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October 30, 2004
Godspeed
I lost a beloved uncle this morning. He was 64 - right on the national average for American black men. He was recently retired, and we discussed social security a lot lately. He paid into the system all of his working life, and he supported it. But what an ingenious fraud it is - fully half of black men never live to see even a dime returned.
Godspeed, Austin.
Posted by Robert Jackson at 01:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 29, 2004
Bank on Congress's Making Life Harder for the Little Guy
Thanks to politicians' trying score points with voters in the wake of the Enron collapse (itself largely a result of political machinations), Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which is supposed to make companies follow better practices so that there is less chance of corruption and greater accountability. Brought to you by the same people whose books cannot even be audited, the act has already cost the company for which I work a cool $25 million to bring everything into compliance, and we're not done by any means.
Today I received a memo stating:
"By January 1, 2005, all employees with arrangements for payroll direct deposit will be limited to one account designation. All . . . operating companies are mandated to comply with this corporate-wide initiative, which supports compliance requirements and consistency in controls as outlined in Sarbanes-Oxley legislation."
Isn't that nice? Our fine public servants in Washington are now forcing us all to have our paychecks directly deposited into a single account. No more putting some into checking and some into savings, as I currently do. For my own good, I will now have to have everything deposited into one account and then have the bank transfer some of it to the other account. (Fortunately, my bank will set up an automatic monthly transfer, or this could really be painful.) At least I feel safe knowing that my CEO can't mess with both of my bank accounts now. Thanks, Congress!
Ain't freedom grand?
Posted by Mike Tennant at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2004
Harvard Gov't Expert
Steven Kates, a personal trainer in Santa Monica, CA. Is not voting.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nonvoter28oct28,1,2123728.story?coll=la-headlines-california
His reasons are a bit over the top, but as long as he is not voting -- GREAT!!!!
However, this quote from Sidney Verba, professor of government at Hah-vahd had me rolling:
"Sidney Verba, a professor of government at Harvard University and a longtime researcher on voting, sympathizes with Kates. "He's not so weird," Verba says. "There are lots of people who don't vote for lots of reasons…. He seems to care." And, Verba says, Kates "correctly points out that everybody is trying to spin the information in one direction or another and therefore he wants to throw up his hands."
But Verba notes that few people outside of rarefied policy wonk circles would reach Kates' goal of perfect understanding.
"Most people would not make his argument that 'I really don't understand the issues so I won't vote,' " Verba says. "I mean, I don't understand a lot of the issues the candidates talk about. No one really understands how Social Security is financed…. Even the more educated people in society who pay attention to these issues, including professors of government at Harvard, don't know everything."
No, Sidney. But a quick Google search obtained a multitude of sources for how the Grand Ponzi Scheme is financed.
Does not say much for the Governmental Studies department, does it? And, oh yeah. Sidney does not need to know everything, but he will vote to (A) Elect someone that supposedly does, and (B) Make those on the losing side live their life based on what he thinks they should do.
I wish more people were perfectionists like Steven Kates.
Posted by Duke Heberlein at 10:36 PM | Comments (61) | TrackBack
Fortunately, They're Just Towelheads
Here's something to send to your war-loving pals, who will no doubt dismiss it as political but who might be forced to think about their support of the invasion of Iraq:
A survey of deaths in Iraqi households estimates that as many as 100,000 more people may have died throughout the country in the 18 months since the U.S.-led invasion than would be expected based on the death rate before the war. . . .
Designed and conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University and the Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, the study is being published Thursday on the Web site of The Lancet medical journal.
The survey indicated violence accounted for most of the extra deaths seen since the invasion, and airstrikes from coalition forces caused most of the violent deaths, the researchers wrote in the British-based journal.
"Most individuals reportedly killed by coalition forces were women and children," they said.
So, war supporters, was it really worth it? Even if this number is wildly off the mark--let's say 50,000 rather than 100,000 is the real death toll--is it worth it simply to oust a man who we now know (and some of us knew before the war) had neither the capacity nor the desire to threaten us? If it is, then your moral compass is in need of some serious adjustment.
(Thanks to the LewRockwell.com blog for this link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2004
WorldNetDaily Shows Its True Colors
If there were ever any doubt about the primary issue for the gang at WarNutDaily, today's commentary page ought to put it to rest. One might expect that a supposedly conservative, Christian site would be primarily concerned with reducing government, safeguarding America's interests, and upholding moral standards. However, one would be mistaken. Clearly the highest priority at WND is the preservation of Israel.
Why do I say this? Well, if you look at today's commentary page, you'll find there are four--count 'em, four--columns in a row telling us how important the defeat of John Kerry and reelection of George W. Bush are, not because a Kerry victory would be so horrible for America but because it would mean . . . (cue threatening music) the end of Israel.
- Dennis Prager tells us "How Jews should vote?"
- Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld explains "Why Jews should vote for Bush."
- Michael Evans answers the question "Who will get the pro-Israel vote?" with "George W. Bush."
- Jeffrey Epstein tells us to cast "A vote of betrayal or conscience . . . the choice is yours." I'll give you one guess as to which candidate gets the vote of "betrayal" and which one gets the vote of "conscience."
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2004
Iran Attack to Be "October Surprise"?
There has been much speculation about the Bush administration's possible "October surprise" to win the election. Here's the latest:
According to White House and Washington Beltway insiders, the Bush administration, worried that it could lose the presidential election to Senator John F. Kerry, has initiated plans to launch a military strike on Iran's top Islamic leadership, its nuclear reactor at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, and key nuclear targets throughout the country, including the main underground research site at Natanz in central Iran and another in Isfahan. Targets of the planned U.S. attack reportedly include mosques in Tehran, Qom, and Isfahan known by the U.S. to headquarter Iran's top mullahs.
The Iran attack plan was reportedly drawn up after internal polling indicated that if the Bush administration launched a so-called anti-terrorist attack on Iran some two weeks before the election, Bush would be assured of a landslide win against Kerry. Reports of a pre-emptive strike on Iran come amid concerns by a number of political observers that the Bush administration would concoct an "October Surprise" to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
Is this true? A week's time will tell. If it is true, it's scary. In fact, if it's even under consideration, it's scary. At the same time, it's not at all hard to believe.
(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
You Believe Your Intelligence; I'll Believe Mine
As the insurgency has intensified, so has the scrutiny of the White House over warnings it received before the war that predicted the instability. An examination of prewar intelligence on the possibility of postwar violence and of the administration's response shows:
• Military and civilian intelligence agencies repeatedly warned prior to the invasion that Iraqi insurgent forces were preparing to fight and that their ranks would grow as other Iraqis came to resent the U.S. occupation and organize guerrilla attacks.
• The war plan put together by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Tommy Franks discounted these warnings. Rumsfeld and Franks anticipated surrender by Iraqi ground forces and a warm welcome from civilians.
• The insurgency began not after the end of major combat in May 2003 but at the beginning of the war, yet Pentagon officials were slow to identify the enemy and to grasp how serious a threat the guerrilla attacks posed.
So they could find all kinds of "intelligence" to prove that Iraq was just bursting at the seams with WMDs, but intelligence that showed U.S. troops wouldn't be greeted as liberators somehow got overlooked. The former, of course, proved false, while the latter proved true. Yessirree, I can see why these folks deserve another term in the White House.
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)
Two More Success Stories From the Iraq Occupation
Why is the media wasting our time with unimportant stories like these when there are schools, hospitals, and power plants being rebuilt in Iraq every day?
Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq
The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.
The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year. . . .
New Violence Flares in Iraq, After Executions Leave 50 Dead
An American soldier and three Iraqi civilians were killed today, the military said, a day after Iraqi officials announced that the deadliest ambush of the insurgency left about 50 freshly trained and unarmed Iraqi soldiers dead in remote eastern Iraq on Saturday evening.
The soldier died and five other soldiers were wounded when a bomb exploded this morning in western Baghdad. Earlier, a suspected car bomb killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded six others in central Baghdad.
Elsewhere, a bomb exploded at the regional governorate building in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing a tribal leader and two of his associates, local government officials told Reuters. The bomb had been planted in the car of Sahir Khodhir, head of the National Assembly of Iraqi Tribes in the northern part of Iraq, and blew up when the vehicle reached the car park of the Nineveh regional government headquarters in Mosul, about 240 miles north of Baghdad, the agency reported. . . .
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2004
The Bubble is Bursting
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Here in the High Desert of California, a housing bubble has been steadily expanding for a couple of years now. Well, now the realtors I know, who just a month or two ago were bragging on their sales records and offhandedly talking about how many five-figure commissions they were making, are now gathering at the office after-hours for "cold-call parties," i.e., telephone soliciting for sales, and, now, they rub their hands together gleefully if a single sale is closing escrow later in the week. The meltdown is coming.
Posted by Patrick Yancey at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2004
How to Rig an Election
Here's an interesting juxtaposition of news items.
First, from the Washington Post:
Leaders of Iraq's religious parties have emerged as the country's most popular politicians and would win the largest share of votes if an election were held today, while the U.S.-backed government of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is losing serious ground, according to a U.S.-financed poll by the International Republican Institute. . . .
President Bush said Tuesday that he would be "disappointed" if free and fair elections in Iraq led to the seating of an Islamic government, but that the United States would accept the results. "Democracy is democracy," he said. "If that's what people choose, that's what the people choose."
And if you believe that the administration is really going to let Islamists win, well, get a load of this:
U.S. and Iraqi forces detained a leading member of the Muslim Clerics' Association on Friday in what the influential Sunni group described as a campaign against opponents of the U.S. presence in Iraq.
Sheikh Abdel-Sattar Abdel-Jabbar, his two sons and a neighbor were arrested in a raid on the mosque compound where they live in the Tunis area of Baghdad around 1:30 a.m., association officials said.
"This arrest is part of a campaign not just against the Muslim Clerics' Association but all opposition voices," spokesman Mohamed Bashar al-Faidhi told Reuters. . . .
On Friday, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops left a mosque they were raiding in a hunt for suspected bomb-makers in the northern city of Mosul, after coming under fire.
The preacher of that mosque, Sheikh Rayan Tawfik, is the Muslim Clerics' Association representative for that region.
In August, U.S. forces detained Muthanna Harith al-Dhari, a leading member of the Muslim Clerics Association and son of the group's secretary-general. He was later released.
Gunmen killed two members in Baghdad last month.
No one takes over another country just to let it go its own way, and neither has the Bush administration, much as they would like us to believe otherwise.
No doubt they wish they could lock up all prominent Democrats here as well.
(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the links.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:21 PM | Comments (0)
Perpetual War for Perpetual War
Today at LewRockwell.com, Jim Lobe writes about the looming draft to meet all the military commitments of the Bush administration, which denies a draft is in the cards. There's nothing particularly startling about that revelation. There is, however, one particularly disconcerting nugget tucked into this article:
Suggestions that a draft may once again be in the cards were boosted significantly late last month when the Defense Science Board, a panel of mainly right-wing and Republican national-security advisers to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, concluded, "inadequate total numbers" of troops mean that the United States "cannot sustain our current and projected global stabilization commitments."
It noted that, given current plans and commitments, Washington is likely to be engaged in significant military interventions involving some stabilization function every other year, on average.
Be prepared for a war to happen at least every other year--and that's just "given current plans and commitments." If we end up with more preemptive wars, which will only further destabilize things, we could be in for perpetual war for perpetual war.
Conservatives will cheer such an eventuality as long as a Republican is in the White House, and liberals will cheer as long as a Democrat is in the White House. The few principled war opponents among us will be, as usual, left out in the cold.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2004
Joe Farah Does an About Face
Joseph Farah, who says he sat out the 2000 election and has been urging his readers either to sit this one out or to vote for someone other than Bush or Kerry, has changed his mind in the crunch. Quoth Farah:
Still, I couldn't support Bush in 2000 because I did not believe he would govern according to the limits of the U.S. Constitution. That is my minimum standard requirement for support of any candidate for federal office.
Until recently, I was planning to sit out the 2004 presidential election, too, for the same reason.
When it comes to the U.S. Constitution, Bush doesn't get it. He doesn't understand the strict limits on federal authority. He doesn't understand how this sets us apart as a free nation from all others in the world.
So why isn't Farah sitting this one out if Bush fails to meet his "minimum standard"?
However, three years ago, this nation was attacked as it has never been attacked before. We find ourselves in a global conflict with a radical ideology of evil comparable to our titanic battles of the past with Nazism and communism. It's a fight to the finish. It's a fight for our lives. It's a fight that will never end until one side or the other is vanquished.
I have come to the conclusion that, like it or not, Osama bin Laden and his jihadist allies have one short-term goal above all others – defeating George W. Bush at the polls Nov. 2. . . .
Ask yourself today: Will America be safer with Bush or Kerry in the White House?
That's how simple the choice is today. All other considerations merely muddy the water and complicate what is seen by our enemies as a clear choice.
So all "other considerations," including fidelity to the Constitution, are irrelevant because of terrorism, eh? Now we see how strong Farah's principles are. As long as a president is willing to murder thousands of foreigners (and, of course, stick up for Israel at every turn), Farah is willing to overlook everything else that president has done that violates Farah's "minimum standard" for election. (You really need to read the whole thing to see how much Farah's thirst for blood informs his opinion on the election as, for example, he refers to "the enemy" as "the beast.")
Way to stand up for liberty, Joe.
(P.S. I guess this shouldn't be that surprising given the way WND seems to be purging all Bush- and war-doubters from its ranks. Paul Sperry and Ilana Mercer, for example, are both goners who were picked up by Antiwar.com. Probably the only thing that keeps Pat Buchanan on WND is his reputation, although perhaps his recent endorsement of Bush will help.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)
Bush Thought He Could Take Iraq Without Casualties
The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, "We're not going to have any casualties."
Yes, folks, the president of the United States thought he could take over a country the size of California without a single casualty! Tell me again why this guy deserves re-election.
Robertson apparently believes he does because he "heaped praise on Bush, saying he believes the president will win the election and that 'the blessing of heaven is on Bush.'" Of course, we know this is because Bush remains a firm supporter of Israel. How do we know this? Well, Robertson recently threatened to form a third party if Bush so much as touched Jerusalem.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
A Shot in the Arm for Congress
The Washington Post reports, in an article that goes perfectly with my column today:
While many Americans search in vain for flu shots, members and employees of Congress are able to obtain them quickly and at no charge from the Capitol's attending physician, who has urged all 535 lawmakers to get the vaccines even if they are young and healthy.
As always, there's one set of rules for the little people and another set for the rulers.
Fortunately, we have a conservative president who is working to get the government out of the vaccination business in order to let the market do its job, at the same time reducing government spending.
On an easel next to the lectern where [HHS Secretary Tommy] Thompson spoke was a graph showing the growth in federal influenza-related spending, from $39 million in 2001 to a proposed $283 million next year. [That's a 626 percent increase in 4 years, folks.]
"President Bush has invested more in research, development and acquisition of flu vaccine and prevention than any president," he said.
Er, maybe not.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
NEW FRONTIERS IN OFFICIAL LIBERTY
Last weekend C-SPAN broadcast a "debate" held October 6 among four of the
"third-party" candidates. Michael Badnarik of the Libertarian Party was one of the participants. In response to a question about campaign financing, he
said:
"Individuals should have the right to contribute as much as they want as long as that information is recorded and published. Corporations should not be funding political campaigns because they have access to millions and millions of dollars that they provide to both parties, indicating that there isn't an ideological slant. They're simply trying to grease the skids for whichever candidate gets elected so that they can get their legislation passed to protect their particular industry."
(1) "as long as"? Does that mean that individuals have no right to make campaign donations if they don't want them published? Who's going to publish this information? Who's going to require that it be published? Is this is what the limited state looks like, after all?
(2) Can individuals not donate to multiple campaigns if they want to?
(3) What's wrong with corporations' trying to defend themselves against politicians and legislation?
(4) Suppose corporations gave incentives to employees to make donations for them. Would the Libertarians, if in power, forbid that?
(5) When did the LP stop understanding that corporations are a means by which individuals exercise their property rights? [Ronn Neff]
COMMENT. It is interesting to hear the Libertarian candidate join mainstream totalitarian power-seekers in using a certain irritating formulation: "Individuals
should have the right ..." I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, since Badnarik is in the same business as the duopoly partyarchs; but any libertarian -- even a
Libertarian -- who believed in natural rights would say, "Individuals have the right," period. No "should" about it, unless he was creating what we might call
moral fiction. In the real world, Leviathan cannot conjure up and hand out real rights.
Some who regard themselves as libertarians are not satisfied by any of the existing derivations of natural rights, and they tend to talk in terms of "equal
liberty." They might say -- legitimately given their premises -- "Individuals should have the freedom ..."
Badnarik, on the other hand, just sounds confused.
Confused by the temptations of Power? [Nicholas Strakon]
Reposted by permission from The Last Ditch at www.thornwalker.com/ditch © 2004 WTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.
Posted by Rob at 12:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 19, 2004
Cheney: Vote for Bush or Your City May Be Nuked
The Democrats play on people's fears of lost Social Security, jobs, and health insurance. The Republicans play on people's fears of nukes in the hands of terrorists.
"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us — biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.
"That's the ultimate threat. For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept," Cheney said.
Cheney, speaking to an invitation-only crowd as he began a bus tour through Republican strongholds in Ohio, said Kerry is trying to convince voters he would be the same type of "tough, aggressive" leader as President Bush in the fight against terrorism.
"I don't believe it," the vice president said. "I don't think there's any evidence to support the proposition that he would, in fact, do it."
Of course, if the Bush policies are succeeding so wildly, as the administration would have us believe, why is there even a terrorist threat at all by now? Shouldn't it have been eradicated or at least greatly reduced?
Posted by Mike Tennant at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)
What First Amendment?
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aP04h266svfM&refer=us
Be sure and inspect what this idiot is charged with. We are all in danger of arrest, just for reading this weblog!
Posted by Patrick Yancey at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
Orange County Registers Its Disapproval of the Iraq War
The Orange County Register lays into George W. Bush and his Iraq policy:
Conservative theory mocks those who think reason can overcome nationalism and religious fervor. Please, someone get a memo on this to George W. Bush. . . .
That the Iraq war is a reckless adventure in utopian internationalism, made possible by the naivete to which liberal thought has always been prone, would be obvious if it were not being prosecuted by administration that, in the face of all evidence, calls itself conservative.
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2004
Now He Tells Us . . .
The neocons and their buddies are becoming increasingly unhinged as their war rationales fall by the wayside.
If you thought that the war on Iraq was all about WMDs, well, forget it, says Alan Caruba at CNSNews.com.
Which leaves the question of what the hell are we doing in Iraq? And is it a good idea, given the amount of national treasure being spent and the loss of some very brave soldiers? Let's get one thing out of the way. There were no WMDs and that was NOT the real reason we invaded Iraq.
So what was the real reason?
The real reason is also both complex and nuanced. [What? John Kerry's a liberal weenie for being "nuanced," but Bush is a conservative genius?] One does not go to war frivolously, but neither do you have to be the President, a four-star General or a Ph.D. in global affairs to figure out why we're in Iraq. All you have to do is look at a map. Iraq is the single most strategic nation in the Middle East. . . .
We are in Iraq because the general view throughout the Middle East was that the United States of America lacked the guts to wage and win a war. If we can bring an end to the guerrilla war in Iraq, maneuvering, i.e., buying our way through the often-shifting alliances of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, and even Iran, we will have proved them wrong.
Yes, folks, we went to war in Iraq not because Iraq posed any threat to us at all but because we had to show that we're he-men with "the guts to wage and win a war." Oh, yes. We also went for a little thing called empire:
Once a new government in Iraq is secure, functioning, and friendly to the US for having liberated it from three decades of horrific despotism, America's military bases will allow it, as Friedman notes, to "dominate the area between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush; it would control the pivot of Eurasia.
This, along with absolute control of the seas, would give the United States a global empire that was unprecedented in history." The irony is, America has never wanted to be an empire or an occupier.
Mr. Caruba could have more accurately stated that the American people, by and large, have never wanted to be an empire or an occupier. Their leaders, on the other hand, have wanted to do so and have done so for years.
Apparently the neocons are so sure the election is in the bag for Bush that they now believe they can tell us the truth (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof) and still win. Unfortunately, they're probably right.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)
A Conservative Debate on the Election? No Way!
What a breath of fresh air The American Conservative is! Whereas one can be absolutely certain that National Review will endorse the GOP candidate in any race regardless of how bad the candidate is, TAC offers us articles arguing in favor of every major candidate in the race: Bush, Kerry, Nader, Badnarik, Peroutka, and, yes, "None of the Above."
It begins here with Pat Buchanan's less-than-ringing endorsement of Bush, in my opinion the least persuasive and most inconsistent of all. It ends with Taki's endorsement of Peroutka, and in between all that is a gem of an article by Kara Hopkins explaining why the best choice may be not to vote at all. You'd never see any of this, except for the Bush endorsement, in the pages (paper or online) of NR.
If possible, take time to read all of them because there's something interesting in each one, on top of which there's something here for voters and non-voters alike.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)
Distrusting Government is a Virtue
Sheldon Richman writes: "Today political philosophers and others believe that restraining government amounts to restraining 'the people.' Jefferson knew better — restraining government liberates people."
When you hear the likes of Justice Antonin Scalia tell an audience that if they don't want national ID cards they need to amend the Constitution, it's long past time to distrust the government. Many Founders Scalia would no doubt regard with reverence would think nothing of tarring and feathering him for such a remark.
But the more fundamental question is, why put up with an institution we constantly have to watch with "eternal vigilance"? Why not have its legitimate functions subject it to the checks and balances of the market - and do away with all the rest, which is most of it?
Posted by George F. Smith at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2004
Your Tax Dollars at Work
Writes Eric Heyl in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
In East Liberty, a head of lettuce can cost more than one might think.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services on Wednesday awarded a $700,000 grant to help finance a new 48,000-square-foot Shop 'n Save supermarket in East Liberty Station. The store will occupy vacant space formerly held by the defunct Phar-Mor drugstore chain.
This may seem like a lot of money for the federal government to pump into a private, for-profit business, until you consider how desperately the community needs this grocery. Why, the closest supermarket to East Liberty Station happens to be, oh, less than a block away.
What's more, Heyl says, within half a mile of both of those is one working supermarket and another one under construction--and both received local taxpayer dollars to build there.
Legalized theft is alive and well in the Pittsburgh area.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2004
Five More Reasons not to Vote
Doug Casey gives us his five reasons not to vote. He and Joel Miller still hold a tiny corner at WND.
Posted by Robert Jackson at 09:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Words of wisdom from Walter Eckland, my patron saint.
I was watching Gallipoli again today, and, while it is situationally dissimilar from the Mesopotamian idiocy, it offers many still-valid lessons on the overall futility of armed conflict (except, of course, civil resistance to tyranny). I am still moved by the final moments before the 10th Light Horse goes "over the top," when the men begin shoving their bayonets into the sandbags and hanging precious possessions and letters to their loved ones on them. One sees this and cannot blame the French mutineers who refused to obey similar orders despite the lottery for the firing squad which awaited them. One questions the entire notion of bravery, and whether those men who obey are really braver than those who revolt. One also wonders why these lessons of history are never absorbed, until one watches my favorite Cary Grant film, Father Goose, and hears the words of Walter Eckland, my patron saint (because he embodies the hope that a broke, scruffy drunk can get a hot chick like Leslie Caron), on being ejected from the school where he taught history for having no necktie:
"I thought they'd be more interested in what was in a man's head, not around his neck. Then I noticed: they all wore ties. They all looked alike, and they all behaved alike, and they all talked alike. Well, they were all going the same direction, no matter which way they said they were going. So what was the use of teaching them history? Or anything? They weren't learning by it. Still creating the same world problems. So, I packed, got on a boat, and got away from them."
Well, I've got the boat. Now I just have to pack, get on it, and get away from them. I'm not running away, I'm escaping.
Posted by Patrick Yancey at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)
Bush Hires Ex-KGB Chief for National IDs
According to some reports, the Department of Homeland Security [sic] has hired a former KGB chief to help design the internal passports that are being pushed as innocent-sounding federally-mandated drivers licenses.
Gen. Yevgeni Primakov, the ex-KGB agent, speaks excellent English and will be well-paid for his expertise - such payments, of course, coming from the taxpayers who will be forced to carry the new IDs.
"What Primakov finds funny are what he calls these 'right wing flag wavers' who were so anti-communist and they're supporting a state policy of internal passports. The irony is deafening."
Let's hope this turns out to be a bad dream.
Posted by George F. Smith at 04:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Government Inspections Fail Again
A tour bus involved in a fatal crash in Arkansas passed an Illinois safety inspection in August that included the frame, which federal investigators say had serious cracks.
State inspections are, of course, just another way for state governments to fleece their citizens under the guise of protecting them. Here we see how well those inspections really protect people.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)
Cooking, the New Silent Killer
First we were told going out to eat will kill you because those evil fast-food companies will sell you all kinds of stuff to make you fat and give you a heart attack. Now it turns out it's not safe to cook your own food, either.
Some 1.6 million people, mainly small children, die each year from a “kitchen killer” -- disease brought on by inhaling smoke from cooking stoves and indoor fires, the World Health Organization said on Friday. . . .
“The amount of smoke from these fires is the equivalent of consuming two packs of cigarettes a day,” WHO said, adding one life was lost every 20 seconds to the “killer in the kitchen.”
They're referring to the burning of solid fuels in the kitchen, including the ever-popular dung fuel. Of course, if people who currently burn solid fuels for cooking were to stop cooking, then they'd get other food-borne diseases from uncooked meats. On the other hand, they shouldn't eat meat because it's a carcinogen and contains fat and cholesterol. Aw, let's face it: everything's a killer. We might as well just "roll [ourselves] up in a big ball and die," as Frank Sinatra sang in "That's Life."
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2004
Iraq Gun Buy-back Program a Bang-up Failure
Gun buy-back programs work so well with criminals here in the U.S. (remember how conservatives lampooned these?) that the Bush administration (the "conservative" administration) is attempting them in Iraq . . . with typically disastrous results.
A weapons-for-cash program designed to disarm Shiite militiamen who have been fighting American troops is unlikely to weaken the movement of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in his Baghdad stronghold - but is proving to be an economic bonanza for residents. . . .
Furthermore, sources close to the militia in Sadr City said some of the gunmen were handing over weapons that are not properly functioning or were considered surplus. In some cases, they threw in one or two pieces in pristine condition to make the process look genuine.
Cash could be used to buy new weapons, the sources said on condition of anonymity. The process also doesn't require those surrendering weapons to prove al-Mahdi Army membership, meaning ordinary Iraqis were able to trade guns for cash.
Whatever lunkhead in the administration dreamed up this scheme ought to be fired. Of course, in the party and presidency of personal responsibility, that's not too likely to happen.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)
Taxpayer Soaking Administration Strikes Again
We all know Democrats are the ones who create wasteful, expensive, useless, and ever-growing government programs--right?
The government agency in charge of airport security spent nearly a half-million dollars on an awards ceremony at a lavish hotel, including $81,000 for plaques and $500 for cheese displays, according to an internal report obtained by The Associated Press.
Awards were presented to 543 Transportation Security Administration employees and 30 organizations, including a "lifetime achievement award" for one worker with the 2-year-old agency. Almost $200,000 was spent on travel and lodging for attendees.
The investigation by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, Clark Kent Ervin, also found the TSA gave its senior executives bonuses averaging $16,000, higher than at any other federal government agency, and failed to provide adequate justification in more than a third of the 88 cases examined.
It seems, then, that Republican-created government programs can compete with the best of the Democrat-created ones.
Republicans say the agency has grown far larger than they envisioned when it was created following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Well, who woulda thunk it? A government agency growing beyond what its creators envisioned? The TSA must be working overtime to grow so rapidly in only three years, too.
Read the whole thing here, if you can stomach it.
Thanks, party of fiscal responsibility!
(Link courtesy Drudge Report.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:13 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2004
The Market Is the Solution
Adding to Duke's entry below, two important facts need to be pointed out:
- The market, not government regulators, saved people from the contaminated vaccines. Chiron, the vaccine manufacturer, discovered the contaminated vaccine batches and alerted the regulators, not the other way around. Furthermore, the British government--and the FDA indicates it will follow the Brits' lead--has impounded 40 million doses that Chiron tested and found pure. That means 40 million people who could have gotten a safe flu shot won't because of overbearing bureaucrats in both countries.
- There wouldn't have to be rationing of doses in this country if the government didn't subsidize them in the first place. The fact that people can obtain the vaccine for free or at reduced cost means far more people than need it will attempt to obtain it, thus creating the shortages and rationing. If the price were allowed to float on the market, supply would meet demand, and there would be no problem. Yes, people would have to pay more for a quantity in short supply, but then they would weigh the costs and benefits before going out and getting a shot. Voila! People who really need it would get it, and others would just tough it out for a few days of coughs and sneezes.
The market is not the problem. Government is the problem. The market is the solution.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:35 PM | Comments (0)
MD's need econ lessons
From today's LA Times:
"Physicians will have the sad task of filling out the death certificates of those who die of influenza as a consequence of this vaccine shortage. Causes of death? Primary cause: the market system. Secondary cause: influenza. That's what I'll be signing."
J.R. Kent MD
Huntington Beach
The market system is the cause of these deaths, that have not even happened yet? This clown needs to go work in a country with single-payer (i.e. government run) healthcare. He would see how rationing of flu vaccines in those systems would kill just as many, if not more than the market system.
Posted by Duke Heberlein at 12:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Saddam Hussein's Misplaced Faith in the CIA
Saddam Hussein and the neocons have at least one thing in common besides megalomania: They both thought the CIA had a thorough knowledge of Iraq's WMDs or lack thereof.
Among other things in this interesting article, we find that
Saddam Hussein misread U.S. intentions in part because he believed the CIA was far better at spying than it turned out to be. Senior aides told interrogators that Hussein was convinced the U.S. intelligence agency knew he had no illicit weapons. . . .
He was wrong. In July, the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that the CIA had no informants or spies inside Iraq for at least five years before the war.
The article makes it clear that Hussein didn't think of the U.S. as a serious enemy but instead thought he could get our government to go back to the old days when Hussein was considered a bulwark against Iran. Obviously he hadn't counted on George W. Bush and the neocons.
It's definitely worth reading the whole thing.
(Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
Must . . . Stamp . . . Out . . . Freedom (While Telling People We're Protecting It)
Watch out, fellow Root Strikers!
With political fund raising, campaign advertising and organizing taking place in full swing over the Internet, it may just be a matter of time before the Federal Election Commission joins the action. Well, that time may be now.
A recent federal court ruling says the FEC must extend some of the nation's new campaign finance and spending limits to political activity on the Internet.
Long reluctant to step into online political activity [yeah, right], the agency is considering whether to appeal.
But vice chairwoman Ellen Weintraub said the Internet may prove to be an unavoidable area for the six-member commission, regardless of what happens with the ruling.
"I don't think anybody here wants to impede the free flow of information over the Internet," Weintraub said. "The question then is, where do you draw the line?"
There's far too much free speech going on out there on the Internet. The political class can't have that kind of threat to their existence. Fortunately, I think the Web is far too decentralized and dispersed to be controllable--which doesn't mean they won't try.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
Horrors! Less Theft in America!
A new study says hundreds of thousands of college students who may be eligible for federal financial aid don't get it for a simple reason -- they don't apply.
The study released Monday by the American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities, says that half of the 8 million undergraduates enrolled in 1999-2000 at institutions participating in federal student aid programs did not complete the main federal aid application form.
Yes, folks, it is a shame that 4 million Americans did not avail themselves of the opportunity to rob their fellow citizens. Obviously we just need to make them more aware that plundering opportunities are available.
Who would have thought we'd see the day where failure to commit a crime was cause for alarm?
Read the whole story here.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2004
Scowcroft the Defeatist Liberal?
Conservatives are raking John Kerry over the coals for these comments to the New York Times:
''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''
But if only a liberal Democrat defeatist would say such a thing, what shall we make of these 2002 remarks by former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, of the first Bush administration?
Scowcroft is confident that the war on terrorism can be won, in the same way the war on organized crime can be won. "There will not be a treaty signed aboard the battleship Missouri, but we can break its back so that it is only a horrible nuisance and not a paralyzing influence on our societies."
Kerry and Scowcroft are both right. Terrorism is a tactic. Declaring war on terrorism is like declaring war on poverty or drugs. The best you can hope to do is reduce the problem to a "nuisance" instead of an all-consuming danger. It can never be completely defeated because there will always be some fanatic out there willing to strap a bomb on his back.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)
Iraq or Jail? No Contest
A Vilseck-based soldier accused of faking mental illness to avoid serving in Iraq was sentenced Thursday to 11 months in prison, according to the 1st Infantry Division’s staff judge advocate. . . .
Besides the jail time, the judge, Lt. Col. Robin Hall, ordered Lux to forfeit all pay during his jail term, reduced him to the lowest enlisted rank and handed him a bad-conduct discharge.
This ought to tell you everything you need to know about the situation in Iraq. If someone is willing to go to jail for 11 months, give up his pay, and receive a dishonorable discharge rather than return to Iraq, just think how bad things must be over there.
(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2004
Re: The Draft
I have to say that instituting the draft, however much it might wake some people up, is a very bad idea that no anarchist or libertarian should endorse. I would say the same thing about executing all drug prisoners, banning guns, or dropping a nuclear weapon on Florida. Even if people become more resistant, it's not worth empowering the state and expanding oppression over anybody.
Besides, a draft will enlarge this war and not elicit the outrage I think it should.
Posted by Anthony Gregory at 07:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Double Shot of Anti-Statism
From LewRockwell.com, here are two fine columns in favor of anarchy:
1. Butler Shaffer on "Collectivist Utopias"
2. Mark Reynolds says "No State = Freedom & Prosperity."
Read 'em both. Reynolds's article is particularly interesting because it provides examples of successful historical periods of anarchy.
Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:02 AM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2004
FDA Hushes Up Concerns; Merck Takes Them to Heart
The Food and Drug Administration silenced one of its drug experts who raised safety concerns weeks before Merck & Co. yanked the blockbuster drug Vioxx due to increased risks for heart attack and strokes, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said Thursday.
Dr. David J. Graham, associate director for science in the FDA Drug Center's Office of Drug Safety, told Senate investigators he faced stiff resistance within the regulatory agency to his findings.
"Dr. Graham described an environment where he was 'ostracized,' 'subjected to veiled threats' and 'intimidation,"' Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement after Finance Committee investigators interviewed the researcher Thursday.
Read the whole story here.
Ain't it grand to have the government here to protect us from those evil pharmaceutical companies?
Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:02 PM | Comments (0)
How About an Amendment to Protect Marriage in Iraq?
It seems the U.S. government is trying to do for marriage in Iraq what it has done for marriage in the U.S.
An airstrike killed 14 people and wounded 16 during a wedding party, according to hospital officials in the unstable city of Falluja, but the U.S. military said its planes had targeted a terrorist safe house.
How many times have we been through this before? I believe this is at least the second time in Iraq, plus at least once in Afghanistan. The pattern is always the same: the "liberated" populace says a wedding party was killed, the U.S. says it was a "terrorist safe house," and then the proof (not yet forthcoming in this instance) that it was a wedding surfaces.
I predict a rise in cohabitation and illegitimacy in Iraq as a result of this pattern of behavior on the part of the occupying troops. Isn't that what the compassionate conservative supporters of George W. Bush were hoping for?
Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2004
Draft? "Bring it On!"
What a great way to kick start the revolution. The fewer deferments available, the better. The resistance would be massive.
I want to see the response of parents when armed thugs come to their door demanding their children. The body count of dead government agents might just rise high enough to match the daily body counts now coming out of Iraq.
I want to see the response of businesses after their prized employees are snatched from them, or said employees make their own decision to chuck this stinking country and haul butt to Mexico, Switzerland, or somewhere else more civilized.
Watch the hatred for The State steadily grow into an outright insurgency.
Watch with pleasure the rioting in the streets of the dying american Empire as people come to their senses and shed the slavish allegiance to Satanic-inspired governance.
"Bring it on!"
Posted by Roger Young at 03:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Supporting Martha
The State convicted Martha Stewart because (1) she was rich and reputed to be cold and distant; (2) she didn't have the proper connections to protect her from the Justice Department's inquisition; (3) it wanted to quench the envious thirst of the riff-raff who couldn't run a successful lemonade stand; and (4 - 99) ambitious prosecutors wanted an easy kill. Those who think the rich are safe when Republicans are in power don't know their history or the nature of government.
I've chosen to support Martha in any way I can, as small as it may be. To my delight I've discovered that Barnes & Noble is selling her books at fire sale prices. You might want to do a little early holiday season shopping and take advantage of the price cut, while giving support to an achiever and victim of state treachery.
Posted by George F. Smith at 12:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Here Comes the Draft
Though a draft serves no military need, Congress will institute consciption on moral grounds. It is our duty to serve something or someone other than ourselves, we are told. Therefore, Congress's job is to shake us out of our moral slumber and make us world crusaders. Whether we bomb Iraqis or paint fences in some domestic backwater, the important thing is to destroy what remains of our individualism.
Yesterday, the House routinely allowed Ron Paul to speak against HR 163, the draft law's latest face. He spoke for his conscience and to get our attention, but the bill's fate will not be decided by reason. Congress is certainly aware, for instance, that conscription forces "a small number of young vulnerable citizens to fight the wars that older men and women, who seek glory in military victory without themselves being exposed to danger, promote." They know that, but so what? Morality requires some sacrifice, right? Certainly they had nothing to do with being on the receiving end of the sacrifice. As society's elite, they were merely doing their duty.
Since most voters will not be affected by a draft, Congress can do what it wants with HR 163 and will likely pass it.
Posted by George F. Smith at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 04, 2004
Fishy "Proof" of Saddam's WMD Possession and Terror Ties
"A senior government official who is not a political appointee" provides alleged "Iraqi intelligence documents, confiscated by U.S. forces" to a relatively obscure "conservative" (meaning GOP-supportive) website. Said documents supposedly validate all the Bush administration's claims about Saddam Hussein vis a vis WMDs and al-Qaeda connections, and yet they're only turning up on a website with an Alexa ranking of 11,836?
Naturally, the unnamed official is doing this only for the purest of motives: "strictly national security and helping with the war on terrorism by focusing this country's attention on facts and away from political posturing."
Strangely enough, he didn't feel the need even to inform the president of the existence of these documents before leaking them to a warmongering website: "'It is unlikely they [the government] even know this exists,' the source added."
Watch for this all to fall apart in relatively short order. In the meantime, however, watch for it also to become a cause celebre among neocon radio talkers and TV and web pundits. Finally they have the proof that Bush didn't lie! When it does fall apart, too, watch for very little recanting on the part of CNSNews.com or all of those who have parroted this story. Instead they'll blame it on the liberal media and the blogosphere (which they were just hailing a couple of weeks ago when it nailed Dan Rather).
Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)
NOW Who's the Flip-Flopper?
In an assessment that differs sharply with his view today, Dick Cheney more than a decade ago defended the decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after the first Gulf War, telling a Seattle audience that capturing Saddam wouldn't be worth additional U.S. casualties or the risk of getting "bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq." . . .
"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?" Cheney said then in response to a question.
"And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
Read the whole thing here. (Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)
Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2004
Kerry vs. Bush: The Debate Continues
Justin Raimondo thinks Kerry cleaned Bush's clock in the debate last night. On the other hand, he clearly understands that "[a]nyone looking for Kerry as some sort of antiwar hero, someone who challenges the interventionist consensus, is in for a big disappointment."
Raimondo concludes:
Kerry beat the tar out of the President of the United States, and that was a grand sight to see. But if and when he gets into the Oval Office, it will be Kerry's War – and watch out, because he will flatten Fallujah in a vain attempt to "win" a war that we should never have fought to begin with. In some ways – many ways – this is worse than George W. Bush's position: Bush, at least, believes in the justice of this war, as monstrous as it is. Kerry knows it's an unjust war – and intends to pursue it until "victory" anyway.
Rush Limbaugh, an astute if unprincipled (other than fealty to the GOP) political observer, did make one very good point about the debate today. Kerry may have scored some points on Bush, he said, but only by pretending that he'd never held similar positions and flip-flopped on them multiple times. This he proved with various Kerry sound bites. In other words, the Kerry of last night also scored points against the Kerry of last week, last month, and last year.
Meanwhile, on the same Antiwar.com front page that links to Raimondo's column, we have a link to a story called "Foreign Policy Divide Is Slim for Bush, Kerry." That, I think, is the best way to look at this whole election: two guys who barely disagree on anything doing their darnedest to appear to have significant differences. How else could they induce anyone to go out and vote?
Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)