- EverVigilant.net - "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." - John Philpot Curran
Remember that "Mission Accomplished" banner that became an infamous symbol of the Bush administration's blunders in Iraq? Well, the White House has finally admitted fault. Sort of.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said earlier today, "President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission. And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."
And to think that all of the confusion could have been avoided in the first place if they had only added a question mark.
Today is an exciting day for our campaign and our movement: my new book, The Revolution: A Manifesto, is officially released.
Although a short book, it is the product of many years of thought and action. It is a defense of the principles to which you and I have devoted our lives.
My friends are calling it "Ron Paul's legacy."
These principles -- individual liberty, sound money, the Constitution, and the foreign policy of the Founding Fathers -- have had no home in American politics for a very long time. With The Revolution: A Manifesto, I'm letting the establishment know we're not going away.
Finally, Americans can hear and judge these great American principles for themselves, instead of through an unfriendly media filter. And they can learn once and for all that they need not be satisfied with the phony choices the system offers them every four years. Another way really is possible.
Two days ago I did a book signing in New York at the Borders on Wall Street. All 530 copies had been sold before I even arrived.
They had underestimated you again.
Imagine the attention our cause and our principles could attract with a fantastic opening day today, with people marching into bookstores across the country for their copies. If it should become a publishing phenomenon, The Revolution: A Manifesto can fuel our revolution for a long time to come. You can make that happen.
I hope you enjoy this book, which was a real labor of love for me. Please spread the word.
Wesley Snipes had been acquitted of felony tax fraud earlier this year, but the same jury did convict him on three misdemeanor counts of failing to file tax returns. Last week, he was sentenced to three years in prison.
Why such a harsh punishment? In their sentencing recommendation, prosecutors in the case said that the jurors' decision to acquit the actor of felony charges "has been portrayed in the mainstream media as a 'victory' for Snipes. The troubling implication of such coverage for the millions of average citizens who are aware of this case is that the rich and famous Wesley Snipes has 'gotten away with it.' In the end the criminal conduct of Snipes must not be seen in such a light." Now, for the crime of tax evasion, Snipes is going to prison at taxpayer expense.
You see, the State doesn't like it when its authority is challenged. It will silence any citizen who calls into question the legality of its power to confiscate one's wages. (Forget the fact that wages were not considered income when the 16th Amendment was ratified.) It will make every effort to convince people that forcing you to file an income tax return isn't tantamount to self-incrimination. (Never mind that 5th Amendment to the Constitution forbids exactly that.) It is counting on you to remain ignorant. (Have you ever met a single person who has actually read all 13,000-plus pages of the U.S. Tax Code?)
It will not be mocked. Any appearance of weakness only encourages others to entertain the wild notion that their lives aren't controlled by the State.
The Constitution Party held its 2008 national convention (April 23-26) in Kansas City, Missouri, and selected Chuck Baldwin as its presidential candidate. Baldwin beat neocon warmonger Alan Keyes for the party's nomination by a 3-to-1 margin. (For more on this, read James Antle's essay on Keyes's slide into political irrelevancy here.)
Here is Chuck Baldwin's acceptance speech:
Baldwin was the CP's vice presidential selection in 2004 when he teamed up with Michael Peroutka for the 2004 election.
UPDATE: I find this hard to believe, but there is talk going around that Mr. Keyes is on a "short list" of possible VP choices for John McCain.
Fox News reports that members of the Street Crime Unit in Springfield, Mass., will start wearing black, military-style uniforms in an effort to help curb youth violence. It is believed that these intimidating uniforms will "send a message to criminals that officers are serious about making arrests." As LRC blogger Manuel Lora notes, "Did we really need this change of attire to fear them?"
Global warming has taken a back seat to an even greater (i.e. real) threat: starvation. The New York Sun has the story:
With prices for rice, wheat, and corn soaring, food-related unrest has broken out in places such as Haiti, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. Several countries have blocked the export of grain. There is even talk that governments could fall if they cannot bring food costs down.
One factor being blamed for the price hikes is the use of government subsidies to promote the use of corn for ethanol production. An estimated 30% of America's corn crop now goes to fuel, not food.
"I don't think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial," a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels.
Last year, Mr. Runge and a colleague, Benjamin Senauer, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs, "How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor."
"We were criticized for being alarmist at the time," Mr. Runge said. "I think our views, looking back a year, were probably too conservative."
Not surprisingly, Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore was unavailable for comment.
The Pentagon's push for war with Iran is bordering on sheer desperation. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, has all but accused Iran of committing an act of war:
Pentagon concerns about Iranian influence in neighboring Iraq is nothing new, but the content and tone of Mullen's remarks left the impression that far from abating, the worries about Iran have intensified in recent months.
"The Iranian government pledged to halt such activities some months ago," Mullen said. "It's plainly obvious they have not. Indeed, they seem to have gone the other way."
The discovery of weapons caches in Iraq, with devices bearing stamps that indicate they were manufactured quite recently, run contrary to the Iranian promises not to interfere in Iraq, the admiral said. He conceded that he had "no smoking gun" to prove direct involvement by the very highest echelons in Tehran, but he said he found it hard to believe that all the top leaders were ignorant of recent developments.
Brett Arends, in his latest column, says we should be concerned about the rising cost of food:
You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs."
I'm not an alarmist, but I do know that rising prices and food shortages won't sit well with a nation that has been spoiled with wealth and convenience. Perhaps planning ahead isn't a bad idea.
Vigilantism has always been characterized as an act of vengeance. If you hurt me or someone I love and I come after you as judge, jury, and executioner, then I would be a vigilante. I would be taking the law into my own hands, and that would be wrong.
But vigilantism has been redefined to include legitimate acts of self-defense -- at least in California. Police in Oakland are worried about vigilantes after two robbers were shot and wounded by store owners. Deputy Police Chief Dave Kozicki admitted that people do have a right to protect themselves, but he doesn't want to see everyone packing heat. "That's a concern that law enforcement has all the time," he said, "that people will engage in vigilantism."
Folks in the Oakland area may remember Kozicki (then a captain) from the following 2006 campaign video criticizing Charles Poochigian who was running for Attorney General. Kozicki's beef? As a state senator Poochigian refused to sign on to California's 2005 ban on .50 caliber rifles. Take a look:
It's no surprise to me that a guy like this would equate self-defense with vigilantism.
In an interview with ABC News's Chris Cuomo, Hillary Clinton put Iran on notice: "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That's a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that."
Not to be outdone, Barack Obama told ABC's Robin Roberts, "We shouldn't allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. Period. And, you know, I have consistently said that I will do everything in my power to prevent them from having it and I have not ruled out military force as an option." In other words, Obama would resort to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.
This is the kind of strong, pro-war rhetoric that we have come to expect from the neocon chicken hawks in the Bush administration, and now we see that the Democrats aren't any better. You phony anti-war Clinton and Obama supporters have been exposed for the hypocrites you are.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Deuteronomy 32:1 "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth."
1st Chronicles 16:31 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice, and let them say among the nations, "The Lord reigns!"
Psalm 24:1-2 The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.
Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Romans 8:19-22 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
1st Corinthians 10:25-26 Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For "the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof."
Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
Big government is destructive when it takes your money and when it spends it. There is no economic benefit to supporting a government sector as massive as ours. In fact, this country thrived for well over 100 years without an income tax. Today, if you took away the income tax, the government would still have revenue from other sources equal to total government spending in 1990, when government was still too big. $1.2 trillion should be more than enough to fund a government operating within its constitutional confines, and that is exactly what we need to get back to.
If Australia's health "experts" had their way, "smoking would be banned for everyone born next year, junk food would be taxed, and everyone would be subjected to a fitness test by 2020." They would also like to see an increase in "public education about how death can be a 'positive experience' to avoid patients panicking when they reach hospital emergency departments."
Presenting death as a "positive experience"? Well, when all freedoms have been taken away and "free" socialized medicine still fails to provide people with the care they need, what other recourse is there?
"Sorry, Mr. Logan, but you're almost 30, and since our resources are limited, there really isn't anything we can do for you. How about a free ticket to Carousel?"
15 years ago today, around 80 civilians, mostly old men, women, and children, were murdered by the federal government in Waco, Texas. I say they were murdered because the siege that culminated in the fire that destroyed the Branch Davidian compound was the result of a bogus search warrant that should never have been issued in the first place.
The implications of this tragic event, however, seem to have been lost on a public willing to ignore federal abuses of the Constitution. It's understandable, I suppose. Who's going to argue with the ones rolling in with the tanks, automatic weapons, and grenades?
It is incumbent upon each of us to seriously ponder our future. It is imperative that each of us be willing to study, once again, the great principles upon which this country was built. Such a study demands that we re-familiarize ourselves with the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. We must re-read our Declaration of Independence. We must read the words of wisdom and warning delivered by our Founding Fathers. In short, we must be completely familiar with the principles of liberty, because those principles made us, and those principles will keep us. Without them, liberty's future is about as permanent as the wooden buildings at Mt. Carmel. Without them, the fire of tyranny will reduce us to the cinders of obscurity as surely as did the fire outside Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993.
The police state in this country is very real, and for any who do not understand the truly violent nature of law enforcement, it is worth considering the costs of non-compliance. The truly unique thing about Waco was not just that so many innocent people lost their lives. The unique thing was that people resisted. And that's why they lost their lives.
In America it has become increasingly easy to get oneself killed by the government. Simply "resisting arrest" -- including arrest for a fabricated offense -- can get one tased and beaten. Sometimes, even the most unsuspecting members of society, like Derek J. Hale, are murdered by the state. If your home is under full-blown siege by government jackboots, delaying compliance can mean death. It did in Philadelphia, at Ruby Ridge, and at Waco, Texas.
73-year-old French film star Brigitte Bardot was on trial in Paris once again after being charged for the fifth time with "inciting racial hatred." Prosecutors asked that she be given a two-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of €15,000 ($23,760) for saying of Muslims, "I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts."
Have you ever enjoyed sitting on a park bench, basking in the sunshine, listening to the sound of chirping birds, and watching the neighborhood kids play on the merry-go-round? Well, that last thing could land you in jail if the park bench happens to be in Maine.
A bill that passed the State House last month aims to crack down on "visual sexual aggression" against kids. This is apparently the next logical step in responding to what York Police Chief Doug Bracy calls "a growing outcry by the public to protect our children."
Yes, just tell everyone it's "for the kids." Works every time.
Elaine and Jon Huguenin, owners of Elane Photography in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are evangelical Christians. When asked by a lesbian couple to photograph the couple's same-sex commitment ceremony, they politely declined on the basis that they didn't want their art to be used to promote a lifestyle with which they disagree.
That should have been the end of it, right? Wrong. The New Mexico Human Rights Commission has since ruled that the Huguenins violated state law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and has ordered them to pay the lesbian couple $6,637.94 in attorney fees. (Full story here.)
Remember: Only certain groups of people are allowed to force their views on others. If you truly value freedom, chances are you don't belong to one of them.
The Minnesota Tax Cut Coalition held its annual rally at the State Capitol on Saturday, drawing a crowd of about 1,000 people demanding that legislators stop "wasteful'' spending and allow Minnesotans to keep more of their paychecks.
Government funding to support light rail transit, the social safety net and the Twins ballpark were among the targets of complaints among the crowd, which spilled across the Capitol lawn.
To make better use of my time and resources, I have decided to switch over to a blog format. You may have also noticed that the link to my old PaleoBlog has been redirected. That's because the content from that blog has migrated over to this site and is now being published here.
I was reluctant at first, but I think this should make the site more interesting and versatile in the long run. If not, well, it certainly makes things easier to manage.
Let me know what you think, and thanks for reading!
Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.
According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan -- which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including [Chief] Sir Ian Blair -- is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements.
The new electronic tracking device -- called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) -- means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.
But many serving officers fear being turned into "Robocops" -- controlled by bosses who have not been out on the beat in years.
According to service providers Telent, the new technology "will enable operators in the Service's operations centres to identify the location of each police officer" at any time they are on duty -- whether overground or underground.
Although police chiefs say the new technology is about "improving officer safety" and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is just a Big Brother style system to keep tabs on them and make sure they don't "doze off on duty".
It is rather ironic, isn't it? London has been blanketed with surveillance cameras under the guise of improving public safety, and I don't recall cops squawking about that. But now that they are the ones being watched...
Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League (which later became Planned Parenthood) to help control the growth of minority populations and other "undesirables." This video shows that the organization still embraces its racist roots.
The grounding of American Airlines flights has less to do with safety and more to do with the FAA trying to let the airline companies know who's boss. So, while hundreds of thousands of passengers are busy blaming American for ruining their travel plans, the folks at the FAA are busy rubbing their hands together in a fiendish manner and doing their best Dr. Evil laugh.
"Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand."
- Robert E. Lee to Governor Fletcher S. Stockdale (September 1870)
Ron Paul remains the longest of long shots to win the Republican presidential nomination, but his Minnesota supporters aren't going quietly.
Over the weekend, they captured six of a dozen GOP national convention delegates elected at congressional district meetings. The rebellion has left local party officials crying foul, even as state leaders downplay the importance of the unexpected result.
"They'll be national delegates, but at the end of the day, that doesn't change anything because John McCain is going to be our nominee," said party spokesman Mark Drake.
But Marianne Stebbins, who has headed the Texas congressman's Minnesota campaign for several months, called the victories a tactical triumph designed to bring Paul's libertarian message to the broadest possible audience.
Our enemies in Iraq are good at filling hospitals, but they do not build any. They can incite men to murder and suicide, but they cannot inspire men to live, and hope, and add to the progress of their country. The terrorists' only influence is violence, and their only agenda is death.
Our agenda, in contrast, is freedom and independence, security and prosperity for the Iraqi people. And by removing a source of terrorist violence and instability in the Middle East, we also make our own country more secure.
Our coalition has a clear goal, understood by all -- to see the Iraqi people in charge of Iraq for the first time in generations. America's task in Iraq is not only to defeat an enemy, it is to give strength to a friend -- a free, representative government that serves its people and fights on their behalf. And the sooner this goal is achieved, the sooner our job will be done.
The reality, however, is that the Iraqi people are facing threats they never knew before -- even under the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein. From Newsweek:
The insurgents have been driven out of her southwest Baghdad neighborhood, but the 30-year-old shop assistant is still frightened. A year ago Al Qaeda in Iraq ruled the streets outside her home, and Mahdi Army militia units kept the area under relentless attack. Now the Iraqis who helped get rid of the killers are the ones who scare her. The Americans imposed order a few months ago by recruiting and paying local men to turn in the names of suspected jihadists. Similar armed groups have popped up all around the city. Each has its own bizarre rules; some threaten to kill women who don't wear veils in public. The shop assistant is in mourning for her brother, who was killed last May, but she's asking for trouble if she wears black more than three days running. According to the new enforcers in her neighborhood, anyone who dresses in mourning is committing blasphemy by questioning the will of God. ...
... Saddam's Iraq at least offered women the protection of enforced secularism; they were encouraged to study at universities and to pursue professional careers. That changed in the 1990s as the dictator began to rely on tribal sheiks to prop up his rule, while U.N. sanctions drove families into poverty and reduced opportunities for women. Americans arriving in 2003 hoped to make the new Iraq a showcase for gender equality. But women's advocates say that dream fell by the wayside as violence engulfed the country.
The inevitable push for a nation-wide smoking ban may start with a recent study that discovered a link between smoking bans and an increase in drunk driving. Even the authors of the study, Scott Adams of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Chad Cotti of the University of South Carolina, found the results "surprising."
But wait. It gets better: "Although Adams said he is not necessarily a policy advocate, he said a well-enforced national smoking ban would get rid of the drunken driving increases related to smoke bans."
So, smoke 'em if you got 'em. You may not be able to before long.
A roommate-finding site cannot require users to disclose their sexual orientation, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday, in the latest skirmish over whether anti-discrimination rules apply to the Web.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Roommates.com, which obliges users to list their sexual orientation, was different than Internet sites where people can volunteer or withhold personal information.
To inquire electronically about sexual orientation would not be different from asking people in person or by telephone if they were black or Jewish before conducting business, the panel said in an 8-3 ruling that partly overturns a lower federal court decision.
"If such screening is prohibited when practiced in person or by telephone, we see no reason why Congress would have wanted to make it lawful to profit from it online," 9th Circuit chief judge Alex Kozinski wrote. "Not only does Roommate ask these questions, Roommate makes answering the discriminatory questions a condition of doing business."
Only in America can a court find unlawful discrimination in a private, voluntary transaction between consenting adults.
A 14-year-old student at Morgan School in Clinton is facing a weapons charge, accused of tinkering with a disposable camera to make it capable of zapping people with an electrical charge.
Police say the camera, modified according to instructions available on the Internet, had been converted into an improvised electronic demobilizing device similar to a Taser. ...
... The 14-year-old student has been charged with possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds, attempted assault and breach of peace.
Remember that "Mission Accomplished" banner that became an infamous symbol of the Bush administration's blunders in Iraq? Well, the White House has finally admitted fault. Sort of.
15 years ago today, around 80 civilians, mostly old men, women, and children, were murdered by the federal government in Waco, Texas. I say they were murdered because the siege that culminated in the fire that destroyed the Branch Davidian compound was the result of a bogus search warrant that should never have been issued in the first place. 
