Freedom-loving Americans suffered a major defeat today, and they face another blow to liberty next week. In Kelo vs. New London, the Supreme Court voted that local governments can seize private property for private uses, so long as it serves the public benefit. The ruling legitimizes the already common practice of coercively redistributing [...]
Have you noticed the Click it or Ticket commercials and billboards going up across the country? The message goes something like buckle up or pay: it saves lives Whose life is the state protecting? Presumably, it is the life of the previously un-buckled driver, as the commercials and billboards usually show young [...]
In the latest of a series of rulings, a federal judge has issued a $1.45 billion judgment against Morgan Stanley for not keeping records of email communications.
Partly in response to such rulings, many corporations now have detailed
email retention policies and keep years of email records. But this is a
lose-lose situation for companies: five years ago, [...]
The following comes from a post on ObjectivismOnline. For more, see the original thread.
The protection of intellectual property requires the ability to create and apply an objective standard. Attempting to enforce intellectual property rights without the existence of an objective criteria or the ability to apply it violates real property rights, regardless of the [...]
The latest death toll from Dec 24ths tsunami in Asia is at 150,000 and rising. 400,000 thousand people have become refugees and 94,081 have been confirmed dead in Indonesia alone. (Reuters as of 1/04/05) A tragedy of this magnitude deserves our consideration, especially of two questions: why did so many die, and [...]
Socialists would have you believe that government safety regulations lead to higher safety standards than a free market would provide. The reality however, is that the agencies responsible for product safety are quickly captured by the parties they are intended to regulate and then used to socialize costs and restrict competition. Regulating safety [...]
In an overdue development, China and Russia are developing a strategic partnership of cooperation, particularly in the economic and trade sector. The partnership may be historically significant it leads to a lowering of trade barriers that encourages trade between China and Russia, which is currently around $20-$30 billion the highest in history, but [...]
Matt Drudge is carrying a breaking story about Kerry posing with a shotgun he voted to outlaw. Is anyone really surprised by this?
For my take on the election, see this forum post.
Californias Senate voted 24-8 today to pass a bill restricting how Googles ad-based Gmail service can serve up ads. The commie bastards responsible for this atrocity have a taxpayer-funded staff to take care of their taxpayer-funded email accounts, while Google works hard to allow millions of people to get access to a free and [...]
Nicholas Thompson of the New York Sun describes the powers granted the New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer by the 1921-era Martin Act:
The purpose of the 1921 Martin Act is to arm the New York attorney general to combat financial fraud. It empowers him to subpoena any document he wants from anyone doing business [...]
RightWingNews ran two surveys to create a right wing and a leftist version of the "20 worst figures in American history."
I decided to make my own list, shown below. My take on the top 20 greatest Americans is coming next.
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The list is biased towards more recent history due to my limited knowledge of [...]
After attempting to shut down or censor most of its cyber cafe’s, China has launched another effort to shut down cybercafes “because of fears that the Net could corrupt the minds of youngsters….”
“We must take utmost resolutions and make utmost efforts in the clean-up campaign to achieve our anticipated goal, for Internet cafe management [...]
The U.S. government concocted a brilliant plan a few years ago: Why not give Internet surfers in China and Iran the ability to bypass their nations’ notoriously restrictive blocks on Web sites?
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But an independent report released Monday reveals that the U.S. government also censors what Chinese and Iranian citizens can see online. Technology used by [...]
A controversial college professor who thinks parents should be able to kill disabled children says though President Bush makes himself out to be a good Christian leader, he has the moral development of a 13-year-old boy.
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A truly Christian leader, he said, would have “turned the other cheek” when the United States was attacked by terrorists [...]
The New York Sun:
The 41-year-old man sits in a filthy 18-by-24-foot cell that he shares with 10 other prisoners. He knows he is fortunate because up to 18 men are routinely squeezed in cells of that size…. The water is rationed and the little that is available is contaminated. His food rations are meager and [...]
In a victory for intellectual freedom, Tatiana Menakers expulsion from San Francisco State University has been reversed. She was expelled from school after protesting the same Marxist and Anti-Semitic attitude she escaped the USSR from in 1986. You can read her editorial about the anti-Americanism she encountered in academia, and an account of [...]
Slashdot: Senator John McCain wants to force cable companies to sell cable channels a la carte, so you only pay for the channels you want. He argues that “When I go to the grocery store to buy a quart of milk, I don’t have to buy a package of celery and a bunch [...]
Shortly after WWII, it was in vogue among leftist types to call people whos politics they disagreed with fascist while freedom and democracy were used to designate favorable positions and governments, regardless of actual policy. Since this trend is on the rise again, I though a 1946-era quiz would be of interest:
The F Scale, [...]
I don’t need to mention what I think of the EU ruling to fine Microsoft 497.2 million ($605 mil U.S.) for having the audacity to make superior software. However I was curious how the loot would be split it up. Turns out that it will be a trickle into the 100bn EU [...]
From “Rattling the Chains of Slavery” by Thomas Sowell:
Europeans enslaved other Europeans for centuries before the drying up of that supply led them to turn to Africa as a source of slaves for the Western Hemisphere. Julius Caesar marched in triumph through Rome in a procession that included British slaves he had captured. There were [...]