Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Entries by Wendy McElroy
Monday, August 2, 2010
Cost of the war in Iraq/Afghanistan
Cost of the war in Iraq/Afghanistan to date to each and every American: $3,328.64. Click here for calculation.
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Homeschooling, A hope for America Show
I am delighted to announce that a new anthology edited by Carl Watner is available. Carl and I discussed this work during a visit last year when the anthology was in its infancy. The book sounded wonderful...but, in truth, it needs no more recommendation than the fact that it is edited by Carl. His announcement and ordering information follows....
HOMESCHOOLING A HOPE FOR AMERICA is a collection of articles taken from The Voluntaryist, a newsletter with a libertarian outlook which has been published since 1982. The anthology has been assembled by Carl Watner (from many of his past articles, as well as those of others), and contains an original Foreword by John Taylor Gatto.
This anthology argues against government education in a unique way. One who advocates voluntaryism opposes government schools, not because he opposes schooling but, because he opposes coercion, which is to be found in government taxation, compulsory attendance laws, and in the monopolization of public services. Most of us would agree that there should not be any state religion; that religion should not be supported by taxation; and that people should not be compelled to attend religious services. Why shouldn't the principles of voluntaryism in religion apply to education?
Monday, June 7, 2010
Atlas Shrugged to Go Into Production
The entertainment site Deadline reports,
For almost two decades, Hollywood has tried unsuccessfully to turn Ayn Rand’s 1100 page classic Atlas Shrugged into a feature film with actresses ranging from Angelina Jolie to Charlize Theron to Faye Dunaway. John Aglialoro, the entrepreneur who 17 years ago paid $1 million to option the book rights, is tired of the futility and is taking matters into his own hands. He’s announced that he is financing a June 11 production start in Los Angeles for the first of what he said will be four films made from the book. Aglialoro, who had a hand in writing the script by Brian O’Tool, is taking on this ambitious plan with an unproven director, and is weeks away from production without stars to play Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, John Galt and the other roles. For full story, click here.
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Nonvoting (by Carl Watner)
In his On The Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849), Henry David Thoreau asked:
How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. ... What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.
There are two principal demands that governments make: your taxes and vote. (Of course, there are many other 'demands', such as military service, send your children to school, have a drivers license, etc., but many of these are ancillary to the primary means of government survival, which is the collection of taxes.)
Now, of these two principal demands, taxation carries criminal sanctions: pay your money or we imprison your body and/or confiscate your property. However, as yet in most nations of the world, failure to vote in government elections carries no penalty.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Ayn Rand to Blame for Goldman Sachs?
The bizarre attacks on Ayn Rand continue. Business Day (25/04), a Rand-bashing article by Matt Taibbi opens,
SO GOLDMAN Sachs, the world's greatest and smuggest investment bank, has been sued for fraud by the American Securities and Exchange Commission. Legally, the case hangs on a technicality. Morally, however, the case may turn into a final referendum on the greed-is-good ethos that conquered America in the '80s - and in the years since has aped other horrifying American trends in spreading across the Western world like a venereal disease. When the globe was engulfed in the flood of defaults and derivative losses that emerged from the collapse of the US housing bubble two years ago, few understood that the crash had its roots in the lunatic greed-centred objectivist religion, fostered in the '50s and '60s by ponderous emigre novelist Ayn Rand.
And, then, the bashing continues unabated. Of all the valid criticisms you can level at Rand and Objectivism...Goldman Sachs?
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Yes, I'm guilty! No, I'm innocent!
Wait...what day is it? Show your support: ShareThisMatt Mitchell is the Illinois State Police Trooper who killed two teen aged girls in a 2007 homicidal car accident caused by his driving over 120 mph while emailing. Although he was "on duty," Mitchell was on not an emergency call; he is simply 'prone' to having major accidents, one of which cost the city $1.7 million to settle a few years ago. (See earlier blog post for details of the crime and legal proceedings.) Last Friday, in exchange for pleading guilty to reckless homicide and aggravated reckless driving, Mitchell was sentenced to two and a half years of probation. Yep. No jail time; a slap on the wrist. This Tuesday, he was suspended without pay. Apparently the prospect of a thinning wallet was too much punishment for Mitchell to bear.
This week, in a move that reveals the judicial system to be a sad farce, Mitchell recanted his guilty plea on the grounds that he did not believe a trial would be fair. (I wonder how many trials he has testified at? Those proceeding were sufficiently fair for Mitchell to be a participant. When he is a defendant, however, the system suddenly is unjust.) Bnd.com reports:
Illinois Trooper Matt Mitchell was under oath on Monday when he testified in civil court that he lied to a judge when...pleaded guilty to charges of aggravated reckless driving and reckless homicide. So, why isn't he charged with perjury? Perjury is the charge of making false statements under oath. And Mitchell was not under oath before St. Clair County Circuit Judge Jan Fiss on Friday when he pleaded guilty in criminal court in connection with the deaths of Jessica and Kelli Uhl in 2007.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Global Maternal Mortality is Actually Down
The Associated Press reports, The U.N. and and The Lancet (a leading scholarly journal for medical research) released sharply disagreeing reports on worldwide maternal mortality figures, with the U.N. claiming maternal mortality rates have not decreased at all in the last 30 years, while the Lancet study concluded that maternal mortality rates have been reduced by near 30% --- due primarily to gains in women's education, economic status, and greater access to well-trained childbirth assistants (such as midwives), save in a small number of countries. (Six countries account for more that half of global mortality during childbirth: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.)
The Lancet's editor was also pressured to postpone publication until a date "after critical fundraising meetings" for several women's advocacy groups. "Activists perceive a lower maternal mortality figure as actually diluting their message," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Advocacy can sometimes get in the way of science."
"The U.N. has a track record of inflating disease figures to keep the aid money flowing, so I'd probably place more faith in the figures which show a lower disease burden," said Philip Stevens, of International Policy Network, a London think tank. "This is yet more confirmation that whoever paints the most apocalyptic picture gets the most cash, even if they have to manipulate and spin the data."
The Lancet editorial on the study
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
WWI, Xenophobia and Suppressing Political Opposition
The years surrounding America's involvement in World War I (WWI) were a watershed for how the United States treated "foreigners" within its borders during wartime. Immigrants had flooded the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, almost a third of Americans were either first- or second-generation immigrants. Those born in Germany and even American-born citizens of German descent fell under suspicion of being disloyal. Later, partially in reaction against the Bolshevik Revolution and the rising tide of socialism in Europe, a more general xenophobia gripped America. For example, through the Palmer Raids of the 1920s, the Department of Justice rounded up thousands of foreigners who were alleged Communists, anarchists, labor reformers or otherwise menaces to society. Many were forcibly deported.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Will a 2nd American Revolution be French?
In an email exchange, a friend expressed his belief that America would soon have a second revolution that was brought about by political and economic instability. My immediate thought was "if that happens, I expect it will more closely resemble the French Revolution than the one in 1776." Then I sat back and tried to figure out why I had arrived at that instant conclusion, and whether it had any merit. As a proximate cause, I think the conclusion popped up as a result of some reading I did last night and from listening to CNN this morning as I did the ifeminists newsfeeds. CNN had two stories that clashed together in my mind: 1) there had been a sharp increase in the number of millionaires in the U.S.; and, 2) unemployment benefits now run for 99 weeks in order to alleviate the severe and widespread suffering of the jobless. To me that means the gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening and quickly so.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Left Goes Postal on Rand
I have never read a more bizarre commentary on Ayn Rand than Mark Ames piece on AlterNet. In tracking the rising influence of Rand, my focus has been on libertarian, conservative or fairly neutral commentaries -- e.g. reviews of the two recent biographies. I had not credited the depth of panic, rage and insanity that her sudden popularity has caused in the Left...at least, if this fellow is any indication. He froths at the mouth so badly that my computer screen got wet. Is this the new left slant on A.R. -- Rand, the mother of serial killers?
Excerpt: One reason why most countries don't find the time to embrace her thinking is that Ayn Rand is a textbook sociopath. Literally a sociopath: Ayn Rand, in her notebooks, worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of "ideal man" that Rand promoted in her more famous books... Too many critics of Ayn Rand-- until I was one of them -- would rather dismiss her books and ideas as laughable, childish, hackneyed. But it can't be dismissed because Rand is the name that keeps bubbling up from the Teabagger crowd and the elite conservative circuit in Washington as The Big Inspiration. The only way to protect ourselves from this thinking is the way you protect yourself from serial killers: smoke the Rand followers out, make them answer for following the crazed ideology of a serial-killer-groupie, and run them the hell out of town and out of our hemisphere.
For more commentary, please visit wendymcelroy.com.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Of Labor Notes and Time Stories
The utopian communities in 19th century America provide some fascinating lessons as to how and why human beings come together to form a society. The communities organized around divergent principles from religious purity to socialistic zeal...and ideals of radical individualism. (The echoes of libertarian ones can be felt today in structured efforts like the Free State Project in New Hampshire to less official ones like Doug Casey's libertarian oasis in Argentina.) Generally speaking, the communities shared similar problems -- e.g. how do you deal with "the other" in your midst? -- and many of them evolved similar solutions. The value of examining these solutions is often independent of whether or not they 'succeeded'; just as in life, sometimes you learn the most from your mistakes.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Playing with Wollaston's Significancy
have always enjoyed thought experiments and other intellectual mind games that break through habits of thinking or offer unusual insights. It is just plain fun to play around with ideas, to arrange them like legos or blocks you can topple. People often lose this sense of fun because they are obsessed with whether an idea is right or wrong, moral or immoral, acceptable or laughable... These are certainly considerations when you present ideas publicly but there is also real value to allowing ideas to flow in the privacy of your own mind even if you have doubts about their validity. Let me offer an example of a mind game that became a favorite of mine for awhile.
In his book "The Religion of Nature Delineated," the English philosopher William Wollaston (1659-1724) wrote, “I lay down this as a fundamental maxim, That whoever acts as if things were so, or not so, doth by his acts declare, that they are so, or not so; as plainly as he could by words, and with more reality.” He argued that actions have “significancy”, by which he meant that the actions themselves could be true or false. For example, theft is a denial of the truth of who owns the item stolen. Conversely, returning property to someone who has lost it is an acknowledgment of the truth of ownership. In short, Wollaston argues that actions make truth claims and can even "imply propositions." For the latter, he uses the example of one group of soldiers who fire upon another; the act of shooting, he claims, is the statement "the other group is the enemy."
He then argues that moral evil is the denial through action of truth and moral good is the affirmation of it through action.
I remember how impressed I was by this formulation of the relationship between values, action and facts. Undoubtedly the groundwork for being impressed was an earlier embrace of Ayn Rand's arguments connecting values to facts. For weeks I went around trying to translate moral actions into the truth or lie they were expressing. Quite apart from whether Wollaston is correct in his formulation, the exercise entertained me then and now...and led to some interesting conclusions. Give it a whirl.
For more commentary, please visit wendymcelroy.com.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Coming Grab at Your Wealth and Retirement
If you cannot or will not physically leave the United States, then -- for the safety and welfare of your family -- please consider moving to the few states that are fiscally prudent...at least, comparatively speaking. Compared to what? Consider New York and Florida as just two examples.
From the New York Daily News: Sucking on cigarettes and slurping sugary sodas could get a whole lot more expensive under Gov. Paterson's new budget proposal.But even the "sin tax" hikes on top of a $1 billion boost in taxes and fees won't raise enough revenue to stave off sweeping cuts in school and health care spending in the $134 billion 2010-2011 budget. Paterson reported stated, "We cannot keep spending money that we do not have." Apparently the STOP SPENDING! alternative has not occurred to him.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
What Will Obama's War Cost Every American Taxpayer?
Laurent Belsie in the Christian Science Monitor asks "How much will the troop escalation in Afghanistan cost you?"
President Obama said Tuesday night it would cost $30 billion this fiscal year — or about $1 million per soldier — to send 30,000 additional troops there. That’s a low estimate, budget experts say, but let’s run with it for the moment. An extra $30 billion in Afghanistan means that in 2010 alone, US military spending in Afghanistan will equal nearly half of total spending on the war since 2001, according to Travis Sharp, military policy analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington. The troop increase will cost $2.5 billion per month, $82 million per day, $3.4 million per hour, $57,000 per minute, and $951 per second. It’s a direct tax on Americans: about $195 for each taxpayer next year. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Friday, November 13, 2009
UK's total surveillance society...North America next?
How long before this comes to North America? [Hat tip to David K.]
A November 10th headline from the UK Telegraph: State to 'spy' on every phone call, email and web search. Excerpt:
All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.
Despite widespread opposition to the increasing amount of surveillance in Britain, 653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and even prison governors. They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.
For more commentary, please visit www.wendymcelroy.com.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Manufacturer Finally Admits Tasers Can Kill
The following commentary is from Second City (Chicago) Cop with my own observation appended thereafter.
TASER Restrictions: Aim for what now? [Quoting from the Arizona Republic.]The maker of Taser stun guns is advising officers to avoid shooting suspects in the chest with the 50,000-volt weapon, saying that it could pose an extremely low risk of an "adverse cardiac event."
The advisory, issued in an Oct. 12 training bulletin, is the first time that Taser International has suggested there is any risk of a cardiac arrest related to the discharge of its stun gun. But Taser officials said Tuesday that the bulletin does not state that Tasers can cause cardiac arrest. They said the advisory means only that law-enforcement agencies can avoid controversy over the subject if their officers aim at areas other than the chest.
So what use is the TASER if you can't fire it at the largest target possible - center mass? We guess we'll be going back to shooting and killing non-compliant subjects and mentally disturbed individuals shortly.
First of all...WONDERFUL. Even a cop I semi-respect predicts that taser restrictions will mean "going back to shooting and killing non-compliant subjects and mentally disturbed individuals shortly." Note: he doesn't say "violent" or "threatening" subjects but uses the word "non-compliant." As in the non-protestor who was forced to his knees by police for a trophy photo during the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh? If the student (who was returning home from a pizza parlor) has been less compliant in kneeling before the ring of policemen, would he have been tasered and/or shot? What an honororable profession it is to be a policeman!
Second and last of all...I wish people would stop calling tasers "non-lethal." There are dozens of cases in which tasers have clearly caused death. What they are is "less lethal" than guns...at least, guns in the hands of cops. In the hands of people who use guns responsibly, the weapons prevent violence and do not cause it.
For more commentary, please visit www.wendymcelroy.com.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
On Roman Polanski
I've been asked where I stand on the Polanski case. With so many dimensions to the case, I will be brief and comment only on a few.
First, I believe a rape occurred. Second, the victim -- now in her forties -- has asked repeatedly and without duress from Polanski to have the matter dropped. She has settled a civil case with him. She has publicly forgiven him. And, for me, that settles it. The victim should control whether a prosecution occurs. Period. Third, it is a scathing damnation of our legal/court system for the victim to claim that the system traumatized her far more than the rape itself. The authorities should not be allowed to continue 'raping' her.
Fourth, I do not believe Polanski received a fair trial. I think there was clear and extensive misconduct by the judge (and others) in the original proceeding. Fifth, I recommend the HBO documentary "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" without which I do not believe prosecution would be occurring. Sixth, the state is clearly pursuing prosecution not for the victim but on its own behalf because Polanski fled its jurisdiction and lived well thereafter. In short, Polanski has flouted authority and 'authority' is pissed.
Seventh, this is an example of the U.S. imposing legal jurisdiction around the world. A bad precedent is being set. Eighth, I do not believe that Switzerland has not received a quid pro quo for nabbing Polanski.
Ninth, it is fascinating to watch political reactions. E.g. the founder of ultra-progressive Feminist Majority thinks Polanski should not be arrested. According to the L.A. Times "My personal thoughts are let the guy go," said Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "It's bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It's crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things." Amazing.
Tenth, you know how sick you were of hearing about Michael Jackson... Well, you ain't seen nuthin' yet.
For more commentary, please visit www.wendymcelroy.com.
Friday, September 25, 2009
America's Debtor Prison for Men
I received the following email from a heartbroken and understandably enraged wife whose husband languishes in America's version of a debtor's prison. No one knows how many people -- almost all of them men -- are being held indefinitely on contempt of civil court charges for which they do not have the due process protections offered to those accused of a criminal offense -- no right to a trial, an attorney, an appeal...no due process. Most of these imprisonments are for non-compliance with court ordered child support or alimony. It does not matter if the man is unable to comply due to poverty -- e.g. from losing his job; he can be imprisoned anyway until he "pays up." For an analysis of the plight of these prisoners who languish in jail without ever being arrested, tried or accorded Constitutional rights, please see my article "The Return of Debtor's Prison."
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Prepurchase Rand Bio (by Jennifer Burns) at Discounted Price
In an earlier post, I announced that a new biography of Ayn Rand is due out in October. I give a tip of my hat to Laissez Faire Books for letting me know that the book can be prepurchased through LFB for $18.00 per copy by clicking here: A thoughtful review that LFB has run of the book is reprinted in full after the break....
Ayn Rand has become fashionable again. The current crisis has inspired a second look at Rand’s prophetic novel, Atlas Shrugged. And there is renewed interest in Rand herself. But any study of Rand is sure to create controversy. And Jennifer Burns’ new study of Rand’s politics is sure to do the same.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Burns’ work will be the title: Goddess of the Market—Ayn Rand and the American Right. The title seems to be a play on another article, by Burns, entitled: Godless Capitalism—Ayn Rand the Conservatives. I would suggest the title is badly chosen, unless it was intended to chase away admirers of Rand.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
A New Police Power Emerges
Now, in Idaho, cops are going to tie people down and forcibly take blood samples if they refuse breath tests. This will spread nationwide even faster than Taser usage. Why even pretend the 4th and 5th Amendments still exist? The Associated Press news story entitled "Police say syringes will help stop drunk driving" opens....
When police officer Darryll Dowell is on patrol in the southwestern Idaho city of Nampa, he'll pull up at a stoplight and usually start casing the vehicle. Nowadays, his eyes will also focus on the driver's arms, as he tries to search for a plump, bouncy vein. "I was looking at people's arms and hands, thinking, 'I could draw from that,'" Dowell said.It's all part of training he and a select cadre of officers in Idaho and Texas have received in recent months to draw blood from those suspected of drunken or drugged driving. The federal program's aim is to determine if blood draws by cops can be an effective tool against drunk drivers and aid in their prosecution.
If the results seem promising after a year or two, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will encourage police nationwide to undergo similar training.
For more commentary, please visit wendymcelroy.com.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Are The Brownies to Become Brownie Shirts?
Obama's youth recruitment continues unabated with last week's co-announcement by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Girls Scouts CEO Kathy Cloninger of a new "Preparedness" patch for Girl Scouts. Yep, the Girl Scouts are the latest DHS/Obama recruits..As Yahoo Daily News reports in an article entitled "US Girl Scouts prepare for war, pestilence," The move is part of a month-long government effort to make Americans better able to cope with natural and man-made disasters. The Doug Powers blog astutely comments, “Man-made disaster” is of course Hopenchange speak for “terrorist attack.” No doubt the Girl Scouts will also be taught that “in the event of a terrorist attack, do not call it a ‘terrorist attack.’”
Sunday, February 1, 2009
What If No One Shows Up for PC?
For more commentary, please visit Wendy McElroy.com
Delicious! If anyone is more clueless than PC advocates about the real concerns of average people, then it has to be academic PC advocates. Case in point...The University of Iowa held a panel "to discuss sexual harassment with students." No students showed up. So the panel discussion became "how to get young people to focus on the issue." The fact that students -- from first-year to grad-level, from enthusiastic newcomers to wisdom-steeped twenty-somethings -- did not think the free information was worth showing up for did not daunt the panel, whose livelihoods may well be somehow connected with sculpting or enforcing UI policy. They know better than the average student how he or she should be expending their time and attention. It should be spent on what they value, not what the student values. Everyone on that panel should GET A JOB!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Harriet Martineau, Liberal Economist and Sociologist
For more commentary, please visit Wendy McElroy.com
Harriet Martineau's (b. 6/12/1802) life was a struggle from the very beginning. Her father's death in 1826 would force her to support her mother and herself by needlework and discover her writing ability in her spare time. During the next year she would discover Jane Marcet’s works on political economy and became convinced that she could do better. A fiercly independent intellectual, constantly underappreciated for her talents by relatives and friends, battling against the biases toward her sex and physical frailties (Lord Brougham would call her “his little deaf girl.)” it would have come as a great surprise that she would be remembered as one of Great Britain's greatest teachers of economics (influenced by James Mill) in her popular Illustrations of Political Economy (9 vol., 1832–34) and Illustrations of Taxation (1834), two works bringing classical economics to the layman, and as author of two major works criticizing American social and political practices from a classical
Saturday, November 15, 2008
I'd Push the Button
For more commentary, please visit Wendy McElroy.com
From Ken Gregg: Leonard Read’s essay "I'd Push The Button" was published in April, 1946. This is a statement of quite a radical nature and is an important point to consider. Read explained this in his Elements of Libertarian Leadership (and Murray Rothbard continued in “Why Be a Libertarian?”) thus:
Following World War II and prior to the relaxation of wartime wage and price controls, I made a speech entitled "I'd Push the Button." This title was taken from the first sentence, "If there were a button on this rostrum, the pressing of which would instantaneously release all wage and price controls, I'd put my finger on it and push."
Sunday, November 9, 2008
401(K)s and IRAS to be Nationalized?
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
The specifics of Obama's plans to "fix" the economy do not get a lot of press time because no one seems to know what the hell they are. Although Obama is extremely eloquent, his speeches appeal to emotion and have little content to be analyzed. The specifics behind his "Hope, Hope, Change, Change" can be best discerned by watching the other leaders of the Democratic Party.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Canada's PM wants McCain to Win
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
Whatever the average Canadian thinks, the Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper favors McCain as President. In this, he may be almost unique among global heads of government. Harper (aka Fido) has forged a close relationship with the Bush administration of which a McCain administration would be a continuation. Moreover, Harper views Obama as a threat to NAFTA -- the agreement that defines trade between the two nations.
Monday, November 3, 2008
A Point of Trivia
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
In the last few months, I have been noticing shortages of various food stuff in grocery stores. Nothing significant, nothing I can't easily work around by substituting or by using the stock in my pantry...but I'm not used to prolonged shortages of common items. The latest one: concentrated lemon juice of which there is apparently a worldwide shortage.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Harlem Voters on Obama
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A clip from the Howard Stern radio show(1/10/2008) in which Sal Interviews "Obama Supporters" in Harlem. It is a street interview with a twist; Sal attributes McCain's positions -- and even McCain's VP pick (Sarah Palin) -- to Obama and finds that people support Barack because he is prolife and they think Palin was a good choice for VP. This is the audio link sans video and, so, it downloads quickly.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Keeping What is Yours
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
It has been a while since I rang the alarm bell on how deeply and how often government-on-all-levels will be reaching into your pocket in coming months.Governments everywhere are desperate for cash; they are willing to be as brutal and innnovative as necessary to pry that last dime out of your resisting fingers. Fortunately, there are some steps you can take to protect your hard-earned money from those who are all too willing to take food off your table in order to gorge themselves.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Back to the Theme of Frugality
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
I have not sung the praises of frugality lately...but the current economy cries out for optimism and that's what I see in a frugal lifestyle and a personal philosophy of voluntary simplicity.
As always, I start by defining what I don't mean by frugality and voluntary simplicity. I don't mean denying yourself the goods, services and experiences that make your life exciting or satisfying. I love to travel; I am addicted to live theatre and that is expensive; I relax by doing ethnic cooking with costly ingredients (but less costl than eating at restaurants); Brad has every computer gismo he values and none he doesn't; we have dogs and cats which are expensive to maintain but just try taking our buddies away; our house is wired for ether net and we have satellite TV...I could go on and on about the many expenses on which we do not stint. You live once and it makes no sense to deprive yourself of what makes the go-around a joy.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
A .PDF to the New Bailout Bill
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
A reader comments on the bailout bill that passed the Senate last night:
Here is the first link to the new bill that I've found today. It grew from 3 pages to 451 pages. (I'm confident that all Senators carefully read, digested, and mulled the content change before voting, and that the Representatives will do the same.[Note from site: this is sarcasm]) Tax breaks that increase the cost from 700BN to 805BN are being employed to sell a bill that was already going to do most of its damage by catastrophically increasing taxes - interesting "logic". Breaks (from the LA Times, which also published the pdf of the new bill): increased insurance coverage for mental illness; and bicycle commuting (among many others). Most interesting in the LA Times article is this quote from Rep. Brad Sherman, California, about what is being said by some House members to urge passage: "I've seen members turn to each other and say, 'If we don't pass this bill, we're going to have martial law in the United States.'" Rep. Sherman regards that to be mere "fear mongering." Interesting, that this comment comes on the very day that the 1st Combat Brigade Team of the 3rd Infantry that has been rotated back from Iraq goes on domestic assignment (euphemistically referred to as "dwell time") (For more on the military's "dwell-time mission" please see an earlier post entitled Time for a Second American Revolution.)
I'm uncertain about whether the "martial law" claim is repetition of something that key committee members have been briefed about by the Bush administration. I believe that if they think there are sufficient controls in place, the claim could be a deliberate propaganda release to start "softening the ground" for an actual imposition of such a regime. I think it's time for every US resident who values Liberty to make a strategic decision about which direction to choose in such an eventuality: emigrate to a better place; or stay and resist.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Quote of the Day
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Quote of the day from Oscar Levant. It makes me think of Sarah Palin.
"A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it."
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
L.. Neil on Islam and Muslims
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
SF and libertarian guru L. Neil Smith is circulating to friends the following response to a news item.
The news item: Paul McCartney has refused to cancel his concert in Israel, despite threats from Islamic militants, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. The response follows comments made by Omar Bakri Muhammad, a militant Lebanese Islamic activist, in an interview. Mr. Bakri said, “If he values his life, Mr. McCartney must not come to Israel… He will not be safe there. The sacrifice operatives will be waiting for him.”
L.Neil's reponse: As you know, I'm a staunch, life-long atheist, and my opinion, after many decades of study, is that all religions are equally wacky.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Machinations in Microcosm
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
On Wednesday, the TruthOut site had a fascinating article entitled "Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote." The gist: Republicans in Macomb County, Michigan (Detroit area) are using foreclosure lists in an attempt to disqualify voters who are listed on it. The justification is that 'foreclosed' people have no proof of residence within the voting district and, so, they no longer have a provable right to vote there; no one is suggesting that the people did not legally register to vote at some point. The real reason (not stated by the article): people who have been foreclosed are more likely to be black than white, poor than wealthy, outraged by Bush's handling of the economy rather than pleased with it. In short, foreclosed people in the Detroit area are likely to vote en masse for the Democrats. If successful, the number skewing by the Republicans could be significant; in July, one household in every 285 in Macombe (or 1,834 families) went into foreclosure. If you assume a modest 2 voters per household, that's close to 4,000 voters who could be neutralized from July alone.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Your Erasures are Not Secure
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
A reader who recently attended a high-level security seminar along with a number of US government infosec employees has given me permission to post his description of the event...
Bona fides: The instructor spent 9 years sitting in the back seat of a USN spy plane. Most of the students (all but one or two of 22) were either current or recent past US government high level IT employees. One was a current DHS systems guy. Another was recent ex-NSA infosec. Several more were chief network security admins for Pentagon and the like.
Here is the scoop. We were discussing secure erasure of magnetic media, and a comment was made about recovering data using electron microscopy (to read remnant magnetic patterns in layers beneath current data) after a 7-pass overwrite (DOD standard for secure erasure - the presumed state of the art for wiping data.). I stated my belief that such a procedure had to be prohibitively expensive and that, absent becoming a "person of interest" to the NSA, should probably not be of concern. My statement went unchallenged by the instructor, but the ex-NSA guy was looking directly at me, with a friendly smirk, and shaking his head "no". On the next bathroom break, I asked him if he was implying that the procedure had become economical. He replied in the affirmative, and added that he was aware of a single DHS laboratory with five electron microscopes in 24x7 use for this purpose, and that other labs undoubtedly exist.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Free Online Graphic Novels from Big Head Press
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
A reminder: Big Head Press offers free online graphic novels by the inimitable libertarian-likes of L.Neil Smith and Scott Bieser. Click here to access.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Smart Politicians Worry Me
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
And the smart just keeps coming...
The San Francisco Chronicle reports, The boyfriend of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's unwed, pregnant daughter will join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn. Levi Johnston's mother said her 18-year-old son left Alaska on Tuesday morning to join the Palin family at the convention where Sen. John McCain will officially receive the Republican nomination for president. The boy's mother, Sherry Johnston, said there had been no pressure put on her son to marry 17-year-old Bristol Palin and the two teens had made plans to wed before it was known she was pregnant. "This is just a bonus," Johnston said.
This is exactly what Palin needs to do -- embrace the young man as family and publicly glow about the expected grandchild as wonderful news. Make the liberals (and not the conservatives) be the ones to cry out "OMG, a teenager had sex! The horror! The horror!" Make them look petty and ridiculous, anti-family and anti-forgiveness. Let them take the rap for politically exploiting the sex life of a 17-year-old; let them be the ones to smirk with glee or foam with faux outrage over a child that is wanted and welcomed. Meanwhile, as long as Palin's daughter carries the fetus to term and marries the father, will show compassion and applaud the manner in which a commonplace -- albeit unfortunate --
I wouldn't be surprised if Palin literally embraces Johnston on the GOP convention stage. What a photo op that would be! Not that Palin needs to draw media attention by dangling enticements. The woman has accomplished a near-impossible feat. She's made Obama 2nd-page news.
For more commentary, please visit www.WendyMcelroy.com Like everyone else, I was stunned by John McCain's choice of VP: Sarah Palin. I fall on the "stroke of brilliance" side of the debate on whether his choice was wisdom or folly. Why? With one announcement, McCain changed the election dialogue -- something he needed to do because the conversation wasn't going at all well for Republicans. He established a wow factor for his campaign; the spotlight shifted from Barack; the evangelical GOP base consolidated and opened its wallet; women voters are likely to be more receptive; the Dems are scrabbling on exactly how to lambast Palin. Even the mud being flung at Palin is not likely to stick. Her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy is not alienating the conservatives who are applauding the daughter's decision to carry the child to term and to marry the father. Meanwhile, the liberal criticism re: the pregnancy revealing Palin's hypocrisy about teens abstaining from sex is strange; as one blogger commented, "[it is] as misguided as asking a non-violent person why her spouse is violent toward her." And, even if the scandal about her arranging to have her brother-in-law fired from his government post is true, the apparent circumstances are such that Palin may become a heroine in the eyes of other women. Those circumstances apparently include the man's tendency to brutally beat Palin's sister. As for her inexperience...frankly, I think that is a selling point. She is not an insider, she is a fresh voice and a new force. What's Barack been running on and for: CHANGE.
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com. An interesting letter from a reader opens by quoting an article she mistakenly attributes to me. The article/blog post in question is Support Your Local Rape Gang by William N. Grigg on the Pro Libertate blog. The confusion arose because the post ends with the note, Thanks to Wendy McElroy and "CLS" at Classically Liberal for their work on this story -- in short, my name was the first one the reader saw at the end of the piece. (BTW, I thank Grigg in return for his impassioned and in-depth analysis of the story upon which I commented on August 11th in the post Teach Children to Fear the Police.)
For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
Emily Feder's piece entitled "At JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office" on Alternet is excellent in a bone-chilling way. Feder writes, I was recently stopped by Homeland Security as I was returning from a trip to Syria. What I saw in the hours that followed shocked and disturbed me. She concludes, In the past five years I have worked for human rights and refugee advocacy organizations in Serbia, Russia and Croatia, including the International Rescue Committee and USAID. I have traveled to many different places, some supposedly repressive, and have never seen people treated with the kind of animosity that Homeland Security showed that night. In Syria, border control officers were stern but polite. At other borders there have been bureaucracies to contend with -- excruciating for both Americans and other foreign nationals. I've met Russian officials with dead, suspicious looks in their eyes and arms tired from stamping so many visas, but in America, the Homeland Security officials I encountered were very much alive -- like vultures waiting to eat.
For more commentary visit Wendy McElroy.com
Murray Rothbard's theoretical approach to history included the idea and importance of what he called "the lone crazy." The lone crazy is a wild card -- the individual (or small group) who seems to appear out of nowhere and acts in an unpredicted manner that dramatically and forever alters the world as we know it. An example would be the nationalist zealot Gavrilo Princip who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo in 1914 and, so, sparked World War I.
Murray's point was that the best-laid plans of policy-makers can be shattered by a single bullet fired from one man's hand; future history is neither predictable nor amenable to social engineering. This Rothbardian theory came to mind while I was thinking about the current conflict between Georgia and Russia which, admittedly, involves a whole lot of non-lone crazies. But the sudden conflict stands as another example of how the balance of global power can suddenly and surprisingly shift. While neocons were making other plans, Russia abruptly asserted its status as a super-power that would not brook interference with its zones of influence. (In stating this, I do not mean to show admiration or sympathy for Russia...or Georgia, for that matter.)
While the West (largely the U.S.) was busy planning to include Georgia in its zones of influence -- e.g. through inclusion in NATO -- Russia acted in a lone crazy manner that changed the conditions of history/politics in this region. Arguably, given how important Russia is to the Middle East, the conflict with Georgia has changed that history as well. Certainly, it has exposed the weakness of America/Bush who can do little more than shake a forefinger at Putin and Medvedev. For more commentary, please visit WendyMcElroy.com
A buzz term is appearing with increased frequency in the literature and programs surrounding education at both the public school and university levels: Cultural competence. Parents would do well to ask, "What is it, and how could it affect my children?"
The term “cultural competence” first arose in connection with health care services, where a standard definition is, "services that are respectful of and responsive to the cultural and linguistic needs of the patient." This means, for example, health care providers should be able to communicate with a non-English-speaking patient. They should take other cultural differences into account as well; for example, a clinic might arrange for a female doctor to perform a pelvic exam on a Muslim woman.
Cross Posted at
WendyMcElroy.com.
Kudos to RightBias (Nancy Morgan) for hosting Muslim cartoon week; the site currently offers 23 cartoons that highlight the cowardice and consequence of allowing radical Islam to stifle freedom of speech. The mission of Muslim cartoon week: To protest the growing wave of appeasement and censorship on all things Muslim. Personally, I would have tempered the mission statement to make it clear that it is radical Muslims and not "all things" Muslim that is the threat.
A hat tip to Nathan Larson for creating the elaborate parody site Acme Private Defense Company. Its mission: An anarcho-capitalist entrepreneur has launched a new business venture that will use deterrence to secure libertarian tax havens against government aggression. The company claims an effective defense system has been the missing link in previous attempts by libertarian secessionists to become independent, and that its services can fulfill that hitherto unmet need.
Crossposted at WendyMcElroy.com
Although the following article was first published on May 11, 2000 by Lew Rockwell, it directly addresses and debunks the currently-relevant concept of using the military in Iraq (Afghanistan, Iran et al) to 'promote' values like democracy or women's rights.
Cross Posted at Wendy McElroy.com
An earlier blog post Leave the United States if you can" in which I urge people to move their persons and wealth out of America has stirred controversy and prompted email inquiries. I want to answer one inquiry in a public manner: namely, “why have you become so pessimistic.”
By nature, I am not a pessimist. Nor am I currently pessimistic about my own life or the prospect of freedom in other areas of the world. But I see little reason for any optimism about freedom or prosperity within the US over the next several years; instead, I see the rise of a totalitarianism that is unparalleled in my experience. I know many people think nothing has fundamentally changed State-side; they believe the economy or society is just going through a bad patch. Perhaps people feel this way because they wake up every morning at the same time beside the same person, they eat a customary breakfast with coffee the way they like it and, then, drive well-known roads to work. Thus, life may be more stressful but it is basically unchanged, and anyone who warns them that a slow car accident is heading their way is an alarmist.
It is time -- arguably, it is past time -- for you to get your family and your wealth safely outside the borders of the United States. America has become a police state that is moving quickly toward total surveillance and, in typical American fashion, the resulting society will almost certainly be the "the best and the biggest" tyranny in the world.
Make plans right now while opportunities still exist to secure your wealth outside of the authorities' rapacious reach because that door of opportunity may be slammed in your face in the near future. It is not merely that government at all levels is starving for the cash that's dried up from property taxes and, so, will steal and confiscate like a drunken highwayman. Many factors point to rise of the Total State, which will grind up your freedom, your future and the lives of those who resist. The royal screwing of American taxpayers will only get worse in the near future...for a interlocking mixture of reasons that are, in many cases, nothing more than flimsy justifications.
1) Increasingly, I hear the phrase "privatizing profits, socializing costs" (or losses) because, increasingly, the situation described is being imposed by politicians. The most notorious instance is the recent bail-out of the "Macs" -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- by which those quasi-private agencies are rewarded for almost criminal fiscal incompetence/irresponsibility by forcing taxpayers to absorb the cost. And, lest you believe the bailout is no more than some American taxpayers 'helping' some others who are Mac bond holders, heed these words from Freedom works, As politicians call for taxpayer bailouts and a government takeover of troubled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, FreedomWorks would like to point out that a bailout is a transfer of possibly hundreds of billions of U.S. tax dollars to sophisticated investors and governments overseas. The top five foreign holders of Freddie and Fannie long-term debt are China, Japan, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Interestingly, on the same day the American taxpayer bailout of China was announced, another piece of news 'broke.' The Chinese government significantly reduced its subsidy of oil/gas...a subsidy that inflated gas prices and which the US government had exerted longstanding pressure to reduce.
Once.
And again.
And again.
And again.
This year's election postmortem (like those in the past) will be haunted by a shrill complaint: "Not enough women were elected!" The accusation should be ignored because there is no proper ratio of female versus male office holders. Whoever receives the largest vote total in a free election is the proper winner regardless of gender, race or religion.
But the gender card will be played. The argument will run: women constitute 50 percent of the population; if women were truly equal, 50 percent of elected officials would be women; the percentage is far lower; therefore, women are not equal. This argument is false and reflects the changing definition of "equality" within feminism.
First appeared in Spintech, November 12, 1999
by Wendy McElroy
[Although the article is 10 years old, the situation discussed remains the same.]
In March 1997, I spoke at the International Conference on Prostitution (ICOP), which was presented jointly by The Center for Sex Research at Cal State University Northridge and the sex workers' organization COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) L.A. To the casual observer, the conference appeared to run smoothly. Those who attended the luncheon address by the featured speaker -- former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders -- were treated to a good natured sight. As Elders warmed to her theme of sex education for the young, she slipped into an evangelical tent-shaking delivery that prompted shouts of "Preach it sister!" from a table of prostitutes by the dais. The laughter and spontaneous applause veiled a sad fact: the journalists, researchers and academics sat together in tight clusters, apart from sex workers. Overwhelmingly, the segregation of 'non-pros' had been instituted by the prostitute-activists.
When I was sixteen, I ran away from home and lived on the streets for as short a period of time as I could manage. I did not turn to prostitution or to drugs; I was lucky. Not in avoiding paid sex and substances -- these were deliberate choices. I was lucky to be sixteen and, so, able to legally support myself. If I had been two months younger, child labor laws would have forced me to beg or do far worse in order to survive.
I was reading an online article entitled Document forensics expert: Obama "birth certificate" a "horrible forgery" in the news magazine the Israel Insider when I stumbled. The article discussed the ongoing controversy over whether Obama was born on non-US soil and, so, ineligible to run for President. It opened, Barack Obama may be on a world tour surrounded by a fawning media, but Sunday an expert in electronic document forensics released a detailed report on the purported birth certificate -- actually a "Certification of Live Birth" or COLB -- claimed as genuine by his campaign. The expert concludes with 100% certainty that it is a crudely forged fake: "a horribly forgery," according to the analysis published on the popular right-wing Atlas Shrugs blog.
In case you've missed it, George Carlin on voting. The "fully informed jury" strategy attempts to wedge the jury process as an obstacle between oppressive law and individual freedom. The strategy is based on the doctrine of jury nullification by which a juror can reject the law. That is, a juror can refuse to convict a defendant despite instructions from a judge if he believes either that the law is unjust or that its application is unjust. In essence, the jury renders a verdict on the law itself and not merely on the facts of a case. Talk back to a cop and go to jail! -- at least in Lafayette, Colorado where it is now a crime to verbally disrespect authority. An article in the local Daily Camera provides background as of Sunday the 13th. According to a local commentator on the news item, the ordinance pass in council on Tuesday the 15th.
The ordinance states, "It is unlawful for any person to make forceful contact, strike, or do bodily harm to, attempt to make forceful contact, strike, or do bodily harm to, threaten to make forceful contact, strike, or do bodily harm to, either verbally or by action or gesture, to any peace officer in the performance of such officers official duties, or attempt to perform such duties. Profane, abusive, insulting, taunting, or provoking language directed to a peace officer which may reasonably promote a violent response or reaction shall be deemed a violation of this section, whether accompanying the aforesaid actions or not." [Emphasis added]
Of all the material I've written on individualist feminism, this may be my favorite piece because it is thorough and clear: the Introductory essay to my book Individualist Feminism of the Nineteenth Century: Collected Writing and Biographical Profiles. (Click
here to access more excerpts from this work.)
The entire essay can be accessed by clicking here
From http://www.wendymcelroy.com/smf/index.php?topic=3425.15 a discussion thread on a discussion group I moderate... On June 5th, the New York Times published a transcript of the 2008 Republican presidential candidates debate moderated by Wolf Blitzer in which Ron Paul participated. Page 20 of the transcript contains the following exchange on separation of Church and State.... KVOA TV reports, A young man infected with an especially virulent strain of tuberculosis has been held for the past eight months in a hospital jail ward under a court order, and may be held until he dies. Robert Daniels has not been charged with a crime, but the 27-year-old violated the rules of a voluntary quarantine, exposing others to a potentially deadly illness. Maricopa County public health officials then got a court order to keep him locked up. (Some voluntary quarantine; obey it or be imprisoned. This is a definition of the word "voluntary" with which I am unfamiliar.) The ifeminists.net weekly e-newsletter is back. This is the URL to the first issue of the InsiderUpdate, now posted on the ifeminists.net site. The best of the week's news and commentary, handpicked for our newsfeed, will be beamed directly into your inbox, along with introductory remarks and announcements. You are most cordially invited to sign on for a free subscription. Instructions on how to do so follow:
1. Register as a user at the ifeminists.net website. At the bottom of the left column, you will see a box entitled "Welcome". Click the "Signup" link. You will be taken to a page asking you to verify that you are over 18. Once you have done that, you'll be taken to a second page, where you can provide a user name of your choice, a password, and a VALID email address. (This information will not be shared with anyone else.) Only the fields with a red asterisk are required. Enter the numeric code displayed at the bottom of the screen, and click "Register". You will receive an email which includes a link to a web page. You must visit that web page within five days to activate your membership.
2. Subscribe to the newsletter. Go to http://www.ifeminists.net. At the bottom of the left column, in the box titled "Welcome", is the login form. Enter your user name and password, and click "Login". Once you have logged in, this box will change to "Welcome
We're back baby! We're back! A battle of political extremists ended in the throwing of meat and condoms Friday as about a dozen protesters from the LaRouche Youth Movement interrupted a lecture by an Ayn Rand Institute speaker. Story here. Leonard Peikoff, bearer of the official Objectivist torch, advises re: the upcoming election, Vote Democrat across the board. I am a bit surprised by his ringing rejection of the Republican Party because I remember all too well Peikoff's appearance on the Bill O'Reilly show a few years ago where the man outhawked Bill and most neo-cons by calling for the pre-emptive bombing of Iran. Given that the Democrats are 'softer' on war than the Repubs, I assumed he would be saluting all things GOP. But the GOP's eager embrace of religion seems to have been too much for "bomb 'em all and let Rand sort 'em out" Leonard. Another female teacher is accused of having sex with a male student and has been "charged with having an improper relationship with a student, a second-degree felony." She faces a possible 25-year prison sentence. (See article in Dallas Morning News for full account.) The twist in this case is that the student in question is and was of legal age in Texas when the alleged encounters occurred; the age of consent is 17-years-old and the student was 18. Nevertheless, the teacher "was charged under a law that outlaws sexual relationships between educators and students even if the sex is consensual and the student is of legal age." In other words, one occupation is being singled out to be punished as an exception under the law -- and punished severely -- while those employed in other occupations suffer no legal consequences for committing the same act -- that is, having a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old. I am not arguing that the harsh law should be expanded to 'embrace' all workplaces. I'm pointing out what I think is an unconstitutional application of the law which will probably be tolerated because the hysteria over pedophilia is so great that society will nod its approval at defining an 18-year-old as a child and punishing teachers uniquely under the law.
And, yes, I would make the same argument if the sexes were reversed. You are cordially invited to visit my blog and join a libertarian BB that I moderate. By now everyone knows that some phone giants, like AT&T, have given the NSA access to their voice and data networks and to their customer databases without notifying customers. Those who defend the practice often use the following argument: "We are not listening in on content. We are merely recording the phone numbers in order to establish patterns that could indicate terrorist activity." Of course, it is trivial for the NSA to use the phone numbers to also get the names and addresses of whomever you call but, nevertheless, the idea that they are not listening in makes their activities seem less intrusive, less harmful. That is, until you consider how analysis of those patterns can be used and abused... I am sorry to report that one of the most intriguing and unique libertarian organizations is declaring 'victory' and closing its doors. The Extropy Institute,"was formed in 1990 by Max More and Tom Bell with a mission to bring great minds together to incubate ideas about emerging technologies, life extension and the future." Fellow travellers and fans are assured that ExI is now "opening a window for a proactive future." It offers a strategic plan that is available for public perusal.
Good luck to everyone involved -- past, present and future. For more commentary, visit my blog or libertarian discussion BB. An essay I wrote on Lysander Spooner for the Future of Freedom Foundation has been posted on the Lew Rockwell site. Enjoy! Come browse McBlog and my libertarian discussion BB For years now, I've been musing about a strange political demand that I frequently encounter. It is the demand that I feel hatred toward some person or group -- a demand that is almost immediately followed by a backlash of denunciation when the requisite hatred is not manifested. (The most common denunciation is that you are a hypocrite for not feeling hatred or that you are showing 'your true colors.' Presumably, the accusation means you actually agree with the person you've just meticulously debunked -- thus debunking yourself?) The latest cause for this line of musing is Tuesday's FOX News/ifeminist column "A Different Look at Betty Friedan's Legacy " in which I questioned various assumptions about Betty Friedan; for example, I presented Daniel Horowitz's excellent expose of her ideological (Marxist) background; he explodes the popular idea of Friedan being an apolitical housewife who just stumbled across a 'great truth' that became The Feminine Mystique. I ended my column by rejecting the possibility of providing a eulogy for Friedan....I don't believe she deserves one. Instead, I stated that all I could honestly say is "rest in peace." Because I did not say "burn in hell," or the equivalent, I've been receiving the predictable blasts of rage from those on the extreme edge of the men's rights movement. The response is nothing new and hardly worth mentioning except for the fact that I am prompted once more to wonder: why is it not enough to disagree with someone and vigorously rebut their arguments? Why do some of those who similarly disagree deem it necessary to feel and express personal hatred? Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller ("Bullshit") has been on my mind lately. It is not merely that his TV show is one of the rare programs I make a point of marking onto my schedule to watch every week. (Highly recommended!) Or that I just discovered he is a fellow-traveller, a fellow anarchocapitalist. It is also due to the hostile response I've received over an article I ran on the ifeminists.net front page this week entitled "How to Fight Back Against Pat-Downs by Airport Security Screeners" by Matthew Reed who specifically wished to have his position in the military known: Lance Corporal, Unites States Marine Corps 0351/ Training NCO 1st Marine Regiment. Gutsy fellow to stand by his beliefs in such a prominent manner. The gist of his article: Reed suggests much the same behavior that Penn Jillette enacted a few years ago while going through an airport pat down. That is, when airport security touches your genitals in an unwanted manner and despite your protest, call the police and register a sexual assault complaint. I applauded Penn's actions then and I equally applaud women now who file a police report of sexual assault in a similar situation. I have received howls of outrage from some extreme voices within the men's movement who seem to believe that I wrote the article, not Reed, despite his meticulous attribution and attached email. If I had written the article, I admit that I would have changed a few sentences as they do not accurately reflect my opinion. As a matter of site policy, however, I do not edit the content of contributors who, after all, I don't pay; I either run a piece or I don't. As a general assessment, I believe Reed wrote a solid article and that the pre-emptive sexual molestation of both men and women in the name of 'security' should not be legally tolerated. Some howling critics also maintain that such complaints are false accusations and that I am calling for women to falsely accuse men despite the many articles in which I called for the punishment and non-toleration of same.
Is legally objecting to the forced groping of your genitals a false accusation? I don't see how...unless, of course, you believe that putting on a uniform excuses the wearer from all personal responsibility of respecting the human rights of others. That is a popular view these days, I admit. Put on a police, military, or some otherwise governmental uniform and you are somehow given a "right" -- no, make that word "privilege" -- to break the laws of common decency and non-agression. So, in response to critics, I say...GO PENN! GO REED! Thanks for making my person a bit safer from the thugs and their attack-dog apologists who wish to grope the genitals of reluctant others in order to make the world a better place. How bright the future they envision must shine!! Check out my libertarian discussion BB! A blogspot has been created for tributes to and memories of Joan Kennedy Taylor. You are cordially invited to browse McBlog and a new libertarian discussion BB. I received the following message today: Dear Friends: Joan [Kennedy Taylor] passed away this morning at 12:30 A.M. The end was peaceful, and I am grateful that it came quickly....Current plans - which may change - are to have calling hours at Frank Campbell Funeral Home on 82nd and Madison on Wednesday, to have calling hours in Lee, Massachusetts on Thursday, and to have her funeral on Friday in Stockbridge, followed by a burial in the Stockbridge Cemetery, next to David [Joan's husband]."
"The one-hour program, released by PBS this past Thursday, purports to be an exposé of how the court system ignores children subjected to parental abuse. But the program makes a number of claims about child abuse and custody that are refuted by government reports....Breaking the Silence asserts that parental alienation syndrome "has been thoroughly debunked" by the American Psychological Association. But Rhea Farberman, spokeswoman for the APA, recently labeled the PBS claim as 'incorrect' and 'inaccurate.' Over 25 counselors and psychologists are now calling on PBS to invite qualified mental health experts to give "a more accurate and complete view of parental alienation syndrome."
Within the men's rights movement, there has been a concerted letter-writing and protest effort aimed at exacting an apology or retraction from PBS for their recent TV program "Breaking the Silence." And, from all I hear, the program seems to have been a bad piece of reporting that was quite biased against fathers and inaccurate to boot. But the campaign against PBS is one of those backlashes that combine several issues together as tho' they were one and make it more difficult for there to be a broad base of consensus.
I'll take myself as an example. I have seen so much wildly inaccurate and biased material against divorced fathers and their parental rights that the call for accuracy on the stats is like music to me. But the press release referenced above is as much a call to validate Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS} as it is a cry for accuracy. I am certain that parental alienation -- by which one parent poisons a child against the other -- is a real and painful problem. But I am skeptical and cynical about turning every human problem into a psychological Syndrome registered with the APA so that is accorded legal weight and used in court decisions. (And legal weight seems to be the goal of PAS advocates.) The Battered Wife Syndrome, the Helsinki Syndrome, the Recovered Memory Syndrome...I think these have been damaging steps away from common sense and hard standards of evidence within the courts. In short, I couldn't in good conscience sign on to the above protest against PBS because I don't want to endorse yet another court room Syndrome.
I had a similar problem with the drive against the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which I thought was a horrible measure on several grounds, one of which was the fact that it embeds gender more prominently, more deeply into the law. Most of my objections, however, revolved around the further expansion of the "domestic violence industry" through which massive government funds end up in the hands of ideologues: researchers, advocates, writers, lecturers, teachers, lawyers, etc. The solution favored by the men's rights movment -- which most of whom seemed to agree that the bill was bad in its essence -- the solution favored was to make the bill gender neutral by including men within its bad policies. I couldn't sign on to that either even though I opposed VAWA in several FOX News Columns. The intermixing of these two issues -- opposing VAWA and including men within its embrace -- is one of the reasons (I believe) that the drive against VAWA was so unsuccessful.
This makes you long for a single-issue issue. They are getting hard to find.
For more commentary, please see McBlog As well, you are invited to check out a libertarian Bulletin Board that I've just set up. Come join the discussion!
Hello: Reuters reports, "CNN took veteran political columnist Robert Novak off the air late Thursday after he uttered an expletive and walked off the set of 'Inside Politics' while it was still on the air. Novak's outburst happened 10 minutes before the end of the show in the midst of an exchange among Novak, fellow analyst James Carville and 'Inside Politics' anchor Ed Henry."
But was Novak's temper tantrum and walk out staged to allow him to avoid being asked about the Plame scandal? For those who have lived in a cave for the last year or so, Valerie Plame was a CIA operative whose identity was disclosed in one of Novak's columns in July 2003. It is widely assumed that the disclosure was intended to punish or discredit her husband -- Bush-critic and former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Arizona Central states, "Two other reporters connected to the case openly fought the revelation of their sources, and Judith Miller of The New York Times has been jailed for refusing to cooperate with prosecutors. Novak has repeatedly refused to comment about his role in the federal investigation. After Novak walked off on Thursday, Henry said that Novak had been told before the segment that he was going to be asked on air about the CIA case." Indeed, Henry stated that he had been just about to ask when the explosion occurred and cut off that possibility.
Or, rather, according to the Los Angeles Times, after uttering the expletive, Novak "appeared ready to continue the discussion. But after another moment he rose from his chair, removed his microphone and walked off the set." If it was Carville's needling he was trying to avoid or protest -- rather than Henry's impending question -- then wouldn't he have left immediately after uttering "Bullshit". (That was the expletive BTW.) Moreover, a lot of bloggers, who seem to have poured over clips of the incident which are already posted across the Internet, have remark on how mild Carville's needling of Novak actually was...at least, compared to exchanges on other shows during which Novak's posterior managed to stay solidly in his seat.
My opinion: Novak staged the walk out BUT his co-host James Carville is so damned annoying that the "blow up" theory cannot be fully discarded. And I echo a question asked by another blogger: will the Federal Communications Commission fine Novak for indecency? And, as usual, I like the Wonkette's take on the incident: "Novak Takes His Lack of Balls and Goes Home." For more commentary, please see McBlog. An interesting article that discusses the reasons why the ifeminists.net newsletter has been suspended. I am quoted along with Steve Simpson from the Institute for Justice. For more commentary, please see McBlog. Jim Peron has announced a liquidation sale that offers the entire stock of his book store in Auckland, New Zealand (Aristotle's Books) to the public at reduced rates. The news item on the liquidation to which I have linked emphasizes the gay/lesbian material he carries but Jim's shop also focused on libertarianism/classical liberalism. Indeed, Jim is the founder of the Institute for Liberal Values for which the bookstore functioned as an adjunct. The bookstore's edress is orders@aristotlesbooks.co.nz. Or you may be able to contact the bookstore through the Institute. Please do not query me about prices, etc. I've passed along all I know. For more commentary, please see McBlog I have lamented -- and often! -- the lack of protest that has greeted so many measures restricting civil liberties and stripping away the dignity of ordinary human beings going about their daily lives. Airport "security" has become the living symbol of those measures for me. As long as I am treated as a criminal rather than as a customer, I refuse to fly. I was both heartened and depressed by reading a news article that described Phyllis Dintenfass, a 62-year-old retired technical college teacher who did a 'tit for tat' -- that is, when a female TSA officer groped her breasts, she groped back and claimed self-defense. The heartening part: thank GOD someone is protesting the ludicrous and debasing procedures that pass for "security." You go girl!! The depressing part: she has been found guilty of assault by a federal court and will be sentenced on November 1st. She "could face up to one year in federal prison and a fine of $100,000." When the government swats a fly with a laser blast, then you know it is trying to enforce an entirely unreasonable law or policy. For more commentary, please see McBlog I just sent the following notice to the thousands of subscribers to ifeminists.net's e-newsletter to announce its suspension (at least, in emailed form) and to explain the political reasons why that suspension is legally prudent. The notice follows...
Hello to all:
I am sorry to announce that I will no longer be sending out the weekly ifeminists.net newsletter. Instead, the exact same content will be featured on a page of the website. Of course, news can also be accessed on a daily basis by browsing the newsfeed or by an RSS feed.
The reason?
On July 1st, new laws regarding e-mailed newsletters went into effect in Utah and Michigan; other states are close behind. Anne P. Mitchell, President/CEO of the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy and a law professor, calls those laws "a legal quandry in which every sender of commercial email is about to find themselves." (See Groklaw for more information. And please note: non-commercial emailers seem to be included if their newsletters contain URLs that link to commercial sites or products.)
Both Utah and Michigan have created a "child protection registry" for email addresses that belong to children or to which children have access. It functions like a "no call list." Spamfo.co explains, "Once an email address is on the registry, commercial emailers are prohibited from sending it anything containing advertising, or even just linking to advertising, for a product or service that a minor is otherwise legally prohibited from accessing, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, prescription drugs, or adult-rated material." In short, e-newsletters (such as ifeminists.net) are not permitted to send to registered email addresses if those newsletters include URLs to news sites that, in turn, link to child-inappropriate commerical information or products such as casino or viagra ads, tobacco or alcohol for sale.
Many credible news sources -- especially British ones, it seems -- offer links to adult-themed sites or products. These links can change constantly, which means that it is impossible to check a URL and "clear" it of so-called objectionable links or ads.
Moreover, e-mailing to registered addresses is illegal even if the newsletter was requested, and the legal penalties for doing so are imposed without notifying the offender so that he/she can rectify the situation. What are those penalties? To quote Prof. Mitchell again, "Under these laws...that email sender faces strict liability which can include up to 3 years in prison, and fines of $30,000 or more. In addition, ISPs and the individuals whose email addresses are on the registry have a right of action against the sender, as does the state attorney general."
The only protection is for the emailer to make sure that a particular address is not "illegal" by matching his/her mailing list against the registries. That process requires at least two things that I am unwilling to do: 1) turn my mailing list over to the government; and 2) pay a per-address fee for the matching process. Moreover, since I cannot easily ascertain whether a hotmail or aol address has a final destination within Utah or Michigan, I'd have to turn over and pay for virtually every address on a monthly basis to two state governments. (There now are two; there will soon be several more and I would have to keep up with the variations in law in each state.)
Being charged under the new laws may seem to be a remote possibility. And I would not suspend publication were it not for two factors.
First, the enewsletter includes links to news and commentary on sexual issues such as pornography and prostitution, abortion and gay rights. It includes URLs to such discussion and, in turn, those URLs are more likely than many to point to sites the child registries would consider inappropriate. And, according to the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, you could be in trouble if your email contains "unpermitted materials, links to unpermitted materials, or even links to sites which have information about the unpermitted materials". The law is *that* broad and *that* vague.
Second, it is difficult to over-state the viciousness and dishonesty of some of the people who attack father's/men's rights advocates. Some have crusaded to destroy the careers, lives, and even harm the families of those who advocate positions like the presumption of shared custody. Given that no notification of an inappropriate address is necessary before penalties can be imposed, I believe it is likely that one of these malicious feminists will subscribe to the ifeminists.net newsletter under an inappropriate address and, then, file a complaint when the e-newsletter arrives.
I won't take that risk. Nor will I turn over addresses to the government, let alone pay for the privilege.
I have enjoyed publishing the newsletter. I hope you have enjoyed receiving it and that will continue to follow the ifeminists.net news and commentary by clicking on our website at your convenience. To repeat: The newsletter content that you have received each week by email will now be available on a web page. This web page will give you the week's headlines. As other options, you can visit our main index page for daily updates, or subscribe to our RSS news feed. All three options give you the same news items. Choose the form that's most convenient for you.
Best wishes, as always,
Wendy McElroy
P.S. These laws won't stop foreign spam (our ISP is American) or spam from "zombie" PCs. They will mean cash from the large email marketers; and will simply stop small companies and non-profit organizations from distributing email newsletters. Read Declan McCullagh's article for just some of the ramifications. For more comentary, please read McBlog.
An interesting scandal/controversy has been bubbling and still is brewing within academia concerning the forthcoming book "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History" by Norman G. Finkelstein -- a professor of political science at DePaul University. It is basically an attack upon the honesty, ethics, and scholarship of Alan Dershowitz...an attack that Dershowitz tried to kill through political pull and legal bullying. (Did he used to be a civil rights lawyer? What...he still is? Oh well, I lost respect for the man when he came out in favor of torture in a post-9/11 world.)
Some background on the Finkelstein/Dershowitz fracas... Wikipedia provides an overview of the origin, "Shortly after the publication of the book The Case for Israel, Norman Finkelstein accused its author, Alan Dershowitz, of 'fraud, falsification, plagiarism and nonsense.' Specifically, Finkelstein noted that in twenty instances that all occur within about as many pages, Dershowitz's book excerpts the same words from the same sources that Joan Peters used in her book From Time Immemorial, a book about the history of Israel that several critics have accused of distortion, and which Finkelstein had labeled a 'monumental hoax.' Several paragraph-long quotes that the two books share have ellipses in the same position, Finkelstein pointed out; and in one instance Dershowitz referenced the same page number as Peters, although he was citing a different edition of the source, in which the words appear on a different page... Finkelstein demonstrated in an October 3, 2003 letter to the Harvard Crimson that Dershowitz reproduced exactly two of Peters' mistakes, and made one relevant mistake of his own. Quoting Mark Twain, 'Dershowitz cites two paragraphs from Twain as continuous text, just as Peters cites them as continuous text, but in Twain's book the two paragraphs are separated by 87 pages'." (The Wikipedia entry also offers extensive back-and-forth between Finkelstein and Dershowitz, as well as analysis of the possibility of plagiarism. For more on Finkelstein's critique of Dershowitz, see the former's homepage, which seems to be devoted to that subject. See also the subpage The Dershowitz Hoax.)
Dershowitz has gone to great lengths to try and kill the upcoming Finkelstein book. The Los Angeles Times explains, "Governors are asked by members of the public to do lots of things, but the request Arnold Schwarzenegger got from Alan Dershowitz in December was unique: to intervene with the University of California Press' plans to publish a book. Why does Dershowitz care? Because the book in question -- Norman Finkelstein's 'Beyond Chutzpah,' due out next month -- is harshly critical of Dershowitz... But Dershowitz's campaign against the book went beyond his letter to Schwarzenegger. He had his lawyers send belligerent letters to dozens of people who might have power over the process."
Good news: the University of California Press is going ahead with the book and hopes to meet the original publication date of August 28th. Over the last few months, however, "Beyond Chutzpah" may have become the most vetted book in history. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, "Beyond Chutzpah" [has] been through several rounds of legal vetting. The University of California retained several outside lawyers, including American and British legal experts, to examine the manuscript along with its in-house counsel. Mr. Finkelstein said that the book had been through some 15 drafts in the past eight months." The University of California Press apparently took Dershowitz seriously when he said he would own them if they called him a plagiarist or claimed he did not write his own books. (Indeed, Finkelstein has claimed elsewhere that Dershowitz does not even read his own books.) In response, Dershowitz has launched his own vilification campaign against Finkelstein. For example, on July 5th the right-wing FrontPageMagazine published "Why is the University of California Press Publishing Bigotry?" by left-wing Dershowitz.
Meanwhile, the left-wing may well be deserting its former super-star lawyer. An article in the July 11 issue of The Nation asked, ''Why would a prominent First Amendment advocate take such an action?" -- referring to the attempt to bar "Beyond Chutzpah" from publication. For more commentary, please see McBlog.` Interesting story on today's WorldNetDaily site. It opens, "It's rare that an author wants to see his most famous work taken out of print. But that's the case with Willaim Powell's The Anarchist Cookbook, a guide to weapons and bomb-making, written 36 years ago, during the turbulent 1960s, by a 19-year-old fresh out of high school." Powell says he no longer believes that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change. I agree. But I wouldn't mind seeing the book yanked for other reasons. I remember Samuel Konkin III (SEK3) explaining to me in some detail that, if you carefully followed the directions in TAC, you were likely to blow yourself up. SEK3 speculated on whether the author was actually a government agent trying to reduce the population of radicals. Being less into conspiracy theory, I just figured the author was incompetent. Unfortunately, the consequences would amount to the same. BOOM!!! For more commentary, please see McBlog. I urge every parent who sends a child to public high school to protect their child(ren) from the provision in the Leave No Child Behind Act which requires the school to turn over student information to military recruiters. You can opt your child(ren) out of submitting that information but, to do so, you must follow a set procedure. The Leave My Child Alone site provides background information as well as a valuable form letter or you can directly download your own form letter in .pdf. You can find your school superintendent's contact info by clicking here. For more commentary by Wendy McElroy, please see McBlog. The next in a series of transcriptions of original source material from Liberty contributor John William Lloyd: an essay entitled "Anarchist Socialism". (See also Lloyd's "Auto-biographical Essay", "Anarchist Mutualism", the text of a speech to the members of the Ferrer Colony and "Memories of Benjamin Tucker".) Again, this essay may be circulated freely as long as credit and a link are provided. [Only loosely proofed.] For more commentary, please see McBlog. Another transcription of original source material from Liberty contributor John William Lloyd. This is the text of a speech Lloyd delivered to the members of the Ferrer Colony. (See also Lloyd's "Auto-biographical Essay", "Anarchist Mutualism" and "Memories of Benjamin Tucker.) Again, this essay may be circulated freely as long as credit and a link are provided. [Only loosely proofed.] For more commentary, please see McBlog I draw people's attention to the newly-added book link at the top left-hand side of McBlog. The link is to National Identification Systems: Essays in Opposition edited by Carl Watner with Wendy McElroy. A synopsis of the book: Governments have always sought more efficient ways to count, tax, allocate, monitor and order the activities of their citizens. Here are 27 essays that present historical, religious, moral and practical arguments against government enumeration and naming practices, and discuss how the collection of seemingly innocent data could be used to commit abuses. Part I recounts the history of what we now call national ID. Part II covers such technologies as microchips, email tracking and camera-based surveillance systems, applying to each the test, "How would this catch terrorists or other criminals without destroying the rights of peaceable people?" Part III imagines a future of resistance against a government tracking of its citizens in the name of security, but offers some hope that American culture does not lend itself to the fanatical control that a high-tech national ID system could make possible. Click here for the Table of Contents. Continuing the publication of original source material on Liberty contributor John William Lloyd, I attach herewith an autobiographical essay entitled "A Brief Sketch of the Life of J. William Lloyd" -- of course, by Lloyd himself. (To view the previously posted Lloyd essay "Anarchist-Mutualism", click here.) Again, this essay may be circulated freely as long as credit and a link are provided. For more commentary please see McBlog. I recently transcribed several essays of J. Wm Lloyd, a frequent contributor to Benjamin Tucker's individualist anarchist periodical Liberty (1881-1908) through most of its lifespan. Lloyd was the author of several works, mostly of poetry, that were heavily promoted by Liberty; they included "The Anarchists' March", "The Dwellers in Vale Sunrise", and "The Red Heart in a White World". To the extent there is a poet laureate of individualist anarchism, it is surely John William Lloyd. As far as I know, the following essay, Anarchist-Mutualism, does not exist online except for this entry. I post the essay on McBlog for those who are interested in the history of the libertarian movement and/or 19th century individualist anarchism. Feel free to reprint and circulate it as long as credit and a link are provided. Click to read the essay here. For more commentary, please see McBlog. John Tabin's most recent article in "The American Spectator" opens with the words, "If you're a Canadian, be advised: Your government doesn't want you to know what lies herein. If you're a blogger in Canada, you may actually get in legal trouble for linking to this column." The caution is not hyperbolic. Canadian bloggers are actually being charged with contempt of court for linking to American blog sites that discuss the Adscam scandal. Accordingly, I have a request to make of all non-Canadian bloggers. Essentially it is the same request beamed out by Canadian blogger Colby Cosh who writes, "it would actively help free the hands of Canadian webloggers and reporters if our foreign cousins were to be aggressive about 'publishing' the substance of the Brault testimony outside the reach of Canadian law." Please spread the links that Canadian law prohibits me from providing. For more commentary by Wendy McElroy and her Merry Band of Bloggers, see McBlog. I am very pleased to direct you to an MP3 link to Queen Silver's lecture "Religion versus Morality," which is available nowhere else on the Internet. A controversial subject, to be sure! For more commentary and information on QS, please see McBlog. Join the McCain-Feingold Insurrection! The blogosphere is abuzz with news and rumors about the possible regulation of 'political' blogs by the federal government. John Sample explains why (and how) the damage will occur in a Reason article entitled, "Bloggers Beware: Threats to the status quo are always ripe for 'reform'." [T]he federal government is about to come down hard on bloggers. Here's why. In 2002, Congress passed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law which restricted political advertising by corporations and labor unions on television and radio. The Federal Election Commission -- the agency charged with implementing McCain-Feingold -- initially decided that Congress had not intended to restrict political speech on the Internet. Last fall, a federal judge said exempting the Internet from the law's restrictions on political speech would undermine McCain-Feingold. Now the FEC is back at it trying to figure out how to restrict political speech on the Internet. The McCain-Feingold Act was allegedly intended to prevent 'big money' and influence peddling in federal politics but in contained some particularly objectionable provisions that limited freedom of speech. For example, ads against opponents could not appear within a specified number of days from a primary or general election.
Now Bradley Smith, one of six FEC Commissioners, is trying to extend the Act to cover political bloggers. Recognition of the threat first emerged through an article by the incomparable freedom-of-speech advocate Declan McCullagh, whose March 3rd C/Net column "The coming crackdown on blogging" announced "Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over." A rather chilling interview with Smith follows in which Smith's answers are...informative in the terrifying sense of that word. For example, McCullagh asks, If Congress doesn't change the law [to exempt the internet], what kind of activities will the FEC have to target? Smith answers, We're talking about any decision by an individual to put a link (to a political candidate) on their home page, set up a blog, send out mass e-mails, any kind of activity that can be done on the Internet. Again, blogging could also get us into issues about online journals and non-online journals. Why should CNET get an exemption but not an informal blog? Why should Salon or Slate get an exemption? Should Nytimes.com and Opinionjournal.com get an exemption but not online sites, just because the newspapers have a print edition as well? Smith has warned that "bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines."
A likely target and test case for regulation would be the immensely popular and influential DailyKos collective blog that operates almost as a branch of the Democratic Party. Last week the Weekly Standard ran an article on DailyKos, which was entitled "Kos Party: Is the Daily Kos infiltrating the Democratic party, or remaking it in their own image?" A dangerous question to ask aloud in this political atmosphere.
Meanwhile the San Francisco Chronicle reports on a disturbing development in Santa Clara. The article fron yesterday's SFC: "Bay judge weighs rights of bloggers: Journalists' shield claimed in response to Apple's lawsuit." It states, "Bloggers may be pushing the boundaries of online communication, breaking news and waylaying politicians and corporate executives, but are they journalists? A Santa Clara County judge is weighing that question this week, as are plenty of other bloggers, journalists and lawyers. Apple Computer has sued three bloggers ... in an attempt to uncover anonymous sources who may have illegally leaked some of Apple's internal trade secrets. Traditional journalists confronted with similar demands to reveal sources could rely on California's Shield Law, which protects reporters from having to reveal unpublished information, which in many cases includes the name of the source. Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg issued a tentative ruling last week that the bloggers who reported about Apple don't deserve the same protection. Kleinberg's final decision is due this week."
There may be rocky roads ahead. Keep informed. Stay rebellious. Stand free. For more commentary, see McBlog
I am currently reading Stephen Cox's biography of Isabel Paterson "The Woman and the Dynamo" from Transaction Publishers and it is a remarkable book that I recommend to anyone interested in intellectual history, individualist feminism or libertarianism. One of the remarkable aspects of the work is how damned well written it is.
I was originally drawn to the book because I knew little of Paterson compared to other figures within the individualist feminist/libertarian movement of the Progressive Era through to WWII. Sadly, Paterson has remained undeserved obscure and known primarily for the classic "God Of The Machine." The reason? At least partly because she needed a concerted scholar who was willing to read volumes of (perhaps) antiquated novels to sort through their characterizations and themes for patterns. But much more than this, it was necessary to plough through an ocean of old newsprint which concealed the columns where Paterson's unfiltered voice spoke and where her opinions were concealed. Admittedly, the extraordinarily long-lived, influential column on literary news and criticism that she wrote for the Herald Tribune is probably now available on microfiche or microfilm. But is that an improvement for the scholar's eyesight or enjoyment? (I remember many evenings when I had to back away from researching Benjamin Tucker simply because reading Liberty on microfiche was too visually taxing.) Fortunately, Cox did the hard and thankless work to make this woman emerge.
The book is also remarkable because the biographer is uniquely suited to understand the subject matter; that is to say, Paterson required a biographer with an intimate knowledge not merely of radical individualism but also of literary principles/history. The portrait of Paterson as a literary critic and theorist is the real gift to me. Although the book does not yet use the phrase "art for art's sake" -- I am only 1/2 way through -- Paterson seems to be a fellow traveller if not an outright advocate of an aesthetic tradition that I've always found compelling: art for art's sake.
As I read "The Woman and the Dynamo", I continue to ponder a question that has haunted me for years. Why did and does the libertarian movement -- or radical individualism in general -- not celebrate and embrace its fiction writers in the same manner the Left did. Upton Sinclair, Lillian Hellman, Max Eastman, John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis...these writers and many more on the Left had a dramatic impact on the culture and politics of their day and -- at least from an historical distance -- they seem to have been treated as intellectuals on the same level as university professors, policy analysts, political aspirants/agitators, and such. It cannot be because libertarians are unaware of the power of novels; so many of us were inspired toward radical individualism by the novels of Ayn Rand who remains almost the sole exception to the movement's neglect of fiction writers. The many other fine writers in our tradition have been given little recognition by the movement proper; even those who have achieved high success in their own fields, as Heinlein has achieved fame in SF, do not receive anything but a passing nod and sometimes a snicker from those who say they wish to spread libertarian ideas. Have we become elitist?
Over the years, I have evolved several answers, some or all of which may be true depending on the circumstances involved. But, with reference to Paterson, the question arises in the form: has this women been ignored by libertarian history partly because so much of her legacy is fiction and literary criticism/theory? Frankly, I don't know. For more commentary, please see McBlog.
I have a theory I like tho' it may not withstand historical analysis: the British Empire conquered and grew because the Brits were searching for edible food. Indeed, they stopped with India because there they found really great curry. When they had to surrender India as a colony, the Brits compensated by passing a law that required an Indian restaurant at every major intersection in England.
I trust a similarly sane motive underlies what otherwise is utter madness on the part of WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah who advocates the conquest of Mexico in today's edition of WND.
He writes, "A top-ranking Mexican official last week virtually declared war on the United States. Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said in a radio interview that an international strategy would be used if other attempts to reverse Arizona's Proposition 200 fail. In other words, the equivalent of the U.S. secretary of state is advocating meddling in the internal affairs not only of our country, but one of our 50 independent, sovereign states."
(Prop. 200 went into effect last week. Among other things, it denies most taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens and requires those who wrongly apply for such benefits to be reported to officials.)
Farah's subsequent logic may be correct: if it is proper for the US to jump an Ocean to bring "democracy" to Iraq and greater security to the America, then why it is wrong to truck a few miles southward to accomplish the same goals? If you buy the premise, you've bought the package. But the premises are drek. And the hypocritical chutzpah of his complaining about one nation bringing "international power to bear" on another is astounding.
I strongly dislike the "international tribunals" to which Derbez is "threatening" to appeal Prop. 200 but the correct response is for members to withdraw and for the world in general to treat the tribunals with contemptuous disregard. For more commentary, please see McBlog.
In the wake of the POTUS' State of the Union address (SOUA), check out the frequency with which Bush used certain words (like Osama) and compare that frequency with former SOUAs since 2001: State of the Union Parsing Tool. For more commentary, please see McBlog. A few days ago, my husband and I were in the car half-chatting, half-listening to the CBC 6:00 News when a report caught our attention. The print version of the story opens, "Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan has ordered an investigation into security at a major border crossing in Quebec after reports of motorists speeding through without being questioned. McLellan says she has asked the RCMP and Canada's Border Services Agency for a full report....More than a dozen cars have barrelled through it in the past six weeks without being stopped by the RCMP....Customs officers reportedly notified the RCMP, but to no avail. The offenders weren't intercepted because the Mounties eliminated patrols last fall along the Quebec-New York border." The radio version went on to explain that RCMP officers had been needed to investigate gang activity and terrorism threats in major cities and, so, were pulled off the relatively light duty of patrolling the border. (Strangely, the news report included a description of how to foil the border guards: you drive in a lane beside large trucks, which shield you from view, and make a dash across when you get close enough to the guard stations.)
When added together with the following report of non-existent or broken cameras that are supposed to be monitoring the US-Canada border, the folly of attempting to control the longest border in the world becomes clear. All the more so, as much of the terrain from Pacific to Atlantic is virtually uninhabited. That's 6416 kilometres (2878 kilometres - land, 3538 kilometres - water; or, 3987 miles (4631 miles - land, 2199 miles - water). Stats and info on the various border areas are here. For more commentary, please see McBlog. Media gossip tells us that the next Republican target of CBS will be House Majority Leader Tom DeLay who, like their last target (GW) is also from Texas. According to Drudge "House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is about to get the full 60 MINUTES treatment. CBSNEWS Lesley Stahl and her crew crashed a tsunami-relief photo op that Republican DeLay held last week. Stahl hit DeLay with questions about Ronnie Earle, the Democratic Travis County district attorney who is investigating a Texas political action committee founded by DeLay. `This is about children,' DeLay told Stahl, trying as hard as he could to put a plug in her relentless line of questioning. Stahl hammered away. After about the third question, DeLay ended the press conference. Stahl is being criticized for "crashing" a conference on Tsunami but, as far as I can see, a journalist has the right to ask any question of general concern to a public official at a news conference; indeed, a journalist may have an obligation to stray away from the self-flattering topics preferred by that official.
Also Rose Mary Woods, ex-President Nixon's secretary, has died. Woods infamously erased 18-minutes worth of conversation from key White House tapes subpoenaed by the Senate on the Watergate scandal. By accident (as she claimed) or through loyalty to Nixon (as critics allege)? The answer to that query and to what was in the erased gap has died with Woods. I wonder if anyone attempted to interview Woods before her death? The blogspot Scylla & Charybdis provides interesting commentary. For more commentary from McElroy, please see McBlog.
I fully accept the apology offered by Roderick Long, and I thank both Long and Johnson for changing the term they use in the essay. I extend my apologies to both of them for my initial post, which -- at one point -- implied dishonesty on their part. Clearly, I was wrong. They have behaved in an honorable and gracious fashion with which I can find no fault. Indeed, I find quite the opposite. As far as I am concerned, the incident was a misunderstanding and I intend to conduct myself toward Long and Johnson as though it never happened.
Please allow me to extend thanks on behalf of Joan, as well. I have not been contacting her about the matter because of the poor state of her health and my desire not to upset her unduly. Your substitution for the term Lavendar Menace means that no upsetting news is likely to reach her about our exchange. For that, I am also grateful.
Your colleague,
Wendy McElroy
I do not know what to make of the most recent posts by Long and Johnson. I won't know until I see what happens next.
Long explains, "The phrase ["lavender-menacing"] is explictly introduced in our paper to pick out the rhetorical strategy of "[dividing] the feminist world ... into the 'reasonable' (that is, unthreatening) feminists and the feminists who are 'hysterical' or 'man-hating' (so, presumably, not worthy of rational response)." This strategy we chose to call, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the "Lavender Menace" approach. We also said explicitly that McElroy and Taylor show "considerably more understanding of, and sympathy with, classical feminist concerns than the anti-feminists who employ this strategy" -- in other words, we were not atempting to lump them in with anti-feminists or lesbian-baiters?"
Nevertheless, the essay goes on to repeatedly make such statements as, "In her more recent writings, McElroy seems to have grown more committed and more wide-reaching in her use of Lavender Menace politics." Similar statements are made of Joan Kennedy Taylor's work. The clear message is that Joan and I are homophobic and that a key to our work is to view it as an expression of homophobia as a reaction to the Lavender Menace. I have already pointed out this utterly false and the opposite of what is true. Both Joan and I have argued consistently over decades for the toleration of all adult sexual choices.
As Johnson states in his response to my HNN post, the origin of the term "Lavendar Menace" is "Betty Friedan's attack on...lesbianism within the movement." The term now has an established meaning within feminism as an aggressively homophobic reaction to lesbians or gays in general. To use it in a manner that differs from its established usage is like calling Joan and I "anti-semites" then adding "but we don't mean they are anti-Jewish."
If Long and Johnson do not consider the homophobia message to be accurate -- and I appreciate both of them saying it is not -- then the error can be corrected as they would any other inaccuracy in an essay. The references with regard to Joan and to me on this point can be changed, especially in the online version or an unpublished one. Or, better yet, you can substitute a term without an established meaning that does not run counter to what you are trying to express about Joan and me.
The "solution" of putting a footnote that "takes back" the homophobic accusations in the text is not a solution at all. For several reasons, including... First, the text is what will be quoted and excerpted, almost certainly without the footnotes. The reputations of Long and Johnson will continue to be put behind the argument to the world that Joan and I are homophobes. Second, many readers do not refer to the footnotes. Third, the situation is similar to a newspaper announcing a crime in front page headlines and, then, issuing a retraction at the bottom of page 12. Fourth, the stain of the established meaning will certainly wipe off anyway and dirty the reputations of Joan and me. Fifth, if the footnote's purpose is to contradict the text, why not just change the text?
For those outside feminism, this may seem to be a tempest in teapot. You should understand that the accusation of homophobia within feminism if believed can severely damage careers and literally ruin reputations. A parallel situation would be if the accusation of anti-semitism were hurled at a journalist writing on the Middle East.
As I said, I do not know how to react because I do not know what will happen next. If Long and Johnson apologize on this small, comparatively private/obscure forum yet continue to publish the same accusations about Joan and me to the wider world...then I don't consider it a closed matter. The following are three appropriate responses to the revelation that Armstrong Williams - the well-known black conservative TV and radio host -- pocketed $240K+ from the Dept. of Education to push the No child Left Behind act.
First, from conservative columnist Michele Malkin, a piece entitled "this Column is Not For Sale." As Malkin states, "There are no shades of gray about this, friends: the Bush Education Department subsidized a prominent minority conservative `journalist' with federal taxpayer dollars to sell black parents on the Teddy Kennedy-inspired No Child Left Behind boondoggle -- a program that represents the largest single expansion in federal education spending since Jimmy Carter created the Education Department." Point of correction: Williams is a commentator, not a journalist. But Malkin's main thrust is correct: Williams has cast a shadow on every conservative media person and, arguably, upon media people in general.
Second, after being dropped by syndicate Tribune Media Services, various papers have also dropped the now self-syndicating Williams.
Third, editorial cartoonists have weighed in: Robert Ariail, Chip Bok; and, Khalil Bendib.
And, then, there are inappropriate responses: for example, from the White House. This from Blue Lemur, "Armstrong Williams, the columnist paid $240,000 by the Bush Administration to surreptitiously promote Bush's "No Child Left Behind Law" remained listed on the White House website as a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships as late as Wednesday, RAW STORY has learned." For more commentary, please see McBlog.
It is difficult to understand why the U.S. is so heavy handed in foreign relationships which would yield so readily to diplomacy...or just plain silence. I am thinking specifically of the recent announcement to the Canadian press by Paul Cellucci - the American Ambassador to Canada --- on the controversial missile defense plan. Celluci stated, "We've been told that it will be dealt with over the next couple of months," thus clearly implying that the States had struck a deal with Canadian P.M. Paul Martin. Celluci even provided a timeline. Canada would join the U.S. ballistic-missile defense system for North America by the end of March.
The statement has been poorly received. For one thing, why is a foreign ambassador announcing to the press what Canadian military policy will be? Especially when the Canadian PM continues to declare to all-and-sundry within hearing range that no decision has been reached? Martin rushed to inform reporters, "No such assurances were given."
It is a particularly sticky issue as Martin promised in his Oct. 5 Throne Speech to open Parliament to debate on the issue before signing on with the States. No such debate has occurred.
Canadian politics is a complex balancing act with at least four players who must constantly watch each other for reactions. The Liberals under Martin are in power but they constitute a minority government, which must look to Quebec for support or risk losing office. The Conservatives generally back the anti-missile defense system but they are bristling at not being consulted...indeed, at not even being shown the terms of an agreement into which Canada has -- perhaps -- already entered. The New Democratic Party (more left than the liberals) is adamantly opposed to the program as is the Bloc Quebecois and most of Quebec itself.
Nevertheless, sneaking the anti-missile program past Parliament at the last minute would probably have worked since the Conservatives would not have blocked it, and they're the only ones with sufficient numbers to act as a brick wall if they joined with other factions. But the prospect of easy, sneaky passage has been rendered more difficult by Celluci's statements. First, everyone is irritated at the US announcing Canadian foreign policy. Second, everyone is suspicious of Martin and his motives. Third, even politicians who agree with the plan are enraged at being kept in ignorance about it.
What on earth was Celluci thinking of? If there is/was a covert deal sliding through, then he's doing the best he can to jeopardize it. For more commentary, please see McBlog. MemoGate released. Download the Memogate report from RatherBiased and read further at the lawfirm of Memogate commissioner Richard Thornburgh. And while you are at it, read CBS' own version of axing 4 execs over the Bush National Guard memo scandal. For more commentary, please see McBlog. Breaking news on RatherGate (aka MemoGate), which I have been following. To me, the fallout -- with CBS now groveling to the Bush Administration for forgiveness -- falls into the same category as recent revelations that prominent black conservative pundit Armstrong Williams has been handsomely paid by the Department of Education to promote the No Child Left Behind program. That shared category is the increasing influence/control over the media being exercised by the Bush Administration.
The breaking news from Bloomberg: "Viacom Inc.'s CBS said it fired four employees for a September report by news anchor Dan Rather questioning President George W. Bush's National Guard Service, according to a statement issued on the network's Web site. CBS senior vice president Betsy West, `60 Minutes' executive producer Josh Howard and his deputy, Mary Murphy, were asked to resign along with the producer of the story, Mary Mapes." As an immediate reaction: 1) the word "scapegoat" comes to mind; 2) will anyone ever again discuss the significant question of where Bush actual was during his '72 National Guard stint?; and, 3) this is a prelude to and part of the spin being placed on the much-awaited release of the MemoGate Report (the `independent' investigation into the scandal), which I expect shortly. On his Sunday show, Matt Drudge announced [audio file] that it should be released later today, complete with news of Dan Rather's replacement.
Of course, the CBS spin has been building for a while. The media watchdog site RatherBiased reports, "CBS Hires Liberal Activist to Spin Memogate Report. In the first public move indicating that the network is going to be releasing the report from the `independent' investigation, the network re-hired--according to TV Barn--one of its professional spinmeisters, Donna Dees. But CBS wouldn't be CBS if it were just any pr flack. This Donna Dees is the same woman who organized the anti-gun Million Mom March [MMM] rally in 2000 and was the sister-in-law of a Hillary Clinton advisor, who also organized the event. This comrade-in-no-arms of Rosie O'Donnell, says CBS, `will join our press office next Monday, Jan. 10, as senior press representative responsible for the CBS EVENING NEWS, the CBS EVENING NEWS weekend editions and FACE THE NATION."
When CBS reported on the MMM in 2000, it did not disclose that the event's head organizer had worked for CBS for the past six years. The network is carefully disclosing everything this time probably because - with so many spotlights shining - it can't get away with much. For more commentary, please see McBlog. On Monday, the media watchdog site RatherBiased speculated on whether CBS was trying to repair its relationship with the Bush Administration in the wake of Dan Rather's Memogate scandal. That was the discredited "60 Minutes" story in which George Bush's National Guard service was severely slammed on the basis of a memo that bloggers immediately spotted as a forgery. RatherBiased promised to get back to its readership with a hard answer.
(The reason CBS would want to make a groveling, desperate play for forgiveness is clear. Rather has been banned from the White House. And, as Newsweek reported, "Bush seemed to be enjoying the discomfiture of Dan Rather and CBS over the phony documents. At a press conference in mid-September with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Bush called out, 'Is anybody here from CBS?' He sounded more needling than gracious." Clearly, CBS wants to be there again.)
This morning RatherBiased confirmed the rumor...at least, part of it. "A spokeswoman for CBS News told RatherBiased.com that news president Andrew Heyward and Washington Bureau chief Janet Leissner did meet with White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett as reported below." The unconfirmed part: what was discussed. Not that it takes investigative journalism to come up with a working hypothesis. An additional rumor has been floating: towit, CBS is trying to set up a swan song for Dan Rather before he retires from news broadcasting. As it stands, the man will leave in disgrace with news sites and bloggers giving him a slew of "the worst of --- " awards as his final remembrance. Unless, of course, the last interview of his career is with George W., an interview which would indicate Presidential forgiveness and allow CBS to wipe the now-hardened egg off its face. Anyway, that's the rumor according to Broadcast and Cable: Rather may be trying to interview Bush. For more commentary, please see McBlog.
Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board is hearing Jeremy Hinzman's case today. Hinzman is the AWOL American soldier who is seeking refugee status in Canada rather than serve in Iraq. He is a test case.
Hinzman's lawyer is making an interesting argument. "Canada has not granted refugee status to American citizens in the past, but Hinzman's supporters are counting on a precedent in international law to help the American. Gerry Cordon, a Hinzman supporter, says a soldier who refused to fight in Saddam Hussein's army in the invasion of Kuwait, successfully sought refugee status. To help his client, Hinzman's lawyer plans to present evidence of a systematic pattern of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, including attacks on civilian population centers, and the torture and murder of prisoners, at Monday's hearing." The new line of argument came after "the Crown...succeeded in having Hinzman's principal argument -- that the Iraq war was illegal -- ruled irrelevant." Three days have been set aside for the hearing, with a decision due in January. I expect the request to be denied but I also expect a lengthy appeal process...and that might be more successful.
Hinzman's prospects have been both harmed and helped by his status as a deserter rather than a draft dodger. There is not the same precedent in refugee law or public sympathy for deserters -- after all, they did volunteer for the service they are now fleeing. On the other hand, he could face a stiff prison sentence -- up to and including the death penalty -- if returned to the States and that punishment may be viewed as "persecution" -- in short, as a reason for asylum. For this reason, if for no other, the U.S. is likely to give Canada assurances that a lesser punishment will be inflicted. For more commentary, please see McBlog I received an interesting email from R.W. who followed up on my blog entry Bush-whacked in Canada in which I commented upon the U.S.'s clear intentions to bull through a "joint" anti-missile shield with Canada: joint in name only, of course. America would be in full charge of everything except, perhaps, of footing the bill.
He writes, Michel Chussudovsky at Global Research has a somewhat alarmist article out, speculating that Bush intends effectively to annex Canada for security purposes, but another view is that the extension of NAFTA borders to the whole of the North American continent will amount to the same thing. QUOTE: A tri-national committee is studying the creation of a common NAFTA border, which is another way of saying that it is studying how to eliminate America's borders with Canada and Mexico. A logical extension of the NAFTA accord, it neatly sidesteps unease about illegal immigration, by eliminating the troublesome border across which the illegals travel. Then too, it will push the security border of the US out to formally include all of NAFTA space, which means formally applying US security rules to both Canada and Mexico. This will, in effect, mean the end of both Mexican and Canadian sovereignty. To compare this to Europe's Schengen rules is to ignore the vast difference in internal power relationships in NAFTA and the EU. Germany is the first among equals in Europe; the US is first and last in North America. Sovereignty being only worth as much as the ability to defend it, neither Canadian nor Mexico are going to be left with much.
My commentary: The article is not altogether alarmist. The U.S. clearly wants control of the Canada-US border and is already imposing its own terms -- e.g. Canada will certainly adopt the biometric passports demanded by the States and it will do so for no other reason than it has been demanded. The article is quite correct in stating that Canada has been turning over to the States information and files on its citizens for the purpose of allowing America to evaluate and deal with them as security threats. The most notorious case is that of Maher Arar in which the RCMP clearly turned over documents on a Canadian citizen to the US authorities who used the information to deport him to Syria (and torture) when he had the misfortune of stepping on American soil for the sole purpose of making a plane connection home to Canada.
The U.S. also wants control of Canadian air space in order to institute the anti-missile shield. Prime Minister Martin is showing all the signs of wanting to wag his tail like a good little Bush-poodle but he's encountering problems. For example, during a speech to the labor union Canadian Auto Workers in Toronto, Martin pushed the advantages of the anti-missile shield. The report I saw did not mention how the PM lumped the shield in with labor concerns but it was probably along the lines of, "if you want trade concessions from the States, we'll have to give them something in return. Son of a Gun! I just remembered what Bush wants for Christmas." CAW president Buzz Hargrove reportedly told Martin that Canada shouldn't be part of the U.S. "militarization of space. We should defend our own borders." According to Hargrove, Martin and he "agreed to disagree." Martin is trying to calm such criticism by repeating Bush's assurance that there would be no offensive weaponry in the satellites circling Canadian skies; this assurance is important because the Canadian public is strongly opposed to the "weaponization" of their air space but are unlikely to protest against mere self-defense. At this point, Bush has no credibility in Canada so no one seems to credit his warranty. After all, in the same speech in which he surprised Martin by raising the spectre of the shield, Bush also declared, "Defence alone is not a sufficient strategy. There's only one way to deal with enemies who plot in secret and set out to murder the innocent and the unsuspecting. We must take the fight to them."
It is not often these words escape my lips but Thank God for Quebec! As one news report states, "The pressure on Prime Minister Paul Martin to reject the U.S. proposal for a ballistic missile defence shield increased yesterday after members of his own party's Quebec wing voted for the government to abstain from the controversial project." (Martin himself is part of the Quebec wing so the rebellion is a particularly sharp slap in the face.) The Bloc Quebecois is also raising stakes by linking the anti-missile shield with rhetoric about Quebec sovereignty. (People should not read too much into this, however, as the Bloc links the rising of the sun each morning with calls for sovereignty and has done so for decades.) Reaction in Quebec guarantees one thing, however; the anti-missile shield will not sneak through the House without vigorous debate. According to the Globe and Mail, "The issue [the anti-missile shield] will be debated at the party's national convention in March 2005 and Prime Minister Paul Martin has promised to put the divisive issue to a vote in the House of Commons." As I mentioned in my earlier blog, I expect such a measure would pass.
The other parties -- other than Martin's Liberals and the Bloc -- are busy agitating for transparency on the issue. The Edmonton Sun states, "The Opposition [the generally pro-shield Conservatives] charged yesterday that the Liberal government is hiding crucial information about Canada's possible role in the program and stalling on taking a stand.... NDP [the adamantly anti-shield New Democratic Party] MP Libby Davies said her caucus was promised a briefing by the federal government a month ago and is still waiting for it. '(Prime Minister) Paul Martin is dilly dallying around,' she said. 'I think it's about time that he says where he's at on this issue'."
The most compelling reason why the Chussudovsky article may not be alarmist has nothing to do with happenings in Canada. It has to do with attitudes in the States. When dealing with the sovereignty of other nations and the human rights of other nationalities almost literally knows no bounds. Why should Canada and Canadians be any different? For more commentary, please see McBlog. It was disconcerting to watch Bush on Canadian turf thank the people of Halifax, Nova Scotia for taking into their homes thousands of Americans who had been stranded when U.S. airports were closed and flights diverted Northward on September 11, 2001. Of course, his thanks came three years late. Of course, his gratitude was a prelude to making demands. (Neither the thanks nor the demands came with any concessions on trade issues, I note.) His talk of a longstanding friendship between Canada and the States sounded like those phone calls you get from an old and `dear' friend who chats you up before requesting money. Canada is in the unenviable position of being required by Bush for a program that he seems determined to pursue: the US anti-missile shield. The US wants to place "the shield" over all of North America to protect it from attack by "rogue states" like North Korea. It won't work unless Canada signs on and puts her air space under de facto U.S. control or, at least, at the service of U.S. goals. How important is the program to Bush? I had the TV news on in the background as Bush and the FLOTUS arrived for his first visit to Canada and my attention riveted to the screen as the debarking first couple were followed by Connie Rice and Colin Powell. Bush brought in the heavy hitters for a simple goodwill visit?
Clearly, he wishes to use seduction and smiles rather than a harsh tone with Canada's Liberal PM, who is now on the defensive and over-explaining himself. (As the leader of a minority government, he does that a lot.) "Whatever we decide," Martin has assured Canadians, "it will be in Canada's interests. We are a sovereign nation and we will make our own decisions on our airspace." The PM doth protest too much methinks. Or maybe he's having to think fast on his feet. After all, the missile shield program was not meant to be on the agenda during Bush's visit let alone be part of a speech Bush delivered to the entire nation.
In his prepared remarks on at a joint news conference with Martin, Bush sketched what had been discussed at their earlier meeting. "We talked about the future of Norad and how that organization can best meet emerging threats and safeguard our continent against attack from ballistic missiles," Bush stated. According to Canadian news sources, however, the missile shield wasn't discussed and came as a surprise to Martin who hastened to assure the press that he wasn't surprised. Whatever. The issue is now sitting on Martin's desk, with the weight of an elephant?the last thing he wanted to happen before the upcoming election.
The extremely vocal New Democratic Party has come out against the missile shield, saying "We don't want to see a weaponization of the future. It's our future."
The majority of Canadians do not wish to participate in the US missile shield, but it is a slim majority and the issue could ultimately blow either way. One thing is for sure. Martin did not want this to become an election issue. Especially since the program is particularly unpopular in Quebec and Martin's Liberals can't afford to lose more ground in La Belle Province. Bush unceremoniously created a political mess for Martin.
Nevertheless, I think a measure pledging Canada's co-operation is likely to pass if put to a vote of the House. For one thing, the official opposition party, the Conservatives will back it. For another, Martin is weak-kneed around Bush, and however unpopular the measure may be in areas of Canada and even within factions of Martin's own Liberal party he can look to Tony Blair's poodle routine for inspiration. For more commentary, please see McBlog
Son of a B! Yesterday I blogged on the Republican attempt to cover Tom DeLay's posterior -- which was/is flapping in the wind -- from being even temporarily suspended from a "leadership" position in the House if he is indicted (as was/is expected soon.) Does anyone remember why that rule was enacted. In 1993? House Republicans wanted to stick it to Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) who was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and under investigation. Well, today's Boston Globe reports, "THE HOUSE majority leader, Tom DeLay, who was cited by the House Ethics Committee for three violations this year and another in 1999, was rewarded yesterday by his fellow Republicans with a rules change that will allow him to keep his leadership position even if he is charged with a serious crime." The Republican-dominated House should put out welcome mats that read "Boss Tweed."
And while we are on the subject of manipulating the system to promote/protect one individual...how about the push that is under way to change the U.S. Constitution in order to give Arnold Schwarzenegger a shot at the White House? The Schwarzenegger Amendment? The Constitution currently blocks the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger from the office of President because it requires candidates to be native-born. The Amend for Arnold Campaign is already on the Internet and arguments are being launched about why it is 'proper' for foreign-born individuals to be elected. (Personally, I don't care. Let them put Bin Laden on the ballot -- would he be any worse? OK, Ok, he probably would be. But the fact remains, I don't care about the nationality of who is put in a position of unjust power. It's the power of the position itself I'm against.) The Bushnevs know that Arnie may be their best chance of holding onto government after GWB has run out of gas, next-Presidentwise. Can American politics get any more ridiculous? It is time to remember...
"a scene from the SF film Demolition Man, which takes place in the year 2026. As Sandra Bullock attempts to bring Sylvester Stallone up to speed on what has happened in the world in the last 30 years, she refers to the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library.
Stallone: "Hold it! The Schwarzenegger Library?"
Bullock: "Yes, the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Wasn't he an actor?"
Stallone: "Stop! He was President?"
Bullock: "Yes. Even though he was not born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment."
Oh, well, as a Canadian, I can be smug...it's *your* problem. WAIT A MINUTE!! I blogged earlier today on NAFTA-Plus, which is trying to make everything "down under" our problem as well. Drat! Does the American/Canadian/Mexican version of "Mi Casa Es Su Casa" allow me to say, "Get the hell off my property?" For more commentary, please see McBlog I don't know what to make of this article by Joseph Farah, editor and publisher of WorldNetDaily, which lambastes the idea of NAFTA-plus - a plan that some have called the "deep integration" of US and Canada. And, oh yes, Mexico too. (In writing that last sentence fragment, I heard the voice of the Wicked Witch of Oz saying, "And your little dog, Toto, too!" Somehow Mexico is always an after-thought.) I know what I think of NAFTA-plus - I don't like it. But I don't know how seriously to take the sky-is-falling attitude of Farah who seems to believe it would be the death of American sovereignty -- Canadian and Mexican sovereignty he's not too worried about. Nor do I know how likely the plan is to succeed.
What is NAFTA-plus? Intriguingly, it is a plan that both socialists and fundamentalist Christians oppose.
To secure a closer Canada-US partnership, the Bush administration wants to make sure that Canada addresses US concerns about our shared border serving as an entry point for terrorists. And, oh yes!, it wants to tap into Canada's cannon-fodder potential as well as its natural resources. Natural resources: Canada is not merely an oil and electric energy exporter, it is by far the world's largest untapped source of lumber, natural gas, clean water, mineral deposits, etc. Cannon-fodder: there are all those fresh-scrubbed Canadian boys and girls who could be shipped overseas instead of fresh-scrubbed American ones to die for corporate profits and neocon dreams.
NAFTA-plus calls for Canada to direct massive tax dollars toward border and domestic security, in addition to beefing up our military so that it can participate both in crises within North America and overseas. (The Canadian military is a bit of a joke and, frankly, I like it that way. I'm sure it still annoys the hell out of Bush that Canadians are not in Iraq.) The proposed NAFTA-plus scheme also includes a "resource security pact." This offers Canada certain advantages: e.g. exempting Canadian lumber from US trade restrictions. It offers the US huge advantages: e.g. guaranteed access to Canada's energy resources.
In short, Canada is being offered financial incentives - mostly the elimination of trade barriers and the influx of American investment to undeveloped regions like Northern Quebec - in exchange for falling in line with America's military/security goals and for sating America's hunger for natural resources.
The five elements of the proposed plan so far are: 1) reinventing borders to establish a common security perimeter, possibly involving a Canadian national identity card with biometric identifiers; 2) the "harmonization of business regulations"; 3) a resource security pact; 4) "reinvigorating" the North American Defence Alliance; and 5) developing new institutions to manage a Canada-US partnership.
I don't have a lot of answers yet - I don't even know how likely the plan is to succeed -- but I will be researching a lot of questions in the next few weeks.
For more commentary, please see McBlog. There are credible reports that the US is flying "terrorist suspects" to countries that will torture them to obtain information. The Sunday Times (London) states, "An executive jet is being used by US intelligence agencies to fly terrorist suspects to countries that use torture in their prisons. The movements of the Gulfstream 5, leased by agents from the US Defence Department and the CIA, are detailed in confidential logs obtained by The Sunday Times which cover more than 300 flights. Countries with poor human rights records to which the Americans have delivered prisoners include Egypt, Syria and Uzbekistan, according to the files. The logs have prompted allegations from critics that the agency is using such regimes to carry out 'torture by proxy' -- a charge denied by the American government." Hardly surprising, given that Alberto Gonzales -- the new US Attorney General (pending Senate approval) does not believe in the rights of prisoners of war, thinks the Geneva Convention is outmoded and authored the infamous "torture memo". A letter to the Boston Globe commented on the transition from Ashcroft to Gonzales, "As we lead the charge for democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, we are going to go from a lawyer who wants to ignore the civil rights granted to us by the US Constitution to one who wants to ignore the human rights recognized by world institutions." For more commentary, please see McBlog. One of my favorite sites, LewRockwell.com has an article this morning by John Pllger who points out the coverup that has been occurring in the media on the number of Iraqi casualties. (Pilger's analysis is followed by an email I received from a Prof. who breaks down the casualty figures.)
Pilger writes, There is nothing illicit about this cover-up; it happens in daylight. The most striking recent example followed the announcement, on 29 October, by the prestigious scientific journal, the Lancet, of a study estimating that 100,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the Anglo-American invasion. Eighty-four per cent of the deaths were caused by the actions of the Americans and the British, and 95 per cent of these were killed by air attacks and artillery fire, most of whom were women and children.
The editors of the excellent MediaLens observed the rush -- no, stampede -- to smother this shocking news with "scepticism" and silence. They reported that, by 2 November, the Lancet report had been ignored by the Observer, the Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Star, the Sun and many others. The BBC framed the report in terms of the government's "doubts" and Channel 4 News delivered a hatchet job, based on a Downing Street briefing. With one exception, none of the scientists who compiled this rigorously peer-reviewed report was asked to substantiate their work until ten days later when the pro-war Observer published an interview with the editor of the Lancet, slanted so that it appeared he was "answering his critics." David Edwards, a MediaLens editor, asked the researchers to respond to the media criticism; their meticulous demolition can be viewed on the alert for 2 November. None of this was published in the mainstream. Thus, the unthinkable that "we" had engaged in such a slaughter was suppressed -- normalised. It is reminiscent of the suppression of the death of more than a million Iraqis, including half a million infants under five, as a result of the Anglo-American-driven embargo.
In the same vein, I received the following email...[NOTE: I have not verified the accuracy of the analysis. Also I have edited out various comments that seemed politically over-the-top and may call the fellow's perspective into some question.]
Dear Ms McElroy, The following letter is being sent to global media and other organizations concerning horrendous civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Please inform your associates and readers. Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya.
Re: Reporting Iraq civilian deaths in post-invasion Iraq...Aside from the sustained lying, massive public deception, illegality, the horrendous "collateral" civilian casualties and immense US corporate benefit (nearly US$400 billion extra military expenditure by the US alone since 9/11), there is a further outrageous scandal associated with the post-9/11 US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, namely the NON-REPORTAGE of horrendous civilian casualties by mainstream global mass media. SOME mainstream global media have FINALLY permitted their readers to glimpse the horrendous reality of Iraq civilian deaths thanks to a scientific article in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet - however the figure typically quoted of "100,000 over 18 months" is a MINIMUM ESTIMATE as outlined in estimates #1-4 below.
#1. The group of US scientists that just published an article in the top British medical journal The Lancet (online, 29 October 2004) found 0.1 to 0.2 million civilian "excess deaths" in post-invasion Iraq; that mortality increased post-invasion; and that violent death increased dramatically post-invasion. From primary survey data, The Lancet article calculated a post-invasion Iraq annual mortality rate of 12.3 deaths per 1000 (corresponding to 300,120 persons per year with The Lancet article's assumption of a population of 24.4 million ). However their pre-invasion estimate of an annual mortality rate of 5.0 deaths /1000 corresponds to 122,000 persons per year - yielding an upper estimate from The Lancet of "excess deaths" of 178,120 people per year - corresponding to 297,000 "excess deaths" in 20 months of US war and occupation in Iraq. This upper estimate (based on data in The Lancet) of nearly 300,000 "excess deaths" due to the US invasion and occupation in Iraq is equivalent to ONE HUNDRED (100) World Trade Centre atrocities. This US study is consonant with EXISTING UN and UNICEF data that has been COMPREHENSIVELY IGNORED by mainstream global media.
#2. According to UNICEF (2004), in 2002 the under-5 infant mortality was 1,000 in Australia, 108,000 in Iraq and 283,000 in conquered Afghanistan (up from 277,000 in 2001) - noting that these countries have populations of about 20, 24 and 22 million, respectively. From UNICEF data it can be CONSERVATIVELY estimated that the post-invasion under-5 infant mortality has been about 0.2 million in Iraq and 0.9 million in Afghanistan. These estimates largely IGNORE the effects of invasion and the evil reality that in Iraq (since 1991) and Afghanistan (since 2002) there has been an excess "collateral" mortality of about 2000 Muslim children for every US combat death...
#3. According to the UN, the current annual death rates in Iraq's poorest Arab neighbours Jordan and Syria are 4.3 and 3.9 persons per 1000, respectively - and the values range from 1.9 to 3.7 persons per 1000 for the prosperous and peaceful Arab Gulf States. If we assume a conservative estimate of an annual death rate in a peaceful, non-occupied Iraq of about 4 persons per 1000 then we would EXPECT 97,600 Iraqi deaths per year - as compared to the post-invasion estimate by the US scientists of 300,120. The difference - the "excess mortality" due to the US invasion and continued war and occupation - is 202,520 deaths per year or about 340,000 after 20 months of US-imposed war and occupation.
#4. Using UN and UNICEF data it has been CONSERVATIVELY calculated that total "excess mortality" (excess death, avoidable mortality) in war-ravaged Iraq since 1991 has been about 1.5 million (with under-5 infant mortality totalling 1.2 million) [see G. Polya, Australasian Science, June, 2004] and that the "excess mortality" has been about 1.2 million in post-invasion Afghanistan (with the under-5 infant deaths totalling 0.9 million)....
Silence kills. Silence is complicity. Please inform everyone. Save the children.
Dr Gideon Polya, e-mail: gpolya@optusnet.com.au. [Credentials: Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003), and is currently writing a book on global mortality (numerous articles on this matter can be found by a simple Google search for "Gideon Polya")]. For more commentary, please visit McBlog Well...the invasion of Fallujah is now underway with the first brave target being the city's main hospital. ABC Action News reports, "The invaders used special tools, powered by .22 caliber blanks, to break open door locks. A rifle-like crackle echoed through the facility. Many patients were herded into hallways and handcuffed until troops determined whether they were insurgents hiding in the hospital. Just one comment on the Bill O'Reilly sexual harassment case that is dominating the news... Commentators are taking it for granted that the complainant Andrea Mackris taped the so-called and now infamous sex talk phone calls because they are quoted at such length and in painstaking detail in her complaint. Indeed, FOX and O'Reilly are also assuming there are tapes of phone conversations with her. FOX's lawyers have formally asked for the tapes to be produced; O'Reilly has publicly called for them to be aired. This may seem to be an odd move but it is actually a crafty one. Mackris lives in New York where FOX is headquartered; O'Reilly lives in New York State. It is illegal to tape a phone conversation in NY without the other party's consent. Thus, if she has taped him there (and at least some of the phone calls are alleged to have been to her home), she has committed a criminal act. (You may remember the talk about prosecuting Linda Tripp during the Clinton-Lewinski flap because Tripp had taped at least one conversation in a state that prohibited covert phone recordings.) This leaves Mackris in a bit of a dilemma. In order to substantiate her charges with evidence she has to leave herself open to a criminal charge. Moreover, the fact that the "evidence" was obtained through an illegal act might mean it will be excluded from a civil proceeding and, so, leave her with little substantiation. Certainly, it would be excluded from a criminal case against O'Reilly but I am not clear on where a civil court stands on this issue given its far looser standards of evidence. (Perhaps a lawyer could enlighten me?) But, again, whether or not taped evidence is admitted, its existence opens her to criminal charges. Interesting. For more commentary, please see McBlog. According to the New York Times and several other sources, this is the Bush administration's response: "First they said that pictures showing the bulge might have been doctored. But then, when the bulge turned out to be clearly visible in the television footage of the evening, they offered a different explanation. For more commentary, please see McBlog. From the BBC to The Australian, in Turkey and in Singapore everyone is discussing the Battle of the Bulge. That is, the accusations and denials that Bush was wired for sound - presumably channeling Karl Rove - during the 1st Presidential debate. And the second one for that matter.
Websites, such as isbushwired.com" have been established as clearinghouses "for discussion of whether President Bush uses an earpiece through which he's fed lines and cues by offstage advisers." Others more bluntly ask "What's Hiding in His Back?". The story was officially broken by Indymedia and has since been analyzed to the point of exhaustion by anti-Bush bloggers. Other than the photos, the rumor is supported by a part of the 1st debate where Bush states, "let me finish," even though neither Kerry nor the moderator was interrupting in any manner. As Dave Lindorff wrote in an article entitled "What's the frequency, Karl?" which appeared in CounterPunch, "Even weirder was the president's strange outburst. In a peeved rejoinder to Kerry, he [Bush] said, `As the politics change, his positions change. And that's not how a commander in chief acts. I, I, uh -- Let me finish -- The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at.' It must be said that Bush pointed toward Lehrer as he declared `Let me finish.' The green warning light was lit, signaling he had 30 seconds to, well, finish."
The most interesting treatment I've found so far comes from Cryptome.org which analyzes the device for remote promoting most likely to have been used and gives a good break down of the technology from an expert's POV. The site also offers 28 time-stamped video images of Bush's back during the 1st debate.
Also of interest is Cannonfire, the blog-home of Joseph Cannon who is credited with being the first person to speculate about a "wired Bush". His Oct. 10th entry consists of confirmation from an interpreter for Bush who confirms that the President uses "an earpiece to assist him in communicating intelligently with others." This would certainly explain earlier photos being unearthed by avid bloggers which also show bulges in Bush's back.
The consensus in the blogosphere seems to be that Rove wants to put an end to "Bushism" - those embarrassing slips of grammar, context, and reality that pepper W's photo ops. The ramifications for debate #3 are interesting. If Bush was wired for the 1st debate and for the 2nd one as well - which an AP photo seems to indicate - then it may well become an issue prior to the 3rd debate. That is, the Kerry people and the moderator may insist that Bush be verifiably wireless. In the 3rd debate, we may finally meet the unadulterated, unfiltered Bush. For more commentary, please see McBlog. My take on the VP debate? Edwards won...much to my surprise. And I think he will be increasingly seen as the winner as the media pours over every syllable spoken. Why?
1) I think Edwards won during the debate for two reasons. First, he went toe-to-toe with the Bush administration's intellectual heavy weight and not only held his own but also IMO gave a superior performance. Nevertheless, even if he just held his own, Edwards won. One of Cheney's goals was to project the image of an older, more experienced statesman who could take over the helm if necessary, an image in contradistinction to the raw, inexperienced Edwards. But the two men came across as peers, as equals. Edwards exceeded everyone's in-going expectations. Cheney fell below those expectations which were -- admittedly -- quite high. Second, I believe Edwards won on content. I say this not merely because I agree with many of his statements, particularly the criticisms on how the war in Iraq has been conducted, but mostly because his presentation was more powerful and on point. (Indeed, I thought he gave better answers even when I disliked their content.) Cheney ducked several potent criticisms and I think this will come back to haunt him -- e.g. he did not address the challenge implicit in Edwards' citing of Bremer's recent blast at the Bush administration for not putting enough troops into Iraq. Cheney also ignored the effective Halliburton charges levelled at him, preferring to dismiss them as "a smoke screen."
2) Why I think Edwards will be increasingly viewed as the winner...Both men made errors but some of Cheney's statements make him look very bad. For example, the most damaging blow to Edwards came when Cheney stated that in all his years in the Senate he had never met Edwards before stepping on the stage for the debate. Cheney was referring to Edwards' record of non-attendance. it took CNN about ten minutes to find a 2001 photograph of Cheney and Edwards together. As the AP Wire states: "In perhaps the most awkward blooper of the evening, Cheney told Edwards to his face that they had never met before the debate, despite evidence they had. Edwards' campaign later provided a transcript of a February 2001 prayer breakfast at which Cheney began his remarks by acknowledging the North Carolina senator. The campaign said the two also met when Edwards accompanied the other North Carolina senator, Elizabeth Dole, to her swearing-in ceremony."
As for the images projected by the two men, I agree with the assessment of the anti-war site TruthOut: "Cheney was also every inch the snarling, hunch-shouldered golem that has made him one of the least popular politicians in recent memory. He seldom looked up at moderator Gwen Ifill, or at the cameras facing him, choosing instead to speak into his own chest for the entire night. Cheney appeared, overall, to cut quite the frightening figure, the dark night to Edwards' optimistic day." But I do not trust my own evaluation on this issue as I thoroughly detest Cheney.
Blogger Marc Perkel offers a good analysis of how the VP debate is being generally perceived. He writes, "BTW, It's interesting to see that Fox News has it more accurate than Microsoft NBC. Fox seems to know that Cheney got his ass kicked and trying to explain that. Microsoft NBC thinks Cheney won it in spite of the reality that Republicans are very unhappy tonight about the job Cheney did. The numbers I'm looking for is the audience size. How many people actually watched it because if the audience was high - then that's good for Kerry. That means that people were interested and that they got to see it first hand for themselves. What's interesting is that Microsoft NBC seems to disagree with its viewers. 70% give it to Edwards and 30% for Cheney. So I would say that Microsoft NBC is losing the debate with it's viewers. So - are all these online polls wrong? Do Democrats have more computers than Republicans? I agree that online polls are less scientific that GOP manipulated polls - but when it's so slanted in favor of Edwards - there has to be some reality there. CNN changed the question on their web site. Instead of asking who won - now they are asking if the debate will help you decide. CNN doesn't want to call it for Edwards who was winning 85 to 15 percent when CNM pulled the poll. I'm seeing far less polls tonight than I did last thursday. I see less that 1/3 of the polls last week. Seems to me that the news media doesn't want us to vote online any more because the voice of the people must be suppressed. CBS News running 87 Edwards - 20% Cheney. Fox News - with 119,000 votes Edwards winning 53% to 46%. And Fox is heavily biased towards Republicans. What this says is that Republicans know Edwards won it. Thanks to Fox for being a little more honest than NBC."
How important is the Edwards' victory? Not very, tho' any advantage shoud not be discounted in such a tight election. In the final analysis, I think the VP debate will be the most interesting by far of the four scheduled debates but also the least important by far. For more commentary, please see McBlog.
According to a Gallop poll on who won the first Presidential election debate: Kerry, 53%; Bush, 37%. The single best commentary I've read on last night's Kerry/Bush debate is Justin Raimondo's wrap-up entitled "Kerry Cleans the President's Clock: Bush got his head handed to him \x{2013} but why does Kerry want to flatten Fallujah?" Thomas Knapp's analysis concludes with words I echo,"In the end, it all came down to looking at the two guys on stage and asking yourself 'which one of these idiots do I want in charge?' The correct answer is 'neither one of them.' The realistic answer is that we're going to get one of them -- and I'd rather have Kerry and a Republican Congress than Bush and a Congress of either party." I may be less sanguine about seeing Kerry at the helm -- not that I think Thomas is wriggling his toes in pleasure at the thought; far from it -- simply because I focus more on social policies than many other libertarians currently do...and Kerry is certainly a mixed bag in that area. Far more PC, far more likely to cement the worst policies of gender feminism, etc. On the other hand, I think he would junk the Patriot Act and that would be well worth putting up with political correctness for 4 more years. The clinching argument is the one Knapp advances; namely, that you want a President who will not have the clear support of Congress...or the House for that matter...but mostly Congress. I disagree with Thomas one point, however. I think there are significant differences in the policies of the two men. Just one example: their attitudes toward North Korea and strategy for handling NK's nuclear presence.
For those who are curious about an evaluation of the debate from a less partisan source, the German Spiegel Online (article in Englsh) offers a fair overview. It is interesting that Spiegel zeroes in on how uncomfortable, angry etc. Bush appeared on occasion. The broadcaster clearly decided to scrap the pre-negotiated "rule" that the camera would focus on the party who was speaking and never go to the other party to register his response to what was being said. Bush lost *a lot* of points due to his peevish reactions, including an audible sigh of exasperation which was reminiscent of Gore's collossal mistake in that first 2000 debate during which he reacted with visible/audible disbelief at some of Bush's statements. It will be interesting to see if the camera work in the second debate goes according to the negotiated agreement. I'm sure the Bushies are furious and will be throwing temper tantrums aimed at the media...but they will do it behind the scenes, of course, because they will not publicly admit that Bush looks bad when he is caught being candid.
It is interesting to speculate on the role bloggers will play in the after debate spin. An email from the Democratic National Committee declared, "We all know what happened in 2000. Al Gore won the first debate on the issues, but Republicans stole the post-debate spin. We are not going to let that happen again, and you [bloggers] will play a big role." Meanwhile the Bushies set up "a network of Web sites to carry instant analysis of tonight's debate. The 'Debate Feed' will provide the GOP spin in real time to as many as 5,000 conservative Web outlets, according to Wired News." The stated goal: "Our rapid response effort is based on the premise that no attack or no misstatement will go unchallenged," Meanwhile an offshoot of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center has provided Fact Checker that critiques the accuracy of both debaters. For a sample of bloggers' responses, click here. For more commentary, please see McBlog. A nice article on The Hayekian Triumph of the Blogosphere: "If Nobel Prize winning economist F.A. Hayek had been watching last week as bloggers spontaneously responded to fraudulent documents aired by the program "60 Minutes", he would've grinned in humble satisfaction. Hayek's work centered on the effectiveness of spontaneous, decentralized organization." It partners well with this piece from The Guardian (UK) entitled "Blogging on: The web is being used to hold old media to account." For more commentary, please see McBlog According to the New York Post, "The hot rumor in New York political circles has Roger Stone, the longtime GOP activist, as the source for Dan Rather's dubious Texas Air National Guard `memos.' The irony would be delicious, since Rather became famous confronting President Nixon, in whose service a very young Stone became associated with political "dirty tricks." And, then, the Democratic National Committee issued the following press release: McAuliffe: Will GOP Answer If They Know Whether Stone, Others Had Involvement With CBS Documents? (Washington, D.C.) - In response to false Republican accusations regarding the CBS documents, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe issued this statement: In today's New York Post, Roger Stone, who became associated with political 'dirty tricks' while working for Nixon, refused to deny that he was the source the CBS documents. Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone's relationship with these forged documents? Will they unequivocally rule out Mr. Stone's involvement? Or for that matter, others with a known history of dirty tricks, such as Karl Rove or Ralph Reed?" In a USA Today article entitled "Parties lob accusations over suspect papers," however, Stone denies involvement, saying "I have nothing whatsoever to do with this." Interesting. For more commentary, please see McBlog. PajamaGate is 60 Minutes' imprudent response to the fact that bloggers were the ones to break the news that the memos it aired on Bush's non-service may well be frauds. Jeff from the Beautiful Atrocities site writes, "This week, CBS News found itself up to its sphincter in a journalistic quagmire that threatened to annihilate any confidence the public had in it. Responding to questions about some memo kerfuffle, former 60 Minutes news exec Jonathon Klein urinated on the blogosphere, splattering your average blogger as `a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing'." Jeff then goes on to include a list of what popular bloggers actually have on and with them while composing entries. For example, Miss O'Hara sports a "Chlorophyll-green charmeuse split-skirt frock with Mandarin collar; Sheer Caress control-top pantyhose; Bible." The Politburo composes with a "Kim Jong II leisure suit with Elton glasses; Angela Davis power afro wig; ration card." Quite apart from the guffaws, Jeff's article also offers links to some of the most interesting and popular blogs out there. For more commentary, please see McBlog One of the most disturbing violations of privacy rights is becoming more aggressive: the American census form in its various incarnations. In 2000, in an article entitled "Beware of Census Takers Bearing Gifts" I wrote of the then-looming census, "an estimated one in six households will receive a 'long' Census 2000 form with dozens of questions and subquestions. For example, 'Last week did this person do ANY work for either pay or profit?' (Emphasis in original.) 'At what location...?' All 'wages, salary, commissions, bonuses or tips' must be accounted for. Indeed, all income, including interest, dividends, rental income, and welfare must be listed. The form demands to know the value of your house and estate. Further, the long form inquires into the citizenship status of each person enumerated. Compliance is mandatory." In reality, however, prosecution for non-compliance was rare and (as I remember) the penalties were fairly light -- something like a $200 fine. But don't quote me.
Now in 2004, in an article entitled "The Thought Police and the American Community Survey," John W. Whitehead writes of a new census threat to privacy -- the American Community Survey. "Unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years, the American Community Survey is taken every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And at 24 pages, it contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire. These concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including a person's job, income, physical and emotional health, family status, place of residence and intimate personal and private habits....The questions, as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has said, are 'both ludicrous and insulting.' For example, the survey asks how many persons live in your home, along with their names and detailed information about them such as their relationship to you, marital status, race and their physical, mental and emotional problems, etc. "
Again, compliance is mandatory but this time the authorities are baring real teeth. Whitehead notes, "For every question not answered, there is a $100 fine. And for every intentionally false response to a question, the fine is $500. Therefore, if a person representing a two-person household refused to fill out any questions or simply answered nonsensically, the total fines could range from upwards of $10,000 and $50,000 for noncompliance." What are the chances that the cash-strapped government won't pursue this easy source of revenue? Slim to fat. For more commentary, please see McBlog
Guest posting from my personal page, McBlog.
Remember Diebold, the company whose CEO promised to "help Ohio deliver its electoral votes" to Bush? Perhaps we're learning how. Black Box Voting has discovered a backdoor in the Diebold vote tabulators:
"Manipulation technique found in the Diebold central tabulator -- 1,000 of these systems are in place, and they count up to two million votes at a time."
By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.
...The GEMS central tabulator program is incorrectly designed and highly vulnerable to fraud. Election results can be changed in a matter of seconds. Part of the program we examined appears to be designed with election tampering in mind." [Emphasis added.] I've just searched Google News and Yahoo News for "Diebold tabulator." Although Black Box Voting released this nine days ago, among the "major" (print & TV) media, only the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune have picked up this story. (CNN did mention it in their Daily Blog Roundup, but that's hardly front page coverage.) I learned about it from The Inquirer, a computer news site in the UK. For more commentary, please see McBlog. Bush organizers are requiring people in New Mexico (and apparently elsewhere) to sign a loyalty oath pledging their support before they will be issued tickets to attend an RNC rally. The text of the loyalty oath reads (in part): "I, [full name] ... do herby [sic] endorse George W. Bush for reelection of the United States, [sic] ... In signing the above endorsement you are consenting to use and release [sic] of your name by Bush-Cheney as an endorser of President Bush." URLs reconfigured
FYI: I have an editorial in the current issue of USA Today regarding Kobe Bryant's accuser. For more commentary, please see McBlog. The current American Spectator includes an attack on a column I wrote a few months ago for FOX News. (Discussion of the attack and issues raised is currently underway at the ifeminists.net BB.)
For more commentary, please see McBlog.
Cheers, From the Indy Star, "Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader's name likely will not be on the Indiana ballot in November, his state coordinator said. Dallas Stoner said Nader's Indiana committee has collected only about 9,000 of 30,000 signatures needed to get the candidate's name on general election ballots. The deadline to collect the required number of signatures is noon Wednesday." Nader is not yet on any state ballot. For more commentary, please see McBlog. A Michigan court has once again ruled that the police have absolutely no responsibility to "serve and protect" anyone except the local government. (I examined this theme in two articles "Prevent Violence: Disarm the Police" and "The Thin Blue Lie". In the "Thin Blue Lie" I criticzed the police not merely for not providing protecting but also for presenting a positive threat to liberty. The article opens, "I'd rather take my chances with criminals than with the police. For one thing, criminals usually want your property, not control over your life. Policemen will angrily assure me that they are the barrier between civilians and a world of random violence. This was a common theme in the flood of hate mail I received from policemen who responded to my earlier column, 'Prevent Violence: Disarm the Police.' Many officers provided the further assurance that - given my bad attitude - I had best not count on their assistance against a rapist."
Now the threat posed by the police has just increased. An article in the New Scientist examines "Long-range Taser-like high-voltage weapons that do not use wires, and can potentially "stun" (electrocute) entire crowds." The article states, in part, "The laser pulse must be very intense, but can be brief. So the makers of the weapons plan to use a UV laser to fire a 5-joule pulse lasting just 0.4 picoseconds - equating to a momentary power of more than 10 million megawatts. This intense pulse - which is said not to harm the eyes - ionises the air, producing long, thread-like filaments of glowing plasma that can be sustained by repeating the pulse every few milliseconds." A correspondent who is a physicist in an unrelated area wrote to me, "...said not to harm the eyes"?!!? I am no laser physicist, but I would venture to guess that anything that packs enough power density to IONIZE CLEAR AIR *will*, in fact, harm the eyes. Acutely. Further, 5 joules "every few milliseconds" translates to hundreds of watts of average power, more than enough to roast most biological materials even if *not* concentrated into a point at the end of a "thread-like filament". Now, if you wanted to adapt this into a dot-matrix-style "printer" to print custom suntans... :-)"
Here's another advance in police tactics and technology. "A police officer stops you on the street, then taps something into a device in the palm of his hand. The next minute, he knows who your relatives are, who lives in your house, who your neighbors are, the kind of car you drive or boat you own, whether you've been sued and various other tidbits about your life. Science fiction? Hardly. A growing number of police departments now have instant access via handheld wireless devices to vast commercial databases that contain details on just about anyone officers encounter on the beat." the article comments, "But placing a commercial database full of personal details at an officer's fingertips also raises troubling questions for electronic privacy activists." As a feminist, just the first question that comes to mind concerns the series of recent allegations and convictions against police officers who sexually assaulted women they'd pull over for traffic offenses. Now they're to have easy access to unprecedented information on those women? Yeah, that'll encourage victims to come forward. For more commentary, please see McBlog. In what could be a disagreement with Pat Lynch's evaluation, I think Ralph Nader is likely to be the Y2K of the upcoming election. That's the latest wisdom on how the much-ballyhooed Nader will effect the November elections: namely, not at all. So many people are abandoning him that there is now a Repentant Nader Voter site. As an on-site photo indicates, the group's bumper sticker consists of an old "Unrepentant Nader Voter" one with a piece of duct tape over the "Un." I mean, how unpopular among anti-Republicans does a candidate who openly hates Bush have to be for the Congressional Black Caucus to publicly turn against him? Pretty darned. Meanwhile, injecting Zionist conspiracy theories into his election campaign isn't helping him with the Jewish vote. Even the former Nader Raiders are asking him to step down. Further on the "this guy can't catch a break" theme, people are expressing disappointment in Nader's choice of VP candidate. "Peter Camejo, a former Socialist Workers Party candidate for president who set up a socially responsible investment firm and then ran for governor of California as a Green Party candidate. Camejo's smart, he's of Venezuelan descent and speaks fluent Spanish and he has a history of involvement with worthy political causes." But Camejo isn't a woman he has been candid about that -- unlike Nader's VP choice for the last election. For more commentary, please see McBlog. In yesterday's McBlog, I posted the observation, "The IRS seized Tax Rebel Larken Rose's computers over a year ago, but have apparently been unable to find any actual tax violations to charge him with during all this time. Now, suddenly, after more than a year of scrying, the IRS suddenly claims to have found `kiddie porn' on these machines." As well as expanding their jurisdiction to include disclosures of child pornography, the IRS seems to be assuming regulatory powers over the wages that charities pay their executives. The stated justification: "The rules governing charities and private foundations say they cannot pay executives more than reasonable compensation. Excessive compensation can be penalized by excise taxes. A group's tax-exempt status can be revoked if trustees, founders, directors or others use the charity for their own benefit." Since there are tax rules/exemptions governing a a vast of businesses -- and especially corporations -- the justification of "just checking on the tax status" could easily be expanded. Moreover, implicit in the investigations is the notion that the IRS rather than some other regulatory factor -- like the free market -- should define what is a "reasonable salary" for a given position. The IRS is clearly gearing up to launch a major assault on wallets across the U.S. It is not merely that IRS Commissioner Mark Everson has vowed an "aggressive program" of examining charities. Or that the agency seems determined to "get" tax rebels by any means, including smearing them as pedophiles. Consider this news item: "Suspect your company is cheating the IRS out of millions in taxes? Pass along the inside information to the Internal Revenue Service and you stand to collect up to 30 percent of taxes and penalties recovered under whistle-blower legislation aimed at snaring high-dollar tax cheats." Aggressive, yes, but the flexing of new muscle is not unpredictable. On November 23, 2003, political activist Robert R. Raymond {{link reported, "In a precendent-setting case, the IRS wielded new power to punish the political speech of those who "espouse views" the government considers "inconsistent" with government-held beliefs. In a hearing originally closed to the public in a secret tribunal on a military island, but moved to a public location after protests from the press and the public, the IRS wants to wield this power against a former IRS whistleblower, who was forced to resign upon his discovery of fraud in the agency. After monitoring and taping the whisteblower's appearances on Sixty Minutes, talk radio shows, and political publications where he rebroadcast his findings of IRS fraud, the IRS initiated this inquisition against their former whistelblower. This new power may find new political targets soon enough." For more commentary, please visit McBlog. On Monday, I was struck by "shock and awe" to hear Ted Kennedy declare, "Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam." He also stated, "this President has now created the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon." NIxon!? Where is the reference to John F. Kennedy -- Teddy's brother -- the Democrat who plunged the nation into Vietnam's quagmire in the first place? Nixon -- as loathe as I am to "defend" him -- ended the draft and de facto ended the war. JFK's involvement in the debacle and graveyard that became Vietnam began in the early 1950's when he met a young Vietnamese man named Ngo Dinh Diem who was in America lobbying for political support. JFK was deeply impressed by this pro-American, English-speaking fellow Catholic. At that point, America wanted to implement western democracy in Vietnam...much akin to the currently stated goal in Iraq. In November 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy became President. After Eisenhower's relatively passive policy, the Kennedy administration developed a policy toward Vietnam which broke the containment of revolution that threatened "democracy" into three stages: first, military aid programs; second, counterinsurgency by which American troops and money would suppress revolutionary movements; and, third, limited war involving American troops. At first, JFK resisted sending American troops into Vietnam, comparing the introduction of troops to taking a drink. He told the historian and author Arthur Schlesinger, "The effect wears off, and you take another." Schlesinger used the "quagmire" model to describe Vietnam: that is, sending troops would be like stumbling into quicksand. Kennedy finally decided to link increased military aid with stronger pressure for domestic reforms within Vietnam, including a campaign against government corruption. The rest is history.
In the best of circumstances, regime change most often goes astray due to unintended consequences, popular resistance and the almost inevitable tension between the installed regime and the regime-makers. In a foreign and complex culture, forced regime change seems to be a formula for disaster no matter what the underlying intentions.
Interestingly, Hannity has been one of the only commentators to ask why Ted Kennedy is making comparisons to Vietnam when his own brother was the author of that particular infamy. Hannity has gone so far as to raise the question of Mary Jo Kophechne. I say to fellow-FOX commentator..."That's water under the bridge!" Ouch. On that note of bad taste... For more commentary, please see McBlog
Here is my understanding of what is happening in Iraq re: Muqtada al-Sadr, an understanding which may well be imperfect but which may be useful nevertheless for those who are consuming news-lite from sources like CNN... Al-Sadr is an anti-American Shiite cleric who is a major player in the internal jostling for power within the Shiite community -- which is the largest community of Iraq -- and, thus, al-Sadr is a major player within Iraq itself. Estimates of his popularity vary widely, with some reports in the Western press claiming that 1/3 of Shiites are sympathetic to the "Sadrists"...but sympathy does not constitute hardcore allegiance. (Some of the sympathy may well come from his anti-US stand around which otherwise indifferent Shiites are rallying.) Al-Sadr has a private army estimated from 1,500 to 10,000 strong. The slums of Baghdad -- East Baghdad -- is called Sadr City after his family and it forms a base of support for al-Sadr. (His father was a powerful Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr; his uncle was a renown Shiite activist; much of his family was killed by Saddam.) The coalition clearly wants to marginalize or to eliminate Sadr as a factor in the politics surrounding the faux transfer of power set for June 30th. (I say faux because the Iraqi authorities will be hand-picked by the Bush administration and US troops will remain to enforce order/supervise.) In an open and free democracy, the anti-US Sadrists might become sand in the wheels because many would be elected. Thus, on March 28th, on the direct order of Paul Bremer, the Sadrist newspaper Al Hawza in Baghdad was abruptly shut down on the grounds that it incited violence. Thousands protested its closure -- and continue to do so -- saying that Bremer was following Saddam in crushing freedom of the press. On April 3rd, Mustafa al-Yaqubi, a senior aide of al-Sadr was arrested by the Coalition for the murder of a Shia cleric who was a rival to Sadr. A similar warrant for Sadr's arrest had been issued already -- apparently last summer -- but it had been held, presumably to be served at a time most opportune to the States.
Sadr saw his newspaper (his voice) suppressed, his right-hand man arrested, andhis own arrest imminent. Then, on Sunday, the Coalition appointed a list of Iraqi ministers to whom they clearly intended to hand over the previously mentioned faux authority. No Sadrists were included. At that point, Sadr had nothing political to lose and, perhaps, little time to make a move. Never one to despise violence, he called for a de facto jihad against the American occupiers and violence erupted in at least six cities. Sadr himself is holed up in one of Iraqi's holiest mosques in one of its holiest cities, Kufa, surrounded by hundreds of his armed zealots. It remains to be seen whether the US military will be arrogant enough to assault the mosque in order to serve an arrest warrant. But the US has to do something. Sadr is a clear challenge to their authority and every other group in Iraq is watching. The US has painted itself into an interesting corner: by referring to Sadr as a murder suspect and issuing a warrant for his arrest, they have left themselves no room to negotiate with him. They have utterly cut off even the possibility of political or diplomatic options.
Bush warns that violence will grow. It seems clear that more US troops will be sent in to relieve the overstressed and overextended military there. (BTW, the Sadrist revolt came at a time when US troops were undergoing a massive rotation out of the area -- a rotation home that may well be cancelled now. I've seen no confirmation of this latter possibility, however.) The latest news I've read comes from the New York Times, "On Monday evening, American troops appeared to be moving into the area around Kufa, where Mr. Sadr's followers have seized control and the cleric has taken refuge in a heavily guarded mosque. Mr. Sadr shot back a defiant message, saying he would "welcome" a showdown with the American forces he has pledged to drive out of Iraq. For more commentary, please see McBlog
I just received an advanced copy of the May issue of Penthouse in which I have the feature article. Alan Dershowitz has a piece in the issue as well but I've not forgiven him for coming out for the "right to torture prisoners", specifically through torture warrants That's a shame because I used to point to him as an example of someone with whom I could disagree on many points but for whom I had continuing respect. For more commentary, please see McBlog The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal has published the 10th annual 'Index of Economic Freedom,' and the U.S. has dropped from being tied for 6th place worldwide to being alone in 10th. [Click on nation's name at the ranking list to access detailed description]
Under the heading Monetary Policy for the US, the Index states, "From 1993 to 2002, the United States weighted average annual rate of inflation was 2.05 percent." I believe the figure is low. Greg Burns had a fascinating article in the Chicago Tribune, "Prices rising despite low inflation rate: Key indicators questioned," which I synopsize because accessing it involves registration and "cookies." The article opens, "At the same time the federal government is reporting inflation at rock-bottom levels, the cost of medical care, tuition and housing have shot up. From gasoline to coffee to gold, commodity prices are soaring to heights not seen in years." For example, food and medical prices are up 10% since last year. The article questions the method by which bureaucrats calculate inflation since the Bush administration has a vested interest in keeping those figures low, especially during an election year. "Inflation may well be tamed in the manufacturing sector...the costs of finished products like computers, apparel, furniture and electronics. But it is pronounced in...'the essentials people need on a daily basis,' such as food and fuel." Thus, the official inflation rate of 1.7% over the past year does not reflect the reality of everyday purchases. "Inflation's down except for what you actually buy," said portfolio manager Chad Hudson of the Prudent Bear Fund.
An example of how the government distorts inflation is "housing." "Instead of capturing the sizzling prices being paid in the latest home sales, the CPI [Consumer Price Index] uses an estimate of how much those homeowners could collect in rent. With home ownership soaring, rental rates are depressed, and the index is a full percentage point lower than it should be." Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago "compares today to the mid-1960s, when a long period of debilitating inflation originated, and he is unswayed by the Fed's reassuring message. 'When central bankers tell me not to worry about inflation, that's when I start to worry,' Kasriel said." Meanwhile, "unemployment remains elevated." In other words stagflation: " A combination of high inflation and slow economic growth. A term coined in the 1970s, stagflation described the previously unprecedented combination of high unemployment (stagnation) with rising prices (inflation)."
Increasing employment is a key to turning the economy around but this requires less regulation -- e.g. removing the laws and policies that make the American worker uncompetitive, such as mandated union benefits. The Index of Economic Freedom indicates that freedom brings prosperity...and with amazing speed sometimes. (Ireland, ranked 5th in freedom, is enjoying an incredible upward economic swing.) But movement here seems to be in the other direction with constant criticism of outsourcing, free trade, inexpensive imported goods, etc. Michigan has taken the frightening step of mandating job protectionism. The Detroit Free Press reports, "To help keep jobs in Michigan, Gov. Jennifer Granholm will sign a pair of executive directives...to prohibit the state from contracting with businesses that would do the work in foreign countries. In addition, companies now doing business with the state would be required to say who is doing the contracted work and where it is being done." This is the way affirmative action began in the US -- by imposing it as a policy on private business that contracted with government. Specifically: in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, which ensured that private businesses who did work for the federal government followed non-discrimination requirements. With this, a large block of the American economy adopted affirmative action. The rest is history; affirmative action expanded from government contractors and eventually became the de facto law of the land, largely enforced by court decisions. I hope job protectionism is not on the same course. For more commentary, please see McBlog The Washington Times states that major US airports are considering "the option of using private companies beginning Nov. 19 if they can demonstrate security would not diminish." The first question that occurs to me: would these private citizens have the same right to fine me for my attitude as the government security officers currently do? Again from the Washington Times, "A fine of up to $1,500 can be levied (after the fact, of course) against an air traveler for something called nonphysical interference with screening. What is that? Looking at the screener the wrong way? Failing to jump high enough when told to jump? Or maybe, just maybe, 'nonphysical interference with screening' consists of a bad 'attitude'; perhaps failing to greet a screener with appropriate deference or subservience as she arbitrarily forces you to disrobe publicly or submit to an additional, 'random' inspection? No kidding. The TSA is asserting the right and the power to fine you, a law-abiding American citizen or lawful visitor to this great land, simply because its employees don't like your attitude.' One of eight 'aggravating factors' listed in the new Guidelines is the 'attitude of violator'." How does my neighbor properly acquire this power over me?
Airports are also poised to institute the much-discussed trusted-traveler card in order to speed up waiting in clogged security-check lines. According to Wired, "While civil liberties groups have questioned the plan's merits, travel industry groups have welcomed it." Again, business joins hands with government to violate privacy rights. One of the reasons the travel industry welcomes the card is because it accomplishes much the same goal as CAPPS without the controversy caused by the legislation. If the card is successful with business travellers, I suspect it will become a required piece of identification for anyone wishing to board a plane in the US within five years. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is trying to make end-runs around the "privacy problem." For example, Wired reports that the TSA has appointed "a vocal critic of its privacy practices to write its privacy policies, perhaps in a move to placate congressional critics and privacy advocates. Lisa Dean, who has worked as the Washington policy liaison for the Electronic Frontier Foundation since June 2003, is scheduled to start as the chief privacy officer of the TSA ..." I think we can expect a great level of sophistication in how plans to violate civil liberties are worded and in the TSA's PR outreach to privacy watchdog groups. For more commentary, please see McBlog. I am not familiar with the debate that previously occurred on Liberty and Power over Naomi Wolf's recent article on Harold Bloom nor do I have the time at the moment to acquaint myself with it. I apologize, therefore, if I cover ground already ploughed or misinterpret someone based on the most recent exchange alone.
I have written a column on the savage response of virtually all feminists and most mainstream media to Wolf's article, analyzing it as an indication of a cultural shift on the issue of victimhood. For example, what I consider to be the most vicious attack on Wolf occurred in The New Statesman; in 2000, that periodical uncritically published Andrea Dworkin's similar confession of having been raped - an account with far more questionable aspects than Wolf's but one which received only muted skepticism or respectful silence from the media. The synopsis of my take on Wolf's confessional: I have no sympathy for her, which my article makes clear. On the other hand, I have little sympathy for most of her feminist critics, for two reasons: 1) their attacks resemble a gleeful catfight; and, 2) many of them would have been her cheering section a few years ago.
But rather than discuss Wolf, I want to address the question of what is individualist feminism in today's society. Robert Campbell opens his series on Wolf, "Some feminists, in today's world, believe that women have the same rights as men; that this equality of rights is getting close to being consistently recognized in countries like the United States; and that further feminist efforts, in this part of the world, should be narrowly targeted at those remaining areas where the legal and political systems privilege men over women." He refers to this position as individualist feminism, and I basically agree with some slight disagreement. For example, there are still important issues of inequality for women under law/policy in North America that require attention. One of them is the widespread legal persecution of lay midwives by governmental health professionals. But, by in large, the main task is to end the "gender war" by dismantling the laws and other institutions that continue it through mandating privileges for women over men.
Roderick Long responds to Campbell's definitional description, "what concerns me is the implicit suggestion that to regard something as a legitimate object of feminist concern is ipso facto to regard it as an appropriate object of legislation?as I see it, both sides are making the same mistake: they both think of feminist concerns and legislative activity as going together." (I will leave Robert to indicate what he did or didn't implicitly suggest.) It is the curse of almost every current movement that legislation is the goal and individualist feminism hasn't. escaped. There is a division of opinion on whether to use legislation and the State; that division breaks down to whether the person arguing accepts or rejects governmental authority over anything beyond direct protection of one's physical person and property. (As an anarchist, I don't even accept that.) Thus, Joan Kennedy Taylor and I vigorously debated each other two decades ago because she supported the ERA and I opposed it. Neither of us has changed our position over the years. My position: More legislation wasn't and isn't going to produce more justice. For me, the entire connection between individualist feminism and legislation is properly a push for repeal, disobedience, or other tactics that would render such laws "dead letters." (When I use the word "legislation, I refer specifically to governmental law.)
My opposition to legislation may not always come across in brief, popular columns because - in the 850 words a week I am allowed by FOX - I often make comments like "rape should be illegal" without further specifying that the legal system I advocate is a free market one. Equally, I have called for radical changes to e.g. the Child Protective Services that would effectively hand power back to parents and away from State agencies. Quite frankly, I have mixed feelings about advocating reform rather than the flat-out elimination of such agencies even if the reforms I call for would be the de facto death of the agency. But, back to feminism.
There is an aspect of feminism that has been largely ignored in individualist writings: the creation of a positive culture through non-legal means. I don't denigrate the power of culture - religion, morality, ethnicity, etc. -- to define and redefine the world. Indeed, if I wish to dispense with government, culture becomes all the more important. Perhaps it is time to start throwing a bit of passion behind the "how do we get there from here" question. My answer is basically: non-violent resistance and education. The construction of alternate paradigms and institutions. A celebration of what is now most reviled within mainstream feminism: the free market.
In any case...just a clarification.
Best to all. Please visit McBlog
It is tempting to view John Kerry as the "Anyone But Bush" or "Anyone But Cheney" candidate and, so, give his Presidential bid a lesser-of-two-evils endorsement...but I've been burned before and recently. I detested the political correctness and identity politics cultivated by Clinton's administration so deeply that, when the hanging-chad scandal arose last time, I hoped Bush would win. "He couldn't be worse than Gore," I said -- infamous last words that rank right up there with Socrates' "I drank what!?
I realize how little I know about Kerry. For example, I have no clear sense of specifics on his recommendations re: the occupation of Iraq. Unlike his Democratic rival Dennis Kucinich}}, Kerry voted for war when saying "no" to it really counted and failed to distinguish himself on the issue. In the last few months, Kerry has swept into being almost certainly the Democratic candidate for President on the basis of being electible rather than on his policy stands. Into this vacuum the Bush administration sagely strides with negative ads that have a real chance of defining Kerry to the American public either through their message or by putting him always on the defensive. It is a risky strategy because negative ads can backlash but -- hey! -- we are talking about the Shock and Awe administration that yelled "Let's Roll!" Besides which, they can always pull back to positive ads just before the elections. One of Kerry's few remarkable accomplishments is not likely to be used in his campaign: The Kerry Report (.pdf) aka ""Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy." As the Memory Hole site states, "In 1987, two subcommittees of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held three days of hearings on drug trafficking. Headed by Sen. John F. Kerry (D - Mass.), who has since become a candidate for President, the panel heard evidence of official corruption in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and the United States. The next year, the government published the transcripts in a 4-volume set that has remained a touchstone for anyone interested in narco-corruption, particularly as it involves US intelligence agencies." What are the odds that Kerry will run on a record of linking the drug war to American corruption? For more commentary, please see McBlog. A headline in the Pakistan "Daily Times" reads "CNN ends up with `much egg on its face'." Yesterday, I mentioned that -- after providing blanket coverage of the imminent capture of al-Qaida's #2 man al-Zawahiri (which has not occurred and is unlikely to do so) -- CNN abruptly dropped the story and barely mentioned it for hours. The background on what happened is an instructive glimpse into the media's mindset and the influence it exerts. Aaron Brown -- CNN's lead anchor and host of NewsNight With Aaron Brown -- was in Pakistan to cover US Secretary of State Colin Powell's "anniversary" visit when the opportunity to interview President Pervez Musharraf arose. Musharraf told Brown about a military operation in South Waziristan, stating that the resistance being offered suggested militants might be defending a high-value target. He said it was "very likely" the possible target had been surrounded. Sensing they had a global exclusive -- the biggest story since the capture of Saddam Hussein -- CNN ran with it, sensationalizing both the form and substance. Suddenly, al-Zawarhiri by name was surrounded and about to be captured any moment, thus raising worldwide expectations and tensions. As events unfolded and non-US media began to comment, it became clear that nothing about the battle was "imminent" and fierce conflict might rage for days or weeks. And, so, in live satellite broadcasts, Brown began to backpedal, lowering time expectations. It became unclear that al-Zawahiri was still among the beseiged or ever had been there. And, so, top news executives at CNN exerted fast control. No retractions. Just bury the story as though it had not been reported. It was a blunder of Biblical proportions that made the world a little more nervous and news a lot less trustworthy.
Meanwhile, only foreign media seem to be raising any question about whether the beseiged are really al-Qaida. Perhaps they are. But the area being destroyed by the Pakistan military is populated by warlike tribes and leaders who have never recognized Musharraf's authority, and who may well have had a hand in the two recent attempts on his life. When Diem destroyed all his political opponents in Vietnam, he did so under the guise that they were Communists which was patently untrue. US officials readily believed Diem because they wished to see "progress" and, frankly, they didn't know any better. According to CNN and the Pakistan military, the so-called al-Qaida captured so far "could be Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens or members of local tribes." If they don't know their nationalities or affiliations, how do they know the captured are al-Qaida? For more commentary, please see McBlog. As I type this, major American media are reporting that Pakistan's troops have cornered a "senior" al-Qaida figure, with everyone suggesting heavily that it is #2 man Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Washington Times has stated flat out, "Pakistan says it has cornered al-Zawahiri." Meanwhile, non-US media are saying "it ain't so" - at least, not the al-Zawahiri part. The Times of India states, "Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri were safe and `on this side of the border', an Afghanistan-based Taliban spokesman said on Friday.° And a shift is occurring in the in reporting on CNN: the capture is no longer "imminent" but may take days; the name al-Zawahiri is no longer being repeated. In fact, the story seems to have dropped off CNN altogether at the moment tho' it is still the main item on FOX.
The manhunt comes on the heels of another interesting shift: the Bush administration is beginning to downplay the importance of capturing Osama or other high-level al-Qaida. (Remember when that was the goal? Remember Tora Bora?) The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz as stating, "They [terrorist groups] are very decentralized operations ... so you've got to go after them one by one. U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice also stressed that even if al-Zawahiri were captured, it wouldn't end the terror." A recent headline in the Richmond Times-Dispatch read, "Rumsfeld: Bin Laden Irrelevant". The story: "Capturing or killing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden would not 'change the problem' of international terrorism, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday?in an interview at the Pentagon with WTN radio in Nashville." Given its embarrassing failure at the endeavor, it is undoubtedly prudent for the Bush spokespeople to make like a Wurlitzer and change their tune. If al-Zawahiri is actually captured, expect another dime to drop into the music machine. For more commentary, please visit McBlog Yesterday I mentioned a "glut" of silence from the White House regarding Spain's announced intention to withdraw its troop from Iraq by the end of June if military operations there were not placed under UN command. The silence has ended.
Predictably, the Bush administration proclaims that "Spain would be sending out a `terrible message' if it let terrorists influence its policies." First, terrorists have profoundly influenced policies in Spain, in America and worldwide. The question is merely, "in what way will that influence be manifested?" The Bush people prefer the reactive path they've taken to the path chosen by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Second, by an overwhelming majority, the Spanish people want their soldiers out of Iraq; they never wanted to become part of the occupation in the first place. Why should Zapatero be so influenced by terrorists that he dismisses the clear and collective voice of the Spaniards who just elected him? Some leaders take the idea of representing "the people" seriously. Third, the implication is that Zapatero should show machismo and say "Damn the will of the people! Let's kick some sandy Butt!" This may well reflect Bush's own attitude. For the rest of the world, however, machismo resides in standing up to the current foreign policy juggernaut of the United States. Zapatero is actually displaying maraca-sized balls. Fourth, Zapatero is a raging socialist, who heads a nation that has some familiarity with colonialism. To him - and it is a fair analysis -- the occupation of Iraq is nothing more than 21st century colonialism driven by oil and Haliburtonian cronyism. He thinks it is morally wrong. Why should he grant terrorists so much influence that he does what is wrong instead of what is right?
I could run on...but the most interesting aspect of The White House's announcement was the hint that it might propose a fresh resolution on Iraq to the United Nations, thus answering one of Zapatero's major demands. (Hmmm...would the US be sending out a `terrible message' if it let a dissenting foreign leader influence its policies?) Officially, the Bush people are maintaining their SOP bluster with General Sanchez -- the top US general in Iraq - declaring that the lack of the 1,300 Spanish troops would not hurt the coalition. He's right: if you consider the coalition to be solely defined as the physical occupying forces in Iraq, then the absence of Spaniards will not be noticed. If you consider the coalition to consist even partially of international support and goodwill, then Spain's withdrawal could be devastating. Why else is Bush rushing to prop up support from others within the coalition. The New York Times reports, "With the prime minister of the Netherlands beside him, President Bush said today that it was essential that Dutch troops remain in Iraq, both to ensure peace there and to press the campaign against terrorism....Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende was cautious in his remarks, about troop commitments and other issues."
An open question: "how angry is the UN at the US?" The answer is important because the level of hostility will impact how co-operative and generous the UN is during negotiations on a new resolution. (And, whatever The White House says, negotiations are underway right now. Bush will not go to the UN without reason to believe he will not be coldly rejected and internationally/domestically embarrassed.) Around the globe, public regard for the US seems to be at low tide. But I do not know if this is an indication of how the UN would respond to Bush. The UN is a political body of non-elected elitists.. Even Tony Blair - who has the corrective feedback mechanism of popular elections - has flaunted the will of those he "represents." It is not clear that the UN will reflect global opinion as opposed to its own perceived interests. The UN has been pushing Bush hard on a number of non-Iraq issues, such as US support for its campaigns on AIDS and "women's reproductive health." Some interesting backroom deals may be on the horizon. For more commentary, please see McBlog. I have a mixed reaction to the Socialist victory in Spain, which is widely viewed (and accurately so) as a response to the terrible train bombing at Madrid. I applaud the new leader's resolve to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq by the end of June unless the United Nations assumes control of military operations there. In this, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is not only expressing the wishes of the vast majority of Spaniards, he is also removing Spain from al-Qaida's target list. This has implications for other nations -- such as Italy, Britain and Australia -- where leaders have committed troops to Iraq despite public opinion, a move that is likely to backlash against them in upcoming elections. Interestingly, commentators almost unanimously predicted that a 9/11-style terrorist attack on European soil would cause a surge of conservativism, as it did in the States. That is, they expected Europeans to call for blood and rise up in support of the War on Terrorism, including the occupation of Iraq. The opposite happened. I think commentators underestimated (and still do underestimate) the depth of international resentment at the arrogant and unilateral manner in which the United States is redefining the world. Given that Spain has only 1,300 troops in Iraq, the withdrawal makes little difference in the strength of operations but it is a tremendous symbolic and diplomatic slap in the face for the Bush Administration. I note that there is a glut of silence from that direction on the Spanish "upset."
That's the source of my positive response. The negative one? Spain is another indication that Europe is shifting toward a pro-socialist, anti-US consensus. Even though I am anti-Bush, I am not anti-American and I cannot applaud the polarization that is occurring between the US and the rest of the world. The US has self-created a new Cold War of us-against-everyone, and the attitude is spilling over from the war to the economy. For example, the hue and cry against outsourcing jobs. If the world responds in kind, then we are headed toward borders that are fortresses and barriers to both freedom and prosperity. My main hope for this not happening resides with individuals acting privately...for example, with the Internet, which respects no boundary. Thank God for technology and the power it gives to the individual. For more commentary, please see McBlog.
Trade deficits, Social Security's looming bankruptcy, federal budgets...it is natural for people to focus on the "big (federal) picture" and not on the multitudinous ways in which local, county, and state bureaucracies are going to nickel and dime you into destitution in the coming months. They have to. City Halls are facing the same sort of fiscal crunch as every other level of government and they have only you to fleece on a most personal level to make up any shortfall. And I'm not talking about the higher "sin" taxes that are being slapped on everything from cigarettes to hunting licenses. Look for the more subtle "taxes." The methods local officials can and will devise to part you with from every thin dime are almost limitlessly inventive. In Indiana, for example, one town is beginning to bill non-residents for police time consumed in traffic accident on highways within a dozen+ miles of the town. Philadelphia has also applied its Yankee know-how. Among other measures, the city is proposing to charge people "to rent DVDs at the library and apply for city jobs." Next year, it may well cost $35 to fill out an employment form. (What the heck...anything that discourages people from becoming podlike civil servants has an upside.) Author's message: don't be so distracted by the federal mega-grabs that you become oblivious to the small-time nickel-and-diming that bleeds your wallet every bit as much. For more commentary, please visit McBlog. Dangerous forms of censorship are occurring below the radar-level of civil libertarians. Information is being both curtailed and promoted by the State -- depending on the material's slant -- in covert ways that receive far less attention than the more obvious suspension of Howard Stern. In the area of curtailment, consider: "Publishers face prison for editing foreign works." Democracy Now! reports, "The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control recently declared that American publishers cannot edit works authored in nations under trade embargoes which include Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya and Cuba. Although publishing the articles is legal, editing is a 'service' and the treasury department says it is illegal to perform services for embargoed nations. It can be punishable by fines of up to a half-million dollars or jail terms as long as 10 years." This curtails the flow of information in at least three manners: 1) many articles require translation, which is a service; 2) few publishers of size or reputation would agree to relinquish all editorial control over content; and, 3) publishers who risk printing/posting articles may well be fined or prosecuted even tho' they attempt to satisfy the editing requirement. For example, they may not traditionally edit the article but who is to say that the Office of Foreign Assets Control will not be "liberal" in its interpretation of editing and include e.g. htmling a piece to constitute such a service. Every publisher who uses an article originated in Cuba or the like is setting himself up as a target....not of censorship. Heaven's NO! that would invoke messy questions about the First Amendment. The publisher is a target of the Treasury Department and of the war on terrorism.
In the area of promotion, while de facto banning the importation of news and opinions from objectionable areas of the world, the US is using taxes to export its own worldview. Michael Young explains in a Reason Magazine article entitled "Pay up, for the 'free one'": "In mid-February, the United States government began its latest effort to change hearts and minds in the Arab world, as its new Arab-language satellite news station, Al-Hurra, began broadcasting to a mostly dubious Middle East. ... Almost immediately, critics in the Middle East dismissed the station as a propaganda tool of the United States. Some observers pointed out that the station merely repeated a pattern of American public diplomacy efforts that had already been shown to fail. Indeed, the State Department last year launched a radio station, Radio Sawa, and an Arabic-language lifestyle magazine titled Hi, to offer Arabs a friendlier image of America. The magazine in particular was met with crushing indifference." Censorship is not facilitated by merely suppressing some voices; it is also served by the official sanctioning and funding of others.
For more commentary, please see McBlog. Is there is going to be a draft? The question is in the air; Time Magazine prominently discussed the issue in its turn-of-the-year (Dec. 29 '03) issue. There is evidence that plans are being slowly and quietly laid to impose one. By now, most people have heard that the government advertised late last year for volunteers to serve as Board Members on local SSSs. (A Selective Service System Local Board is a group of five citizen volunteers who, upon imposition a draft, decide who in their community will receive deferments, postponements, or exemption from military service.} The Bush administration denied that any significance attached to the advertisement but, when media began to comment, the ad abruptly disappeared from the government website. Meanwhile, the SSS has requested $28 million in their 2004 budget, which is $5 million more than their last published budget request. Although this is not indicative of a draft, it does mean that SSS will be expanding and - presumably - its need for manpower will expand accordingly. Also indicative: According to GovExec.com, "The Army's plan to temporarily increase its force levels by 30,000 soldiers could become permanent if a handful of senators can garner support for new draft legislation likely to be included in the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill." A back-door draft measure?
So far, the military has avoided using a draft by satisfying its manpower demands through "stop loss" orders. Since last November, the US Army has extended its stop loss orders to cover active-duty soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, preventing some 7000 soldiers from either retiring or being discharged." In an article entitled "Draft Creep" - by which term he refers to stop loss orders -- David Wiggins comments, "Draft creep is a sneaky draft. There is no congressional debate, and no new law is passed for the President to sign. Nonetheless, people are being forced into military service against their will. In other words, they are being drafted, conscripted, or whatever you care to call it. The government chooses to call it "Stop Loss," and it applies to members of the armed forces. After all, what better way is there to initiate a sneaky draft than to start with the group of people least likely to object to a draft, and at the same time, with the least legal rights to fight one?" But stop loss orders are a short term fix, at best. Already the murmuring of discontent within military ranks (not to mention their families) is rising. Enlistment in those agencies is also falling due to such draconian measures.
On the state level, there have been unmistakable moves in that direction. For example, in Alaska, Selective Service registration is now a requirement to get a Permanent Fund check - the annual "oil dividend" check that amounted to over $1,000 last year. Almost every eligible Alaskan registers for the check. "The state plans to forward information from the dividend applications to the federal government, which will automatically register the eligible Alaska males who haven't already signed up. Under federal law, men are supposed to register with the Selective Service within 30 days of turning 18. Failure to register is technically punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of as much as $250,000. But a lot of people don't do it."
No one expects such a dramatic and controversial move as the imposition of a draft prior to the November elections. Until November, everything Bush does will be about re-election. Even the release of those explosive military records is an attempt to defuse the controversy surrounding his possible-AWOL and to do so in February rather than in October. The Bush administration wants to explode any political bombshells right here and right now while there are several months of recovery time possible. The clumsiness with which the administration is proceeding may negate the strategy, of course, but I'm betting (and so are they) that people will soon be bored with hearing about Bush's military dental records. Nothing short of a sleazy sex-scandal or the spousal murder of a pregnant wife can sustain public interest for a period extending into months. But, if Bush is re-elected, then I expect a draft to be imposed in early '05.
If Kerry is elected, then probably not. I say "probably" because Kerry is not in principle but merely
For more commentary, please see McBlog. Guest posting by "Brad" from my personal blog:
Perhaps the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) really wants to be a branch of government. Certainly they like to pose their enforcers as government agents. So they'd probably like the recent suggestion of a download tax on broadband Internet access.
According to the Register, Prof. Terry Fisher of Harvard has calculated that charging $6 a month to each broadband Internet user in the U.S. will generate the $1.67 billion that the RIAA and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) supposedly "lost" last year to Internet downloads.
I'm not an economist, but even I can see four flaws in this scheme.
1. Non-users get screwed. I know many people who have broadband Internet access and don't download any music or movies. These people would now get stuck for an extra $6 per month for a service they don't want and won't use, in order to subsidize others. (We have a similar situation here in Canada, where the "CD-R tax" I pay on my computer backup discs goes to line the pockets of the music industry.)
2. Nowhere to go but up. $6 a month is calculated on the current estimated "loss" of 20 percent of RIAA retail sales and five percent of MPAA. As downloads increase, you can bet the RIAA and MPAA will start screaming for hikes in the tax, until it reaches the roughly $60 a month it would take to compensate all their current retail sales. And then they'll start whining about theoretical sales that they've "lost."
3. It won't stop harassment. Despite our "CD tax" that supposedly compensates the industry for file downloading and duplication, the Canadian Recording Industry Association is already making plans to copy the RIAA's "sue everyone" strategy. So even with a nice juicy slice of broadband revenue, the RIAA may still sue music-sharers.
4. Market mechanisms are inoperative. This is perhaps the most damning criticism of all. With cost unrelated to consumption, there's an incentive for consumers to download more and more. (Think "price controls" or "tragedy of the commons.") Also, consumers can't "shop around" for lower-cost providers, so there are no incentives to improve the quality of the service. (Think U.S. Post Office.) All the RIAA has to do is sit back and rake in the cash. Heck, this even kills the incentive to find and cultivate better artists.
I.e., socialized music will work about as well as socialized steel-making.
I haven't read Fisher's report, so it's possible that he addresses these objections. But to my eyes this looks like a tax, walks like a tax, and quacks like a tax. And I'm not sure how much precedent there is in U.S. law to impose a tax that will be funneled directly to a private enterprise, with no pretense of "public works."
I'm sure there are those who believe that the RIAA should be prosecuted under the anti-trust laws for price-fixing, restraint of trade, anti-competitive behavior, and so forth. I'm not one of them. Crying for government enforcement of government-mandated restrictions on excesses resulting from government-granted privileges has only one certain outcome: more government. Lots more government.
Instead, I say get the government out of the picture entirely. Brad
For more commentary, please see McBlog. "NASA-Northwest" were awarded the prize for Privacy Villain of the Week back in August 22, 2002. (The Privacy Villain of the Week and Privacy Hero of the Month are projects of the National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group. The discrepancy is the frequency is undoubtedly because there are currently more villains than heroes.) I guess you just can't keep a good villain down! Because "NASA-Northwest redux" is Villain of the Week for January 23, 2004! The press release reads:
"After two years, the public has finally learned that Northwest Airlines did indeed give the National Aeronautics and Space Administration sensitive consumer data for use in a bizarre research program that combined data-mining and "brain-monitoring" technology. There was a more naive time when it seemed the 21st-century total federal takeover of airport security would merely involve swarms of overpaid, un-fireable federal employees harassing hapless harried travelers with interminable baggage and body searches. But the dangers of "mind-reading" technology didn't occur to even the most strident skeptic. Or did it? Maybe we need to ask NASA.
It was revealed back in 2002 that scientists from NASA asked Northwest Airlines for "system-wide Northwest Airlines passenger data from July, August, and September 2001." The data was to be used in the still-mysterious program the federal space agency was working on with a commercial firm -- the idea was to use both data-mining and "brain-monitoring" technology installed at airport terminals to somehow identify "threats." The proposed brain-monitoring technology would detect EEG and ECG signals from the brain and heart and then have that data analyzed by software, in combination with previously-floated plans to cross-reference passengers' travel history, credit history, and other information from hundreds or even thousands of databases as part of the Computer-Aided Passenger Pre-Screening (CAPPS) program.
In a press release, Robert Pearce, the Director of NASA's Strategy and Analysis Division, disavowed the report, assuring the populace that "NASA does not have the capability to read minds, nor are we suggesting that would be done." Yet another NASA spokesman, Herb Schlickenmaier, confirmed that reading the brainwaves and heart rates of airline passengers was a goal of NASA's -- the thinking being that such data combined with body temperature and eye-flicker rate could make a sort of super-lie detector. However, the PowerPoint presentation delivered by NASA to Northwest in December, said NASA has "Non-invasive neuro-electric sensors under development as a collaborative venture between NASA Ames and commercial partner." This contradicts the NASA statement that "We have not approved any research in this area." If this is how NASA assembles policy, it's little wonder their hardware assembly has a dismal track record.
Does the tweezer brigade really need Please visit McBlog
To the amazement of many, Bush is championing the boondoggle known as NASA in a bid both to set up permanent human digs on the moon and to reach Mars. At the same time he shows no interest in privatizing space and exploration despite private entrepreneurs almost begging to do so at their own expense. Conspiracy theories abound. Wired claims that Bush's proposal is actually a plot to kill off NASA projects. Others speculate whether the timing of the Bush announcement, coming shortly after a successful Chinese space mission and shortly before a U.S. election, is a coincidence.
The most plausible explanation I've heard comes from my friend Gordon Pusch who pointed out that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld seems to have bought into what has been called the "Vision for 2020" -- a space age "Project for the New American Century" -- that calls for U.S. military superiority (and exclusivity) in space. This goal requires (and does not yet have) a "heavy lift" capability into space: launchers that could put massive payloads into orbit. (The Shuttle won't lift enough payload, and can't launch frequently enough.) A few billion won't get very far along the road to Mars, but it will pay for launcher development. And, as it happens, heavy launchers would be the first thing needed by the Moon/Mars program. Moon/Mars is a lovely "civilian" cover to develop these heavy lifters, which otherwise can't be justified -- weather and communications satellites need only small launchers. With heavy lifters, the U.S. could then deny the use of space to other nations. But to militarize and to enforce a monopoly, the development and operation would have to be under U.S. government control: thus, NASA. The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders -- Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) -- has completed its investigation of the US Army's attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, '03 in which two reporters staying there died. RSF concluded that the deaths "were not a deliberate attack [by the US] on the media. However, it [RSF] said US soldiers should have been told by their commanders that many journalists were based in the hotel....It was an act of criminal negligence for which responsibility should clearly be established." In short, the accusation is not murder but manslaughter.
But blame is laid at the feet of the Pentagon and military commanders, not soldiers in-the-field who fired upon the hotel. According to story in the UK Independent, "Despite information being available to the Pentagon, the report said `the soldiers in the field were never told that a large number of journalists were in the Palestine Hotel. If they had known they would not have fired. When they did know, they gave and received instructions and took precautions to ensure the hotel was not fired on again'." RSF accuses US authorities of concocting lies to hide what happened and calls their subsequent official `investigation' "nothing more than a whitewash." RSF is calling for the US to launch a formal investigation into the deaths of Ukrainian cameramen Taras Protsyuk (Reuters) and Spaniard José Couso (Telecinco). The report can be downloaded in full [.pdf] from the RWB site.
The Bush adminstration's love affair with the media is starting to crack and be revealed as a heartless flirtation that lasts only as long as the object of "love" comes across. Domestically, prominent sources like the Washington Times are reporting daily on touchy matters, like the unusually high and quickly rising suicide rate for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Or the fact that about 2,500 soldiers who have returned from the war have to wait for medical care at bases in the US. And, in Iraq, now that embedded journalists from major American news sources -"embedded" was the term used to refer to journalists allowed to accompany American troops on the march toward Baghdad, otherwise known as "in bed" journalists -- now that they have been largely replaced by foreign ones who have not been bought off in some manner or intimidated, there are increasing cries of the US military brutalizing the press. Last week, for example, Reuters filed "a formal complaint to the Pentagon following the 'wrongful' arrest and apparent `brutalisation' of three of its staff this month by US troops in Iraq."
I am sorry to say that the left is in the forefront of protest against Bush's systematic, transparent and sometimes savage quashing of truth. Tim Robbins' play "Embedded," opens February 24th at the Public Theater in New York. (It premiered on Nov. 15, 2003, at The Actors' Gang in Los Angeles; the promotional art for that performance captures the essence of the play}}.) "Embedded" has been described as "a ripped-from-the-headlines satire about the madness surrounding the brave women and men on the front lines in a Middle East conflict. [It] skewers cynical embedded journalists, scheming government officials, a show-tune singing colonel, and the media's insatiable desire for heroes." Robbins has come under a great deal of criticism for his opposition to the war, the most famous incident being the cancellation of a scheduled screening of the Robbins baseball comedy "Bull Durham" explicitly because of the actor's views. Best to all, Wendy McElroy
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! to one and all. I have a good feeling about '04.
Hooray to Dave Barry's 'year in review' column! Barry advises, "2003 is finally, we hope, over. But before we move on, let's put our heads between our knees and take one last look back at this remarkable year."
For more sobering commentary, try David Martin's article, which begins, "On December 13, when U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush not only celebrated with his national security team, but also pulled out his pen and signed into law a bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers. A White House spokesperson explained the curious timing of the signing - on a Saturday - as 'the President signs bills seven days a week.' But the last time Bush signed a bill into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago - on a spending bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shutting down the federal government the following Monday. By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush effectively consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere footnote." Martin's piece is entitled "With a Whisper, Not a Bang." This is, of course, a reference to T.S. Eliot's 2nd most famous poem, "The Hollow Men," which concludes "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper." The poem is as powerful a statement of 2003's mood as I can imagine.
Best to all,
mac. Please visit McBlog
he was moved to compassion as he saw "this man destroyed, being treated like a cow as they [the US military] checked his teeth." The media and military treatment of Saddam looks like vengeance, not justice...and this could turn Saddam into an object of pity for some, a rallying point for others. Bush may yet snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
For one thing...why mention the death penalty? It was akin to throwing gas on a raging fire for the joy of making sparks. As the UK Independent notes, "the death penalty issue could cause friction between the United States and Europe. All 15 member nations of the European Union have abolished capital punishment, and they often encourage other countries — most notably the United States — to abolish it. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also has said the world body would not support bringing Saddam before a tribunal that might sentence him to death." Ever the faithful lapdog, Tony Blair courageously stated that, although Britain opposed the death penalty, it would have to accept an Iraqi decision to execute. My point: why even raise the issue of executing Saddam...and so prominently? It is as tho' Bush sat down and pondered, "How can I possibly make the situation worse?" The answer is obvious, of course. He doesn't care how his statements impact the world as long as they please the American electorate.
Don't expect to see a trial or public process of any sort surrounding Saddam in the near future. The US is already announcing a long delay before a trial date is set. After all, what Saddam could say in a public trial might prove tremendously embarrassing to the Bush administration. As the BBC reports, "Iraq had invaded Iran in 1980 but the Iranians had held the advance and were striking back with human wave attacks. Iraq was known, by 1983, to have used chemical weapons to stop these. A US State Department memorandum in 1983 stated: 'We have recently received additional information confirming Iraqi use of chemical weapons.' President Reagan determined nevertheless that Iraq should be supported and he sent Mr Rumsfeld to Baghdad with a personal letter from himself to Saddam Hussein. Mr Rumsfeld had been defence secretary under President Ford and was then head of a private pharmaceutical company. Minutes of their meeting in December 1983 were taken by an American diplomat and later released in edited form under the Freedom of Information Act. They were published by the National Security Archive, a private research group." I doubt if Bush wants photos, like this one of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam, to circulate before the elections next fall. FYI for anyone wishing to pursue independent academic study. MIT is opening most of its course materials on the web to the public. A friend tells me, "I checked out one class and found references for the reading materials, a syllabus and calendar, assignments with solutions, quizzese and exams with solutions, links to related resources, and video lectures. There are over 500 MIT courses available." Here's the link. The status of the captured Saddam Hussein is already confusing. Although the US maintains that no determination of his legal status has been made, according to Voice of America (and many other sources) "Rumsfeld said the captured former Iraqi leader will be protected under the Geneva Convention, the international agreement that prohibits mistreatment of prisoners of war."
In this, Rumsfeld is acting in accord with Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention (3GC) which states, "Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4 [which defines Prisoners of War], such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." In short, until a competent tribunal declares that Saddam is not a POW, then he is.
But the Geneva protections have already been violated, as Rumsfeld well knows from his experience with the Guantanamo prisoners. 3GC (Article 3) states that POWs must be spared "outrages upon personal dignity," "humiliating and degrading treatment," as well as "insults and public curiosity." Rumsfeld has openly acknowledged that the GCs forbid showings PoWs -- an acknowledgement occasioned by the criticism surrounding widely-publicized photographs of prisoners at Guantanamo. At that time, the defense offered was that the photos were blurred and did not show the prisoners' faces. No such defense can be offered for the degrading photographs of Saddam that are saturating the globe: Saddam's hair being searched for lice; his mouth being probed by a tongue-depressor... Months ago, when the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera in Qatar showed Iraqi footage of interviews with American prisoners, Rumsfeld declared, "The Geneva Convention indicates that it's not permitted to photograph and embarrass or humiliate prisoners of war.'' In respect for the GCs, most American news sources restricted the airing of that footage.
His interrogation raises further questions about possible violation of the GCs, which guarantee a right to silence...other than stating minimal info such as rank, that is. Now Time and other sources are reporting that Saddam is unco-operative and defiant. Is he also being accorded the right to silence?
The question is not whether Saddam deserves to be humiliated, treated humanely, etc. As I stated yesterday, Sic Sempris Tyrannis -- Thus perish all tyrants! The question is whether the GCs are being applied as Rumsfeld insists. Clearly, they are not. And for an obvious reason. An unphotographed, silent Saddam makes for bad PR and the Bush administration wants to maximally-bask in the happy glow of an event that goes to its pre-election credit. Sic Sempris Tyrannis -- Thus perish all tyrants! My first response at the news of Saddam's capture was to check out coverage in the English-version Aljazeera, which ran basically the same straight-forward account that is circulating through dozens (probably hundreds) of other newspapers. Far more interesting is an article entitled "Early Analysis". Of course, the Iraqi Governing Council has stated, "With the arrest of Saddam the financial resources feeding terrorists have been destroyed and his arrest will put an end to terrorist acts in Iraq." I put more stock in the analysis of Toby Dodge, analyst at Warwick University and International Institute for Strategic Studies, UK: "It's a huge coup and most Iraqis will be celebrating the capture of this tyrant. But it's not as clear-cut as that. The insurgency has grown well beyond Saddam's control or even influence. There are 15 to 30 groups that have no direct contact, financially or strategically, with Saddam Hussein. His capture gives the United States a window of opportunity. If they redouble their efforts and increase their troop commitment, they could contain or even roll back the insurgency. But the temptation of Bush, facing a re-election campaign, will be to call this victory and cut and run. That would be a disaster for Iraq, for the Middle East and for the strategic interests of the United States in the region and beyond."
The Jerusalem Post reports "Iraqi governing council members described Saddam Hussein as 'unrepentant, defiant and sarcastic' about the Iraqi people at a news conference transmitted live on nearly all broadcast channels worldwide....Earlier, Chalabi told the Pentagon-funded Al-Iraqiya TV station, 'Saddam will stand a public trial so that the Iraqi people will know his crimes.' Chalabi is a leading member of the U.S.-appointed council who has close links to the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush." It seems clear that Saddam will be tried in Iraq by the US-dominated Governing Council (or, rather, its judicial creation -- the special tribunal established last week to try top members of the Saddam government for crimes against humanity.) But a question hangs as to whether there will be a "World trial" as well. The latter would be a risky venture for the US because that trial could not be easily controlled, especially if France, Germany or Russia were prominent players. article in JP may explain why there is a comparatively muted reaction from the Arab press at this point: "Many in the Arab world greeted news of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's capture with disbelief. Then, when it became official, emotions ranged from joy, to hunger for revenge against the tyrant, to sadness that an Arab leader - even Saddam - should come to such a tawdry end." It may take awhile for reactions to sink in and settle...tho' with the situation so fluid, reactions may have erupted before I post this entry. Certainly, the Palestinians know where they stand: Saddam's arrest is bad news for them. Tuesday, September 2, 2008
My Take on Sarah Palin
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
A Mother Speaks Out
Thursday, August 21, 2008
If Possible, Don't Visit the United States
Saturday, August 16, 2008
The Lone Crazy Theory
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Cultural Competence and Your Child
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Muslim Cartoon Week on RightBias
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
ACME Private Defense Company
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Military Humanitarianism: A Moral Impossibility
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Leave the United States (Redux)
Monday, August 4, 2008
Leave the United States if You Can
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Bend Over! The Government Wants to Say "Hello"
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Police Worry About Your Health
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Equal Access Does Not Guarantee Equal Outcome
Monday, July 28, 2008
Prostitution: Reconsidering Research
Friday, July 25, 2008
U.S. Child Labor Laws are Child Abuse
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Say What?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
George Carlin on Voting
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Fully Informed Jury Strategy
Talking Back to a Cop is a Crime
Individualist Feminism of the Nineteenth Century
Monday, August 27, 2007
Paul on HR 1094....Wow
VOLUNTARYTRADE: Paul is the primary sponsore of HR 1094, the "Sanctity of Human Life Act," which states, in relevant part: "The Congress finds that present day scientific evidence indicates a significant likelihood that actual human life exists from conception....The Congress declares that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception, without regard to race, sex, age, health, defect, or condition of dependency." So where in the Constitution does Congress have the authority to make either of these findings/declarations?
ANOTHER MEMBER'S RESPONSE: No where --- and most certainly not in any part of Art.I Sec.8! But then, how long has it been since the `minor detail' of "un-Constitutionality" has stopped the majority of members of Congress from voting to pass a Law? however, arguably what the authors of this Bill are trying to do is to extend 14th Amendment Protection to the "pre-born." Such a Bill would provide a legal "fig leaf" for anti-Abortion legislation --- notwithstanding the fact that Congress was never delegated the power to make such legislation, unless perhaps one wants to try to argue that the "Necessary and Proper" clause granted them that Power after the 14th Amendment was passed (which would make the entire argument circular).
VOLUNTARYTRADE: Funny you should bring up the 14th Amendment. Paul wants it applied to zygotes, but not certain (*cough* Mexican) children actually born in the United States. He's proposed the following constitutional amendment: "Any person born after the date of the ratification of this article to a mother and father, neither of whom is a citizen of the United States nor a person who owes permanent allegiance to the United States, shall not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of birth in the United States." So the great libertarian saviour opposes individual rights to brown-skinned infants and those who don't "owe permanent allegiance" to a government. Wow.Sunday, August 19, 2007
Ron Paul on Separation of Church and State
BLITZER: Congressman Paul...What do you say about this whole issue of church and state and these issues that are coming forward right now?
PAUL: Well, I think we should read the First Amendment, where it says, "Congress shall write no law.” [NOTE: the actual wording is "Congress shall make no law."] And we should write a lot less laws regarding this matter. It shouldn’t be a matter of the president or the Congress. It should be local people, local officials. The state should determine so many of these things that we just don’t need more laws determining religious things or prayer in school. We should allow people at the local level.
That’s what the Constitution tells us. We don’t need somebody in Washington telling us what we can do, because we don’t have perfect knowledge. And that’s the magnificence of our Constitution and our republic. We sort out the difficult problems at local levels and we don’t have one case fit all, because you have a
Supreme Court ruling like on Roe versus Wade; it (ruined ?) it for the whole country.
There are at least four disturbing aspects to Paul's statement that the separation of Church and State should be decided on the local level -- from state legislatures to town meeting to local school boards.
1) to get a technical and lesser point out of the way...the self-described Constitutionalist is advocating an unconstitutional position. The Fourteenth Amendment provides, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Those privileges and immunities are delineated in the first ten Amendments (the Bill of Rights) -- the First of which was clearly intended to provide for freedom of conscience/religion by removing state involvement in promoting or quashing specific beliefs.
2) He apparently does not believe in the tripartite division of power -- the Executive, the Legislative, the Judicial -- because he wants to hobble the Supreme Court so that it cannot act as a check and balance. If he attempts to change the power and the role of the Supreme Court, then he will be acting unconstitutionally in this regard as well. Elsewhere he has stated,
"[I]f federal judges wrongly interfere and attempt to compel a state to recognize the marriage licenses of another state, that would be the proper time for me to consider new legislative or constitutional approaches."
3) Since he believes "the difficult issues" like the relationship between Church and State should be sorted out at the local level, I must assume he believes that all the other "difficult issues" -- e.g. the right to bear arms, the availability of due process -- should be decided on a state-by-state or even city-by-city level. The Bill of Rights is a profoundly pro-natural rights document; Paul's diminishment of the Bill of Rights is profoundly pro-statist, leaving natural rights to the discretion of tens of thousands of local governments who are free to act as petty tyrants.
4) The establishment of theocracy is not and cannot be a libertarian position and, yet, this is the door Paul is deliberately opening. It is not merely abortion that will be targeted. Consider two quotes from Paul: "If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act[.]" AND "I was an original cosponsor of the Marriage Protection Act, HR 3313, that removes challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act from federal courts' jurisdiction."
The man would impose a Religious Right Conservate agenda upon the nation and circumvent Constitutional protections offered to the individual by appealing to "state's rights" and "local authority." Since when do libertarians consider states to have rights? Only individuals have rights and those rights can be violated as easily by a state government as by a federal one.Friday, March 2, 2007
Typhoid Robert
The story raises the fascinating issue of whether the imprisonment of an innocent but potentially deadly young man can be justified.
Libertarian theory gives a clear answer. The imprisonment is not and cannot be justified. The young man has committed no crime; he is a self-owner with the same individual right to freedom as anyone/everyone else.
For the sake of argument, however, let's up the ante. Let's assume he is not just a potential threat to people who are vulnerable to this strain of tuberculosis but that everyone who comes into contact with him will die. I would advocate some form of isolation -- forced if necessary -- but I would not and could not justify it on libertarian principle. My advocacy of using force would rely on the fact that the Typhoid Mary/Robert scenario destroys the intellectual framework of libertarianism. In other words, libertarianism rests on the political worldview of rights being universal -- possessed in equal measure by all human beings. My exercise of a right does not interfere with your ability to exercise the comparable right. For example, my right of free conscience -- the freedom to reach my own conclusions about morality, religion etc. -- in no way prevents you from exercising your judgment on similar matters. This framework is sometimes called "Lockean." It contrasts with a "Hobbesian" worldview by which human beings are in a state of nature, a war of all against all; that is, my life requires your death. Within a Hobbesian world, individual or universal rights make no more sense for human beings than they do for wild animals whose lives are a natural cycle of being both predator and prey.
In short, libertarian principles make sense only within the context that is specifically stripped away by Typhoid Mary. The situation does not destroy the validity of libertarianism, which continues to address 99.99% of all situations in life and 100% of those most people will confront. Nor does the situation place libertarianism at a disadvantage relative to other political theories since none of them provides a good answer to Typhoid Mary or lifeboat situations. The dynamic of situation does mean, however, that in the absence of libertarian principles I will fall back on the default justification of protecting my own life and the lives of those for whom I care. I would interfere with the young man's freedom as little as I possibly could to achieve my goal...but interfere I would. I would not appeal to the State because giving such power to that pack of snarling dogs would end up with my being badly bitten. But I would assist another party in ensuring the isolation.
Another thing I wouldn't do? As stated earlier, I would not justify any of my actions through an appeal to libertarianism. No such justification is available.
You are invited to browse and join http://www.wendymcelroy.com/smf a libertarian BB that I moderate.Wednesday, January 17, 2007
We're Back Baby! We're Back!
Sunday, November 5, 2006
Objectivist heckled with condoms
You are cordially invited to browse and join a libertarian BB that I moderate.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Peikoff says, Vote Democrat!
From his home site (which gives blanket permission to reprint):
Q: In view of the constant parade of jackassery which is Washington, is there any point in voting for candidates of either entrenched party? Throwing out the incumbents "for a change" is to me an idea based on the philosophy that my head will stop hurting if I bang it on the opposite wall.
A: How you cast your vote in the coming election is important, even if the two parties are both rotten. In essence, the Democrats stand for socialism, or at least some ambling steps in its direction; the Republicans stand for religion, particularly evangelical Christianity, and are taking ambitious strides to give it political power.
Socialism—a fad of the last few centuries—has had its day; it has been almost universally rejected for decades. Leftists are no longer the passionate collectivists of the 30s, but usually avowed anti-ideologists, who bewail the futility of all systems. Religion, by contrast—the destroyer of man since time immemorial—is not fading; on the contrary, it is now the only philosophic movement rapidly and righteously rising to take over the government.
Given the choice between a rotten, enfeebled, despairing killer, and a rotten, ever stronger, and ambitious killer, it is immoral to vote for the latter, and equally immoral to refrain from voting at all because “both are bad.”
The survival of this country will not be determined by the degree to which the government, simply by inertia, imposes taxes, entitlements, controls, etc., although such impositions will be harmful (and all of them and worse will be embraced or pioneered by conservatives, as Bush has shown). What does determine the survival of this country is not political concretes, but fundamental philosophy. And in this area the only real threat to the country now, the only political evil comparable to or even greater than the threat once posed by Soviet Communism, is religion and the Party which is its home and sponsor.
The most urgent political task now is to topple the Republicans from power, if possible in the House and the Senate. This entails voting consistently Democratic, even if the opponent is a “good” Republican.
In my judgment, anyone who votes Republican or abstains from voting in this election has no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man’s actual life—which means that he does not understand the philosophy of Objectivism, except perhaps as a rationalistic system detached from the world.
If you hate the Left so much that you feel more comfortable with the Right, you are unwittingly helping to push the U.S. toward disaster, i.e., theocracy, not in 50 years, but, frighteningly, much sooner.
You are cordially invited to browse and join a libertarian BB that I moderate. Tuesday, June 6, 2006
18-yr-old = legal/sexual child?
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
NSA to ABC News, "We know who you call"
One example of abuse is being currently discussed on the ABC News blog. It reads in part, A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources. "It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.
Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation. One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen.
Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. The CIA asked for an FBI investigation of leaks of classified information following those reports.
By analyzing the phone pattern of reporters who are investigating material that the government would like to bury, the NSA can identify/intimidate sources and plug 'leaks' thus making an end-run around freedom of the press. It is equivalent to having a phone tap on irksome media members without the unpleasantness of securing a warrant.
You are cordially invited to join my libertarian discussion BB. Tuesday, May 9, 2006
Extropy Institute closing doors
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Lysander Spooner
Thursday, February 9, 2006
The Demand to Hate
Tuesday, February 7, 2006
Airport security Pat Downs
Tuesday, November 1, 2005
Joan Kennedy Taylor Blogspot
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Joan Kennedy Taylor has Passed Away
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Parental Alienation Syndrome
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
New BB -- www.wendymcelroy.com/smf
I wanted to announce that the ifeminists.net BB (not the ifeminists site) is being closed down. At the same moment, I have just opened another BB forum that focuses more on libertarianism and broad cultural issues and far less on gender discussions. At least two L&P members have joined the fledgling forum already and I cordially invite posters and readers to click on the preceding link to check us out.
Best to all,
Wendy McElroy Friday, August 5, 2005
Novak's Explosion Exposed
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
AVN on Child Protective Registries
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Aristotle's Books, Liquidation Sale
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
A Salute to Phyllis Dintenfass
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Suspension of Emailed Ifeminist Newsletter
Finkelstein v. Dershowitz
Thursday, June 23, 2005
The Anarchist Cookbook
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Leave Your Child Behind
Friday, May 20, 2005
J.Wm. Lloyd "Anarchist Socialism"
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
J.Wm.Lloyd, Speech to Ferrer Colony
Monday, May 16, 2005
National Identification Systems
Autobiographical Essay, J.Wm.Lloyd
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Essay by J.Wm Lloyd
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
A Request From Wendy McElroy
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Queen Silver Lecture Online
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
The McCain-Feingold Insurrection
Sunday, February 6, 2005
The Woman and the Dynamo
Friday, February 4, 2005
Conquer Mexico Next?
Thursday, February 3, 2005
SOUA Parser
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Open Borders
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
CBS' Next Target?
Friday, January 14, 2005
Apology Accepted. Apology Extended
More on Long and Johnson
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
More on Armstrong Williams
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Paul Celluci and the US's Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Monday, January 10, 2005
MemoGate Released
MemoGate Report to be Released Today?
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Dan Rather and the White House
Monday, December 6, 2004
Jeremy Hinzman
Sunday, December 5, 2004
More on Canada's BushWhacking
Friday, December 3, 2004
BushWhacked in Canada
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Laws to protect/promote one person
NAFTA-Plus
Monday, November 15, 2004
Torture by Proxy
Friday, November 12, 2004
Iraqi Casualties
Monday, November 8, 2004
The New Crusaders
"Dr. Salih al-Issawi, head of the hospital, said he had asked U.S. officers to allow doctors and ambulances go inside the main part of the city to help the wounded but they refused. There was no confirmation from the Americans.
"'The American troops' attempt to take over the hospital was not right because they thought that they would halt medical assistance to the resistance,' he said by telephone to a reporter inside the city. `But they did not realize that the hospital does not belong to anybody, especially the resistance.'
"During the siege of Fallujah last April, doctors at the hospital were a main source of reports about civilian casualties, which U.S. officials insisted were overblown. Those reports generated strong public outage in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world, prompting the Bush administration to call off the offensive."
Congratulations to the courageous invaders. Applause for the new Crusaders against Islam who wield high-tech machine-guns rather than swords, who ride atop tanks rather than horses. With only 10,000+ troops the brave Crusaders have managed to break down the doors of a neutral hospital, to prevent doctors from treating those in need, and to handcuff patients for interrogation. Admittedly, they fall one step short of the old tried-and-true method of medieval Crusaders who killed the innocent indiscriminately and then "let God sort them out" from the guilty. But the invasion is still young; give them time. More than anything else, however, the Americans have aggressively shut down an embarrassing source of information on the human costs of their invasion. Now the only "facts" to emerge on matters such as civilian casualties will be the ones sanitized by American military filters. Or, at least, that's what they hope for. Military "truth", military "music", military "justice", military "intelligence"...none of them bear any relationship to the real concepts.
What bravery will be next? Is there an old folks home the Crusaders will occupy? How about an orphanage? The mosques go without saying.
For more commentary, please see McBlogSunday, October 17, 2004
On Bill O'Reilly
Monday, October 11, 2004
Not a Vest
"There was nothing under his suit jacket," said Nicolle Devenish, a campaign spokeswoman."It was most likely a rumpling of that portion of his suit jacket, or a wrinkle in the fabric." Ms. Devenish could not say why the "rumpling" was rectangular.Nor was the bulge from a bulletproof vest, according to campaign and White House officials; they said Mr. Bush was not wearing one.
Battle of the Bulge
Wednesday, October 6, 2004
VP Debate
Friday, October 1, 2004
Bush/Kerry Debate
Thursday, September 23, 2004
The Hayekian Triumph of the Blogosphere
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Rumor: RNC behind fake memos
Friday, September 17, 2004
PajamaGate
A new Census Threat to Privacy
Sunday, September 5, 2004
Diebold voting machines
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Bush's loyalty oath
The man is desperate to avoid hecklers who might make him look bad in front of rolling cameras. For more commentary, please see McBlog.
USA Today
Monday, August 23, 2004
American Spectator
macSaturday, June 26, 2004
More on Nader as 'over-hyped threat' to Dems
Police 'threat' increases
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Nader goes bust?
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
The New IRS
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
Shocked and Awed by Ted Kennedy
Tuesday, April 6, 2004
Al-Sadr
Monday, April 5, 2004
May Issue of Penthouse
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Index of Economic Freedom
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Airports and privacy round-up
Monday, March 22, 2004
Individualist feminism
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Defining John Kerry
Saturday, March 20, 2004
More on CNN and Reports of al-Qaida
Friday, March 19, 2004
The Bush Wurlitzer
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Bush responds to the Spanish "flu"
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Mixed Reaciton to Socialist Victory in Spain
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Looking at the Small Picture
Thursday, February 26, 2004
Wendy McElroy, Subtle Censorship
Sunday, February 15, 2004
Will There Be a Reimposition of the Draft?
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
Socialized Music?
Thursday, January 29, 2004
NASA-Northwest redux
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Moon/Mars
Friday, January 16, 2004
"Embedded"
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Happy '04!
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
JUST TRIAL THEN EXECUTE
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
MIT
Monday, December 15, 2003
SADDAM AND GENEVA CONVENTIONS
Sunday, December 14, 2003
SIC SEMPRIS TYRANNIS
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