Another Victimless Crime Leads To Death

From the Boston Globe:

A 22-year-old man who stopped breathing while in police custody after his arrest during the June 18 Boston Celtics NBA championship celebration died yesterday, prompting an investigation by Boston police and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office into his death.

The parents of David Woodman, a former Emmanuel College student who was living in Brookline, said their son did not receive prompt medical attention while lying unconscious, face down on Brookline Avenue with his hands cuffed behind his back. They also accused police of failing to give them a full account of what happened.

Officers grabbed Woodman, who was carrying a plastic cup of beer, and as they struggled to handcuff him pushed him face down onto the ground, according to Woodman’s friend.

“He wasn’t being a punk or anything like that,” said the friend. “I don’t understand why the officers used such brute force to arrest him.”

Gee, good thing we got that dangerous animal off the streets. See, public consumption of the devil’s brew does indeed harm innocent people. Or maybe contempt of cop does.

Actually, it’s a victimless crime or rather a non-crime which makes it even more painful and destructive of civil society. Just like this case.

Swedish Children’s Parties Move Underground

I guess kids’ birthday parties will now be held in speakeasies from now on in the country that recycling zealots in the US wish to emulate.

An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.

He says the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the other one.

The boy handed out his birthday invitations during class-time and when the teacher spotted that two children had not received one the invitations were confiscated.

Sounds consistent for a country that abhors capitalism and praises Mao.

Thanks, Alan and Ben

I have been looking forward to my photo workshop in Venice, Italy for some time now. The trip is all-inclusive and was paid for several months ago (or so I thought) so all I had to do was not go crazy waiting until October. Then I get this email from the organizer of the trip (chart not included):

I have booked all that is necessary for each of us and …. a few little surprises to ensure an even greater time together in Bella Venezia!!!

I have one little bad news…. the USD$$$   has plummeted by 14.3% against the EURO since lat year !!   We ADVERTISED  hotel rates in USD $ , but will be paying the hotel in EURO.

The deficit is quite significant when booking 20 or so rooms per week, so I am afraid we need to charge you an extra USD$300 for the WEEK for the accommodation component of the costs.

Sweet. The trip isn’t for another few months so I wonder how many more emails like this I’ll get before I actually take off?  The $300 kinda makes me mad but it got me thinking about how aware everyone else in the world is of our monetary policy and how numb Americans are toward anything but reality teevee shows. The Euro is inflating like crazy (in terms of gold) but Da Fed is making Brussels look like a bunch of monks.

Classic Books In Three Lines

Ha! Here’s Orwell’s 1984 distilled down to a haiku:

WINSTON: Don’t tell the Party, but sex is way better than totalitarianism.
EVERYONE: Surprise! We’re the Party.
WINSTON: Oh, rats.

Biodiesel: You Still Can’t get Something For Nothing

The next great idea: use the world’s zillions of acres of fallow farmland to grow diesel fuels. Friggin’ brilliant!

A billion acres of farmland around the world have been abandoned and could now be used to grow biofuel crops, a new study suggests.

One of the criticisms of biofuels such as ethanol from corn or rice is that the crops eat into land that could be used to grow food, which is increasingly in short supply globally, causing frustration and hunger that have led to protests and riots. The alternative of clearing forests to grow biofuel crops is unacceptable to many.

Yet somewhere between 1 billion and 1.2 billion acres of agricultural land is lying fallow, the study finds. That compares to about 3.8 billion acres that are currently in use.

Shortage of land is not the issue. Profitability is. The only reason we grow corn here to make into biofuel is because our government subsidizes it. But it isn’t profitable. Especially when there are untold zillions of barrels of energy-dense fossil fuels to be had at a price that is still cheaper than biodiesel. At the moment, the only way to make biodiesel widely available is for governments to steal the means of production at which point political expediency will trump saving the planet (whatever the definition).

Philadeiphia’s Wall Murals Also Its Newest Religion

Philadelphia started its wall mural program in blighted areas in an effort to send a positive message to impoverished inner-city kids. I recall seeing them painted on the walls of housing projects way back when off of Vare Ave as I sat in traffic on the Schuykill Expressway. But don’t dare contract with the owner of a privately-owned building to paint your own mural without permission from your overlords.

In a city famous for murals, some recent paintings on the sides of businesses and abandoned buildings seem to blend with Philadelphia’s urban landscape.

But a closer inspection shows them to be advertisements for Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Colt 45 malt liquor, which are brands sold by Pabst Brewing Company. They appear to be part of a national marketing campaign by the Illinois-based company.

Several business operators said they were paid to have the ads painted on their buildings and were told or assumed that it was legal.

However, the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections said they are breaking the law.

Meanwhile, put that same artwork on a billboard and it’s ok. Go figure.

When Anti-Gun Rhetoric Fails, Try Class Warfare

Or so goes the reasoning of Karen Heller at The Inky:

Aaron McKie grew up in Olney, went to Gratz High, graduated from Temple, and was a valued guard for the 76ers, named NBA sixth man of the year for the 2000-01 season.

On Monday, he was arrested after allegedly lying in the purchase of two handguns, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson and a 9mm Ruger.

“Unfortunately, Philadelphia’s become a pretty dangerous place,” his attorney Brian McMonagle said, “and for athletes like himself, there’s certainly no good reason for them not to try to protect their families and themselves.”

McKie no longer lives in Philadelphia. He resides in a $1.8 million, 7,417-square-foot French colonial with five bedrooms and 61/2 baths in the bucolic burg of Narberth. So danger is less likely to come from thugs than from deer.

Karen, the whole debacle stemmed from the sham that is gun control. The man shouldn’t have to justify owning a gun (or his mansion)  to you or anyone else.

Supremes affirm second amendment, still manage to get it wrong

Chris Manion reports on the lewrockwell.com blog that the Supreme Court has upheld the Second Amendment (gee, thanks!) with the majority and minority from the Boumadiene decision on habeus corpus exactly reversed. Yet as unsettling as that is, what is really a worrying prospect is that both the majority and the minority have fundamentally flawed ideas about the scope (it is designed to constrain the feds only), the nature of the right, and the plain wording of the amendment;

“Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for four colleagues, said the Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”

You’re damn right it doesn’t, but it also doesn’t permit the prohibition of any weapon used for any non-criminal purpose, by any person, you ignorant jerk.

“In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”
He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

Um, Justice Stevens, have you actually READ the document in question? What part of “the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” don’t you understand?

Thanks in part to the heroic efforts of Ron Paul and others, the average garbage collector has a better grasp of the constitution than these nine enshrined eminences.
Will someone please save us from this court?!

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Scotus-Guns.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

UPDATE: Our friend Stephan Kinsella disagrees; according to his reading, the thugs in the government of DC have plenary power, so the Second Amendment does not apply;

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/021701.html#more

Et Tu, Tutu?

<

I heard a snippet on CNN of an interview with Desmond Tutu where he made the statement that a country’s leader (a man whose policies of destruction of the country’s currency as well as the property and other civil rights of the people, and the beneficiary of a rigged election) should resign now, “while there is still time”. Imagine my dissapointment upon discovering not only that the president in question wasn’t George Bush, but that the former Anglican archbishop’s statement was a not so veiled exhortation for Mr. Bush to attack another tyrant (Mugabe) destroying his ‘own’ country. Please, your excellency, please stop.

Yay! Rothbard Audio Available!

I have always been a big fan of Audible.com since I don’t get much time to sit and read for any length of time. So I was thrilled when I just saw that Murray Rothbard’s “America’s Great Depression” was now available as an audio download. It made my morning.

I can’t wait to get it onto my iPod. I’m sure it’ll be great. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what this guy had to say at Amazon.com.

this is one of the most enraging books I have ever read about anything related to economics. The author seems to forget that underneath ALL of the formulas and “trends” in any field of economics lies WEALTH. REAL, SUBSTANTIAL, PRODUCTIVE, LABOR-RELATED WEALTH. This is something even Keynesian economists fail in recognizing…any book which does not recognize the intervention of FDR’s fiscal policy as a return to the philosophy of our founding fathers (IE. Henry Clay, Alexander Hamilton)and the only way we could have possibly survived the depression and the mobilization to fight fascism is a POORLY written book from an author who is obviously misinformed by the popular trash of classroom and related ivory tower academia.

That’s enough of a recommendation for me! However, the vast majority of readers gave it 4-5 stars.

McCain Betting On Market Failure (With Your Money, Of Course)

John McCain apparently doesn’t think there’s enough of an incentive to make a really good battery for powering automobiles so in a magnanimous gesture, he’s putting up $300 million of our money.

“I further propose we inspire the ingenuity and resolve of the American people,” Mr. McCain said, “by offering a $300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

Um, anyone with half a brain could see that there is already major headway being made as manufacturers large and small realize the imminent windfall that would come from developing the first truly realistic electric car. All McCain’s wacky initiative would do would be to false incentives to players who would benefit from gaming the system and securing a monopoly for themselves backed by government guns.

Funny At First But…

A friend who is deployed in Iraq sent this home to his wife. It’s kinda sad that Americans are forced to be in this predicament. Come home soon and in one piece, Luke.

What, Me Change?

The more things (like Obama) change, the more they stay the same. Again I ask Obama supporters, what is there to like about him?

Waiting until after the vote to take a position on the bill [that will give the executive even more power to spy on Americans], Obama has finally come forward and issued a statement – looks like Obama reversed his prior strong opposition to both retroactive immunity for criminal acts by telecoms and expanded domestic spying powers. According to Glenn Greenwald at Salon:http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

“Barack Obama got around to issuing a statement and — citing what he calls “the grave threats that we face” — he just announced that he supports this warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty bill:

“Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike, while respecting the rule of law and the privacy and civil liberties of the American people. . .”

I’d like to suggest that Obama realizes that he has a very good chance of becoming the next president and doesn’t want anyone to hold him to his silly rhetoric about change.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

The headline in the Boston Globe:

Bin Laden will be killed, McCain promises

Yup, just like every other covert operative is once the US government no longer has any use for him. Saddam Hussein, please call your office. Oh, that’s right, you’re dead.

Upper Darby Supervisor Declares Tasers Safe To Use On Citizens

Upper Darby Police Supervisor Mike Chitwood, in a show of uselessness, took a taser hit before news cameras to demonstrate that tasers are effective but do not kill. Presumably, this clears the way for non-lethal tasers to eventually become a first-response in any mundane situation for the UDPD.

The (Insurgent) Campaign For Liberty

The term ‘insurgent’ has been used (and misused) a whole lot since about ten minutes after the officially announced ‘end’ of the Iraq War.

Lucky for us, the US Army Special Forces Counterinsurgency Field Manual

(the book that ‘Surgin’ General’ Petraeus is said to have ‘written’ on the subject)

contains, along with tips on how to win friends, subvert democracy and destroy due process in an occupied country, a handy field guide to three main types of insurgency.

One of these, in light of the end of Ron Paul’s Republican presidential bid, and the beginning of his new vehicle for change, The Campaign For Liberty, is pretty interesting;

“Foco Insurgency.

A foco (Spanish word meaning focus or focal point) is a single, armed cell that emerges from hidden strongholds in an atmosphere of disintegrating legitimacy. In theory, this cell is the nucleus around which mass popular support rallies. The insurgents build new institutions and establish control on the basis of that support.”

Except for the “armed” part (The Revolution has always been explicitly peaceful and anti-war) and the “establish control” bit, this essentially describes the new strategy – to establish a core group of liberty-loving people and to have them (democratically) infiltrate the current system so that they will be ready to liberate the masses when the corrupt, incompetent Empire falls flat on its face.

“The insurgents build new institutions and establish control on the basis of that support. For a foco insurgency to succeed, government legitimacy must be near total collapse. Timing is critical. The foco must mature at the same time the government loses legitimacy and before any alternative appears. The most famous foco insurgencies were those led by Castro and Che Guevara.”

Bad role models from a philosophical perspective, for sure, but in terms of strategy pretty relevant.

“The distinguishing characteristics of a foco insurgency are The deliberate avoidance of preparatory organizational work. The rationale is based on the premise that most peasants are intimidated by the authorities and will betray any group that cannot defend itself. “

This part doesn’t apply, because this revolution is peaceful, democratic, and overt, the ‘counter-insurgency’ strategies to this will be completely ineffective. Unfortunately, many other CI strategies are already in place and are well-advanced;

“Restrictions. Rights on the legality of detention or imprisonment of personnel (for example, habeas corpus) may be temporarily suspended. This measure must be taken as a last resort, since it may provide the insurgents with an effective propaganda theme. PRC [Population & Resources Control] measures can also include curfews or blackouts, travel restrictions, and restricted residential areas such as protected villages or resettlement areas. Registration and pass systems and control of … critical supplies such as weapons, food, and fuel are other PRC measures. Checkpoints, searches, roadblocks; surveillance, censorship, and press control…”

You get the picture.

Apparently ‘Counter-Insurgency’ has become ‘Pre-emptive Counter-Insurgency’.

We have our work cut out for us.

Philly Police Search for Things That Would Warrant a Search Warrant

When is a search warrant not needed? When you’re looking to drum up charges that would warrant a  search warrant, of course. Or so goes the thinking of Capt. Dennis Wilson of the 9th District.

“They’re a hate group. We’re trying to drum up charges against them, but unfortunately we’ll probably have to let them go.”

The ‘terror group’ in question in question were 4 North Philadelphia residents who had circulated a petition questioning police surveillance cameras.

Vanore said that when Moffat and others declined to identify themselves and cooperate, police entered the property because “they had probable cause to believe there was trespassing or even burglarizing.”

Once inside, Vanore said, police saw things that prompted them to obtain a search warrant, such as protest literature, anti-police graffiti on walls…

How dare a citizen express outrage against overreaching police and then write about it? No charges were filed but the house was duly trashed beyond livability. That’ll teach those pesky Bill of Rights loonies a thing or two, huh? The rest of the article is in The Inky.

Government Schools Flummoxed By Human Action In Chester

Given a choice of whether to send their kids to one of the most dangerous government school systems or to a charter school.

WHEN THE morning bells ring in the Chester-Upland School District, more students in kindergarten through eighth grade are sitting in charter-school classrooms than in all other district schools combined, according to district Superintendent Gregory Thornton.

State Sen. Dominic Pileggi, a charter-school proponent who represents Delaware and Chester counties, says, “It should be a wake-up call to school administrators that when parents are allowed choice, they’re choosing another education provider over what the district is providing.”

Gee, what a surprise. It’s nice to see self-managed (although taxpayer-funded) schools given a chance to succees. However, don’t look for this success to continue on for long. Instead of distancing itself from the leviathan that is the Chester-Upland School District, forces are hard at work to coerce them into conformity.

Annette Anderson, principal of the charter school, said that it’s important for her charter and the district to support one another because the school serves students in kindergarten through second grade only. The charter plans to add 50 more students a year in each grade until it maxes out at fifth grade in 2011. After that, students will head into regular district schools.

“We have a vested interest in the success of the Chester-Upland School District,” she said. “That’s why it’s not a good thing for us to be considered separate. We have to come together.”

So how to save the failing government schools? Teach courses in government beuracracy, of course!

Thornton also wants to divide the district’s high school into three, use the city’s soccer stadium and Harrah’s Chester Casino & Racetrack as learning laboratories and start a class on Chester’s history.

US Government Dancing Around Oil Price’s Real Problem

On one hand, the president says that we just need to go out and find cheaper oil. On the other, the free market needs to be inhibited. Meanwhile, no one is addressing the elephant in the room.

Dual Lew Rockwells

I was in a restaurant recently and saw evidence that the Lew Rockwell look is quickly coming into vogue. However, the notion that libertarianism doesn’t attract chicks as well as, say, a Harley is still intact.