1- "Regular folks" to kiss the sky
"If the brief, suborbital flight comes off as planned -- and the only apparent obstacle is the possibility of windy weather -- Rutan's firm, Scaled Composites, will have the inside track to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize and could open the way to a new era of space tourism." (6/17/04)

Is it okay to be really excited about this, even if it isn't ALL THE WAY yet? Since reading Heinlein's "Rocket Ship Galileo" and "The Man Who Sold The Moon", this has always seemed to be the way it SHOULD be done, in a free-market world. Surely enough people are willing to trade a few $5000 weeks on cruise ships or Club Med jaunts to make SC's goal a reality? And once the space-lovers realize that NASA is not just NOT needed, but a positive detriment to space travel...

2- U.S. Senate votes to add to Army
More grandstanding by incumbents (such as Tom Daschle, facing significant opposition in SD this year) than anything substantial, this vote is NOT a victory for anyone else - not the administrators, soldiers, lovers of liberty, or lovers of peace. While Bush is easy to hammer on, remember that the Roman Republic became an empire because of the "conscript fathers" of the Senate, and not because of dictators: they came later, to try and deal with the mess Congress... opps, I mean, the Senate, made of things.

3- Crowd-controlling stun guns close to military readiness?
Once more, "human rights" groups lose sight of the fact that these are intended to provide an option to regular lead and steel bullets or their slightly less-lethal rubber brothers. None of these agencies have any compunction about "indiscriminately" using deadly force. Although I've seen no statistics on it, I have heard of multiple cases in localities in the Western US where tasers and other weapons have prevented what would otherwise be another in a long string of killings by police, and these new electro-stun devices have the same potential over a greater distance, making it easier to keep panicked cops from going to their handguns, or to the swat team with the artillery.

4- United Airlines denied corporate welfare bailout
Like most welfare recipients, United has reached the stage of being unable to fend for themselves. Once the nation's and world's largest airline, it may be going the way of American, PanAm, TWA, and a host of earlier collapses, while smaller, cheaper, and better run airlines take over. (Of course, it is almost a natural law that when an airline reaches a certain size, it becomes a welfare case - so United won't be the last, I'm sure).

5- U.S. Post Office computer too generous with bonuses
"The computer made me do it. Now, I need a raise!" I don't know if this $103 million will become part of the justification for a stamp increase to 40 or 42 cents, but I won't be surprised. Again, though, a computer programmer or data entry glitch really isn't to blame: a monopoly where employees salaries are based on political conditions rather than a free-market is to blame. If the USPS were a private firm, most of these people wouldn't be getting bonuses, because they'd have been fired for failing to provide good, efficient service.

6- Educrat warns: privatization will ruin U.S. public ed system
Well, we can only hope. Actually, this is a good reason to remember that "privatization" and "commercialization" ("free-market-conversion") are two totally different things. In privatization, the publik skools are still guvmint-run, theft-funded (GRTF) institutions: it just makes it easier for more people and firms to get in on the graft. The contractors now aren't just the publishing companies, construction firms, and furniture companies. On the other hand, commercialization means that the link between schools and government (both control and funding) are separated: people can buy a service from whom they wish, and while the potential for greed, coercion, fraud, and abuse still exist, parents and students have some chance of avoiding that. Of course, the NEA just doesn't get it: bus-drivers, lunchroom cooks, and custodians are not part of the core of an education system, and privatization actually perpetuates the broken GRTF system. I don't know whether it is because the NEA recruits so well among these type of employees, or whether they just don't understand it.

7- Politics behind FDA's contraceptive decision?
You know, after we separate school and state, maybe we could separate health care and state? Government science is all too often a contradiction in terms: Soviet-era tales are just an extreme example of an all-too-common problem: either science is ignored, or scientists say what their masters want to hear.

Editor's note: Do we have to wait? Let's separate the state from medicine, food, agriculture, school, space travel, and everything else all in one action. I don't think it's going to work any other way. MamaLiberty)

8- Bush insists on Iraq-al Qaeda link
As we noted yesterday, the 9-11 Commission's political views are subject to challenge and change. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not begin to describe the reasons that Saddam and Bin Laden had to cooperate and coordinate, even if it didn't reach the collaborate level, and I can't believe that they would NOT have some links. After all, even liars tell the truth sometimes. By the way, I overheard an argument (staged, no doubt) about whether the 9-11 in the commission name was describing the event, their normal working hours, or the range of the IQs on the commission. Then someone reminded me of the law (not one of Hunter's, I think) that states the IQ of a committee is the IQ of the smartest person there divided by the number of feet in the committee.

9- U.S. bill would bar tech that could break laws
Yeah, right. An electronic Sullivan or Brady law. These guys are taking lessons from the 1980s era Wisconsin legislature which repealed the law of gravity for ground water. Which means, of course, this has a high probability of passing! And then being ignored, like all the rest.

10- Federal appeals court wrangles with state vs. fed MMJ laws
Well, if judges were consistent, they'd be - I don't know - used car salesmen, or pimps, or some honorable profession? Unfortunately the lawyers who usually represent people in these cases are of the same ilk, and unlikely to do anything but play loopholes and technicalities, while ignoring the "weightier matters of the law."

11- U.S. immigration bureaucrats say backlog will end in 2006
Yeah, and then the INS can close up shop, right?

12- Denver to archive spy files as a deterrent
---and make them easier to retrieve at need, too. The DPL (Denver Public Library) has a much better data retrieval system than the DPD (Denver Police Department). Believe it or not, there are at least a few good, honest, and dedicated cops in Denver - but they are so far outnumbered by the bad-uns that you can't see them.

13- Rhode Island air show prompts terrorism fears in Boston
When you seek, as so many agencies have for three years now, to induce fear in the population, eventually your efforts will start to pay off. Even in lower New England, an area famous for its revolutionary fervor in the 1770s, and for its complete subjection to tyranny for the last 50 years. Or was this just someone having fun and clogging the TIPS hotlines for a while, knowing what was on the wings of those aircraft?

14- Ft. Lauderdale: dial 911 and wait ... two hours
Another case for the archives of "protect and serve" - also to be used as justification for why -- INSERT TOWN NAME HERE -- needs to raise taxes and hire -- INSERT NUMBER HERE -- new cops, plus upgrade 911-PLUS to 911-PLATINUM.

15- Kentucky, fed educrats fight over welfare
Ah, buro-rat squabbles at their best -arguing over someone else's money. Might one suggest reviving an ol' Kentucky home tradition and resolving it with dueling pistols at dawn on a foggy morning?

16- Penn. doctor-lawyer guild fight to end with new law?
Hmmm. Fortunately, even our courts might have to throw this law out as unconstitutional. After all, if one can't discriminate against someone based on their political views, they might have to treat a libertarian. There is a reason that "There oughta be a law" isn't a comic strip anymore - you don't have to pay royalties on headlines.

17- Duluth citizens threatened with 20% property tax increase
"There's bad budget news for the city of Duluth. The city's projected budget gap for 2005 could be $3 million, based on early numbers, and includes a possible 20 percent property-tax increase. Without that tax increase, the budget gap would be $4.9 million." (6/18/04)

I have to feel bad for the citizens of Duluth, but my sorrow is tempered by a wicked thought: just how much pain can their "civic leaders" cause before the good burghers of Duluth decide a one-way trip to the Atlantic as fish-meal is a good use of their politicians?

18- Utah enviros: no jeep rides without permission slips
'We don't like people doing these things without a permit.' Living, eating, drinking, breathing, and other assorted nasty things. Actually, this BLM guy isn't a REAL environmentalist: those guys would just say you can't do it, permit or not.

19- New Hampshire pols override vetoes, flush more taxpayer money
"Count your spoons," is the way one friend puts it about having the legislature in session. Actually, I thought, in our modern government, that doctors who abused "substances" already HAD a well-financed care program - the federal, state, and local prison system. Guess these pols know better, eh?

20- Ohio gov. signs medical protectionism bills
Coming from a state where the doctors all seem to be building $5 million offices and $1 million homes (when the median home value is about $90K), it is hard to feel sorry for someone who might have to give up his annual BMW trade-in because a jury punished him for leaving a wineglass in someone's left lung. But since the guy's lawyer got to trade up to the next-better BMW because of that jury, and the guy is still afraid someone is going to sing E above high C too close to him sometime... well, I've got mixed feelings.

It would be interesting to see whether it was the AMA or the ABA that donated more to the hereditary governor's last election campaign, though.

21- Iraq to get martial law?
No doubt inevitable, but I thought that Iraq wanted to be free of such things, and that is why they want sovereignty so badly?

22- UK gov battles French, German govs for EU constitution control
If we and the British people are lucky, this will lock up Brussels and the EU for decades. Such a shame - with France and Germany finally seeing the United Kingdom almost within their grasp after centuries of plotting and trying.

23- Sudanese ethnic violence spilling over into Chad?
Sudan is one of those terminally-ill parts of the world that never seems to make it on the front pages of USA newspapers. What should be one of the richest countries in the world is nearly the poorest, and mostly due to their own heroic efforts. And why not see if you can get your neighbors in on the feud as well? Misery loves company.

24- U.S., Canada thugs go on joint marijuana raid
No doubt aided by NORAD (North American Air Defense Command, a 45 year old joint US-Canadian effort. How encouraging that there is still cooperation across the formerly "longest open border on earth."

25- Arizonans imprisoned in Mexico over drug purchases
Selective enforcement, as usual, brings home the horrors of government more than anything else can. Remember, this is viewed as a "good thing" by far too many Americans, and almost all politicians in power.

26- Imelda trying to block movie in Philippines
I suppose we'll see the same thing here if Hillary, Janet, and Bill are still alive, after the revolution. (And George, Laura, and Barbara.)

27- Moscow court backs ban of religion
Even almost 80 years of Communism can't erase the imprint of an established church, it seems. Of course, as religions go, JWs are particularly obnoxious to the secular authorities: strongly believing that Jehovah's kingdom is NOT of this earth (per Jesus' statement to Pilate), they refuse to salute the flag, say any sort of pledge, take oaths, serve in the military, or all the other things too many other people who claim to be followers of the Risen Christ have rationalized themselves into accepting. I am curious as to how handing someone a religious tract on a public street or sidewalk is a "violation of their right to privacy," but then King Herod thought a death sentence was appropriate for criticizing his marriage. Lest anyone think I'm being too partial here, let me add: Of course, the JWs will take full advantage of this persecution - just as they have proudly pointed to their part in the Holocaust (getting sent to the gas chambers after they had no more value as stool pigeons, not their earlier role in denouncing Jews and others).

What this does point out (as if 80 years of Marxist-Leninism didn't) is that a "Bill of Rights" is worth less than the paper it is printed on if there is not some mechanism of enforcing it, not just by "lawful means" through soapbox, ballotbox and jurybox, but through "necessary means" - popularly depicted as the ammo-box.



Nathan Barton is a Christian, a libertarian, a husband, a father, an engineer, and an Army officer, and a member of Liberty Round Table. "I have not yet begun to fight."

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