Rare Steak Considered Good for Your Heart
# Greg Szymanski at The Arctic Beacon - Media Big Shots at NBC and New York Times 'Hush Hush And Evasive' About Why WTC Janitor Story Never Appeared, A Story That Blows The Official 9/11Account Sky High - William Rodriguez and 14 others heard and felt an explosion under the north tower of the World Trade Center before the airplane hit. Their stories have been suppressed, by the mainstream press and by the 9/11 Commission. More stories on The Arctic Beacon's articles page. Search for "janitor".
# L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - Jackassic Park - Neil chimes in on the scheme to populate rural America with dangerous beasts. [tle]
"Gaining public acceptance is going to be a huge issue," Josh Donlan, a Cornell grad student and one of the plan's co-authors is quoted by Associated Press as conceding. "...when you talk about reintroducing predators... people are going to have to take precautions."
Like what, Josh, whipping out the trusty .416 Rigby and defending themselves? Not if we judge from history. How many thousands of Brits found themselves transported to Australia, or even hanged, for feeding their families by killing the King's deer? What do you think they'll do to us for protecting our families by shooting Ted Turner's pet rhinocerous?
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There are a lot of things that need to be done about this. The first is what I like to refer to as "Land Reform". It was a very bad (and unconstitutional) idea to establish government-owned parks in the first place. These lands must now be returned to the people they were stolen from, either the original owners, if possible, or to individual taxpayers. Every single square inch of the country must become private property.
The United Nations must be kicked out of America and declared outlaw. It should be clear by now that this fascist organization is a far greater threat than Al Qaeda ever dreamed of being. I still believe a proper Libertarian Party presidential candidate could raise a lot of money by raffling off the chance--provided he's elected, of course--to put the first RPG round through their building in New York.
# Jim Davidson at The Libertarian Enterprise - What to Do Tomorrow? - Mr. Davidson recommends ending support of the gummint by pursuing financial freedom instead of killing its goons.[tle]
Let me disabuse you of some illusions which ought to have been shattered a long time ago, and from which you must turn if you are ever to take useful action. The government cannot be reformed because it is not broken. You cannot hold the government to its constitutional limits, because it benefits far too many people to have it be capable of the things it now does routinely. Since the beast operates as a well-oiled machine for creating barriers to entry in established industries, bringing wealth and power to sundry bureau-rats, politicians, and corrupt contractors, and stifling all sorts of initiatives that would likely upset the best campaign contributors, the most your efforts at reform will ever gain you from the average person is a sad smile, a shake of the head, and the sort of amusement reserved for the truly quixotic. Most of the people you meet do not care if they are left alone, do not find your preference for liberty to be inspiring, and do not have any qualms about the beast provided they get ahead, have an embraceable illusion of prosperity, and don't suffer constantly as a result. You cannot fix something that isn't broken. The government was designed so it could aggregate and centralize power, it has succeeded in doing so (at an enormous cost of lives and treasure, to be sure), and it shall go right along doing so as long as anyone is able to make a living at it. (Freedom has become a rare preference indeed as can be seen by the fact that not half a million page views have hit the home page of TLE since 1996.)
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So, what can you do? Let's look at some foolhardy things. It may be mightily tempting to put on a kevlar vest and helm, load up a semi-auto rifle, pack water and spare magazines onto your web gear, (you won't need rations), and go down to the nearest airport, walk toward the TSA security checkpoint, and start wasting bad guys. There's no doubt that you'd be killed long before you could get out of there. Yes, you'd probably take an honor guard with you to perdition, but doing so won't decrease the number of fascists on patrol. Rather, doing so would increase that number, hugely. And, laws would be proposed to license kevlar, ban "assault" rifles, etc. Polarizing the situation and making it harder for people, therefore inspiring them to demand changes was the argument for such tactics in the 1960s, but that whole line of thinking starts from the faulty assumption that people want things to be different.
# L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - Let Him Who Desires Peace... - A good simple plan to end gummint wars. End conscription. End taxation. Disarm the government, arm the people. [tle]
Conscription must be recognized for what it is--slavery--and eliminated forever. I failed to convince that campus group on this point because each of them had his own idea how armies of slaves might be employed, domestically and otherwise, to advance his actual agenda which turned out not to be peace, at all.
There were two points I didn't get to then. Following the end of conscription, any politician or bureaucrat who tries resurrecting it, no matter what "crisis" or "emergency" he cites to justify it, should be hanged. Also, conscription initiated or maintained by any country in the world should be considered an act of war against all others.
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Certainly no federal employee should be allowed to go armed in the line of duty. If they have a legitimate complaint against a person, they should have to apply to the local sheriff for aid in contacting that person in a civil manner, during business hours. This would remove the vicarious excitement from police "reality" shows--wearing masks, wielding machineguns, smashing doors in the middle of the night, screaming obscenties, terrorizing women and children--I would regard that as a worthwhile secondary benefit.
# Ron Paul at LewRockwell.com - Borrowing, Spending, Counterfeiting - Dr. No reminds us of the fraud of the Federal Reserve and takes a jab at the Supreme Court. [lew]
The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch -- Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference -- that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.
# Chris Masterjohn at LewRockwell.com - A Rare Steak a Day Keeps the Cardiologist Away - uncooked, red meat, contains coenzyme Q10, "a powerful protector of the heart and blood vessels." The more you cook it, the more of this beneficial ingredient you destroy. So enjoy your very rare repast without guilt. [lew]
# Richard D. Fuerle at Anarchism.net - On the Steppes of Central Asia - a novel about an imagined anarchist country. Have only read the first few chapters so far. Preachy, but interesting. [root]
# Simon Pole - Can Emery be Executed? - Mr. Pole provides a NORML summary of federal statutes that could be used to sentence Marc Emery to death for selling cannabis seeds. I couldn't find this in the U.S. Code. The closest thing to it that I did find was 21 USC 848, which mandates life imprisonment:
Any person who engages in a continuing criminal enterprise shall be imprisoned for life and fined in accordance with subsection (a) of this section, if--I remember reading a few years back, about proposed death penalties for "drug kingpins". H.R. 696, the "Drug Kingpin Death Penalty Act", proposed in 1993 during Newt Gingrich'es tenure (by "my" representative at the time, Gerald B. H. Solomon, hopefully roasting in hell), provided for a mandatory death penalty for the same conditions that mandate life imprisonment above, but it was not passed into law. The death penalty is allowed by this section only in cases of intentional killing, committed or delegated, and with a whole bunch of conditions.
(1) such person is the principal administrator, organizer, or leader of the enterprise or is one of several such principal administrators, organizers, or leaders; and
(2)(A) the violation referred to in subsection (c)(1) of this section involved at least 300 times the quantity of a substance described in subsection 841(b)(1)(B) of this title, or
(B) the enterprise, or any other enterprise in which the defendant was the principal or one of several principal administrators, organizers, or leaders, received $10 million dollars in gross receipts during any twelve-month period of its existence for the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a substance described in section 841 (b)(1)(B) of this title.
