The International Libertarian

Please Wish Lauren Canario Merry Christmas In Prison

2006-12-11T22:23:00.000-05:00

Just got this from Kat Kanning. Frankly I'm disgusted that the media in this country, given how much attention they give to political prisoners in other countries, refuses to cover this story. 80 Days in prison without a trial for trespassing? Thats positively tyrannical. Please read on, and do what you can to wish Lauren a merry christmas. She hasn't seen her kids in 80 days, and won't be allowed to by the state of Connecticut:

Lauren Canario's now been imprisoned 80 days without a
trial for her fight against eminent domain.

She's been nominated for Freedom Fighter of the Year
on Strike the Root. If you have a moment, please
vote:

http://www.strike-the-root.com/

Also, she'll be spending her birthday (Dec. 23rd) and
Christmas imprisoned. It takes over a week, I
believe, to get anything to her her there. If you
could spare a moment, please send her a card or
letter. I don't believe she can receive any packages.

Lauren Canario #334457
c/o York Correctional Institution
201 West Main Street Niantic, CT 06357

Thank you!
Kat

Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who
can labor in freedom. – Albert Einstein

SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE MEMBER DENOUNCES "NO-SWIPE" CREDIT CARDS

2006-12-06T20:10:00.000-05:00

"It's About Time," says CASPIAN

A member of the Senate Banking Committee denounced RFID "no-swipe" credit cards at a press conference Sunday. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said contracts for the cards should have warning boxes disclosing "the known weaknesses of the technology." He cautioned cardholders about their vulnerability to identity thieves, commenting you "may as well put your credit card information on a big sign on your back."

"No-swipe" or "contactless" credit cards contain RFID microchips that communicate account information silently and invisibly by radio waves. These microchips have earned the nickname "spychips" because the information they contain can be read without an individual's knowledge or consent.

While Congress is just waking up to the dangers of RFID technology, privacy and civil liberties organizations like CASPIAN have been sounding the alarm for years.

"It's about time for Capitol Hill to recognize the dangers of RFID," said Dr. Katherine Albrecht, Founder and Director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering). "Perhaps now members of Congress will listen to their concerned constituents and work to pass long overdue bipartisan RFID labeling legislation not only for credit cards, but other RFID-tagged consumer items as well."

CASPIAN has had model RFID labeling legislation titled "The RFID Right to Know Act" available to federal lawmakers since 2003. (See http://www.spychips.com/right-to-know-bill.html.) The legislation was authored by by Zoe Davidson of the Boston University Legislative Clinic.

While CASPIAN supports free-market solutions to the problems of privacy invading technologies like RFID, the group believes consumer notice is needed so the free market can work. "We believe consumers have a right to know when the things they wear, carry, and interact with contain tracking devices--especially credit cards that can leak sensitive personal information," said Liz McIntyre, CASPIAN's communications director.

McIntyre, a former federal bank examiner, points out that vulnerable "swipeless" technology not only poses a threat to customers, but to the financial institutions that have issued millions of contactless cards, as well. "What excuse will organizations like JP Morgan Chase make if consumers are harmed financially because they have their personal information siphoned by identity thieves? These issuers stand to lose millions of dollars."

CASPIAN demanded a recall of RFID credit cards last month after the New York Times reported that a team of security researchers found that virtually every one of the "no-swipe" credit cards it tested was vulnerable to unauthorized charges and put consumers at risk for identity theft.

Researchers demonstrated how thieves could secretly skim information from the cards, right through purses, backpacks and wallets. The data included the cardholder's name, credit card number, expiration date and other information that could be used to make unauthorized purchases.

Albrecht and McIntyre are offering to testify before Congress about their extensive research into the dangers posed by RFID, and to send a copy of their book "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Purchase and Watch Your Every Move" (Penguin/Plume Oct. 2006) to interested federal legislators.

=========================================
TO LEARN MORE

"NY Sen. Schumer warns of no-swipe cards"
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8LPMID00.htm

New York Times article about "no-swipe" credit card vulnerabilities:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/business/23card.html

Security researcher's detailed report on "no-swipe" cards:
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/20061023_CARD/fc2007-submission.pdf

Greetings from The Land of Snow Crash

2006-11-17T11:05:00.000-05:00

Hello folks, we've been off the blog for a few weeks now, though we've been working hard. As you may have read, I've gotten into the virtual world of Second Life, which offers some fantastic opportunities, not only for experiments in liberty, but economic opportunities as well.

Following our interview with Thor Columbia of Meta Bank, I became business partners in SL with a new libertarian from Michigan, Tavi Tuck, who has also joined the Free State Project and become one of its First 1000 (Thor Columbia has also become one of the First 1000 since the election, he's now convinced even a thousand activists can take over a state like NH. Gee, now I just need one more person to refer me when they join and I win a Golden Porcupine Award!). Tavi and I formed the SL firm of Brautigan & Tuck, and we bought half a sim of land, which we've been very hard at work developing over the past month.

It is now nearing completion. The development, in Magritte region, is mostly themed on sites and enterprises from the novel Snow Crash. The primary location is of course The Black Sun, the famous club of characters Hiro Protagonist and Da5id Meier. Also included is Ng Security Systems, Cosa Nostra Pizza, Snooze n Cruise, and even the Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates. A couple who bought land from us to build a castle have a historic marker denoting it as "Da5id Meier's House".

We also have some corporate deals in the offing. One is with Stone Brewery of San Diego, a microbrewery known for its "Arrogant Bastard Ale", Ruination IPA, and other similarly named offerings. We've built a brewery in SL that sells kegs to other bars, kegs which sell beer bottles that are animated and have lives of 45 minutes, which cost 1 linden each. This is a first in SL, and spells the beginning of a true consumer economy there. We plan on using this temporary technology for other ventures, like the pizzaria.

We are now planning to purchase two whole sims in late December, to develop more themes from the novel like The Raft, including a working aircraft carrier, as well as themes from The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon. As an editor of Stephenson's now defunct Quicksilver Metaweb wiki, I've obtained the archives of that wiki and plan on making it available within and without SL to help preserve that knowledge base, a sort of "Stephensonian Institution".

All of this activity has been accomplished free of both taxation, and government regulation. We've built a well planned community, that is also attractive and fun to be in, policed by a private protection agency as described by David Friedman's "The Machinery of Freedom", that is neither chaotic or lawless. So far, this experiment has disproven the claims of critics of anarcho-capitalism.

We have not been free of difficulties, though. Our simulation has been attacked several times, by both individual jerks out to cause trouble in person, wearing "sock puppet" avatars that were fresh-baked, as well as a SL-wide hacker attack that was, according to LL and our estate company management, focused on our sim. We have survived all challenges, and are dealing with such attacks through Ng Security, and the help of others in SL.

We have also gotten publicity, in a few individuals blogs, but also recently in SLNN.com, one of the main SL related media outlets, where we were featured in a large series on the impact of Snow Crash upon SL.

Our promotion of Meta Bank has also had benefits. They first set up an ATM within our sim, though there were often problems with the SL servers crashing them from cache errors (possibly malicious activity). The Bank just got their own banking server independent of the SL system, and crashes have stopped. They also just opened their second branch in our sim, next to the pizzaria. Meta Bank is also going to be changing its name, as its management found out that there is a real life Meta Bank in South Dakota, which has a poor reputation. We'll report on that name change as it happens.

PRA Release: Seventy-Five Organizations and Policy Leaders Call for Eminent Domain Reform in Senate

2006-10-18T21:33:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON — Today, a letter signed by seventy-five organizations and policy leaders from across the country was sent to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) requesting that the Senate advance legislation upon return in November to limit the ability of states and localities to abuse eminent domain. The letter can be viewed here.

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) introduced S. 3873, the “Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2006” as the Senate means to address the Kelo v. City of New London, CT court case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2005. As the companion legislation to the bipartisan H.R. 4128 passed in the House last November, S. 3873 similarly seeks to curb eminent domain abuse by withholding federal economic development funds from states and localities that engage in these abusive practices. Since passage, H.R. 4128 has mired in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA).

The American public continues to fervently oppose this type of government takings. In the last year, over thirty state legislatures heeded the call and enacted legislation aimed at curbing the abuse of eminent domain for private use. Ballot measures will be voted on by residents in more than ten states on Election Day, with Louisiana voters already passing a measure last month. And one national survey after another demonstrates a minimum of eighty-five percent of public support in reforming eminent domain abuse to protect homes, businesses and churches from government’s grasp.

“With politicians constantly entranced by polling data and grassroots activism, it remains shocking that the Senate has remained relatively silent on the issue,” said Scott A. LaGanga, executive director of PRA. “With over a year of waiting, property owners are frustrated with the lack of initiative by our Senators in Congress to protect Americans from government’s ability to snap up a family’s home or church today to make a mansion tomorrow. Action to correct this injustice must be taken during the lame duck session.”

As stated in the letter, “Committed to correcting the United States Supreme Court’s misjudgment in the Kelo v. City of New London, everyday citizens have voiced their support for Congressional action to limit private lands from being seized for private economic development by the government.”

The following organizations signed the letter to Majority Leader Frist (letter can be viewed at Property Rights Alliance website): 60+ Association, Alabama Farmers Federation, Alliance for Worker Freedom, American Association of Small Property Owners, American Conservative Union, American Family Business Institute, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Land Rights Association, American Policy Center, Americans for Limited Government, Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Prosperity-New Jersey, Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for the Preservation of Liberty, American Shareholders Association, Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, California Alliance to Protect Private Property Rights, Castle Coalition, Center for Individual Freedom, Citizens for Limited Taxation, Citizens for Property Rights-Vermont, Coalition for Property Rights-Florida, Commonwealth Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Eagle Forum, Ethan Allen Institute, FreedomWorks, Frontiers of Freedom, GOP Blogger.com, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Illinois Policy Institute, Independence Institute, Iowa Wednesday Group, James Madison Institute, League of Private Property Voters, Liberty Coalition, Maryland Taxpayers Alliance, Media Freedom Project, Mississippi Center for Public Policy, Missouri Citizens for Property Rights, Missouri First, Montana Policy Institute, National Grange, National Taxpayers Union, Nevada Policy Research Institute, North Carolina Property Rights Coalition, Ohio Taxpayers Association and OTA Foundation, Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, Pacific Research Institute, Paragon Foundation, Inc., Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, Pennsylvania Landowners’ Association, Pius Pagan Publishing, Property Rights Alliance, Property Rights Alliance: Hawaii, PROTEX, Reason Foundation, Republican Liberty Caucus, Rightmarch, Rio Grande Foundation, Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, Small Business Entrepreneurship Council, Small Business Hawaii (SBH), South Carolina Landowners Association, South Carolina Policy Council, Tennessee Center for Policy Research, The Rutherford Institute, The Taxpayers League of Minnesota, Virginia Institute for Public Policy. (In addition, four other policy analysts signed this letter).

Demonstrate Your Support For The Liberty Dollar

2006-10-18T20:32:00.000-04:00

Received the following release from NORFED this evening. NORFED is now going on the lobbying offensive in Washington, and is looking for support from the rising groundswell of grassroots people who have expressed their approval of NORFEDs defense against the legally unsupportable attacks by the US Mint on the Liberty Dollar.

It has become clear that the core of the Mint's claims in its attacks is that the Liberty Dollar is claimed to be being passed as "US current money", which it is not and never has been. It would be an insult to the Liberty Dollar to compare it with the debased debauchery that is what passes for "money" by the fiat dictates of a government that has become unhinged from its Constitutional moorings and, as we have seen with this weeks suspension of the sacred right of habeus corpus, is drifting rapidly into the shoals of tyranny and the rocks of fascism.

Time To Step Up And Demonstrate Real Support For Real Money – The Liberty Dollar

Breaking News…We are hearing from our efforts to leverage Congressional Inquiry that the US Mint has received much more response from the public than anticipated following their web posted warning on September 14, 2006 . It’s time to really let them know how much you value the Liberty Dollar by calling or faxing the US Mint! To make a call use (202) 354-7227, for sending a fax use (202) 756-6200. After reading this special News Alert please call or fax the US Mint and in a very positive way ask if the statements listed below are NOT true. Do not be nasty or attacking; this gets us nowhere. Always be respectful. Also, please distribute this widely to everyone on your mailing list.

On With Other News…

Over the last six weeks we have heard a lot of support for the mission, goals and cause of the Liberty Dollar and precious metal backed private currency…Reporters, Editors, Talk Show Hosts, Calls and e-mails from listeners and readers who had never before heard of the Liberty Dollar are committing to “fight the good fight” for the right to choose their method of payment for goods and services. Liberty Dollar Merchants, Associates and Regional Currency Offices, taken aback from a malicious media assault, have been gnawing on what it all means and how to move forward.

It’s time to regroup, shake off the debris of fear and exchange your Federal Reserve Notes for the Liberty Dollar. This is the support we need now. Circulating (as in bartering), Accumulating or Collecting: The three most effective ways to do good, have fun and protect your purchasing power.

If any of the following statements were illegal or a federal crime, would there not have already been arrests? Liberty Dollars are exchanged, given out, presented and accepted hundreds of times a day throughout the country…lots of opportunities to make an example out of someone.

But once you wade through the citations and legalese of the US Mint’s warning(s), it becomes very clear: THE LIBERTY DOLLAR CANNOT BE PASSED AS “CURRENT MONEY” OR GOVERNMENT MONEY. NO ONE SHOULD ACCEPT THE LIBERTY DOLLAR THINKING IT IS GOVERNMENT MONEY. This, of course, would contradict the goal of the Liberty Dollar!

Merchants CANNOT be prosecuted for accepting the Liberty Dollar KNOWING that it is private currency!

Merchants CANNOT be prosecuted for giving out the Liberty Dollar in change if the customer KNOWS it is private currency!

Users CANNOT be prosecuted for presenting the Liberty Dollar to a Merchant when the Merchant KNOWS it is private currency!

Regional Currency Offices, or anyone else, CANNOT be prosecuted for exchanging Liberty Dollars for Federal Reserve Notes when the customer KNOWS it is private currency!

NO ONE CAN BE PROSECUTED FOR HAVING POSSESSION OF THE LIBERTY DOLLAR!

If any of these statements were false, then having or using any of the hundreds of local or community currencies such as the Ithaca Hour, Disney Dollar, Berkshares, Barter Bucks, etc., would be a crime.

On September 14, just five weeks ago, our website, Liberty Dollar.org, received ten times its normal traffic. Online orders surged for the introductory special, supporter kits and educational materials as well as lots of small orders from new individuals wanting to know just who this Liberty Dollar outfit is.

The wave of curiosity has died down and so has the normal volume that the Liberty Dollar has experienced over the last 12-18 months. I believe the current lull is retrenchment from those stinging from the national media assault as well as caution on the part of the newly introduced that are concerned over legal repercussions. Consider the above statements regarding the legality of the Liberty Dollar. These are the conclusions of NORFED and its Counsel.

Exchange your Federal Reserve Notes for Gold and Silver Libertys and Certificates now. Circulate (barter), Accumulate and Collect…It’s the right thing to do.

Is the US Dollar tanking? Will there be a significant economic downturn? Is a War right around the corner? Is Peak Oil fact or fiction? Will extreme weather knock out your power and communications? What do you want to be holding when significant change occurs? A Federal Reserve Note Or Gold And Silver Private Currency From The Liberty Dollar?

Please visit the Liberty Dollar at: www.LibertyDollar.org or call our National Fulfillment Office at 888.421.6181 or 800.NEW.DOLLAR to reach your local Regional Currency Office.

Russo Speaks: Freedom 2 Fascism Pirated, Releasing Directors Cut & PP View Versions

2006-10-16T19:53:00.000-04:00

From: AARON RUSSO [mailto:aaronrusso@msn.com]
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 6:21 PM
To: XXX@XXX.com
Subject: please spread thru internet

Please advise everybody that the copy [of AMERICA: FROM FREEDOM TO FASCISM] on poodlecrap (see below) is an incomplete, pirated version that does not contain all the necessary information. It is also of poor quality and certainly not approved by me.

This week i will be posting the final directors cut of the film on my Website www.freedomtofascism.com .

It will be offered on the highest quality resolution on the Internet on a
pay per view format for $5. It will also be offered for sale on DVD for $19.95.

Lastly it will be posted on Google for free on a lower quality resolution as
compared to the pay per view version on my Website.

Please advise everybody to see the complete directors cut of the film so the
entire truth of what is happening to our country will be understood.

Thank you,
"one people
one movement
freedom for all"

Aaron Russo
AARON

End The Experiment With Government

2006-10-14T09:58:00.000-04:00

Human beings have been experimenting with various forms of social control since pre-history. Extrapolating the basic family unit to tribal, community, province, national, and now global levels to varying degrees of success or failure over the centuries, the social side of the human animal has, like his drive to bring the forces of nature under control, sought to bring his fellow human beings under control for his own security and/or personal gain.

But now these two drives are in conflict. Since the beginning of the atomic age, when man first harnessed the natural power of the atom, scientists and ethicists have warned the political class about the proliferation of nuclear power as a destabilizing influence on peaceful governments and international relations. Non-proliferation treaties were actively negotiated and enforced behind the scenes of the superpower conflict of the Cold War. The US enabled Britain, France, Israel, Japan, and others of its friendly postwar allies to develop peaceful nuclear power, and some even developed nuclear weapons. All have responsibly kept those weapons in their deepest reserves of self-defense only in the case of invasion or first strike upon their own nations.

The peaceful development of nuclear energy has had successes, with Japan and France gaining a majority of their energy from this source, and other countries, which enjoy domestic coal or other energy sources, less so.

The Soviets were similarly interested in keeping the nuclear genie in the bottle, but at the same time enabled China to join the nuclear club, along with a host of Warsaw Pact nations gaining peaceful nuclear energy. With the split up of the USSR, a number of former Soviet republics took control of nuclear weapons stored in their territory, though most surrendered them to Russia in the interests of stability and non-proliferation.

However China has pursued a much more fast and loose policy with regard to non-proliferation. It enabled Pakistan and North Korea to attain nuclear weapons capability, and as we've seen, those nations have proliferated the technology to such rogue nations as Iran, Libya, Iraq, among others. While Libya has stepped back from the brink in order to rejoin the community of nations and avoid an expected, if not planned, US attack, others have not been so responsible.

North Korea, given a pass by former Presidents Carter and Clinton in the 1990's to continue its nuclear programs for 8 years without international oversight, possibly the greatest treason against US national security since Benedict Arnolds betrayal, used that time to build its fuel processing capabilities and perfect its nuclear weapons manufacturing capacity.

As we saw this past week, North Korea has detonated at least one small nuclear weapon, though reports are that it had much lower than expected yield. NK has also tested a new ICBM capable of reaching most of the US several times, so far with failures, but building a reliable ICBM is technically easier and cheaper than building nuclear weapons, so it is only a matter of time before North Korea has the ability to strike the US. NK has resisted all international attempts to entice it to surrender its weapons program, demonstrating the utter failure of the UN system to perform its core function of ensuring world peace.

Iran has likewise resisted efforts by the west and the UN to bring its nuclear ambitions and programs back under international oversight and compliance. The mullahocracy is currently enriching weapons grade uranium, and is expanding its processing capabilities, apparently deep in bunker protected facilities, as if expecting international military action against it for its sins. The CIA expects Iran to test its first weapon within 5 years.

While President Ahmedinejad of Iran insists his nations ambitions are peaceful, he refuses to explain what peaceful purpose there is to weapons grade nuclear fuel, and refuses to apologize for or disavow his statments proposing to wipe the nation of Israel "off the map". Indeed, he contiues to make such statements, and is also contributing to the insurgencies in Iraq with training, shelter, and weapons, as well as arming Hezbollah with thousands of rockets.

As all this is happening, the international community, and most national governments, abjectly refuse to exercise their prerogatives of power to secure the world against these two rogue nations. Even in the US, Democrats would rather talk about surrendering Iraq to the Islamofascists than to talk about their own failings in North Korea, or propose solutions to Iran. At the same time, the Bush administration is castrated with a Secretary of State who would rather negotiate than do anything else (what else is new), and a Secretary of Defense who should be telling stories he can't remember to his great-grandkids beside the fireplace.

What is the point of having a slightly tyrannical government as the primary superpower if it isn't going to do its job of securing the nation? What is the point of a United Nations that is anything but united?

The foreign policy experts are calling for more international treaties to bring nonproliferation "under control". The problem is that we have plenty of nonproliferation treaties already that haven't done anything. Like the failure that is gun control, nuclear non-proliferation treaties are a joke: they only disarm the law abiding, criminal states, like street thugs, do not obey gun control or nuclear control laws or treaties if their intent is criminal activity. Victim disarmament is the proper label for nuclear nonproliferation treaties, just as they are the proper label for gun control laws.

It is thus rather evident that attempts to legislate against the development of technologies are inherently faulty and incapable of being enforced upon parties determined to flout them.

Instead, we should be looking at the root factors that enable the construction of nuclear weapons if we as a race want to put the nuclear weapons genie back in the bottle.

The primary root factor is government. To date, not a single private corporation has ever built a nuclear weapon, even though many parts for such are build by private firms under government contract, and personnel with the requisite skills tend to wind up in private industry. To date, not a single private individual has ever built a nuclear weapon. The degree of resources required to produce enough weapons grade nuclear material is rather staggering, even in this day and age. It remains in the billions of dollars.

Building nuclear weapons requires the assets of a national government, and the legal power to enforce secrecy upon its citizens. It requires access to natural resources capable of being exploited outside the channels of international commerce (for instance, Iraqi attempts to purchase Nigerian yellowcake signalled its ambitions in the 1990's, a fact that even Dan Wilson has admitted to be fact in recent months). It requires a defense infrastructure capable of defending a geographic territory against conventional attack by parties interested in stopping it from attaining its ambitions.

No corporation on earth has these capabilities, even though many corporations peacefully operate nuclear power plants. No corporation has exhibited a desire to attain these capabilities. No individual has a hope of attaining these capabilities, James Bondian fantasies notwithstanding.

The assertion by luddites like Bill Joy that future technologies, like nanotechnology, will enable cheap nuclear fuel processing, but this is based on a poor understanding of the science of nanotechnology. It is highly likely that nanotech devices capable of sorting isotopes atom by atom simply will not be robust enough to withstand the molecular damage done by nuclear radiation. As fuel concentrations rise, so does radiation levels, causing greater nanite die-off. There is a natural ceiling of purification possible with molecular nanotechnology. Modern isotope processing requires batches of liquid chemical compounds of heavy isotopes processed through centrifuges. This is a rough method that does not depend on placing radiation sensitive integrated chips and nano-mechanical assemblies in close proximity to nuclear decay reactions.

For this reason, the nanotech shibboleth is shredded as an excuse for technology controls.

No, the real "problem technology" in the nuclear proliferation problem is the technology of government. It is a blunt instrument that runs roughshod over individual liberties strictly for the purpose of amassing and weilding power and wealth outside the free market system. If we are to start banning technologies, lets start with this one.

IntLib Interviews President of Meta Bank in SL

2006-10-13T11:47:00.000-04:00

Today, we are sitting down in the virtual reality of Second Life with Thor Columbia, President of Meta Bank, which exists entirely within the SL universe. Meta Bank is an interesting example of the sorts of enterprises that are developing entirely "in world", and eventually will become concerns capable of being a "real life" living for those engaged in such ventures. From his perspective as President of Meta Bank, Thor has a unique perspective and view of the SL economy, how it began and is developing, and where it is headed. Given the many libertarian aspects of SL, we sought out this interview to gain a look into this perspective for the benefit of our readers.

For the reader, there will be references to various Second Life specific terms or acronym. SL refers to Second Life, RL refers to your “real life”. A Linden Dollar is the form of currency in Second Life, and currently exchanges for US Federal Reserve Notes at about 275 Lindens per $1 FRN.

[9:31] Thor Columbia: Welcome to Meta Bank
[9:31] IntLib: Thanks for having me
[9:32] Thor Columbia: I'm glad to hear some one is covering more about the banking system here in SL.
[9:32] IntLib: Its something of interest to people in the libertarian community.
[9:32] Thor Columbia: Speaking of which I am an active member of the Maryland Libertarian Party. I'm the current Chair of the Howard County Libertarian Party in Maryland
[9:34] IntLib: Ah, excellent. So you campaigned for Mr. Zeese?
[9:35] Thor Columbia: I know him well and he is a great guy, but I have been spending most of my time trying to get a local judge elected, David Titman in Howard County, who just got 30% in the primary. The way the judges’ races work in Maryland is that the Libertarian Party is able to nominate him to the final election day, but he also runs in the primaries against the Democrat and Republican.
[9:37] IntLib: Then that is a good result. Nice way it works down there.
[9:37] Thor Columbia: If we got over 50% of the vote on primary day he would have knocked off one of the competitors but the way it worked out he will be in a 3 way race
[9:37] IntLib: Well, 30% of 3 is a damn good result
[9:38] Thor Columbia: He is running a very good campaign, lots of poll workers, takes NO donations from lawyers as he sees it as a conflict of interest for a judge
[9:39] Thor Columbia: I have been following the Free State Project since day 1. I love the Porcupine you have as your group mascot.

[9:41] IntLib: Does Meta Bank and the other banks in SL operate as full reserve or fractional reserve systems within the SL economy? When you take in x Lindens in deposits, do you lend out x Lindens, or are you able to lend out a multiple of your deposits based on a reserve ratio?
[9:42] Thor Columbia: We loan out a percentage of our total lindens that come in the form of deposits, normally 70%. Also unlike some of the other banks we keep the lindens we get in deposits with in the SL economy. By that I mean, we take in SL dollars and loan to businesses and people in SL. Some of the other banks (Ginko for instance) takes SL dollars and uses them in RL businesses.

[9:45] IntLib: Ah, so they are able to extract dollars from the system. Is there any record of a balance of payments between the SL and RL economies?
[9:46] Thor Columbia: Not really, as you may know there is a market for the SL dollars in which they are freely bought and sold. As it is more dollars come in then go out, however a bank taking money out of the economy and draining the capital base does not seem productive to me. That is why I started Meta Bank, because I wanted to create a capital base that would grow in-world businesses.

[9:48] IntLib: Excellent. Sounds like I chose the right banker. Perhaps you can explain what the typical lending terms are and how they differ from what people are used to in RL?
[9:48] Thor Columbia: They are very similar to the terms in RL, first you pick a plot of land you would like to buy, then you come to us and apply for a loan. If you meet the basic criteria, then we purchase the land for you. You make weekly payments to the bank for a period of 60 to 90 days, depending on the size of the loan, and when the payments are complete we deed full ownership over to you. The payments are pre-calculated to include the amount of the interest in this case (0.25%) per day. If you fail to make several of the payments in a row we will first give reminders, however if no payments are made we sell the land to recoup the bank's loss.

[9:55] IntLib: What percent of your customers default on loans?
[9:56] Thor Columbia: It seems to be relatively low, we have a good filtering system on the front end, the applicant must meet certain criteria, such as age of character, in order to show they are a long term member of the SL community.

[9:58] IntLib: Ah, that brings up a good question: lots of new players looking for First Land, and get business ideas in SL, what period of time must a new character be in SL to qualify?

In walks Extrems Brock, who works at the Bank.

[9:59] Extrems Brock: Hello there
[9:59] Thor Columbia: Hey Extrems
[9:59] IntLib: Hello Extrems
[9:59] Thor Columbia: Extrems is our resident builder and part time scripter here at Meta Bank.
[10:00] IntLib: I believe we met yesterday.
[10:00] Thor Columbia: excellent
[10:00] Thor Columbia: Well to your question, as a general rule loan officers want the customer to be at least 30 days old, as a rule if someone has been active in world for that long they are likely to stick around.

[10:03] IntLib: That sounds reasonable. Another question I had was to employment. It seems to me that there are very limited options for employment in SL: generally the camping chairs and dancing, and the adult industry, if someone wants to move beyond that, they seem to need specific skills in demand, like design or scripting, etc. I myself am trying to find work in SL as a writer. How does the lack of employment opportunities impact the economy and your lending?
[10:06] Thor Columbia: There is a lack of structural employment for the people in-world, however I think that as the companies grow and the economy grows more and more structured jobs will come, however the current system is very freedom oriented, instead of trying to meet the job requirements some one else sets there are thousands and thousands of people creating there own original content and being their own boss. I would compare it closest to a digital ebay; many people sell and buy on ebay. However there is always a lack of tiered employment, though since SL is more like a 3D internet than anything else I expect there will be many job opportunities in the future. Already many fortune 500 companies are moving into SL, and when RL companies realize the incredible potential of SL for making money a couple years from now, I expect to see a gold rush for talented workers in SL, similar to gold rush on programmers during the later 90s.

[10:12] IntLib: That sounds promising. As a long time freelancer myself, in various IT disciplines, I found that in the regular internet, many or most companies are reticent to employ someone strictly on a telecommuting basis. How do you think that that will differ with people working in SL, and will companies realize the difference?
[10:13] Thor Columbia: Well with SL it's all tele-commuting, in fact if you take "Electric Sheep" a successful SL company as an example, the members of the company are in different nations around the world, all working together in real time in SL. In fact as the price of oil continues to rise year after year I would not be surprised if we see more and more companies tele commuting entire divisions via SL.

[10:16] IntLib: Good point. Your reference to "Electric Sheep" is interesting, given its based on a cyberpunk novels name.
[10:16] Thor Columbia: Yeah, I once heard SL described very accurately as "The Matrix" without the scary machines.

[10:19] IntLib: Do you find that most people you lend to keep up their payments by injection of dollars, or through employment and business in world?
[10:21] Thor Columbia: I find that most people get there money through jobs, however there is a large contingent of the population that are shoppers and just spend spend spend. They figure it is only 10 to 20 RL dollars for shopping, however that goes a long way in SL. I myself input money from RL on a regular basis.

[10:23] IntLib: Do you offer any sort of "credit card" services beyond lending for tangible (as much as they can be) assets?
[10:24] Thor Columbia: We are working toward that goal of having a full selection of lending services: land lending, credit card and everything in between.

[10:25] IntLib: I myself made a promise to myself that outside of my blogs' AdSense money, I'd not put any money into SL, to see if this can truly be treated as a viable second economy by someone starting out fresh. Do you see that sort of thing happening, and are people able to work their way up the socioeconomic ladder with that kind of a standard, not subsidizing themselves with dollars?
[10:26] Thor Columbia: Yes I do, the guys at Electric Sheep are making a very good wage off of just their skills; they input no money originally, and I have seen many examples of this. Over 2000 people have SL as their full time RL job: creating content, scripts and everything.
[10:28] IntLib: Wow, that is impressive.
[10:29] Thor Columbia: Yes, this place is a libertarian dream, no limits; you can rise as far as you can imagine. The people that just shop will continue to shop, and some people just play for fun, however if you are entrepreneurial in any way you can accomplish incredible things.
[10:30] IntLib: I figured that there were essentially two classes of folk here, the tourists and those who try to live in world as much as possible
[10:31] Thor Columbia: This place is the great social equalizer, no one knows your name, race, age, social class, you are judged solely on your abilities, talent and attitude.

[10:31] IntLib: Do you have any discloseable data on the growth of the Meta Banks assets to date?
[10:32] Thor Columbia: No I would not want to have the other banks aware of our size. However I will tell you we are growing at a double-digit monthly rate. The largest bank in SL is Ginko Financial, but we intend with a better business system to surpass them with in a year.

[10:34] IntLib: That sounds like you've got your work cut out. What, btw, is the asset size of Ginko?
[10:35] Thor Columbia: Unknown, they don't disclose, however I know enough to say they have upwards of 10's of thousands of USD, however with out any transparence, it may well be in the 100's of thousands of USD. Your guess is as good as mine, however a good guidepost is the number of ATM's they have.

[10:36] IntLib: Okay, so they likely expect so much business from any given ATM eh?
[10:37] Thor Columbia: yes, and I know they have several hundred ATM's with in SL. We are rapidly expanding our own ATM base but we have a long way to go to surpass the Ginko.

[10:38] IntLib: I've talked with some other libertarians who are interested in establishing some sort of a gold backed system of finance here in SL. What do you think of such proposals, and are they really necessary?
[10:40] Thor Columbia: I like the idea of creating a system backed with something real, our current fiat systems seems unsustainable to me, however I don't think anything here will surpass the linden dollar in use, and I like the fact that it is not a pegged currency and instead a free market currency. If you wanted a backed currency I would need it to be traded on an open market.

[10:42] IntLib: Okay, um well, from my involvement in Blogshares and using their B$ currency, I had wondered at the possibility of establishing some sort of currency exchange between the two systems. Would that be viable here?
[10:43] Thor Columbia: btw, do you know where I can get one of those International Libertarian t-shirts?
[10:43] IntLib: Oh yeah, I'll give you a copy, made it myself.
[10:43] Thor Columbia: Excellent. Off topic, but "International Libertarian"?
[10:44] Thor Columbia accepted your inventory offer.
[10:44] IntLib: Ah, well, it started originally as a tiff between myself and L Neil Smith, over his anti-war sentiments and my anti-isolationist ones, but I am applying IntLib to becoming a blog that reports on stories and issues of libertarian concern that happen anywhere in the world.
[10:48] Thor Columbia: Excellent, I am disappointed when some one wants the libertarian ideal for their own country but is not willing to support the fight for human freedom elsewhere. Any way, back to your question, and thanks for the shirt.
[10:50] IntLib: No problem
[10:51] Thor Columbia: It would be interesting to see a completely digital economy using a currency supported by a gold or other metal standard.
[10:52] IntLib: How about exchanges with other virtual currencies, like Blogshares B$?
[10:53] Thor Columbia: I don't know how the logistics would work but it would be interesting to try.

[10:54] IntLib: Okay. Is there anything that you'd like to communicate with the general public or the libertarian community about your experiences or Meta Bank?
[10:55] Thor Columbia: Yes. People live within the limits they place on them self's. I believe we should all strive to higher goals for freedom and self improvement, in the world of business I think we would all do very well to forget the structured higher education model of employment. While it takes more energy to judge a person on ability and not a piece of paper, you will find much greater reward in the end.

[10:59] Thor Columbia: Are you still involved with the FSP? Please pass on that the Howard County Libertarian Party fully supports the goals of the Free State Project. After the election we intend to help in any way we can to create the light on the hill that this county needs in the form of the Free State Project.
[11:02] IntLib: That is great to hear. We're still working towards our ultimate membership goals, but have also launched a group called The First 1000, of a thousand people who have pledged to move within a year. So far, we've got over 430 in state, though we started with about 250 who were already residents.
[11:03] Thor Columbia: In fact I hope to have a house in New Hampshire with in a couple years, however I am not dependent on the [membership] threshold as I am coming to join the FSP one way or another. I think we need some more people involved, however I think the greatest need is more in the way of money for the Libertarian cause, and that is what I am working toward here and in several RL companies. I own a number of companies including a biodiesel company. We are building a 4 million gallon operation here in Maryland. However I would like to make New Hampshire the RL head quarters of Meta Bank as it grows.

[11:14] IntLib: Another question I had about SL economics is, that in RL, for example, settlement and development began with agriculture and hunting, then light industry and heavy industry. Why do you think that no attempt has been made to enable those sorts of resource utilization economics in SL to build wealth and infrastructure?
[11:15] Thor Columbia: In SL there are truly only two commodities, other than the skills of people which is a natural commodity, those two commodities are land and primitives. Labor, land and prims. We are rapidly refining these to create original content and workable structures. It’s amazing to see the evolution of it all.

[11:18] IntLib: Okay, a question I had about the limitations of primitives for given lots, why isn't there a mechanism for people to buy more primitives for their land, or is there?
[11:19] Thor Columbia: well currently if you run over you just buy more land and use the primitives on either that land or your old land

[11:19] IntLib: Sure, but doesn't that generate a lot of open land, which is generally useless in a virtual system like this?
[11:22] Thor Columbia: Understood, however that works out well as it gives open space next to another very developed structure. It all depends on how much detail you want on a property, most places do not need so many prims
[11:23] Extrems Brock: Oh yeah Thor, we need more primitives again.
[11:23] Thor Columbia: However it would be nice if they sold prims without the land, it would make it simpler.

[11:24] IntLib: Yeah, I guess my question philosophically is, outside of creating open space between structures as you say, is that its nice to have a sort of environmental sentiment (as it seems to me), but without trees and animals living in the space, what is the point?
[11:25] Thor Columbia: Esthetics I suppose, however it is more basic then that, each square can only support so many prims I think is the deal, some thing they need to upgrade.

NOTE: Each area of ~65,000 sq meters, called a ‘region’ or ‘sim’ is supported in the Linden Labs Network by a single server. Too may prims in one region overloads the server and causes what is called “lag”, or a slowing of the sim. This also tends to occur when there are lots of people in a single sim at one time, particularly people who are implementing their own personal primitives. In order to minimize lag, LL restricts the number of prims per square meter that land owners can build.

[11:26] IntLib: Okay, um being new, I'm not totally clear on its definition, so perhaps you can explain what exactly a "primitive" is? I understand they are objects. (Thor conjures a wood textured cube on the conference room table)
[11:27] Thor Columbia: That is a prim
[11:27] Extremes Brock: A primitive is a physical basic 3D shape. Each primitive uses server resources.
[11:27] Thor Columbia: It is a box or cube or a 3D shape in which you can change and mold into anything and everything you see, the chair your sitting in, the wall, everything in the room is made of many prims, colored and changes and made to look like other objects.
[11:28] IntLib: Okay, I understand that, but for instance, is one of these chairs one primitive, or multiple primitives?
[11:28] Extrems Brock: Multiple, you can only make complex shapes with multiple primitives.
[11:28] IntLib: So a more complex object eats up more primitives.
[11:29] Thor Columbia: You got it. Each lot of land gets a certain number of prims, and if you go beyond that you must buy more.
[11:29] Extrems Brock: 3 per 16m, 117 per 512m, 15000 per 65,536m, 65,536m = one region
[11:30] IntLib: Okay, understood. I've been shopping land, btw, so I have a basic understanding of the prim limits on each parcel. Would you say that there is a significant market in people buying land and developing sub parcels for resale, or is that market oversupplied? Can the land barons buy a parcel and tap off some of its prims for themselves, then resell the land with fewer prims?
[11:32] Extrems Brock: This can be done on a private estate (I think).
[11:33] Thor Columbia: Yes there is money in land resale, however it has to be done on a very very large scale to be economical.
[11:34] IntLib: Do the apartment building developers do very well?
[11:34] Thor Columbia: They do all right, the big money is in developing plots for RL companies that are willing to pay huge sums for custom jobs.

[11:36] IntLib: Ah, interesting. Some friends of mine own Uvvy Island, and are developing a sort of corporate center there, and I've seen similar setups elsewhere, but they seemed under occupied, in fact, a LOT of SL seems under occupied. What is your take on that?
[11:37] Thor Columbia: Well that will change over time, and get more dense over time, at first a player may get land and then not do anything with it. The land gets abandoned and people start using it more and more for more productive things

[11:38] IntLib: Oh, another question about First Land. Is that something a new user is expected to buy outright, or do they finance it?
[11:39] Thor Columbia: They normally buy out right since it is less then two USD

[11:39] Thor Columbia: Intlibber, it's been a pleasure but I have to log off for an hour or so.
[11:40] IntLib: Sure no problem, I was just going to thank you for your time.
[11:40] Thor Columbia: I'll contact you later. It's great to hear what the FSP doing.
[11:41] IntLib: Its good to hear there are more folks in SL from the movement. Feel free to stop by the Gimme Liberty Bar any time, we often meet there to listen to Free Talk Live, which is a syndicated and podcasted radio show by Free Staters.
[11:41] Thor Columbia: Great I'll see you there... bye. (Thor vanishes)

Beware Of Blogs: Jury Awards $11.3 Million For Blog Defamation

2006-10-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

Excerpt from USA Today

Jury awards $11.3M over defamatory Internet posts
By Laura Parker, USA TODAY

A Florida woman has been awarded $11.3 million in a defamation lawsuit
against a Louisiana woman who posted messages on the Internet accusing her
of being a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud."

Legal analysts say the Sept. 19 award by a jury in Broward County, Fla. —
first reported Friday by the Daily Business Review — represents the largest
such judgment over postings on an Internet blog or message board. Lyrissa
Lidsky, a University of Florida law professor who specializes in
free-speech issues, calls the award "astonishing."

Update On The Lauren Canario Imprisonment

2006-10-06T20:30:00.000-04:00

A few slight corrections here, and a slight update, other than that, we've got a whole lotta "no comments".

Okay, the corrections first (unlike the MSM, we acknowledge our failings on the front page above the fold, not on the back page in small print). Lauren was apparently sitting on the porch of a family that gave her permission to be there. They had not received a check from either the New London Development Corporation or the city yet, so legally, it was still their property, and their right to have guests.

Lauren did have a valid lease with Bill Van Winkle, also, and so was validly a resident of the neighborhood at the time, and not a "squatter" as the powers that be are trying to pretend.

As to the charge that she was "squatting" in the house she was arrested at, this is clearly bogus. Firstly, sitting on a front porch is not considered by the law to be inhabiting the interior of the home. If police can bust you for open container for drinking a beer on your own front porch (and police have won many a conviction in such situations), on the premise that you were drinking in public, and not within the confines of your home, then Lauren cannot have been considered 'squatting' inside the house. Furthermore, given she had permission from those who were still owners at the time to be there, her neighbors, there was absolutely no trespass involved, any more than a neighbor waiting on your porch for your return can be considered trespassing.

The conversation about her court appearance, it turns out, came from her PREVIOUS arrest by the city about her anti-eminent domain activism. We have, however, come to find out that during that arrest, she was, in fact, shackled to the point that she now has scars, kept under lights 24/7, and kept in the psych ward, all for exercising her constitutional rights to no cooperate and not speak.

What kind of a country have we come to where people make lame excuses that, "if she'd only comply this would be over." THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, people. As we have written previously about Gandhi and the problems of using civil disobedience against governments that don't care about public perception and western values, the fact is that in this case, we do live in a society that claims to have western values, and a government that claims to be based upon the principles of the Enlightenment: rule of law, rights of the individual sacrosanct, Constitution above all else.

Saying "just behave to get along" is a surrender to the forces of fascism rising within our society, and an abrogation by the citizenry to defend the Constitution against clearly demonstrated *domestic* enemies of that sacred document of trust and liberty. The Constitution is about your damn RIGHT to misbehave as you wish, so long as you don't harm others, other than defending against those who agress against those rights.

That this battle is in earnest is clear in the minds of the powers that be. Numerous calls by many of Laurens supporters, and readers of this blog have universally said that the prison is refusing to comment about Lauren's treatment. The office of CT Governor Jodi Rell has refused comment, as has NH Governor Lynch's office.

That they are denying the peoples basic right to know what is going on in their government is indicative of the hijacking of liberty that is going on. We do have further ammo to spend.

To those who have commented that "if shes incommunicado, how do you know how she's been treated." A fair question. We were relying on the statement of Kat Kanning, Laurens close friend. According to Kat, Lauren was detained in shackles, under lights 24/7, in the psych ward last time for her use of silence and non-cooperation. This was confirmed by observations of scabbing and scarring on Lauren's wrists and ankles after her release from her prior detention in this facility.

Given that government stooges are creatures of habit and procedure, who follow "the book" religiously (or claim they are supposed to), it seems rather logical to us that if she is being held in even more secluded confinement this time, with absolutely no contact with the outside world, even with her own husband and kids, it seems reasonable to us that the state of Connecticut is hiding something from the public. Government thugs only hide information and people when they've done something wrong. It is reasonable in this case to expect them to remain true to form.

It turns out that Amnesty International (a group which I am not normally all that hot about), did a rather damning report about this womens prison, how male guards were raping prisoners and exchanging privileges for sex, as well as intimidating prisoners who complained about conditions. This was brought up on Dvorak Uncensored, which carried our original story yesterday.

The good news is that one of Laurens supporters contacted Amnesty about Lauren's case, who said they were not aware of this case, but would have one of their CT people investigate. When asked, a prison official stated that if an Amnesty International rep showed up, they would be admitted and allowed to inspect the conditions of Lauren's detention. So apparently we may get an answer to all the controversy surrounding this story.

IntLib Quote of The Day

2006-10-06T04:44:00.000-04:00

"It's a good thing I had a bag of Marijuana instead of a bag of spinach.
I'd be dead by now."
~ Willie Nelson

UPDATE: We have been reliably informed by the director of the NH Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) that, through mutual friends, he was able to ask Willie if he actually said this, as there has been some controversy, particularly over at Snopes.com, whether Willie did or not, or whether it was paraphrased from the writing of humorist Argus Hamilton by some anonymous fabricator on the internet. Willie says that he never said it, but really enjoyed the statement it made. Thanks, Willie!

So file this under your "coulda, shoulda, woulda said, but didn't actually say it" department. Who knows, now that he's been made aware of it, you may be hearing him say it some time in the near future!

We might point out to those who are unfairly singling out spinach in these times of e coli tainted food, that this is very un-PC, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says:

My PC book says that we can't just profile spinach. We have to pull all vegetables off the shelves.

Thanks everybody, for clearing this up.

BlogMad.com Ranks IntLib Highly

2006-10-05T01:49:00.000-04:00

As evidence of our market penetration, blog indexer Blogmad.com ranked IntLib 42nd for referral traffic in September, and is currently ranking 24th so far in October (this may change as traffic varies).

We've certainly been trying. Unfortunately, some indexers don't seem to be working too well these days. Blog index icon Technorati seems to be broken. They haven't responded to multiple ping requests of ours for 5 days, and their site is now displaying in some sort of cellphone browser format. Multiple emails have not been responded to. This non-pingability seems restricted to IntLib alone, as our sister blog, Constitution Park, was pinged successfully the other day.

Blog "ecosystem" site The Truth Laid Bear seems to have problems keeping accurate daily traffic counts, and grossly undercounts links to blogs (where Technorati sees 51 links from 28 blogs as of last week, TTLB only sees 11 blogs linking to us).

And what is with ranking by crosslinks? Having links doesn't create traffic, as we've proven: over 41,000 hits last month while being misunderestimated by the major blogger community. We generate 99.9% of our traffic from two places: digg and reddit. Links don't indicate popularity, it only indicates how many other bloggers asses you've kissed. We've posted links to lots of blogs, and those reciprocating have been few and far between.

We're interested in hearing of our readers experiences with various blog indexes.

Eminent Domain Protester Canario Held In Gitmo Style

2006-10-04T17:25:00.000-04:00

Lauren Canario, Free State Project member noted for protesting against REAL ID and most recently, the eminent domain taking of Mrs. Kelo's New London, CT home, is being treated inhumanely in Connecticut's high-security York Correctional Institution.

According to close friend Kat Kanning, Canario, arrested Sept 22, on a mere charge of trespassing (on property she had a valid lease agreement with the owner for), is being held in shackles under bright lights 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While she can receive mail, she can neither make or receive phone calls, nor send out mail.

The shackling and lighting treatment is one that has historically been used by oppressive governments to break the will of political prisoners and spies, prior to mind control indoctriation or interrogation. That she is being held in solitary confinement in the prisons psych ward is indicative of Soviet era reports of political prisoners being institutionalized as psychiatric patients. Prison officials allege that they've put her in the psych ward because she refuses to talk.

Thus, she is being treated as a psych patient only because she is exercising her right to not cooperate with her oppressors and her right to not speak.

Nor, apparently, does she have a lawyer. Bill Von Winkle, a Fort Trumbull homeowner from whom Canario rented an apartment, helped her get a lawyer, but “when she saw that I wasn't walking, that I was dragged, she decided she didn't want to represent me,” Canario said.

The silence that has frustrated two judges was not planned, she said at one of her public appearances.

“When I get angry, I can't talk,” she said.

Neither have the courts appointed counsel for her, another violation of her rights. Thus, she remains in a condition much like that of the 'unlawful enemy combatants' that President Bush is holding in Guantanamo Bay.

While we in the US are now familiar with this 24-hour-a-day lighting treatment having been used improperly on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison by US forces, and in Guantanamo's notorious "Camp X-Ray", on some of the most heinous terrorist enemies of the United States, we are shocked to see this sort of treatment being perpetrated upon a middle aged woman arrested for the mere charge of trespassing (again, on property she had a valid lease to be on from the lawful owner).

A call made to York Correctional Institution resulted in a refusal by staff on duty to make any statement about Lauren's condition, deferring to Major Karen Oien, who will be available tomorrow for comment.

Inquiries to NH Governor John Lynch's office as to whether he will try to intercede with CT Gov. Jodi Rell to protect the rights of Canario, who is a New Hampshire resident, have been made, but not responded to.

What does the government have to fear from a middle aged woman who offered absolutely no resistance to her arrest, has no record of any violent crimes, who is being abused for her exercise of her right of silence and noncooperation?

Lauren can, apparently, receive letters, so those wishing to express support for her can mail them to:

Lauren Canario #334457
c/o York Correctional Institution
201 West Main Street
Niantic, CT 06357

If you wish to ask NH Governor Lynch to intercede on Lauren's behalf, you can call his office at 603 271-2121 and ask for Amy Harrington. Be polite.

Those wishing to get worked up can, of course, call CT Gov. Jodi Rell's office at (800) 406-1527. Be sure to note Lauren's prisoner number.

We'll be back tomorrow with updates on what the powers that be say about Lauren's treatment.

Leftist Students Attack Free State Project Founder

2006-10-02T10:40:00.000-04:00

Free State Project founder, Professor Jason P Sorens, graduate of Yale University, and currently faculty at the University of Buffalo, has come under attack in an on-campus email campaign by leftist group "Truth Out" for his libertarian views. Most specifically, the emails being sent to all UB students completely slander and defame the Free State Project, libertarians in general as "extreme right-wingers" who "care more about property than human beings".

From: Truth Out
To: *snip*
Subject: politics of the psc 341 professor
Date: Sun, 01 Oct 2006 17:21:56 -0500

Hello

Ever wonder about the politics of our professor?

Jason Sorens, founder of the Free State Project, a group trying to get 20,000 people who plan to move out to rural New Hampshire, never pay taxes, never contribute anything of value to American society, and who value private property over human life. So they are taking their belongings and their guns out to New Hampshire to live in isolation from the rest of the American population. They are trying to privatize nearly everything and fundamentally dismantle public education and many social programs and services. This organization is sympathetic toward secessionist movements in general. Libertarianism is a extreme right-wing philsophy which believes that private property and the free market has a greater value than human life and society. And he teaches here at UB... So why exactly is someone teaching at UB who believes in dismantling public education? Is there a connection between his politics and how his courses are organized?

The email then lists several web pages of interviews with Sorens and about the FSP.

"Wow," Sorens commented, "I guess some people don't know the meaning of
academic freedom, eh?"

Apparently not, though such attacks are part and parcel of an entrenched left wing campaign among students and faculty to drive libertarian and conservative faculty members and student groups off campus. Long time readers of IntLib will recall our previous activism in support of libertarian Professors Zywicki and Robinson (regular contributors to The Volokh Conspiracy) in their insurgent campaigns for election to the Dartmouth Board of Trustees by alumni against entrenched insider candidates, and the ensuing left wing hostility. Those of you who track conservatives like David Horowitz may note his campaign against these sorts of left wing persecutions and discriminations against conservatives and libertarians on campus.

Our leader is under attack, it is time to bring attention nationally to this sort of intolerance by the left wing of other political views on campus, and establish once and for all that attacking faculty on their honest and rational political views is not acceptable.

What is more hypocritical is that, at the same time that the left is attacking Sorens for his rational libertarian views, they are shielding radical leftist professors who promote radical, irrational, moonbat conspiracy theories about events like 9/11, as we've reported previously. One would expect that, given that hypocrisy is the only crime that the left apparently recognises, that they'd try to avoid it, but apparently this is one more case of "Do as I say, Not as I Do" by the moonbats.

Meet John Stossel at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum

2006-10-02T03:07:00.000-04:00

New Hampshire Liberty Forum
Attaining Personal and Economic Freedom in America's Freest State
February 22 - 25, 2007 in Concord, New Hampshire.

Here's an event for libertarians looking to explore the Free State can attend in February. Keynote speaker will be noted ABC anchor John Stossel, host of his famous "Gimme a Break!" debunking shows, cohost of 20/20, and author of several books, including "Give Me A Break". His speech, to be titled The Enemies of Liberty, will be delivered immediately following a delicious four-course meal. As demand for this speech is expected be extremely high, and the number of seats is limited, a separate fee will be charged to attend Mr. Stossel's keynote. Mr. Stossel will also be available to sign copies of his books.

Other speakers will include:

Sharon Harris, president of The Advocates for Self-Government

Jack Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the CATO institute

More speakers will be announced soon...

Further information about registration, fees, etc. can be found at the FSP's website page on the event.

Early Bird registration is happening now, so the FSP recommends getting the best pricing while you can. Ticket prices of the event will get more expensive. The prices seem especially reasonable, given the quality of the speakers and variety of panel discussions available.

Also, they have negotiated a special rate at the Holiday Inn, once their quota is reached, the hotel rate will be higher as well.

There will aso be other panel discussions on various topics, there appears to be a rather full schedule of events, which will only fill out as the event nears. They've got five speaking halls reserved for this, in addition to the main hall.

IntLib Quote of The Day

2006-09-30T19:30:00.000-04:00

"I can't get over the "Statue Of Liberty Holding An Automatic Weapon" logo on that blog. Libertarians are so damn cute!" - Jimbob at Metafilter

The logo is a hit! Hey, Jimbob, the IntLib logo can be bought on any sort of t-shirt or knick nack at the IntLib Cafe. Link in the masthead...

Liberty Dollar Wins Grand Prize for Security Printing

2006-09-29T16:40:00.000-04:00

It sure has been a big month for NORFED and the Liberty Dollar. First all the hoopla falling out of the US Mint's absurd pronouncement that the Liberty Dollar was 'illegal', which resulted in a ten times increase in traffic to the Liberty Dollars website, and a concurrent increase in orders.

We here at IntLib saw almost 30,000 hits on this site from the four articles we've done so far on this story (links at the bottom of this article), from over 25,000 unique individual browsers. Three of our four articles became popular hits at Digg.com, reddit.com, and have been linked to by many other sites.

Now we hear that, in an age when Federal Reserve Notes are being counterfieted at will by international criminals like the North Koreans, the Liberty Dollars printed warehouse receipt certificates have just won a Grand Prize for Document Security at the DMIA's Peak Awards 2006, to be presented at Print Solutions 2006 conference and show, October 3-5, near Chicago at Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, Illinois.

Now Liberty Dollar Certificate holders can be secure knowing that their warehouse receipts are using the most secure printing technologies available to the commercial printing market, to prevent counterfieting, fraud, and dilution of the money supply. Printed by Verify First Technologies and Pro Document Solutions, the certificates went up against the best printed media from around the world.

"The contest was for the whole world and it covered checks, stock certificates, bonds, gift certificates, basically everything that would need to be secure," said NORFED founder Bernard von Nothaus in a prepared release, "Just another sign that the Liberty Dollar is a winner."

Liberty Dollar University and Anniversary
This year's Liberty Dollar Uuniversity 11 will feature the latest Liberty Dollar happenings with a Meet/Greet at 6:00 PM on Wednesday, October 25 and concludes with lunch on Saturday, October 28 in Skokie, Illinois.

The Liberty Dollar celebrates its 8th Anniversary this coming October 1st and this LDU11 will be an extra good one, according to its organizers. In addition, the Annual RCO Congress will follow it on Saturday afternoon. All RCOs are encouraged, to attend the RCO Congress.

LDU11 will be held at the Comfort Inn Northshore-Skokie, 9333 Skokie Blvd, Skokie, IL. Reservations at the hotel by calling 847.679.4200. Mentioning the Liberty Dollar is necessary to receive a room discount. The conference is $200 for Associates and free for RCOs. Attendees must call the NORFED office at 888.421.6181 to make their reservations, as walk-ins will not be accepted.

Regarding the upcoming 8th anniversary of the Liberty Dollar, von Nothaus had this to say, "For those who thought we would not last 30 days... they were wrong. For those who think we will not last 30 more days... they will probably be wrong too. I sincerely do not think that it is possible to bar people from using gold and silver between “consenting adults.” Our country is nearing a crisis point, a Decisive Moment, on many fronts. It is time for everyone who believes in the US Constitution and a Republican form of government to take action... before it is too late. Please take as much action as possible. There is safety in numbers and there are a lot of people who support the Liberty Dollar as it has become the rally point for similar ideals. Let your voice be heard!"

BACKDATE:

US MINT Claims NORFED Are Federal Criminals

US Mint v NORFED: The legal case

NORFED Fires Back At US MINT

Liberty Dollar Says NO to US Mint

Barry Hess, Libertarian for Arizona Governor

2006-09-28T18:31:00.000-04:00

The Arizona State University Web Devil has coverage of gubernatorial candidate Barry Hess, with the typical "not a snowballs chance" journalistic cynicism:

We at IntLib got to chat with Barry this evening to get his position on the issues.

Hess says that Janet Napolitano has made a mess of the states educational system, and the Republican candidate is merely Democrat-lite with some Christianity mixed in. Libertarians are really resonating with people who are fed up with the "business as usual".

"We're having a good go of it and the major media is realizing we're having an impact. Where candidates always say 'I'm god, you need me', I'm just acting as a carrier for the message of liberty."

For education, Barry will be drastically improving the public school system but not the established infrastructure. Currently 40% of students graduate functionally illiterate in AZ. Barry wants to focus on the progress of the individual students rather than building schools. He would issue a laptop computer to any Arizonan regardless of age, with access to a central testing certification program. Like New Hampshire's "Real World Learning", Hess thinks that people are capable of learning anywhere, and shouldn't be limited to government approved buildings.

Kids who cut up in class and are suspended would be responsible for taking their lessons at home via laptop. Barry would end the forced zombification of students with prozac and ritalin. He would heavily emphasize parental involvement in student progress, particularly with kids exhibiting special needs for extra attention. Parenting begins in the home, not the schools. "We need to bring critical reasoning skills back into the curriculum, enabling kids to become citizens capable of spotting the illogic in politicians."

"We used to have to teach people what a libertarian was. Now, in AZ, people want to know what the difference is between Republicans and Democrats, cause they don't see one."

Barry is confident that he will make a significant impact this year. The only people who disregard the validity of Libertarians in Arizona are the MSM and the christian fundamentalists. His campaign has received a lot of publicity and endorsements, and is expecting some major ones in the next few days.

Barry wants to roll eminent domain back to the original Constitutional basis, of using it only when a property owner uses their resources to harm another.

He agrees with abolishing all victim disarmament zones, including schools and airliners, adopting "Vermont carry". He would stop REAL ID, though both major parties in the legislature seem to be for it.

Barry would limit car registrations to $10, with no graduated fees any longer. He would, most importantly, abolish the state income tax, and defy the Federal Income Tax enforcement within the state, likely through ending the use of employers as tax agents. "We have already successfully sued against their use of notices of liens and illegal conversion, we got 20,000 notices thrown out of the county records with one lawsuit."

Barry is a dedicated libertarian of principle, who is very effective communicating the message, but at the same time good at networking with a "big tent". He has spoken a number of times at the Goldwater Center, and is best of friends with Don Goldwater, who recently lost the Republican Primary, as well as Minutemen chairman. David Nolan, founder of the LP, former LP Presidential candidated Michael Badnarik, as well as radio personalities Ernie Hancock and Charles Goyette have endorsed Hess. He even has endorsements from professional wrestlers Sean Morley (aka "Val Venis") and Glenn Jacobs (aka WWE's "Kane"). He has obtained endorsements from Republicans like runner Lynn Petronella, and should be receiving more in the future.

He has the endorsement of The International Libertarian.
Hess For Governor 2006
P.O. Box 6011
Glendale, Arizona 85312
Telephone (602) 843-3827
Fax: (602) 843-0897

Professor Sunstein to Speak on 'Libertarian Paternalism,' Oct. 5

2006-09-28T18:19:00.000-04:00

Legal scholar Cass Sunstein will deliver a lecture titled "Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron" at Princeton University, 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 5, in McCosh 50.

Sunstein, a professor of jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School, advocates libertarian paternalism as a concept that legitimizes private and public institutions' attempts to steer personal choices without infringing on individual liberty. His lecture will offer examples in many areas, such as government and private entities helping consumers, victims of discrimination and poverty, workers and those at risk from natural disasters.

Sunstein's principal research interests include administrative law, environmental law, welfare law, jurisprudence and constitutional law. He has written numerous books, including "Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America" (2005) and the forthcoming "Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge" and "Are Judges Political? An Empirical Investigation of the Federal Judiciary."

Sunstein's talk, designated as the Walter E. Edge Lecture, is part of the University’s Public Lecture Series.

We would encourage libertarians in the Princeton area to attend to see just what Prof. Sunstein means by "libertarian paternalism": whether he means giving choices that encourage people to act in their own long term rational self interest, or whether he wants to give biased choices that financially coerce people into acting in a politically correct way, or, worse yet, more of the same old all or nothing, one size fits all style of New Deal government repackaged with a new schtick.

The NHLA has seen big government paternalists up here in NH trying to repackage their nanny state programs in libertarian buzz words. We suspect that Sunstein's lecture will be more of the same, particularly given his past opposition to originalism in Constitutional interpretation, but we are open to being pleasantly surprised.

NY Libertarian Candidate Demands Debate Time In Cornell

2006-09-28T15:03:00.000-04:00

By Steven Xian
Sep 27 2006
The Cornell Daily Sun

While masses of Democrats and Republicans hustled and bustled into Bailey Hall to hear the heated debate between gubernatorial candidates Eliot Spitzer and John Faso yesterday evening, one group was left out in the Ithaca cold.

“We have no choice and we have no voice!” exclaimed one of the many signs held by the Cornell Libertarians and Ithaca Libertarians gathered outside of Bailey Hall, protesting the exclusion of Libertarian candidate John Clifton from the debate.

The League of Women Voters of New York (LWVNY), which sponsored the debate, ignored Clifton’s demands for an inclusive debate with third party candidates. As a result, Clifton took matters into his own hands and came all the way from New York City to Ithaca in protest.

“This is a puppet show stunt by the Democrats and Republicans!” Clifton declared.

“All Faso and Spitzer have to do is call each other on the phone and set up an inclusive debate. But instead, third parties are marginalized by [the bipartisan] structure,” he said.

One might ask, what is the Libertarian school of thought?

“The commitment to the individual and individual rights is a primary theme,” Clifton explained.

The basis of this political philosophy is the maximization of individual rights and minimization of the role of the government. An ethic of self-responsibility is emphasized and thus, forcing an individual to provide aid to another, as in the case of welfare, is wrong, according to Libertarians.

Accordingly, one of the issues on Clifton’s platform is ending of the restaurant smoking ban, which limits an individual’s choice as to whether or not to smoke. Data shows that this policy has hurt the business of many New York restaurants, especially those bordering states without a restaurant smoking ban.

“If there’s one restaurant in New York and just another one not too far across the border line, and somebody want to smoke, where do you think he’ll go?” Clifton asked.

Also on his platform is the elimination of the state income tax, beginning with those making less than $75,000 a year. This falls in line with libertarianism because “all taxation is theft,” Clifton explained.

On the issue of education, Clifton advocated creating more options for educating youth. He emphasized giving teachers more direct control of how things are run and taught rather than relying on the Department of Education, “which has more bureaucrats than Europe.”

“There is too much compulsion … and parents should take sovereignty in deciding how their children are educated,” Clifton said.

Yet despite his clear platform, Clifton was not invited to yesterday’s debate. Why, one might ask?

“Third parties are politically unessential. They rarely get more than a few percentage points and they lack a large constituent base,” said Alex Bulanov ’09, who describes himself as Republican.

Jennifer Ng ’08, a Democrat, thought along similar lines.

“The last time a third party candidate was elected governor of New York was back in 1800’s,” she said.

Libertarians, however, have different reasons for their exclusion.

“I think the major party candidates are afraid to have other voices heard and that’s why I think they exclude third party candidates,” said Nigel Watt ’10, who was among those protesting.

Curry Taylor, vice president of Cornell Libertarians offered his view: “I think it’s clear from the people protesting with us here today that there aren’t a lot of choices in the two major parties. We’re not happy with the fact that John Clifton was excluded today and we haven’t been given a satisfactory reason why.”

A simpler explanation was offered by Evan Mulvihill ’09.

“The League of Women Voters can’t count past two,” he said.

And indeed, for most students at Cornell University, two is the norm and third parties are essentially discredited and invisible. But with a platform that includes the lowering of the legal drinking age to 18, who wouldn’t give the Libertarian party at least a second glance?

Libertarian Ejected From Public Festival In Kansas

2006-09-28T14:34:00.000-04:00

Joshua Seiden, Staff Affiliate September 28, 2006
The Johnson County Sun

City officials want to know why police ejected Jason Peck, Libertarian candidate for the 24th District in the Kansas House, from the Mission Arts and Eats Festival.

During the festival's second night, Peck conversed with event goers and distributed campaign literature. Peck said no one objected until Councilwoman Suzie Gibbs approached him with a Mission police officer.

"They told me that I had to leave and that if I came back they would cite me for trespassing," Peck said. "I don't know if the decision came from a higher-up or what."

Gibbs did not respond to messages left on her residential and mobile phone voicemails, nor e-mail. She also could not be reached at City Hall.

Mayor Laura McConwell said in a press release that city officials should not have ejected Peck.

"This is a very unfortunate turn of events and I want to personally apologize to Mr. Peck for the way he was treated," McConwell said. "Mr. Peck should not have been asked to leave this public event. Mr. Peck was within his rights to be campaigning during the Arts and Eats Festival."

McConwell said that Mission is conducting an investigation and has contacted the District Attorney's Office and the League of Kansas Municipalities for guidance.

Peck said he wants assurance that such an incident will not occur again.

"I've got a lawyer who is going to be in contact with them to explain to them why what they did was wrong and also to ask for something in writing to us (stating) that it won't happen again," Peck said. "Otherwise, we're going to file suit."

Peck said city officials silenced his freedom of speech.

"I guess the bottom line with me is that this is a First Amendment issue and I'm really kind of surprised that there's anybody out there, particularly in the City Council, that doesn't understand that," Peck said. "It's disappointing to me that it has to come to this point."

Those who wish to express their opinion to Ms. Gibbs can reach her here:
Suzanne (Suzie) Gibbs:
6432 Reeds Drive, Mission, KS 66202
(913) 671-8564
sgibbs@missionks.org
(Term Expires 2010) <-- This means someone needs to run against her.

Jason Peck:
Currently Jason works as a Senior Programmer / Analyst for Fidelity Security Life Insurance Company. When not working, he enjoys spending time with his family, (Alice Scott, her daughter Sarah Padilla, his son Kenneth and his daughter Krystal). He is a motorcycle enthusiast, a lifelong competitive shooter, hunter, fisherman, and enjoys all types of outdoor activities. A US Army veteran, volunteer firefighter/EMT, Peck has also been involved in JayCees, NMSS, and established one of the first volunteer youth programs at the Johnson County Juvinile Detention Center in 1996.

Jason plans on focusing on the following priorities during the upcoming campaign.

Continue efforts to pass a constitutional amendment preventing eminent domain abuse. Jason strongly supports HB 5025, a firm resolution to protect private property owners' rights.
Introducing legislation to allow Kansas to opt out of "No Child Left Behind" and regain control of its public schools.
Introducing legislation to eliminate the sales tax on food products. This is a regressive tax on the poor and elderly, and the income tax rebate intended to offset the tax is ineffective.

Congressional Incumbent vs Libertarian in CA 7th

2006-09-28T14:26:00.000-04:00

By Jennifer Gentile /Staff Writer
TheReporter.com

The race for the 7th Congressional District seat this November is a face-off between a congressional veteran and an avowed Libertarian.

Camden McConnell, the Libertarian in the race and a structural engineer by trade, is running against Democratic incumbent George Miller, who has served in Congress since 1975.

Miller, after graduating from Diablo Community College and San Francisco State University, earned his law degree from the University of California, Davis. The father of two is originally from Richmond and now resides in Martinez with his wife, Cynthia.

McConnell, 64, was born in Fort Bliss, Texas. The 64-year-old McConnell graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as a second lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers. He also holds a master of science degree from the University of California, Berkeley. After his military service, which included tours in Vietnam, McConnell began a 16-year career as a structural engineer.

The married father, who has lived in Pittsburg since 1983, belongs to the Structural Engineers' Association of Northern California and the American Society of Civil Engineers.

McConnell said his philosophy is in line with the nation's founding fathers.

"I agree with the founding fathers that each man is entitled to own himself, his property and all that he produces and may dispose of all as he determines to be in his best interest without interference from the collective entity known as government," McConnell tells potential constituents on is Web site, www.camdenfor congress.org

In an interview Monday, McConnell said Libertarians favor smaller government, both in size and expense, and are against laws that inhibit the economy and citizens from making their own choices. The biggest difference between him and his opponent, he said, is their perception of government.

"I think we need to end the uncontrolled growth of government," McConnell said.

When government is in the hands of professional politicians from either of the country's major parties, McConnell said, it has a tendency to become out of control.

"Our country is broken," having strayed very far from the vision of limited government, personal liberty and respect for property rights held by the framers of the Constitution," the candidate said. "I want to help set it right."

Depending on the voter, Miller's experience could help him or hurt him in the election. According to a biography posted on his Web site, www.house.gov/George Miller, some of the congressman's primary issues are education, labor and the economy. He continues to serve on the House Resources Committee and founded the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families. He is also the Senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

The congressman was also among the four authors of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Miller "did not endorse every aspect of this bipartisan bill," according to the biography, "but some of its most important features came directly from some of Miller's earlier legislative efforts, such as improving teacher quality, holding schools accountable for the education of all children, and the need to provide greater financial resources to schools to meet the new goals."

One issue the candidates do agree on is the war in Iraq. McConnell said, "It was wrong for us to go there," and Miller has called the war "a historic blunder with tragic consequences."

"There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and there was no connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein," Miller said during a speech on the House floor. "The administration used fear to scare this country into war based upon those lies. He (Bush) refused to properly prepare for the war or for its aftermath. And now, our soldiers, their families, and our Nation are paying the enormous price of this President's tragic blunder."

McConnell said that in the eyes of many Libertarians, Martin Van Buren was one of the finest presidents in the nation's history. He was under great pressure to go to war with Mexico and Britain during his tenure, but resisted.

In the case of Iraq, McConnell said he would favor withdrawal.

Jennifer Gentile can be reached at vacaville@thereporter.com.

UK Abrogates '5th Amendment' Over Speeding Tickets

2006-09-27T01:59:00.000-04:00

They say that the American Revolution was ignited over a piddling few pence tax upon tea, or stamps on papers or some such, but this story is further evidence that Britain is descending into outright fascism.

Turns out that laws to do with the notorious highway cameras, and their application toward catching speeders has a problem: identifying the drivers.

See, since a camera records the speed without human supervision, a car caught speeding is brought to court without any human witnesses to the violation, ergo nobody can testify against the accused.

Secondly, determining who IS the accused can often be a problem, particularly at night or in clement weather. Seeing as how there is a lack of a human accuser, car owners brought to court based on photos of license tags have resorted to refusing to identify who was driving, i.e. 'taking the fifth' as we say here in the US. While Britain doesn't have a Constitution like ours, our 5th Amendment is based on a long established English common law right against self incrimination.

The state has thus fined car owners for refusing to testify, a violation of their right to not speak.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign said: "Despite rapidly mounting evidence that speed cameras have proved to be a deadly mistake, government appears to be incapable of seeing the damage that's being done."

He went on: "The so-called 'right to silence' is ancient and worthy. I am certain that speed cameras have made our roads considerably more dangerous by diverting attention from more important safety factors."

A Department of Transport spokesman said: "The UK Government does not accept this claim and is vigorously defending this case. We are confident of its defence, which has been upheld in the UK courts."

We shall be watching.

NH House Commission Hearing on RFID Wednesday

2006-09-26T23:16:00.000-04:00

COMMISSION ON THE USE OF RADIO FREQUENCY TECHNOLOGY (HB 203-FN,
Chapter 165:1, Laws of 2006), Room 304, Legislative Office Building (behind the state house)
Concord, New Hampshire
10:00 a.m. Regular meeting.

Rep. Sam Cataldo, CASPIAN Founder and "Spy Chips" author Katherine Albrecht, and others will be appearing as RFID commission members for this public hearing regarding Radio Frequency IDentification technologies, with an eye toward formulating regulations to prevent the violation of NH citizens' privacy or other rights with these technologies.

If you care about your privacy and the future of your freedom, you'll attend this meeting to contribute your opinion and hear what the commissioners have determined to date. This is an issue of importance to all libertarians and others who care about their privacy rights. Don't let the state seize your privacy in the name of security.

NH House Plays Stupid

2006-09-26T23:01:00.000-04:00

If you read the blog yesterday, you saw that today was going to be a special session of the New Hampshire House to consider what to do about fixing the Primacy Effect problem that we got thrown out by the state supreme court, along with an attempt to consider a state constitutional amendment to strip the court of power to legislate education finance policy.

As predicted, they voted not to deal with the education issue. We'll go through the election now with both parties having an issue to drum against their opponents, while they themselves are to blame for not solving the issue permanently.

However, the really remarkable bit of idiocy was to accept Secty of State Bill Gardner's idiotic proposal to answer the state supreme courts ruling in Aitkins vs. Gardner, by simply giving the primacy effect to people whose names start with letters other than "A". Yeah, that dumb.

Gardners proposal was to alphabetize the list of candidates, rather than place the previous winning party's candidates first, but to get around the Court's admonition against alphabetization by starting with the letter "K" instead of "A". Of course, that this just gives the primacy effect vote bonus to people with K last names rather than A last names did not seem to occur to these idiots.

And, of course, Ralph Aitkins, the Democrats, and the LPNH will take them back to court to make them pull their heads out of their asses and do it right, but that will take at least another year to bring back to court.

Karl Dickey Calls For No Sales Tax On Hybrids, Solar Panels

2006-09-26T14:09:00.000-04:00

BOCA RATON, FLORIDA , September 25, 2006 – Karl Dickey, Libertarian candidate for State Senate stated today, “When elected to the State Senate I will sponsor a bill to eliminate the state sales tax on all automobiles that are rated at having gas mileage above 40 mpg. I drive a hybrid vehicle and feel others should enjoy the tax benefits and the gas savings benefits associated with driving these vehicles. In addition, the bill will include language to eliminate sales tax on all solar collection devices and wind turbines, whether for business or personal use.”

Mr. Dickey would like to see Florida ’s government budget reduced by taking in less taxes and eliminating the sales tax on alternative energy source is just one way he intends to see that happen. This sales tax exemption will be a savings of $1,800 for a $30,000 vehicle that is rated to get over 40 mpg. The tax break will not be limited to only hybrid vehicles, but any vehicle at that rating. Most homes that convert to solar and/or wind energy have a typical cost of $20,000, of which approximately $15,000 is in materials. The sales tax exemption would save the home owner approximately $900 in their conversion costs.

Mr. Dickey concluded, “We need to become more independent in our energy consumption and why here in Florida , the Sunshine State , we are not utilizing the sun’s energy to its fullest potential is beyond me. Our government has failed us again by not being forward-thinkers; this is a program that should have been enacted in the 1970’s.”

Contact: Karl Dickey
5970 SW 18th ST #331
Boca Raton, FL 33433-7197
Phone 888-298-6837
Fax 561-362-4229
www.dickey2006.org
vote4karl@gmail.com

Rare session begins today

2006-09-26T05:51:00.000-04:00

By JOHN DISTASO
Senior Political Reporter
Manchester Union Leader

Concord – Supporters of a constitutional amendment to remove education funding issues from the control of the judiciary will have their say today - and then, barring an unexpected turn of events, will go home disappointed.

The House and Senate will meet at 1 p.m. in a rare special session, but an education funding constitutional amendment is not expected to go very far - probably no further than being brought up in a debate over the rules of the session.

The session was called after a group of conservative legislators petitioned for it to deal with the makeup of the state's general election ballots. The ballots were ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court in July. The court said that by listing the candidates of the party that won the previous gubernatorial election first, they were discriminating against members of the other party and independents.

The court also outlawed the practice of alphabetizing the names of multiple candidates for the same House seat.

Secretary of State William Gardner set up a new ballot that rotates the party candidates throughout the state, giving Republicans, Democrats and independents or third-party candidates an equal chance to appear in the left column.

Gardner also revamped the alphabetized portion of ballots by drawing the letter "K" to replace "A" as the first letter of the first candidates for the House in each district. Gardner's' system then returns to standard alphabetizing in what has become known as his "K-A-B-C" makeup.

Some of the candidates who brought the original lawsuit two years ago were dissatisfied with "K-A-B-C" and returned to court last week. Judge Carol Ann Conboy questioned whether that "K-A-B-C" is any less discriminatory than the original system. An attorney for the candidates who sued the state two years ago suggested moving to a system of "K-L-M-N."

The judge withheld a ruling pending today's action.

As a result, debate is expected today over the "K-A-B-C" system as opposed to "K-L-M-N."

Senate President Ted Gatsas, R-Manchester, said the Gardner bill will be taken up by the Senate first. He expects it to pass.

But before that happens, members of both bodies will have a chance to debate the rules of the session.

That is when proponents of an education funding constitutional amendment will have a chance to make their cases, in an effort to counter the state Supreme Court's threatened takeover of the system next summer.

Read the rest of the story...

Rep. Bass Staffer Posed On Liberal Blogs

2006-09-26T05:44:00.000-04:00

By SCOTT BROOKS
Union Leader Staff
5 hours, 22 minutes ago

An aide to U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass used a government computer to post political messages under a pseudonym on several blogs whose creators support his Democratic challenger.

The staffer posed as a liberal in a series of online postings that commended the Republican incumbent and downplayed Paul Hodes' chances in this November's election.

Groups Launch Sudan Mutual Fund Screening Tool

2006-09-26T05:00:00.000-04:00

Here's something I picked up off PR Web that seems appropriate to libertarians who want to control whether their money is invested in companies that do business in the Sudan with the genocidal regime there. Don't let your money finance the worst coercers out there.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) September 26, 2006 -- The Sudan Divestment Task Force and Invested Interests have created the first online tool allowing individuals to screen their mutual funds for investments in companies supporting the Sudanese government. Initiated and perpetuated by the Khartoum regime, the first genocide of the 21st century, rages into its fourth year in the country’s vast Darfur region. Although many companies operating in Sudan contribute positively to the underprivileged by building vital economic infrastructure, numerous Sudan experts agree that certain "worst offending" companies are clearly contributing to Sudan’s capacity to carry out genocide while imparting little or no benefit to Sudan’s citizens. By targeting this select set of "worst offending" companies investors can remain consistent with principles of socially responsible investing while minimizing or eliminating unintended harms to Sudanese civilians.

The Sudan Screening Tool, using data provided by the Sudan Divestment Task Force, provides visitors with a report detailing the names, dollar value and percent of total assets invested in offending companies. Sudan divestment data has previously been available only to large institutions. The Sudan Screening Tool allows for any mutual fund investor, approximately 57 million U.S. households, to actively participate in Sudan divestment.

To learn more about the atrocities in Sudan or the case for Sudan divestment, visit the website of the Sudan Divestment Task Force.

To discuss the Sudan Screening Tool and other resources available for Sudan divestment, the Sudan Divestment Task Force will be presenting a live web conference for investors and financial professionals on September 27th, 2006 from 1:00p.m.-2:00p.m EDT. For more information or to attend the conference, please contact the Sudan Divestment Task Force.

About the Sudan Divestment Task Force:
As the national clearinghouse for the Sudan divestment movement, we are actively involved in dozens of campaigns across the country at the university, city and state levels. The Sudan Divestment Task Force has developed a unique approach to divestment, focusing its efforts on the most egregiously offending companies in Sudan. This approach, termed targeted divestment, helps maximize impact on the Sudanese government, while minimizing harms to innocent Sudanese citizens and US investment returns.

Contact: Jason Miller at (415) 225-2134

So Much For the Somali "Ungoverned"

2006-09-26T04:44:00.000-04:00

A few years ago, a group of the bunkertarian wing were touting Somalias status as a "failed state" as proof that an ungoverned anarchy can exist in todays world, while more pragmatic minds such as myself and Jason Sorens, state that the ongoing violence there argues against the present utility of an ancap state, at least in that part of the world. Those voices seem to have gone quiet recently, as it has become oh so evident that this "ungoverned state" has become prey to a Neo-Taliban, likely funded by the same Wahabbist fanatics that gave Bin Laden his start.

Leeson and Stringham attempt in their 2005 paper, "Is Government Inevitable?", to dispute the claims by Randall Holcombe in "Goverment: Unecessary but Inevitable" that anarchy is inherently impossible to maintain and thus libertarians should focus on establishing minarchist libertarian governments to preempt the inevitable attempt by the strong to force a less desirable government on the weak.

They argue firstly that just because a civilized anarchy has never existed (the handful of anarchic societies in recent history constitute the most primitive societies around living in generally undesirable marginal terrain), doesn't mean it is impossible any more than one could claim in 1500 AD that democracy was impossible because none had existed up to that day. This is fair, but simplistic: democracies did exist prior to 1500, so far back as ancient Greece, Sparta, and the Roman Republic. The most civilized society that was most minimalist in government was the medieval Icelanders, as David Friedman has written of, and even they had their priests, their lay-judges and their Althing.

The arguments get weaker from there. They then try to posit that if it is inevitable for an anarchy to fail, as Holcombe claims, they argue that for the same reasons that an anarchy would fail, so would a weak minarchy fail.

He [Holcombe] maintains that stronger agents will be tempted to use force against the weak and impose government on them. Because some are stronger than others they will see that using force is cheaper than trade. While parts of the argument may have truth, they do not establish the inevitability of the state. To arrive at Holcombe’s conclusion, two special assumptions are necessary.

1. First, strength must be so disproportionate that the strong face little downside for engaging in conflict. This assumption may be unrealistic. Imagine what would happen if everyone were of similar strengths. If one stood a fifty percent chance of losing any fight, as long as fighting entails costs, the use of force would not be the income-maximizing strategy.

The problem with this simplistic assumption is that, even if you made the hypothetical assumption that all players started out exactly equal, such material equalities would rather quickly change to match the relative strengths and weakenesses of each unique individual. Some individuals would grow wealthy on their own productivity or skill in trade, while others would fall behind, as is the natural order of competition in the free market. Further, individuals readily group and coalition to gain an advantage over others, a condition repeatedly proven both in the real world every day, and particularly in the anarchic reality television show, "Survivor", and its clones, where we regularly see socially intelligent players building alliances to vote others "off the island", and tribes competing against one another for precious resources.

The relevant question is not whether some are more powerful than others but whether power is so lopsided that the strong face few risks by engaging in conflict. Consider again the state of global anarchy in which we find ourselves. Poer is more evenly distributed between sovereign states in the international arena than between individuals in New York’s Central Park....It is merely to point out that the presence of asymmetric power is insufficient to prove that world government is inevitable.

Firstly, it is improper to automatically assume that violent conflict is the only means to achieving lopsided power. Commerce and trade make inequality inevitable, and inevitably lead to assymetries of force in any plenum without an arms control regime. A more accurate elucidation would be whether potential gains of force outweigh the potential losses, versus the more mundane risks of peaceful trade.

In Central Park, one sees binary engagements: where generally one or both sides comprises a single individual with one life that the individual values highly, and so the risk of loss of life makes risk of engaging in conflict a totality, particularly when overpowered or outnumbered. While this makes victims less enthused about being victimised, it emboldens thugs to form alliances or become empowered by strength or weaponry. In the international arena, leaders rarely if ever are personally at risk and so feel less loss at engaging in conflict, but it is easier to purge a leader from office than to kill him or her. The fact that puny states such as Monaco and Andorra live peacefully next to much larger nations disproves Leeson and Stringham's assumptions here.

2. The second assumption required for Holcombe’s conclusion is that weaker individuals cannot find private solutions to transform the incentives of the strong to plunder.

There are of course many such solutions: private arms, voluntary militias. However, Leesom and Stringham choose some particularly bad examples.

Traveling middlemen who connected European exporters on the coast of Angola and the producers of these exports in the remote interior of Africa were substantially stronger than the producers with whom they interacted. Additionally, no formal authority policed the interactions between the members of these two groups—they interacted in the context of anarchy. Middlemen thus faced a strong incentive to violently steal the goods they desired rather than trading to obtain them.

The argument presented by Holcombe suggests that these middlemen would establish government over producers, but the historical record indicates that they did not.

Not so. Travelling traders such as described maintained their professions for their lifetimes. If they violently stole the producers goods every trip, the producers would in fact organize a government to prevent them, even to force the traders to pay higher rates for product. In fact, this has been historically the case, where feudalism arose to protect farmers and skilled tradesmen from roving exploiters. So, rather than establish government over the producers, the traders sought to maintain the state of anarchy in order to protect their own pocketbook against higher prices and punitive taxes of states organized by producers. This maintenance of a Nash equilibrium was stable only so long as more rapacious marauders did not compete for the same goods. Greater competition for more scarce goods would have resulted in force and conflict, and inevitably government.

Why? Producers devised several informal institutions for transforming the incentive of stronger middlemen from banditry to exchange. One institution they employed was middleman credit. Producers decided not to produce anything so that if middlemen came to plunder their goods, there would be nothing for them to steal. After having incurred a costly trip to the interior to plunder producers, middlemen who approached producers and found nothing to take faced two options. They could either go home empty handed, or they could agree to exchange with producers on credit.

Because the former choice involved certain losses and the latter involved the prospect for profits, middlemen agreed to credit agreements with producers. Middlemen would pay up front and producers would agree to harvest the goods and make them available at some point in the future. The use of credit not only prevented middlemen from plundering producers, it also created a strong incentive for them to protect these producers from the predatory behavior of other middlemen.

But isn't this an imposition of force by the producers on the trading middlemen? Isn't this establishing the middleman as an party interested in protecting "their producers" from other marauding middlemen, and thus, a Private Protection Agency, ergo a minimalist government? The producer has transformed the middleman into a public servant.

Furthermore, the sort of enlightened anarchy as L&S would have us believe is the situation is not stable. Middlemen could easily decide to collude against producers. Producers cannot simply not produce permanently, they must produce an excess for themselves to endure the dry season, or winter, as the case may be. Taking the surplus of an uppity producer or two merely creates free land for the middleman to sell to a younger son from some distance away, while "proving" the "inevitability" of working for "the man".

L&S then criticize Holcombe's assertion that a preemptive libertarian state will trump the formation of a thuggocracy, however as I describe above, with producers forming a local government to impose better prices on middlemen, how the trend toward government breaks depends on who is doing the breaking. L&S assume that any such preemptive government cannot be formed without political agents, that it takes some special class of person to form a state and maintain it, a full time specialization, however this claim is unsupported by many examples of minimalist government, from the small town meeting structure of 19th century New England (and still exists in many locales), to the Icelandic All-Thing, to the Folk-Moot, and other forms of seasonally convened voluntary government with a part-time constabulary organized under a militia structure.

Indeed, the militia structure and town meeting form of government is quite stable, going back to before the time of the Norman conquest to the time of the Danelaw in England, up to the present day in many locales. In England, the original structure was constituted by an elected Shire Reeve (aka Sheriff) who commanded all able bodied yeomen in the shire or county. Under him were constables, one for every 20 yeomen (a 'yeoman' being essentially a "Hey, Dude!", or general private individual, i.e. citizen). Town meetings evolved as meetings of the yeomen of the town, who selected their "select men", who were the constables.

While this structure is organically evolved, it has analogs in many other societies under different names and is generally universal, almost as much as the concept of the shaman. So, for this reason, L&S' assumption that a specialized class of political agents is necessary for government is quite false.

Then L&S really make a mistake,

Couple ruler self-interest with superior strength that Holcombe describes, and can there be any hope for limits on government? Rather than creating the minimal state as Holcombe desires, these political actors will deliver much more than anyone bargained for. If we agree with Holcombe that government is created by force, then why would we assume that its creators will produce the minimal state?

One way out this dilemma, to which Holcombe points, is if citizens are strongly unified against the will of the political agent. In this case the political agent will be forced to consider the desires of the public. But realize now that Holcombe is not relying on constitutional constraints as the main check on government but instead relying on ideology.

No, not really. Holcombe is relying on the self interest of the citizens multiplied by their greater numbers, and the fact that the 'agent' has to live among his neighbors. A greater problem is such an agent making a career of the use of force and convincing a bloc of yeomen that they can profit from the rest by supporting his tyrancy.

If one accepts the hypothesis that ideology can trump government force, anarchy becomes a sustainable socio-economic organization, which is just the opposite of what Holcombe wants to argue. Ideology, after all, is what libertarian anarchists such Hummel (1990; 2001) believe can stave off the violent formation of the state.

The problem with this assumption is based on the idea that an anarchical group in conflict cannot be beaten by a more well disciplined force of yeoman militia commanded by an officer corps, however part time it may be in its training. This assumption is inherently false.

The creation of preemptive limited government in Holcombe’s argument faces another serious problem. If we assume that stronger agents will always use strength to overtake the weak, what prevents stronger authoritarian states that devote most of their resources to military build up from overtaking societies with preemptively created limited governments?

That is a question answered by events such as the American Revolution.

Now, applying that to the present situation in Somalia, we have two main forces: a provisional government organized by the UN with little support from the warlords, and no effective authority outside the one city it is based in, versus the Islamist militia that gives warlords the option of joining or dying. The Islamists now control Mogadishu and other major cities, and are imposing Sharia upon a society that has over the past decade of anarchy imported a lot of western luxuries in exchange for the export of the khat drug to western nations. The UN allied government is now isolated from the sea, and will inevitably fall to the Islamist forces, whereupon a state will have been created out of an anarchy.

Going back to the first page of L&S' paper, where they state categorically, "Somalia is essentially stateless, and despite predictions that new government would immediately reemerge, has effectively remained so since its government dissolved in 1991. (Little, 2003)," we now see that their own assumption, that a decade of nongovernance constitutes a stable anarchy, is equally unsupportable.

Retired Justice Nadeau Squares Off Against Four Governors

2006-09-25T04:02:00.000-04:00

Here we are, folks, in the ring for the semi-occasional toss-off between the NH Judiciary and the Legislature over who gets to set, and has the courage to set, state education funding policy.

Four former state governors (Sununu, Gregg, Merrill, and Benson, Republicans all) have come out in favor of a State Constitutional Amendment to limit the courts authority to legislate on education, if not bar broad based taxes to pay for them permanently. So has former Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas.

Today, retired Supreme Court Justice Nadeau came out against a Constitutional Amendment today, putting the onus on the legislature to decide what an adequate education is, taking it as a given that it is accepted by the people that the Constitution entitles a child to "an adequate education" paid for by the state (Nadeau was, of course, on of the majority in the infamous Claremont case).

Seems to us that the advantage is with the amendment crowd, but don't let that stop the newspapers from ballyhooing it as a nose to nose fight. The real question is whether the legislature has the votes to pass an amendment or just delay the inevitable for another year while playing chicken with the Court, daring it to make the decision that they cannot make.

The problem in the legislature, of course, is that the Democrats are generally in favor of an income tax, even though they can't admit to it publicly in most districts. Those that do will come under serious attack by their opponents in the election campaign underway. Leaving the decision to the courts is the easy out for anyone scared of standing up for themselves before the electorate, rather than riling up an organized campaign to oust them.

One thing the legislature hasn't considered: NH is not a right to work state. The Supreme Court Justices serve at the pleasure of the legislature, and there is no law requiring cause to fire someone here, nor are the justices members of the state employees union....

Follow what leader? In Concord, there are none

2006-09-25T04:00:00.000-04:00

The Manchester Union Leader, Sept 25, 2006

WHAT A BUNCH of political leaders the people of New Hampshire have.

The state Supreme Court tells the legislative and executive branches how they have to fund education and by when - despite having no constitutional basis whatsoever for doing so - and the leaders of the other two branches say, "Yes, sir!"

There won't be any profiles in courage written about these elected officials.

In 1832, President Andrew Jackson famously responded to Chief Justice John Marshall's decision in Worcester v. Georgia, "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it."

That is the kind of attitude Granite Staters expect in their elected leaders. Instead, we have leaders who say, "The Supreme Court has made its decision; I'm going apple picking."

Sure, they say they oppose a broadbased tax. They say the people's elected representatives have the constitutional authority to set education policy. But what do they do about it?

Nothing.

The Supreme Court has put New Hampshire on the road to a broadbased tax. Tomorrow legislators have the chance to change direction. But they won't. They'll use the convenient excuse that there is not enough support for a constitutional amendment.

Well, of course there isn't if no one bothers to lead.

NH Newspapers Announce Constitution Day Essay Contest

2006-09-25T03:55:00.000-04:00

The New Hampshire Union Leader, Foster's Daily Democrat, The Citizen of Laconia, the Concord Monitor and the Keene Sentinel are sponsoring a statewide Constitution Day Essay Contest.

The contest was developed in response to a federal law mandating schools to teach about the U.S. Constitution in September.

"We're excited to offer this unique opportunity for New Hampshire students and teachers," said Teresa Robinson, community relations manager for the New Hampshire Union Leader. "We hope to make this an annual contest."

The contest kicked off on Sept. 18 and asked students to write a short essay about the First Amendment. All responses must be postmarked by Oct. 6.

The essay question was developed by Associate New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice James Duggan, and details about the contest can be found at www.unionleader.com/nie.

"The Constitution Day essay contest gives students an opportunity to think and write about important questions that are fundamental to our democracy," said Duggan. "I am pleased to be part of the project and I am looking forward to reading what the students have to say."

Each newspaper will select a winner in each of two age categories, and those finalists will go on to be read and judged by Duggan.

The statewide winners, along with the winners from the individual newspapers, will be honored at a reception at the New Hampshire Supreme Court in November. Winning students will have the opportunity to read their essays. Families of the winners and their teachers will also attend.

For information, contact Teresa Robinson 668-4321, ext. 506 or e-mail trobinson@unionleader.com.

Eminent Domainia VI: Video of Lauren Canario Arrest, Police "Victimized"

2006-09-24T20:07:00.000-04:00

Caleb Johnson submitted this video to YouTube:

As you can see, Lauren did not resist arrest, she merely did not cooperate. However, police are now claiming she "victimized" them, with one asserting that having to carry her injured his back. Poor boy!

Eminent Domainia V: Local Resident `victimizes' Connecticut Police

2006-09-24T11:11:00.000-04:00

by Caleb Johnson
The Keene Free Press

It's a tough job standing up for freedom. Just ask Lauren Canario. Canario, a current resident of Winchester, moved to New London, Connecticut from Las Vegas immediately following the Supreme Court's Kelo decision. In Kelo, the Court decided that the town of New London could seize Suzette Kelo's home and sell it to a private developer. Canario moved to New London to help the local residents by engaging in civil disobedience to oppose this tyrannical action by the New London government.

On the morning of September 22, Canario was arrested by the New London Police department as she peacefully read a book in front of one of the homes that was being boarded. She is being held on $5000 bail. I called Lt. Ackley of the New London Police Department to speak with him regarding Lauren's arrest. For those who wish to contact Lt. Ackley personally, his phone number is 860-447-5281.

Lt. Ackley informed me that Canario has not been `cooperative', apparently refusing to be fingerprinted or to move where she is told to move. She is also maintaining her right to remain silent. He told me that he has been victimized by her, as he has been forced to carry her where they want her to be, resulting in him hurting his back.

Of primary interest to me, as a concerned member of the press, is that Canario be treated well. Although denying my request to inspect the facilities and meet with the prisoner, Lt. Ackley expressed shock that anyone would doubt that Canario is being treated well. “Why wouldn't she be treated well?” he asked me. As of this moment, Keene Free Press has been unable to verify that New London is ensuring Canario's basic human rights.

Lt. Ackley is responsible for setting Canario's ransom price, but balked when I suggested that he could lower it to $0 and free her. “Why should I do that?” he asked. “Perhaps because she is non-violent and there is no victim in this case?” I suggested to no avail.

As long as individuals can accept the painfully stupid concept that there can be a crime without a victim, Americans will be forced to endure more and more of this ill-treatment. It is unfathomable that individuals in America can be considered criminals for peaceful acts of civil disobedience. American leaders often condemn other countries for holding “political prisoners,” yet America has yet to remove the plank in its own eye, as American police are no less likely than anywhere else to hold someone captive as a political prisoner.

These actions continue only as a direct result of our consent. As long as any populace continues to respect “the Law” regardless of how antagonistic that law is to fundamental rights, we will continue to experience tyranny. When Americans realize that it is within their power to stand up to immoral laws, then we shall finally realize the American dream of freedom.
Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 September 2006 )

S Dakota: Judicial Accountability Amendment Rising in Polls

2006-09-24T08:45:00.000-04:00

The Dakota Voice reports that Amendment E, the controversial state constitutional amendment on the ballot this year, is rising in public support, with 67% support, and 13%+ "unsure. With less than 20% opposition to the amendment, it appears that they will meet the necessary supermajority threshold in this election.

Amendment E allow creation of a citizen's oversight committee or special grand jury which would hear complaints of alleged judicial misconduct against judges. If a judge is found guilty three times of having engaged in judicial misconduct, he or she would be removed from office and could never serve in any judicial capacity in South Dakota again.

Democrats say they will support the measure by 69.8%, Republicans by 62.2%, Independents by 72.5% and all three Libertarians polled said they would support the amendment.

Democrats made up 32% of the total surveyed, Republicans 46%, Independents 21% and about 0.6% Libertarians. In the June 2006 primary, the breakdown of registered voters for South Dakota was 47.68% Republican, 37.97% Democrat, .22% Libertarian, .07% Constitution, and 14.06% "other."

The West River area leads East River support with 74.2%, but East River comes in at a considerable 65.1% support.

The 18-29 age group leads in support at 71.3%, with the least support from the 65+ age bracket at 65.2%.

Males support the measure slightly more than females (68.9% to 65.3%), with the greatest support among income brackets at 73.8% for the $50-75K range.

The religious breakdown has Catholics with the greatest support at 70.8%, Protestants at 63.2% and “other” supporting the measure by 74.2%.

Amendment E marks the first major victory for the group known as JAIL 4 Judges, if it passes. JAIL4Judges is a common fixture at many libertarian events around the country. They regularly appear at the Free State Project's Porcupine Freedom Festivals, the largest libertarian gathering in the country, as well as state LP conventions, etc.

Bill Stegmeier of South Dakota Judicial Accountability, the primary proponent of the JAIL Amendment, has had an uphill battle to get the amendment on the ballot. In attempting to pass it through the legsilature, the amendment was unanimously voted down by every legislator and state senator, out of fear that such an amendment would be extended to hold every public official under scrutiny of citizen committees (we can only hope, eh?).

Stegmeier says the normal process for addressing judicial misconduct is insufficient because of the doctrine of judicial immunity which prevents judges from being sued for their official actions. Whether this state constitutional amendment will survive a likely challenge in the US Supreme Court, as have prior state constitutional amendments, like the Colorado anti-gay measures, remains to be seen.

Hungarian Protests Reach Seventh Day

2006-09-24T08:07:00.000-04:00

According to VOA, Hungarian protesters, who we had reported last week were setting fire to the state television building, remain in a state of protest in the main square of Budapest, demanding the resignation of Socialist Prime Minister Gyurscany's government, for its years of lying about economic information in order to remain in power.

Pal Schmitt, a member of the European Parliament from Hungary's center-right opposition party, Fidesz, told demonstrators that the prime minister has caused a moral crisis in his country.

He says the upcoming municipal elections on October 1 will be a referendum on the government's performance. He says they will be an opportunity for the left and right wing to in his words "declare their belief in justice sincerity, peace, quiet and Hungary's development."

Gyurscany earlier closed his Socialist Party headquarters, as it had become a focus of some of the most violent aspects of protesters. If this means he is unable to campaign effectively, and if his grip on state television is removed, then the Socialist party could be toppled, even though recent polls show the party retains a majority of support.

Fidesz is Hungary's Right-Libertarian Party. The Alliance of Free Democrats, whose members are generally left-libertarians who split from Fidesz, is currently in coalition with Gyurscany's lying Socialists.

Thai Leader Ousted For Being Too Popular

2006-09-24T07:36:00.000-04:00

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted Prime Minister of Thailand, was apparently purged while visiting the US because he was an outsider who was simply too popular for the old time power brokers to handle within the electoral system.

Thaksin started out as a policeman but gradually entered into business, and rode the communications revolution wave to prosperity; today he is considered one of the richest Thais. By the mid-1980s he was flush with cash, by 1990 he was on the Stock Exchange, and by 1994 he had entered politics, serving as foreign minister and deputy prime minister in two different governments.

“He has the same constituency as the King,” says Dr Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University, and the only expert willing to go on record about the Palace. “Thaksin has built in four years what it took the King to build in four decades.”

While the King has built up a reverent following over 60 years of humble and pious rule, particularly with his 3000 development projects to improve the living status of the poor and rural families, Thaksin turned populist after his party won the 2001 elections. He instituted free health care, low-cost loans, and debt suspension for farmers. His management saw poverty slashed by half, he repaid Thailand’s IMF loans two years ahead of schedule, and he encouraged rural entrepreneurship. No wonder the rural poor still love him.

The bureaucratic elites worried that he had attained too much popularity to be held at bay by the system, calling him an "elected dictator", for his ability to get things done that only improved his popularity, nobody could say no to him. In the February 2005 polls, he won 377 out of 500 seats, but was delegitimised by an opposition boycott. In the April 2006 polls, he won about 57 per cent of the popular vote. The next round was to take place in October, but as Dr Thitinan points out, “Even if elections are held under UN supervision, Thaksin will win hands down.”

So because of his political advantage with the people, Thaksin had to go. “Instead of waiting for Thaksin to politically weaken, they used a quick fix,” says Sunai.

This brings to mind the original, Roman origins of the word "Tyrant". A tyrant is normally associated in the modern day with leaders who oppress the people, but the term was actually applied to leaders who attained power through the support of the common people, contrary to the wishes of the aristocracy, and maintains power over the aristocracy through popular support, "oppressing" the aristocracy from exercising their perquisites and rights to oppress their own vassals and serfs.

By this dynamic, the ouster of Thaksin is completely understandable.

However, what is particularly disappointing is that the military junta has completely thrown out the Constitution, which is relatively new and popular, given it was developed through much public involvement.

Hindustan Times reports:

“Thais are most upset about the military throwing out the Constitution,” says constitutional expert Somchai Homlaor of the Lawyers’ Council of Thailand. “They could have just suspended a few provisions. It is especially bad as this was considered a people’s Constitution, drawn up with large participation and over a long period of time.”

And the fear now is that whatever replaces the 1997 Constitution will not be as broad-based. “It will be drawn up by technocrats who will be interested in public law and administrative efficiency, but not responsive to democracy as practiced outside of Parliament through civil society and the media,” says a Constitutional expert who wished only to be identified as Sunai for fear of reprisal by the military’s Orwellian-sounding Council for Democratic Reform under Constitutional Monarchy. “It will undermine the political maturity of Thailand, and set the tone for the future.”

To put the drastic action in context, one must see Thailand’s recent political history as a struggle between the new order and the old one, between an “usurper” and an established elite, and between the new boardroom and the old bureaucracy.

Osama bin Laden Dead? If so, NOT as a Martyr

2006-09-24T06:59:00.000-04:00

In the lead up to the November elections, the primary issue on peoples minds is: "Are the Republicans doing well in prosecuting the War on Terror or not?"

The ongoing strife and occupation of Iraq are generally pointed to as a sign it is not going well, generally by the same people who claim that there is no linkage between the occupation of Iraq and the War on Terror, but these are generally people capable of believing six contradictory things before breakfast, anyways (Peak Oil and Global Warming, among them).

Now come out rather vague reports in a French paper reporting on a French intelligence report of a conversation with a Saudi colleague that asserts that the Saudis think bin Laden died of Typhus in a Pakistani cave some time in the last month.

Everybody is cautious about believing it for different reasons. If bin Laden is alive, such a story could be simple agit-prop as a prelude to him releasing a new video before the elections in an attempt to influence them. Given France's hostility to US foreign policy (at the same time their own police are surrendering to Islamic youth riots), this could be a Chiracian attempt to entice bin Laden to release a new video before the elections. Here in the US, the Dems don't want to believe it, as it will likely dash their hopes of taking over congress this term, and of course the Bush admin has learned to be wary of any such story until it is confirmed. Past allegations of Osamas death have been greatly exaggerated.

Of course, the upside of bin Ladens death goes beyond the fact that he may be dead. If he did indeed die of Typhus or a similar disease, then bin Ladens followers worldwide would not be able to proclaim him a holy Martyr who died in battle, but a sickly coward who died of disease hiding in a cave. The propaganda value of THAT prospect is rather enormous for the Bush administration. It would decrease the number of muslim babies being named Osama, for one thing, and generally help dispel his fan base, from which is recruited the new membership of al Qaeda.

Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival", Musharraf's "In the Line of Fire"

2006-09-24T06:02:00.000-04:00

Move over Oprah. In his speech before the UN, Venezuelan communist President Hugo Chavez held up Noam Chomsky's 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance" as an accurate explanation of the motivations behind US foreign policy.

When Mr. Chávez excoriated President George W. Bush as the “devil,” he held up a copy of “Hegemony” and urged his audience “very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.... an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.”

The book has since climbed to the top of best seller lists at Amazon and Barnes & Noble yesterday. The hardcover reached No. 6 at Amazon.

Not all reviewers are as enthusiastic about the book as Chavez, who just wrapped up a week hobnobbing at the hospital bedside of Fidel Castro, and lunching with Iran's President Ahmedinejad.

Alan M. Dershowitz, the constitutional lawyer and Harvard Law School professor, said he doubted whether many of the current buyers would ever actually read the book.

“I don’t know anybody who’s ever read a Chomsky book,” said Mr. Dershowitz, who said he first met Mr. Chomsky in 1948 at a Hebrew-speaking Zionist camp in the Pocono Mountains where Mr. Dershowitz was a camper and Mr. Chomsky was a counselor.

“You buy them, you put them in your pockets, you put them out on your coffee table,” said Mr. Dershowitz, a longtime critic of Mr. Chomsky. The people who are buying “Hegemony” now, he added, “I promise you they are not going to get to the end of the book.”

He continued: “He does not write page turners, he writes page stoppers. There are a lot of bent pages in Noam Chomsky’s books, and they are usually at about Page 16.”

Pimping books is not uncommon among world leaders. The press regularly questions President Bush on what books he's read lately, as if his ability to read needs to be checked every so often. At Fridays White House joint press conference for Bush and President Musharraf, the Pakistani leader dodged answering a question as to claims that he had said that Asst. Secty of State Richard Armitage had threatened the bombing of Pakistan if Musharraf didn't switch sides to support the US in the war on terror. “I am launching whose book on the 25th, and I am honor-bound to Simon & Schuster not to comment on the book before that day,” he said.

After laughter subsided, Mr. Bush said, “In other words, buy the book.”

Who knew Perves was a funnyman?

General John Stark Speaks on the Proposed State Income Tax

2006-09-23T03:56:00.000-04:00

Here in NH, our out of control Supreme Court is trying to force the legislature to pass a large broad based tax to pay for public education, rather than leaving it to the traditional town level local control. A movement is afoot to amend the state constitution to remove the courts ability to define what is an 'adequate education'. Thinking that it would be good to bring some Heavy Names to bear, I've channelled the ghost of General John Stark, Hero of the Battle of Bennington:

Brigadier General John Stark v. Claremont, ©2006 by Mike Lorrey.

The New York City Rally FOR Illegal Guns, Monday 12:30pm at City Hall

2006-09-22T22:31:00.000-04:00

The New York City Rally FOR Illegal Guns, Monday 12:30pm at City Hall

When: 12:30pm, Monday, September 25th, 2006
Where: Outside Gates at City Hall on Broadway, Downtown Manhattan, New York City
Event: “The NYC Rally for Illegal Guns”

New York City Gun Rights activists, Constitutional and civil libertarians, Human Rights activists, and pro-Liberty supporters will hold a rally on Monday, September 25th at 12:30pm outside City Hall in Manhattan to support so-called “illegal guns” and the thousands of decent, responsible New York State citizens and residents who own and carry them to preserve their Freedom and protect themselves from criminals, terrorists and other violent people, contrary to what NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg claims in his current campaign against “illegal guns”.

“Mayor Bloomberg is attacking our Gun Rights across the country, teaming up with big-city mayors and other powerful elitists to erode our self-defense rights and privacy rights under the guise of fighting ‘illegal guns’ and crime,” says Nic Leobold, a local Gun Rights activist and libertarian who thought up the idea for the protest. “Fortunately, most people who own ‘illegal guns’ in New York and the rest of the United States are neither criminals nor violent. They’re just decent, respectable, honest and responsible citizens who want a dependable way to defend themselves and their loved ones and defend their Liberty, and they know Michael Bloomberg or various other government thugs will seize their guns if they register them.”

Jim Lesczynski, the organizer of the famous “Guns for Tots” toy gun drive for the Manhattan Libertarian Party, who is endorsing and participating in Monday’s rally, is just as adamant: "'Illegal gun' is an oxymoron," says Lesczynski. "Any law that purports to prohibit or regulate gun ownership in any way is un-Constitutional on its face and therefore null and void. The only people who should feel threatened by armed citizens are tyrants and criminals."

The rally will also feature several politicians seeking office in the November elections, including John Clifton and Jeffrey Russell, the Libertarian Party candidates for New York State Governor and United States Senator, respectively.

For more information, contact:
Nic Leobold at: 212-228-9255 or email: nleobold@msn.comThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Proposed Ordinance asks Each Household to Have a Firearm

2006-09-22T22:03:00.000-04:00

Sep 21, 2006 10:26 AM EDT
Greenleaf, Idaho -- All Americans have the right to bear arms. Some towns have even gone as far as to require each household to have a gun. Now a small Idaho town is contemplating a similar idea-- it's called the Civil Emergencies Ordinance. And although gun ownership is just one piece of this ordinance, it's the part that's getting the most attention.

"We've blessed to be a fairly rural area of the state, so we don't have a lot of crime and I think we'd like to keep it that way," said Lee Belt, Greenleaf city clerk.

Drive about 10 minutes west of Caldwell and you'll run into Greenleaf, Idaho, population 860. If city council member Steve Jett has his way, each head of household that can legally own a gun, will. Along with that they're encouraged to have ammunition and appropriate training.

"I think the city council is hoping it will happen and that it will be a deterrent to crime as the city and region increases in population," said Belt.

The proposed ordinance is modeled after a similar plan that went into place in 1982 in Kennesaw, Ga. In that instance there was a dramatic decrease in criminal activity. Although crime isn't a huge problem for residents of Greenleaf, the growth in neighboring counties leads them to believe they too are in for some changes.

"There's not a lot of crime here, but I think it's coming, it's getting worse everyday," said Art Bailey, owner of the Greenleaf Store.

While the plan does encourages firearm ownership, the ordinance goes beyond that.

"The largest part itself deals with emergency capabilities," said Belt.

The plan will establish an emergency response plan, and promote its citizen response teams and neighborhood watch volunteer groups, a proactive approach to keep the crime rate to a minimum. So how have residents responded? According to almost everyone we spoke to, they already owned a gun or multiple guns, so this would have no effect on them either way.

"I don't know if it is good for every household, but we being hunters have always had guns," said Bonnie Cagle, a Greenleaf resident.

"I think it is an excellent idea," said Bailey. "If the citizens are armed were not at a disadvantage."

We did ask to speak with the city council member who proposed the ordinance but he was out of town. In November, the council will decide whether or not to adopt the ordinance.

Greenleaf Gun Ordinance

Greenleaf Gun Ordinance

You'll need a version of Windows Media Player 7 or higher to view the video. If you need to download it, go to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/en/default.asp. The video player is supported by Microsoft IE 5.0 and above.

Albion Sinking V: Probe demanded into Scotsman's release

2006-09-21T20:31:00.000-04:00

It appears that our arguments that the Colin Ross attack on Marty Layman-Mendonca may be just the spur that is needed to pass needed reforms in Britain in order to bring the out of control criminal element there to heel. Read on:

INVERNESS, Scotland, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- British lawmakers are demanding to know why a Scottish man who admitted to the brutal beating of a U.S. tourist had been walking the streets.

Police in Inverness said they had been powerless to keep suspect Colin Ross in jail despite the fact he was a confessed woman-hater with extreme anger issues who had recently served three years for attacking another female tourist.

Ross was being held Saturday on charges he beat Marty Layman-Mendonca, a 57-year-old teacher from Vermont, with an iron bar and then robbed her in early July.

The Scotsman newspaper said Saturday that Layman-Mendonca remained in serious condition in a hospital.

Police were concerned enough about Ross' mental state to slap him with an order banning him from going near women; however officials said he should have instead been in custody indefinitely.

Tory lawmakers said they would seek answers from the Scottish judiciary to explain why he was released despite the seemingly obvious danger to the public.

Hat tip: Political Gateway

The Scotsman says:

AN URGENT investigation was last night demanded into why one of Scotland's most violent criminals was released early from prison weeks before carrying out a horrific attack that left an American tourist in a coma.

Colin Ross, a self-confessed woman-hater, yesterday admitted attacking Marty Layman-Mendonca, 57, a teacher from Vermont, with an iron bar near Inverness on 5 July.

When he was arrested, he confessed, saying: "I can't cope on the outside. I've got so many anger issues. I am a danger to the public and I don't deserve to be walking about."

Also commenting on the case is Scottish Executive Justice Minister Cathie Jamieson, whose spokesperson said: "It is not appropriate for Scottish ministers to comment on the details of an individual offender's case."

Problem is, Ms. Jamieson has made proposals that will let all prisoners out of jail after serving only 50% of their sentence% no matter how violent the crime. She also has put forward proposals to ban the sale and posession of swords. If guns were still legal in Scotland, she'd likely be agin them as well. She has even proposed that victims be forced to meet with their attackers to help the attacker be "made aware of the consequences of their crime".

Ms. Jamieson was in a bit of a scandal when she paid £100.00 into her nephews bank account while he was on the run for murder.

A Mr. John Scott of the Howard League for Penal Reform has expressed opposition to any return to extended sentencing, or 'three strikes and your out' style laws.

Ms. Jamiesons solution: She now is working at implementing a program by which offenders, even violent ones, whose crimes are drug and alcohol related, are given referrals to substance abuse treatment and let on their way. She says, "Efficient and effective justice is not about punishing criminals. It is about providing people with routes out of crime."

Now, we shouldn't be shocked that Jamieson is soft on crime. After all, she was previously Education Minister.

Now, we know Ms. Jamieson is capable of laying down the law when she's motivated, after all, she's empowered police to ban soccer hooligans from attending games for up to ten years. On this, she's said, "I am passionate about football, and those who sour the reputation of their clubs are a disgrace to us all. The police asked us for additional powers, and we have provided them."

Last year, the Observer reported that Jamieson was implementing a plan to rid Scotland of what are called "Neds" by 2010. Her proposal included banning Buckfasts tonic win from store shelves, banning wearing of baseball caps and anyone caught wearing burberry clothing will be sentenced without a trial. Speech therapy courses will be imposed on those with what Observer reporter Sandy Minje calls "a scummy accent".

Phrases commonly associated with working class delinquents such as "ya dobber" "pure dead boggin" and "aw whit man" will be outlawed, with severe punishments to act as a deterent.

Jamieson predicts that if this plan is properly executed it could not just erradicate young crime, but crime itself would become non-existent. Under Jack McConnell, Scottish Labour has been of the firm stance that 'neds' are the root of all problems in Scotland, and the First Minister has reacted to this proposal with optimism. "The Labour government are committed to clearing the filth off Scottish Streets" he said today in a television interview.

The proposal has not been met with universal approval, however. The Observer described the Justice Minister's plans to an opposition MP who replied "Really? haha what a tosser!". Public opinion is divided on the matter, a recent opinion poll showed that 46% of Scotland believe Jamieson is indeed a tosser, whilst the remaining 54% see the Justice Minister as more of a dick-head.

We are only 50% sure that this Observer article was satire.

FYI, a "Ned" is a Scotch term for hooligan. The stereotypical view of a ned is an adolescent male youth, of working class background who engages in hooliganism, petty criminality, loutish behaviour, or just irritating others. They are often assumed to be unemployed. Fairly or not, many are quick to stereotype youths dressed in casual sports clothes as "neds". What we in the states would call gang bangers if gun ownership were legal in Scotland...

Seriously, though, Ms. Jamieson doesn't seem to have a problem with going hard on killers, provided they are corporate executives and directors of companies where workplace accidents result in death. Perhaps if Ms. Layman-Mendonca had been pipe-whacked in a workplace, Ms. Jamieson would give a damn...

BACKDATE:

Albion Sinking IV: British Big Brother Bullies Bronx

Albion Sinking, III: Colin Ross Guilty, Layman-Mendonca Recovering

Albion Sinking, II: White River School Teacher Attacked in Scotland

Albion Sinking Into Oceania

Ahmedinejad Is The Antichrist

2006-09-21T04:41:00.000-04:00

Came across this startling conclusion while reading this piece by Confederate Yankee, detailing President Players Club's address to the UN, which the media has largely ignored (which is in contrast to the full publishing of Bush's entire speech). Firstly, it is important to understand from where this guy, and the Ayatollocracy that put him into power, belongs to the apocalyptic Hojjatieh sect, a branch of Shia Islam so radical it was banned in 1983 by Ayatollah Khomeini. Their views are, to put it mildly, are heinously, satanically, chiliastic:

...rooted in the Shiite ideology of martyrdom and violence, the Hojjatieh sect adds messianic and apocalyptic elements to an already volatile theology. They believe that chaos and bloodshed must precede the return of the 12th Imam, called the Mahdi. But unlike the biblical apocalypse, where the return of Jesus is preceded by waves of divinely decreed natural disasters, the summoning of the Mahdi through chaos and violence is wholly in the realm of human action. The Hojjatieh faith puts inordinate stress on the human ability to direct divinely appointed events. By creating the apocalyptic chaos, the Hojjatiehs believe it is entirely in the power of believers to affect the Mahdi’s reappearance, the institution of Islamic government worldwide, and the destruction of all competing faiths.

So, when he says in his speech:

Whether we like it or not, justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world, with the will of the almighty God. It is imperative and also desirable that we, too, contribute to the promotion of justice and virtue.
The almighty and merciful God, who is the creator of the universe, is also its lord and ruler. Justice is his command. He commands his creatures to support one another in good, virtue, and piety, and not in decadence and corruption.

He commands his creatures to enjoin one another to righteousness and virtue, and not to sin and transgression. All divine prophets, from the prophet Adam, peace be upon him, to the prophet Moses, to the prophet Jesus Christ, to the prophet Mohammad, have all called humanity to monotheism, justice, brotherhood, love and compassion.

Is it not possible to build a better world based on monotheism, justice, love and respect for the rights of human beings and thereby transform animosities into friendship?

I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people, with love for all humanity, and, above all, longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.

Oh, almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirst for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and makers among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.

What he means is that he believes it is his Allah given duty to bring about armageddon in order to cause the 12th Imam (the perfect human being, or Mahdi) to appear. During this speech, Ahmadinejad overtly called for the near-term reappearance of the 12th Imam, who he feels will redeem the world through an apocalypse he feels his sect has the right and responsibility to create. It explains why Iran backs global terrorism, and is seeking nuclear weapons.

Those of you who try to point to Bush's evangelism as a threat to world peace, I don't think you can ignore any more what the Iranian leadership is all about.

Still not convinced? How about this, that he believes that he is the 12th Imam, divinely guided?

If the 12th Imam's job is to destroy the world, he's got his work cut out for him.... you fence sitters and bunkertarians out there who think its all Americas fault: this guy wants your ass to convert to the muslim faith, or else...

Liberty Dollar Says NO to the US Mint Allegations

2006-09-20T06:42:00.000-04:00

The United States Mint inadvertently may have done THE LIBERTY DOLLAR, an acclaimed private, non-government currency and favorite numismatic item distributed by NORFED, Inc., a favor by posting a “Warning” on its website on September 14 entitled, “Liberty Dollars Not Legal Tender, United States Mint Warns Consumers.” NORFED states that the last thing they want is for someone to be confused that the gold and silver based Liberty Dollar has some connection with the Federal Government’s fiat money, which is based upon nothing more than popular acceptance for lack of an alternative.

Since the introduction in 1998 of the Liberty Dollar every effort has been made to promote and market the Liberty Dollar with educational tools by clearly and repeatedly pointing out that the Liberty Dollar is not United States Mint fiat money, is not legal tender, is not a coin, is not currency in the sense of governmental coinage, and is not money in the sense of governmental coinage. (Currency and money have varied dictionary definitions. In its own interest the Liberty Dollar has every incentive to clarify that the Liberty Dollar has no connection with the Feds - and that’s what has been done, and continues to be done, over and over.)

Any claim of the forgoing would be contrary to the purpose and function of the Liberty Dollar, which, in addition to its being a numismatic item is a means of voluntary barter.

The US Mint Warning has apparently been responsible for a gigantic increase in media and citizen attention to, clarification of, and evidently purchase of a lot more Liberty Dollars. Mike Johnson, Executive Director for the Liberty Dollar notes that, “There never has been such a volume of response – and incredibly favorable response - to the Liberty Dollar.”

However, the US Mint Warning makes a big and wholly unjustified mistake. At the end of the opening paragraph it says: “Prosecutors within the Department of Justice have determined that the use of these gold and silver NORFED ‘Liberty Dollar’ medallions as circulating money is a Federal crime.”

After some introductory misstatements, erroneously relying upon 18 USC § 486, the last sentence claims that “ . . . prosecutors with [sic] the United States Department of Justice have concluded that the use of NORFED’s ‘Liberty Dollar’ medallions violates 18 USC § 486, and is a crime.”

Leaving aside the fact that the United States Mint has no criminal jurisdiction and no authority to interpret, much less enforce, the Criminal Code, the fact is that nobody in the Federal Government has ever contacted the Liberty Dollar or anybody responsibly connected with it, to investigate, much less to claim, that there is something unlawful about the Liberty Dollar.

Just the opposite. Over and again people have enquired of responsible personnel in the United States Secret Service, in the Department of the Treasury Bureau of Engraving and Printing, in the United States Federal Reserve and so on. Just a few of the responses: An Engraving and Printing spokeswoman said, “There’s nothing illegal about this. As long as it doesn’t say legal tender there’s nothing wrong with it.” A Washington, D. C. Federal Reserve System spokesman said, “There is no law that says goods and services must be paid for with Federal Reserve notes. Parties entering into a transaction can establish any medium of exchange that is agreed upon.” A Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis official said, “If these [NORFED] people want to issue their own money, so be it.”

The Liberty Dollar exists, and does so very well, with an estimated $20 million worth of gold and silver Liberty Dollars and Silver Certificates in voluntary circulation as barter, and growing, because the Liberty Dollar is not legal tender, is not connected with any governmental agency and, unlike United States coins and Federal Reserve notes, it is not fiat - or, what some might say, “funny” money.

LIBERTY DOLLAR DISCLAIMER

The Liberty Dollar and other precious-metal mintings distributed by NORFED, Inc., dba the Liberty Dollar, never have claimed to be, do not claim to be, are not, and do not purport to be, legal tender, or a coin.

The noun currency has many dictionary definitions - for example, without limitation, “that which is current as a medium of exchange[,]” “circulation as a medium of exchange[,]” “a common article for bartering[.]” In the sense that currency may be used to refer to the coinage of a government the Liberty Dollar never has claimed to be, does not claim to be, is not, and does not purport to be, currency.

The noun money also has many dictionary definitions - for example, again without limitation, “something generally accepted as a medium of exchange[,]” “a measure of value[,]” “a means of payment[.]” In the sense that money may be used to refer to the coinage of a government the Liberty Dollar never has claimed to be, does not claim to be, is not, and does not purport to be, money.

The phrase legal tender is more specifically defined and does not meaningfully vary from the authoritative BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY definition, “The money (bills and coins) approved in a country for the payment of debts, the purchase of goods, and other exchanges of value.” In other words, legal tender is what a government authoritatively designates as the medium which a creditor must accept from a debtor if it is offered. The Liberty Dollar never has claimed to be, does not claim to be, is not, and does not purport to be, legal tender. The Liberty Dollar repeatedly has emphasized that it is not legal tender. Legal tender and barter are mutually exclusive. The Liberty Dollar is a numismatic piece or medallion which may be used voluntarily as barter.

The noun coin invariably is defined as “a round piece of metal issued by governmental authority as money” or an equivalent phrase. The Liberty Dollar never has claimed to be, does not claim to be, is not, and does not purport to be, a coin. Any claim of the forgoing would be contrary to the purpose and function of the Liberty Dollar, which, in addition to its being a numismatic item, is a means of voluntary barter.

The Liberty Dollar would be glad to refer any inquiries to counsel in Washington, D.C.

Members of the legal community have also looked askance at the US Mint's misapplication of the laws it cites.

The most immediately obvious error of the Mint's claims is that the Treasury Department is an arm of the Executive Branch; it is charged with enforcing law, not making law or interpreting law. It is not the role of the Treasury to "declare something illegal"; that is, on its face, a sign that the separation of powers is decaying. Treasury claims to have discussed the issue with prosecutors at the Justice Department - also an arm of the Executive Branch. Yet we see no statement from DoJ t that effect, no investigations, no signs of any prosecutions or grand juries. Ergo, no crime has been committed. Executive and Executive have gotten together and decided to ban private money, disregarding long-established positions of the courts and the legislature.

Another offensive aspect is the "legislation by press release". Imagine for a minute that you read in the newspaper that your business has been outlawed by the town police - reversing prior on-the-record quotes that your business was perfectly legal. The proclamation targets your company specifically; your competitors are still free to do business.

(Make no mistake, the US Mint is a business, first and foremost. The Mint delivers $775 million in revenues to the Treasury each year from its scandalously overpriced offerings. The Mint sees the Liberty Dollar as a threat to its revenue stream from the collectibles market.)

Further, the proclamation itself does not identify the police official who has declared you an outlaw. No one called you, no one talked to you, and you were never given any chance to address whatever the issue is. Your business, while legal yesterday, is apparently illegal today without any judicial ruling or legislation. This is simply not a situation compatible with the Rule of Law.

The Mint press release is carefully worded to connect separate concepts as if they were related. It implies that making private money is illegal because the United States Federal Government has an "exclusive" power to coin money, citing Article I, section 8, clause 5 of the Constitution. But the word "exclusive" does not appear in the Constitution as quoted. The Constitution is, by its very nature, a set of enumerated powers and restrictions on governments, not on people. The *states* are restricted from coining money. The *people* are not, and in fact numismatists are aware that the United States has a rich and well-documented history of private mints producing private circulating currency which, while not "legal tender", was "lawful money". Americans create new forms of private money all the time, from casino tokens to debit cards to PayPal to GoldMoney. The Treasury Department appears to have suddenly targeted certain private money, and we suspect it expand its scope soon enough.

Potentially most disturbing of all, 18 USC 486 was actually passed to keep people from passing counterfeit replica coinage that was not backed by actual bullion. It is now being used to do the exact opposite - to ban using money that has real value.

Bill Murphy posts over at La Metropole Cafe that he performed an extensive analysis of 18 USC 486's legislative and legal history. The historical record showed it was firmly intended for use as a counterfeiting law, not to ban private currency. The courts have ruled on this specific issue and found that 18 USC 486 does not reach private currencies. The reasons are straightforward: to counterfeit something is to make a passable copy of it for purposes of deception. The standard for counterfeiting has always been that an ordinary person in ordinary commerce would likely confuse the item with a specific other item. If you color photocopy a $20 bill, you are counterfeiting. If you substitute Mickey Mouse for the President, color it orange, and call it a Disney Dollar, you are not counterfeiting. Disney has not committed a crime by making their own money, even though its overall look may be similar to that of the FRN and it may use similar symbols. No ordinary person would confuse a Disney Dollar with a Federal Reserve Note. For the same reason, you cannot counterfeit a $3 bill. It is well known that there is no such bill. You could make one, and you might even convince someone that it was a FRN, and that would be fraud, but the bill itself could not be counterfeit.

18 USC 486 was a Reconstruction-era law intended to police counterfeiting. At the end of the Civil War, the United States re-backed its currency with bullion. During the war, private businesses had issued "store tokens" to deal with the dearth of specie. Some were legitimate, but others looked very like cents and were easily confused. But a collection of cents was redeemable in bullion; a collection of tokens was not. Congress acted to insure individuals could not issue private coinage that would deceive an ordinary observer into thinking it was U.S. coin, but was not actually redeemable in bullion. That law was later re-codified as 18 USC 486.

One hundred and twenty years later, the Treasury Department has acted to stand 18 USC 486 on its head, using it to ban the use of coinage that *is* bullion and does not closely resemble circulating coin, in place of coinage that has no real value. Black has become white; white has become black - or so Treasury would have us believe.

So it seems quite clear: The US Mint has screwed up. They are misapplying law intended to prosecute those counterfieting the Federal Reserves fiat scrip scrap and the Mint's debased debauchery. They aren't going to get away with it, and the public sees through this Wizard of Oz routine, as demonstrated by the vast increase in interest in Liberty Dollars.

UPDATE: Liberty Dollar Wins Grand Prize For Security Printing

BACKDATE:

US MINT Claims NORFED Are Federal Criminals

US Mint v NORFED: The legal case

NORFED Fires Back At US MINT

Is Ad-Sense Dead?

2006-09-19T20:04:00.000-04:00

WARNING: This post discusses economics and marketing of websites, and discusses a couple free books that explain why Ad-Sense revenues have declined so much over the past year, and what to do about it if you are intent on making your living from the internet. If you are allergic to such things, ignore this story.

As libertarians, we all want to be financially secure and in command of our own incomes. I myself have been working diligently to make this website commercially successful with the knowledge and tools I have available, but have been terribly disappointed with the results to date.

All these ads you see, at the time of this posting, in the left hand column have enjoyed over 300,000 impressions in the past month here at IntLib, resulting in hundreds of click-throughs. Ask me how much money have I made from them? Nothing. Not a cent. I feel quite ripped off, and I feel badly for putting the ads there in the impression they would generate revenue, when they've just cluttered up your IntLib experience. They will be going away in the next several days once I have something better in place.

The AdSense ads have made money, but miniscule amounts. Until the NORFED stories broke last thursday, I had made a grand total of $4.00 off the program. Now I'm up to about $32.00 and hoping to make $50.00 before dropping the program entirely, so I can at least get that one check in the mail.

Most of the ads on this site are through LinkShare, btw, so be warned: don't work with them. I haven't made a cent from LinkShare. That is the first lesson learned.

In the last week, as I've been writing articles for IntLib, researching stories, and working to improve your experience here, I've also been investigating how to better make this site a going concern. This journey of discovery I am undertaking I will be sharing with you, the reader, so that you can apply what I've learned to your own internet endeavors and enterprises.

I won't post anything unless I can make money from it too, but I won't make money off your back.

Also, if you, the reader, have information to provide, you are invited to include it in comments, or email me a full blown article.

The first possibility is something I don't know whether it works yet, because I've only seen half the story so far. The second half is supposed to be coming out in two days. It is a two part series of ebooks by Scott Boulch, explaining why Ad-Sense revenues have dropped so precipetously in the past year, and what he has done to recover the $5,000.00 a month income he enjoyed prior to this drop. The first of the two books is called "The Death Of AdSense, and The Return Of Common Sense", and I highly suggest you click on this link and download this booklet. It is for free, no obligations. Downloading it signs you up to be able to download part 2, Life After Adsense, which will be released for free by the author at the same site on September 21, 2006, at 10 AM Central Time.

Now, I suspect that whatever he is proposing for you to implement to recover your ad revenues, that he wants a piece of it. His previous business that exploited AdSense followed along that model, so its a good guess, but I don't know yet. We'll have to find out together on Thursday.

Those of you who do download and read both books are encouraged to discuss them at The International Libertarian Group forum at MySpace, which you can link to via the IntLib masthead on this page. I don't want to commit to anything that isn't going to be worthwhile for everyone, and those of you with internet businesses that are dependent on ad revenue probably feel the same way, so lets get this info, and talk it out, see what the consensus opinion is. If it doesn't give any real answers without paying money, then we'll chuck it, and move on.

Albion Sinking IV: British Big Brother Bullies Bronx

2006-09-19T14:22:00.000-04:00

As we noted in our prior stories on the case of the Colin Ross attack on Marty Layman-Mendonca, certain persons attempted to pressure IntLib to suppress information about Mr. Ross' prior criminal record, claiming that a blog entry here in New Hampshire would bias the Scottish jury pool. This sort of transatlantic heavy handedness seems to be a growing phenomenon, as we see in this Reuters piece on Britain forcing the New York Times to suppress access by the British public to a NYT story on the recent London terror suspects:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York Times decision to block British online readers from seeing a story about London terrorism suspects raises new questions on restricting the flow of information in the Internet age, legal and media experts say.

The New York Times said on Tuesday it had blocked British Internet readers from seeing a story detailing elements of the investigation into a suspected plot to blow up airliners between Britain and the United States.

The story was published in Monday's paper. Under British laws, courts will punish media organizations that publish material that judges feel may influence jurors and prevent suspects receiving a fair trial.

"There has not been a prosecution for contempt over anybody publishing outside this jurisdiction (Britain), but logically there is no reason why there should not be," said Caroline Kean, partner at UK media law firm Wiggin.

While restricting what British media can report has been effective in the past, the Internet has made it far harder to stop information published by foreign outlets, which may breach Britain's laws, from being seen by UK readers.

The New York Times article cited unnamed investigators providing information not given publicly by British police.

It detailed the content of martyrdom videos and bomb-making equipment found by police and said an attempt to blow up the airliners was not as imminent as authorities had suggested.

The same article appeared on the paper's Web site, http://www.nytimes.com, but readers in Britain who clicked on the headline received the notice "This Article Is Unavailable." Continued...

"On advice of legal counsel, this article is unavailable to readers of nytimes.com in Britain. This arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial," the notice said.

PUBLISHED IN BRITAIN

However British newspapers the Times and the Daily Mail also published details from the New York Times article this week.

A government source said no injunctions had been taken out against the British papers, but action could not be ruled out if details were in any future publications, closer to a trial date.

"We're keeping it under careful, constant review," he said.

Because British courts may impose heavy fines and jail editors, foreign newspapers sometimes hold potentially sensitive stories out of their British print editions.

Media lawyer Mark Stephens of Finer, Stephens, Innocent said he could not see anything wrong with the blocked New York Times article and the decision by British papers to print similar details showed the contempt of court law may be the problem.

"It's probably unhelpful to have an area of law which is so uncertain where one set of lawyers is saying censor everything while another says there's nothing wrong with it," he said.

"Even by blocking you don't have the desired effect. You actually create an enhanced interest as the blocking becomes a story in itself, which fans the flames of curiosity," he said. Continued...

This was the first time the New York Times had targeted a readership and blocked it from seeing a story on the Web, as far as a spokeswoman and a lawyer from the paper could recall.

"The British take this very seriously and tend to attack publications for contempt even if the arguments that we would have made sounded fairly reasonable," George Freeman, a lawyer with the New York Times

Freeman said it was no guarantee that someone in Britain could not find the story.

"But our position is that we did what we could to prevent publication in Britain. If someone carries in on a jet plane a New York Times from New York, that's not our doing and we can't prevent that," Freeman said.

(Additional reporting by David Clarke and Michael Holden in London)

We at IntLib won't have any of this sort of bullying bullshit. Fortunately for us, here in New Hampshire, our state constitution is a bit more strong on free speech and the press than other areas of the country. Fob off, Scotland Yard.

UPDATE: Albion Sinking V: Probe Demanded

BACKDATE:

Albion Sinking, III: Colin Ross Guilty, Layman-Mendonca Recovering

Albion Sinking, II: White River School Teacher Attacked in Scotland

Albion Sinking Into Oceania

Big Surprise: Willy Nelson Caught In Posession

2006-09-19T08:33:00.000-04:00

From our "Doh!" Department of easiest probable cause stops, we learn that Willie Nelson has been hit with drug charges outside Lafayette, LA, after his tour bus was stopped by police, searched, and contraband pot and mushrooms were confiscated.

We all laughed last week when Toby Keith was on the Colbert Report (Comedy Central) joking about how its the cultural thing to do if you are on Willie's tour bus. "Ah," said Stephen Colbert, "you mean that his tour bus is like a foreign embassy and Willie is the Ambassador from Weedville?"

But the truth is, of course, quite true.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Country singer-songwriter Willie Nelson and several fellow musicians were charged with misdemeanor drug possession by Louisiana police after a search of their tour bus on Monday turned up marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms.

State police spokesman Willie Williams said the bus was stopped early on Monday morning about 7 miles east of Lafayette, Louisiana, for a routine commercial inspection, and a state trooper smelled marijuana inside the bus.

State Police seized about 1-1/2 pounds (0.7 kg) of marijuana and two-tenths of a pound (91 grams) of mushrooms from the bus, Williams said.

Nelson and four other passengers on the bus were cited for possession and released, while the driver had his commercial driving privileges suspended in addition to being cited for possession. Nelson faces possible jail time of up to six months and an unspecified fine, police said.

"There was no trouble whatsoever," Williams said. "They were all cooperative."

Hey, when you've toked that much good weed and shrooms, you can't do much more than be cooperative, right?

When you are Willie Nelson, you don't get all that worked up when the cops take your stash (you know half of them are gonna get high on it by the end of the day anyways) since you'll have a busload more good dope by the time you come down to reality.

But I really think that as the Ambassador, he should lodge a diplomatic protest, maybe get the Secretary of State of Weedistan to make a conference call between himself and the Chief Consul of Cocainia, who would get on the phone to his old friend, George Bush, to settle the whole thing like gentlemen...

Free State Project Becomes Free State Pirate Project

2006-09-19T03:26:00.000-04:00

To celebrate International Talk Like A Pirate Day, the Free State Project has modified its entire website to pirate talk. Check it out:

Arr... 'tis a mutiny...
The Merrimack Valley Pirates!

Are ye frustrated at th' loss o' Frrreedom and responsibility in th' colonies, while th' growth o' Guvernment and The Taxman continues unabated? Do ye want t' live in strong communities where yer rights are respected, and scallywags exercise responsibility fer themselves and in their dealin's with each other?

If ye answered "aye" t' those questions, then th' Free State Pirate Project has a solution fer ye, by Blackbeard's sword.

What th' Free State Pirate Project is... Aarrr! The Free State Pirate Project is an effort t' recruit a whole bunch Liberrrty-lovin' scallywags t' set sail t' th' Barbary Coast. We are lookin' fer neighborly, productive, tolerant folks from all walks o' life, o' all ages, creeds, and colors who agree t' th' politikal philosophy expressed in our Parchment o' Intent, that Guvernment exists at most t' protect scallywags's rights, and should neither provide fer scallywags nor keelhaul them fer activities that interfere with nay one else. Shiver me timbers!

When ye sign our Parchment o' Intent, ye signal yer commitment t' set sail t' th' chosen pirate utopia, th' Barbary Coast, within five years o' obtainin' a whole bunch more other scallywags who commit t' set sail. The more inkmarks we get, th' more secure scallywags can be in their decision t' set sail, because they know that many other scallywags will also be movin'— enough t' make a real difference! You don't have t' wait until we have a whole bunch inkmarks t' set sail, o' course, but that option is there t' let ye be more secure in yer decision, and a bottle of rum!

Join Us! Arrgh!

Is A Major Al Qaeda Attack Imminent?

2006-09-19T00:59:00.000-04:00

As the elections approach, the web is abuzz with information about an imminent al Qaeda attack, greater than 9/11, which may involve either a suitcase nuke or a dirty bomb. The information seems credible: it involves the names of many known al Qaeda operators, and a plausible scheme of infiltrating across the Mexican border, which as we all know, is as open to penetration as a porn star, thanks to incompetence, malfeasance, and outright treason at the highest and lowest levels of federal government for years, just so every Washington insider family can get an affordable maid, gardener, and au pair.

The story generally begins by quoting recent calls by al Qaeda commanders in Iraq, Afghanistan, or al Zawahiri himself calling for muslims to leave the US, to escape this righteous devastation. It then goes on as follows:

Abu Dawood told Hamid Mir, a reporter who has covered al-Qaida and met with Osama bin Laden, the attack is being coordinated by Adnan el-Shukrijumah and suggests it may involve some form of weapon of mass destruction smuggled across the Mexican border.

"Our brothers are ready to attack inside America. We will breach their security again," he is quoted as saying. "There is no timeframe for our attack inside America; we can do it any time."

World Net Daily has previously reported that el-Shukrijumah is a trained nuclear technician and accomplished pilot who has been singled out by bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri to serve as the field commander for the next terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

The terrorist was last seen in Mexico, where, on Nov. 1, 2004, he allegedly hijacked a Piper PA Pawnee cropduster from Ejido Queretaro near Mexicali to transport a nuclear weapon and nuclear equipment into the U.S., according to Paul Williams, a former FBI consultant and author of "The Dunces of Doomsday." He is an American and a friend of Muhammad Atta, who led 9/11 attacks. El-Shukrijumah has also been spotted in Guatemala as recently as two months ago.

Law Enforcement Sources Confirm: Illegals crossing border carrying "KI Tablets"

18 September 2006: In an article provided exclusively to the Northeast Intelligence Network and Canada Free Press by Dr. Paul Williams and Mr. David Dastych on Saturday, “final preparations have been made for the next major attack on the US” identified as “American Hiroshima,” suggesting the attack will be nuclear in nature. Confidential sources in law enforcement positions have privately confirmed to the Northeast Intelligence Network that a "disturbing trend" is being reported on both of our borders – a pattern that is consistent with a potential nuclear attack scenario against the US. According to these sources, a "significant and alarming number" of illegal aliens attempting entry into the US, caught by border patrol agents, have been found to be carrying Potassium Iodide tablets, which are used to protect against exposure to radiation in emergency situations.*

According to our sources, the illegal aliens who have been caught have been described as OTMs (other-than Mexicans), and consist primarily of Chinese and Iranian nationals on our southern border, and Asians and others from a variety of Middle Eastern countries at the US-Canadian border. Law enforcement sources providing this information to the Northeast Intelligence Network agreed that this is “a very recent phenomena,” but one that has increased to “alarming levels” and is of particular concern to government officials.

The involvement of Iranians would explain a lot: Iranian President Ahmedinjad is intransigent against UN nuclear weapons control actions, and is delaying further negotiations in anticipation of some expected event in the near future. He blew off even Khofi Annans most strident and desperate attempts at appeasement in the last week. He is rearming Hezbollah at record pace via a Berlin Airlift style ferrying operationinto Beirut Airport, and his nations interference in Iraq, supplying Shiite proxy groups with weapons, IEDs, and money to attack both Americans, the Iraqi government, and Iraqi civilians has led the Iraqi government to warn Iran from further interference.

Al-Qaida has already obtained nuclear suitcase weapons from the Russian black market, weapons tested in Afghanistan in 2000 {!!!!???), and they may have already been forward-deployed inside the U.S., according to the only journalist to interview Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in the wake of Sept. 11.

Last week, Hamid Mir's credibility skyrocketed when he accurately predicted in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin and later in WND the imminent release of a new recorded communiqué from bin Laden through al-Jazeera, the Arabic TV network. Two days later, bin Laden's tape was the focus of international news coverage.

"If you think that my information and analysis about bin Laden's location is correct," said Hamid Mir, "then please don't underestimate my analysis about his nuclear threat also."

Mir said that he met with an Egyptian engineer last week who lost an eye after one of bin Laden's nuclear tests in the Kunar province of Pakistan. The Pakistani journalist said the encounter with the engineer greatly disturbed and depressed him since it provided further assurance that a nuclear nightmare for America is about to dawn.

Mir believes that an "American Hiroshima" will occur as soon as the U.S. launches an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

"Al-Qaida and Iran," he says, "have a long, secret relationship." "American Hiroshima" is the name al-Qaida leaders chose for their long-planned nuclear attack on the U.S.

The raid today on the offices of LIFE, the largest Muslim charity in the US, which has demonstrated ties to a number of islamic terrorist groups, tied to both Iran and al Qaeda, likely indicated suspicion by US authorities that they may have valuable intelligence on the whereabouts of this infiltration operation.

Muslims in the US and Britain seem to be taking at least some precautions. Physicist Jack Sarfatti recently flew into London and found very few muslims in traditional garb in and around the city, when he normally sees a great many. Sarfatti states, "There were hardly any on line coming into Heathrow Sept 15 2006 at 11 AM - in fact NONE I could see in a crowd of several hundred at the passport control. It was very strange. I have been in Bloomsberry past few days and very few Muslims in traditional dress are on the streets and there is a Muslim World League office not three blocks from my hotel that seems abandoned - but I will double check when I get back to London from Paris - IF I get back, IF London is still here."

This may simply be that muslims are dressing conventionally to avoid extra scrutiny by airport security, given the recent binary liquid bombing plot being uncovered, but traditional muslims are typically rather righteous about expressing their faith, especially in the face of greater scrutiny.

The relationship between Iran and bin Laden dates back to June 21, 1996, when bin Laden attended a terror summit in Tehran. The gathering attracted terror leaders from various places throughout the world, including Ramadan Shallah (the Palestinian Islamic Jihad), Ahmad Salah (Egyptian Islamic Jihad), Imad al-Alami and Mustafa al-Liddawi (Hamas), Ahmad Jibril (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Abdallah Ocalan (the Kurdish People Party), Muhammad Ali Ahmad (al Qaida), and Imad Mugniyah (Hezbollah). The summit resulted in the creation of the "Committee of Three" that would meet on a regular basis for the "coordination, planning and execution of attacks" against the United States and Israel. The committee members were Ahmad Salah, Imad Mugniyah and bin Laden.

Mir's position that al-Qaida's nuclear weapons may have already been forward-deployed to the United States confirms the report of Sharif al-Masri, a key al-Qaida operative who was arrested in Pakistan in November 2000.

Al Masri, an Egyptian national with ties to al-Zawahiri, said that al-Qaida had made arrangements to smuggle nuclear weapons and supplies to Mexico. From Mexico, he said, the weapons were to be transported across the border and into the United States with the help of a Latino street gang.

Mir also maintains that numerous sleeper agents are in place in major cities throughout the United States to prepare for the nuclear holocaust. Many of these agents, he says, are Algerians and Chechens who obtained European passports and are posing as Christian and Jews.

He further says that many of these agents have been in the United States since bin Laden's issuance of his "Declaration of War on Americans Occupying the Country of the Two Holy Places." That fatwa was issued Aug. 23, 1996.

This all being said, this story may be an elaborate disinformation campaign by Iranians intended to deter a US military strike upon its nuclear facilities before they are able to assemble their own home grown bombs. Given it being described in some quarters as a reaction to a US attack, but an immenent independent al Qaeda operation according to other versions of the story, that WILL occur during this coming Ramadan (late September) intended to manipulate the November elections in the US.

If there are a number of sleeper cells and infiltration units intended to attack on the same day, there could be any number of cities attacked in a coordinated fashion, or perhaps even political leadership attacked to behead the government. One FBI agent who knows my sister told her in the past year that they were tracking 14 sleeper cells in Connecticut alone. If this number is accurate, our nation is completely penetrated and at risk.

That a mere crazed crackhead toting a pistol was able to so brazenly penetrate the US Capitol building this morning, despite having more Capitol Police within the 95 acres of the Capitol area than in the entire Boston Police Department, does not bode well for our governments ability to prevent a larger, more planned and better armed attack upon this nations leadership.

It also does not bode well for our constitutional liberties. If such an attack succeeds, it would justify President Bush suspending habeas corpus as was done by Abraham Lincoln, in an effort to weed out the infiltrators, perhaps even a wholesale roundup and deportation of all muslims and illegal aliens, construction of the proposed wall along the Mexican border, and other measures. There will be a wholesale call-up of the Section 311 unorganized militia: i.e. a draft, to man the borders, defend public facilities, and operate checkpoints on every major highway. Of course, doing all this after the fact could be a waste, unless the infiltrators are planning on their attacks after the nuclear device went off.

Politically, it will be a major mudfight. Democrats will blame the Republicans for not doing enough at home, Republicans will blame the Democrats for obstructing everything they tried to do.

This story could also be merely disinformation by one of the major political parties, to whip up fear and panic in the public, likely by Republicans, since everybody 'knows' that the Democrats are soft on terrorists and national defense. It is widely known that the White House staff are all huge fans of the Keifer Sutherland hit drama "24", which featured in the last season a plot to detonate a nuclear weapon inside the US in order to motivate support for a war against three muslim nations that an American oil baron planned to profit massively from. The parallels between the plot of the show and this story bear significant resemblances, perhaps too many. The show has memetically primed the general population to believe such a story.

All I can say is: I'm glad I live in upstate New Hampshire, I can sit on the couch and watch it unfold, or not unfold. Were I not currently immobilized by NH state political actions against me, I might even be able to help, but I'm going to sit this one out. I hope this story is either fiction, or disinformation by someone. If it isn't, the Katrina uproar will be like a pimple to what happens next. This might be a good time for y'all to take a vacation in the Great North Woods of New Hampshire, or some other remote locale.

NOTE: portions of this report were compiled from various sources: websites, emails, and personal conversations, including particularly World Net Daily.

Hungarians Burn Government After PM Admits Party Lied

2006-09-18T20:03:00.000-04:00

Thousands of protesters gathered to protest outside the Hungarian state television station demanding Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány resign after a tape revealed that he and his party have been lying for 1.5-2 years about the true state of the economy and future measures to win elections in April. A crowd gathered in front of the national television MTV on Szabadság tér (Freedoms square) and about 50-100 people rushed up the stairs and attacked the building, throwing stones, cobble stones and setting cars on fire. The fire has now spread to the building itself.

What led to this event was the taped admission by the Socialist Gyurscany that, "We have screwed up big time." http://www.portfolio.hu/en/cikkek.tdp?cCheck=1&k=2&i=9547

While in their election campaign the MSZP and the SZDSZ promised tax cuts, besides a number of other favourable measures, the government announced a fiscal adjustment package already in June. The austerity measures e.g. tax and contribution hikes, price increases, etc. are needed for Hungary to slash its bloated budget gap - en route to hit 10.1% of GDP this year - to 2.9% by 2009, a target set out in its revised euro convergence plan submitted to the EU on 1 September.

“We have not much choice. Because we have screwed it up. Not just a bit, (but) big time. No country in Europe has ever done anything so impudent that we did. [...] We have obviously lied over the past one and a half, two years. It was absolutely clear that what we were saying was not true," Gyurcsány said at a faction meeting of the Socialist Party in late May in Balatonõszöd.

“[...] the real question in Hungarian politics is not anymore who lied and when, but who is the one that can put a stop to this," the PM said in the foreword of his blog note.

“Who is that dares to face - honestly, sometimes passionately and with a loose tongue - the lies and half truths of the past 16 years? We did it," he added.

The breadth of his admissions as to the failures of the Socialists economic policies over the past 16 years were astounding. I am not surprised people are revolting at the depth of the deception. Here are a few examples:

Property tax no good

“Let's levy property tax on everyone. [...] Do you know how much we would collect from property tax if we tax every single property that is worth more than 5 million forints? The balance of the whole thing is less than 20 billion forints. [...]"

Reform or fall

“[...] Reform or fall. There is no other choice. And when I say fall, I mean Hungary, I mean the left side and I tell you frankly I also mean myself."

It's great to lead a f...ing country

“It is a fantastic thing, doing politics. It's amazing. It is sensational to lead a country. I managed to go through with the past one and a half years because I was driven by one thing: to give back the left the faith that it can do it, it can win. That it doesn't have to bow its head in this f...ing country. That it doesn't have to shit itself from Viktor Orbán and the right and that it should at last learn that it should compare itself not to them but to the world."

Making history

“This gave me the faith why it's worth doing this. It was grand. I loved it. It was the best part of my life. The one (driving me) now is that I'm making history. And not for the history books, I don't give a shit about them. I couldn't care less if we're going to be in them, or if I'm going to be in them. (The question is) whether we will do something big. [...] it's worth being a politician here in the early 21st century so that we create another world."

Hard to lie

“I almost died when I had to pretend for one and a half years as if we were governing. Instead we lied in the morning, we lied in the evening. I am through with this. We either do it and then you've got your man, or you pick someone else."

You change! No, you change!

“It is no reform that I tell the others to change. It is no reform how we stand out in front the people and keep telling them a mantra. The reform is that we are also willing to rethink what we have thought and done so far. Compared to this, the task of the first months, the task of the adjustment is a pure must, I confess. But you're wrong to think you have a choice. You don't and I don't either. The only choice today is whether we try to influence what is happening or it will all come down on us."

Get together! Right now! Oh, yeah!

“I believe it can be done. I think there will be conflicts, yes. There will be rallies, yes. They can go ahead and rally in front of the Parliament. Sooner or later they'll get bored with it and go home. The only way to see this through is if you believe in the essence and there is agreement on the essence. If you sidestep conflicts within (the party), if you get scared of hurting interests, we must not start (the reforms)."

Bullshit, Mom!

“Of course, healthcare is complicated. But if you go to a healthcare institution you see it is built on heaps of lies. [...] Since they know my mother's name (Katus Gyurcsány) in Pápa, she receives better service, damn it! She did not understand what was happening. Has the healthcare system been mended, my son? I tell her: Bullshit, Mom! The truth is that now your family name rings a bell. That's scandalous. In comparison, the visitation fee is nothing in social sense. That is no scandal, only cumbersome politically and uncomfortable to pay...because it can have grave implications politically."

Let's not dick around!

“We must be clear about what we're about to start. The first few years, of course, will be terrible. It is of absolutely no interest that (only) 20 percent of the population will vote for us. Last summer Szonda said only 18 out of 100 people supported us. And it was last summer, people! A year later we won. What if our popularity would be lost because we touch some heavy social issues and not because we dick around in the party? And it's no big deal if for some time we lose support. We'll get it back. Because (eventually) they will comprehend."

F...ing great books about the modern left

“I can only tell you that I won't be playing games this way or that. We do our job. Until we can go forward at a fast pace, we go at a fast pace. If we cannot and you explain me that “Yes, but..." I don't think I'm needed for that. You need someone else for that. And then I'll write some f...ing great books about the modern left."

When have you ever read such a frank admission by a socialist of the utter bankruptcy of their economic policies? Of the typical social policies of any european country you travel to? It is startling.

One is only left to wonder whether people protested tonight, and set fire to the television station, either to protest against the lies of the Socialists, or to protest against the admissions being released to the public.

Crackhead Gunman Penetrates US Capitol Security

2006-09-18T19:00:00.000-04:00

At 8:30 AM today, a hispanic gunman in a SUV penetrated US Capitol security, crashing through traffic barriers and clipping police cars, entering the US Capitol building, passing through the rotunda and past the offices of Reps Nancy Pelosi, Bill Frist, among others, before he was finally subdued.

Police officials and congressional aides said the man was tackled outside a basement office after leading police on a chase through the building. They said he was carrying a small weapon but there were no reports of shots fired. When he was detained, police determined that he carried a two shot Derringer pistol and a bag of crack cocaine.

The incident occurred shortly after 8 a.m. EDT, but throughout the day Capitol Police declined to provide details of the suspect or how he got into the building. Calls to police spokeswoman Kimberly Schneider were not returned, and her answering machine said it could no longer take messages.

Despite the Capitol Police having more policemen than the Boston Police Department, and having a mere 95 acres to patrol, the gunman easily penetrated security with his brazen infiltration. After abandoning the vehicle the man ran up the east front steps into the Rotunda, then down a stairway into the basement. He was captured outside an office used for distribution of American flags that lawmakers send their constituents.

Later identified as Carlos Greene, 20, of Silver Spring, Md., Greene was recently arrested for illegal posession of a weapon and was out on bail. What his motivations might have been for this penetration, other than an attempt to avoid arrest, but if it was entirely unplanned, it speaks very poorly of the Capitol Police's ability to deter or defend against a well planned attack by terrorists. It is sure that this prospect will figure significantly in the investigation. It will also figure into criticisms of harsh security measures imposed on normal citizens as being neigh well useless even in the face of a spur-of-the-moment insurgent.

Greene has been charged with felony posession of a weapon.

Forbes, Houston Chronicle, Reuters

FBI Raids Largest US Islamic Group for Ties to Terror

2006-09-18T18:31:00.000-04:00

Blogger Debbie Schlussel has been trying to warn the world for years about the connections between LIFE for Relief and Development, the largest Islamich charity in the US, and terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, and Iraqi insurgents. In this time, this group has been feted by government officials, given awards, and treated as one of those "moderate" muslim groups we keep hearing about.

However, the hammer has dropped. At around 12:30 this afternoon, the FBI raided the US headquarters of this group, Schlussel reports, and has been hauling out crates of documents this afternoon.

LIFE openly admitted in its '95-'97 tax filings that it was a major funder of Hamas. It gave millions to Human Appeal International, which the FBI identified as Hamas' Jordanian operation. LIFE has staged many allegedly fraudulent fund raisers, including "Katrina Relief", "Lebanon Relief", and "Afghanistan Wheelchair", and is believed to have laundered this money to terorists. Its founding resident agent and current and former employees have ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

It has had multiple fundraisers in the last few years "for more Fallujahs", and used that money to fund Iraqi insurgents through its Iraq office, which the US Army raided in 2004. A keynote speaker at one of these in Los Angeles has been deported because of his meetings with two of the 9/11 hijackers.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security personnel have courted the group, including civil rights officer Daniel Sutherland, US Attorney Stephen Murphy III, and his predecessor Jeffrey Collins. LIFE organized and led the now infamous propaganda trip to Iraq to meet Saddam Hussein taken by Democratic Rep. David Bonior, Jim McDermott, and Mike Thompson, a trip that was funded by Iraqi oil-for-food scam artist Shakir Alkhafaji, who remains living free in West Bloomfield, Michigan, with the $70 million he earned from his corrupt business dealings with Saddam.

One of those investigations apparently involves Hamad's close ties to Muthanna Al-Hanooti, Mohammed Alomari, and their charities, LIFE for Relief and Development and FAAIR (Focus on Arab American Issues and Reform). Hidden in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Southfield, Michigan, LIFE is believed to fund Hamas via contributions to Hamas front groups identified in 2001 by FBI Assistant Director for Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, Dale Watson.
One such front, Human Appeal International, believed by the FBI to be Hamas' Jordanian operation, was listed in LIFE tax returns as one of three supported organizations receiving millions in contributions. Human Appeal and another organization LIFE works with, Human Relief Foundation, are listed as participants in the "101 days campaign" website of Sheikh Youssef Al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood. The site is believed to raise money for homicide bombings Al-Qaradawi supports.

Alomari's book, "The Secrecy of Evil", and other writings allege Jewish control of the world and the Bush administration. His Daru Salam mosque radio website claimed Jews and the U.S. "organized" the 9/11 attacks. A 1996 LIFE fundraiser, arranged by Hanooti, featured speaker Sheik Abdulmunem Abu Zant, an ardent Hamas supporter, who said, "May G-d attack the Jews and those who stand with them. May G-d attack the Americans and those who stand with them." Hanooti appeared with indicted Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian at a recent American Muslim Council lobbying seminar. LIFE's original registered agent (under its previous name, International Relief Association), Masood Aijazi, worked for Khalid bin Mahfouz, the financier of Muwafaq Foundation, designated a terrorist charity by the U.S. government.

Hamad's relationship with these parties is long-term and tight. A 1999 press release by Hamad's American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee credits Hamad with getting Senator Carl Levin, then-Senator Spencer Abraham, and David Bonior to grant LIFE a license to send millions to Iraq. "We have a special relationship with ADC here in Detroit." Hanooti said. "This is another example of the value of cooperation between our organizations . . . to advance our common agenda." In May 2003, Hamad visited terrorist-sponsor Syria and Lebanon with Hanooti and Alomari. Given all of this, a recent FAAIR newsletter photo of Collins (below) smilingly posing between Al-Hanooti, Hamad, and Alomari, at a FAAIR event, is disturbing. It is bad enough that a U.S. Attorney would associate with known anti- Semites. Worse, if Collins' office ever indicts them, it could be embarrassing.

Congratulations to Debbie for her vindication. We all wait with baited breath for news from the FBI.

NORFED Fires Back at US Mint

2006-09-18T12:49:00.000-04:00

At a meeting held Sunday afternoon, between Executive Director Michael Johnson, NORFED legal counsel, and the rest of NORFED Management, NORFED has chosen to firstly seek retraction and clarification of the attack upon NORFED by the US Mint, and is planning its legal options.

"NORFED counsel's legal opinion is that the US Mint's allegations are absolutely false, in addition to being outright malicious," said Johnson, "If a private party had issued a public statement, as the Mint did, that NORFED had committed a crime, when NORFED neither had plead guilty nor been convicted of a crime, that statement would constitute defamation per se."

It is NORFEDs position that the sale, usage, and transactions of the Liberty Dollar are legal and not a 'federal crime'. These statements are backed up by years of legal research, due diligence, and experience.

"We are investigating where and how these allegations came about and seek retraction and clarification from the US Mint," Johnson stated, advising Liberty Merchants, Associates, and Regional Currency Offices to continue to "do the drop" (giving people the choice between Federal Reserve fiat money, or NORFED real money), and spreading the word. "We are within our rights to offer Liberty Dollars for goods and services to whoever will voluntarily accept them."

Johnson noted that a further statement will be forthcoming as to NORFEDs exact plan of legal attack, originally thought to be released later today, but now it appears the next release will be tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the blogosphere has been afire with articles on this story. Here at IntLib, our stories so far have garnered almost 22,000 hits on this site since the story broke this past Thursday. Our articles have been linked and syndicated by more than a dozen other websites, including FMNN, Digg, Reddit, Dvorak Uncensored, Silver Valley Mining Journal, LSNN, The Truth Laid Bear, and Netscape. Other articles from other sources have appeared in the Rocky Mountain Times, USA Today, AOL, and other locales.

UPDATE: An editorial in today's FMNN by David Bond, of Silver Valley Mining Journal, which has come out four square in support of NORFED, pledging to buy more LDs, and step up its own Sterling coin program in Wallace. Bond railed, "And just who in Hell is the U.S. Mint, anyway? The crud passing for U.S. nickels, dimes, quarters, halves and fiat dollars is the product of counterfeiters, not of the fine craft of minting. Apparently the word is getting out, that silver is money and that post-1964 U.S. Mint excrement is not."

UPDATE:

Liberty Dollar Wins Grand Prize For Security Printing

Liberty Dollar Says NO To The US Mint

BACKDATE:

US MINT Claims NORFED Are Federal Criminals

US MINT vs. NORFED: The Legal Case

IntLib Opens MySpace Forum Group

2006-09-18T03:09:00.000-04:00

In keeping with The International Libertarians goal of becoming the blog-of-record for international libertarianism, and building on our recent growth, we've opened The International Libertarians group at MySpace, with forum, bulletins, etc. Link to the group is in our masthead, along with the Digg, Reddit, and CafePress links.

New Hampshire Primary Results

2006-09-17T23:43:00.000-04:00

The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance has announced that of 122 endorsed candidates in state primaries this past Tuesday, 111 won their primaries and will be on the general election ballot in November.

These endorsements are entirely non-partisan, and are based solely on an objective grading of the candidates voting record (if they are an incumbent) or campaign platform (if a challenger). Included are 6 candidates who used fusion and were nominated in both Republican and Democratic primary races. Bob Kingsbury got on the ballot as a Libertarian as well.

A number of candidates are also Free State Project participants and/or Libertarian Party of New Hampshire members, including NHCaspian founder Joel Winters, who has campaigned against REAL-ID here, Steve Vaillancourt and Don Gorman, who both were previously elected to state office as Libertarians in New Hampshire, Jim C. Perry, former LPNH vice-chair, who rain strictly as a Democrat, Free Staters Keith Murphy, David Mincin, Karl Beisel, and John Bender.

A number of incumbent major party stalwarts are proudly bragging of their NHLA endorsement, demonstrating that the NHLA, founded by Free Staters, has quickly become a powerful political force in the state in only a few years. Also included are longtime friends of liberty Marshall and Matthew Quandt, Sam Cataldo, David Scott, Paul Mirski, Dick Marple, Anti-REAL-ID front man Neal Kurk, Richard "Stretch" Kennedy, Daniel Itse, and many others.

This is a great showing, best of luck to everyone in November!

National Fake-o-graphic: Fake Places We Must Save

2006-09-17T16:33:00.000-04:00

You'd think these MSM weenies would get a clue that the blogosphere is watching them, but no, like Cory Feldman hunting down smack the day after leaving rehab, they are at it again. In this case, we have the October, 2006 issue of National Geographic Magazine, long an icon of geographic accuracy and fantastic photography, shows an image from Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, of a beautiful, weathered, sandstone butte, with three coal plant smokestacks poking up over its shoulder, with the headline "Places We Must Save", as if "here is this beautiful vista that is being ruined and we need government to seize it to protect it from the human race".

The problem is, the situation is hardly what is portrayed. Firstly, Glen Canyon already belongs to the Federal Government, it is part of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which was created through the creation of Lake Powell by the Glen Canyon hydroelectric dam: i.e. an entirely artifically created terrain, i.e. not natural habitat, get it?

Secondly, this photo is faked. The only coal fired powerplant in the region sits in the town of Page, Arizona, and is owned by the Navajo Indian Nation, (i.e. NOT OURS TO TAKE). The plant sits so far from the mesa in question that it would be impossible for a photographer to actually get this shot with the real smokestacks so large and out-of-scale behind the mesa.

Thirdly, environmentalists in the region have a much bigger problem with the Glen Canyon Dam (which sits less than a mile from the coal plant) than with the coal plant. Coal plants can have scrubbers and catalyzers put on their stacks, their coal can be 'decaffienated' before being burnt, it could even be converted to be a producer gas plant, creating hydrogen gas from coal while sequestering CO2, SOx, and NOx.

Environmentalist groups like the Sierra Club don't like the dam because of how much lake habitat was submerged, that the lake is entirely artificial, and has totally changed the species of fish that live in the river as a result. Civil engineers and hydrogeologists also say there are growing structural problems with the dam, with water seepage through the bedrock surrounding it, which may eventually fracture and fail, and thus there are also sound safety reasons to look at deactivating the dam.

But National Geographic is being entirely fake here: they are showing a fake landscape, with a fake lake, and photoshopped in a fragment of an image of a powerplant totally out of scale and distance from its actual location, then proclaiming that this is an "American Threatened Sanctuary". For further proof, here is an actual image of the Navajo Generating Plant, on the outskirts of Page, AZ.

Much More Int In IntLib Now

2006-09-17T06:31:00.000-04:00

THATS what I'm talkin' 'bout, people!

This is just getting better and better.

IntLib AntiQuote of the Day

2006-09-17T06:22:00.000-04:00

Why leftists are called barking moonbats:

“The only thing more scary than a politician running around kissing babies is a politician running around promising to cut taxes.”

. - K. Poleet

Congressional Research Now Open, Online

2006-09-17T01:10:00.000-04:00

Citizens pay over $100 million a year for the Congressional Research Service to research various issues, including much background work behind bills, budgets, proposed amendments, etc. but none of this information has been publicly available, to date. This has now changed.

OpenCRS.com now has these reports available online. This is a great tool to help expand the open government movement, and create greater public awareness of politicians activities, as well as hold them to greater accountability.

Muslims Firebomb Churches, Proving Pope Infallible

2006-09-17T00:55:00.000-04:00

In remarks earlier this week, Pope Benedict, in remarks on Islam and terrorism, cited an obscure Middle Ages text of a conversation between an earlier Pope and a Muslim Emissary, which characterized Islam as inherently prone to use violence to spread the faith, rather than peace, piety, and good works.

In response to the Pope's remarks, the muslim world rioted in protest, paroxysms of violence, including the firebombing of two churches in the West Bank today, proved both that the Pope was right, and Islam hasn't changed significantly since the Middle Ages.

James Waterton, over at Samizdata, commented, "Isn't it hilarious? Muslims are outraged that the Pope would link Islam with violence, and react - with violence. Magnificent."

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said the statement did not go far enough and called on the pontiff to apologise in person.

"The Vatican Secretary of State says that the Pope is sorry because his statements had been badly interpreted, but there is no bad interpretation," Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh, a senior official from the opposition party told AFP.

I fear that this is only the start of muslim violence against the Church. Expect much more...

A proper analogy would be that the Muslim Territory is blaming the Pope's Map for its own terrible terrain.

UPDATE: The Pope has apologized that muslims were offended (but not, apparently, that he was wrong in his original statements, given the obvious proof-in-reality we've all just seen)....

Revolution - A Tale of Two Monies

2006-09-16T23:09:00.000-04:00

by David Bond, Wallace Street Journal

Wallace, Idaho – The following is a true story. It all started happening day after tomorrow:

Chaos continued to confound world energy and metal markets today on news that Venezuela would accept only silver for American oil payments at a rate of 5 ounces of .999-fine silver per barrel of oil.

Hugo Chavez, president of the oil-exporting South American nation, said last Friday that Venezuela had sufficient “United States Fed promissory notes” in its foreign exchange accounts that it fears future accumulations would render Venezuela “far more susceptible to gyrations in the U.S. economy and foreign policy than we care to be. We don’t need no more stinking Yankee dollars,” he added.

Oil, prior to Chavez’s announcement, was trading for $75 Fednotes per barrel; silver for $12 per ounce. The Venezuela ratio of 5 ounces per barrel confused mainstream media analysts and sent the US dollar plummeting in overnight trading as traders scrambled to get into silver or silver-equivalent gold physicals in anticipation of much higher opening prices tomorrow.

Chavez hinted that Venezuela would consider accepting silver- or gold-equivalent-backed paper currency in exchange for oil at the same ratio, but added, “I don’t think, other than the Liberty Dollar, that there are any.”

Read the rest of the story...

Hezbollah On The Outs

2006-09-16T22:13:00.000-04:00

As predicted, Hezbollah's initiation of this summers war with Israel has backfired on it. Spotted at FMNN, The Raw Story posts a Deutch Press story from Beirut detailing the growing rift between Hezbollah and the anti-Syrian majority bloc known as "March 14 Forces" (Named after the date of liberation from Syrian occupation). The dispute is a culmination of growing tension and exchanges of bitter accusations back and forth, with Hezbollah being blamed for the conflict, and Hezbollah blaming March 14 for not joining in the combat.

The biggest rift occured when Shiekh Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, attacked March 14 for "stabbing his guerrillas in the back" while fighting the "enemy" (Israel).

MP Samir Franjiheh, a March 14 member said it reflected a crisis in the party. He called on Hezbollah to open up to all political forces, to confront the crisis resulting from the war, and learn from the mistakes made (i.e. Hezbollah needs to own up for screwing up and causing all this).

"What is needed is for Hezbollah to admit that what happened was wrong ... to return to calm and stop accusations of treason," Franjiyeh said.

House Speaker Nabih Berri, a shiite, who has close links across the aisle, is said by sources to have sent his aide to meet with Hezbollah and March 14 officials, in an attempt to patch over the rift.

Hezbollah deputies and leaders have been calling on the government for the past two days for Premier Foaud Seniora to "step down and pave the way for a national unity government."

Hezbollah has two ministers in Seniora's government.

Meanwhile, while browsing the Lebanese Embassy to the US' website, they've posted a collection of photos intended, apparently, to evoke sympathy for the Lebanese people, which most do (pay attention to the before and after aerial photos of South Beirut, showing the extent of damage), except for this one:

Which is rather offensive in how they are showing off their own dead with the sort of disregard and disrespect of the dead one usually only sees in regard to enemy casualties. The fact they are using UN vehicles to do their propagandizing is only frosting on the cake. That they would display such an image portraying their own people in this way on their embassy site is truly offensive.

US Mint v. NORFED: The legal case

2006-09-16T05:14:00.000-04:00

Following yesterdays blockbuster story about the US Mint claiming that NORFED and the Liberty Dollar are illegal, we've done some research into the claims made by the Mint regarding the citations of US Code, specifically the following:

18 U.S.C. 486:

"Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or
attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal,
or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the
resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or
of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than five years, or both."

We are therefore left to ask what is "current" money? Here's a Supreme Court take on the meaning of "current money":

Bull v. Bank of Kasson, 123 U.S. 105, 112 (1887)

"Undoubtedly it is the law that, to be negotiable, a bill,
promissory note or check must be payable in money, or whatever is
current as such by the law of the country where the instrument is
drawn or payable. There are numerous cases where a designation of the
payment of such instruments in notes of particular banks or
associations, or in paper not current as money, has been held to
destroy their negotiability. [cit.] But within a few years, commencing
with the first issue in this country of notes declared to have the
quality of legal tender, it has been a common practice of drawers of
bills of exchange or checks, or makers of promissory notes, to
indicate whether the same are to be paid in gold or silver, or in such
notes; and the term 'current funds' has been used to designate any of
these, all being current and declared, by positive enactment, to be
legal tender. It was intended to cover whatever was receivable and
current by law as money, whether in the form of notes or coin."

Thus, it is quite clear that in order for a Liberty Dollar to violate 486, it must be a clear attempt to counterfiet, or pass as legal tender. Legal tender, being a status applied only to currencies which do not hold intrinsic value, i.e. fiat currencies, it is therefore legally impossible for a metal backed currency of any form to require protection of the status of legal tender, since only fiat currencies require legal tender status to make them legally worth the same as *real* money.

Note that the US Constitution states that "the states shall make nothing but gold an silver a tender". "Tender" is different from "legal tender", in that "Tender" is intrinsically valuable, while "legal tender" is something that is made valuable by statute.

Based on this, it is rather obvious that the US Mint and its Justice Department flunkies have no case. Whoever at the Justice Department gave them this opinion must be the same person who told President Bush that he could legally torture prisoners....

Hat Tip: Bob Dobbs at the ALD-forum yahoogroup.

UPDATE:

Liberty Dollar Wins Grand Prize For Security Printing

Liberty Dollar Says NO To The US Mint

NORFED FIRES BACK

BACKDATE: US MINT Claims NORFED Are Federal Criminals

Watching Me, Watching You

2006-09-15T18:23:00.000-04:00

For those who mock the idea that the government is watching us, especially those of us (including yours truly), who are, shall we say, generally displeased with the encroachment of orwellian fascism here of late, I put forward, for your viewing pleasure, the following graph of the origins of hits upon IntLib for the past 24 hours.

In this space of time, IntLib has enjoyed over 6,000 hits, 1% of which are originating from *.gov gateways, servers, etc. This means at least 60 government weenies, aka public parasites, aka Big Brothers, aka thuggish busybodies, have come to this site, and apparently specifically to view our article on the US Mint v NORFED story.

Given that it is the US Mint that is the thug in this story, likely a good number of those 60 hits are coming from their people, and I believe I know why: I have a widget for people to donate electronic American Liberty Dollars to IntLib, and I specifically mentioned in the story that people could donate there to contribute to NORFEDs legal costs in the coming battle against the Mint. I suspect that, if they see that people are donating money through my blog, that they will try to charge me with a federal felony for accepting Liberty Dollars, even just in electronic form.

I would suggest that people demonstrate their peaceful civil disobedience by donating to NORFEDs legal fund through this site.

To quote George Bush, "Bring It On"

UPDATE: Within an hour of this article being published, hits from *.gov browsers ceased, but "IP Only" hits increased...

Oriana Fallaci, RIP 1929-2006

2006-09-15T14:54:00.000-04:00

Oriana Fallaci knew the face of fascism from very early in her life, growing up in Moussolini's Italy. As a teenage girl, she fought as an anti-fascist partisan in Italy during WWII, as a member of the democratic armed group "Giustizia e Liberta". At the end of the war, she became a journalist, eventually becoming a special correspondent to Il Mattino Dell'Italia Centrale in 1950.

In this capacity, Oriana eventually became a war correspondent in Vietnam, the Indo-Pakistani War, in the Middle East and South America. She covered the front lines of the ongoing contest between totalitarianism in all its facets, and the free world, and wrote for many papers, including L'Europeo and magazines like Epoca.

During the 1968 Tlatelolco Masscre prior to the Mexico City Olympics, she was shot three times, abused, and left for dead by the Mexican military, leaving a permanent distaste for Mexicans through the rest of her life.

She was also noted for her affair with Greek resistance fighter Alexandros Panagoulis, who was known for is assassination attempt against dictator Georgios Papadopoulos. Her book "Un Uomo" (A Man) was inspired by his life.

Fallaci twice received the St Vincent Prize, and the Bancarella Prize, for "Nothing, and So Be It". She won the Viareggio Prize in 1979 for Un Uomo: Romanzo, as well as the 1993 Prix Antibes for "Inshallah". Her various writings have been translated into 10 languages, and she has lectured at U of Chicago, Harvard, Columbia, and Yale.

As a writer and journalist, she has been attacked in the west by the left: Tiziano Terzani, Sabina Guzzanti, and Jovanotti, and in the muslim world by Islamofascists.

In 2002, the Islamic Center, the Somal Association of Geneva Switzerland, SOS Racisme of Lausanne, and a private citizen, sued her on charges of racism in her book "The Rage and The Pride". A Swiss judge issued an arrest warrant and asked Italy to try or extradite her. Italy refused due to the Italian Constitutions explicit protection of Freedom of Speech.

However, after Islamists in France sought to have the book banned there, another Islamist group in Italy brought suit directly against her and her book in May of 2005. A judge scheduled originally for June 2006 on charges of "defaming Islam". She was then scheduled for the start of trial on December 18th of this year. This controversy has led to an internet campaign to defend her right of free speech.

She had lived for a number of years in New York City, and remained here until her death, with threat of a two year prison sentence in Italy looming over her for her writing. She went down fighting, and that is always a good way to die.

I never met Orianna, but she has served as a good friend of America when the rest of Europe sneers, and helped raise the alarms about the rise of Islamofascism. She ranks highly, in my book, for being a beacon of liberty and a partisan against fascism in all of its forms. She will be missed at IntLib.

Other books by Orianna Fallaci:

"The Force of Reason"

A reviewer at Amazon says, "There are two groups that are going to really hate this book. One are the Islamists who divide humanity into two groups: the People of Paradise and the People of Hell. And who insist that their beliefs alone are off-limits when it comes to critical inquiry. The second group is the multiculturalists and relativists, who do not find anything particular valuable in Western Culture over any other culture (including those who kill a daughter who has been raped to preserve "honor".)

So who WILL like this book? Those who do deeply cherish Western culture as it has developed through the US constitution, who value the hard won freedom and autonomy of the individual, who believe that women are the equals of men and should be treated as so, and those who believe that humanity reaches its greatest heights when the human mind is left free."

Bigelow Aerospace News Update

2006-09-15T14:46:00.000-04:00

*'Fly Your Stuff' featured in Popular Science Magazine
Bigelow Aerospace's 'Fly Your Stuff' Program is featured on page 48 of this month's Popular Science Magazine in a story by Michael Belfiore. The program ends November 1, 2006 or when the space is filled, whichever comes first. Genesis II is scheduled for launch in early 2007. More at BA News

*Genesis II will be the ONLY opportunity to participate in the 'Fly Your Stuff' Program. The 'Fly You Stuff' Program allows you to send a photo or item to space. Once there, it will be photographed by the cameras inside Genesis II and that image will appear on our website, along with text that you provide. More at Fly Stuff

* If you made a 'Fly Your Stuff' reservation and have not yet completed the transaction, please do so by today, September 15, 2006. After today, all unredeemed reservations will be released to the public.

* The Bigelow Aerospace website is constantly evolving and adding new features, we encourage visiting us at the Bigelow Aerospace website for new features and updates.

IntLib Quote of The Day

2006-09-15T01:17:00.000-04:00

"Canada, like New Zealand, sees itself not as a country but as an NGO"

- Mark Steyn, a Canadian expat in Lyme, NH, USA

US Mint Claims NORFED Are Federal Criminals

2006-09-14T23:25:00.000-04:00

In a stunning development in the private currency movement, the US Mint today announced that, along with clarifications about the private collectible medallions of other private mints not being US Mint issued, was the headline story that the Mint claims the Justice Department has declared that the National Organization for Repeal of the FEDeral Reserve Act (NORFED), its widely known Liberty Dollars, and anyone who uses Liberty Dollars in commercial transactions, is in violation of federal law.

Despite comments over the years from Treasury, Secret Service, and Federal Reserve officials that there was nothing illegal or wrong about the Liberty Dollar, the Mint claimed today that,

"Under 18 U.S.C. § 486, it is a Federal crime to pass, or attempt to pass, any coins of gold or silver intended for use as current money except as authorized by law. According to the NORFED website, "Liberty merchants" are encouraged to accept NORFED "Liberty Dollar" medallions and offer them as change in sales transactions of merchandise or services."

The Mint press release links to a warning of this and other federal laws being violated, which goes on to say that,

"Second, the advertisements confusingly refer to NORFED "Liberty Dollar" medallions as "legal" and "constitutional." However, under the Constitution ( Article I, section 8, clause 5 ), Congress has the exclusive power to coin money of the United States and to regulate its value. By statute ( 31 U.S.C. § 5112(a) ), Congress specifies the coins that the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to mint and issue and requires the Secretary to carry out these duties at the United States Mint (31 U.S.C. § 5131). Accordingly, the United States Mint is the only entity in the United States with the lawful authority to mint and issue legal tender United States coins."

Note the reference to the Constitution. What is obvious to scholars is that the Mint incorrectly quotes the Constitution (which does not say "exclusive), which does NOT give congress any exclusivity in its power to coin money, it only says they are empowered to do so, not that anyone else can't. Here are the actual words,

"The Congress shall have Power To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;."
- US Constitution, Article I, section 8, clause 5

This open interpretation has been upheld by Treasury and Secret Service officials for many years.

This challenge by the Mint is obviously a threat to private minters. The Mint has recently taken up a campaign to "warn" the public about the fact that many privately minted medallions are not US Mint issue. This is rather obviously a ploy to drive down the collectible value of these private coins and drive up the value of official US Mint specie coins.

A possible second consideration may be that the Liberty Dollar is a talisman of the libertarian, anti-tax "Patriots", anti-Federal Reserve, and other populist movements. That there are other private currencies in wide circulation in four states is not mentioned by the Mint.

NORFED shot back with its own press release, taking the chance to correct several errors of the Mint in its own press release, and challenging the Mint to a legal battle. NORFED states that:

"We privately mint currency that is backed by gold and silver, not the United States Government. The designs and verbiage on our specie and certificate are original and are not copies of any US Mint currency.

The Liberty Dollar began in 1998 and has been in circulation throughout the US for eight years. We have over 2500 Liberty Associates, 75 Regional Currency Offices, and thousands of Liberty Merchants accepting the Liberty Dollar. We have never been notified nor had suit brought by the US Department of Justice."

NORFED Executive Director Michael Johnson goes on to quote several Treasury and Federal Reserve officials, as seen here:

Claudia Dickens, spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, said American Liberty Currency is legitimate. "There's nothing illegal about this," Dickens said after the Treasury Department's legal team reviewed the currency. "As long as it doesn't say legal tender there's nothing wrong with it."

Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C.: "There is no law that says goods and services must be paid for with Federal Reserve notes. Parties entering into a transaction can establish any medium of exchange that is agreed upon."

In addition, Art Rolnick, Director of Research for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, in a January 2000 interview, stated "If these (NORFED) people want to issue their own money, so be it."

Also, throughout the years associates have been in contact with the Secret Service if someone called in to question the legitimacy of the Liberty Dollar. The Secret Service has never had a problem with us.

Johnson likened his organizations legal struggle to the epic battle between Federal Express and the United States Postal Service, and predicts similar results: most priority and long distance USPS mail today is shipped by FedEx aircraft.

This should be an interesting fight. With $20 million in private currency in circulation, NORFED is a small private currency today. Whether it can afford the legal costs of this David and Goliath fight remains to be seen.

NOTE: Those who wish to help support NORFEDs coming legal fight can make donations here at IntLib via any of the widgets found in the right hand column (Paypal, NORFED eALD, or ChipIn). Please include a note that this money is intended for NORFEDs legal costs.

UPDATE:

Liberty Dollar Wins Grand Prize For Security Printing

Liberty Dollar Says NO To The US Mint

US Mint v NORFED: The legal case

NORFED Fires Back At US MINT

The First Rule Of Fight Club Is...

2006-09-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

Bush does the rope-a-dope with Matt Lauer. I had a hard time deciding on the title for this post. "Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain", was a close second...

Montreal Shooter A Sikh Goth

2006-09-14T22:53:00.000-04:00

While the media in the west keeps quiet about the background of Kimveer Gill, who shot up a student cafe at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada, yesterday, other than mentioning his affiliation with gothic websites, and while much of the blogosphere speculates that the cafe in question, known on campus as "Jew Cafe", was targeted for anti-semitic reasons, we have learned that Mr. Gill is a Sikh, and a first generation Canadian son of Indian immigrants.

So, close, but no cigar.

UN General Assembly Strips Seven Countries Of Right To Vote

2006-09-14T22:43:00.000-04:00

In a stunning display of what some call authority, some call chutzpah, the UN General Assembly stripped the countries of Georgia, Tajikistan, Comoro Islands, Liberia, Niger, San Tome and Principe, and Somalia, of the right to vote in the General Assembly, due to owing back dues to the UN.

In the case of Georgia, it is $4 million. With Tajikistan, less than a million.

Georgian Depty Foreign Minister Georgy Mandzhagadze said, from Tbilisi, that this move did not restrict his country's capacity and powers at the UN. "UN procedures stipulate that the countries having debts on membership fees automatically lose the right to vote from June through to September and the right reverts to them automatically as of October 1 if they have repaid the debts or have begun repaying them," Mandzhagadze said, "That's why Georgia's right to take part in voting on crucial issues hasn't been affected in any way, as our representatives continue enjoying the right to take the floor at the General Assembly sessions or to take part in committee meetings."

This situation is not new. The same countries were in arrears last year, and just came off suspension last week. Whether further action is taken in the future is about as doubtful that UNIFIL will disarm Hezbollah.

Libertarian Candidate Links

2006-09-14T01:03:00.000-04:00

As the november midterm US elections approach, IntLib will be covering Libertarian candidates for office across the country. To get you started, LSNN has compiled some briefs on a number of candidates on its Deli.cious site, which you can access below:

Libertarian Candidate Briefs

Bill Peirce

David Terry

David Titman

Dawn Winkler

Eric Schansberg

Eric Sundwall

Frank Gilmour

Garrett Michael Hayes

James Werner

Kevin Volz

Linda McNally

Michael Badnarik

Phil Maymin

Powell Gammill

Rev. Anthony Williams

Rex Bell

Richard Morley

If your candidate is looking for wider exposure, have them contact IntLib.

We will also be covering candidates of other parties in New Hampshire who have been endorsed by the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, a libertarian organization that grades and endorses state candidates based on their voting records, which are all objectively graded according to evaluation of the bills they vote on.

First up among this group will be State Rep. Dan Itse.

Primary Day In the Free State

2006-09-13T01:19:00.000-04:00

Went to the polls today to vote in the primary. As the LPNH is still awaiting a State Supreme Court ruling on its case heard in early August (not likely to come out until after the election, of course), the only choice was to pick a party to register with and choose or write in whoever I felt.

I took my parents to the polls with me, just before they closed. Incumbent State House Rep. Paul Mirski (R) was outside. He's a good guy, its a good thing our district is a multi-seat one, I want to vote for him, too. The check list folks made me reregister, as I was in Amherst for the 2004 elections, so I just squeaked my ballot into the machine under the wire.

Fortunately, I had ponies in either race. LPNH Chair John Babiarz is running for the legislature as a Democrat, in whatever district covers Enfield (where I live), Grantham, Canaan, and some other locales. His wife, Rosalie, is running for state senate as a Republican, and is unopposed, so that was easy. I registered as a Republican and voted for her and wrote John in in the write-in spot below Paul Mirski, and while our district is a 3 seat district, I didn't know the other two guys, so I left mine at two votes.

Voted against Charlie Bass. He's been a total disappointment. Wrote in Chester LaPointe instead. Wrote in Rich Kahn for Governor rather than Jim Coburn. I suspect Kahn won't get many fewer votes than Coburn in this race, given how strong Gov. Lynch is in this race, and how weak Coburn is. Given how there is no US Senate race this year, I wouldn't be surprised if Coburn didn't get enough votes to maintain the GOP as a major party on the ballot. Wouldn't that be a hoot!

You may wonder about why our libertarians are running on the major ticket. Its due to this court battle we are in. The major parties upped the statewide election percent required to maintain major party status in 1996, just to get us off the ballot, and we lost status in 1998. Since they had no legal rationale for doing so, we are fighting them in court now. We warned the major parties last year: either change the law back, or we're going to infiltrate your parties.

Situation In Iraq Much Better Than Reported, etc.

2006-09-12T20:05:00.000-04:00

While the leading libertarian ranters here in the US are swallowing the left wing and MSM party line on the situation in Iraq, it appears that things are much better than reported, and this may be for a reason.

As an example, Eric Olsen, over at Blogcritics.org, writes of correspondence with friends and bloggers in Iraq and Syria.

They are saying that things are much better than the media claims. Iraqis are essentially of two types: those who want the US to stay, and those who drove Mercedes and had mansions under Saddam. Syria has also toned down its militancy, all the uniformed youth brigades don't parade around anymore. Locals say that Assad has been happy to send busloads of islamic fanatics to Iraq to die simply to get them out of his hair.

90% of the violence is happening in the Sunni triangle, about 1/8th of the country, and is sectarian: Sunnis attacking Shia, Shiite deathsquads hunting down Baathists.

Then there is this bit from Bitheads, to put the average death rate of our troops in Iraq in perspective to life in our nation's capital:

If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the
Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112
deaths, that gives a monthly firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers. The
firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period.
That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S.
Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than
you are in Iraq. Conclusion: The U.S should pull out of Washington
D.C.

DC has been a foreign country to the several states of the Union since its inception (so sayeth SCOTUS), so this even sounds logical... ;)

There also seems to be truth to assertions from the right that the mainstream press are traitors. Clarice Feldman reports that documents recovered from Saddam's regime disclose that a-yet-to-be-identified Associated Press reporter operated in the pay of the Baathist regime:

Document ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf dated July 25 2000 is a report from an Iraqi Intelligence officer to different Iraqi Intelligence Directorates talking about information provided to them from a trusted source that works in the Associated Press (AP). The information is about the formation a newly formed UN weapons inspectors team called UNMOVIC. Translation of page 4 and 5 of ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf

So, we shouldn't be surprised if the AP is carrying water for the Baathist insurgency these days.

Meanwhile, as predicted here at IntLib, Iran has resumed weapons resupply flights to its Hezbollah proxies via Beirut Airport (and people wondered why the Israelis bombed the airport):

Iran’s first post-blockade arms flight departed Dubai Friday, Sept. 8, to test the ground at Beirut international airport for Israeli air force or UN reactions. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the forbidden goods were unloaded and sailed through the airport unhindered. Tehran therefore determined to send two further bulk consignments in the next 48 hours aboard commercial flights from the Persian Gulf.

I don't think we need to speculate whether UNIFIL is actually doing anything about it. We hereby predict a resumption of hostilities within the year.

Maryland Melts Down While The Wig Man Appealeth

2006-09-12T17:40:00.000-04:00

My friend, Daniel "The Wig Man" Vovak, now ranked as the Midterm Roundups "favorite politician of all time", is going through a hectic day in Montgomery County. First of all, the electronic voting machines in Montgomery County and Baltimore City malfunctioned, causing a lot of irate voters and resulting in a judge ordering polls kept open late.

Vovak voted, and as he arrived at the polling station, a Washington Post reporter arrived, who immediately jumped on the guy in the colonial wig running for US Senate as a great photo-op. That's two photos in the Post in two weeks. Plenty of people recognised him at the polls, so the Wig Man's saturation is very high, despite the campaign not spending a single dime on advertising. A Democratic lady at the ballot table urged him to, "keep fighting that suit!" so it is also apparent that he gets lots of points for his "stick it to the man, quixotic, fighting city hall" attitude.

He then went to the barbers to get a hair cut. While there, he met the brother of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, who had some interesting dirt on the Attorney Generals race. O'Malley's brother also knew who the Wig Man was.

The Wig Man then went to US District Court to see about moving his "the" case to the federal track, when he heard that his appeal to the Maryland Court of Appeals was dismissed in a record 22 hours after filing. Given the issues of this case, which you can read at his website, we were rather shocked. The assistant attorney general had not even received the appeal petition yet. This is excellent news, though, since it frees us up to appeal directly to the US Supreme Court, a la Bush v Gore. Since there are 6 days left in the SCOTUS Calendar, this is very propitious to get a good ruling in between now and the general election, either ordering a new primary or else ordering that The Wig Man (with his proper nickname) be added to the General Election Ballot as a "Whig".

In the meanwhile, the rest of the primary is melting down into chaos, with Democrats lining up lawyers, and Mark Davis, Asst. Atty. General has transitioned from seeing The Wig Man's case as job security, to seeing it as a hindrance, as his world has now turned to hell.

Early reports say that MSBE officials or Deibold techs did not install a crucial card into the machines, however given the number of stories we've seen of "Hack the Vote" efforts floating around the internet, we wouldn't be surprised if there was a concerted effort by anarchists and/or far left wingers to create electoral chaos leading into the general election.

Voting machine chaos is also not new to Maryland. This should be an entertaining story for weeks to come.

What Scooping A Story Accomplishes

2006-09-12T17:33:00.000-04:00

As we work here at improving and expanding IntLib, we're amazed every time we reach another breakthrough. Today was being featured by Pamamas Media in this list of articles on the US Embassy Bombing in Syria, which upped our hits today by a rather large margin. We filed that story at about 5:20 AM today, as we were up at that hour due to an inability to sleep. Clicking through the channels brought up this breaking news on CNN. I said "Aha! A story!" and immediately got on the puter. If this is the result, it looks like I'm going to be living vampires hours to make this blog a success....

US Embassy Attacked in Damascus, Syria (Happy 9-12)

2006-09-12T05:03:00.000-04:00

In an apparent attempt to capitalize on the ongoing remembrances worldwide of the 9-11 attacks, a terrorist group attempted to attack the US Embassy, located in the Rawda area of Damascus, Syria, about an hour ago.

Equipped with some sort of car bomb, the attack was foiled by security forces, who killed 3 of the attackers and wounded a fourth. At least some of the bomb is thought to have detonated, or simply burned, the car appeared merely burned out without significant deformation of the frame, and television footage shows a hibachi-sized propane tank surrounded by pipe bombs.

"A terrorist operation targeted the US embassy. Security forces have brought the situation under control. Three terrorists were killed and one was wounded," said Interior Minister General Bassam Abdel Majid on state television.

A witness said two gunmen stopped a car on the street in front of the embassy, got out of the car, shot at the Syrian sentries in front of the building's entrance and then detonated the car.

The witness said the security personnel shot back, and security forces in the area quickly rushed to the scene, said the witness who was in the area.

Britain's ambassador to Syria Peter Ford told CNN that the attack did not appear to be a "major al-Qaeda like operation, but an operation by a small group".

Syrian officials said the four attackers shouted religious slogans and threw a grenade into the yard of the US embassy.

Live CNN reporting from the scene says that Syrian forces have taken four men into custody in connection with this attack.

Such attacks are not new in Damascus. In 2004, an attack against the Canadian embassy was undertaken, four people were killed in a clash between Syrian police and a team of suspected bombers, who attempted to detonate a car bomb outside the embassy.

What the meaning of this attack is remains to be determined. Given that both Hezbollah and Hamas have Damascus offices and training facilities, this attack may be a matter of striking at the US for letting Israel run loose against both groups in recent months. Another possibility is the involvement of Iranian intelligence, although with Hezbollah and Hamas involved as Iranian proxies, that goes without saying. Other links may be between the Iraqi Sunni Baathist insurgents and Baathists in Syria, either native Syrians or Saddam followers who fled there during the US invasion.

Reports on this story are coming out from all the major news orgs: CNN, BBC, etc.

SpaceX Unveils Dragon Capsule

2006-09-12T02:25:00.000-04:00

Received an email today from SpaceX's Elon Musk, richly endowed with graphics of their new Dragon spacecraft, which was recently awarded a COTS contract by NASA.

The Dragon, much less squat than NASA's own Orion capsule system, features space for seven astronauts (compared to Orions six), a full size docking port, and complete reusability (Orion is expendable). To be launched on its upcoming Falcon9 launcher in 2008, Musk insists that the Dragon will be the first fully reusable launch system, as both first and second stages of the Falcon9 are reusable stages, as well as the Dragon capsule, and it will also be the cheapest means of launching personnel or cargo to the ISS. That his system is entirely private is further proof that the old school government spacers need to cede the market to private enterprise.

As can be seen from the above image, its nose cone opens to deploy solar panels and uncover the docking port. When mounted on the Falcon9, seen below, in either cargo or manned versions (the manned version will have the escape tower mounted to the nose), will not look much different from the standard Falcon9 configuration, and smaller in profile than the humongous "Stick" of the Crew Launch Vehicle NASA is planning, or either of the major contractor EELV launchers.

What does this mean for liberty? It means we are one step closer to getting the government out of the launch business, reducing launch costs so that average people can escape this tyranny-laden world and colonise distant planets, building truly libertarian communities of the type envisioned by writers like Robert Heinlein, Allen Steele, etc.

Colorado Libertarian Candidate Questions Opponents

2006-09-12T01:17:00.000-04:00

In this election, there are many Libertarian candidates running for office across the country with varying levels of success, in getting on the ballot at all, or getting their message out to the voters, as the major parties, the media, and major power groups work to exclude those who dissent from the duopoly of power.

I don't know Bert Salazar personally, but his supporters have asked that his message get out. Bert seems to be a main-line litmus test libertarian. Most of the things he says I'm in total agreement with, but some are things I just wouldn't promote if I were running, even if I believed in them (for instance, we here at IntLib are not isolationists). A candidate needs to speak to ones audience. Overall, though, it was a very good, principled, speech.

Here are opening comments of Bert Sergeant, Libertarian candidate in Colorado, running against incumbent Democrat Rep. John Salazar, and Republican Scott Tipton, in District 3, at a locally-staged debate by Club 20.

“Thank you, Club 20, for including ALL candidates in these debates, and thanks to all of you for attending. I would like to start by asking all of you here who believe you are covered by the US Constitution to raise your hands (wait about 3 seconds). OK, thank you. Those of you who raised your hands and do not work directly for the government……. are misled. The US constitution applies only to employees of the federal government, and in fact its purpose is to limit the powers of those employees. Those of you who work for the government and didn’t raise your hands….shame on you. You know better.

Federal employees have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, yet have forsaken the constitutional limits on their powers, and its intended protection of the individual rights of our citizens. We are not and never were a “democracy”. Yet our congressmen approve of spreading “democracy” around the world. That is why I am running for congress. My opponents each believe they best know how to run your lives. I believe YOU know how best to run your life.

I know you have all heard many campaign promises today. Mine are simple. If elected, I promise to take the oath to uphold the constitution seriously. I will work hard to return our country to its constitutional roots. I will challenge all illegal executive orders. I will not participate in illegal and immoral deficit spending. I will vote against all illegal and immoral wars. I will remind my fellow congressmen every day that all individuals have rights…not just the majority. I will work hard to repeal our unconstitutional and repressive income tax. I will vote against every bill that tears our country away from a representative republic and further into socialism. I will work to change our purchased privileges back into rights, as they once were and should be again. I will work for, not just talk about, reducing the size of our federal government and its unconscionable spending, to reduce the poverty of my fellow citizens caused by out of control bureaucracy.

Unlike my opponents, I am not going to promise you lots of goodies paid for by your neighbors. Unlike the incumbent, I will not spend 80 million of your dollars to study tamarisk trees.

What I will do is steadfastly stick to the supreme law of the land….the constitution. Which does not allow the intervention into your pocketbook and private lives that my opponents endorse. Currently, 80% of the federal welfare budget is spent on bureaucracy. And billions more are spent on corporate welfare. This is inexcusable. I will not participate in taking your hard earned dollars and then doling it back out to you like an allowance. I will not participate in taking your hard earned dollars and doling it out to corporations. I will not use your constitutionally protected rights as bargaining chips for pet projects. My main focus is to see our government returned to its constitutional limits. And if you are tired of hearing false promises about this, then vote for change, vote Libertarian. If you are tired of hearing politicians spin tales about what they intend to spend your money on, then vote for change, vote Libertarian. If you want smaller accountable government, and you vote for a candidate who will bring you bigger government, then you have truly wasted your vote.

QUESTIONS TO REP. SALAZAR and SCOTT TIPTON

A question for both of you: how will the trillions of dollars of debt by congress be paid?

For Salazar: The U.S. gave weapons and missiles to Osama bin Laden, who is now our sworn enemy. The U.S. provided weapons and missiles to Saddam Hussein, who is also now our supposed enemy. Recently, you voted to exempt India from the Atomic Energy Act and to sell them nuclear materials. Is there any reason taxpayers should not expect that India will soon become our new sworn enemy?

For Salazar: The “real ID act” has the federal government using the withholding of federal funds to blackmail states and citizens out of rights concerning drivers licenses - something that is not constitutional to begin with. It allows Homeland security to “waive laws as necessary”, and mandates impossible identification verifications that will cost taxpayers over $100 per license, plus immeasurable time. Did you vote for or against this unconstitutional bill that is now law?

For Salazar: You have said we need to reduce the size of government. Yet every year you have been in office, you have consistently voted against House Resolutions that would reduce federal spending over 5 year periods, even though these amounts are paltry compared to the total spending. How do you expect taxpayers to believe your campaign promises about reduced and accountable government?"

Overall, a good speech. Good luck to Bert in the election.

FYI: other Libertarian candidates running for election anywhere are invited to submit material to IntLib. We reserve the right to pick and choose, but want to give a greater voice to fellow libertarians.

Never Forget 9-11, May Conspiracy Theorists Burn in Hell

2006-09-11T18:21:00.000-04:00

Little Green Footballs has an excellent memorial slideshow portraying the horror of 9-11: the impacts, the fires, the collapses, the people jumping to avoid the flames, and of course the heinous celebrations by the muslim world....

Albion Sinking, III: Colin Ross Guilty, Layman-Mendonca Recovering

2006-09-11T16:13:00.000-04:00

Our coverage of the attack upon Vermonter Marty Layman-Mendonca while hiking in the Scottish Highlands has brought much new traffic to the site, and we have an update for those following the story.

We were the first on the web to break the news that her attacker, Colin Ross, was a repeat offender, having stalked, harassed, and threatened to stab his pshrink in 2003, according to a Sun article cited in our original piece. Our attempts to get this information wider publication were stymied: our local paper, the Valley News, refused to publish this information, and we received threatening emails and distraught comments from people claiming that our publishing this information online would somehow taint the jury pool in Scotland.

However, according to WCAX television in Burlington, VT, Mr. Ross has pled guilty to attempted murder:

Before the attack, Scottish police were so concerned about the risks that Ross posed to women that on June 29 _ six days before the Layman-Mendonca attack _ they were granted a sexual offenses prevention order banning him from approaching women or wearing a balaclava, The Scotsman said.

The order also banned him from leaving his home or the immediate area for more than 24 hours without police permission and from getting a job or voluntary work without written approval.

Police said they were powerless against lenient sentencing and that Ross should be kept in prison indefinitely to prevent him from attacking other women.

In July 2003, Ross was convicted of breaching the peace for being found near a woman's home in the city carrying a balaclava and written instructions about entering the house. The instructions contained the words "and now the fun begins," The Scotsman said.

In May 2004, while wearing a balaclava and gloves, Ross attacked a German tourist, Ina Bruns, 36, in a forest near Cawdor Castle, outside Inverness. When arrested, he was wearing her glasses, the paper said. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but was freed early on June 9 under a supervised release order.

The Scotsman said Ross had prepared the site where he ambushed Layman-Mendonca, hiding clean clothes, a sponge and a milk bottle full of Dettol disinfectant in the undergrowth alongside a remote path. When the teacher showed up, Ross followed her for 10 yards (meters), engaged her in conversation and then went into a frenzy, the paper said.

It now appears that I was completely justified in calling this case Britain's Willie Horton. Advocates of self defense rights in Britain can and should use this case to drive out of office anyone who is soft on criminals and hard on victim self defense. Mr. Ross not only threatened and stalked his pshrink, but was caught in the act of preparing to enter a home to commit a violent felony, spent only 2 years of a 3 year sentence for attempted murder against another hiker in 2004, and reoffended less than a month after being released from prison. Colin Ross is a walking poster boy for the justification of a 3 Strikes Law being passed in Britain, perhaps even sentencing reform.

No date has been set for Ross' sentencing, but he was to appear at another court hearing on Oct. 3. Should Ross receive another light sentence, I predict that people will start to demand some reforms.

Meanwhile, Ms. Layman-Mendonca, who was predicted by doctors to never recover from the coma she suffered due to the extent of brain damage done by Ross, has shocked everyone by opening her eyes, has been able to hug a friend, but has still been unable to speak. Lets hope that she makes further recovery, and our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family (note the comments to the article from folks in Scotland).

There is a fund to raise money for Marty's recovery and transportation back to the US. A James Murray of Aberdeen wrote a letter to the Press and Journal suggesting a fund be started to help return Layman-Mendonca home. He pledged £100 (about $189) to kick off the fund. Jane Candlish, a reporter with the Press and Journal, said a bank account has been set up in Inverness for that purpose. Another fundraising nexus is with Layman-Mendonca's friends at Christ Redeemer Church in Hanover, NH. If you would like to donate, simply make your check payable to Christ Redeemer Church and mail it to P.O. Box 5523, Hanover, NH 03755. Please put a note on your check indicating that it is for Marty. All money collected will go directly to help Marty and her family with the expenses surrounding this difficult event.

UPDATE:

Albion Sinking IV: British Big Brother Bullies Bronx

Albion Sinking IV: British Big Brother Bullying Bronx

BACKDATE:

Albion Sinking, II: White River School Teacher Attacked in Scotland

Albion Sinking Into Oceania

Utah Supremes Defend Students Right to Keep and Bear

2006-09-10T20:23:00.000-04:00

As noted on Volokh, the Utah State University system has a rule banning the posession of guns on campus, or when engaged in off-campus business, a rule which the state legislature overruled, and which was then brought to court.

Last week, the Utah Supreme Court did not rule on the University's claims that gun posession on campus would "hamper the free speech rights and free exchange of ideas" essential to the educational mission, as that issue is being litigated in federal court, but it did rule on the University's claims to be autonomous from legislative interference - "the legislature has the ability to generally manage all aspects of the University."

With regard to the first amendment claim being litigated in Federal Court, Volokh states that,

"in my view the University's argument is a sure loser. There are at least two reasons for that:
(1) The state law is content-neutral (in fact, speech-neutral), and would thus be at most subject to United States v. O'Brien scrutiny, which it would easily pass.
(2) Even if state institutions have First Amendment rights to be free from federally imposed speech restrictions (a matter that's unsettled), I think they have no such rights to be free from restrictions imposed by their own supervisors in the state governance structure (here, the state legislature)."

Lets hope Volokh is right.

Roger Combs Disputes IntLibs Criticisms of NSA Social Network Analysis

2006-09-10T19:20:00.000-04:00

Got an interesting comment today. I had commented on Roger G Comb's blog "Combs Spouts Off" in response to his article in support of the NSA domestic spying and seizure of phone calling records. Combs, after admitting I have some points, claims Social Network Analysis has, in fact, caught jihadist cells in the US, and asserts that my original May article "Why Social Network Analsysis Doesn't Catch Terrorists" should have been titled "Why Social Network Analysis Isn't A Silver Bullet".

In response, I will admit that, as I qualified in my original piece, that while *pragmatic jihadists* will take countermeasures, idiot jihadists won't. SNA does work well at catching the dummies earlier, before they are liable to actually commit a terrorist act. However, if one looks closely, we always catch the idiots, even before hundreds of millions of American citizens saw their 9th Amendment privacy rights violated by the NSA.

The real threats to the US that would, IMHO, justify what the NSA has done, would be to catch the really smart jihadists. The ones with street smarts, pragmatic, cautious, and careful to conceal their activities and communications. It is these superjihadists that will be the ones to plant a dirty bomb, a black market nuke, EMP, chemical, or bioweapons in the US, either building them domestically, or sneaking them in on an airliner, a cargoship, a pleasure yacht, or even a private submarine or balloon.

It is possible to completely stealthify one's network activity, and Combs admits this, and that jihadists may be practicing such methods. Particularly, it is hiding ones communications traffic patterns within that of a larger benign organization, that is one of the best methods. Hiding ones sleeper cell within a mosque community or a larger islamic organization is a no-brainer, but also a bit too obvious. A better idea would be to dictate a cell calling pattern identical to a commercial organization, like a telemarketer or polling company, such as Zogby International. Placing a cell member into such an organization would then allow the cell to communicate with impunity, and being commercial organizations, even if one cell member became implicated by outside evidence, their communications through the commercial entity would be dismissed as irrelevant noise, not signal.

The Power Law, aka The 80/20 Rule, dictates that you can catch 80% of jihadists for 20% of the cost of catching most of the rest. The problem is that, overlaying the bell curve of intelligence on the 80/20 rule, you wind up with a small handful of superjihadists who will always escape capture, who will conceal their activities, and will successfully commit their acts. The 99th percentile jihadist will never be caught, no matter how many of our civil liberties you violate or confiscate.

The goal of the jihadist is to force us, through the application of revolutionary theory, into voluntarily surrendering our most cherished Constitutional liberties in order to fight terrorism, the liberties which the jihadist finds to be most offensive to Islam. When we give up those liberties, Islamofascism wins, because we will have become our own best, most effective, jailers.

It is for this reason that the cost of catching the 99th percentil jihadist is too high, because to attain it, we must hand our Constitution, and victory, to the jihadist.

While I support the overseas war on terror, I do not support the domestic abrogation of the Constitution. The best Homeland Security is the removal of gun control regulations, particularly the removal of FAA restrictions on Americans flying armed. We don't need spies big brothering all over us, we need our damn gun rights back, so we the people, "the whole of the people", as Mason and Madison both said, can fulfill our duty as members of the unorganized militia to guard OUR country and OUR Constitution.

Spokesman Speaks: Right to Dissent from "under God"

2006-09-10T01:38:00.000-04:00

The Spokane Spokesman-Review, from Washington State, talks about the July 19th passage by Congress of a bill to protect the Pledge of Allegiance from any Supreme Court challenge to the words "under God" brought by atheists seeking removal of the pledge from the classroom, or an alteration of it.

First penned by socialist Francis Bellamy and published in 1892 (the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the New World), ostensibly as part of Columbus Day celebrations in schools across the country, it was intended to promote Bellamys particular brand of socialism, national socialism, invented by him and his family, and sold to the world in the SF novel "Looking Backwards", written by cousin Edward, which was translated into many languages and helped build the nationalist movement of the early 20th century, and helped found the German National Socialist Workers Party, i.e. the Nazis.
This is how it first appeared:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all."

The original is quite different from its present form: "the flag of the United States" was added in 1923, and "of America" in 1924. It wasn't until 1954 that "under God" was appended after "one nation," for reasons to which we should attend – as the motivation wasn't what you might think. The great concern of congress in that period was infiltration of the Republic by communists and socialists intent on fomenting a revolution of the proletariat, and those in power sought a means of forcing the atheist communists to refuse to pledge, either by forcing them to pledge allegiance to the existing republic of the United States (rather than the one they planned on imposing after the revolution), or to God.

That there has since been so much opposition on the left to these edits is evidence that the edits got to them.

The purpose of Bellamy's pledge of allegiance was intended to create blind patriotic pride in one's national flag, but more importantly, it was intended to distract the people from admiration of the true source of our freedoms and what should be the true focus of our pride, the US Constitution. Once distracted from the Constitution, it would become much easier to subvert to achieve the Bellamys socialist ends.

It is for this reason that I wholly support the total abolition of the Pledge of Allegiance as it now stands, and replacement with one that refocuses our attention on the true source of our nations inspiration to the rest of the world.

Bahrainis Seek Right of Return, Bahrain Not Impressed

2006-09-10T01:30:00.000-04:00

We hear much from the arab press demanding the right of return for the Palestinians to reenter Israel and reclaim their property as a condition of a permanent peace. The problem is that arabs don't recognise the right of return of their own citizens, as this case shows.

The Gulf Daily News reports:

SIXTY-SIX descendants of a Bahraini man, who fled to Iraq in 1938 after a Sitra land dispute that ended in an alleged attempt on his life, are calling for their "right of return" to Bahrain. Al Haj Saleh bin Ahmad Al Satrawi was the target of an alleged assassination because he refused to give up a large chunk of his land, according to his family.

His 66 children and grandchildren now want to return and are currently living as refugees in Iraq, Kuwait and Europe, according to the now-dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), which has taken up their case.

In response to a lawsuit filed in Bahrain by the family, the High Civil Court issued a verdict calling on the General Directorate of Nationality, Pass-ports and Residence (GDNPR) to issue Bahraini passports to them, it said.

Lawyers argued that the defendants were Bahraini by ancestry and according to article four of the 1963 citizenship law, since their father held a Bahraini passport they were entitled to citizenship.

However, the ruling was overturned after an appeal by the Interior Ministry, which said that according to an amendment to the citizenship law, the family was not "considered Bahraini".

Right-to-die Advocates Develop "Peaceful Pill"

2006-09-10T01:18:00.000-04:00

Canadian television site CTV.ca released this article on the work of right to die proponents at Exit International have released a book, titled "Final Exit", which includes instructions to readers on how to make their own means of peacefully committing suicide. Its authors spoke about the book at a recent conference in Toronto.

"You can do everything yourself, acquire what you need access what is ultimately the most peaceful way of a peaceful death," Dr. Philip Nitschke of Exit International said Saturday, "If you can manage things yourself you don't break laws."

"It appeals to people looking for an immediate response or coverage, doesn't address 100 per cent solution, which is to allow for physician aid in dying," said Donald Babey of Dying with Dignity Canada

Their concept -- a lethal barbituate, that acts by depressing the nervous system -- is similar to the drug used in the few countries where euthanasia is already legalized.

Expect medical groups opposed to the right to die to help push for greater scrutiny of doctors who prescribe barbituates or precursors to individuals who wind up suiciding, perhaps even police prosecutions.

That the right is obsessed with the right to life to the point that they insist that it is mandatory, this conflicts with the concept of recipricality in rights: something is a right only if you are free also to perform its opposite: i.e. the right to speech (1st amendment) also means the right to not be coerced to speak (5th amendment), while the right to keep and bear arms (2nd Amendment) also means the right to not be coerced into bearing arms (concientious objection). Likwise, there is no right to life behind the anti-abortion movement, if there is also not a right for the individual to choose to die.

Foreign Visitors: All Ten Fingers Now, Toes Next?

2006-09-09T00:03:00.000-04:00

In this My Way article, we learn that now, 5 years after 9-11, Homeland Security officials are FINALLY getting around to scanning all ten fingers of every foreign visitor to the US. For several years now, they have only been scanning the two index fingers. For what absurd reason they decided on two fingers only, and the index fingers in particular, is not stated. Now, however, all ten fingers are going to be scanned to have them available for comparison if and when terrorist attacks occur.

The problem with this concept, though, is that given the most terrorist attacks are martyrdom missions, it logically follows that they would be dead, so having fingerprints on file in order to build a criminal case against a dead body is rather ludicrous.

The international hew and cry, of course, is expected to be great. I personally dislike the idea immensely. However, I'm open to a compromise: lift the FAA ban on Americans flying armed, and say to other countries that they have a choice: either allow American citizens to fly armed to and from their countries, or accept the fingerprinting, and perhaps throw in the ten toes as well as a cavity search while they are at it....

Plameout II: Anti-War, Anti-Neocon, Armitage Mea Culpa

2006-09-08T23:56:00.000-04:00

Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage, now found responsible for the Plame leak, has given his mea culpa to CBS News.

Extremely apologetic to the President, the Secretary of State, as well as the Wilsons...

So, what exactly did he tell Novak?

"At the end of a wide-ranging interview he asked me, 'Why did the CIA send Ambassador (Wilson) to Africa?' I said I didn't know, but that she worked out at the agency," Armitage says.

Armitage says he told Novak because it was "just an offhand question." "I didn't put any big import on it and I just answered and it was the last question we had," he says.

Armitage adds that while the document was classified, "it doesn't mean that every sentence in the document is classified.

"I had never seen a covered agent's name in any memo in, I think, 28 years of government," he says.

He adds that he thinks he referred to Wilson's wife as such, or possibly as "Mrs. Wilson." He never referred to her as Valerie Plame, he adds.

"I didn't know the woman's name was Plame. I didn't know she was an operative," he says.

He says he was reading Novak's newspaper column again, on Oct. 1, 2003, and "he said he was told by a non-partisan gun slinger."

"I almost immediately called Secretary Powell and said, 'I'm sure that was me,'" Armitage says.

Armitage immediately met with FBI agents investigating the leak.

"I told them that I was the inadvertent leak," Armitage says. He didn't get a lawyer, however.

"First of all, I felt so terrible about what I'd done that I felt I deserved whatever was coming to me. And secondarily, I didn't need an attorney to tell me to tell the truth. I as already doing that," Armitage explains. "I was not intentionally outing anybody. As I say, I have tremendous respect for Ambassador. Wilson's African credentials. I didn't know anything about his wife and made an offhand comment. I didn't try to out anybody."

Sounds like Armitage went to the Clinton School for Scandal: its so much easier to escape the consequences by pleading incompetence... If only he can give American back the past two years of anti-Bush propaganda and Democratic Party skullduggery in scuttling the war on terror....

BYU Prof. Jones, 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist, Sacked

2006-09-08T18:11:00.000-04:00

Brigham Young University Professor, Dr. Stephen Jones, a physics prof who has been involved in the so-called "9-11 Truth Movement", has been put on paid leave following release by the US State Department of a 10,000 page rebuttal of all of the accusations and conspiracy theories put forward by Jones.

BYU released the following statement:

"Physics Professor Steven Jones has made numerous statements about the collapse of the World Trade Center. BYU has repeatedly said that it does not endorse assertions made by individual faculty.

"We are, however, concerned about the increasingly speculative and accusatory nature of these statements by Dr. Jones."

The university added, "BYU remains concerned that Dr. Jones' works on this topic has not been published in appropriate scientific venues."

This action comes despite Dr. Jones having taught at this institution for more than 20 years, however, controversy isn't new to his tenure. His primary focus in physics has been the study of the cold fusion phenomenon, which remains a subject of wide dispute in and out of the physics community as to whether it actually occurs, or if another physical process is involved, beyond the fact that no feasible means of over unity power generation has resulted despite nearly two decades of work by thousands on the subject.

With regard to 9-11, Jones believes that unknown government agencies orchestrated the 9-11 attacks on the twin towers and claims to have evidence to support his assertion. He published his theories in a paper titled, "Why Indeed did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?", and in particular claimed that analysis of 9-11 materials showed signs of thermite being used to implode the buildings as a demolition team would do. It is claimed, the officially recognised terrorists never had access to thermite, and unless they had prepositioned teams installing charges in the columns before the collapse, that the building would not have collapsed.

I've dealt with a number of folks claiming all sorts of things regarding 9-11, and found their arguments to be flawed for many reasons (as previously detailed). One of the biggest problems with this demolition theory is that it is based first on the claim that burning jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to weaken structural steel. This is false. While jet fuel ignites and burns in an open pit at temperatures of 800-900 degrees, its temperature rises under flu-like conditions (such as in a jet engine, or with skyscrapers chimney and wind effects) to temperatures of 1350 degrees, at which temperature, structural steel loses 60% of its strength.

You can't get any of these people to admit to this, of course, because that would completely eliminate their assumptions that make the implosion theory unnecessary. Another claim is that film footage of the collapse shows that jets of smoke blew out of windows before the collapse reached them, and that these jets of smoke were from the thermit charges going off, shattering the support columns of the building. The problem with these claims is that it just isn't true. The jets of smoke shooting out windows are due to the floors above collapsing, driving smoke and dust down the stairwells and out into lower floors that had shattered windows, where the smoke and dust exited.

Deseret Morning News article on the story reports that:

BYU will conduct an official review of Jones' actions before determining a course of action, university spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said. Such a review is rare for a professor with "continuing status" at BYU, where Jones has taught since 1985.

BYU does not grant tenure, generally regarded as a permanent position, to professors. However, it does give continuing status to professors found worthy after six years on campus.

"Continuing status," Jenkins said, "grants the expectation that faculty members will have continuing employment at the university, although it is not a guarantee. They still need to meet satisfactory performance levels for scholarship, citizenship and teaching."

The review will be conducted at three levels by the administration, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the Physics Department.

Sorry Mr. Ahmadinejad, But the Islamofascist Whackjob Party Isn't On The Ballot

2006-09-06T21:31:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to really enjoy reading the Islamic Republic News Agencys fluff pieces on Mr. Players Club (President Ahmadinejad, who seems to have been fused at birth with that sporty looking windbreaker). You may have noticed the piece On the Inalienable Right to Blow Israel Off the Map. Today, the IRNA says, Ahmadinejad says he is ready for debate with Bush at UN General Assembly, as if this is both a US Presidential election year, and that he's somehow a candidate (well if you can fix one election, you can fix them all, right?) who is going to debate him.
Perhaps he's under the delusion that they are competing for President of the World at the UN? That seems to fit in with the former professional hostage takers sense of megalomania, after all, once you've become the "President" of one 3rd world country, the only way to keep failing upward, I suppose, is to take Khofi Annan's job, right?
I'm sure the excessively adjectived and notoriously underdressed chief executive could do a better job than Khofi, right? After all, he forced Khofi to travel to Iran to come kiss his ass in a last ditch effort at continued appeasement. So obviously, he made Khofi his bitch. Now it's time for the title fight, the only other national leader who has told the Secretary General to go eff himself and not had his nation invaded within the year (then again, if you are Hezbollah, you can have your nation invaded and the UN will still let you tell them to eff themselves). Who else but Bush has demonstrated the bronco balls necessary to turn the UN from a pussilanimous debating club of effete eurotrash, oil shiekhs, and 3rd world marxists, into a truly kick ass world government (not that he actually wants one).

"The American side can even take part in the debate side by side with his advisors, and as a full team, if they wish so...The reputable news media of the world -- those of them that respect truthfulness and abide by the rule of objectivity in heir profession -- can take advantage of that opportunity to provide chance for world nations to hear the viewpoints and to choose the best..." he said, "Those that reject the proposals for debates despite their claims for leading the international community and being the leaders of the world are in fact scared of the general wisdom of the nations, and the aftermath of such debates."

Sounds like a real international smackdown he's looking forward to. One wonders whether, like any other 3rd Party candidate, he'll dispute the jurisdiction of the Bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates as to whether he can even get in the room.

In all seriousness, though, his conclusion was both quite serious, and at the same time, surprising, if only in that he finally managed to get through one news article without proposing that Israel be totally eliminated.

He added, "We have proposals and are ready to present models for better governance of the world, establishment of global justice, well being of world nations, better understanding of one another, all-encompassing love and friendship, and elimination of the atmosphere of enmity, harshness, threats, and insults."

The IRI President reiterated, "It is possible to prove in a debate which of the two political systems is a better choice for the world nations: the one that is established based on the norms of liberalism and has caused so much dilemmas and plight for the mankind, or the one that is established based on monotheism and justice?"

So, to paraphrase in so many words, "Western liberalism causes all the ills of the world, we need global Sharia Law." i.e. "Convert or die". Thanks for making that so clear.

We Can't-Can't Afford a Con-Con

2006-09-06T04:24:00.000-04:00

The evangelical right has slipped the tracks of sanity, once again. Perturbed at what they perceive as insufficient action by Bush in imposing their xian version of Sharia upon the US, particularly in abortion restrictions, as well as banning same sex marriages and gays in the military, especially the failure of the Defense of Marriage Amendment failure in the US Senate, there have been a number of christian groups who've gotten a number of state legislatures to pass bills calling on congress to call a Constitutional Convention.

A Con-Con, for short, is a potential Gumpian pandoras box of chocolates: you have absolutely no idea what sort of insane craziness or treasonous subterfuge may get through a ConCon. The left can put up all sorts of socialist goodies and other left wing shibboleths of the common barking moonbat, from overriding the right to bear arms, to imposing environmental restrictions and labor rights to employment, a right to an income, a right to a home, basically all the "social justice" idiocy thats commonly found in the Constitutions basketcase countries like, say, Brazil.

The right could do similar things: embed restrictions on free speech and the right to assemble, put Christian theology into the Constitution, abolish the 5th and 9th amendments, eliminate the right to concientiously object. They could abolish campaign contribution limits, term limits, and impose lower standards for impeachments to, say, civil offenses such as sexual harrassment.

Worse yet, the police groups, acting as the de facto fascist party, could make the PATRIOT ACT, REAL ID, NSA wiretapping, ubiquitous surveillance, implanted RFIDs, into explicit Constitutional powers, as well as things they haven't obtained yet.

SweetLiberty has this to say about the Conservative influence:

Interestingly, the organizations and leaders who purport to be ‘conservative’ are the strongest proponents of a Constitutional Convention.

Foremost among them are the *American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), *National Taxpayers' Union (NTU), *Republican National Committee (RNC) and most notably the *Committee on the Constitutional System (CCS), chaired by Senator Nancy Kassebaum from Kansas, former Secretary of the Treasury, C. Douglas Dillon, and former Counsel to the President, Lloyd N. Cutler. Lloyd N. Cutler was Ross Perot’s advisor; Jimmy Carter’s White House Counsel; and reared his ugly head for a brief period during one of Clinton’s scandals.

When Ross Perot appeared on the scene in 1992, he publicly called for a Constitutional Convention. We have transcripts of Perot's separate guest appearances with Barbara Walters, Phil Donahue and Larry King during which he stated emphatically that we need a Parliamentary Government (for which Paul Weyrich pines) and bragged that "his people" could get the remaining states needed for a Constitutional Convention call, "in their sleep". When Perot supporters – members of United We Stand America – discovered their ‘hero’ was in actuality setting them up to take a fall, UWAS as an organization began to disintegrate.

Jesuit-trained Paul Weyrich, founder of ALEC, and apparently the supreme commander at the Council for National Policy meetings, has been a major behind-the-scenes player. ALEC’s hired hand – lawyer John Armor – was the foremost lobbyist to state legislators in the decades-long effort to win the required number of state calls via the "balanced budget amendment" resolution. Weyrich stated in a Washington Post article he authored, titled A Conservative’s Lament, that America needs

"... some type of shadow government... " because "Unlike European parliamentary democracies, we have no ‘shadow cabinet’, no group of experts who are groomed by their party for decades before they take high office...".

We've come to realize that, even though the liberals are blamed for the downfall of America, the phony conservative leaders have held the door open for them to do so. We urgently appeal to true conservative state legislators and Americans in all political parties to open their eyes to the fact that the Democrat and Republican parties are a single two-headed monster.

Some people recognise this. Phyllis Schlafly calls it, "Playing Russian Roulette with the Constitution"

Some of my fellow libertarians, typically of the pollyannish naive sort, look at a Constitutional Convention as a great opportunity to reestablish constitutional government. John Lewicke, for instance, says: "The insiders and the media are monolithically opposed to the people or the states regaining control of their federal government." How are the people supposed to do that? We already have a perfectly good Constitution the government is ignoring, what makes you think they'll obey a new one? What makes you think that the government is going to allow any real people be elected to be delegates who are not already part and parcel of the existing political system, or worse yet, extremists from both the right and left?

Any attempt to bring the federal government back within its Constitutional limits will result in the same sort of crackdown that Lincoln used, justified by the South's attempt to revamp the Articles of Confederation (you know, the Constitution we had before the US Constitution?) by walking out of Congress and leaving it in a rump (which the US Constitution was not designed to handle, and so it was broken).

It is far too late for a ConCon to do any good, unless you count "good" being to bring on the next Civil War/Revolution that much sooner. It's coming, some time in the future, so the question, I guess is: are you the type that likes your band-aids ripped off a little at a time, or all at once?

Right now there are 32 states that have passed calls for a ConCon.

There is also a second front in the battle. As three states have rescinded their calls for a Con Con, an alternative plan has been brought up for state legislatures to nominate delegates for a "Conference of the States", which itself could then vote to turn itself into a Constitutional Convention in a sneaky end run.

The Conference of States was scheduled to take place in "historic" Philadelphia, October 22nd through 25th, 1995 – coincidentally falling on the October 24th, Fifty-year Anniversary of the UN. So sure of success were the powers behind the effort , a Canadian newspaper in 1995 (according to Allen Watt) informed its readers that British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, would be out of the country in October, attending an "important convention" in Philadelphia. We discovered later that Margaret Thatcher’s secretary was an advisor to the COS.

Although the COS was billed as a plan by Governors Michael Leavitt of Utah and Ben Nelson of Kansas, it became clear from a 1987 ACIR-CSG paper that in reality the Governors were merely delivery boys for the scheme led by the Rockefeller founded Council of State Governments.

Finally, if you want a sneak peak at the sort of US Constitution at least one of these groups on the left would like to impose, have a gander here. This "Proposed Constitution of the Newstates of America" was written, starting in 1964 the Ford Foundation, when it funded and orchestrated – via the CSDI (Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions – the drafting of a new constitution for America. This model constitution, drawing upon the efforts of more than 100 people, took ten years to write. The 40th draft was published in a book titled The Emerging Constitution, by Rexford G. Tugwell (Harper & Row, 1974). The project cost $2.5 million per year and produced the Proposed Constitution for the Newstates of America.

Given the Ford Foundations known left wing leanings, its clear from a cursory reading, which includes many fascist things, as well as a confiscation of the 2nd Amendment, creation of a fourth branch of government called the "Electoral Branch" that controls all elections, parties, essentially an equivalent of Iran's Council of the Ayatollahs which decides which candidates are allowed on the ballot based on their idea of political correctness.

The author of the book describing this Constitution is someone who advocates the total control of all land in the US by the government.

IntLib Quote of The Day

2006-09-05T18:19:00.000-04:00

"It is just the garbage left by Lenin."

-- A Kyrgyzstani woman explains the origins of the silicon local villagers are salvaging from landfills for use in China's rapidly expanding computer chip industry. Hat tip to Good Morning Silicon Valley

Some fool respondent named JEKORJEG said, in response, "The world's heart beats with profit not compassion. Wars will cease when this reverses."

My reply, "Wars will cease when the free market forces the state to pay the full costs of its attempts to monopolize the market of force."

On the Inalienable Right to Blow Israel Off the Map

2006-09-05T03:46:00.000-04:00

This interesting bit from the Islamic Republic News Agency asserts that President Ahmadinejad has discovered a new inalienable natural right of man: to nuclear energy.

Despite his frequent statements of his wish to blow Israel off the map, the fun loving Players Club sportswear fan asserts he only desires peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and claims that his nations right to the technology is found somewhere in the history of human liberty.

The problem with this, of course, is that he is claiming a collective right for his nation, not an individual right, and given that no individual has ever actually built a nuclear warhead, without significant state support, it is logical that its not a right a 'noble savage' would be likely to exercise in a state of nature. At the same time, given that states are ephemeral artificial things, lacking in rights (they may hold powers delegated by the people, but do not hold rights that the people themselves do not hold as individuals). So the whole thing is patently absurd.

However, you have to admire the chutzpah at trying to portray his nuclear ambitions as a human rights issue. Of course, that nasty little austrian felt it was the German peoples inalienable right to be rid of the Jews as well....

Iran: Missiles, Appeasement, and Oil

2006-09-05T02:54:00.000-04:00

AP video reports that Iran is undergoing test firings of new SAM systems (apparently cloned from our own Hawk missile systems, which were sold to Iran in the early 1980's under the Iran-Contra deals), as well as Shahab-3 Surface to Surface and Submarine launched missiles. The video here shows the SAM test firings. These are apparently meant to rattle the US against any military actions against Iran...

At the same time, former Iranian President Khatami was visiting the US today and said that he didn't think that the US would attack Iran, that "it had caused itself enough problems in Iraq," though he admitted that the US was the only power capable of bringing Iran to heel. He claimed he was never aware of any nuclear weapons ambitions by the government when he was in power. (emphasis added)

At the same time, Khofi Annan was playing kissy face with Ahmedinejad in a last ditch effort to rescue negotiations. Rather than taking a hard line with Iran, as he should, he's cautioning the rest of the world be cautious and to join the Chamberlain Appeasement Club and bend over to this madman, who regularly states that he wishes to destroy Israel completely.

Iran accepted the UN plan for Lebanon (and why not? Nobody in UNIFIL is willing to disarm Hezbollah, the plan is a paper tiger) "with Annans encouragement", apparently a demonstration of Iran-as-regional-superpower as it aspires to be.

Conclusions: Annan got buffaloed, the Security Council needs to act now, cause Iran is not going to stop its enrichment process until someone makes them. Results: Oil prices drop to $68/bbl as world sighs in relief that the UN bends over to a madman.

Off Year Election Politics in the Free State

2006-09-04T18:34:00.000-04:00

The issues of electoral politics in New Hampshire this year are rather fraught at the moment. The LPNH has candidates, but is undergoing its perrenial problem of getting on the ballot with the onerous petitioning requirements imposed in the 90's that were used to get the party off the ballot.

FYI: Rich Kahn is running for Governor, Chester LaPointe is running for congress against Rep. Charlie Bass and Democrat Paul Hodes in the 2nd district, and Dan Belforti is running against Bradley and Porter in the 1st.

NH's Supreme Court is dragging its feet on issuing a ruling in the LPNH's suit against the State on this issue, and likely won't issue a ruling until after the primary (clearly demonstrating bias in that event), even though it issued a ruling on the Aitkins case heard the same day a week later.

LPNH players are largely running in races as Republicans and Democrats, to complete our threat to take over their parties if they didn't let the party back on the ballot in the last legislative session. The major party hacks don't like it, but they asked for it.

The Anti-REAL ID debate here is shaping a lot of the activism because of the scuttling of HR 1582 in the State Senate by last minute strongarming done by US Senator Judd Gregg of several Republican state senators. The left libbers are lining up behind some real leftie dems. Dem Carol Shea Porter is running in in the Democratic Primary, to challenge Rep Jeb Bradley (R-1st NH). While she was solidly anti-REAL ID, the rest of her platform is pretty solid socialist: health care as a right, redistribution of income and weath, you name it. The left libbers supporting her over Libertarian candidate Dan Belforti and are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Yes, Bradley is proud of his pro-REAL ID vote in Congress. There are arguments to be made, given the 13 million illegals here in the US, that the nation has been infiltrated deeply and our national security at home is therefore compromised.

I believe this as well, but am adamantly opposed to the idea of a national ID system and database. I served in the US military to oppose the Soviet system of "your papers please", and past generations died to end the fascist regimes that operated by similar systems. National IDs are the first step to national confiscation of property, and firearms, as well as the mass roundups of political opponents. I oppose REAL ID wholeheartedly, but will not ally myself with barking moonbats for the sake of gaining allies.

Another issue is the restaurant smoking ban that was killed. Anti-smoking forces are targeting several candidates who were instrumental in the downfall of this bill, particularly state Senator Boyce, who received the 3rd highest grade from the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, and has been a friend and ally on a number of other bills. He's looking for help with his campaign against a challenge by a militant anti-smoking candidate who is well financed and supported by anti-smoking groups.

If you can help him out, either financially or by volunteering, it would be greatly appreciated. He is one of the good republicans. He's not perfect by any means, mind you, even though his grade was 3rd highest, it was still only a B or B+ (NHLA is very tough in its grading system, you have to make approximately 60% pro-liberty votes to even get a passing grade, which only a handful of democrats achieved).

Contact Information
Robert Boyce

Capitol EMail Address:
robert.boyce@leg.state.nh.us
Capitol Web Address:
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/senate/members/senate04.asp

Capitol Phone: 603-271-2166

District Address
22 Frohock Brook Road
Alton Bay, NH 03810-4314
Phone: 603-875-7371

Campaign Address
22 Frohock Rrook Road
Alton Bay, NH 03810
Phone: 603-875-7371

Al Qaeda in Iraq #2 Captured

2006-09-04T02:16:00.000-04:00

Hamed Jumaa Farid Saeedi, a former intelligence agent under Saddam Hussein's regime who is believed to be in his early 40s, the No. 2 Al Qaeda in Iraq operative, believed to be one of the planners behind the bombing of one of the world's holiest Shiite Muslim shrines has been captured, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday.

According to Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak Rubaie, Saeedi confessed he has lost track of the number of attacks on civilians and Coalition personnel he either planned or took part in. The capture also included the arrest of 20 other Al Qaeda operatives, 11 who are believed to be Saeedis lieutenants and largly responsible for the operation of the network he inherited from al Zarqawi just a few months ago.

This swift capture of so many high level operators of al Qaeda strikes a very strong blow against the reign of sectarian terror that has gripped Iraq over the past year, as this Sunni group attacked Shiite religious sites and civilian populations in an attempt to sink the US occupation into a quagmire of civil war. At the same time, al Sadr's Mahdi Army largely responded with similar force against Sunnis, using Iranian made and smuggled IED devices against Sunnis and American forces.

Saeedi is said to have helped to mastermind the February bombing of the sacred Askari Mosque in the city if Samarra, a site visited by many Shia pilgrims as the burial site of two of the greatest martyrs of the Muslim world. The attack destroyed the gold covered dome of the shrine, creating imagry that inflamed sectarian sentiment.

It is this attack which is blamed for the inflammation of sectarian violence, and is considered the source of the election problems of US President George Bush's in maintaining control of Congress in this years elections, as the Democratic Party has become ever more radicalized by propaganda produced by US groups allied with terrorist organizations and other anti-US nations, such as North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.

With this capture, Bush can make some claim that the conflict in Iraq will come back under control, just as Iran's nuclear ambitions appear to be reaching the point of no return. However, as al Qaeda remains a decentralized, cellular movement, whether US and Iraqi commandos pursue intelligence gained to quickly roll up the entire network will decide whether al Qaeda in Iraq is dead, or will simply grow multiple fresh shoots. Military commanders are hoping for a 'domino effect'.

That this capture was effected by Iraqis, and not by US forces, is a welcome and positive sign that the new Iraqi government is making progress in asserting control of the security landscape in their own country against even the most violent groups.

Rubaie told how Saeedi bragged that he had killed not hundreds, but thousands of persons. At the same time, the group was undertaking a strategy of buying their way into native Iraqi tribes via massive dowries and marriages. Whether Saeedis capture will lead to the capture of the number one man, Egyptian Abu Ayyub Masri, who was put in command by bin Laden to bring the somewhat self directed group under greater control of the global leadership.

In related news, US forces are hot on the trail of Ayman Al-Zawahri, bin Ladens number two in the world, allegedly missing him by only a few miles recently. The primary problem they seem to have in exploiting intelligence from locals is in getting it from them quick enough for it to be of any use.

Iraq refuses to halt the processing of highly enriched Uranium as mandated by the UN Security Council deadline today. This intransigence no doubt comes from Iranian confidence that they successfully stopped Israel in Lebanon and have tied the US down in Iraq, as well as Russian and Chinese unwillingness to do anything to impose real sanctions on Iraq for its defiance of international law. In snubbing UN Gen. Secty Khofi Annan, they may push too far a leader who has generally helped scuttle meaningful efforts by the US and Britain to hold Iran to account.

In Afghanistan, a combined NATO assault on Taliban forces has resulted in the deaths of more than 200 Taliban fighters in a battle west of Kandahar. Four Canadians died in battle, while 14 British troops were killed when their surveillance plan crashed in Kandahar province. A further 80 Taliban fighters were captured by Afghan National Police, demonstrating that the administration of President Hamid Karzai is extending its authority in meaningful ways even in Kandahar province, which has heavily supported the Taliban in the past. This disproves claims by critics of Bush that Karzai is really only the titular "mayor of Kabul".

Operation Medusa is the first major ground operation since NATO took over command of the peacekeeping operation from US commanders. Their forces have doubled this year to 18,500 soldiers from 37 countries, which continues to put the lie to claims by opponents of Bush that the US remains unilaterally engaged.

However, the opium crop continues to grow, with a record 165,000 hectares (407,700 acres) under opium cultivation in 2006, a 59 percent increase over 2005, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual survey. Helmand provincial cultivation rose 162 percent. This year's harvest was 6,100 metric tons of opium, and will represent 92 percent of total world supply, the UN said.

"The political, military and economic investments by coalition countries are not having much visible impact on drug cultivation," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in Kabul, in presenting the survey to Afghan President Hamid Karzai this weekend, "As a result, Afghan opium is fuelling insurgency in western Asia, feeding international mafias and causing a hundred thousand deaths from overdoses every year."

Of course, nobody is talking about simply buying all the opium from Afghan farmers, to keep the merchandise out of the hands of terrorist and criminal organizations. That would be too smart, and might anger al Qaeda and the Taliban enough to force them to take NATO on in full combat operations.

As predicted, Lebanon is refusing to seize or give up Hezbollahs weapons inventory as mandated by the UN. And why should they? If Iran won't give up Uranium processing, why should Hezbollah give up a few thousand short range missiles? This development was widely predicted in the blogosphere, and I expect that if the UN fails to enforce its mandate that Israel will be back in Lebanon as soon as the Lebanese Army withdraws to the north as it runs out of money and lets Hezbollah start shooting its missiles again.

Introducing the International Libertarian Cafe

2006-09-03T20:58:00.000-04:00

IntLibbers everywhere can now promote IntLib proudly with IntLib products: clothing, houswears, posters, prints, cards, buttons, magnets, coffee mugs, and other great stuff. Produced with the help of Cafe Press, the IntLib Cafe features products with variations of the IntLib logo, in color and black and white, as well as products featuring the Republic of New Hampshire Seal and quotes on freedom and New Hampshire.

Many IntLib shirts and sweats feature backside artwork of variations of Mark Twain's famous quote, "No mans liberty or property is Safe, whil the Legislature is in Session." Womens clothing changes "mans" into "womans", and kids products say, "No [kids] liberty or property is Safe, while the [adults are in charge]."

There is a convenient link in the IntLib masthead to access the store in the future, and you might notice we are also working on creating an IntLib forum for folks to discuss things.

BONUS: IntLibbers who buy IntLib products, and send us pictures of them wearing or displaying them with noticeable world landmarks in the background, get a free IntLib t-shirt. Spread IntLib around the world!

Plameout: Leftlibber Wilson Supporters Sucking Wind

2006-09-01T23:55:00.000-04:00

A little publicized mea culpa from the Washington Post discloses the actual truth about Plamegate: that it was the anti-war, anti-neocon Asst Secty of of the anti-war State Department, Richard Armitage, who first exposed Valerie Plames identity to anti-war journalist Richard Novak in casual conversation, to explain to Novak why the Bush administration would send a known Clintonite opponent of Bush on a sensitive diplomatic intel mission to Africa, and then ignore that intel once they figured out who he was. Wilson went because Bush officials didn't know it was him that went, or who he was other than the husband of a CIA desk jockey who had been sidelined by Aldritch Ames' treason years before.

It is also disclosed that Wilson ACTUALLY FIND EVIDENCE SADDAM SHOPPED YELLOWCAKE in Africa, as was the plan with his wife, lied in claiming in his alleged "whistleblower" article accusing the Bush admin of "ignoring intel" that, it turns out, he lied about. As Captain's quarters states:

It's more than unfortunate -- it was deliberate. Wilson and Plame set up this trip for the purpose of discrediting the elected officials of the American government in an attempt to keep them from exercising their policies on intelligence and foreign affairs. Wilson lied and deceived people, first by leaking his disinformation anonymously to the Post and the New York Times, and then in an editorial that relied on his diplomatic reputation to bolster the credibility of his false accusations.

Thus, all of the left hyperventilating for an impeachment is nothing but hot air: Bush didn't ignore actual intel, he ignored fake intel manufactured by an opponent of the administration. It also explains why Karl Rove and Scooter Libby are off scott free: they didn't disclose anything that hadn't been disclosed by Armitage already. Though it is indicative that Wilson and Plame are suing everybody BUT Armitage. Armitage has kept quiet up til now specifically because he sought to neutralize the influence of the neocons in the administration, and it can be said that the stagnation of US overseas efforts in the last 2-3 years are a result of this sort of hamstringing and infighting.

Don't worry, the left will continue to ignore the facts, just as they do with everything, including good news in Iraq, dropping gas prices, a drastic downgrading of hurricane predictions this season, the debunking of Michael Mann and his Hockey Stick in front of Congress, and the coming solar cycle 25 and its resultant cooling. Of course, the real culprits will always be Karl Rove and the Bush administration, along with the litany of the Sith-like Dick Cheney and Halliburton.

And the State Department was its usual treasonous self through all this. Mark Steyn was on C-SPAN this morning with Brian Lamb. When the topic came up, his analysis of the the State Department's role (abetted by the MSM) in allowing Joe Wilson's treasonous conspiracy and lies to fester for 3 years, thus undermining the Bush adminstration during a time of war, was stunning.

The leftlibbers are strangely silent on this story, all those who've been attacking myself and other intlibbers as coddlers of the neocons.