Conservative Defense Alliance, the
Council for the National Interest Foundation, discusses the case of
the defection of Sharam Amiri, his low-level expertise in nuclear
matters and access only to rumor about the nuclear program -- which
said that there was no weapons program, Amiri's decision to go home
and the CIA's efforts to burn him by claiming he'd turned over all
kinds of top secret stuff in order to cause him as much trouble as
possible back in Iran, what a low-level asset like that is worth to
the CIA, the new update to the National Intelligence Estimate that
will just spin the same old info to sound worse rather than pushing a
worst-case pile of fake facts like in 2002, the recent Judallah
suicide bombings in Iran and the American role in supporting them and
the tie between the Brazil-Turkey-Iran nuclear deal and the Israeli
raid on the Gaza flotilla." [Flash audio or MP3] (07/25/10)
http://antiwar.com/radio/2010/07/25/philip-giraldi-30/
*************************************
* What's Up In The Freedom Movement
*************************************
76) Today's events
Check our sidebar calendar for this week's freedom movement events.
Don't see your event? Drop us a line at in...@rationalreview.com ... or
see:
www.rationalreview.com/add-your-event-to-our-calendar
... for instructions on adding your events directly!
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/4042/
* RATIONAL REVIEW NEWS DIGEST
* The Freedom Movement's Daily Newspaper
*
* Volume VIII, Issue #1,971
* Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
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* by the staff of Rational Review
*
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In The News:
0) RRND/FND 3rd quarter fundraiser
1) US House passes funding to escalate Afghanistan fiasco, cuts
educrat welfare bucks
2) Obama tries to co-opt Wikileaks Afghanistan material
3) US Senate Republicans block DISCLOSE Act
4) Iraq: Seven killed, 38 wounded
5) Afghanistan: US sailor's body recovered
6) Army begins probe of leaked secret Afghan war files
7) Mexico: Four journalists reported missing
8) Iran will pay for new babies to boost population
9) France declares war on al Qaeda
10) Venezuela: Police nab six Colombian paramilitary suspects
11) Seychelles: 11 Somalis convicted of piracy
12) Congress passes trade bill extending tariff relief
13) Study: Receipts could be harmful to your health
14) Audit: Pentagon mismanaged $2.6 billion in funds for Iraq
15) TN: Lawsuit claims man fired for obeying police during flood
16) CO: Backers of "personhood" measure regroup
17) NH: Nation's oldest running family farm put on market
18) UK court blocks extradition of Bosnian ex-leader
19) US House to vote on bill to protect guns in bankruptcy cases
20) MO: Woman uses railroad spike in self-defense
21) AL: Man shot in self-defense
22) Netherlands: Court ends state abduction of 14-year-old sailor
23) NYC: Bloomberg regime to pay $7 million settlement in police
murder case
24) UT: Supreme Court overturns Jeffs convictions, orders new trial
25) Blagojevich lawyer: Government didn't prove case
Everybody Has An Opinion:
26) Why is the antiwar movement stalled?
27) Yes, this is a litmus test
28) My next career move: Professional rent-seeker
29) The myth of the common good
30) Good news, bad news
31) The TSA's Port-o-Porns: Ogling you everywhere, not just at
airports
32) Anarchists at the Tea Parties "want to kill us all in public
office?"
33) Ready to work for political change you can count on?
34) Shouldn't high unemployment = less work to do?
35) US nuke plants: Old & incontinent
36) The great wind power bait and switch
37) Scare tactics
38) Could WikiLeaks offer a way out of war?
39) The Afghan war leaks don't tell us the truth
40) Down to the last trillion
41) The Plunderbund's persecution of Phil Hart
42) Worse than Hiroshima?
43) Evil is as evil does
44) Book Review: With My Rifle by My Side
45) The unlimited power of suppressing the interest rate
46) Building a better business climate
47) DISCLOSE Act assault on First Amendment continues
48) Government has run amok since 9/11
49) Why are we discussing racism?
50) The establishment protection act
51) Our big-government war on terror
52) Copy fight
53) Respect which authorities?
54) The Gulf's invisible villain: Natural gas
55) More libertarian bashing from the Groupthink Left
56) Baked in the cake
57) Why Kosovo still matters
58) Wikileaks, resistance, genuine heroes, and breaking the goddamned
rules, part 1
59) The no-matter-what tax increase
60) A lopsided warning
61) What the Wikileaks tell us about Pakistani loyalties
62) Stay here, there's something to see ...
63) Growing health crisis in the Gulf
64) How to regulate banks
65) Was the American Revolution just?
66) Your master's voice ...
67) Legislation with benefits
68) Wikileaks: Time to celebrate, time to mourn
69) Fiscal Responsibility Act: Will spending cuts hurt politicians?
70) Open Source Ecology: Getting ready to build
See No Evil, Hear No Evil:
71) Was classical liberalism a "strife of interests masquerading as a
contest of principles?"
72) Cato Daily Podcast, 07/27/10
73) Anarchy & Efficient Law
74) Free Talk Live, 06/26/10
75) Philip Giraldi on Antiwar Radio
What's Up In The Freedom Movement:
76) Today's events
***************
* In The News
***************
0) RRND/FND 3rd quarter fundraiser
Update, 07/28/10: Thanks to CF, whose $15 contribution yesterday
brings our fundraiser total to $1,443.82 ($198 higher than the ChipIn
meter shows due to contributions coming via other avenues)! $639.18 to
go and then we're done with this fundraiser!
Today may be the last day that we publish the email edition of RRND
via Google Groups. We're moving to TrafficWave. If you haven't
received a confirmation message, if you need another one, or if you
aren't an RRND subscriber and want to be, visit:
http://www.trafficwave.net/lcp/rationalreview/rrnd
Several hundred subscribers have confirmed. We'd like to get as many
as possible over before switching systems, but that will happen
absolutely no later than the end of this week, and very likely
tomorrow - TLK
http://www.rationalreview.com/content/83890
-----
1) US House passes funding to escalate Afghanistan fiasco, cuts
educrat welfare bucks
CBS News
"The House is sending to President Barack Obama a bill to fund the
troop surge in Afghanistan after accepting the reality that adding
money for domestic programs was unfeasible. House Democrats
reluctantly voted for the $59 billion measure Tuesday that will pay
for Obama's 30,000-troop surge and other programs such as replenishing
disaster funds. But the bill was stripped of money to keep teachers on
the job or boost student aid. The vote comes a week after the Senate
soundly rejected the larger House-favored bill." (07/27/10)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/27/world/main6718896.shtml
-----
2) Obama tries to co-opt Wikileaks Afghanistan material
Guardian [UK]
"Barack Obama today claimed the disclosures about the mishandling of
the Afghanistan war contained in leaked US military documents
justified his decision to embark on a new strategy. ... His first
public comment on the leaks came as the US army announced a criminal
investigation into their source. Obama chose to play down the leaks'
significance, saying: 'These documents don't reveal any issues that
haven't already informed our public debate on Afghanistan.' But he
went on to say the material highlighted the challenges that led him to
announce a change in strategy late last year that involved sending an
additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan." [editor's note: Even for a
charlatan of Obama's caliber, that whopper is going to be a hard one
to put over - TLK] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/23kalec
-----
3) US Senate Republicans block DISCLOSE Act
Los Angeles Times
"Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a vote on a bill that would
force special interest groups to disclose their donors when purchasing
political ads, defeating an effort to impose new campaign finance
regulations before the November congressional election. As the
Senate's 41 Republicans voted in unison to filibuster the bill,
Democrats vowed to bring the legislation up again." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/25gsn9v
-----
4) Iraq: Seven killed, 38 wounded
AntiWar.Com
"Admiral Mike Mullen arrived in Iraq, where he lauded Iraq's 'stunning
progress' in security over the last three years, while new attacks
left at least seven Iraqis killed and 38 more wounded. Parliament
again delayed meeting thanks to a political impasse that threatens
long-term security." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/23d5blr
-----
5) Afghanistan: US sailor's body recovered
Fox News
"The body of one of the two U.S. sailors missing in Afghanistan has
been found, according to U.S. officials. A NATO press release said
that the body was discovered in Eastern Afghanistan Sunday. U.S.
officials vowed to continue searching for the other missing sailor. A
Taliban spokesman claims insurgents have captured the other sailor --
whom U.S. officials have not identified." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/25v7y9r
-----
6) Army begins probe of leaked secret Afghan war files
USA Today
"The debate over America's longest war was fueled Monday by history's
most massive leak of classified documents. Now, it's a criminal
matter. The Army is leading the Pentagon's inquiry into the source of
leaked classified intelligence logs from the Afghanistan war, said
Marine Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2c8po65
-----
7) Mexico: Four journalists reported missing
USA Today
"Mexico's National Human Rights Commission called on the government
Tuesday to find four Mexican journalists reported missing in or near
the violence-wracked northern state of Durango. The journalists
include two cameramen from the Televisa network, a reporter for
Multimedios television and a reporter for the newspaper El
Vespertino." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2a8vprb
-----
8) Iran will pay for new babies to boost population
MSNBC
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new policy on
Tuesday to encourage population growth, dismissing Iran's decades of
family planning as ungodly and a Western import. The new government
initiative will pay families for every new child and deposit money
into the newborn's bank account until they reach 18, effectively
rolling back years of efforts to boost the economy by reducing the
country's runaway population growth." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2ck26v9
-----
9) France declares war on al Qaeda
Tuscaloosa News
"France has declared war on al-Qaida, and matched its fighting words
with a first attack on a base camp of the terror network's North
African branch, after the terror network killed a French aid worker it
took hostage in April. The declaration and attack marked a shift in
strategy for France, usually discrete about its behind-the-scenes
battle against terrorism." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24n6nl3
-----
10) Venezuela: Police nab six Colombian paramilitary suspects
Southern California Press-Enterprise
"Police apprehended six alleged far-right paramilitary fighters from
Colombia, including a militia leader wanted in the killing of a
Venezuelan mayor near the border with Colombia, authorities said
Tuesday. Johnny Marquez, a federal police investigator in the western
state of Tachira, said officers arrested the militiamen during a sting
operation near the town of La Fria." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24r39ar
-----
11) Seychelles: 11 Somalis convicted of piracy
CNN
"Eleven Somalis convicted of piracy-related crimes are heading to
prison in the island nation of Seychelles, the archipelago's
department of legal affairs said in a press release. The Seychelles'
Supreme Court Monday convicted and sentenced eight of the Somalis for
committing an act of piracy and the other three for aiding and
abetting an act of piracy. Each of the 11 was sentenced to 10 years in
prison, said the statement." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2cea2fr
-----
12) Congress passes trade bill extending tariff relief
Houston Chronicle
"Congress has passed legislation that temporarily reduces or suspends
tariffs on 639 items, mostly components that American manufacturers
use in their production processes. The Miscellaneous Tariff Bill comes
up periodically. On Tuesday it passed the Senate without opposition or
a recorded vote. The bill passed the House last week, and now goes to
the president for his signature." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2dy4p32
-----
13) Study: Receipts could be harmful to your health
AOL News
"Cash-register receipts from many fast-food outlets, groceries,
pharmacies, big-box stores and U.S. post offices contain high levels
of the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A. A study released
late today by the Environmental Working Group reported that a
laboratory analysis it commissioned found the plastic component BPA on
40 percent of receipts from McDonald's, CVS, KFC, Whole Foods, Wal-
Mart, Safeway and other businesses. BPA is used to coat thermal paper,
which reacts with dye to form black print on receipts handled by
millions of Americans every day. In laboratory tests, the chemical has
been linked to a long list of serious health problems in animals.
Several environmental activists, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-
Calif., also have called for removing BPA from canned
goods." [editor's note: Umm ... excuse me, but isn't the main reason
for keeping receipts from purchases ... to use them to offset alleged
"tax liabilities" to the Gestap ... err, IRS? - SAT] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/247oa3w
-----
14) Audit: Pentagon mismanaged $2.6 billion in funds for Iraq
Washington Post
"Because of poor record-keeping and lax oversight, the Defense
Department cannot account for how it spent $2.6 billion that belonged
to the Iraqi government, according to the inspector general for Iraq
reconstruction. An audit of a $9.1 billion fund of Iraqi oil proceeds
showed that most American military agencies entrusted with spending
the money on reconstruction projects failed to adhere to US rules on
how such money must be tracked and spent, the inspector general found.
US officials failed to create bank accounts for $8.7 billion in the
Development Fund for Iraq, as mandated by the Treasury Department,
creating 'breakdowns in controls [that] left the funds vulnerable to
inappropriate uses and undetected loss,' according to the report,
which is scheduled to be released today." [editor's note: So not only
are they imperialist warmongers, they can't even do it well? Are you
still "proud to be an American taxpayer?" - SAT] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2ce3faq
-----
15) TN: Lawsuit claims man fired for obeying police during flood
Tennessean
"An ex-employee is suing a hospital linen delivery company after he
says he was fired for not breaking through police barriers during the
Nashville flood. According to the lawsuit filed last week in Davidson
County Circuit Court, Donald 'Donny' Jones, a supervisor with Shared
Hospital Services, Inc. on Mainstream Drive, said the company's
president ordered him to violate the police roadblocks at MetroCenter
and direct employees to work. The business district north of downtown
had been evacuated for fear that its levee would break. When Jones
expressed hesitation, the president told Jones to tell police that
their work was urgent to sterilize Vanderbilt Hospital surgical
equipment, 'an untruthful statement to suggest a false urgency,'
according to the lawsuit." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26mx569
-----
16) CO: Backers of "personhood" measure regroup
Denver Post
"Supporters of Colorado's proposed constitutional amendment on
'personhood' announced their grass-roots campaign strategy yesterday.
Colorado is the only state in the union with a 2010 ballot proposal to
redefine what a person is. Organizers of Amendment 62 are hoping to
turn their 3-to-1 defeat at the polls in 2008 into constitutional
change. If approved, the measure would define the term 'person' and
rights in the state Constitution 'to apply to every human being from
the beginning of the biological development of that human being.' The
2008 ballot proposal, disapproved by almost 73 percent of Colorado
voters, sought to define personhood as beginning with a fertilized
human egg. Organizer Keith Mason said the 2010 campaign strategy
entails a revolutionary tool called MyCampaignTracker.org. More than
1,300 people have connected to work for Amendment 62." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2e69orw
-----
17) NH: Nation's oldest running family farm put on market
Boston Globe
"Like generations of Tuttles before him, Will Tuttle has spent his
life on the family farm, working its tree-lined acres from seed to
harvest. He learned by the side of his father and grandfather and,
like them, chose to make his living off the land. But after years of
toil and dwindling demand for the crops he produced, the thick-armed
63-year-old has decided the family legacy will end with him. His
landmark property -- passed from father to son since 1632 and billed
as the country's oldest continually operating family farm -- is up for
sale. Yesterday, as he looked over a rolling field that could be in a
brochure for local, sustainable agriculture, Tuttle said that like
many small farms, his had probably seen its best days." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/35szudh
-----
18) UK court blocks extradition of Bosnian ex-leader
ABC News
"A British judge has thwarted an attempt to force former Bosnian
leader Ejup Ganic to stand trial for war crimes in Serbia, blasting
Belgrade's attempt to extradite him as abusive and politically
motivated. Ganic's release ends a five-month-long legal battle that
reignited tensions between the former Balkan foes, who have been
making fitful progress toward reconciliation after the end of the
1992-1995 Bosnian conflict." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26p398t
-----
19) US House to vote on bill to protect guns in bankruptcy cases
Common Dreams
"The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote tomorrow
(Tuesday, July 27) on a bill that would protect guns from the claims
of creditors in bankruptcy proceedings (H.R. 5827). The national gun
violence prevention organizations Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun
Violence, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, GunFreeKids.org, Legal
Community Against Violence, Protest Easy Guns, and Violence Policy
Center are adamantly opposed to the legislation." (07/26/10)
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/07/26-9
-----
20) MO: Woman uses railroad spike in self-defense
KFVS News
"The homeowner didn't have a baseball bat, a gun, or a kitchen knife
handy to defend herself when police say Dover tried to break in, so
she grabbed the first thing she saw; it just happened to be an old
railroad spike! She says she hit Dover once in the head, and it was
enough to keep her and her roommate safe." (07/26/10)
http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=12872982
-----
21) AL: Man shot in self-defense
Troy Messenger
"'It appears at this stage the actions of the shooter were in self
defense,' Anderson said. 'There has been from what I understand a
history of calls (to the police department) from the female in prior
occasions regarding the male.' Anderson said there is a 10-year-old
witness to the crime who confirmed the shooter had been struck by
Jones." (07/26/10)
http://tinyurl.com/27mrq4q
-----
22) Netherlands: Court ends state abduction of 14-year-old sailor
Voice of America
"A Dutch court has cleared the way for a 14-year-old girl's
controversial bid to become the youngest person to sail solo around
the world. In a ruling Tuesday, the court in the city of Middelburg
ordered an end to supervision of Laura Dekker by child care [sic]
authorities. Officials had blocked the teen's earlier sailing plans as
too risky. The judge said it now is up to Dekker's estranged parents
to decide whether the girl can embark on the voyage. Both parents have
expressed support for the mission." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2wds7ez
-----
23) NYC: Bloomberg regime to pay $7 million settlement in police
murder case
New York Times
"Closing a key chapter in one of the most controversial police
shootings in recent memory, New York City agreed on Tuesday to pay
more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the family
of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man who was fatally shot by the
police outside a strip club in Queens on his wedding day in
2006." (07/27/10)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/nyregion/28bell.html
-----
24) UT: Supreme Court overturns Jeffs convictions, orders new trial
CNN
"The Utah Supreme Court has reversed Warren Steed Jeffs' two
convictions on charges of rape as an accomplice and ordered a new
trial, saying that instructions given to jurors were erroneous. Jeffs,
the 'prophet' of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints, or FLDS, was sentenced to two consecutive terms of five
years to life after he was convicted in September 2007. He was accused
of using his religious influence over his followers to coerce a 14-
year-old girl into marrying her 19-year-old cousin." (07/27/10)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/27/utah.polygamy.ruling/
-----
25) Blagojevich lawyer: Government didn't prove case
MSNBC
"Rod Blagojevich is insecure, he talks a lot and he's a bad judge of
character -- but he is not a criminal, the ousted Illinois governor's
defense attorney told jurors at his corruption trial Tuesday during a
theatrical closing argument. Sam Adam Jr. told jurors right as he
began that he did not call Blagojevich to testify, as he had promised
when the trial started, because the government did not prove its
case. ... 'I had no idea that in two and a half months of trial that
they'd prove nothing. ... They want you, you and you to convict him'
with no evidence, he yelled, moving along the jury box and pointing to
individual jurors." (07/27/10)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38434086/ns/politics/
*******************************************************************
* HEALTH-OF-THE-STATE-O-METER, 07/28/10
*
* Reported Civilian Deaths in Iraq: Min - 97,129 ... Max - 105,977
* (source: www.iraqbodycount.org)
*
* American Military Deaths in Iraq: 4,413
* (source: www.antiwar.com/casualties/)
*******************************************************************
****************************
* Everybody Has An Opinion
****************************
26) Why is the antiwar movement stalled?
AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo
"A recent gathering of the remnants of the antiwar movement, sponsored
by something calling itself the United National Antiwar Conference,
underscores the reasons why there is almost no effective organized
opposition to the present administration's occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan. One has only to look at the conference program to see why
the antiwar movement remains marginal, at best: a keynote address by
perennial leftist icon Noam Chomsky, who was paired with Donna Dewitt,
a left-wing labor official, and also featuring workshops -- reflecting
some of their primary concerns -- on 'Health Care is a Human Right,'
'Deepening the Base & Building Bridges between the Climate Change,
Peace & Economic Justice Movements,' and -- most telling of all --
'The Rise of Right Wing Populism & the Tea Party: Do We Need a Right-
Left Coalition?' That this question is in dispute tells us how
misguided, and out of it, these people are. It also shows how immoral
and narcissistic they are: while Afghans, Iraqis, and Pakistanis are
being blown to bits, they are wondering whether we ought to be
building a broad-based movement that transcends their petty sectarian
concerns, or whether what passes for the antiwar movement should be
their own personal sandbox." (07/28/10)
http://tinyurl.com/28ph2q2
-----
27) Yes, this is a litmus test
KN@PPSTER
by Thomas L. Knapp
"If you support private property rights and freedom of religion, you
may be a libertarian. If you don't support private property rights and
freedom of religion, you aren't a libertarian. Period." (07/27/10)
http://knappster.blogspot.com/2010/07/yes-this-is-litmus-test.html
-----
28) My next career move: Professional rent-seeker
Show-Me Institute
by Christine Harbin
"It may be time for a career change for me. Although I enjoy working
at the Show-Me Institute very much, I am beginning to think that I
would be better off if I became CEO of a mega-corporation and tilted
the playing field to my favor with the help of my friends in Jefferson
City. I will attempt to have more benefits concentrated on me, and
more costs diffused away from me. As the first part of my strategy, I
would hire a team of lobbyists in order to enact rules and regulations
that discriminate against products from other states that compete with
mine. If I could keep firms from other states from entering Missouri,
I would not have to work as hard to compete with them." (07/26/10)
http://www.showmedaily.org/2010/07/my-next-career-move.html
-----
29) The myth of the common good
The Partial Observer
by James Leroy Wilson
"What if the paleolithic diet is best for most people? Maybe three
vegetables a day is too much. We've seen this in the War on Drugs as
well. In certain situations, heroin, Ecstasy, marijuana, and LSD can
work miracles as pain relief and/or to treat psychological problems.
Their prohibition forces the drugs onto the black market where those
who need them most will either never get them or be at risk of getting
dangerous, tainted doses. The problem with Tomasky's position is at
the root: there is no 'common good.' There is no value that can be
objectively discerned and universally applicable to
everyone." (07/27/10)
http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3494
-----
30) Good news, bad news
Liberty For All
by Lady Liberty
"Some of you know that I used to work in the news media. Maybe it's
that insider viewpoint that makes it especially disgusting to me when
I see the state of journalism -- and I use the term loosely -- today.
It wasn't so very long ago that news was news, editorials were
editorials, and the line between the two was both clear and
sacrosanct. Today, there are times I'm hard pressed to tell the
difference." (07/27/10)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=4604
-----
31) The TSA's Port-o-Porns: Ogling you everywhere, not just at
airports
LewRockwell.Com
by Becky Akers
"The TSA already invades 'the Nation's transportation systems' with
its 'VIPR [Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response] Teams.' In New
York City, they 'assist' the NYPD 'in random bag searches in the
subway.' No love's lost between 'real' cops and the TSA's Barney
Fifes, but I predict brotherly cooperation once Barney lugs the Port-O-
Porn down the D-train's steps to catch all the secretaries and
receptionists -- sorry, terrorists commuting to work. How long before
bureaucrats at other agencies envy the Warriors on Terror their fun?
Will it be one nanosecond or two before their union demands the same
'benefits' for them? Expect the Port-O-Porns to pop up in DMV's,
Social Security's offices, public schools and universities, the
hospitals and banks that our rulers are nationalizing, courthouses and
police precincts." (07/28/10)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers130.html
-----
32) Anarchists at the Tea Parties "want to kill us all in public
office?"
Center for a Stateless Society
by Ross Kenyon
"How would the NAACP respond if a politician or other public figure
had said this about all black people? Recently, US Representative John
Boehner (R-OH) odiously mischaracterized anarchist philosophy and
painted an inaccurate portrait of its core values, saying that at Tea
Party events there are 'Always a couple of anarchists who want to kill
all of us in public office.' Anarchism is an ideology based on
individual freedom and opposition to institutionalized aggression, not
on some insane love of public mayhem." (07/27/10)
http://c4ss.org/content/3279
-----
33) Ready to work for political change you can count on?
Christian Science Monitor
by Tom De Luca
"Two years ago, Barack Obama electrified the nation with a promise of
'change we can believe in.' That was the wrong pledge. Americans need
far more than change we can believe in. We need change we can count
on. And the only kind of change we can really count on is change that
empowers us to count on ourselves. Yet a program for that kind of
change is nowhere to be found on the American political agenda. The
best hope average citizens have to fight for their interests and
beliefs is to take back the institutions of representative government.
Our most important problem isn't the size of government -- it is how
to achieve governance that's far more democratic." [editor's note: And
knocking some or all of the imperialist oligarchs who run the show now
onto their respective keisters ... is a good start - SAT] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2aa4ofh
-----
34) Shouldn't high unemployment = less work to do?
Our Future Blog
by Dave Johnson
"Simple question: have we reached a point where machines and computers
leave us with less work to do? If so it can mean a lot of people are
left without jobs and incomes, losing their homes and health, while
the rest have our wages dragged ever downward. Or we can make some
changes in who gets what for what, and every one of us ends up better
off. Cake or death? Which will it be? ... Somewhere around one in five
of us is un- or under-employed while at the same time so many of the
rest of us, still employed are stressed, tired, doing the work of
those laid off. With too few employed many stores, restaurants, hotels
and many other businesses are falling behind." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2erbzdt
-----
35) US nuke plants: Old & incontinent
In These Times
by Terry J. Allen
"America's nuclear power plants are more incontinent than a
nonagenarian with an enlarged prostate. Given the industry's long
record of leaks, fires, rust-outs and lax oversight, catastrophic
failure at one of the aging nuclear power plants is a real
possibility. If a major accident occurred, the resulting millennia-
long radiological devastation would make the oil-devastated Gulf look
like an organic garden." [editor's note: Add the fact that thanks to
Price-Anderson, a disaster around any of these rotting hulks would not
even pay its victims properly ... and you begin to wonder how anyone,
left or right, would fall for this scam - SAT] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/27ab2lt
-----
36) The great wind power bait and switch
Boston Globe
by David G. Tuerck & Jonathan Haughton
"How much are you willing to pay for green energy? Almost any
ratepayer would say that if the electric utilities could obtain a
significant amount of their power from a renewable source, and do so
without raising rates, then that would be a good deal. It would
certainly appear to be a good deal if they could obtain the power and
at the same time reduce their rates. For years Cape Wind Associates,
which plans to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, told us
that it could supply renewable energy to the New England market and
save ratepayers $25 million a year. ... Now we learn, however, that
ratepayers will pay more for their electricity if Cape Wind builds and
goes online." (07/28/10)
http://tinyurl.com/27zgw9u
-----
37) Scare tactics
The American Prospect
by Paul Waldman
"What we're seeing now isn't racism; it's race-baiting. ... The latest
installment in our never-ending 'conversation' about race is underway,
thanks to the Shirley Sherrod affair. But before we get to the week's
developments, a bit of history. In June of 1988, George H.W. Bush
started telling a very scary story about his opponent, Michael
Dukakis. Or rather, not so much about Dukakis, but about a man named
Willie Horton. Horton, a prisoner in Massachusetts, had skipped from a
furlough while Dukakis was governor and victimized a young couple,
raping the woman and assaulting the man. There were some key points of
the story Bush left out: The furlough program had been started by
Dukakis' Republican predecessor, and Dukakis had ended it, for
instance." (07/27/10)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=scare_tactics
-----
38) Could WikiLeaks offer a way out of war?
The Nation
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
"The war in Afghanistan just got a little foggier -- or a little more
transparent, depending on how you choose to see the weekend's 92,000-
item document dump courtesy of Wikileaks. As London's Guardian
editorialized, 'These war logs ... show a conflict that is brutally
messy, confused and immediate. It is in some contrast with the tidied-
up and sanitised 'public' war, as glimpsed through official
communiques as well as the necessarily limited snapshots of embedded
reporting.' The futility and frustration illustrated in these
documents should provide a fairly wide opening for a much-needed 'what
are we doing there, anyway?' debate." (07/27/10)
http://www.thenation.com/blog/37962/could-wikileaks-offer-way-out-war
-----
39) The Afghan war leaks don't tell us the truth
Spiked
by Brendan O'Neill
"So we finally know the truth about the Afghan War, do we, courtesy of
the 90,000 leaked military documents simultaneously revealed by the UK
Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel? Rubbish. Truth is not
something that is handed to us on a silver platter by know-it-all
whistleblowers. It is something we discover for ourselves through a
process of critical investigation and by quizzing and querying
received wisdoms. The media's pant-wetting excitement about these
leaked documents only shows what a parlous state journalism is in, and
how much journalists have become the passive recipients of information
rather than active seekers of the truth." (07/27/10)
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9348/
-----
40) Down to the last trillion
Information Clearinghouse
by Paul Craig Roberts
"The White House is screaming like a stuck pig. WikiLeaks' release of
the Afghan War Documents 'puts the lives of our soldiers and our
coalition partners at risk.' What nonsense. Obama's war puts the lives
of American soldiers at risk, and the craven puppet state behavior of
'our partners' in serving as US mercenaries is what puts their troops
at risk. Keep in mind that it was someone in the US military that
leaked the documents to WikiLeaks. This means that there is a spark of
rebellion within the Empire itself." (07/27/10)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26032.htm
-----
41) The Plunderbund's persecution of Phil Hart
Pro Libertate
by Will Grigg
"During his long reign as West Virginia's pompadoured paladin of pork,
Byrd never never faced an ethics inquiry. This is because the
erstwhile Klansman was a dutiful servant of the Plunderbund. By way of
contrast, Idaho state representative Phil Hart finds himself arraigned
before the ethics commisariat because he provoked the hostility of the
tax-extraction bureaucracy." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24o2nsv
-----
42) Worse than Hiroshima?
CounterPunch
by Patrick Cockburn
"Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the
Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004,
exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.
Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being
overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects,
ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower
limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did
before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and
insurgents." (07/27/10)
http://counterpunch.org/patrick07272010.html
-----
43) Evil is as evil does
The Libertarian Enterprise
by Jim Davidson
"On the one hand, there are a small number of very wealthy people
making enormous fortunes by selling weapons and ammunition to the
military. The military then goes around the world slaughtering
children. For the last nine years, they have been slaughtering little
children in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and they must
be getting tired of it. Or perhaps they are running out of defenceless
women and children to attack in these places, so they have screwed
their courage to the sticking point and turned their baleful glare to
Costa Rica." (07/25/10)
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle580-20100725-07.html
-----
44) Book Review: With My Rifle by My Side
The Trades
by R.J. Carter
"This hardcover children's book, With My Rifle by My Side, sets out to
be a lesson about the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Told
in rhyme from the perspective of a young hunting enthusiast, author
Kimberly Jo Simac quickly diverts toward homily-centric verse about
God and country and family, leaving very little in the core of the
book about gun use, gun safety, and the right to bear arms.
(Fortunately all that is covered in the appendix.) As the young
narrator describes why fall is his favorite time of year, we watch as
he watches the geese begin to fly south, and joins his father and
younger sister." (07/26/10)
http://www.the-trades.com/article.php?id=12026
-----
45) The unlimited power of suppressing the interest rate
Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Thorsten Polleit
"Under today's fiat-money regimes, central banks, as a rule, control
short-term interest rates. They do so by setting the interest rates on
short-term loans extended to commercial banks (typically with
maturities of one day, one week, two weeks, or one month). By
determining short-term interest rates, a central bank exerts a strong
influence on longer-term interest rates (such as, for instance, 10-
year bond yields)." (07/27/10)
http://mises.org/daily/4573
-----
46) Building a better business climate
Heartland Institute
by Joseph L. Bast
"The latest numbers on unemployment show the nation is still in the
grips of the deepest economic recession since the Great Depression.
Economists are predicting a 'double dip' recession, meaning things may
get worse before they get better. As voters and active citizens, what
should we be asking elected officials to do in order to restore
prosperity to our nation and to our particular cities and
states?" (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26pklsc
-----
47) DISCLOSE Act assault on First Amendment continues
Hawaii Reporter
by Hans von Spakovsky
"The Framers of our Bill of Rights are probably rolling over in their
graves as they contemplate what may be about to happen in the United
States Senate. If Daniel Webster asked 'How stands the Union?' as he
did in the famous story by Stephen Vincent Benet in The Devil and
Daniel Webster, it would be hard to give him the answer he would want.
When members of the United States Congress believe they have the power
to violate the First Amendment with impunity and censor the political
speech of those who they believe should not be able to speak, then the
Union no longer stands 'rock-bottomed and copper sheathed, one and
indivisible.'" (07/26/10)
http://tinyurl.com/25rda5k
-----
48) Government has run amok since 9/11
Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman
"Those who understand the exploitative nature of big government
suspected that the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks had little to do
with the security of the American people and much to do with power and
money. Still, the magnitude of the scam, as revealed by the Washington
Post last week, is astonishing. Naturally, the politicians justify the
growth in intelligence operations on national security grounds. To
make sure such attacks never happen again, they said, new powers,
agencies, personnel, and facilities were imperative." (07/27/10)
http://www.fff.org/comment/com1007j.asp
-----
49) Why are we discussing racism?
Freedom Politics
by Star Parker
"Can anyone tell me why suddenly race is the hot topic of national
discourse? According to Gallup polling of last week, the issues most
on the minds of Americans are the economy and jobs followed by
dissatisfaction with all aspects of government. I didn't notice racism
on the list anywhere. The NAACP says it was 'snookered' by Fox News on
the Shirley Sherrod story. I say we've all been snookered by the
NAACP." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24jhvjm
-----
50) The establishment protection act
Campaign For Liberty
by John Tate
"The so-called DISCLOSE Act currently under consideration in the
Senate is an affront to personal liberties protected under the First
and Ninth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. This knee-jerk reaction
to Citizens United v. FEC constitutes a clear and present danger not
only to the expressly stated freedom of speech listed in the First
Amendment, but to the reasonable expectation of privacy and freedom of
association American citizens have held throughout this country's
proud history." (07/27/10)
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=1034
-----
51) Our big-government war on terror
Cato Institute
by Gene Healy
"Guess what happens when you combine a crisis atmosphere with a gusher
of federal funds? You get a dangerous, wealth-gobbling bureaucracy
that fails to achieve its ostensible goal, whether that's better
health care, ending drug abuse -- or uncovering terrorist threats.
That's the lesson of 'Top Secret America,' last week's high-profile
Washington Post series on the post-9/11 'Intelligence-Industrial
Complex.' You'd think a classic story of government overreach and
incompetence would resonate with conservatives, but their reaction was
mostly muted and dismissive." (07/27/10)
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12005
-----
52) Copy fight
Reason
by Greg Beato
"As a freelance writer, I have a predictable attachment to the old-
fashioned idea that content creators should be able to largely call
the shots on how their work is disseminated. And a strong desire to
see those who unfairly appropriate the work of others get their just
deserts. But if the sites Righthaven has sued to date represent the
worst threats to the Review-Journal's ongoing viability, then the
destructive force of copyright infringement has been
overstated." (07/27/10)
http://reason.com/archives/2010/07/27/copy-fight
-----
53) Respect which authorities?
The American Conservative
by Patrick J. Buchanan
"Public confidence in Congress has plummeted to the lowest level of
any institution since Gallup began asking the question in 1973. One-
half of all Americans have little or no confidence in the Congress.
Only 11 percent have a 'great deal' or 'a lot of' confidence in what
is, given its place of primacy in the Constitution, the first branch
of government and the branch most representative of the
people." (07/26/10)
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2010/07/26/authority-earns-respect/
-----
54) The Gulf's invisible villain: Natural gas
Mother Jones
by Kate Sheppard
"Waves thick with crude, tar-slicked beaches, and oil-soddened
wildlife -- it's all visible evidence of the havoc that oil has
wreaked in the Gulf. But marine scientists now fear that colorless,
odorless natural gas that escaped from the ruptured well is also
destroying the delicate ocean ecosystems -- and BP might never be held
accountable for the damage this 'invisible villain'
causes." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/29f8aqc
-----
55) More libertarian bashing from the Groupthink Left
Libertarian News Examiner
by Garry Reed
"Libertarianism has indeed been a single-cultural movement -- the
culture of individual non-coercive freedom. Within that single
cultural ideal all other non-coercive cultural pursuits are possible,
and that makes libertarianism truly multi-cultural as opposed to the
left's fake multi-culturalism, which champions a mono-cultured
coercively established statist collective. Further along Wallis
objects to libertarianism because 'Emphasizing individual rights at
the expense of others violates the common good.' There are, of course,
no rights other than individual rights, making 'the common good' just
another one of those nonexistent lefty feel-good locutions like
'social justice' and 'collective consciousness' that have no actual
meaning in the real world." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2g4d2qj
-----
56) Baked in the cake
The Weekly Standard
by Peter Wehner
"During the 2008 campaign, it was clear that Barack Obama would govern
as a liberal on several important issues. But it seemed possible that,
at least in other areas, he might govern as what he insisted he was:
something of a centrist, pragmatic and reasonable, nonideological and
relatively bipartisan. It was not to be. And it turns out that there
were several moments in the campaign that revealed what an Obama
presidency would be like." (for publication 08/02/10)
http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/baked-cake
-----
57) Why Kosovo still matters
Slate
by Christopher Hitchens
"The impressive decision last week by the International Court of
Justice in The Hague -- to reject the claim submitted by Serbia that
Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence was unlawful -- was mostly
either ignored or reported in articles festooned with false alarmism
about hypothetical future secessions. Allow this precedent, moaned
many, and what is to stop, say, Catalonia from breaking away? This
line of thinking is wrong twice." (07/26/10)
http://www.slate.com/id/2261779/
-----
58) Wikileaks, resistance, genuine heroes, and breaking the goddamned
rules, part 1
The Power of Narrative
by Arthur Silber
"At the age of 22, Bradley Manning has attained a moral stature most
people never reach in an entire lifetime. He came to understand the
unforgivable brutality and horror of what the U.S. government is
doing, and he sought to stop it in any way he could. He wanted to do
the right thing, he 'wanted people held accountable,' and he wanted to
make sure 'this didn't happen again.' This is the man the U.S.
government now seeks to destroy. Bradley Manning is a remarkable hero,
but most of us will not acknowledge the heroes who appear in our
lives." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26ljvr8
-----
59) The no-matter-what tax increase
National Review
by Rich Lowry
"The Democrats figure they can tag Republicans who oppose the
expiration of the tax cuts as deficit-hypocrites, even after running
up $1.47 trillion in red ink this year. In the recent fight over
extending unemployment benefits, the GOP wanted to pay for them, while
Democrats insisted on adding another $35 billion to the deficit, and
prevailed. Despite the scorn they heap on the 'Bush tax cuts,'
Democrats want to extend the vast majority of them on the middle
class, at a ten-year cost [sic] of $1.5 trillion." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/3a996sh
-----
60) A lopsided warning
A Passion for Liberty
by Tibor R. Machan
"The president of the AAUP -- American Association of University
Professors -- issued a lengthy declaration warning the membership
against getting involved with BP, the giant oil company whose
operations have gone awry in the Gulf of Mexico and whose management
is suspected of numerous failures and malpractices that have lead to
the disaster in the Gulf. Of course, this, like some other high
visible corporate infelicities have provoked innumerable people,
pundits, government officials, bureaucrats, and, of course, most of
all the cheerleaders of extensive government regulation of business,
to chime in with a chorus of condemnation not only of BP (way before
any serious scrutiny of its conduct has been carried out) but of big
business itself." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/3af98mf
-----
61) What the Wikileaks tell us about Pakistani loyalties
The New Republic
by Reuel Marc Gerecht
"I am uncertain about which documents released by WikiLeaks should be
believed -- some of the damning information about Pakistani/Taliban/Al
Qaeda ties is so detailed that it suggests either an intelligence
competence that neither the United States nor the Afghan intelligence
service possesses, or a fictive imagination. It also underscores the
anti-Pakistani paranoia that is both understandable and common within
Afghan security and intelligence circles. Understandable because, as
is now well known, though at one time adamantly ignored within the
U.S. government, Pakistan was deeply involved with the Taliban, and
had liaison ties with a variety of Islamic terrorist organizations in
Afghanistan, including Al Qaeda, which co-located some of its training
camps with radical Kashmiri groups favored by former Pakistani
generalissimo, Pervez Musharraf. Yet Mr. Gelb glides over the fact
that Pakistanis themselves, including officers of the much-feared
Inter-Services Intelligence agency and the regular army, have become
victims of official Pakistani support to Islamist groups." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/374lhbj
-----
62) Stay here, there's something to see ...
The Libertarian Alliance
by Christopher Houseman
"The nature of legal/judicial 'business as usual' in the British state
is plain to see. G.K. Chesterton's criticism that the British
governing class invariably omits itself from the laws it passes
remains at least as true today as it was when Chesterton pointed it
out no later than 1909. Nostalgic supporters of the rule of law here
in the UK are badly in need of a large pinch of salt." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/338zb52
-----
63) Growing health crisis in the Gulf
Freedom's Phoenix
by Stephen Lendman
"Besides other toxins, crude oil contains benzene, in even small
amounts associated with leukemia, Hodgkin's Lymphoma, other serious
blood and immune system diseases, ventricular fibrillation, congestive
gastritis, toxic gastritis, pyloric stenosis, myalgia, kidney damage,
skin irritation and burns, swelling and edema, vascular congestion in
the brain, and lethal central nervous system depression among others,
depending on length and degree of exposure. The EPA's safe level is 4
parts per billion (ppb), yet Gulf levels reach or top 3,000, smelled
hundreds of miles away, meaning residents inhaling fumes are ingesting
dangerous toxins, raising their risk for serious future health
problems, some potentially lethal." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/27uftzd
-----
64) How to regulate banks
Adam Smith Institute
by Dr. Eamonn Butler
"I may not be a banking expert -- I put my money into IceSave -- but
the solutions seem clear to me. Bring market principles back into
banking. Don't regulate with FSA tick-boxes, which just raise costs
and so reduce competition. Regulate with chunky reserve requirements
and forget the rest. Have even chunkier requirements on the bigger
institutions which pose the biggest systemic risk. Don't try to
legislate the structure of banks, but make them tell their customers
how safe, or otherwise, their money is. And let's have sound money, so
politicians can't get us into the same boom-bust cycles
again." (07/27/10)
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/how-to-regulate-banks/
-----
65) Was the American Revolution just?
The American Spectator
by Mark Tooley
"Americans of all stripes recently celebrated our country's 234th
birthday. But it is fashionable by some on the Religious Left to
discredit the American Revolution as primarily the selfish reaction
against reasonable taxation. In their eyes, the original Tea Partiers
of 1773 are as offensive and today's Tea Party rebels against big
government. And since the Iraq War, if not before, the Religious Left
has tried to reinterpret traditional Just War criteria into impossibly
stratospheric standards, so that no war can ever be moral. Just War
teaching thereby becomes a reflexive rebuke to all force, rather than
a careful reasoning tool." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/26pqngg
-----
66) Your master's voice ...
Center for a Stateless Society
by Thomas L. Knapp
"Kay Granger doesn't give a damn about 'risking American lives.' She
does so with abandon. She does so with presumed impunity. She does so
without visible skepticism or self-doubt. And the blood of thousands
of Americans stains the floor wherever she walks. She's already killed
more Americans than will ever die due to the Wikileaks document
release. It's not the risk to American lives that has Kay Granger
upset. It's the fact that Wikileaks has outed the actual results of
the policies she -- and a majority of the 534 other US Representatives
and US Senators she works with -- supports and enables." (07/27/10)
http://c4ss.org/content/3271
-----
67) Legislation with benefits
Nolan Chart
by GT Slade
"Whether growers, manufacturers, trade unions, trade associations,
government agencies, or other special interests, all are welcome to
promote self-serving bills. Often they work with lawyers in the
Legislative Counsel's office to write the text, then testify for it
and, of course, throw money around to grease the wheels. Bay Area News
Group discovered $1.2 million in the last session contributed by
sponsors to legislators who introduced their bills. Sponsored bills
are more successful. Nearly half of 1,883 sponsored bills passed in
the last session. Only about 20% of the 2,982 bills with no listed
sponsor became law. Not surprisingly, requirements to disclose when a
private company or group is sponsoring legislation are murky and
inconsistent, with some committees not listing sponsors at
all." (07/27/10)
http://www.nolanchart.com/article7876.html
-----
68) Wikileaks: Time to celebrate, time to mourn
Huffington Post
by Jeff Cohen
"Today, the 'most dangerous man in the world' may be Julian Assange of
WikiLeaks. At least that's how he's seen by the various governments
that have threatened to prosecute him for revealing their secrets. But
as a stateless and office-less news organization operating in
cyberspace, WikiLeaks is almost untouchable. ... This is also a time
to mourn. Because some things don't seem to change -- like endless
war, based on deceit." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/367w93m
-----
69) Fiscal Responsibility Act: Will spending cuts hurt politicians?
Downsize DC
by Jim Babka
"H.R. 4336, the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) would trigger a
Congressional pay cut for every year the federal government runs a
deficit. This is only fair. After all, when the country runs a
deficit, that's proof Congress isn't doing a very good job. The FRA
would give you a personal incentive to get federal spending under
control. In other words, the FRA will force you to DO YOUR JOB
BETTER." (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/24xc4m6
-----
70) Open Source Ecology: Getting ready to build
Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism
by Marcin Jakubowski
"[W]e've seen full product release of the open source CEB press, The
Liberator, and we've had significant progress on the open source
tractor, LifeTrac Prototype II. We also deployed the first prototype
of the heavy duty, open source drill press, which we're now using as
part of our fabrication infrastructure. We just reported on Prototype
I of the 150 ton hole puncher. We look forward to using these tools
towards optimizing production runs of The Liberator. We also got the
first working prototype of Hexahatch, the automated chicken incubator,
in operation. Four pips hatched as of now, and we have 70 eggs in
there at present. We also deployed Prototype I of a honey
extractor." (07/26/10)
http://tinyurl.com/248whul
*****************************
* See No Evil, Hear No Evil
*****************************
71) Was classical liberalism a "strife of interests masquerading as a
contest of principles?"
Ludwig von Mises Institute
Mises Institute podcast featuring Jeff Riggenbach. [Silverlight or
MP3] (07/27/10)
http://mises.org/media/5218
-----
72) Cato Daily Podcast, 07/27/10
Cato Institute
"Venezuela's faltering central plan," featuring Juan Carlos Hidalgo.
[MP3] (07/27/10)
http://tinyurl.com/cato072710
-----
73) Anarchy & Efficient Law
Let A Thousand Nations Bloom
Talk by David Friedman at the first Mises Brazil Forum. [Flash video]
(posted 06/26/10)
http://tinyurl.com/2c7qlkq
-----
74) Free Talk Live, 06/26/10
Free Talk Live
"Helicopter Slaughter :: Military Sickos :: Exiting the Military ::
Free Staters in New Hampshire :: Crime in the Free Market :: Pvt.
Bradley Manning :: Immigration Crackdown Coming :: Witchcraft :: AZ
Exodus :: Restaurateur Hires Undocumented Workers :: Foreclosures and
Bankruptcy." [MP3] (07/26/10)
http://media.libsyn.com/media/ftl/FTL2010-07-26.mp3
-----
75) Philip Giraldi on Antiwar Radio
AntiWar.Com
"Philip Giraldi, columnist for Antiwar.com, contributing editor at The
American Conservative magazine, contributing writer to the Campaign
for Liberty member of the American Conservative Defense Alliance, the
Council for the National Interest Foundation, discusses the case of
the defection of Sharam Amiri, his low-level expertise in nuclear
matters and access only to rumor about the nuclear program -- which
said that there was no weapons program, Amiri's decision to go home
and the CIA's efforts to burn him by claiming he'd turned over all
kinds of top secret stuff in order to cause him as much trouble as
possible back in Iran, what a low-level asset like that is worth to
the CIA, the new update to the National Intelligence Estimate that
will just spin the same old info to sound worse rather than pushing a
worst-case pile of fake facts like in 2002, the recent Judallah
suicide bombings in Iran and the American role in supporting them and
the tie between the Brazil-Turkey-Iran nuclear deal and the Israeli
raid on the Gaza flotilla." [Flash audio or MP3] (07/25/10)
http://antiwar.com/radio/2010/07/25/philip-giraldi-30/
*************************************
* What's Up In The Freedom Movement
*************************************
76) Today's events
Check our sidebar calendar for this week's freedom movement events.
Don't see your event? Drop us a line at in...@rationalreview.com ... or
see:
www.rationalreview.com/add-your-event-to-our-calendar
... for instructions on adding your events directly!
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/group/4042/
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