End the War on Freedom

From The Federalist:

"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place." -- Henry Louis Mencken

and:

"I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave -- with all five fingers -- for their hospitality." -- President George W. Bush

and:

"The Pentagon revealed that China launched a nuclear submarine capable of firing intercontinental ballistic missiles into the United States. In case of attack, take cover inside a Wal-Mart. China would never bomb their best customer." -- Argus Hamilton

and:

"NAACP President Kweisi Mfume announced that he is stepping down as the head of the NAACP. President Bush issued a statement. He said, 'That just shows how great our country is, when a black man can become head of the NAACP.'" -- Jay Leno

and:

"I don't know if you've been in the airport this past week. It's crazy right? The FAA is advising travelers to get to the airport two hours early. Not for security; you know, foreplay." -- Jay Leno

# Mark Steyn at The Telegraph - An Englishman's home is his dungeon - good piece on how English law criminalizing self defense has increased the incidence of "hot" burglaries many-fold. [smith2004]

I've been writing on this subject in The Telegraph for the best part of a decade now and, to be honest, I might as well recycle the 1996 or 1997 column and spend the week in the Virgin Islands.

My argument never changes. All that changes is the increasing familiarity of Britons with violent crime. Mr Monckton was a cousin by marriage of The Sunday Telegraph's Dominic Lawson, who is leading a campaign to allow citizens to defend themselves in their own homes.

That this most basic right should be something for which he has to organise a campaign is disgraceful. In New Hampshire, there are few burglaries because there's a high rate of gun ownership. Getting your head blown off for a $70 TV set isn't worth it. Conversely, thanks to the British police, burning the flesh of a London dressmaker to get her watch is definitely worth it. In Chelsea the morning after Mr Monckton's murder, Her Majesty's Keystone Konstabulary with all their state-of-the-art toys had sealed off the street in an almost comical illustration of their lavishly funded uselessness.

# Ron Paul at LewRockwell.com - Ron Paul Denounces National ID Card - on the evil of the new National ID, created by S.2845, the "9/11 Recommendations Implementation Act", 666 pages (see below) of gobbledygook that passed the House on Tuesday by a vote of 336 to 75 and the Senate yesterday by a vote of 89 to 2, Byrd and Inhofe being the only true friends of liberty. [scopeny]

"A national identification card, in whatever form it may take, will allow the federal government to inappropriately monitor the movements and transactions of every American," Paul continued. "History shows that governments inevitably use such power in harmful ways. The 9-11 commission, whose recommendations underlie this bill, has called for internal screening points where identification will be demanded. Domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free nations. It is just a matter of time until those who refuse to carry the new licenses will be denied the ability to drive or board an airplane."

"Nationalizing standards for drivers licenses and birth certificates, and linking them together via a national database, creates a national ID system pure and simple. Proponents of the national ID understand that the public remains wary of the scheme, so they attempt to claim they're merely creating new standards for existing state IDs. Nonsense! This legislation imposes federal standards in a federal bill, and it creates a federalized ID regardless of whether the ID itself is still stamped with the name of your state."

The last numbered page in the GPO PDF of the bill is 666. I kid you not.

# Carol Moore - The Davidian Massacre Pages - lots of good info about the mass murder in Waco, Texas on April 19, 1994. Lots more interesting stuff on Ms. Moore's home page. [stanleyscoop]

# Sunni Maravillosa - A So-called Third World Country Beats the U.S. - Most of the prescription drugs available in America can be purchased in Mexico, for less money, without a prescription. [sunni]

These experiences were revelatory for us; we knew that the FDA's power is overweening, but until one gets out from under it and experiences greater liberty -- and its concomitant responsibility -- it's hard to grok just how controlling the FDA and resulting health-care system is in this country. To be fair, though, the Mexican culture is quite different from the U.S. At the time of our visit, the idea of popping a pill for every little atypical twitch or potential problem with one's body was unheard of. Naturalistic remedies were much more common, as is the very sound practice of allowing time and rest to heal a body. It was very difficult for me to return to the U.S., knowing that I would again be subjected to the paternalistic, power-sapping medical practices many Americans view as normal and civilized. I'll take the real civilization of Mexican health care any day. If only they were more sensible on RKBA ...

# Paul Craig Roberts at Counterpunch - War Crime - George Bush: mass murderer. [grabbe]

# Doug Newman at Strike the Root - Christian Compassion That Kills - more murder at the hands of democracy. [root]

To hear a lot of Christians tell it, the re-election of George W. Bush constituted a "mandate" for Christian values and compassionate conservatism.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, Mr. Dana May of Aurora, Colorado -- where this essay originates -- surely has much to say about our president's Christian values and compassion. I have never met Mr. May, but I recently read of him in the Denver Rocky Mountain News. He suffers from reflex sympathetic dystrophy, a disease so painful that it drives some people to suicide. He likens the pain he feels to having his "feet . . . in a deep fryer." He had spent seven years trying numerous remedies, including synthetic marijuana, but none of them worked. As a last resort, he tried medical marijuana. Upon his physician's advice, he obtained permission from the State of Colorado to grow and use marijuana to alleviate his pain. It worked.

When a few dozen DEA agents raided his house and tore up his modest marijuana "garden", Mr. May presented his state-issued permission card. However, in the words of one of the raiding agents: "We're DEA. We do not follow Colorado's constitution."

for six months, Mr. May again suffered excruciating pain because the feds denied him access to his medicine. In the face of a lawsuit, the feds relented. He now grows at an undisclosed location, but still lives in fear of another Gestapo-like raid.

...

"Compassionate conservatism" is merely a code phrase for a socialist police state, the grip of which will only grow tighter in the next four years. Bush groupies sure talk a good game about their Christian reverence for life. However, as long as they are unwilling to cast off their prohibitionist orthodoxies, admit their error and stop backing policies that cause innocent people to suffer needlessly and even to die, they have no claim of moral superiority.

# Steve Minutillo - Feed on Feeds is a server-side RSS (and Atom!) aggregator. It requires PHP and MySQL. Works for me on my NearlyFreeSpeech site, and I updated BlogMax to generate the <guid> tags that it requires (actually, it uses <guid> only if there's no <link>, along with the RSS URL, as a database key). [clairefiles]

Who created this? Why does it suck?

I did. It is classic "itch-scratch-ware", I worked on it just long enough for it to be usable for my purposes, and then stopped. There are rough edges, and the code is awful. This is my first project in PHP. However, now that it's out there, if anybody else finds it useful, I'm willing to improve it, and learn in the process.