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"President Bush and Co. can only get away with their imperial agendas as long as the US public remains catatonic. But alas, citizens are slowly waking from their slumber, and Bush's henchmen at FrontPage aren't the least bit happy about it."
http://www.counterpunch.org/frank10062005.html
"The US 'war taxes' are taken out of everything from income taxes to your phone bill. Nearly half of the US federal income tax revenue is spent on the military, past and present. Matthew Wheeland of AlterNet lays out a step-by-step guide to -- and the repercussions of -- war tax resistance."
http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2005_219/news/11804-1.html
"In my home state of Florida, a new law just took effect which strengthens the right of citizens to use deadly force in protecting themselves. The new law has been nicknamed the 'stand your ground' statute, because it changes the state requirement that a person try to avoid or escape an assailant before using deadly force."
http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin261.htm
"Russell L. Diamond lives in a rural area of Pennsylvania. He's one of the old breed, a man who minds his own business and expects everyone else to mind theirs. That doesn't sit well with the new breed, busybodies all, who have long flourished in small towns but who now come armed with Leviathan's power. They've harassed Mr. Diamond for years, most notably over the hopeless horses he adopts. These animals are often one neigh away from the glue factory; Mr. Diamond's care brings some of them back from the brink. Others are too far gone for even his TLC to resurrect. That gives the local animal nuts all the excuse they need to charge him with cruelty."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers21.html
"Since 9-11, I've been covering the steadily increasing dislocation of our system of government--most vividly demonstrated by the Bush administration's systematic abuses of detainees (a/k/a prisoners), including torture. But despite the huge amount of documented evidence, only low-level soldiers have been disciplined. The top of the chain of command--Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, et al.--is untouched by the Defense Department's 'investigations' of itself."
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0541,hentoff,68709,6.html
"Used to be to get a feddle job you took the Federal Service Entrance Exam, which was actually hard. Now it's reflectometer readings and estrogen counts, which is why everything Washington touches turns to mud. And it touches everything, like a prospective shoplifter in a jewelry store. Ever ten minutes a study appears saying that kids can barely read. Yes! In America, the richest most hooptee-whatever, leader of nations, etc. How is this possible? How hard is it to teach kids to read? Not very. It's hard to keep most of them from doing it."
http://www.fredoneverything.net/HollowedOut.shtml
"Why not just eliminate it? Why do we have it? What causes it to exist? There are snide, quick retorts that can be used in response from any of a dozen or more political points of view. But, I'm trying to ask a more fundamental question. What fact or facts about reality dictate that government or something like it must exist?"
http://endervidualism.com/imfree/why_government.htm
"Forcible government has been a part of human civilization (using the term 'civilization' loosely) for thousands of years -- indeed, for all of recorded history. There have been experiments in non-forcible governance bordering on anarcho-capitalism, in Iceland, Ireland, and the American west, and these instances produced long periods of peace and prosperity; but all in all, few humans whose names we know have lived outside forcible government."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds264.html
"My wise friend and mentor Anthony I. S. Alexander makes the analogy of a smooth-flowing stream, peaceful and beneficial to all in its proximity and fostering all manner of productive life in its waters. He supposes that at a point in its history, some hooligan tosses in a boulder, after which all the waters below are disturbed; eddy currents develop and hew out new paths through the earth, generating lower-order eddies and generally causing chaos. Not anarchy, notice, but chaos."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/davies/davies5.html
"Just because BlackwaterUSA is a private firm, is the beef here? BFD in my humble opinion. I’d gladly pay Blackwater or any other private outfit whatever I needed to in order to protect the lives and assets that are of value to me rather than leave them totally unprotected or under the care of arguably the worst major urban police force in America today."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/massoud/massoud3.html
"Were the vigilantes all honest, public minded citizens trying to bring a semblance of law to their frontier towns? Considering human nature, probably not, but neither were they all nefarious evil-doers. In most cases they were just regular folks who wanted to bring a semblance of law to their town and knew that the government wouldn't and couldn't provide it."
http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2005/tle339-20051002-03.html
"Some 64 years after the notion was first conceived, the grassroots campaign to form a new state from the mountain border counties on either side of the California-Oregon divide continues to thrive in the region."
http://www.paradisepost.com/Stories/0,1413,292~30280~3085337,00.html
"Americans may be unaware of what it means to be stripped of the protection of habeas corpus, or they may think police authorities would never make a mistake or ever use their unbridled power against the innocent. Americans might think that the police state will only use its powers against terrorists or 'enemy combatants.' But 'terrorist' is an elastic and legally undefined category. When the President of the United States declares: 'You are with us or against us,' the police may perceive a terrorist in a dissenter from the government's policies."
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7556
"None of this should come as any surprise. When President Bush decided to make the Geneva Conventions disposable, when the Justice Department was dispatched to justify torture and when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed off on many of these very interrogation techniques for use against detainees in Guantanamo, the administration was inviting depravity - purposely."
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/10/02/Columns/Lynndie_England_is_ju.shtml
"After 10 years of delegations, peace activism and non-violent protest, Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness (VitW) was silenced on August 12, when a federal judge ordered the group to pay a $20,000 civil penalty for delivering medical supplies to Iraq without a permit."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2334/
"What kind of fool believes that the way to bring democracy to a country is to invade, destroy cities and infrastructure, and kill and maim tens of thousands of civilians, while creating every possible animosity by aligning with some members of the society against the others?"
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10032005.html
"For an administration that accuses critics of the Iraq war of being 'unpatriotic,' the cynical exposure of a U.S. covert intelligence officer by administration officials is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. Given my opposition to the war, I am reluctant to impugn anyone's patriotism. But what Rove and Libby perpetrated was not a mere disagreement on policy."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1581
"Capt. Fishback has displayed the qualities and characteristics of the highest caliber of military officer. I salute him and, in my opinion, he deserves the salute of the entire country for taking a firm stand against wrongdoing by his own government. Interestingly, perhaps because Fishback is a graduate of West Point, no member of Congress is yet accusing him of being 'unpatriotic'."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0510a.asp
"The very interdependency of people in the division of labor generates incentives for each person to apply his knowledge, ability, and creativity to produce what others want as a means of obtaining what he wants. This is the idea behind Adam Smith's conception of the 'invisible hand.' The patterns and relationships among people in society emerge spontaneously without government direction or command. Freedom of choice and association brings about its own social order without the necessity of political design."
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=7238
"People act in ways that maximize their personal well being, subjectively understood. In contrast, in centralized economies the only way the state can enforce its economic decisions is through the threat of force for noncompliance, or fear. We might say that capitalism is a happiness-based system where as communism (and all forms of interventionism) are fear-based systems. This is a great idea in theory, but is there any way to validate its truth in practice? If the thesis is correct, then we should expect to consistently see people wanting to move from fear-based economies to happiness-based economies."
http://www.mises.org/story/1915
"People who are uneasy about relying on prices and market mechanisms--'This is too important an issue to be left to the marketplace.'--fail to understand and appreciate the beneficial effects of prices and the full costs of relying on alternatives. In fact, the opposite case is generally more compelling--the more important something is (the environment, education, health, catching a criminal), the better to leverage the power of prices and self-enforcing incentives."
http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2005/Sandersonprice.html
"One week after the hurricane, FEMA ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to buy 211 million pounds of ice from IAP Worldwide Services of Florida. Trucking companies were notified of a grand opportunity since the government was paying the bills for delivery, and the dispatchers sent out the word. There is no space to explore the workings of IAP Worldwide, but I will observe that the company, which exists solely to get paid by your tax dollars as a federal contractor, has a new CEO who most recently held the position of vice president of national security programs for the notorious Kellogg Brown and Root. His name is David Swindle."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/central-katrina.html
"If being prone to medical problems, as most of us are to some extent, is a misfortune, then doctors routinely profit from our misfortune. Should we feel hostility toward them because of this? Should government hold their incomes down to the barest minimum? Some people might like that idea, but the next time you go to the doctor, ask yourself whether you would want to put your health in the hands of a doctor whose income was controlled by government."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0510b.asp
"[A] year after space entrepreneur Burt Rutan's X Prize-winning flight on the privately-funded SpaceShipOne, Griffin still wants to lead our move to the stars. In fact, just last week he announced a $104 billion plan to return America to the moon by 2018. The same NASA that put people on the lunar surface 36 years ago is in the position of a little boy who's given up his mischievous ways and can now be trusted. That might have actually worked in the past, but not now."
http://www.reason.com/hod/tb100405.shtml
"As Katrina made landfall, there were 7,000 Louisiana and Mississippi Guard troops deployed in Iraq. Among them were 3,700 members of Louisiana's 256th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, who took with them high-water vehicles and other equipment that could have been put to better use in New Orleans. The Guard personnel at home had only one satellite phone for the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast when Katrina initially hit -- because the others were in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, noted that had the Louisiana Guard 'been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear.' Disaster relief and responding to civil disturbances are core missions for the Guard; attempting to establish democracy in the Middle East is not."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5115
"Are these top government officials primarily concerned with preventing potential dangers to the public, are they primarily concerned with covering their political posteriors in the event of failing to prevent such dangers that actually come to pass or are they primarily concerned with using the perception of potential danger to destroy the liberties of their nations' citizenries? "
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46624
"How does an archie come about? 'Most authority commences as the raw power of the gangster and evolves into the "legitimate" authority of tacit acquiescence.' Above all, the state is an organization for war. 'Stateless societies [are] less violent and brutish than those with a state'."
http://porkupineblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/people-without-government.html
"Che Guevara fans are preparing to commemorate one more anniversary of the revolutionary's death, which took place thirty-eight years ago at the Yuro ravine in Bolivia. It's an appropriate time to address ten myths that keep Guevara's cult alive."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1582
"All my life, I'd been taught that Abe Lincoln's righteousness was immutable, and that his war was a war against racist Southern idiots. This was pounded home, over and over, again and again--made true--to the point where I was unable to wrap my mind around the idea that Lincoln was anything other than Lord and Savior of Black People. For that reason, I was also unable to entertain the notion that, yeah, maybe there really were two sides to the Civil War."
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001478.html
"In 117 the proud emperor wisely elected to withdraw from Mesopotamia, and died in retreat in Cilicia. His adopted son and successor, Hadrian, returned Mesopotamia to Parthia the following year. 'Thus it was,' wrote Dio, 'that the Romans, in conquering Armenia, most of Mesopotamia, and the Parthians, had undergone severe hardships and dangers for naught.' But as historian B. W. Henderson put it, 'it was very wise to abandon what could not be kept'."
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp10042005.html
"Raucous college kids and graying boomers packed the Ellipse and Constitution Avenue for a morning rally before taking to the streets in a march that snaked for twenty blocks. It was an impressive show of strength, one that reflects the public's growing disapproval of the war. Fifty-two percent of Americans now favor an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and an increasing number of vets and their families are beginning to speak out. ... The rally, in all its sound and fury, underscores the uneasy truce between soldiers and socialists that threatens to split the anti-war movement."
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/7683877
"What's so sad is that we really learned nothing -- not from World War I, not from World War II, not from Korea or Vietnam or the Cold War. It's almost as if world leaders in every country manage to get through school without learning anything about the past."
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=7560
"Not content with the terrorist-breeding instability he caused by invading Iraq, President Bush is plotting with Israel to repeat the disaster in Syria. The diplomatic editor of the London Telegraph reports (Oct. 5) that the US is aiming at Syrian 'regime change.' The British newspaper quotes Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz as saying that a report blaming Syria for the assassination of a former Lebanese government official will be the catalyst that starts the ball rolling."
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10062005.html
"Groucho was voted the 5th greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. His glasses, nose, and moustache have become icons of comedy -- to this day, glasses with fake noses and moustaches resembling Groucho are still sold by novelty and costume shops, and worn by young people who often haven't a clue as to their origin."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groucho_Marx
"She was one of the top stars at Paramount Studios, earning $35, 000/week in her heyday. In 1936, Carole received her only Oscar nomination for Best Actress in My Man Godfrey."
http://www.meredy.com/carolelombard/
"His curiosity and independent spirit got him into trouble more than once when he was growing up, and caused him difficulties as an adult as well. He did not graduate from college because he refused to take the required courses for a major; he only wanted to study what interested him. For years he had a hard time making a living, bouncing from job to job and from town to town. He was so independent that he refused to write for a particular market; he wrote what he felt like writing."
http://www.dunenovels.com/bios/frank.html
"This movie is a Western, but with a difference which made it stand out markedly in 1967. It has a considerable amount of social commentary on the state of civilization, specifically the society of the United States. That commentary may be set in the American West more than a hundred years ago, but it was incisive and relevant almost 40 years ago and still is today."
http://endervidualism.com/agora/hombre_1967.htm
"What makes How to Kill the Job Culture especially important is its role as a first-rate primer on the Left Libertarian (i.e., radical free-market) case against state-corporate capitalism. … Claire admits there are substantial distinctions between big government and big business, not the least of which being that we're compelled to live under the coercive State but deal with big business voluntarily for the most part." But there are similarities also.
http://wconger.blogspot.com/2005/10/smashing-job-culture.html
"Everything Is Illuminated (2005), directed and screenplayed by Liev Schreiber, promises to relieve my post-Serenity bends a bit. The plot is an increasingly popular one-- child of immigrants travels back to country of his ancestors to find discover some implacable truth about his past and hence himself."
http://alina_stefanescu.typepad.com/totalitarianism_today/2005/10/everything_is_i.html
"I loved it. I was thrilled by it. I was exhilarated by it. As a hardcore Firefly geek, I couldn't be happier. As a fan of movie sci-fi generally, I feel the same elation I felt when I saw the original Star Wars on its opening weekend in 1977. Serenity is terrific." No spoilers.
http://wconger.blogspot.com/2005/10/cant-stop-signal.html
"Well, not only is Serenity about something, it's also extremely well written. Joss Whedon has invented a kind of weird future slang that is still perfectly intelligible but is different, with snatches of foreign languages and obsolete English words that make it clear that it's not ordinary English they're speaking. The effect of this -- at least in Whedon's deft hands -- is to allow himself something of the kind of heroic language that was possible for Shakespeare -- and for Tolkien. It allows him to be eloquent. ... Will everyone like it? Not a chance. It really is too strong for some people ... Plus the storyline is smart enough and mature enough that some people simply won't get it. Can't be helped -- it's all there on the screen, though."
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2005-09-30-extra.shtml
"Don't be afraid of the movie if you have never seen the show, but also be prepared to pay close attention. The Matrix and Star Wars films have created something of a 'thrill ride' mandate for action-adventure movies. Audiences now have an appetite for cinema that matches the non-stop pace of video games. This sets up a tricky balancing act for writer/director Joss Whedon. Is it possible to quickly educate those unfamiliar with the show whilst maintaining a break-neck pace? Whedon manages to walk the tightrope, but I wouldn't recommend you get up for popcorn; you might miss a crucial piece of explanatory dialogue."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/crosby4.html
"After much anticipation, I finally got to see Serenity a few hours ago. I’m going to discuss it, and some of the libertarian commentary I’ve read about it, and there will be spoilers aplenty, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, I have one recommendation to share: Watch the series first. The 13 episodes are available on DVD, and if you’re worried you won’t have time to view all of them before the movie goes away, at least watch the 2-hour pilot first." As he warns, many spoilers.
http://www.bigheadpress.com/TheTimeSink/?p=31
"Genre definitions can be limiting, yet also there are certain things you can do within the scope of SF movies than other genres don't really allow. Taking pieces from recognizable themes is no sin. For a movie with a $40 million budget, some effects fail to meet Industrial Light and Magic standards, yet the plot, dialog, and characters stand far above any recent Star Wars movie."
http://firebringer.blogspot.com/2005/10/serenity-backlash-begins.html
"'Firefly' is No. 2 on the OVERALL DVD list. Not just in the science fiction genre, but overall. Only Disney's 'Cinderella Special Platinum Edition' is selling more DVDs for Amazon. What does this mean? My guess is that people who saw 'Serenity' over the weekend loved it enough to shell out 35 bucks and learn more about this 'verse and these characters. And that, to me, bodes very well for the future of this vision of the future."
http://www.bwrmontag.blogspot.com/2005/10/fanboy-here-signing-out.html
"When I first came to your planet and demanded your homes, property and very lives, I didn't know you were already doing so, willingly, with your own government. I can win no tribute from a bankrupted nation populated by feeble flag-waving plebians. In 2008 I shall restore your dignity and make you servants worthy of my rule. This new government shall become a tool of my oppression. Instead of hidden agendas and waffling policies, I offer you direct candor and brutal certainty. I only ask for your tribute, your lives, and your vote." I'm "torn" between Zod and Cthulhu.
Samantha Bee can't figure out why chicken coops are such ripe breeding grounds for disease. Video with audio and an intro commercial.
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=23771
"Sure, the Democrats have had their share of problems. But nothing like . . ." Flash animated cartoon.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0541,fiore,68690,9.html
"A good teacher doesn't set out a corpus of information for a student to memorize. He contributes bits and pieces that spark a student's mind to thinking about the subject. Fired by curiosity, the student actively explores as her interest leads, at times down the path of 'who' -- other times she'll pursue 'how', 'when', 'what', and 'where' -- and a good teacher consistently provides tidbits on those paths, encouraging discovery and correcting errors or misunderstandings when they're revealed."
http://www.sunnimaravillosa.com/archives/00000492.html
"While writing this column, I've thought of myself as a racial category and I've wanted to vigorously defend being white. It is difficult to be part of the only race for whom racial pride is a social taboo."
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/1005.html
"Manipulators, regulators, and plain bullies would feel pleased if they were to be anointed the securers of full equality for all. This again is well demonstrated by history. Yet this is not a satisfactory answer because it doesn’t explain what makes the ideal of equality so appealing to some perfectly decent folks. I know quite a few people who embrace it with no desire at all to join the ruling class. It seems more likely that many egalitarians fear that a regime of individual liberty promises no relief from many human imperfections."
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=7244
"China is a previously impoverished Communist country which is moving decisively in the direction of more practical freedom. In matters economic, it is proving to be a powerhouse of capitalism - where the inherent business talents of the Chinese are being liberated to create a massive growth in productivity and wealth. This surge in prosperity and accompanying education will change the face of China in the future. And as Chinese people have said to me repeatedly, they expect their transition to more political freedom to be just a matter of time. On the other hand, we in the West are experiencing movement in a completely opposite direction. More socialism, more fascism, more stagnation and continual infringements of the freedoms we say we hold so dear."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/macgregor/macgregor5.html
"If you wish to be able to use your own computer how you see fit without any interference, then steer clear of this new virtual prison by Micro$oft when it comes out. I'm using XP at the moment, but will be switching to Linux soon, and no computer of mine will carry any other M$ operating system." That also well describes my current situation and plan for the future.
http://freemanlc.blogspot.com/2005/10/computer-slavery-brought-to-you-by.html
"If such a virulent virus escaped it could cause serious illness and death. But CDC director Julie Gerberding says that in the event of an accidental release, drugs, vaccines and people's existing immunity would limit the risk." Don't worry, be happy.
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