November 30, 2004

TSA- Bullies at the Airport
by Congressman Ron Paul - R - TX

If you traveled by air last week for the Thanksgiving holiday, you undoubtedly witnessed Transportation Security Administration agents conducting aggressive searches of some passengers. A new TSA policy begun in September calls for invasive and humiliating searches of random passengers; in some instances crude pat-downs have taken place in full public view. Some female travelers quite understandably have burst into tears upon being groped, and one can only imagine the lawsuits if TSA were a private company. But TSA is not private, TSA is a federal agency-- and therefore totally unaccountable to the American people.

TSA was created in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Although the National Guard, DOD, FBI, CIA, NSA, and FAA utterly failed to protect American citizens on that tragic day, federal legislators immediately proposed creating yet another government agency. But the commercial flying community did not want airport security federalized, and my office was inundated with messages from airline pilots opposing the creation of TSA. One pilot stated, “I don't want the same people who bring me the IRS and ATF to be in charge of airport security.” But Congress didn't listen to the men and women who spend their working lives flying, so it created another agency that costs billions of dollars, employs thousands of unionized federal workers, and produces poor results. (Read the rest here)

Who Wants to Know?
By Lady Liberty

The other day, I got a phone call from a friend of mine. She was angry and upset that her husband's name had been published in our local newspaper as being one of several candidates for a city job opening, and she was looking for recourse.

"What if," she fumed, "his current employer sees that he's looking for another job? Couldn't he be fired?"

Yes, he could be. Although every employer must understand that employees may look for other positions that offer a better location, higher salary, more extensive benefits, or greater satisfaction, companies invest time and money in training and retaining their workers. Many may want to find some way to cut their losses if they know someone is looking to go elsewhere. A few might vent their own sense of betrayal with a retaliatory termination. And in a right-to-work state like the one in which I happen to currently live, employers need no cause whatsoever to sever employment if they choose to do so. (Read the rest here)

Libertarian Commentary on The Day's News
By Nathan A. Barton © 2004

The news is again filled with dangers - and of course! we must properly appreciate the dangers which we face, which only government can protect us from - from exploding cell phones and banned toys to identity thieves and sea-borne terrorists. Well, that’s the media’s opinion - mine is that there is a common thread to all these “dangers” that they are ignoring - people can deal with these quite easily without government nannying - and

Exploding Cell Phones
(Las Vegas Sun via CNS)
Curtis Sathre said it was like a bomb going off. His 13-year-old son Michael stood stunned, ears ringing, hand gushing blood after his cell phone exploded. Safety officials have received 83 reports of cell phones exploding or catching fire in the past two years, usually because of bad batteries or chargers.

Well, when you put that much energy in that tiny a space, it is very interesting when you add heat to the equation - definitely a reason to use a headset if you get nervous about this kind of thing. Of course, with probably 100 million cell phones in use today (we won’t talk about how many my family has), this is pretty low odds of it happening to you - about as low as getting hit by lightning on a land-line. Even while the fear-mongers will no doubt be screaming, industry is working voluntarily through an organization similar to Underwriters Laboratory (IEEE) to improve standards and provide for even more safety. (Read the rest here)

Social Security II - Privatize The Profits
By Ed Henry

There is probably no single subject or issue that has so many falsehoods, myths, legends, superstitions, and outright lies surrounding it than does Social Security. Many of these are implanted, promoted, fostered and encouraged by our government itself and range from Ponzi legends to lies about lock-boxes and trust funds. They help to disguise and obscure the greed and corruption of government and need to be broken down one-by-one, a task that cannot be accomplished in less than book form.

The Social Security Administration, headquartered in Baltimore , Maryland , is a highly efficient insurance company. It’s efficient because it operates on less than one percent of its annual budget, maintains offices in almost every sizable city in the country, and has always paid benefits precisely on time. And it pays those benefits from the premiums it collects from new members and the continuous payments of members who have not yet retired or been disabled, the same thing any successful insurance company does. (Read the rest here)

Failure after Falluja?
By Ivan Eland

The U.S. military “victory” in Falluja is unlikely to change the dismal course of the guerilla war in Iraq. Military history has repeatedly shown why the cliché “winning the battle and losing the war” has crept into popular culture. Moreover, winning back Falluja the way the U.S. did is likely to be a sure prescription for military defeat in the wider Iraq war.

To be fair, blunders by the Bush administration politicos have put the U.S. armed forces in an untenable position. Especially after the aborted U.S. offensive on Falluja in April, continuing to allow the Iraqi insurgents a safe haven to attack the U.S. military and Iraqi security services would make U.S. forces seem weak. Alternatively, taking the town block-by-block with more lightly armed U.S. forces—sans the heavy firepower of artillery, armored vehicles, flying gunships, and jet aircraft—would have eliminated the Falluja safe haven without destroying the town, but with much heavier U.S. casualties. (The British allies, with years of experience fighting urban guerillas in Northern Ireland, have been urging the United States to take such a more restrained approach). But because a plurality of the American public has now soured on this war of choice rather than necessity, such U.S. carnage would undermine support for continuation of the Iraq conflict. U.S. policymakers remember that in two other wars of choice—Lebanon in the early 1980s and Somalia in the early 1990s—U.S. public opinion evaporated for continuation of military operations after only a small number of casualties. (Read the rest here)

Non Custodial Parent's Action Planned for DECEMBER 17th, 2004

Non Custodial Parent's Action Planned for DECEMBER 17th, 2004 (in New Orleans, LA ); and your city?. Fathers 4 Justice will hold their Christmas Protest Action in London on Saturday December 18th. in typical F4J style ;o) (Read the rest here)

The American Jury Hour with
Iloilo Marguerite Jones and guests

FICAA.com Presents: The American Jury Hour with Iloilo Marguerite Jones and guests. Heard on The American Voice Radio Network , Thursday Afternoons, Noon Pacific, 1PM Mountain. The weekend rebroadcast of this week's program is at Sunday at 9:00 PM. .

Heard on The American Voice Radio Network American Voice Radio Network can be heard on:

C-Band Satellite at Galaxy 11 (formerly G-7), Transponder 12, Audio 8.1 Internet Streaming Audio (MP3 16kbps) C-Band and Internet Audio feeds are free with no subscription fee or sign up required whatsoever. (Read the rest here)

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