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"Rumsfeld brought up bęte noire terrorist Zarqawi as proof of collaboration between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but that was a canard easily knocked down. It appears that Rumsfeld thinks no one really pays attention. Sadly, as regards the mainstream press, he has been largely right--at least until now."
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/08/my_meeting_with_rumsfeld.php
"You cannot win taking the State on mano a mano so why even bother? But it is quite possible to break free small-scale and doing it for yourself. I have no idea why libertarians seem to wish to liberate 'the whole nation,' instead of doing what's best for yourself and your kin first. It isn't very individualistic and libertarian to think of the collective population first, with the sole result being you are yourself left in chains. "
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/bylund6.html
"[T]he most penetrating news analysis on television is -- and I'm not exaggerating here -- Jon Stewart's Daily Show on Comedy Central. ... These are some issues of common concern that could lead to cooperation between Right and Left. Does a 'rebel alliance' against the evil neocon empire sound crazy? Not only has it already begun to take shape today, it's happened before."
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/eddlem.php?articleid=8966
"Just as FedEx brought competition to the post office, the Liberty Dollar is taking on the American greenback. Or at least, a merry band of individualists and free market enthusiasts are trying to make it happen."
http://www.nysun.com/article/32541
"At the very least, one can imagine this information being used by law enforcement agencies trying to trace people who have attracted their attention but about whom they don't have enough information to justify a court order. Or to look for whistle-blowers who have leaked sensitive information to reporters. ... And combined with a separate NSA program (revealed in December by The New York Times) to eavesdrop without warrants on international calls from the USA, it raises the question of what other secret and constitutionally suspect programs the Bush administration might still be shielding."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-05-11-phone-records_x.htm
"The purpose of both types of investigations is to make the government look good. When going after civilians, it shows that the government is tough on crime and working hard to protect the little guy. When investigating itself, it ostensibly shows that the people in charge care about honesty and integrity in government. The real purpose, however, is to make sure that no real crimes are uncovered; that when real crimes do surface, they are seen to be the work of, as was said in the Abu Ghraib case, 'a few bad apples,' not the system as a whole; and that the people's misplaced faith in government is restored."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/tennant/tennant10.html
"Parens patriae is one of those high-sounding doctrines (the Latin helps) that comes down to this: the state is more powerful than anyone with the audacity to reject the doctrine. Did you consent to parens patriae? If not, then by what authority does it apply to your children? ... Judge Reinhardt's ruling is a helpful reminder about the need to be radical. If you accept statist premises, objection to specific policies is impotent. We must reject statism at its deepest roots. We must reject government schooling entirely, with its premise that the state is the ultimate parent."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0601b.asp
"The boy crisis in our schools is more than an educational crisis--it is also a significant public health issue. Nearly nine million prescriptions of Ritalin are written for American children each year, most of them for boys between the ages of six and 12."
http://www.newswithviews.com/Sacks/glenn38.htm
"Everyone who is still nuts for Bush would be entitled to be so. They should not be belittled or dismissed or called crazy. They should be permitted to be ruled by him completely and without question. But there must be a few conditions: his rule must not be allowed to impinge on the person or property of anyone who does not want to be ruled by him. Also, the Bushians must demonstrate a willingness to do more than talk the talk; they must also be willing to pay the bills."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/bushrule.html
"Supporting a structure that is destructive is morally wrong. … Ignorance may be a reasonable excuse, but it does not change the fact that our choices have consequences. … There is no perfect world. We all can only do what we can do. But if we are going to claim that morality is a valid concept, then we are hypocritical if we choose to ignore the consequences of our actions when it suits us to do so."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/nonentity/nonentity1.html
"It is becoming increasingly clear that the age of revolutions is not over. It's becoming equally clear that the global revolutionary movement in the twenty first century, will be one that traces its origins less to the tradition of Marxism, or even of socialism narrowly defined, but of anarchism."
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=10243
"According to the original libertine philosophy, one cannot claim as ones own what one cannot actually utilize. If the proverbial milkshake is too large for one child to drink, then he cannot claim it as his own. Such property, even the libertarians will agree, is theft."
http://www.progressiveu.org/110954-the-illusion-of-the-commons
"Current society is rapidly being transformed from vertically-structured, institutionally-dominant systems into horizontally-interconnected networks. Our world is becoming increasingly decentralized, with questions arising as to the forms emerging social systems may take. The study of chaos informs us that the multifaceted, interrelated nature of complex systems render our world unpredictable. As our understanding of chaos deepens, our faith in institutional omniscience will likely be abandoned."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer137.html
"So we have two paths we can take on immigration. We can follow one of the statist paths being offered by Washington -- either socialism via immigration or fascism via immigration -- or we can choose the direction of liberty, which requires devolution, decentralization, and the elimination of tax-paid privileges for immigrants. ... I would like to see in this country what we saw in the last days of the Soviet Union, which is for the central state to permit secession of every sort. This is a path to peace."
http://www.mises.org/story/2141
"During the 1990's the anti-gun lobby persuaded many cities, states, and crime victims to try and sue the pants off of anyone in the firearms or ammunition business. I often wondered at the time why the defendant arms companies didn't do what Barrett has done here and just refuse sales or service the plaintiff's police agencies? I don't know if it would have helped, but it sure couldn't have hurt, either. Political and economic leverage is where you find it, after all."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/massoud/massoud8.html
"Vermont's idiosyncratic nature came through loud and clear in the 2006 Vermonter Poll. In a statewide random sample of more than 600 eligible voters, two-thirds of the respondents expressed the view that the U.S. government has become unresponsive to the needs of individual Vermonters."
http://www.vermontguardian.com/commentary/052006/Secession.shtml
"Where else but in Washington, D.C., could we have a 'debate' on American foreign policy between Niall Ferguson and Robert Kagan, in which the two debaters quibble over whether the U.S. government should call itself an 'empire' or a 'hegemon'? Our politicians and their coteries of Washington policy wonks routinely discuss the prospect of invading this or that country the way other people debate the relative merits of shopping at either Macy's or Gimbel's. Right now we are having a national discussion about whether or not we should drop nukes on Iran."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8983
"Somehow, after George Bush became president, people became so stupid that federal agents have to cage them to prevent them from walking out in front of speeding vehicles. Or perhaps the Secret Service assumes that becoming a political protester automatically turns a person into an imbecile who must be protected against himself."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0601c.asp
"Note that this database does not just contain phone calls that either originate or terminate outside the U.S. This database is mostly domestic calls: calls we all make everyday. AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth are all providing this information to the NSA. Only Quest has refused."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/05/nsa_creating_ma.html
"The cover has long ago been blown on these dungeons by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, and the ceaseless researchers at NYU law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. And in the Voice, I've been writing on what I can find out about them since the end of 2002. But the CIA, the president, Alberto Gonzales, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld have nothing to say about these gulags, which are wholly removed from American law and the international treaties we have signed. "
http://villagevoice.com/news/0619,hentoff,73121,6.html
"What did Iran do to provoke such vitriol and hatred? It's been working with Russia to create a nuclear power program. ... It has also decided to open an oil bourse that would trade the previous commodity in euros, not dollars. ... Iran's in the hot-seat for its forward-thinking development of alternative energy sources. Don't you love the way politics work? It's ridiculous that our government would threaten and lambaste another nation for sustaining a peaceful nuclear program while promoting other aggressive nuclear programs (Israel, I'm looking at you). But why should we be remotely shocked? We fell through the black hole of logic long ago."
http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/articles/canon_fodder/01150_letters_ahmadinejad.html
"But the point of the commotion wasn't to protect the anthem, which was never in danger; it's still sung in English before baseball games, even in San Diego and Los Angeles. The point was to keep the political troops excited. If that means suddenly inventing new norms about who's allowed to sing what songs in what language, so be it."
http://www.reason.com/links/links050806.shtml
"[W]e herewith propound Werther's First Axiom: In Washington, D.C., one need know nothing to become a policy expert. Anyone having the slightest acquaintance with the Federal metropolis will readily assent to this axiom. Examples of it in action are legion. One must stipulate that for most other mortals who scratch for a living, this axiom does not apply."
http://www.counterpunch.org/werther05102006.html
"While the word is not yet devoid of all meaning, the last five years have been witness to a corruption of the word 'conservative' that earlier rotted out the once-noble concept of liberalism. To be liberal once meant to be pro-freedom and skeptical of state intervention. Now, it signifies limits on free speech and free association, no limits on government spending and state intervention."
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50096
" If you need an organ, you don’t have to just hope the bureaucrats find one for you. You can get one directly from another individual. You also don’t have to let the bureaucrats decide who gets your organs when you die. You can decide for yourself who gets them. The process is called directed donation, and it’s legal under federal and state law. If you’re going to decide who gets your organs, why not give them to others who are willing to return the favor? That’s the idea behind LifeSharers, a grass-roots organ donation network. ... LifeSharers can't fix the mess caused by organ socialism as fast as a free market in organs could. But until Congress sees fit to repeal the absurdity it enacted in the National Organ Transplant Act a free market in organs is illegal. So for now, LifeSharers is the best available alternative."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/cohen3.html
"The language a person speaks says nothing about the speaker’s character, honesty, or integrity. Language is simply a means by which people communicate with each other."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0605b.asp
Google Doesn't Have to Try Nearly as Hard as Microsoft, Yet to Maximize Its Success Google Ought to Try Even Less -- "Google is making a ton of money from people who never advertised before. Heck, Google is making a ton of money from people who never were even in business before. This is not only a fundamental change in how advertising is done; it is a fundamental change in how BUSINESS is done. I'm counting on Google and eBay to save America."
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060511.html
"What about all those people who've invented and marketed machines that do everything from diagnosing illnesses to controlling air flight? Were they basically motivated by a concern for others, or were they mostly concerned with their own well-being? One of the wonderful things about free markets is that the path to greater wealth comes not from looting, plundering and enslaving one's fellow man, as it has throughout most of human history, but by serving and pleasing him."
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/06/caring.html
"A Bush partisan may say: oh this stuff can be fixed. And yes, Congress and regulators can attempt a crackdown on TSA thievery and abuse of citizens. But the propensity will always be there in any government bureaucracy because they are not working for you but for the mythical blob called the 'public sector,' which is really nothing but a stash of stolen cash divided among the robber class."
http://www.mises.org/story/2171
"Cell phones are designed to work either with global positioning satellites or through “pings” that allow towers to triangulate and pinpoint signals. Any time your phone “sees” a tower, it pings it. ... Telecom companies and government are not eager to advertise that tracking capability. Nor will companies admit whether they are archiving the breadcrumb trail of pings from a cell phone so that they--or authorities--can trace back, after the fact, where the customer had been at a particular time."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2627/
"Centrally planned space exploration and colonization is bound to cost way more than it should and to proceed in boneheaded ways. Witness the Space Shuttle program. In the end, governments will claim every bit of space and every planet and planetoid as their own. You'll have to buy land on the moon and pay taxes and fees out the wazoo, and this will just slow down settlement in the long run."
http://emergencybackupdog.blogspot.com/2006/05/dont-give-up-on-space-colonies.html
" 'Gouging' is a meaningless word. Charging more than others do for the same fuel is inconceivable at the wholesale level because fuel is traded on global markets and the going price is instantly visible online. At the retail level, if one gas station tried to charge 10 cents more than others, consumers would buy their gas elsewhere."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6387
"But if the president really has all this 'inherent authority' to detain and spy on everyone without judicial review, then why did he need the Patriot Act? Why does he insist that the Patriot Act is a crucial, indispensable tool in the war on terror? What does it enable Bush to do that he doesn't have the 'inherent authority' to do without it? The Republican position on this is downright incoherent and suggests that the purpose of all this anti-terror legislation is not really to enable the president to do what he must do but could not do without it. Rather, it is to make the American people believe the administration is acting properly and democratically in doing what it, in reality, intends to do regardless of the law."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1721
"The dark heart of the scam is, of course, the oil laws. Now that a 'sovereign' government has been established, these can be finalized at last. The plan is for 40-year 'production-sharing agreements' that will give Bush's oil cronies a vast slice of Iraq's oil output at rock-bottom prices ('at cost'), as Chris Cook reports in the Asia Times."
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/05/12/120.html
"Indeed, as George F. Will noted in a trenchant recent critique, 'perhaps no future president will ask for such congressional involvement in the gravest decision government makes -- going to war. Why would future presidents ask, if the present administration successfully asserts its current doctrine?' Despite what narrow-minded Bush-bashers might think, changing the president alone will not solve the problem."
http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=8956
"It's war that brings this [the nature of the state] into the sharpest relief, because the normal restraints on brutality are released, the beneficiary-victims are strangers in a faraway land, and the public intellectuals and the official press line up to shout down any serious challenge to the progress of war aims. But war and occupation are only the starkest and most explicit expression of what State power essentially means, not just with bombers and soldiers and tanks, but also with every spook, cop, G-man, prosecutor, jailer, and hangman whose paychecks we are forced to cover."
http://radgeek.com/gt/2006/05/11/quidditative_essence
"The unique feature of Rome was not its arts or its science or its philosophical culture, not its attachment to law. The unique feature of Rome was that it had the world's first professional army. Normal societies consisted of farmers, hunters, craftsmen and traders. When they needed to fight they relied not on training or on standardised weapons, but on psyching themselves up to acts of individual heroism."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2168328,00.html
"[T]oday few Americans know of the nearly successful July 20 Plot of 1944 by Colonel Stauffenberg and other German officers to assassinate Hitler. Still fewer know of German student and youth opposition to the war and the Nazi regime."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/rosinger2.html
"This year -- as more and more mothers, in America as well as Iraq, mourn their fallen sons and daughters, lost to the insanity of organized violence -- Julia Ward Howe's call for women to not allow their men to constantly play at war is back in fashion, part of a growing awareness of the link -- as old-fashioned feminists might say -- between patriarchy and war."
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20789
"US foreign policy is in a similar state, marked by nation-building, foreign intervention, preemptive war, and global government, Washington has created its own Delian League throughout the world, with 54 foreign countries experiencing over 1,000 US troops on their soil since 1950. Instead of Sicily we have Iraq."
http://www.mises.org/story/2138
"Iran formally insists that it seeks nuclear power only for peaceful purposes, and the letter of the NPT supports their right to do so. The realities of the Middle East's precarious balance of power dictate that we recognize the reasons for the Iranian determination to forge ahead on this front: Israel, after all, is now the only nuclear power in the region. Tehran is pursuing a policy of deterrence -- the same strategy the U.S. employed against the USSR for as long as the Cold War lasted. And it worked."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8968
"Some little-known facts about the Darfur situation: Both sides in the conflict are black, and both sides are Muslim. So, despite what the major news media may say, this isn't an Arab-on-black or Muslim-on-Christian nightmare. And perhaps worst of all, there isn't a good side to be on. Both have committed horrible atrocities, and both want to slaughter the other."
http://brickburner.blogs.com/my_weblog/2006/05/save_darfur_.html
"To George Clooney and the other Americans who demonstrated and demanded that the U.S. intervene in the Darfur region of Sudan, I have a simple and clear message: Buy yourself a gun and plenty of ammunition, and go intervene yourself. ... Americans ought to remember Mogadishu. The people in western Sudan are so poor, they'll kill you for your boots. But a barefooted poor man with a gun is just as lethal as a college-educated American boy. There are large pockets of human misery all over the world, and we definitely are not the world's policeman."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese278.html
"CIA admits North Korea's Taep'o-dong missile can today hit North America with a nuclear warhead. India's developing ICBM's and sea-launched missiles will also be able to do so in a few years. But contrast Washington's nonchalance about these real programs with the contrived hysteria over Iran. Even if nuclear armed, Iran's handful of Shahab missiles only have range to hit US bases in the Gulf, or Israel. But these US bases are so close to Iran, any nuclear strike there would blow back on Iran."
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2006/05/iran_is_not_thr.php
"Fundamentally reserved, logical and studious, Brahms was fond of taut forms in his music, though he used genre distinctions loosely."
http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/brahms.html
"Holds the record for Best Actress Oscar wins (4) and was only recently overtaken for her 12 nominations garnered over a 48-year period. "
http://www.katharinehepburn.net/bio.htm
"During his professional boxing career, Louis compiled 68 victories and three defeats. His 68 victories included 54 by knockout. Louis's first loss came at Yankee stadium in 1936, to the former world champion, German boxer Max Schmeling. The Nazis equated Schmeling's victory over Louis to a validation of Nazi superiority over democracy. The two boxers fought again in a 1938 rematch. Louis won the bout in one round, and Americans celebrated the victory of democracy."
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/188/The_Brown_Bomber_Joe_Louis
"Darren McGavin, was an American actor best known for playing the title role in the television horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and also his portrayal in the movie A Christmas Story of the grumpy father given to bursts of profanity that he never realizes his sons overhear."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_McGavin
Crime Drama stars Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Ann Blyth and Jack Carson; directed by Michael Curtiz. "[T]he movie remains relevant in part ... for its portrayal of a strong woman who succeeds in life through her own efforts. For her portrayal of Mildred Pierce, Joan Crawford won an Oscar for Best Actress. Michael Curtiz directed Crawford and a host of strong supporting actors in this excellent crime drama / 'soap opera' based on James M. Cain's popular novel."
http://endervidualism.com/agora/mildred_pierce_1945.htm
"Last time, we were previewing former Hollywood producer and former Nevada gubernatorial candidate Aaron Russo's new documentary, 'America, Freedom to Fascism.' The film argues it's enough to set us free, for citizens and jurors simply to ask of those enforcing the personal income tax, 'Show us the law.' I fear it's not."
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/May-07-Sun-2006/opinion/6801471.html
"Film star and director Mel Gibson has launched a scathing attack on President George W. Bush, comparing his leadership to the barbaric rulers of the Mayan civilization in his new film Apocalypto."
http://www.hollywood.com/news/detail/id/3500331
"George Lucas says the script is done for Indiana Jones 4, but that filming probably won't begin until next year, confirming details shared by Frank Marshall last week."
http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/707/707798p1.html
"As reporters question Rumsfeld, you wonder if it's the fairness or the balance you're smelling." Rumsfeld caught by perhaps the only investigative media on television and, of course, Ray McGovern, whose article leads off this issue of Ender's Review. (video w/audio)
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=68864
"We have to learn everything we can about bird flu from now till the end of May sweeps." (video w/audio)
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=68928
Animated flash video w/audio
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/decider.html
"At the very least, I know with absolute certainty that I have done everything I can to nurture and protect the environment, through genuinely well-intentioned albeit minuscule actions, tragically destined to have absolutely no substantive effect. For I sleep better at night knowing that I have as much influence on global environmental policy as I would had I never been born."
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48223
"When beliefs are acquired accidentally or without design, the learning process is consistent with a free society. But when institutions and groups instill harmful beliefs, even if by non-violent means, then we should recognize that this is a harmful process that goes against the full freedom of an individual. ... Although full freedom is at present an unattainable ideal, it is a useful ideal."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff73.html
"There is more than a lesson concerning socialism here. The experience provides a warning against all forms of 'scientific social planning.' The intellectuals hatch their plans to save humanity but, in some strange way, they forget that they are not playing games in a laboratory. They are dealing with real human lives. And these lives are not large amalgamations of classes or races but individuals. We experience pain and suffering, joys and triumphs, as individuals. Tooth pain has a way of focusing the point on what really matters."
http://www.mises.org/story/2170
"The latest cause that Christians are called to support is American military intervention in the Darfur region of Sudan. There's been a bloody civil war there for three years, with hundreds of thousands killed. … It is not the mission of either the American government nor of Christianity to rid the world of evil through force. Interfering in places we're not wanted doesn't solve problems, it only makes those problems worse."
http://www.partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=1834
"The exercise of state power for many years has created gross distortions in incentives, consumer preferences, and investment, leading to the problems under discussion. In other words, the politicians and bureaucrats have made a royal mess of things. Then liberals are faulted for not being able to clean it up tidily with the wave of a hand. That they can't make everything right at once is then held against liberalism."
http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=469
"Anti-immigrant types often use the language argument to make their case: that without a common language, people will never be able to get along and prosper."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0605c.asp
"In a nutshell, this theory says that women are, frankly, ambivalent. They might fancy men who are hunky and macho but they also like the kind, caring types. These preferences may seem contradictory, but there is a solid genetic cause for it."
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1634999.htm
"There is a little known Internet service called Hushmail. Hushmail's corporate offices are located in Vancouver and in Eire. Their mail servers are physically located in Canada, Eire, and in the Dutch Antilles. For those of you who do not know this, the Dutch Antilles do not even have a treaty with the United States concerning the War on Terror."
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle366-20060507-04.html
"The November elections are rapidly approaching, and the primary races come even sooner. Many are close elections where every vote is important. Candidates are jockeying for your support. We must tell them -- 'You don't get my vote unless you oppose the occupation of Iraq and will work to prevent future wars of aggression'."
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