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"Rhode Island on Tuesday became the 11th state to legalize medical marijuana and the first since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that patients who use the drug can still be prosecuted under federal law. The House overrode a veto by Gov. Don Carcieri, 59-13, allowing people with illnesses such as cancer and AIDS to grow up to 12 marijuana plants or buy 2.5 ounces of marijuana to relieve their symptoms."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002719110_ndig04.html
"So much more happened in NH in the last year, so I tried to narrow it down to just the things that were planned on the Underground for this review."
http://www.soulawakenings.com/underground/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=2005+Year+in+Review
"The word 'civil' also means behavior that is considerate, kind, polite, cordial, nonviolent and respectful. Civil society's voluntarism fosters civil behavior, whereas the coercive prohibitions, taxes, and restrictions imposed by governments often induce corruption and violence."
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001766.html
"I present to you the Politics, Patriotism and Protest Opinionnaire. This seemingly innocuous quiz has become part of the curriculum in a number of classrooms around the country. At first I thought it was a joke - who in his right mind would pass this out in an English or Mathematics class? - but a quick Internet search turned up a dozen or so links to an online version...."
"A favorite standby of pundits and columnists is to predict what developments will transpire over the next 12 months. I've decided to take the reductio ad absurdum approach, and predict what might happen in 2006 should the most disturbing trends of the last few years with respect to liberty and personal freedom continue unabated."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,180630,00.html
"In what amounted to an attempt to force the Werneckes to submit their daughter to radiation treatments, officials with Texas' Child Protective Services took Katie away from her parents in June, after receiving a tip that Katie and her mother were hiding out at a family ranch in order to avoid the radiation that doctors claimed she needed to survive. Authorities promptly took Katie into custody and arrested her mother on charges of interfering with child custody."
http://www.newstarget.com/016387.html
"Some people would call what I am envisioning 'direct democracy'. I refrain from this term. First, it is important to place emphasis on the means (all enfranchized adults gathered in one physical location to debate freely) rather than ends (the foggy idealized notion of democracy). Second, the practice of assembly need not be conducted on the one-man/one-vote principle - votes might be cast aggregate by clans, sub-tribes, neighborhoods, craft guilds, whatever."
http://blackguile.blogspot.com/2006/01/why-anarcho-syndicalism.html
"The state lends its monopoly on the use of force (a.k.a. the full faith and credit of the government) to 'back-up' the system. The only way to get away with stealing for very long is to get enough people to accept fraud based on accounting tricks as legitimate. Several generations later, that's just the way it is."
http://www.strike-the-root.com/61/davis/davis1.html
"What is meant when a person or group or people are called objectively statist? To agorists, the term is used for those who emulate the State by murdering, stealing, defrauding, raping, and assaulting. ... At the same time, all so-called (by the State) 'criminals' (or criminal acts) that do not involve initiation of violence or the threat of it (coercion) are counter-economic."
http://wconger.blogspot.com/2006/01/agorism-contra-marxism-part-9.html
"[T]he underlying premise of unionization still makes sense -- and is still guaranteed under the right to free association. A group, working together, can get a better deal for everyone, than if each individual is stuck negotiating for himself. That said, I hereby invite organized labor to undertake an enterprise far more useful than any they've been up to lately: launch the International Brotherhood of Drug War Victims."
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Jan-01-Sun-2006/opinion/4880597.html
"Quintessenz members Martin Slunksy and Adrian Dabrowski demonstrated the camera trickery at the 22nd annual Chaos Communication Congress, an event for computer security buffs held in Berlin, Germany, between 27 and 30 December. The event is coordinated by the German Chaos Computer Club, a renowned European activist group."
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8530
"Students and adult staff members - the Sudbury model eschews the word 'teacher' - serve on a school council that votes on rules and penalties, as well as other factors in school life. The result is a structured system, but one in which students have quite a bit of say."
"Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarden picnic. The Bush administration's lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone the final step and declared Bush to be above the law. Bush aggressively mimics Hitler's claim that defense of the realm entitles him to ignore the rule of law."
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01022006.html
"A spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection division said he couldn't speak directly to Goodman's case but acknowledged that the agency can, will and does open mail coming to U.S. citizens that originates from a foreign country whenever it's deemed necessary."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10740935/
"The US Department of Defense has revealed plans to develop a lie detector that can be used without the subject knowing they are being assessed. The Remote Personnel Assessment (RPA) device will also be used to pinpoint fighters hiding in a combat zone, or even to spot signs of stress that might mark someone out as a terrorist or suicide bomber."
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/mech-tech/mg18925335.800
"As resources are diverted to Iraq, instead of to the defense of the continental U.S. against terrorist attacks, our foreign policy of perpetual war on the Arab-Muslim world provides bin Laden with more than enough recruits. Our profoundly mistaken and perverse policies earn him the loyalty of millions of Muslims the world over, who see him as the only successful opponent of American aggression."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8333
"Abraham Lincoln publicly suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and was told posthumously by the Supreme Court (Ex parte Milligan, 1866) that he had acted unconstitutionally. George W. Bush, in the war on terrorism, has secretly suspended the Fourth Amendment, with the complicity of private telecommunications companies. With John Roberts on the Supreme Court and Samuel Alito likely to be confirmed, it may be a long time before this administration is held accountable for this and other pillaging of the Bill of Rights."
http://villagevoice.com/news/0602,hentoff,71587,6.html
"Bush's advocates also argue that the congressional resolution authorizing military force in Afghanistan and elsewhere--to bring to justice those responsible for the 9/11 attacks--authorized those no-warrant wiretaps. But there is absolutely nothing in the clear language of that resolution or in its legislative history suggesting that it was intended to override specific federal laws governing electronic surveillance."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1145243-1,00.html
"Taking up the study of economics can help unravel many mysteries of history, among which the pressing issue: Whatever happened to sexy stewardesses? I don't mean as individuals, but as an institution, as a cultural icon, as a persistent commercial expectation."
http://www.mises.org/story/2002
"Rather than criticizing private efforts to increase the supply of organs, the transplant bureaucracy should embrace them. Instead, it's trying to stop these efforts by making it illegal for Americans to direct the donation of their organs to non-family members. In other words, they want to stop you from deciding who gets your organs. How bizarre! If bureaucrats tried to stop you from deciding who gets your home when you die, you'd think they were crazy."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/cohen2.html
"Scientific considerations aside, this issue provokes such controversy because the dominant provider of education has such strong monopoly power, and most consumers have little ability to avoid its dictates. Let's see why this is the overarching problem, and how we could avoid it."
http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?article=304
"Something doesn't add up if the scholarship organizations and schools are running to the government to define and enforce standards. No doubt this is a public-relations move. Bad behavior gave the Florida movement a black eye, and it is seeking to rehabilitate itself. But enlisting the government is a bad idea. And another motive should not be ruled out, namely, that the schools lobbying for standards realize that any bureaucratic burdens will be harder on smaller and not-yet-started schools than on larger established schools. It's common practice for people to use the government to stifle their competition."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0601b.asp
"Different enterprises will contend for the city's business, but the average resident will still face a municipal monopoly; it's just that the government is negotiating its contracts with companies rather than its own employees. When city leaders talk about privatization, that is almost invariably what they mean: a government contract, not an open marketplace."
http://www.reason.com/links/links010306.shtml
"An ideological conflict underlies the attempt by either sex to force open the doors of 'exclusive' businesses: individual rights versus egalitarianism. Under individual rights, every human being has control over the peaceful use of his or her own body and property. Under egalitarianism, access to and use of property is equally distributed across society, with or without the consent of owners. I come down on the side of individual rights."
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/0104.html
"Freedom is dying. Eighty-year-old John Catt served with the RAF in the Second World War. Last September, he was stopped by police in Brighton for wearing an 'offensive' T-shirt, which suggested that Bush and Blair be tried for war crimes. He was arrested under the Terrorism Act and handcuffed, with his arms held behind his back. The official record of the arrest says the 'purpose' of searching him was 'terrorism' and the 'grounds for intervention' were 'carrying placard and T-shirt with anti-Blair info' (sic). He is awaiting trial."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/pilger/pilger35.html
"The state always menaces its people with an array of orders, prohibitions, and confiscations, but never so much as in times of war, when it can count on widespread support for all measures said to be necessary to ensure victory."
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0512g.asp
"I bring this up not necessarily to criticize supporters of George Bush's Executive-Power grabs, nor to play quien es mas libertarian (a game I generally lose), nor to belittle the real contributions to the debate they may have made during the previous go-rounds. But rather, I'm interested in breaking the cycle for a moment, stepping back, and asking the Glenn Reynoldses and Thomas Sowells of the world one question: How far is too far in the War on Terror?"
http://www.reason.com/links/links010506.shtml
"The horrors of England's industrial life in the last century furnish a standing brief for addicts of positive intervention. Child-labour and woman-labour in the mills and mines; Coketown and Mr. Bounderby; starvation wages; killing hours; vile and hazardous conditions of labour; coffin ships officered by ruffians - all these are glibly charged off by reformers and publicists to a regime of rugged individualism, unrestrained competition, and laissez-faire. This is an absurdity on its face, for no such regime ever existed in England. "
http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/2006/01/nock-again.html
"This was an era eerily like our own, insofar as economists and businessmen constantly clamoured for self-regulation in business. By the mid 1920s, however, self-regulation had become self-imposed regimentation. By means of monopoly and cartel, the businessmen had wrought for themselves a 'command and control' economy that replaced the free market."
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2006/01/class-nature-of-fascism.html
"Early, radical mutual aid societies (which were, after all, Proudhon's inspiration) provide a good example of how to build effective counter-state institutions. They also provide yet another warning to my anarcho-capitalist friends that firms under an anarchist future will probably not look like currently-existing firms."
http://blackguile.blogspot.com/2006/01/toward-counter-state-radical.html
"Paradoxically, the larger and more capable the U.S. military becomes (as a result of recent defense budget increases) and the more the U.S. 'defense' perimeter is expanded, the less secure Americans will be. In other words, empire does not equal security and, in fact,, undermines it. Before doing anything else, the first responsibility of any government should be to provide security for its people and the territory they live in. The U.S. government, however, has not only neglected such homeland security but has actively undermined it by making unnecessary enemies abroad."
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1648
"The only guarantee of saving face in Iraq would be a withdrawal of U.S. troops and bombers from the region, and a guarantee that the U.S. would not keep control of Iraq's oil economy or military bases, or interfere in its internal reconciliation."
http://www.counterpunch.org/grossman01052006.html
"Although Thompson's story was a significant part of Hersh's reports, and Thompson testified before Congress, his role in ending My Lai wasn't widely known until the late 1980s, when David Egan, a professor emeritus at Clemson University, saw an interview in a documentary and launched a letter-writing campaign that eventually led to the awarding of the medals in 1998."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060106/ap_on_re_us/obit_thompson
"In 1936 an incomplete typescript of it came into the hands of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the publishing firm of George Allen and Unwin (merged in 1990 with HarperCollins). She asked Tolkien to finish it, and presented the complete story to Stanley Unwin, the then Chairman of the firm. He tried it out on his 10-year old son Rayner, who wrote an approving report, and it was published as The Hobbit in 1937. It immediately scored a success, and has not been out of children's recommended reading lists ever since. It was so successful that Stanley Unwin asked if he had any more similar material available for publication."
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html
"Hurston's writings include novels, short stories, plays, journal articles and an autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. She consistently addressed issues of race and gender, often relating them to the search for freedom."
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/14/Zora_Neale_Hurston_folklorist_with_style__
"Børge started touring extensively in Europe, where he began telling anti-Nazi jokes. This led to Adolf Hitler placing the outspoken Jew on his list of enemies to the Fatherland. When Denmark was occupied by the Nazis during World War II, Børge was playing a concert in Sweden, and managed to escape to Finland. He travelled to America on the SS American Legion, the last passenger ship that made it out of Europe prior to the war, and arrived August 28, 1940 with only 20 dollars, 3 of which went to the customs fee."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Borge
"In addition to the great performances by the main actors, as in so many other Capra films, the minor roles are also played superbly. As an immigrant, Capra loved his adopted homeland, but saw the flaws in its government. This film shows, without varnish, the system that had taken hold in Washington DC, even as early as 1939."
http://endervidualism.com/agora/mr_smith_1939.htm
"The novels of Lois Lowry, 68, and Margaret Peterson Haddix, 41, are thoroughly skeptical of the idea that the state should be an all-powerful benefactor. They have gained a large and loyal following, striking a receptive chord in a market not normally associated with anti-government themes."
http://www.reason.com/0601/cr.sa.the.shtml
"[F]reedom's not just another word for nothin' left to lose. On the other hand, it's a good inner image to have: If you treat life as if you have nothing to lose, you likely will find you have everything to gain. Our fears of losing our fat and sassy lifestyles lurk behind our reluctance to set ourselves free - and oh, by the way, it is you who sets the limits on your freedom most of the time, not some government or other external force."
http://bwrmontag.blogspot.com/2006/01/janis-bobby-mcgee-and-freedom.html
"It's not a movie list. Or a book list. These are ten things I thought were particularly cool this past year, and I offer them in no particular order."
http://wconger.blogspot.com/2006/01/my-tops-for-2005.html
The White House authorized wiretaps presumably during Fourth Amendmentless Fridays. [video w/audio]
http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=42027
"Politicians in Washington hurried today to dump trillions of dollars worth of campaign donations from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, giving the money to the Treasury Department and all but wiping out the national debt. Congressmen, senators, and other politicians lined up around the block outside the Treasury building to give back their Abramoff riches, many of them carting piles of hundred-dollar bills in wheelbarrows."
http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=1290
"So far, neither party has officially commented on the computer nomination announcement. Washington insiders claim that Senior Senile Leaders of both parties are huddled behind their respective closed doors, attempting to conjure up official positions on the issue. Democrats, it's whispered, are working on habitual 'class warfare' strategies, while Republicans are secretly begging for instant results from the Limbaugh-Hannity-O'Reilly Combined Talkshow Opinion Poll."
http://www.freecannon.com/BushNominatesComputer.htm
"It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/tolstoy1.html
"Modern libertarians draw inspiration from writings attributed to the Chinese sage Lao Tzu, as well as the works of Aristotle, among the ancients; [seventeenth-,] eighteenth- and nineteenth-century classical liberalism (e.g. John Locke, the Scottish Enlightenment, the American founders, Carl Menger, and Herbert Spencer); individualist anarchism (e.g. Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner); Old Right opponents of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal (e.g. Albert Jay Nock, John T. Flynn, Isabel Paterson and H. L. Mencken); modern Austrian economics (e.g. Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek and Murray Rothbard), as well as the economics of the Chicago school (Milton Friedman) and Virginia school (James Buchanan); and the Objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand."
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/essays/ieeslibertarianism.htm
"Once again, in this article, we see the admission of facts contradicting the premise of the article followed immediately by an attempt to indicate equivalent harm to white communities. In this case, we are told that white neighborhoods flooded just as much as black neighborhoods. This is likely true. However, it's silly to equivocate between flooding as such and deaths caused by flooding -- white neighborhoods may have flooded at equal rates, but black people died at far higher rates."
http://praxeology.net/Kilpatrick-Katrina.htm
"When I mean 'worst,' I don't necessarily mean ineffective or counterproductive. Not even the most evil and fascistic, like gun control, which has yet to persuade enough Americans. I'm referring instead to ideas that triumphed politically. That 'succeeded' all too well in the ultimate aim, which is to keep the majority of people ignorant, economically dependent, fearful, and loyal to the American State."
http://www.partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=1718
"As Americans, we've become so willing to trade a few dollars savings (which is really artificial since everyone price matches anyway) for horrendous customer service that we've conditioned big retailers to automatically give us poor quality service every time we walk through the door. Gone is the day of people actually caring about developing a long term relationship or even about the profitability of each customer."
http://boldapproach.typepad.com/bold/2006/01/best_buys_custo.html
"We need to think about this president thing. Teddy Roosevelt said we ought to speak softly and carry a big stick. He probably didn’t have in mind speaking in tongues, or a swizzle stick. The best you can do is run. What Stu and I wondered was where to put such money as we have before the inflation hits." Great Fred Stuff, could be here or Lighter Side, or any number of other places, but very good.
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