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"It’s time to look at the powerful reasons to close Guantánamo, both the standard ones enumerated below—and also what may be the most compelling, if unspoken, one of all: Guantánamo must be closed because the United States needs to indicate that it has decided to change course. Closing Guantánamo will help to restore America’s standing in the world and in the eyes of its own citizens."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3024/8_reasons_to_close_guantanamo_now/
"When you end up having to force people to behave as if they agreed with you, it's almost certainly because what you're peddling is horseshit. ... Perhaps more importantly, since when are people's attitudes a fit subject for legislation or other government activity? In Hitler's Germany, perhaps, or Stalin's Russia, or Mao's China. But not here, not now. "
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle405-20070211-02.html
"Note the obligatory tripe about supporting the troops. If this means moral support, why are the tools of an immoral war due that? And if it means material support, why would anything but the fare home be appropriate?"
http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2007/02/i-dont-support-troops.html
"The ad features a picture of Saddam getting noosed. It states: Saddam Hussein and his henchmen were hanged for committing crimes against humanity – a war crime. George Bush has committed war crimes in Iraq by attacking and destroying that sovereign country and causing the death of hundreds of thousands of children, citizens and soldiers on the basis of lies."
http://jimbovard.com/blog/2007/02/16/iran-bush-and-velvet-revolutionus/
"Every time I go to the United States (I have just returned from two weeks in Washington), I am astonished by the antic security, by the proliferation of admonitions and alarms and inchoate fear. Now it is illegal to carry toothpaste on airplanes. I find myself wondering: Is this just another spasm of periodic hysteria, like Prohibition, the Sixties, and a Commie Under Every Bed? Or is it calculated political programming?"
http://www.fredoneverything.net/SecurityHokum.shtml
"One police officer's judgment alone shouldn't be enough to instigate an action as violent and confrontational as a forced-entry raid. Finally, a serious inquiry into Johnston's death should take a critical, sweeping look at the fundamental nature of drug policing. ... A proper look into Johnston's death, then, wouldn't end with the lying narcotics officers. It would include criticism of the entire culture of the city's drug policing. "
http://reason.com/news/show/118668.html
"There's not a lot of detail, but my guess is that it doesn't work very well. But that's not really the point. If it doesn't work today, it will in five, ten, twenty years; it will work eventually. What we need to do, today, is debate the legality and ethics of these sorts of interrogations...."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/scanning_people.html
"Even if the drug charges are true, this is a grade-A, prime-cut example of why using SWAT teams to serve nonviolent drug warrants is needlessly dangerous, reckless, violent, and confrontational. How hard is this to understand? When you take men with guns and charge into someone's home, you create violence. You leave very little margin for error. Of course, the police go in with ballistic shields, bulletproof vests, and helmets. So we know who catches the brunt of the errors when they happen."
http://www.theagitator.com/archives/027530.php#027530
"To say it plainly: Boomers, as a group, failed to understand that love and freedom require each other. Like millions before and since, Boomers were seduced by the idea that compassion can be imposed at gunpoint by the State – not that this scam is ever described so directly by proponents."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/71/allport/allport7.html
"Some have ventured that Proudhon’s anarchism supposedly never specified 'private courts' and 'private police'. While he certainly didn’t appear to go into the detail that Molinari and Rothbard did on such matters, it seems clear that he in fact did so specify."
http://www.bradspangler.com/blog/archives/511
"Ardent preservationists may worry that leaving the fate of historically significant edifices and sites to the undirected and unpredictable interactions of free agents in the market does not guarantee a perfectly secure future for every one of those cherished heirlooms. And their suspicions are well-founded — sometimes, their very best efforts to outbid a potential buyer who intends to put something new in place of an antiquity will fail. However, it is a pipe dream to think that the alternative of governmental control can shield the objects of their devotion from the ubiquitous vagaries characterizing this world of flux and change."
http://www.mises.org/story/2471
"The conquering minority became the Masters, the conquered, the Serfs, and thus class society was born. In order to maintain this inequality and to extract taxes and forced labour, the Masters needed to terrorize the conquered through a permanent military force. Thus the State was born. "
http://porkupineblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/global-warming-and-social-evolution.html
"Free Skool is not just endemic to Santa Cruz, as similar skill-sharing networks exist all over the country. While some of the other organizations also bear the Free Skool name, Bushard says none of them are connected."
http://www.cityonahillpress.com/article.php?id=362
"The key to the growth of several cities of the period was that they taxed land more and buildings less – if at all. This was inspired by the Georgist movement and George's call for a 'Single Tax' on land values only – sweeping away all other taxes of every kind."
http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=2098
"A majority of Americans age 50 and older use alternative medicines, but don't tell their doctors. That's what a survey by the AARP and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine found."
http://www.newstarget.com/021593.html
"A metre-long plasma-powered particle accelerator can boost electrons' energy to the same degree as a conventional machine 3-kilometres-long, experiments show. For all it does, the diminutive accelerator is also relatively simple, consisting of a metal tube filled with gas."
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn11186?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn11186
"If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war. The arrogant hubris associated with the "sole superpower" myth would burst like the bubble it is."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts195.html
"President Vladimir Putin of Russia recently bluntly lashed out at U.S. foreign policy. At an international security conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in attendance, referring to U.S. actions in the international arena, Putin said, 'Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations—military force.' He asserted that U.S. military interventions, which he termed 'unilateral' and 'illegitimate,' also 'have not been able to resolve any matters at all,' and have generated only more instability and peril, especially in the Middle East."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1911
"While the leeward side is ramshackle and barren, the windward side is surreal. There is (of course) a Starbucks, a McDonalds, a combined Subway-Pizza Hut, a Wal-Mart-like big box store called the Nex and a gift shop … yes, Guantánamo has a gift shop that sells Guantánamo key chains, shot glasses, t-shirts and shell tchotckes. Fillipino and Haitian workers staff all the establishments. And in the distance, beyond these icons of American consumption, is the 'gulag'."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3023/inside_americas_gulag/
"Although policies on blood donation and transfusions have been tightened, the spread of AIDS in China has taken on a life or death of its own. The government seems more interested in preventing information than preventing the disease. Gao, who continues to print and circulate educational brochures at her own expense, is a source of chronic embarrassment for the government. She is also exposing the corruption of officials who misappropriate money and resources intended for the AIDS victims. The accusations of corruption are accumulating."
http://www.ifeminists.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.93
"The Illinois senator is the ultimate modern media creature -- he's a good-looking, youthful, smooth-talking, buttery-warm personality with an aw-shucks demeanor who exudes a seemingly impenetrable air of Harvard-crafted moral neutrality. If Hillary Clinton even dares to open her mouth within a hundred feet of him at any time during the campaign, she's going to come off like a pig digging for truffles. Even Edwards -- the so-called 'slick' candidate from '04 -- sounds like a two-bit suburban Buick dealer next to Obama. "
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13519157/
"While many ridicule conspiracy theories, people worldwide have good reason to eagerly embrace both conspiracy theories and cover-ups. Two good reasons, in fact. The first reason is that conspiracies happen. ... A second reason to believe conspiracy theories is offered by libertarians who point out simply that politicians lie. It's their job. It's what they do. It's their own fault the world sees them as crooks and cover-up cons."
http://www.freecannon.com/PoisonedSpy.htm
"The fact that this particular black politician combines to some extent an immigrant background with a flexible and tolerant view of racial identity makes many Latin Americans think he might be instrumental in marginalizing the more anti-immigrant African-American activists. And the fact that in his Springfield speech Sen. Obama put in a good word for immigrants did not go unnoticed south of the border."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1912
"The statements from Washington give the impression that the United States has been at war with Shiite militias for the past three-and-a-half years, while almost all the fighting has been with the Sunni insurgents. These are often led by highly trained former officers and men from Saddam Hussein's elite military and intelligence units."
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1029&Itemid=135
"Clever entrepreneurs and even established companies can profit from this volunteerism--but only if they don't get too greedy. The key, Benkler says, is 'managing the marriage of money and nonmoney without making nonmoney feel like a sucker.' In software, where IBM and other companies charge billions of dollars to install and run otherwise free Linux systems, this seems to be working--in part because Linux volunteers can make money from their expertise and there's a clear understanding of what one can charge for."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1590440,00.html
"Breastfeeding is well known to boost an infant's health, and now it seems it may be good for the mother as well. In a study of 96,648 nurses who gave birth between 1986 and 2002, those who had spend at least two years of their lives breastfeeding were 19 per cent less likely to suffer a heart attack than those who hadn't breastfed at all. "
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325916.400?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19325916.400
"An herb called danshen -- traditionally used in China as a medicine for high blood pressure -- has been shown to reduce hypertension in hamsters, according to a study published in the 'American Journal of Physiology'."
http://www.newstarget.com/021588.html
"In one study, the authors note, simulated phalluses that most closely resembled the human penis removed an ejaculate-like substance from an artificial vagina. This could potentially signify that that the penis developed its shape to act as an anatomical squeegee."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070210170428.htm
"Ordinarily, we imagine patents promote innovation, but that’s because most patents are granted for human inventions. Genes aren’t human inventions, they are features of the natural world. As a result these patents can be used to block innovation, and hurt patient care."
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0213-25.htm
"It is hard to determine the 'cost of living' or 'consumer price index' when goods and services change over time. So much information is at our fingertips that could once stump a reference librarian - if you had the time to go to library in the first place. How does one [assess] the value of that?"
http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2007/02/hidden-inflation.html
"Big business everywhere is creaking under the weight of their medical benefits, and they see only one way out: the taxpayers. It's the same reason Big Steel would like the government to take over its pension obligations. Socializing costs while keeping the profits private -- that's the ticket. Only myopia would cause anyone to be shocked by such conduct. A fuller appreciation of American history is the cure for that particular malady. Business's looking to the state for protection is as American as apple pie."
http://www.fee.org/in_brief/default.asp?id=1113
"By insulating lotteries from the competition of a true market setting, governments set the industry up for failure. And now that officials are realizing their folly, they are looking to cash in on the remaining value that lotteries still possess. But turning lotteries from government-run monopolies into government-protected monopolies amounts to window dressing."
http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?article=367&fromemail
"We not only live in a nation whose government has troops in more than 100 foreign countries, that is occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, that is threatening new wars against Iran and North Korea, and that claims the authority to drop bombs on any country on earth. We also live in a country in which omnipotent power over the citizenry by the president, the CIA, and the military is part and parcel of that foreign policy."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0702d.asp
"The federal authorities can break into your home and plant surveillance devices without notifying you. They can get a list of books you buy or check out of a library and put the bookseller or librarian in prison if the person tells you about it. If you are an alien, perfectly legal, you can still be picked up and held indefinitely. Of course, it is all done in the name of protecting the American people. That is the standard excuse that has been used since the earliest empires. "
http://www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=10457
"It's a rare thing, witnessing propaganda so over-the-top it beggars the imagination. Most lies have a kernel of truth that give them an air of credibility, but every once in a while something comes along that shakes the cynicism from our jaded eyes. You laugh - and almost feel sad for the drunken hacks who put the story together in the first place. After all, can't they spend five minutes fact-checking their nonsense on Wikipedia?"
http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/articles/canon_fodder/01327_iran_anatomy_lie.html
"Just as the two main beneficiaries of the 'war on terror' have been George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden (and the forces they represent: war-profiteering crony capitalism on the one hand, wilfully ignorant violent sectarianism on the other), so too the main beneficiaries of the current White House 'surge' toward war with Iran are Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1030&Itemid=135
"My main point is that the Empire issue is not new, but has its roots deep in the American past. It is rather ironic, that Ben Franklin, surely one of the Empire men, should have given us the memorable phrase, 'We have given you a Republic, if you can keep it.' The restoration of the Republic will have to be an equally long-term project."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/marina/marina16.html
"What is 'kindergarten'? Friedrich Froebel opened the first kindergarten, in Germany, in 1840, as a means of 'socializing' children, writes Joel Spring, in 'The American School, 1642-1885.' 'As the name implies, the kindergarten was conceived as a garden of children to be cultivated in the same manner as plants.' The idea was borrowed and brought to America in 1873, when the first kindergarten opened in St. Louis. "
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Feb-11-Sun-2007/opinion/12346299.html
"The bitter arguments of the past echo loudly these days as Congress debates toughening the nation’s immigration laws and immigrants from Latin America and Asia swell the streets of U.S. cities in protest. Most of the concerns voiced today — that too many immigrants seek economic advantage and fail to understand democracy, that they refuse to learn English, overcrowd homes, and overwhelm public services — were heard a century ago. And there was a nub of truth to some complaints, not least that the vast influx of immigrants drove down working-class wages."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0611e.asp
"A distinctive, repeating sequence of DNA found in people living at the eastern edge of Russia is also widespread among Native Americans, according to a new study. The finding lends support to the idea that Native Americans descended from a common founding population that lived near the Bering land bridge for some time."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11178?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn11178
"As incredibly crazy as it sounds, this administration is intent on starting yet another war in the Middle East – this time against a far larger, more formidable enemy, one that has the power to strike back on an international scale. In that case, can we really say that we're fighting them over there so that we don't have to fight them over here?"
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10517
"It's déja vu. This time the Bush gang wants war with Iran. Following a carefully orchestrated strategy, they have ratcheted up the 'threat' from Iran, designed to mislead us into a new war four years after they misled us into Iraq."
http://www.counterpunch.org/cohn02132007.html
"This is what the Bushists are tacitly admitting when they claim that the Shiite militias are fragging their ostensible American allies with Iranian weapons. They are saying that even the factions 'liberated' and empowered by the American invasion are now attacking and killing U.S. soldiers, with even more virulence than the Sunni insurgents. They are saying that Bush is now 'surging' more soldiers into a situation where every single armed faction in the Iraqi conflict is targeting and killing Americans, including those factions armed and funded by the Americans themselves. "
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1027&Itemid=135
"The evidence indicates that Iran's leadership remains rational today. Though it would certainly terrify the Israeli population, Iran has never passed chemical or biological weapons to Hezbollah or other client organizations. Why? Most likely because they fear Israeli reprisals."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=7770
"Darwin's theory of evolutionary selection holds that variation within species occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is determined by that organism's ability to adapt to its environment."
http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96feb/darwin.html
"During the period 1951 to 1963 Ms. Ritter was nominated for 6 Academy Awards. She is one of the most nominated actors who never won the statue."
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0728812/
"He began producing for MGM in 1936, overseeing such fine projects as Fritz Lang's 'Fury' (1936), Frank Borzage's 'Three Comrades' (1938), George Cukor's 'The Philadelphia Story' (1940) and George Stevens's 'Woman of the Year' (1942)."
http://www.tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=121045
"In film, Hines proved himself a versatile actor and starred in musical dramas (The Cotton Club and White Nights), to straight dramas (The Preacher's Wife), comedy (Renaissance Man), sci-fi horror (Wolfen), and action films (Running Scared)."
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2272/A_complete_entertainer_Gregory_Hines
"'The universe within is reborn amid chaos.' Qwai Ching Paine spoke, then waited politely for Charlotte Carolina. It didn't require the heightened perceptions of a monkey-fu student to see what was going on in her mind as she looked up, scowled, and struggled toward a response. Oh Lord. Some schizoid street person wants to ruin my lunch hour. What am I going to do? Do I tell him to buzz off? Ignore him?"
http://www.backwoodshome.com/columns/wolfe070212.html
"This film, which cost a whopping $6,000 to make (really!), is filled with every genre cliché in the book. And it’s smart as hell. The DVD even opens with a 'mockumentary' about the movie and its 'creator' Joseph McDonald, complete with interviews with surviving members of the crew and old footage from HUAC hearings. Brilliant!"
http://wconger.blogspot.com/2007/02/restoring-sci-fi-movie-masterpiece.html
Back to the usual Attic format, with some interesting music and Will Rogers.
http://unclewarrensattic.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=181054
"After careful review, I've decided there's only one way to get past the writer's roadblock I've been having for six months or 17 years (depending on how you measure) in creating the second book in my series of stories based in the era of imaginary physics. I'm going to start working on the third book."
http://bwrmontag.blogspot.com/2007/02/as-baxter-hetznecker-would-say-surprise.html
Jon catches Stephen in the midst of his Objectivist Children's Sleepover. [Short commercial precedes main item, but it's worth it.]
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?lnk=v&ml_video=82099
"President Bush announced Monday that his administration will permanently sever ties with the democratically controlled United States Congress, ending a nearly 220-year-old alliance between the two governmental branches."
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bush_cuts_off_diplomatic_relations
Republicans argued that the Iraq resolution is both meaningless and catastrophically meaningful.
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?lnk=v&ml_video=82336
"The media watchdog group, which calls itself The Media Watchdog Group, took the nation’s 24-hour news networks to task for what it called 'scant coverage' of the life, death and legacy of Ms. Smith."
http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=6696&srch=
"Price controls would do nothing to remove profit from the system of exchange; biotech firms would still buy, manipulate, and resell the tissue. While firms may find themselves paying less for donor tissue under such a regime, families would remain uncompensated and uninformed. The market would remain intact and unacknowledged, exploiting donors and their families. The alternative reform-compensating donors, the crucial source of material upon which life-giving treatments depend-has hardly been discussed. Tissue markets are a well-kept secret, and when scholars talk about creating markets for body parts, they're usually talking about kidneys, not skin and bone. "
http://www.reason.com/news/show/118517.html
"The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999. That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece
"The new Apple TV media extender is supposed to ship this month, perhaps even by the time you read this column, and if you are like me you are wondering what that 40-gig hard drive is doing inside. I'm guessing we won't know for sure until later this year, though of course I also think I know the secret answer, too."
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070216_001673.html
"My friend John was trying to think of a way to explain the problem with digital rights management to his dad and friend of ours who don't see what's wrong with it. He compiled a list of examples of DRM-related problems to help people understand what the big deal is with DRM."
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/02/how_to_explain_.html
"Windows Vista includes an array of 'features' that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful." [TE: Unlike Mr. Schneier, I don't think the courts belong in this. I doubt the results would work against Vista, which could be a great government tool. (As one commenter says: "Vista - An OS only the Stazi could love.") A way out will come from people using what small market force they have to resist Vista using Free and Open Source Software.]
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/drm_in_windows.html
"In Japan, the Miracule Fruit is particularly popular among diabetics and dieters. ... It's also used to help leukemia patients get back their appetites, and to make bitter medicine more palatable. All this would seem to mean a great market for the stuff in America. So why can't U.S. consumers get any? It seems that the FDA banned the fruit under mysterious circumstances in the 1970s. I've seen speculation on various websites that it may have had something to do with the sugar industry, or with the fact that aspartame was working its way to FDA approval at about the same time." [At least Stevia isn't banned, yet.]
http://www.theagitator.com/archives/027512.php#027512
"Many people who advance un-libertarian solutions do not think of themselves as anti-liberty, they are just concerned by the exploitation that results from inequalities in property, power, and culture. They don't believe that any market can really be 'free' or result in just outcomes, since real-world societies of the future will always inherit the real-world inequalities and injustices of the past and present."
http://independentcountry.blogspot.com/2007/02/equality-exploitation-and-freedom.html
"What if the U.S. government released an 'educational video' to teach today's Americans how to be good citizens?"
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