Rational Review News Digest
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http://www.rationalreview.com/newsProduced in cooperation with the International Society for Individual Liberty http://www.isil.org ---------------------------------------------------------- Volume IV, Issue #952 Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 Email Circulation 2,004 ------ SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS -------------------------------------- THE BOSTON TEA PARTY America's new libertarian political party wants you! Online convention -- August 19th, 2006 http://www.bostontea.us FREEDOMAIN RADIO! Passionate, articulate, funny and irreverent, Freedomain Radio shines a bold light on old topics -- and invents a few new ones to boot! http://www.freedomainradio.com/ RADIO FREE LIBERTY Principled Libertarian Podcasts - Changing the world one iPod at a time! http://radiofreeliberty.com/ FAST. EASY. GETS AROUND. Social bookmarking for libertarians! http://www.freedomSLUT.com -------------------------------------- SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS ----- Today's News: 1) Attacks across Iraq kill more than 70 2) Senate approves more offshore drilling 3) White House wary of war crimes charges 4) Leftist protest paralyzes Mexico City 5) KS: Evolution opponents lose in primary 6) Clinton unveils global warming initiative 7) PA: Republicans donate to Green Senate hopeful 8) NC: Guilty plea in party switch 9) Miniluv may demand Times' phone records 10) Castro says he's stable after surgery 11) Frist's trustee role not listed 12) Journalist jailed over protest footage 13) Border agents let fake IDs go through 14) Navy ends Haditha investigation 15) Army guard units said not combat ready 16) MoveOn endorses House, Senate Democrats 17) San Francisco: Residents asked to volunteer 18) TN: Primary a telling start for November 19) MS: University's key to R&D ... the right senator 20) MA: Commuter crashes eyed as a cash cow 21) Teenager faces action over listings site 22) UK: Appeal judges attack control orders 23) UK: Bad check buys heart op 24) CO: Charge tossed in Funky Buddha case 25) PA: Man claims self-defense in shooting Today's Commentary: 26) Chuckling at the culture clash 27) Following the money 28) Sustainable Freedom: Paradigms 29) Bomb them to gain their support? 30) Has Wal-Mart peaked? 31) Israel and "moral equivalence" 32) Poisoning shareholders 33) The state as an organization, part 2 34) Will Bush and Gonzales get away with it? 35) It's the stupidity, stupid 36) Energy democracy 37) Why Dems destroy themselves 38) Wage-hike, tax-cut sham 39) Parenting the key to stopping violence 40) Anti-GOP mood could give Dems default win 41) The last laugh: using humor to discipline a bully 42) Standing up to prejudice 43) Will central bankers become central planners? 44) No margin 45) Bush tax cuts: Rhetoric and reality 46) Wanted: "A more productive Congress" 47) NOW at 40: A leftist legacy 48) Stanley Fish is right on academic freedom 49) The natural minimum wage 50) Private I's? 51) The ride of the regulators 52) McKinney-Johnson: One night stand 53) The difference between a womb and a wallet 54) Respect a man's choice, too 55) Bits of homeland stupidity 56) WW III: Whose side are you on? 57) The plural of fiasco requires no "e" 58) Making America safe ... for dictatorship 59) Leave my children behind, please 60) The religion of politics Today's Movement News & Events: 61) Flag auctions for Richard Celata 62) DEA targets America 63) Seminar: Liberty, Economy & Society 64) Authority and autonomy in the family 65) Boston Tea Party organizational convention 66) Reason in Amsterdam 2006 Today in Political History: 67) Remember Athens! News 1) Attacks across Iraq kill more than 70 Grand Junction Daily Sentinel "Bombings and shootings killed more than 70 people in Iraq on Tuesday in a surge of bloodshed as U.S. forces prepare to take back Baghdad's streets from gunmen. The dead included 20 Iraqi troops, a U.S. soldier and a British soldier. The American soldier, who was assigned to the 1st Armored Division, died 'due to enemy action' in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. command said." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/p34pk ----- 2) Senate approves more offshore drilling MSNBC "The Senate voted Tuesday to open 8.3 million acres of federal waters in the central Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling, setting up a confrontation with the House, which wants even more drilling in waters now off-limits. Supporters said the measure would be a major step toward producing more domestic energy and forcing down natural gas prices that have soared in recent years." (08/01/06) http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14140436/ ----- 3) White House wary of war crimes charges United Press International "White House officials are drafting legislation to protect U.S. personnel from certain war crimes prosecutions, The Washington Post reported. The War Crimes Act of 1996 has Bush administration officials concerned that officials and troops involved in handling terrorism detainee matters could be accused of war crimes and prosecuted in U.S. courts, the newspaper said. Senior officials are working on legislation that would provide protection for U.S. personnel involved in the terrorism fight, against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act -- which criminalizes Geneva Conventions violations and could result in the death penalty in cases in which detainees die from abusive treatment in U.S. custody." (07/28/06) http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060728-013106-7191r ----- 4) Leftist protest paralyzes Mexico City Arizona Republic "Mexico braced for further unrest after leftists protesting the disputed presidential election blocked the main boulevard in Mexico City on Monday, snarling rush-hour traffic in the center of the world's second-largest city. Hundreds of camping tents filled Reforma Avenue, completely shutting down traffic to the country's financial district and museums, as supporters of presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pressed their demand for a recount of the July 2 election results. The blockade affected eight miles of Reforma Avenue, a stretch that includes the U.S. Embassy, the Mexican stock market, Chapultepec Park, the National Anthropology Museum and other tourist attractions. With more than 3 million cars and about 20 million people, Mexico City, the most-populous metropolitan area after Tokyo, is a traffic nightmare even on a good day." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/pqwxq ----- 5) KS: Evolution opponents lose in primary Forbes "Conservative Republicans who pushed anti-evolution standards back into Kansas schools last year have lost control of the state Board of Education once again. The most closely watched race was in western Kansas, where incumbent conservative Connie Morris lost her Republican primary Tuesday. The former teacher had described evolution as 'an age-old fairy tale' and 'a nice bedtime story' unsupported by science. As a result of Tuesday's vote, board members and candidates who believe evolution is well-supported by evidence will have a 6-4 majority." (08/02/06) http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/08/02/ap2921682.html ----- 6) Clinton unveils global warming initiative Los Angeles Times "On a stage of political all-stars Tuesday afternoon at UCLA, former President Clinton announced a new initiative to help cities combat global warming. Joined by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Clinton laid out the challenges ahead. 'We have to reduce about 80% of our greenhouse gases over the next 10 years,' said Clinton, whose foundation sponsored the initiative." (08/02/06) http://tinyurl.com/ja6rf ----- 7) PA: Republicans donate to Green Senate hopeful All Headline News "Carl Romanelli, a Green Party candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate, said Monday that Republican donors probably gave him most of the $100,000 that he spent gathering signatures, to qualify for his placement on the Nov. 7 ballot. The Democratic front-runner in the race, Bob Casey, accused Republicans of 'trying to steal the election' by helping a candidate who would likely win voters who would otherwise have voted Democratic." [editor's note: As much as I'd like to see Santorum go, Casey just shot himself in the foot. He just told Pennsylvania's voters that their votes are his, not theirs ... a really stupid thing to say to people whose support you want - TLK] (08/02/06) http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004398603 ----- 8) NC: Guilty plea in party switch Houston Chronicle "A former state legislator who changed parties in 2003, enabling Democratic House Speaker Jim Black to stay in power, pleaded guilty Tuesday to taking $50,000 in campaign contributions to make the switch. Former Rep. Michael Decker, 61, could get up to five years in prison at sentencing Nov. 1. Prosecutors said Decker supported a particular candidate for speaker in exchange for the money. ... Decker switched to the Democratic Party just before the 2003 legislative session after 18 years as a GOP legislator. ... Decker switched back to the Republican Party after the session but was defeated in the 2004 primary." (08/02/06) http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4087778.html ----- 9) Miniluv may demand Times' phone records USA Today "Federal prosecutors investigating a leak about a terrorism funding probe can see the phone records of two New York Times reporters, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. A panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned on a 2-1 vote a lower court's ruling that the records were off limits unless prosecutors could show they had exhausted all other means of finding out who spoke to the newspaper. The judges said a grand jury investigation of the disclosures wasn't likely to go anywhere without help from the reporters or access to their records." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/s4s7a ----- 10) Castro says he's stable after surgery Sonora Union Democrat "Fidel Castro said Tuesday that his health was stable after surgery, according to a statement read on state television, as the Communist government tried to impose a sense of normalcy on the island's first day in 47 years without Castro in charge. Castro, who temporarily handed power to his younger brother Raul on Monday night after undergoing intestinal surgery, indicated the surgery was serious when he said: 'I can not make up positive news.'" (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/nm4l7 ----- 11) Frist's trustee role not listed Knoxville News Sentinel "Majority Leader Bill Frist hasn't been following all the Senate's rules when it comes to disclosing details about his finances. Frist and his wife are the sole trustees in charge of a family foundation bearing the senator's name, according to Internal Revenue Service forms. However, he has not been listing that position on his Senate disclosure forms, which are made public every year." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/qfbg9 ----- 12) Journalist jailed over protest footage Batesville Herald Tribune "A freelance video journalist was jailed Tuesday for refusing to give a grand jury his unsold footage from a 2005 protest in which anarchists were suspected of vandalizing a police car. Joshua Wolf, 24, could remain behind bars until next summer, when the grand jury investigating the incident is due to expire. Wolf had sold footage of the protest to San Francisco television stations and posted it on his Web site. Investigators are seeking portions of his videotape that haven't been broadcast." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/syz4q ----- 13) Border agents let fake IDs go through Winona Daily News "Undercover investigators entered the United States using fake documents repeatedly this year -- including some cases in which Homeland Security Department agents didn't ask for identification. At nine border crossings on the Mexico and Canadian borders, agents 'never questioned the authenticity of the counterfeit documents,' according to Government Accountability Office testimony to be released Wednesday." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/lz8wu ----- 14) Navy ends Haditha investigation CNN "A U.S. naval investigation team has wrapped up its investigation into the murders of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, allegedly at the hands of U.S. Marines, U.S. military officials told CNN. The case has been handed over to a military prosecution team that will look further into the allegations and see if there is enough evidence to build a case, the officials said Tuesday." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/pg4xx ----- 15) Army guard units said not combat ready Imperial Valley Press "More than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready, mostly because of equipment shortages that will cost up to $21 billion to correct, the top National Guard general said Tuesday. Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum spoke to a group defense reporters after Army officials, analysts and members of Congress disclosed that two-thirds of the active Army's brigades are not ready for war." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/fzz5l ----- 16) MoveOn endorses House, Senate Democrats Raw Story "Liberal website and political action committee MoveOn.org, long critical of the Democratic position on Iraq, has announced today that it is supporting the current position of party leadership, RAW STORY has learned. Further, the group has called for a 'change in power' in Congress, essentially announcing support for the party in the upcoming 2006 elections. This morning's Wall Street Journal reported that Democratic leadership was divided -- or worried -- about the group's growing clout." [editor's note: So Tweedle Dum should simply be replaced by the Dee variant, according to MoveOn. Plus ca change ... - SAT] [additional editor's note: Nothing really new here. MoveOn has always been a Democrat PAC, and nothing ever shifts that. In 2002, I got appeals from MoveOn to vote for a pro-war Democrat rather than for either of two anti-war candidates for US Senate in my state - TLK] (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/h8gnd ----- 17) San Francisco: Residents asked to volunteer San Francisco Chronicle "Mayor Gavin Newsom today will call on all San Francisco residents to take time out and give a day to their city. Plant a tree. Hand out clothes to the homeless. Deliver dictionaries to a classroom. Teach someone how to surf the Web. Following in the footsteps of presidents George Herbert Walker Bush, who tried (and failed) to get Americans to volunteer, and John F. Kennedy, who formed the Peace Corps, Newsom is making his own attempt to inspire the masses through a program called SF Connect, which he hopes will get residents to pick up a shovel or maybe even write a check to help make the city a better place to live." [editor's note: If this is indeed a matter of "encouraging volunteerism," then more power to it. If it is instead merely another cunning disguise for making such action mandatory in the future ... that's a very different color of fish! - SAT] (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/k4jhh ----- 18) TN: Primary a telling start for November Fox News "A three-way brawl on the Republican side of the Tennessee Senate race is setting the tone for a general election fight that could be a key battleground in the Democrats' campaign to turn over the U.S. Senate majority. GOP leaders says it's imperative the best candidate be nominated to defend the seat being vacated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. 'First of all, we welcome the challenge, but second of all, if we are the firewall, it's not going to break in Tennessee,' said Bob Davis Jr., chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. ... Democrats are betting that regardless of the Republican nominee, they have an excellent chance of picking up the office, and possibly, the chamber, with the likes of Rep. Harold Ford, Jr." [editor's note: And given the caliber of the GOP's Three Stooges, this is pretty likely, regardless of which one emerges on Friday - SAT] (08/01/06) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206477,00.html ----- 19) MS: University's key to R&D ... the right senator Christian Science Monitor "Like most public universities, Mississippi State wants to help improve the state economy -- the nation's poorest. But unlike most schools, MSU is getting $37.2 million this year in special help from Congress to get the job done. It's a magnet for money -- call it pulled 'pork' -- that few schools can rival. By comparison, North Carolina State University, which serves a population four times larger, got $500,000 this year. The $37.2 million speaks to the school's efforts in research and development and in industrial outreach. But it also signals MSU's political connections in obtaining federal earmarks -- money for pet projects that lawmakers add anonymously to spending bills. It's a trend that's growing prodigiously in academia. 'Ten years ago, earmarks in academia were viewed as dirty pool, but now it's just a different approach to the federal government fostering academic research,' says MSU's Marty Wiseman, director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government." (08/01/06) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p01s03-uspo.html ----- 20) MA: Commuter crashes eyed as a cash cow Boston Globe "Looking for new ways to collect from some of the half-million suburbanites who drive into Boston each day, a city councilor is proposing a surcharge on those who cause accidents. An automatic charge of several hundred dollars levied on out-of-town motorists who are deemed by police to be at fault in accidents would defray costs of emergency services, under a proposal by Councilor Robert Consalvo to be submitted to the council today. With Boston property taxes up 58 percent since 2002 and the city's cost of doing business rising, the proposal is finding support from people who say money should be raised from those who use city services but don't pay for them. Consalvo said his plan could bring additional revenues of more than $1 million annually." [editor's note: Charging a fee for use of public services ... now where have we heard that before? - SAT] (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/kb4qg ----- 21) Teenager faces action over listings site Guardian [UK] "She started it as a hobby -- a listings website that was inspired by Wikipedia and Craigslist. But 15-year-old Rosa Blaus' initiative appeared to have backfired yesterday when she learned her website had infuriated the company behind Yellow Pages. The teenager, who set up the Yellowikis site with her father Paul Youlden, has been accused of attempting to pass it off as a legitimate arm of the telephone directory. Yell, which owns the Yellow Pages brand in the UK, this week confirmed that it was taking legal action to force Miss Blaus to hand over the Yellowikis name and the site's contents. ... Yell claims that Miss Blaus' site is infringing trademark rights with its name, logo and business directory. The Yellowikis site allows any company to add and edit its own listings, unlike Yellow Pages, which has closed listings paid for by the advertisers." (08/02/06) http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1835282,00.html ----- 22) UK: Appeal judges attack control orders Independent [UK] "The Government has been rebuffed for the second time in the courts over its use of control orders, amounting to virtual house arrest, for terrorist suspects. The ruling by the Court of Appeal plunges the control order regime, the centrepiece of recent anti-terror legislation, deeper into crisis. Five weeks ago, the High Court denounced the controversial restrictions on six terror suspects as a breach of their human rights as they amounted to a deprivation of liberty. John Reid, the Home Secretary, challenged the ruling, but the appeal judges inflicted a second defeat on the Government." (08/02/06) http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article1209753.ece ----- 23) UK: Bad check buys heart op Ananova [UK] "A man who desperately needed a heart operation wrote a cheque so he could go private knowing it would bounce. Roy Thayers, 77, was warned he might die on the NHS waiting list but could not afford to pay for the £6,500 surgery. So he wrote out a cheque knowing that by the time it bounced the operation would be over. Roy from Hounslow, West London is repaying the debt at £25 month. According to The Sun Roy said: 'I've worked all my life and put money into the system. Why should I die for the sake of money? Life is a great thing and you fight for it. I'd have robbed a bank to save my life.' ... The coronary angioplasty op at Hammersmith Hospital lasted almost two hours and was a success. ... Roy said: 'I had to start off paying £150 a month. I only get £470 pension, so I got it reduced to £25. I'll be 99 by the time it's paid." [editor's note: At least he has a chance to pay it - MLS] (08/01/06) http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1936272.html ----- 24) CO: Charge tossed in Funky Buddha case Denver Post "After watching surveillance tapes from the Funky Buddha restaurant, a Denver judge orders the co-owner to stand trial for first-degree assault. A Denver businessman who said he shot a burglar in self-defense inside his restaurant won a crucial victory Monday when a judge threw out an attempted-murder charge against him. County Judge Aleene Ortiz-White said that Dwayne Stepp, 44, who broke into the Funky Buddha bar at 3:11 a.m. on Jan. 3, repeatedly advanced toward co-owner Christakes Christou. The judge, who twice watched surveillance-camera tapes of the encounter, said Stepp and Christou were in close contact during the confrontation. Although armed with a pistol, Christou, 60, did not fire, she said. Instead, Ortiz-White said, Christou pushed Stepp back twice. Only on the third occasion, when Stepp again was right in his face, did Christou shoot, wounding Stepp in the abdomen. The judge, however, did order Christou to stand trial for first-degree assault, leaving it up to a jury to decide whether Christou intended to 'cause serious bodily injury' to Stepp by shooting him." (08/01/06) http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4119423?source=rss ----- 25) PA: Man claims self-defense in shooting Williamsport Sun Gazette "A Third Avenue man who shot another man in the leg Friday night using a rifle said he did it to protect himself and his family from two men, one of whom was armed, who burst in through the open side door together. 'I did what I had to do,' said the 39-year-old resident of 419 Third Ave., who said he shot the first man who came in by using .30-30 rifle shortly after 11 p.m. ... Asked what reason two men had for bursting into his residence, the man said a few minutes before his wife was outside with their 4-year-old daughter walking the dog. His wife, who also did not want to be identified, said a man came up to her and pointed a gun at her. He said, ''I'm going to kill your ... dog,'' she said. The woman said she didn't know the assailant. She said she then saw another man, whom she believed to be her neighbor, grab the gun and wrestle it away from him. Just then, a second gunman fired several gunshots." (08/01/06) http://www.sungazette.com/News/articles.asp?articleID=7553 ---------------------------------------------------------- HEALTH-OF-THE-STATE-O-METER, 08/02/06 Civilian Casualties in Iraq: Min - 39,702 ... Max - 44,191 (source: www.iraqbodycount.org) American Military Deaths in Iraq: 2,577 (source: www.antiwar.com/casualties/) ---------------------------------------------------------- Commentary 26) Chuckling at the culture clash Liberty For All by Garry Reed "The culture war is a conflict of values and viewpoints between lefty liberals and righty reactionaries. The political pummeling part of the proceedings is now popularly presented as Red State vs. Blue State, which, by definition, makes the struggle Statist, thereby leaving libertarians sometimes behind liberal lines and other times in the conservative camp but frequently on the sidelines alone. As long as Reds and Blues continually fail to identify big government's ongoing war against freedom as the root of the problem, and therefore fail to realize that they're being played one against the other, and furthermore steadfastly founder at getting BigGov to do the bidding of their side against the other side, the fracas will fume on forever." (08/01/06) http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=13 ----- 27) Following the money Question Earthority! by Thomas L. Knapp "In writing polemic, two usually reliable rules of thumb are to focus on cui bono? ('who benefits?') and to 'follow the money' to divine the true motives of actors on the political stage. The lessons of the last few years -- the Iraq contracting scandals, the collapse of Jack Abramoff's lobbying empire, etc. -- have reinforced those rules. Rules of thumb, however, are just that: 'rude processes or operations' (per Webster's 1913) that can usually be relied upon to get one into the right ballpark ... but not necessarily to help one connect swinging bat to flying ball. Cui bono/'follow the money' reasoning can become dangerous when it leads one to jump to final conclusions without additional evidence. Let's talk about Howard Rich. But first, let's get my own cui bono/'follow the money' problems out of the way." (08/01/06) http://www.isil.org/channels/archives/3619 ----- 28) Sustainable Freedom: Paradigms Backwoods Home Magazine by Claire Wolfe "Given the multitude of historic barriers to freedom, you might think we'd have to change human nature to make freedom self-sustaining. True, we need changes. True, the task is daunting. But we don't need to change our inborn nature. Merely our perceptions. And people have done that thousands of times throughout history. A paradigm shift, which we can help create, can lead to Sustainable Freedom. ... Before a paradigm shifts, there's often intense, seemingly immovable resistance. Shift-proponents may be ridiculed, reviled, shunned -- even imprisoned or killed. Think of Galileo being compelled by the Inquisition to recant his conviction that the earth orbits the sun. Then one day ... breakthrough. Thought alters with the rapidity of an earthquake. Former wing-nuts and heretics go down in history as innovators. To achieve sustainable freedom I believe two paradigm shifts are needed. One of these will naturally follow the other." (08/01/06) http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/wolfe060801.html ----- 29) Bomb them to gain their support? Cato Institute by Ted Galen Carpenter "An Israeli air strike killed almost 60 civilians in the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday. Israeli leaders stress that their primary objective is to degrade Hezbollah's ability to launch rocket attacks against northern Israel, but they also mention another motive: forcing the Lebanese people to understand that supporting Hezbollah will bring them nothing but grief. With that realization, so the reasoning goes, most Lebanese will turn against the terrorist organization. Logic suggests that the more likely reaction will be greater Lebanese hatred of Israel and, hence, more support for Hezbollah. It is bizarre to assume that displacing a population and destroying a country's infrastructure will somehow lead the people being targeted to turn against the adversaries of the attacking power rather than the attacking power itself. Nevertheless, American hawks are urging the Bush administration to emulate Israel's dubious strategy and launch air strikes against Iran ..." (08/01/06) http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6558 ----- 30) Has Wal-Mart peaked? Reason by Kerry Howley "'Think Wal-Marts are everywhere you turn today?' cautions a call-to-arms from anti-corporate group Wal-Mart Watch, 'Just wait five years.' Americans may indeed have a whole lot of Wal-Mart coming their way, but Germans have been spared the deluge: The company announced its exit from the country on Friday, just months after it sold off its 16 stores in South Korea. Whatever it is that propels Americans, inexorably, towards smiley faces and cheap Chinese crap, at least some of the world doesn't share it." (08/01/06) http://www.reason.com/links/links080106.shtml ----- 31) Israel and "moral equivalence" AntiWar.Com by Justin Raimondo "The Qana massacre was the occasion for a full-court propaganda campaign by Israel's amen corner, and one has to say they rose to the occasion like real pros. First, of course, they expressed remorse -- then, naturally enough, they blamed it all on ... Hezbollah. How so? Well, you see, the Israelis bombed a building filled with children and old people because rockets fired at Israel 'originated immediately next to it.' Yet the Red Cross denied there were any Hezbollah in Qana. The Israelis keep up a constant refrain claiming Lebanon uses its own civilian population as 'human shields,' but the reality is quite different: Lebanese civilians flee when Hezbollah fires a fusillade, because they know the Israelis will soon be bombing the place to perdition." (08/02/06) http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9459 ----- 32) Poisoning shareholders TCS Daily by Tim Worstall "'Don't mess with markets' is sound advice for anyone, most especially politicians trying (on those rare occasions) to make the world a better place. 'Don't listen to them' is also useful, especially for politicians being told how to make the world a better place. For, as is inevitable, those doing the telling will be pushing actions that will make the world a better place for themselves -- usually by messing with markets. Armed with our newly created homespun wisdom we can now set out to explain the recent rises in executive compensation in the US." (08/02/06 http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080106D ----- 33) The state as an organization, part 2 LewRockwell.Com by Michael S. Rozeff "The fact that citizens and taxpayers bear the agency costs of supplying capital, might be, from their standpoint, a fatal flaw in having a state. They rationally would not agree to such an arrangement, if asked, unless they thought these costs would be low or controllable, or thought that the state would produce offsetting benefits. The state does not ask them these questions. It does not put its existence up for vote. Social contract theory argues that, because we observe states, citizens view the benefits as exceeding the costs; but as just pointed out, they are actually given no way to express their preferences by an up or down vote." (08/02/06) http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff86.html ----- 34) Will Bush and Gonzales get away with it? Salon by Michael Scherer "Retired Navy pilot Mike Cronin knows enough about torture to know it doesn't work. After being shot down over North Vietnam in 1967, he spent six years enduring interrogations in the Hanoi Hilton, the notorious holding block for American prisoners of war. His neck and ankles were bound together with rope, causing him to lose consciousness. The nerves and bones in his wrists were crushed. His shoulder was ripped out of its socket. He was forced to talk, but he never gave the North Vietnamese the information they wanted. ... Thanks to his persistent lobbying, Congress passed the War Crimes Act of 1996 with overwhelming bipartisan support. For the first time, U.S. courts were granted authority to convict any foreigner who commits a war crime against an American, or any American who commits a war crime at all. At the time, nobody could have predicted that a decade later a U.S. administration, with the explicit consent of the president and the attorney general, would be accused of systematic war crimes. But that is precisely the accusation that President George Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales now face." [subscription or ad view required] (08/02/06) http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/08/02/cronin/ ----- 35) It's the stupidity, stupid The American Prospect by Matthew Yglesias "'There's a lot of suffering in the Palestinian territory,' Bush mused, 'because militant Hamas is trying to stop the advance of democracy.' It is? Has Bush forgotten that Hamas came to power as a result of elections that he insisted the Palestinian Authority hold? I happen to think the White House made the right call on the question of Palestinian elections -- even in retrospect, even knowing that Hamas won -- though many observers think his policy has merely backfired. Rather than defend the policy, however, Bush seems to have forgotten all about it." (07/31/06) http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=11791 ----- 36) Energy democracy Tom Paine by Kate Cell "This summer is hot meteorologically and politically, and we're all feeling the heat. I hear people talking about energy everywhere: on the subway, after church, around the dinner table. Every major general interest magazine in the country, from Time to People, has run an energy-related cover in the past three months. Recently at TomPaine.com, Frank O'Donnell's 'The Return of Nazi Oil' warned of the perils of switching to coal-to-liquid fuel. And Tyson Slocum, in 'Behind the Blackouts,' explained why a deregulated, centralized distribution system fails to deliver power in California and Queens. Our energy system and our political economy are broken: dependent on imports from unstable regions yet undependable for consumers, capricious in costs, calamitous in global climate and security impact. To fix it, we should look to localized, distributed, democratic energy sources, such as solar (photovoltaic) electricity, and free ourselves from the tyranny of fossil fuels." (08/01/06) http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/01/energy_democracy.php ----- 37) Why Dems destroy themselves San Francisco Chronicle by Jon Carroll "Today I'm going to quote extensively from an article by Chris Bowers at a Web site called MyDD (www.mydd.com), 'DD' in this case standing for direct democracy. The article lays out something that I've been chaotically attempting to think about for some time, and does it more clearly than I've been able to manage. The question before the house, as it has been for some time, is: 'Why are the Democrats having trouble getting elected even though their opponents lie, cheat and steal with bewildering frequency?' Below is just a partial answer, I think, but it's a darned good start." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/n6bfm ----- 38) Wage-hike, tax-cut sham Tennessean by staff "What does a $2.10 per hour increase in the minimum wage have to do with a $268 billion tax cut for the 8,200 wealthiest families in the U.S.? Not one thing. The Republican House leadership yoked the two together last week as a political stunt. They've been pushing hard to make cuts in the estate tax permanent; they've just as vigorously been fighting any attempt to raise the minimum wage, which has been sitting at $5.15 an hour since 1997. But last week, House leaders demonstrated that they want an estate tax cut more than they want to derail any minimum wage increase. By lumping the measures into one bill, they hope to convince a few Democratic senators who would otherwise oppose the estate tax cut to cross over and support their bill." [editor's note: Neither the outrage over the death tax being cut down (instead of resuming its prior levels in 5 more years), nor the utter glee about a minimum wage increase (so much for entry-level jobs?) are either warranted or appropriate here - SAT] (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/rn6lw ----- 39) Parenting the key to stopping violence Nashville City Paper by staff "Loitering. Say it out loud. It's kind of a funny word -- the kind of word high school kids crack up over when they hear it. Don't get caught 'loitering.' It is a word that doesn't have as severe a ring to it as other words and phrases like 'shooting' or 'murder' or 'gang-related.' But loitering in Nashville may be the key to understanding the terrifying direction some of our youth are taking in their teens. And a frank discussion of seemingly mundane topics like loitering inevitably leads to Nashville and America's greatest social challenge of the day -- parenting." (08/01/06) http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?news_id=51292 ----- 40) Anti-GOP mood could give Dems default win Fox News by Martin Frost "During the 1996 and 1998 election cycles, Democrats picked up a net of 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is far more than in any cycle since. I was the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during those years, so I am often asked about the appropriate strategy for House Democrats this Fall. For months people have been clamoring for a detailed statement of what Democrats would do if they are successful in taking over the House. This issue has been raised by the press, Republican critics and by some Democrats. Some party leaders have attempted to fill the void. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid issued a detailed position statement earlier this summer. Sen. Hillary Clinton, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, issued her own position paper on key issues recently." (07/31/06) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,206474,00.html ----- 41) The last laugh: using humor to discipline a bully Christian Science Monitor by John Christian Hoyle "One Tuesday morning, I opened my classroom to find shredded paper shoved under the door. Sweeping up the mess, I discovered that the torn strips used to be a sign that I had posted three years before that asked my high school history students to 'Leave all excess baggage at the door.' It was my first personal effect to be vandalized since I started teaching, though I didn't give it much thought. I merely replaced the sign. Wednesday: The new sign is shredded and crammed under the door. Thursday: Third sign, same result. I didn't bother to erect a fourth. But I did wish to know who was disrespecting my signs. Ask any public high school teacher: Few things are more maddening than classroom vandalism. Yet, I had the feeling that none of my students was involved." (08/01/06) http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0801/p09s01-coop.html ----- 42) Standing up to prejudice Boston Globe by H.D.S. Greenway "After his arrest, Brent Matthews, a 33-year-old trouble maker, said that rolling a pig's head into a mosque full of worshipers here last month was meant as a joke. However, this old mill town's 2,000 Somali Muslims -- out of a total population of 36,000 -- did not see the humor in it. esides the obviously hostile gesture of desecration, the Somali minority had to wonder: 'If a pig's head could be thrown into our mosque, what might be thrown next, a bomb?' asked Abdi Sheikh, a Somali resident and local leader. Refugees from Somalia started coming here in numbers only about five years ago, and their integration into what is Maine's second-largest city has not been as smooth as it might have been. Somali refugees first came to Maine because that was where some were assigned. They chose Lewiston because housing was cheap and, in the words of one Somali mother, 'it seemed like a good place to bring up kids.'" (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/r8ar5 ----- 43) Will central bankers become central planners? Ludwig von Mises Institute by Robert Blumen "As if fighting inflation, smoothing out the business cycle, and saving the world from economic crises were not enough, central banks are being advised to include another objective in their mission: the purchase and management of stock portfolios. The Washington Post reports that former Treasury Secretary (and soon-to-be-former president of Harvard University) Lawrence Summers 'is advising some of the world's biggest holders of US Treasury bonds that they ought to find much better ways to invest their money.'" (07/31/06) http://www.mises.org/story/2257 ----- 44) No margin Free Market News Network by Bill Bonner "'People just have no margin,' explained Dennis Gartman, whom we met in Vancouver. 'I have a friend who is a mortgage broker. He tells me that clients will figure out their monthly budgets to within $5. That's how much they have left over after their foreseeable expenses.' When a credit bubble expands, the lenders make a lot of money. But when it contracts, the loan business goes sour. Countrywide Financial and Capital One are two of the biggest lenders in America. Their stocks are falling -- down 15% to 20% from their peaks. We are seeing -- we think -- a 'Farewell to ARMs,' as we put it on Friday in our speech to the Agora Wealth Symposium. Rising rates, and the threat of rising rates, is killing the lending industry." (08/01/06) http://www.fmnn.com/Analysis/28/5736/no.asp?nid=5736&wid=28 ----- 45) Bush tax cuts: Rhetoric and reality Heartland Institute by Sandra Fabry "Since George W. Bush became president in 2001, Congress has enacted a series of tax cuts on just about every type of federal tax, from excise taxes to income taxes to the estate tax. Those cuts have not occurred without controversy. Critics charge the wealthy have disproportionately benefitted, the federal government is floating in red ink, and the cuts were just a hodgepodge of initiatives that made the tax code more complex. Budget & Tax News contributing editor Sandra Fabry of Americans for Tax Reform recently spoke with Daniel Clifton, executive director of the American Shareholders Association (ASA), about the Bush tax cuts." (08/01/06) http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=19414 ----- 46) Wanted: "A more productive Congress" Frontiers of Freedom by Kaye Grogan "Here lately it is downright painful to read or hear about the results of how our congressional members are voting on key issues in the house and senate chambers. I would rather be reading a book on how to grow a beautiful lawn. Most congressional members would barely maintain a D average, if they were graded on how effective they are on a monthly report card in how they govern. Now if they were graded on how to misappropriate funds -- they would get an A. Frankly, our tax dollars are clearly being distributed to areas and programs, that are not beneficial to most Americans, while the minimum wage hovers around the poverty level." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/lj3oa ----- 47) NOW at 40: A leftist legacy The Price of Liberty by Trudy W. Schuett "Looking back, (for those of us old enough to remember) there was a time during the so-called 'second wave' of the 1960s when it seemed feminism was about equality. In the original NOW statement of purpose, it included language that alluded to women freeing themselves from society's lack of respect by taking charge in their lives and advancing themselves through their own efforts. For a brief period of time, there were feminists promoting ideals of self-reliance and responsibility, but that time was over almost before it began." (08/06) http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/07/31/trudy.htm ----- 48) Stanley Fish is right on academic freedom Center For Individual Freedom by staff "Stanley Fish, author, university professor, 'public intellectual,' is a prodigious, original, unorthodox thinker. Even when one disagrees with him, his arguments are honorably and thoughtfully propounded as he unleashes his chicken upon your egg. In a July 23 New York Times Op-ed, Fish takes an intellectual straight razor to warring concepts of academic freedom. Springing from the case of Kevin Barrett, a 9-11 conspiracy theorist who lectures at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Fish labels argument over content, the ideas espoused, as the wrong battlefield of academic freedom." (07/28/06) http://tinyurl.com/jr7xo ----- 49) The natural minimum wage The Free Liberal by Fred E. Foldvary "The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over three years. The bill, now being considered in the Senate, is linked to other issues, but here I will focus only on the minimum wage. The pure free market has its own natural minimum wage. Very few economists realize this, because it is a classical concept which was thrown overboard when economic thought became post-classical or neoclassical. Classical theory contained the concept of the margin of production, the least productive land in use. Land beyond the margin is submarginal and unused, and thus has no rent, so the margin is also the best land that one can obtain free." (08/01/06) http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/002207.html ----- 50) Private I's? Slate by Dahlia Lithwick "Privacy is a fairly squishy legal concept -- springing, as it does, from somewhere deep within the greatest hits of the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments. To which former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, back in a landmark 1965 case, helpfully contributed a backbeat of 'penumbras' and 'emanations' from the Constitution. When we talk about our 'right to privacy' -- whether it be freedom from government wiretapping or freedom to control our bodies -- we sometimes forget that this right exists largely in the quiet spaces between other, more concrete rights and freedoms. Courts attempting to patrol these boundaries make some wonky judgments." (07/29/06) http://www.slate.com/id/2146763/ ----- 51) The ride of the regulators America's Future Foundation by Timothy P. Carney "The 1892 ride of the regulators is a true story, but it is almost an allegory for modern environmentalism, or 'conservation,' as it was called a hundred years ago. The White House's support in 1892 for ruthless big business shutting down smaller upstarts was shocking, but it was a fitting prelude to the nascent conservation movement." (07/30/06) http://www.affbrainwash.com/archives/021299.php ----- 52) McKinney-Johnson: One night stand The Weekly Standard by Sonny Bunch "While Hank Johnson and Cynthia McKinney's joust last night was no replay of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, it was certainly entertaining in its own right. Neither candidate delivered a knockout blow, so it's down to the scorecards. Here's a round-by-round analysis." (08/01/06) http://tinyurl.com/oscuf ----- 53) The difference between a womb and a wallet AlterNet by Kai Ma "Dubay didn't want to pay child support for the daughter he conceived with Lauren Wells, his 20-year-old ex-girlfriend. During their three-month relationship, Dubay allegedly told Wells he wasn't ready to have children, and she replied that she was infertile but using birth control anyway. After they had unprotected sex, she got pregnant and chose to raise the child. Dubay promptly received a court order to pay $500 a month in child support. On his behalf, the National Center for Men filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Michigan last March, contending that if a woman has the legal right to abort, give up for adoption, or raise a child from an unintended pregnancy, a man should be able to choose to decline the financial responsibilities of fatherhood." (07/26/06) http://www.alternet.org/rights/39420/ ----- 54) Respect a man's choice, too AlterNet by Glenn Sacks and Jeffrey M. Leving "Ma says men 'shouldn't be able to choose to abandon that child in the lurch.' Yet 1.5 million American women legally walk away from motherhood every year through adoption, abortion or abandonment. In over 40 states mothers can completely opt out of motherhood by returning unwanted babies to the hospital shortly after birth. If men like Dubay are deadbeats and deserters, what are these women? Whenever a child is born outside of the context of a loving, two-parent family, there are no good solutions. Ma overstates her case, but she is correct that 'Choice for Men' is a flawed solution. However, the current regime, which provides women with a variety of choices and men with none, is also flawed." (08/01/06) http://www.alternet.org/rights/39716/ ----- 55) Bits of homeland stupidity Homeland Stupidity by Michael Hampton "Your government is slow, inefficient and stupid. It's a miracle it ever manages to get anything done. I like it that way. Despite the occasional inconveniences, the natural inefficiency of government slows our approach to tyranny. Here are a few things that slowed down the government in the last few weeks." (07/31/06) http://tinyurl.com/s8pgw ----- 56) WW III: Whose side are you on? Common Dreams by Karen Horst Cobb "'World War III' is a world war on children and the citizen soldiers in all locations, conducted with psy-ops propaganda using blame, excuses, and the insistence that the world remain an impotent silent witness of religious- and state-sponsored terrorism. The 'precision guided missile' found its target just like the manufacturer promised. It was launched by Israel with precision, satellite intelligence, and forethought but the ambassador explained it wasn't their fault. Another precisely guided missile hit the UN target a few days earlier killing four innocent peacemakers who had called all day to report their location was being targeted. Sunday's target was a house where poor children and their families huddled in fear. How can the world be manipulated to support more killing of innocent people and refuse to hold the perpetrators responsible in the court of public opinion?" (08/01/06) http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0801-25.htm ----- 57) The plural of fiasco requires no "e" Truthout by Ray McGovern "But the world desperately needs an 'E' for EXIT from the march of folly toward a wider Middle East war that is increasingly likely to result from plural US foreign policy fiascos -- in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, for starters; in Syria and Iran for the next stage. Fortunately, Webster's does allow the insertion of an 'E' and that's precisely what we must now do. We need to make a prompt exit from the endless string of fiascoes that have the Middle East marching to calamity. If we do not take a sober look beyond the carnage of the last few weeks and weigh the reaction of still others in and outside the region, I fear there will be no exit. Perhaps it would be wise to start with a brief review: Who led our march into this modern-day Valley of Death?" (08/01/06) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080106A.shtml ----- 58) Making America safe ... for dictatorship CounterPunch by Dave Lindorff "If some diabolical anti-American mastermind had been trying, behind the scenes, to destroy this nation by secretly installing in the White House and Pentagon agents who would deliberately sink the ship of state, he or she couldn't have come up with a subversive wrecking crew more adept at the job than the Bush administration. ... Clearly, though, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice et al, are not the secret agents of some malevolent foreign enemy of America. Nor is their vile reign of terror around the globe and their gutting of the Constitution here at home, simply a matter of stupid policy-making. They are, rather, home-grown enemies of American democracy, bent on subverting the country to their own ends of unbridled power." (08/01/06) http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff08012006.html ----- 59) Leave my children behind, please Strike the Root by Retta Gontana "Government tries to control what you eat and drink. It regulates your healthcare, transportation and education. It controls what you are allowed to think, say, write or wear. It infringes your rights to bear arms and to be secure in your person and property -- sacred things that were intentionally, albeit unsuccessfully, initially placed beyond their reach. It does not hesitate to help itself to your money, your home and your life. Do you think it would hesitate to help itself to your child? It already has." (08/01/06) http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/fontana/fontana3.html ----- 60) The religion of politics Strike the Root by Greg Gauthier "Voting, in other words, is the primary holy sacrament of initiation into the cult of power worship. We are all supplicants to this religion. Each and every time we imbibe the ritual, drinking deeply of the chalice of power-lust, we murder just a little bit more of our own soul, sacrificing it gradually but inexorably, to the God whose name we dare not speak." (08/01/06) http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/gauthier/gauthier1.html Movement News & Events 61) Flag auctions for Richard Celata WolfesBlog thru 08/03/06 "In 1835, the tyrannical General Santa Anna tried to disarm Texans. Big mistake. One group of people had a small cannon they were determined never to surrender. So when the general's men came for the gun, the townspeople greeted them with this [flag: Come and take it] Thanks to the bountiful generosity of David C. Treibs of Battle Flags, Etc., we have FIVE new auctions to raise funds for Rick Celata and family. The first four are full-size (3 x 5-foot) flags. Auction #5 is for a set of 4 x 6-inch tabletop flags in various historic (or updated!) designs. ... These are three-day auctions, so don't delay." (07/31/06) http://www.clairewolfe.com/wolfesblog/00002144.html ----- 62) DEA targets America Drug War Rant "This site is a response/supplement to the DEA museum exhibit: 'Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage Drugs Cause' (at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago). It also serves as an opportunity for people to learn more about the drug war and the failures of Prohibition 2. Downloadable flyers, neat posters,T-shirts and more!" http://www.deatargetsamerica.com/ ----- 63) Seminar: Liberty, Economy & Society Independent Institute 08/07/06 - 08/11/06 "To help high school and college-age students better understand the social and economic issues faced throughout life, The Independent Institute sponsors the Liberty, Economy & Society Summer Seminars as a major part of the Institute's overall program for students. These dynamic seminars help students learn what economics is, how it affects their lives, and how understanding its laws can help them achieve the things they care about." Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA. Enrollment fee $195 per student, including course materials. Tuition assistance available. http://www.independent.org/students/seminars/ ----- 64) Authority and autonomy in the family various 08/19/06 "August 19, 2006 at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA. Speakers confirmed so far include Nathaniel Branden, Peter Breggin (via live video), Susan Love Brown, Marshall Fritz and Sharon Presley. Topics include liberating education, liberating childrearing, encouraging critical intelligence in children, alternative family structures, egalitarian marriage, and encouraging self-esteem in children. The sponsors are Resources for Independent Thinking, the Civil Society Institute, and the Association of Libertarian Feminists." http://www.autonomyinthefamily.org ----- 65) Boston Tea Party organizational convention Boston Tea Party 08/19/06 America's new libertarian political party opens its organizational convention -- held online and open to all members -- on August 19th. Agenda items include the election of a permanent national committee and creation of the party's program. http://www.bostontea.us ----- 66) Reason in Amsterdam 2006 Reason Foundation 08/23/06-08/26/06 "Amidst the beauty of Amsterdam's canals, flower markets and colorful people, attendees of Reason in Amsterdam, 2006 will enjoy a unique opportunity to learn about the contemporary struggle in Europe from prominent European and American intellectuals." An astounding roster of guests and speakers, including Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of the hit series "South Park," Time Magazine's Andrew Sullivan, Reason editors Nick Gillespie and Jacob Sullum, and a host of distinguished authors, activists and political leaders. August 23-26 at the Grand Amsterdam Hotel. $425. Online registration available. http://www.reason.org/amsterdam/ Today in Political History 67) Remember Athens! 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 --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Next-gen email? Have it all with the all-new Yahoo! Mail Beta. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian Yahoo! 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