Rational Review News Digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Published Monday-Friday, except for holidays Made possible by the generous support of our readers http://www.rationalreview.com/news
Produced in cooperation with the International Society for Individual Liberty http://www.isil.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume IV, Issue #850 Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 Email Circulation 2,044 ------ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS -------------------------------------- VERTORO HELPS YOU BEAT HYPERINFLATION Join the move to better money. Go from green to gold! http://vertoro.com/ TOM PAINE MARU The first UNCENSORED edition of L. Neil Smith's classic novel. http://www.lneilsmith.org/tpm-2005.html WINNING ELECTIONS "[A]n advanced guide to running political campaigns. It provides invaluable, practical advice from the leading pros in the industry." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590770269/rationalrev08-20 -------------------------------------- SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS ----- Today's News: 1) Iraq: US soldier, others killed in attacks 2) India: City shuts down after bombings 3) 280 congresscritters repudiate oaths of office 4) VT: IRV brings third party mayoral victory 5) TX: DeLay wins four-way nomination fight 6) CA: Deputy to be charged in shooting 7) Google lets slip talk of online storage service 8) Enron's Fastow "juiced" books 9) Senate eyes ANWR again 10) What ever happened to the civil liberties board? 11) House GOP to try to block ports deal 12) GOP senators propose repeal of 4th Amendment 13) Lawsuit: Resort let the bedbugs bite 14) Wal-Mart pays bloggers to burnish image 15) CA: Boys' MySpace prank leads to arrest 16) HIV doctor pleads guilty to phony bills 17) Poll: Americans oppose South Dakota abortion law 18) Crackdown on animal-rights activists 19) MA Congressman: Do as I say ... 20) UK: Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep 21) Japan prepares bill to fingerprint foreigners 22) Decades later, Marines hunt Vietnam-era deserters 23) TX: Houston homeowner fatally shoots suspected robber 24) OH: Grandma greets intruders with loaded gun 25) Auschwitz escapee Herskovic dies at 91 Today's Commentary: 26) Sowing the seeds of delusion 27) State of the state 28) Survey says 29) Bush, Chavez and Hitler 30) The problem of thin-skinned politicos 31) Am I a globalist? 32) All-purpose lies 33) When in Rome ... 34) Biddle's pivot 35) The mythology of health care reform 36) Thou shalt not speak ill of Bush 37) Putin's pander 38) The honest Libertarian 39) What the Indian giver got 40) Weaponizing the shark and other Pentagon dreams 41) Uncertainty and its exigencies 42) Public-sector pension crisis worsens 43) Patients vs. paternalism 44) The First Amendment vs. ... "The Simpsons?" 45) The price of overturning Roe v. Wade 46) TN: We can drop food tax with no income tax 47) Making democracy transparent 48) Restoring the melting pot 49) GOP should put "bloody shirt" back in drawer 50) Denouncing Dubai deal won't ensure port security 51) US needs nuclear policy 52) Let's play Jeopardy! 53) As militias arm, civil war threat "recedes" 54) World War $$$ 55) A dazzling smokescreeen? 56) A free press, a free pass 57) Scrolling through your own FBI files Today's Movement News & Events: 58) Angel Shamaya jailed 59) ISIL's 25th World Freedom Summit 60) Petition: Free Cory Maye 61) The Million Moon March 62) Austrian Scholars Conference 2006 Today in Politcal History: 63) "Down with the war! Down with the autocracy!" News 1) Iraq: US soldier, others killed in attacks azcentral.com "A U.S. military patrol and Iraqi police discovered 23 bodies -- many of them handcuffed and strangled -- in various parts of Baghdad, authorities said Wednesday, while bombings, gunfire and other violence claimed at least seven other lives. Among the reported deaths was a U.S. soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb Tuesday near the northwestern city of Tal Afar. Four other soldiers were wounded in the attack, the military said." (03/08/06) http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0308Iraq08-ON.html ----- 2) India: City shuts down after bombings Radio Netherlands [Netherlands] "India's ancient city of Varanasi has been virtually shut down a day after bomb attacks at a Hindu temple and a railway station, which killed at least 20 people. Armed police are on high alert amid fears of sectarian violence. Although no one's claimed responsibility for the blasts, some officials have pointed to Islamic extremists as being to blame. Varanasi is a holy site for India's majority Hindu population and planting a bomb in a temple has caused outrage among Hindus. The first blast on Tuesday evening hit the centuries-old Sankat Mochan temple where hundreds of devotees of the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman had gathered for prayers. The second device went off soon afterwards at one of the city's main railway stations." (03/08/06) http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/ind060308 ----- 3) 280 congresscritters repudiate oaths of office Cincinnati Enquirer "The House renewed the USA Patriot Act in a cliffhanger vote Tuesday night, extending a centerpiece of the war on terrorism at President Bush's urging after months of political combat over the balance between privacy rights and the pursuit of potential terrorists. Bush, forced by filibuster to accept new curbs on law enforcement investigations, is expected to sign the legislation before 16 provisions of the 2001 law expire on Friday." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/jg4gp ----- 4) VT: IRV brings third party mayoral victory Guardian [UK] "Progressive Bob Kiss was elected mayor of Vermont's largest city Tuesday, winning on the second ballot of instant runoff voting under the city's new election system. Kiss, a state representative, received 39 percent of the vote on the first ballot, while Democrat Hinda Miller had 31 percent and Republican Kevin Curley won 26 percent. Curley and two trailing independent candidates were then dropped out of the count and their votes re-allocated according to voters' second choices. Kiss won on the second count, with 4,761 votes to Miller's 3,966. Burlington was being closely watched by advocates of various election reforms." (03/08/06) http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5669954,00.html ----- 5) TX: DeLay wins four-way nomination fight Las Vegas Review-Journal "Rep. Tom DeLay won the GOP nomination to the House on Tuesday, beating three challengers in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader. With 14 percent of precincts reporting, DeLay had 10,005 votes, or 64 percent. His closest challenger, environmental attorney Tom Campbell, had 4,049 votes, or 26 percent." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/mdfbb ----- 6) CA: Deputy to be charged in shooting Chicago Sun-Times "A sheriff's deputy who was videotaped shooting an unarmed Iraq war veteran after a chase will be charged with attempted voluntary manslaughter, authorities said Tuesday. Sheriff Gary Penrod said Deputy Ivory J. Webb, 45, will remain on paid administrative leave during the investigation into the shooting of Air Force Senior Airman Elio Carrion, 21. ... A grainy videotape shot by a bystander showed Carrion on the ground next to the car with Webb standing and pointing at gun at him. A voice appears to order Carrion to rise, but when the airman appears to begin complying, the deputy shoots him three times." (03/08/06) http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-airman08.html ----- 7) Google lets slip talk of online storage service Indian Express [India] "Google Inc is preparing to offer online storage to Web users, creating a mirror image of data stored on consumer hard drives, according to company documents that were mistakenly released on the Web. The existence of the previously rumoured GDrive online storage service surfaced after a blogger discovered apparent notes in a slide presentation by Google executives published on Google's site after its analysts presentation day. ... When asked to confirm plans for a GDrive, a Google spokeswoman declined to comment on any specific service but confirmed that presentation containing the notes had been mistakenly released on the Web." (03/08/06) http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=89164 ----- 8) Enron's Fastow "juiced" books USA Today "The star witness in the government's trial of former Enron CEOs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling began his testimony Tuesday, describing a litany of dubious and secretive deals Enron entered into to hit its earnings targets. Over six hours, Andrew Fastow, the former chief financial officer of Enron, detailed to jurors the Herculean lengths to which the company would go to report steady revenue and profit growth. It didn't matter, he said, that some of these transactions cost Enron tens of millions of dollars in cash upfront, as long as they helped hide billions in debt and losses." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/pb3t4 ----- 9) Senate eyes ANWR again Houston Chronicle "The Senate plans to take up a measure again to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M. said today. Less than three months after failing to attach similar language to a Defense Department spending bill, drilling supporters hope to use a budget bill to permit exploration in the nation's largest, untapped oil deposit." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/hzez5 ----- 10) What ever happened to the civil liberties board? MSNBC/Newsweek "For more than a year, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has been the most invisible office in the White House. Created by Congress in December 2004 as a result of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, the board has never hired a staff or even held a meeting. Next week, NEWSWEEK has learned, that is due to finally change when the board's five members are slated to be sworn in at the White House and convene their first session. Board members tell NEWSWEEK the panel intends to immediately tackle contentious issues like the president's domestic wiretapping program, the Patriot Act and Pentagon data mining. But critics are furious the process has taken this long ..." (for publication 03/13/06) http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11677336/site/newsweek/ ----- 11) House GOP to try to block ports deal Detroit Free Press "House Republican leaders on Tuesday embraced legislation that would block a Dubai-owned company from taking over operations at several U.S. ports, brushing aside a veto threat from President Bush. 'We want to make sure that the security of our ports are in America's hands,' said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., whose House Appropriations Committee planned to approve the measure Wednesday." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/mzv7z ----- 12) GOP senators propose repeal of 4th Amendment CNN "Four Senate Republicans have proposed a bill to provide what one called 'very rigorous oversight' of President Bush's controversial no-warrant domestic surveillance program while also giving it the force of law. Sens. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, all members of the Intelligence Committee, introduced the bill late Tuesday afternoon in an effort to address criticism of the program and reach a compromise." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/mj5dd ----- 13) Lawsuit: Resort let the bedbugs bite CNN "A Chicago booking agent and her husband sued a Catskills resort Tuesday for $20 million, saying her body and mind were scarred after she suffered some 500 bedbug bites while staying at the hotel last summer. Leslie Fox, 54, said she and husband Stephen Cohen never felt the bedbugs bite while sleeping at the 700-room Nevele Hotel in Ellenville, New York." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/ml2de ----- 14) Wal-Mart pays bloggers to burnish image Raw Story "As it tries to burnish a beleaguered image, Wal-Mart is sidestepping the mainstream media -- whose stories traditionally provided the fodder for Web logs -- and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even offering them trips to its headquarters to learn more about the company, the New York Times reports in Tuesday editions, RAW STORY has learned. Among those being paid include Michael Krempasky of RedState.org, which was reported in 2005." (03/06/06) http://tinyurl.com/q2yqh ----- 15) CA: Boys' MySpace prank leads to arrest San Francisco Chronicle "A group of boys who posed as a 15-year-old girl for an Internet prank ended up helping police arrest a 48-year-old man who tried to meet the fictitious teenager for sex, authorities said. The five boys had created a fake profile of a girl on MySpace.com -- a social networking Web site -- to cheer up a friend who had recently broken up with his girlfriend. But soon, a man began sending messages to the 'girl' and their conversations began to have sexual overtones, said Fontana police Sgt. William Megenney. The man also sent the 'girl' his picture and arranged to meet her at a public park. The boys went to the park and, when the man arrived, they called police." [editor's note: The charge is "felony attempted lewd and lascivious conduct with a child" ... even though no "child" even exists! - SAT] (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/jgmno ----- 16) HIV doctor pleads guilty to phony bills Washington Times "A prominent HIV physician in the District yesterday pleaded guilty in a scheme to submit phony Medicare bills in which he claimed he gave a one-time heart attack drug to a single patient more than 100 times. Larry M. Bruni, 54, faces more than a year in prison when sentenced in May. He told a federal judge that he questioned but never investigated the legitimacy of his office's pattern of Medicare billings from 2001 to 2003. 'It struck me as an awful lot of money for the work I'd been doing lately,' Bruni told U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton. More than $150,000 for bogus services landed in bank accounts under Bruni's name, and the money was used to pay his rent, utilities and personal expenses, according to prosecutors. In the 1980s, Bruni forged a reputation as one of the District's most outspoken and aggressive HIV doctors, well known for his clinical trials, according to local HIV/AIDS advocates." (03/07/06) http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20060306-111617-8326r.htm ----- 17) Poll: Americans oppose South Dakota abortion law Fox News "A majority of Americans say they would oppose having a law in their state like the new South Dakota legislation that bans abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother. According to the latest FOX News poll, most Americans think abortion should be legal if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest -- exceptions not included in the South Dakota law. The poll finds that 59 percent of Americans would oppose the South Dakota law in the state where they live and 35 percent would support it. Gov. Mike Rounds signed the new abortion bill earlier this week, and Planned Parenthood says it will fight the law in court." (03/07/06) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,187083,00.html ----- 18) Crackdown on animal-rights activists Christian Science Monitor "Animal-rights activists around the country -- at least the most extreme ones -- are becoming increasingly militant. And law enforcement officials and lawmakers are stepping up efforts to combat those who break the law. These interconnected trends came to a head in New Jersey last week when an animal rights group and six of its members were convicted of inciting violence in their campaign to shut down a company that uses animals to test drugs and other consumer products. The group, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC), claims its actions constitute free speech. But federal prosecutors and the jury in a Trenton, N.J., courtroom called it harassment, stalking, and conspiracy -- the first such conviction under the 1992 Animal Enterprise Protection Act." (03/07/06) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p03s01-usju.html ----- 19) MA Congressman: Do as I say ... Boston Globe "Representative Martin T. Meehan has gained national exposure in recent years as a champion of efforts to reduce the influence of money in politics. Now, the Lowell Democrat is poised to achieve a new distinction: He is days away from becoming the only House member in the nation with a campaign war chest that tops $5 million, with an eye on a possible run for the Senate. At the end of 2005, Meehan's campaign reported having $4.97 million on hand -- some $2 million more than any of the other 434 House members, and $2.7 million more than any of the nine other representatives from Massachusetts. A pair of fund-raisers Meehan hosts Saturday in his Merrimack Valley district should bring in enough to push Meehan's campaign account past $5 million. The representative, now serving his seventh term, raised the bulk of his money during the 2003-2004 election cycle, in anticipation of a Senate run had Senator John F. Kerry won the presidency." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/nmkpe ----- 20) UK: Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep Ananova [UK] "Nursery school bosses ordered the words of the rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep to be altered to Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep. The change was made to avoid offending children after teachers examined the nursery's equal opportunities policy. Stuart Chamberlain, manager of the Sure Start Centre in Oxford, could not explain why children might be offended. But he said: 'No one should feel pointed out because of their race, gender or anything else. We've taken the equal opportunities approach to everything we do. This is fairly standard across nurseries. We are following stringent equal opportunities rules.'" (03/07/06) http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1752155.html ----- 21) Japan prepares bill to fingerprint foreigners Reuters "Japan's government on Tuesday endorsed legislation requiring foreigners to be photographed and fingerprinted on arrival as part of measures to prevent terrorism. The cabinet approved a revised immigration bill, defying opposition from a lawyers' group and human rights activists who argue that such steps would risk breaching human rights and invading privacy. The bill, due to be submitted to parliament soon, exempts children under 16, diplomats and 'special permanent residents' including ethnic Koreans. The revised law would allow Japan to deport any arriving foreigner it considers to be a terrorist. It also would require planes and ships arriving in Japan to submit lists of passengers before arrival. Japan's Federation of Bar Associations says the plans should be scrapped because fingerprinting foreigners violates a constitutional requirement to treat people with respect." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/f8vlt ----- 22) Decades later, Marines hunt Vietnam-era deserters USA Today "In the summer of 1965, Marine Cpl. Jerry Texiero quietly disappeared from his California base, plagued by personal demons and a mounting opposition to the Vietnam War. Forty years later, in the summer of 2005, Texiero -- now known as Gerome Conti -- was taken into custody by police in Tarpon Springs, Fla., after the Marine Corps tracked him down. Thirty years after the war ended, hundreds of Vietnam-era deserters are still on the loose. Conti's attorneys, Louis Font and Tod Ensign, say the Pentagon, and the Marine Corps in particular, are cracking down on long-term cases in an effort to warn current-day troops in Iraq against deserting." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/q4buy ----- 23) TX: Houston homeowner fatally shoots suspected robber Houston Chronicle "The homeowner, who was not injured, found two armed men dressed in black about 3:30 a.m. after pulling into the garage of the house in the 9500 block of Almeda Pines. The accused robbers forced open the back door and began shooting at the homeowner in the living room. He returned fire, police said, fatally striking one of the men who collapsed and died in the back yard. The other man fled the scene. Police said the homeowner is licensed to carry a concealed weapon." (03/07/06) http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/3706875.html ----- 24) OH: Grandma greets intruders with loaded gun WKYC News "A local great-grandmother faced danger head on as intruders entered her home. But as they quickly discovered -- she could hold her own. Eleanor Lynn, 75, said she keeps her 3-80 [sic] handgun loaded and nearby at all times. 'I already had the gun out,' she said. 'Somebody was breaking into my house so I took the gun out and went to the door. They flew.' That's why she was ready when the suspects entered her west Akron home Monday morning. She'd been robbed before and wasn't about to let it happen again. 'All I got to do is hold this trigger and it goes six times without stopping,' Lynn explained. 'I just bought this one and this one has never been used I'd like to have a chance to use it.'" [Editor's note: Don't miss the photo! - MLS] (03/07/06) http://www.wkyc.com/news/regional/akron_article.aspx?storyid=48960 ----- 25) Auschwitz escapee Herskovic dies at 91 Yahoo! News "William Herskovic, who escaped from Auschwitz and helped inspire Belgium's resistance to the Nazis during World War II, has died at the age of 91. ... Three months after being sent from Belgium to Auschwitz, Herskovic escaped by cutting through a chain-link fence with two other prisoners using a pair of wire cutters he had hidden. It was the first night of Hanukkah in 1942. The three hopped a train to Breslau, Germany, but a local rabbi threw them out when they tried to tell him about the horrors at Auschwitz. ... In his prewar home of Antwerp, Belgium, Herskovic delivered one of the earliest firsthand accounts of the atrocities of the Holocaust. The resistance swiftly mobilized, placing bricks on railroad tracks to stop a train packed with hundreds of Jews bound for the camps. About 250 prisoners escaped." (03/07/06) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060307/ap_on_re_us/obit_herskovic ----- RRND MEDIASHELF -------------------------------------------- Books, CDs and other tchotchkes from today's edition: Note: Affiliate links generate commissions for RRND's editors. -------------------------------------------- RRND MEDIASHELF ----- Commentary 26) Sowing the seeds of delusion LewRockwell.Com by Karen De Coster "It's the same sappy, frolicsome folktale -- over and over. Soldier gets sent off to fight the Empire's war. Soldier gets his limbs blown off. Soldier, however, feels he did the righteous thing -- he fought for freedom! Soldier has a great attitude. Soldier is legless but happy. So it's all okay! The CNN interviewer is happy. We all should be happy. Or so we are all told by the dullard media heads. Only this ending has a slight twist. Soldier, we are told, can't wait to get his prosthetic legs so that he can go jogging with our divine president Bush. Ahh yes, who ever thought that life could be so cheery as a result of losing one's limbs? ... this is perhaps the worst, most devious, most offensive kind of war propaganda: that no matter how calamitous the consequences of a murderous war, we must look on the 'bright side' via the unfurling of sprightly animations. Please, dear media, do give us another gleeful feature story that reminds us how meritorious all the killing and limb shedding really is." (03/08/06) http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster108.html ----- 27) State of the state Strike the Root by Robert Klassen "A close friend wrote to me: 'They passed the Patriot Act in the Senate today, despite everything. I'm ready to give up. God, it's so depressing.' Yes, it is depressing, especially to a political activist who believes in the Bill of Rights, rationality, and traditional American decency. While US Senate Republicans have painted themselves as neo-fascists in recent years, their supposed opponents have betrayed their Democratic grassroots base by climbing on the corporate payola wagon, and rubber stamping whatever the Republicans want. Or is something else going on?" (03/07/06) http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/klassen/klassen1.html ----- 28) Survey says Slate by Christopher Hitchens "All the war games and simulations that I have seen have concluded that it isn't possible to disarm Iran by airstrikes. Learning perhaps from what happened to Saddam's nuclear plant at Osirak, the authorities have dispersed the program widely and put a lot of it underground. Nor can the Israelis be expected to do much by proxy: They would have to fly over Iraq this time, and it would be even more obvious than usual that they were acting as an American surrogate. Professor Edward Luttwak claims, in the Wall Street Journal, that selective strikes could still retard or degrade the program, but this, if true, would only restate the problem in a different form. This means that our options are down to three: reliance on the United Nations/European Union bargaining table, a 'decapitating' military strike, or Nixon goes to China. The first being demonstrably useless and somewhat humiliating, and the second being possibly futile as well as hazardous, it might be worth giving some thought to the third of these." (03/06/06) http://www.slate.com/id/2137560/ ----- 29) Bush, Chavez and Hitler Future of Freedom Foundation by Jacob G. Hornberger "U.S. officials become angry and indignant when someone compares the Bush administration's policies to those of the Hitler regime. Even government officials at the local level get upset over the comparison, as reflected by the public schoolteacher who is under investigation for comparing Bush's policies to those of Hitler in his classroom. Ironically, however, the anger and indignation felt by U.S. officials when someone compares Bush's policies to those of Hitler does not stop U.S. officials from comparing foreign leaders to Hitler." (03/06/06) http://www.fff.org/comment/com0603b.asp ----- 30) The problem of thin-skinned politicos CNet by Declan McCullough "A New Jersey politician is hoping to outlaw anonymous speech on the Internet, claiming that civility must be mandatory in political debate. State Assemblyman Peter J. Biondi, a Republican from Somerset County, recently introduced legislation that would require any 'public forum website' to solicit the legal name and addresses of everyone who can post messages to it. What irks Biondi, a top Republican in the state assembly, is the political free-for-all that has grown around the New Jersey Star-Ledger's discussion site at NJ.com. The site's forum for Somerset County -- that is, Biondi's home district -- is home to a slew of pseudonymous posts that tend to be less than kind to local politicians." (03/06/06) http://tinyurl.com/me96l ----- 31) Am I a globalist? Free Market News Network by Tibor R. Machan "[E]ven though the global statism of communism is no longer a widespread theme among critics of capitalism, there are plenty who still regard the classical liberal, libertarian polity misguided. The fact that it accords best with human nature, as most reasonably conceived in the tradition of such thinkers as Aristotle, Locke, von Mises, and Rand, leaves these critics unimpressed. So they have come forth with the label 'globalist' with which to tar and feather those who support freedom for all human beings in all of their communities. Well, then I must confess to being a proud globalist myself. I consider it well established that human beings, anytime and anywhere, live better if their right to liberty, including free trade and property, is widely respected and well protected." (03/07/06) http://www.fmnn.com/Analysis/117/4015/2006-03-07.asp?nid=4015&wid=117 ----- 32) All-purpose lies The Power of Narrative by Arthur Silber "In view of the Bush administration's deal with India -- a country which is not a signatory to the nonproliferation treaty, while Iran is (and note the points made by Cirincione, included in the Update to that post) -- this is warmongering of a particularly ludicrous kind. Our nuclear policy is incomprehensible and self-contradictory. But the main point is clear: we will decide who gets to have nuclear weapons and who doesn't, and we will enforce our inscrutable desires with bombs and death." (03/07/06) http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2006/03/all-purpose-lies.html ----- 33) When in Rome ... The Price of Liberty by Lady Liberty "Whatever you personally think of Dick Cheney or of his hunting accident, you now have a great deal of information about it. Is Harry Whittington okay? (His doctors say yes.) Will Harry Whittington forgive Dick Cheney? (Published reports indicate he's already dismissed the matter as an accident.) What kind of gun was the vice president using? (It's a custom made shotgun.) Got any new Dick Cheney jokes? (If you don't, you're the only one who doesn't!) But while you were soaking in all of this important information, some other things were also happening on February 11." (03/06) http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/03/06/ladylib.htm ----- 34) Biddle's pivot AntiWar.Com by Justin Raimondo "Biddle's strategy, as irrational and counterintuitive as it appears, does make a certain amount of sense. Seen in light of the looming confrontation with Iran, an alliance with the Sunnis against the pro-Iranian Shi'ite parties that dominate the central government in Baghdad is not only sensible: it is inevitable. Biddle's proposal paves the way for the U.S. to pivot from the present intervention to the next. ... If we are moving toward war with Iran and its Syrian ally, then it is perfectly logical to change course and try to rehabilitate Iyad Allawi, the 'ex'-Ba'athist official whose party, the Iraqi National Accord, was soundly defeated in the recent elections for National Assembly (despite large amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars funneled into his campaign coffers). As a strategy to advance the grand design of the War Party -- 'democratizing,' i.e., subjugating, the entire Middle East -- Biddle's scenario is persuasive." (03/08/06) http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8672 ----- 35) The mythology of health care reform Cato Institute by Michael D. Tanner "Health care is once again moving to the top of the national political agenda. The early evidence is that this debate will be dominated by misinformation and misconceptions. Advocates of a government-run, national health-care system will do everything they can to frighten Americans and discredit consumer-directed health care. But we would be advised to look at the facts and not the scare tactics." (03/08/06) http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5871 ----- 36) Thou shalt not speak ill of Bush The American Conservative by Bruce Bartlett "I think many conservatives knew as well as I did that Bush is no conservative. While the tax cuts were supported by most of them, they also knew that Bush allowed spending to explode and that this would eventually lead to tax increases. Others were disturbed by Bush's signing of an unconstitutional campaign-finance bill, the growth of government regulation, and failure to do anything about illegal immigration. But these conservatives thought that the war on terror and the opportunity to get judicial conservatives on the courts trumped. However, continuing problems in Iraq together with growing reports that the evidence of WMD was weak or nonexistent before the war weighed heavily on even the most hawkish conservatives. When Bush nominated a woefully unqualified crony to the most important of all court appointments, conservative doubts about Bush that had been held in check by 9/11, the war, and the election suddenly exploded." (for publication 03/13/06) http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_03_13/article.html ----- 37) Putin's pander The Weekly Standard by Igor Khrestin "Last Sunday, while returning home from Pakistan aboard Air Force One, President Bush received a telephone call from his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The two men discussed several issues that threaten to disrupt U.S.-Russian solidarity in the war on terror -- foremost, Russia's diplomatic support for Iran in the dispute over its nuclear program at the IAEA, and its decision to welcome Hamas, which recently won control of the Palestinian parliament, to Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is set to continue this dialogue in Washington this week in a series of direct talks with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Unfortunately, absent from the agenda will be any discussion of the domestic factors that lie at the root of Russia's recent foreign policy maneuvers: namely, Putin's growing accommodation of terror at the expense of Russian democracy and the safety of its own citizens." (03/08/06) http://tinyurl.com/qb47o ----- 38) The honest Libertarian The American Spectator by Shawn Macomber "At a time when every 'town hall meeting' centered on how a particular candidate would arrange the government payoffs and payouts, Browne was unlikely to win many votes by grousing that the American government was 'breeding a nation of welfare dependents, victims, litigants, thumb-suckers and buck-passers.' Yet in the very unrelenting totality of his attack on the political status quo in America; in his audacity to call for a government not of coercion but of minimal refereeing, Browne secured my vote as well as the votes of 384,431 other Americans unconvinced by Social Security lockboxes and compassionate conservatism. I didn't care about wins or losses. I wanted to cast an anti-government vote that had some teeth." (03/08/06) http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9505 ----- 39) What the Indian giver got Human Events by Pat Buchanan "If Musharraf feels he was asked to come through the service entrance and given the bum's rush, who can blame him? While even his greatest admirers do not confuse Bush with Bismarck, what the president did on his Asia tour seems inexplicable. In the Cold War, India aligned with Moscow and repeatedly fought a smaller Pakistan that was our friend. In the war on terror, no ally has taken greater risks than Musharraf. While both India and Pakistan refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India was first to break faith with a West that gave it nuclear technology and the first to test nuclear weapons. Why, then, did Bush agree to transfer U.S. nuclear technology only to India?" (03/07/06) http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=12998 ----- 40) Weaponizing the shark and other Pentagon dreams Mother Jones by Tom Engelhardt "DARPA funds research into weaponizing creatures that inhabit just about any environmental niche imaginable -- including bees capable of detecting explosives; 'eyes' patterned after those of flies that might someday make 'smart' weaponry even smarter; gecko wall-climbing and octopi concealment techniques; and electrode-controlled rats capable of searching through piles of rubble. In addition, between nature and whatever the opposite of nurture may be, there's been an ongoing military give-and-take." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/qjmar ----- 41) Uncertainty and its exigencies Ludwig von Mises Institute by Hans-Hermann Hoppe "Any insurance involves the pooling of individual risks. Under this arrangement, there are winners and losers. Some of the insured will receive more than they paid in premiums and some will pay more into the system than they ever get back. This is a form of income redistribution from the healthy to the sick, but the characteristic mark of insurance is that no one knows in advance who the winners and losers will be. They are distributed randomly or unpredictably, and the resulting income redistribution within a pool of insured people is unsystematic." (03/07/06) http://www.mises.org/story/2021 ----- 42) Public-sector pension crisis worsens Heartland Institute by Adam B. Summers "While private-sector pension terminations and freezes are grabbing headlines, the situation is every bit as grave for government pension systems. Like many of the remaining traditional defined-benefit pension plans in the private sector, government pension plans are swimming in red ink. As of January 25, 2006, the National Association of State Retirement Administrators and National Council on Teacher Retirement reported an aggregate unfunded liability of nearly $296 billion for the 103 pension systems and 127 total plans in their Public Fund Survey. A 2004 analysis by Wilshire Associates put the unfunded liability as high as $366 billion." (03/06) http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=18549 ----- 43) Patients vs. paternalism Competitive Enterprise Institute by Henry I. Miller "Decisions about drug safety and efficacy are far from easy. Tysabri, a multiple sclerosis (MS) drug that was voluntarily withdrawn from the market last year after the appearance of a previously unknown side effect, illustrates some of the conundrums that exist in drug treatment. In advance of the publication of three critical new studies on Tysabri in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a major news organization recently asked me, as a physician and former FDA official, whether I knew of examples of prescription drugs that have 'efficacy but [also] serious safety issues.' That is the rule rather than the exception, I responded." (03/07/06) http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,05176.cfm ----- 44) The First Amendment vs. ... "The Simpsons?" Center For Individual Freedom by staff "If we were ranking Americans' civil liberties, we'd have to say that the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances) would rate at the top in terms of their importance. Not to diminish the significance of all other liberties outlined in the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments to the Constitution, but those five freedoms are at the core of our free republic. Yet those five freedoms seem to be the targets of constant attack." (03/02/06) http://tinyurl.com/zggg6 ----- 45) The price of overturning Roe v. Wade America's Future Foundation by James N. Markels "Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it. Pro-life activists have waited over 30 years for the Supreme Court's makeup to shift against Roe v. Wade, and with Chief Justice John Roberts and newly-confirmed Justice Samuel Alito on board, many of these activists are thinking that the time is right for a full frontal assault on the constitutional right to abortion." (03/05/06) http://www.affbrainwash.com/archives/020840.php ----- 46) TN: We can drop food tax with no income tax Tennessean by Mark Rose "State Sen. Mae Beavers has introduced a bill that would phase out Tennessee's 6% sales tax on grocery items. Under her legislation, the food tax would be cut by one-half percent per year over a period of 12 years. ... In a press release, Beavers re-marks, 'Over the years, a number of people have tried to take the sales tax off food, but it never happened because someone would say it was impossible to do immediately without either bankrupting the state or imposing an income tax.' The revenue department shows the state collected $443.1 million from the food tax last fiscal year, meaning that for every one cent in tax that's levied, the state collects $73.9 million. Along with Senate Majority Leader Ron Ramsey, Beavers asserts that reducing the tax gradually can 'rein in the annual overspending in state government and the state can learn to live within its means.' To her knowledge, phasing out the food tax in this manner has never been attempted in the state legislature." [editor's note: Possible proof that there ARE elected Republicans who still remember why they are there?- SAT] (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/n9md5 ----- 47) Making democracy transparent Tom Paine by David Dill "Public trust in our elections is eroding. While the general public still seems to accept election results, there is an undercurrent of bitterness that has grown tremendously over the last few years. There is a rapidly expanding body of literature on the Internet about the 'stolen election of 2004,' and several books on election fraud have recently been written. More are in the works. Theories of widespread election fraud are highly debatable, to say the least. Some people enjoy that debate. I do not. It encourages a sense of hopelessness and consumes energy that could instead be focused on long-term changes that could give us elections we can trust. The election fraud debate frames the problem incorrectly. The question should not be whether there is widespread election fraud. It should be: 'Why should we trust the results of elections?' It's not good enough that election results be accurate. We have to know they are accurate -- and we don't. In a word, elections must be transparent. People must be able to assure themselves that the results are accurate through direct observation during the election and examination of evidence afterwards." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/r86xv ----- 48) Restoring the melting pot Washington Times by Ed Feulner "Latin will never be a truly dead language, at least not as long as 'E pluribus unum' appears on our money. That's our national motto: 'Out of many, one. 'We've always been willing to welcome immigrants and help them become Americans. But the unity we once valued is unraveling. Once, new Americans were welcomed with a solemn ceremony that matched their commitment to their adopted homeland. Today's new citizens have no such uplifting experience. To qualify they need only pass a standardized, multiple-choice test, often given in their native tongue. In fact, they're not required to show much knowledge of English. If they can transcribe just one of two dictated sentences (correct spelling and punctuation don't count), that merits citizenship. And the greater problem is that too many people don't even go that far. Millions of foreigners live here today with no expectation of ever becoming citizens." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/qxe4s ----- 49) GOP should put "bloody shirt" back in drawer Fox News by Martin Frost "In the decades following our Civil War, Republican politicians utilized a campaign tactic that was called 'waving the bloody shirt.' The purpose of the strategy was to remind voters -- both black and white -- that Southern Democrats were the party of succession [sic] and that the Democratic Party should not be trusted with power. For a while it worked. Between the end of the Civil War and the election of 1912, Grover Cleveland was the only Democrat to win the presidency. After that, things changed. The strategy had worn out its welcome. Republicans, under the leadership of master strategist Karl Rove, are once again trying to 'wave the bloody shirt.' This time the issue is terrorism and 9/11." [editor's note: I believe the word he is looking for is "secession" ... but I could be wrong! - SAT] (03/07/06) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,187002,00.html ----- 50) Denouncing Dubai deal won't ensure port security Christian Science Monitor by James J. Zogby "There's been a virtual frenzy with senators, congressmen, and governors jumping over one another to take the lead in bashing the Dubai port deal, the United Arab Emirates, or the Bush administration. It's all being done, critics say, in the name of national security. But in reality, what is taking place is nothing more than crass political posturing and an irresponsible and ill-informed attack on an Arab country that has been a strong ally of the United States. At its essence, three factors are driving this ruckus: It's an election year, the public has a continued concern about national security, and there's an Arab country involved. Elected officials are preying on the public's fear by exploiting an Arab bogeyman. The language they've used is shameful, irresponsible, and downright false. But in election year politics, it doesn't matter." (03/07/06) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0307/p09s02-coop.html ----- 51) US needs nuclear policy Boston Globe by Michael A. Levi "Last week, President Bush sealed a landmark nuclear deal with India. This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors meets to confront the Iranian nuclear program. At the same time, Congress has been grappling with a raft of nuclear items in the president's budget. And all the while, the nuclear standoff with North Korea continues. This bursting nuclear agenda begs a question: Does America need a nuclear weapons policy? ... The United States, of course, faces crises that must be addressed now. But it faced crises during the Cold War, and still sustained a core set of nuclear arms control principles for several decades. Today, a new set of fundamental principles -- whatever their specific details -- would provide coherence, direction, and predictability to American nuclear weapons policy. That would make American policy far more effective." (03/07/06) http://tinyurl.com/ez9xv ----- 52) Let's play Jeopardy! The American Prospect by Michael Tomasky "I seem to have kicked up a little dust at Tapped yesterday with my post expressing disquiet at the fact that John Edwards didn't know who James Q. Wilson was (according to George Will's Sunday column). Some of my attackers went after my 'elitism,' a charge of which I think I made short work. But others wondered what knowing about the work of a particular scholar, and a right-wing one at that, had to do with getting elected. The answer to that is it probably doesn't have anything to do with getting elected. It has to do with governing. We've got a fellow running the country now who is undoubtedly unfamiliar with a limitless number of scholars of all political stripes. I'm here to say that hasn't worked out so well. Maybe we need people who know things." (03/07/06) http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=11249 ----- 53) As militias arm, civil war threat "recedes" Asia Times by Gareth Porter "The Bush administration deliberately played down the seriousness of the threat of sectarian civil war in Iraq after the mass killings of Sunnis in revenge for the destruction of a revered Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, despite abundant evidence that even worse sectarian violence is certain to follow the next terrorist bombing. The toll after a week of sectarian killing, mostly by Shi'ite militias in revenge for the February 22 bombing of the Shi'ite Golden Mosque, was 1,300 Iraqis, according to a report in the Washington Post on February 28. That was three times as great as was reported by US and Iraqi officials. The administration's response to the killing was to launch a propaganda offensive to deny that the sectarian bloodletting presaged civil war and to claim that its existing policy was working." (03/07/06) http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC08Ak01.html ----- 54) World War $$$ Unknown News by Kevin Good "The Bush administration blew the $236,400,000,000 (billion with a 'B') they received at the beginning of the game in their first year, but continued playing, using our US Treasury credit card. (see 'World War $$$ score card graph' at the end). Also in the first nine months on September 10, 2001, twenty four hours before the 9/11 attacks, the Administration announces it can not account for $2,300,000,000,000 (that's trillion with a 'T') or about $8,000 per citizen watching them play this game on their behalf." (03/07/06) http://www.unknownnews.org/060307infobabble.html ----- 55) A dazzling smokescreeen? Truthout by Norman Solomon "These days, mainstream media fascination with blogs and the bloggers who love them often seems to assume that the very use of the Internet enhances the content or style of what has been written. It's a seductive cyber-fantasy. Speed is useful, and so are hyperlinks and visuals-on-demand, but -- fortunately or not, depending on your point of view -- there's no digital invisible hand that can move any piece of writing very far along the road to worthwhile reading. A central paradox of the rapid advances in media technologies is that the quantum leaps in computer hard drives and software have been accompanied by an approximately zero boost in human mental capacity -- or in what we refer to with such words as 'insight,' 'wisdom' and 'compassion.' You can't visit a local mall or an online site and pull out a credit card to purchase an upgrade in gray matter or human connection." (03/07/06) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030706D.shtml ----- 56) A free press, a free pass NewsWithViews by Deanna Spingola "Media manipulation in the U.S. today is more efficient than it was in Nazi Germany, because here we have the pretense that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth. The idea that we have an opposing liberal and conservative media is a farce. This is a myth and an effort to further push us into a bipolar culture -- into a divisive mentality meant to create conflict and population division." (03/04/06) http://www.newswithviews.com/Spingola/deanna35.htm ----- 57) Scrolling through your own FBI files San Francisco Chronicle by Jeff Stein "I got access to a computer at FBI headquarters recently and took the opportunity to see what they had on me. A lot, as it turned out. Up popped my name in an investigation of Scott Ritter, the former top Iraq arms inspector turned administration critic. I'd interviewed him on the telephone several times in the late 1990s. Scrolling down, I also saw a note on my 1972 membership in a group of graduate students and faculty who wrote scholarly articles against the war in Vietnam, evidently related to an investigation of Jane Fonda. There were also excerpts of articles I'd written over the years that mentioned bombings and the FBI. And there were what looked like my bank transactions, past addresses and telephone numbers. This was a lot more information about me than the FBI said they had when I requested my files in the late 1990s. And from my cursory peek, I could tell my files went deep." (03/05/06) http://tinyurl.com/ob4v2 Movement News & Events 58) Angel Shamaya jailed KeepAndBearArms.Com ongoing "Angel Shamaya, founder of KeepAndBearArms.com is in jail in Michigan, having been arrested for possession of firearms not properly registered under Michigan law. Angel's friends are working to help him with this problem, but we need your help, right now! We need character references from you for Angel. There is a form letter for you to fill out and send back at: www.marbut.com/angel. Be advised that Angel's problem is happening in the Detroit area, where a strong anti-gun sentiment exists in the criminal justice system. So, we are asking you to downplay gun-rights and gun-related comments. We will NOT deliver to the court any disparaging letters about Michigan or Michigan laws. Stay on the high ground. Please, download a copy of the draft letter. ... Please pass this on to your friends for action. We need letters from everyone who knows or knows of, and appreciates Angel." (03/04/06) http://www.keepandbeararms.com/nicki/Angel.htm ----- 59) ISIL's 25th World Freedom Summit International Society for Individual Liberty 07/07/06-07/12/06 "ISIL's international conference for 2006 is being held in the stunningly beautiful city of Prague, Czech Republic." Scholarships for students/young activists available. Watch this space for details To Be Announced! http://www.isil.org/conference/ ----- 60) Petition: Free Cory Maye What is Liberalism? ongoing "The law has been misapplied to Cory Maye. If an unidentified intruder were to burst into our home in the middle of the night, we would be within our rights to defend ourselves and our children. Given the law of Mississippi, Cory Maye acted within his right on the night of December 26th, 2001. It is a great tragedy that a police officer lost his life in this encounter. The execution of Cory Maye would magnify the tragedy, killing an innocent citizen because of the death of an officer. Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, should grant an unconditional pardon to Cory Maye." http://www.whatisliberalism.com/index.php?pageId=87667 ----- 61) The Million Moon March War on Guns Blog thru 06/06 "An international citizen disarmament coalition, Control Arms, is sponsoring a 'Million Faces petition' and 'is collecting photos and self portraits from around the world to reach [their] goal of one million faces by June 2006. [They] will use these faces to send a powerful, global message of support to the world's governments for an International Arms Trade Treaty.' The idea of The Million Moon March (as in 'mooning') is to send them photos from the side that believes in the right of the people to keep and bear arms -- to let the rights grabbers know there are untold numbers of people who refuse to be disarmed, and quite candidly, to taunt and hopefully enrage them." [Editor's note: Thanks to the inimitable David Codrea for this action ... be sure to check his blog for the latest pictures and join in the fun by submitting your own - MLS] (02/06/06) http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2006/02/million-moon-march-gallery.html ----- 62) Austrian Scholars Conference 2006 Ludwig von Mises Institute 03/16/06-03/18/06 "The Austrian Scholars Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian School, and for scholars interested or working in this intellectual tradition, it is the event of the year. Over the course of three full days, the Austrian Scholars Conference offers eighty plus presentations on economics, history, philosophy, and the humanities, in addition to named lectures by the leaders in the field." Mises Institute campus, Auburn, AL. Free for students (application required), $200 for others. Online registration available. Group rate available at local hotel. http://www.mises.org/upcomingstory.aspx?control=77 Today in Political History 63) "Down with the war! Down with the autocracy!" Details, and the "quote of the day," from Leon's Political Almanac at: http://perspicuity.net/cgi/hypercal.cgi ---------------------------------------------------------------------- RRND is published every weekday except on holidays. Forward freely. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or financially support RRND, visit: http://www.rationalreview.com/news To support ISIL's Free-Market.Net Project (tax deductible) http://www.isil.org/store/membership.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas L. Knapp ..... Publisher Mary Lou Seymour .... Editor Steve Trinward ...... Editor R. Lee Wrights ...... Editor --------------------------------- Relax. Yahoo! Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses! 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