Tuesday, February 5
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Robert Kaercher is the guest editor today. |
Air
Strike Kills 7 Civilians, Say Afghan Officials
“Afghan leaders have repeatedly called on international forces to exercise more care when choosing targets.” What kind of “leaders” even permit foreign military forces to bomb their country in the first place? Vassals of the empire, obviously.
FBI
to Award $1 Billion Contract for Biometric Database
“The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information -- from palm prints to eye scans. Kimberly Del Greco, the FBI's Biometric Services section chief, said adding to the database is ‘important to protect the borders to keep the terrorists out, protect our citizens, our neighbors, our children so they can have good jobs, and have a safe country to live in’.” The propaganda uttered to rationalize these Borg-like national security state programs just gets more and more insulting.
Inside
the Federal Hurting Machine
“The underlying cause of this remarkable lapse in reasoning is the popular urge for wishful thinking. With the exception of a few crusty reactionaries, people want to believe in government. They want to see it as a source of hope and help, an agency that can give them college educations, art museums, pensions, and free medical care more or less out of thin air. To remind them that they will be forced to pay every single penny these things cost, and much, much more, is a cruel party pooper. So when it comes time to examine the injuries of taxation, people stick cotton in their ears and turn the TV to full volume.” A FEE “Timely Classic” offered in honor of the first $3 trillion budget in US gubmint history.
Proposed
Military Spending Is Highest Since WWII
“As
Congress and the public focus on more than $600 billion already approved in
supplemental budgets to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for
counterterrorism operations, the Bush administration has with little notice
approached a landmark in military spending.”
The
Trillion Dollar Defense Budget Is Already Here
“When President George W. Bush presented his budget proposals recently for the fiscal year 2008, he emphasized that the nation’s security is his highest priority, and he backed up that declaration by proposing that the Pentagon’s outlays be increased by more than 6 percent beyond its estimated outlays for fiscal 2007, to a total of more than $583 billion. Although many Americans regard this enormous sum as excessive, hardly anyone appreciates that the total amount of all defense-related spending greatly exceeds the amount budgeted for the Department of Defense. Indeed, it is roughly almost twice as large.” Robert Higgs wrote this nearly a year ago. Ponder this whenever you read about the latest bloated Federal budget proposal.
"Imagine a whole population spending time and money cleaning their garbage and driving it around the neighborhood rather than working or investing in a productive market!” Root Striker Per Bylund on the pitfalls and follies of coercive environmentalism in his native Sweden.
“[His
flip-flopping on the issue of decriminalizing marijuana] reveals that as a
candidate, Obama is more fond of bold rhetoric than bold policies. But it also
proves the impossibility of talking sense on the subject of illicit drugs
during a political campaign. That course of action would mean admitting the
inadmissible: that the prohibition of cannabis has been cruel, wasteful and
fraudulent.”
“I'm vigorously, 100%, in favor of idleness. We need more idleness. I'm working hard to put the cause of idleness on the map. I don't want Congress to go forcing it upon us, mind you. But I want each of us, voluntarily, in our heart of hearts, including me, to become more attuned to personal idleness, in fact and in philosophy.” Claire Wolfe on the virtues of chilling out.
“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.” The classic essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau’s contemporary in the “Transcendentalist” movement of the mid-19th Century.
Quote
of the Day for “Super Tuesday” 2008
This version looks much more entertaining.
A photo blog.
