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Index for this page...(Be aware some links below may have expired.)
All The Following Items Were Posted On June 1, 2004 Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend by the name of Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such value lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm and that life isn't always fair. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge). His health began to rapidly deteriorate when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Finally, Common sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, she spilled it in her lap as she drove off, and was awarded a huge settlement! Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by two stepbrothers - My Rights and Ima Whiner. Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still know him pass this on, if not, join the majority and do nothing. New Study: Decriminalizing Pot Doesn't Increase Drug Use There is no link between the decriminalization of marijuana and increased use of marijuana or other drugs. Indeed, if anything, decriminalization of marijuana may lead to less use of other, stronger drugs. That's the conclusion of a new study in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The study, "The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and in San Francisco," compares drug use rates between users in San Francisco, where marijuana is illegal, and Amsterdam, where marijuana can be purchased at licensed "coffee shops. " The study "found consistent similarities in patterns of career use across different policy contexts," including mean age of onset, frequency of use, quantity of use, intensity of intoxication, and duration of career use. "If drug policies are a potent influence on user behavior, there should not be such strong similarities across such different drug control regimes," the study concluded. "Our findings do not support claims that criminalization reduces cannabis use [or] that decriminalization increases cannabis use. Moreover, Dutch decriminalization does not appear to be associated with greater use of other illicit drugs relative to drug use in San Francisco, nor does criminalization in San Francisco appear to be associated with less use of other illicit drugs relative to their use in Amsterdam. Indeed, to judge from the lifetime prevalence of other illicit drug use, the reverse may be the case." Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of NORML (National Organization for the Legalization of Marijuana), praised the study's findings, noting that they mimic similar results commissioned by the U.S. government which have found no greater use of marijuana in U.S. states that have decriminalized its use compared to those that have not. "More than 30 percent of the U.S. population lives under some form of marijuana decriminalization, and according to government and academic studies, these laws have not contributed to an increase in marijuana consumption nor negatively impacted adolescent attitudes toward drug use," St. Pierre said. "Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually and results in the arrest of approximately 700,000 individuals per year. Yet, study after study shows that this enforcement has little-to-no influence on individuals' behavior. Rather, it is a tremendous waste of national and state criminal justice resources that should be focused on combating serious and violent crime. It invites government unnecessarily into areas of our private lives, and needlessly damages the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens." Sources: NORML: http://www.norml.org: Study "The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy": http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/5/836; Santa Cruz Sentinel story: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/May/04/local/stories/01local.htm (Thanks to James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government and The Liberator Online for the above information. If you would like a free subscription to the Liberator Online, visit: http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html.) Michael Moore has become a GM-sized conspiracy theory factory. The fake-umentary maker recently suggested that Democrat donor Michael Eisner was conspiring with the Bush brothers to censor his latest film, "Fahrenheit 9/11." In the movie, which recently took the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Moore presents a conspiracy theory that involves Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, the Saudis and the Bush administration. He bases the crackpot thesis on the news reports that, in the days after 9/11, about 140 Saudis were airlifted back home, two dozen of whom were members of the bin Laden family. Lost in Moore's mental machinations were the facts that Osama was estranged from his elephant-sized family and had had his Saudi citizenship revoked two decades ago. If he's looking for real conspiracy fodder, Moore might try checking out some of the new folks that Miramax Films has hired to promote his flick. Howard Wolfson is the ex-campaign press secretary for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Michael Feldman is an adviser from Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane are former Clinton White House advisers. And then there's the Miramax spokesman who's been talking to the press about the story. He's Matthew Hiltzik, and he worked on Hillary's U.S. Senate campaign. The Left Coast Report whispers, Vast left-wing conspiracy, anyone? (Thanks to The Left Coast Report by James L. Hirsen and the staff of NewsMax for the above information. If you would like a free subscription, please visit http://NewsMax.com/email.shtml.) Americans Are Snared in the MATRIX MATRIX, a creepy federally-funded "data-mining" program operated by a private company, sent federal law enforcement authorities a list of 120,000 names of individuals who the program had scored as having a high potential "terrorism quotient." And Seisint, the private company that operates MATRIX under federal supervision, claims that scores of arrests have come from that list. These charges were made by the ACLU at a May 20 news conference in Miami. The ACLU based the charges on documents obtained from public records requests filed in several states and with the Justice Department. MATRIX stands for "Multistate Anti-Terrorist Information Exchange." MATRIX enables law enforcement agencies to instantly share information and rapidly sort through billions of computerized records to search for "anomalies" that may be indicative of terrorist or other criminal activity. MATRIX snoops through a vast and disturbing collection of government and private records, including firearms and hunting licenses, motor vehicle and driver record information, criminal history records, bankruptcy filings, professional licenses, voter registration information, credit histories and -- particularly alarming -- raw (and often inaccurate) data from police investigators. Billions of records on millions of Americans are being stored and controlled by a private company, Seisint, Inc. The ACLU points out that these records contain errors that could lead to false accusations, creating nightmares for untold numbers of innocent Americans. MATRIX has been controversial since it was launched in 2002. At that time 13 states that included more than half of the U.S. population participated. Since then, all but five have dropped out, citing privacy concerns as well as costs. The five states remaining -- Florida, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Michigan and Ohio -- contain about 19 percent of the U.S. population. The ACLU also announced they have uncovered evidence that MATRIX may actually be controlled by the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS gave MATRIX at least $8 million last year, and a July 2003 document discovered and released by the ACLU indicates that this funding gave DHS "managerial oversight and control" of MATRIX. Critics from across the political spectrum have noted that MATRIX bears disturbing resemblances to the Pentagon's notorious Total Information Awareness (TIA) program. TIA's mission, as we've described it in past issues, was to build a worldwide data-mining program that would pore through computer records on individuals and build profiles. TIA was officially dropped last year when Congress, responding to public outcry, halted funding of it. However, reports indicate that many TIA programs may be continuing in other guises. "Congress shut down TIA, and it should shut down the Matrix as well,"said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program. Source: ACLU media release: http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=15834&c=130 (Thanks to James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government and The Liberator Online for the above information. If you would like a free subscription to the Liberator Online, visit: http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html.) We received this little tidbit from one of our recent subscribers, and I thought it was both humorous and clever: A girl was supposed to write a short story in as few words as possible for her college class and the instructions were that it had to discuss Religion, Sexuality and Mystery. She was the only one who received an A+. This is what she wrote: "In Germany they [the Nazis] came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up." -- Pastor Martin Niemoeller, 1946.
Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites What is the Proper Way to Run a School?, by Robert Murphy: An article in the April 5 issue of Time reminds us how deeply ingrained collectivist habits of thought are in this country. The piece deals with the Chicago school board's decision to stop holding back (or "flunking" as it used to be called) so many students. Links to Terrorism - Build a Web site, go to jail, by Jacob Sullum: During their opening statement in Sami Al-Hussayen's trial at the federal courthouse in Boise, Idaho, prosecutors put a new spin on the slippery concept of "links to terrorism." A Prison State, If Not a Police State, by Paul Craig Roberts: The US has a unique distinction: It is the world's greatest prison state. The US, "the land of the free," has the biggest prison population in the world and the highest rate of prisoners per capita of all countries -- including countries that President Bush believes need liberating by US armed forces. "Repositioning" Reality: The World of Non-A in Fallujah, by Robert W. Tracinski: Fallujah standoff is being run by the politicians, and so we have entered a world where the Law of Identify has been repealed--where A is non-A and everything both is and isn't at the same time. The State vs. Frank Quattrone, by Christopher Westley: Frank Quattrone sent a 22-word e-mail to his employees reminding them of an existing policy. Now he is going to jail for it. The Tragedy of Iraq, by Joseph Sobran: Only a year after defeating Absolute Evil in Iraq, the Bush politburo has decided that some former members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party may be useful in controlling the population the United States has liberated from Saddam's tyranny. Wars on drugs, guns, fathers going well, by Vin Suprynowicz: We all know that in today's America, police can break into your house in the middle of the night and terrify your half-clad family at gunpoint if they have "reasonable grounds." But did you know "reasonable grounds" now include having too high an electric bill or putting your garbage out too late? Nick Berg's executioners all too clearly enjoyed beheading him, by Theodore Dalrymple: One thing that unites the men who beheaded the American Nick Berg in Iraq, the soldiers who abused Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, the Palestinians who have held on to Israeli body parts in Gaza City and the murderers of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan is that they all enjoyed what they did, and enjoyed it immensely. The curious case of Nick Berg, by Carol Devine-Molin: The entire nation continues to mourn the horrific murder of Nick Berg at the hands of al-Qaida terrorists who were ostensibly avenging abuses at Abu Ghraib. Nothing justifies what they did to Nick Berg -- nothing. However, even a cursory glance at emerging information tells us that there is much more to this story. HELP JUSTIN NOW - It's time for us in the media to start listening to the public, by Matt Taibbi: I read an hilarious letter to USA Today last week. It went like this: Where is the good news? I can no longer take the way the media are reporting the situation in Iraq... A little reality is a good thing, by Paul M. Weyrich: In San Diego, a couple of teachers have been suspended for showing the pictures of American Nick Berg being killed by his Muslim captors in Iraq. Oh, the outrage that our delicate high schoolers would be subjected to reality. Was There a Trojan War?, by Manfred Korfmann: Despite assumptions to the contrary, archaeological work of the new Troy project has not been performed for the purpose of understanding Homer's Iliad or the Trojan War. Booze Boosts Heart-healthy Hormone - Finding shows how moderate drinking can protect against clogged arteries, by Keri Schram: Moderate drinking has long been known to have heart health benefits, and now scientists have found a key reason why. Expert warns fingerprinting system is 'riddled with flaws', by Liam McDougall: A LEADING US forensic expert has called for a radical review of fingerprint testing to determine the extent of flawed identification. "Disappearing" Urban Crime, by Nicholas Stix: Some reporters -- most notably Leonard Levitt of Newsday -- have intermittently written on crimes that have been "disappeared" in New York by creative police reporting. But to my knowledge, I am the only journalist actually to have been at the scene of one. Who killed Nick Berg?, by Richard Neville: Conspiracy theories about how the kidnapped American died in Iraq are flying around the world. Richard Neville explores the explanations. The Pentagon's Plunge into Barbarism, by Jacob G. Hornberger: A British citizen, Jamal Harith, who was held in Cuba for two years without trial by Pentagon officials, is alleging that U.S. troops committed the same kinds of abuse in Cuba that they committed in Iraq...
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