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Lois Smith Brady at the New York Times -
Heidi Smith and Daniel Aronson 
: Dan and Heidi were recently
married. I met Dan at Thinking Machines, where I worked from
1994-1996. He worked with Brewster Kahle on WAIS, and stayed with AOL
for a while after they bought WAIS. Dan is now the CTO of
campsix, a technology incubator in San Francisco. Congrats, Dan!
Many blessings to you and Heidi.
Jerry Pournelle - Saturday, November 18, 2000: Jerry has a short comment on the election, hoping that Amerika (my spelling, not his) will not stray from republic to empire. I hope so, too.
That is why we must choose: Empire or Republic. We still have a choice. We may not have one forever.
Kate Adams at BirdBrain's Nest - Sunday, November 19: Follow the link in the quote for a very good laugh.
Interregnum. A word that can be sung to the tune of "Hallelujah!"
bob lonsberry - A Legal Brief, for the Florida High Court: Bob implores the Florida high court to "do nothing", by which he means that they should allow Florida's secretary of state to do her job and certify the election. As usual, he says it well.
BBC News - Colombia dollar factory cracked: The Colombian police and the U.S. Secret Service have cracked a huge Colombian counterfeiting operation, able to crank out $3 million a week. The picture with the article shows twenties with the new design. [grabbe]
David Cay Johnston at the New York Times -
Defying the I.R.S., Anti-Tax Businesses Refuse to Withhold : once a
business withholds tax money, it's very difficult to convince the IRS
or the courts to give it back. But when the business refuses to
withhold, or asks for previous withholdings back, the IRS appears to
go along. Apparently, income from U.S. companies isn't really taxable,
according to the tax laws. My guess is that the IRS doesn't want this
to be tested in court. This article is
mirrored at FreeRepublic. [grabbe]
Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk - Our Foolish War in the Middle East: Dr. Paul says that the U.S. should stop trying to be the world's policeman. A good libertarian opinion with which I agree. [lew]
To put this in a proper perspective, consider how Americans, especially Texans, would feel if the Gulf of Mexico were patrolled by warships of a foreign power. What if that same power proceeded to build air bases in Texas and Florida with our government's complicity to protect "their" oil? Imagine the rightful anger this would spark among most Americans! This anger would be directed at both the foreign occupiers of our territorial waters, and our own government for permitting it. Yet this is exactly what has been happening in the Persian Gulf region. For religious, historic, and sovereignty reasons, the Muslim people harbor great resentment toward us.
Sam Kiley of the London Times - Jew risks bullets to help Palestinians: Neta Golan has been using her body as a shield to prevent Jewish settlers from shooting Palestinian farmers as they harvest olives. So far it's working. [lew]
Michelle Delio at Wired - Net Smoke Sellers Can Exhale: New York state recently made a large hike in its cigarette taxes. To prevent the obvious work-around, they made it illegal to buy cigarettes via mail-order. Loretta A. Preska, a federal district court judge in Manhattan has issued a temporary restraining order against the law saying that it is likely unconstitutional. I think Judge Preska is probably right. Regulation of insterstate commerce is one of the powers given to the feds by the constitution. The commerce clause has been severely abused, but this is a clear case of its intent, to prevent states from imposing duty on commerce from other states. [market]
Mike Krause at the Colorado Freedom Report - Drug War Casualties: Mr. Krause reminds us of some of the costs, in murders of innocent people, of the war on freedom, er... some drugs. [market]
