Free "The Hunter"

Hunter's court case has suddenly been moved to the Ashland Municipal Court on Wednesday, May 26, at 3:00 PM.. A number of people had planned to show up to support Hunter on Thursday, and some will not be able to change their plans to the earlier date. We suspect that this is exactly the reason for the last minute change, but there is nothing that can be done about it at this point.

Carl Bussjaeger, organizer of the support for Hunter, suggests that perhaps the best bet is for everyone who can come to meet at the municipal court parking lot at 2:30 See the Map here.

Carl said: The Ashland Municipal Court handles traffic tickets and misdemeanors for the city and county. It doesn't handle felonies, so the concealed carry charge has clearly been reduced. The date shift forward is most likely meant to interfere with the plans of Hunter's supporters to be present. I strongly suspect DeSanto doesn't like the attention he's been getting, and prefers to limit further attention.

To continue that attention, email the following: The Ashland prosecutor DeSanto and the Mansfield News Journal.

Please help spread the word about this change of plans. Thanks! MamaLiberty (Read more here)

A Penny Reinvested, A Dollar Burned
By Catfarmer

Recently while sorting through some paperwork, I came across a transaction statement from a mutual fund company. The transaction? A small, inactive account had earned a penny, and the penny was automatically reinvested - thus, the statement. I wondered for a moment why a sensible company would spend their time and resources (and a stamp) on a transaction statement for a measly penny - particularly within a week of the end of the quarter, when the company would issue regular quarterly statements. There's gotta be a law protecting the consumer from the evil mutual fund company, I thought to myself, to shoehorn them into maintaining such an extraordinarily inefficient business practice.

How much time might various people have spent producing, processing, posting, and delivering this statement before it arrived on my desk for reviewing and filing? Between the costs of printing, postage, and handling labor, I'd estimate that the total costs incurred by this penny reinvested would add up to about a dollar. A little of that cost came out of numerous unsuspecting pockets, and I wonder if anyone else noticed or thought about it. Most investment accounts are considerably larger - many may be large enough to cover the costs generated by automatically issued transaction statements, but I'm sure many are not. Most investors would probably cash in an investment account small enough to be eventually eaten up by yearly maintenance fees - fees no doubt due in part to mandated types of inefficiency forced on companies by bureaucrats to "protect the consumer." (Read the rest here)

Show and Tell Me Everything
By Lady Liberty

It likely comes as no real surprise to anybody that some of my friends consider me the "go to" person whenever some question of civil liberties arises. So when the phone rang last week and a friend told me he needed my opinion on a matter of rights, I was ready to tell him what I knew, or to steer him in the direction of an appropriate web site for more information. But every time I think I'm prepared, it turns out that the forces of authority have gone just a little further than I could have expected, and I must overcome my disgust just to deal with some matter that should never have become an issue in the first place.

My friend has a couple of dogs. They're friendly and gregarious animals, so it made perfect sense that a local teacher would think they could play part of a lesson plan that would delight the average second grader. Because the dogs like that sort of thing, and because my friend is a nice guy, he agreed to bring the dogs in to the school for an hour or so one day. But upon his agreement, he was advised that he'd have to undergo a criminal background check and provide his fingerprints to the local sheriff accordingly. And that's where he balked. (Read the rest here)

At Home with the TSA
By Kira

It turns out that it is a federal offense to pick a kid up from college. Really. See, I recently bought this ONE WAY TICKET to Raleigh-Durham with the criminal intent of flying there to drive back with my daughter.

As background, I was, until a year ago a confirmed post-911 airline boycotter. I resent being poked, prodded, searched, and otherwise delayed and invaded in order to act as if I still have freedom to travel in this country. I cringe when my kids tell me of all the various searches they endure just going out for nightly entertainment, which to them is totally normal. The first time, nearly 2 years after 9-11, that I had to travel, I went to the extreme of getting a friend to fly me privately to a business meeting in DC, which, for the record, cost MORE than a commercial flight for just my half of the fuel. Considering all the hullabaloo about safety and the various hoops that folks are jumping through all over the country in the name of security, it was fascinating -- we landed miles from the White House at a private airport and were not even looked at closely. (Read the rest here)

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Updated 05.14.04
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