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When people are confronted with the idea of abolishing behemoths like the IRS and the Fed, even if it was possible, they see it as too monumental of a task to believe it's possible.

The executive can set law enforcement priorities. It can also pardon or commute the sentences of convicts. Ron Paul can tell the nation: “stop paying your income tax and I will pardon you.” He could also do the same for organizations like Liberty Dollar. Not saying this is the intent (or maybe it is—some call this a revolution after all), but these are two tactics that could be used to enact large-scale change.

You joke, but (from a story I've found many places, most recently here):

The campaign for a national ID card is not new. It first got serious consideration early in the Reagan administration, when Attorney General William French Smith suggested it during a Cabinet meeting. At first there were murmurs of assent. Then presidential assistant Martin Anderson (husband of Annelise) spoke up.

"Mr. President, I would like to suggest another way that I think is a lot better," he counseled. "It's a lot cheaper. It can't be counterfeited. It's very lightweight, and impossible to lose. It's even waterproof. All we have to do is tattoo an identification number on the inside of everybody's arm."

Reagan snorted. "Maybe we should just brand all the babies," he jibed. The idea was never again taken seriously. Until now.

For those who aren't aware, tattooing identification numbers on the inside of the arm was how prisoners were identified in the German concentration camps.

Ron Paul is a Libertarian running as a Republican.

Actually, I'd say he's a grade-A jerk running as a Libertarian.

Don't take my word for it, read the original material yourself.

Ron Paul's response is that the newsletters, which went out for over two decades under his name from organizations he funded or presided over, do not represent his views. Even if you believe him, is that the level of responsibility and oversight you want in a leader?

"Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves!"

For Marston, the most "constructive" comics were those that laid the groundwork for what he insisted was the coming age of "American matriarchy" in which "women would take over the rule of the country, politically and economically."

Although you got modded funny, consider the opposite point. By attacking cancers and other medical ailments, we add years to human lifespan -- years that can now be spent hunting for aliens.

Kurzweil believes that humanity will accelerate itself to utopia (immortality, ubiquitous AI, nanotech abundance) in the next 20 to 30 years. For example, he noted that average life expectancy increases by about 3 months every year. Kurzweil then claimed that longevity trends are accelerating so fast that the life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes in about 15 years. In other words, if you can hang on another 15 years, your life expectancy could be indefinitely long.

From http://www.reason.com/news/show/121638.html

--Rob

This year's democrat-controlled Congress

Jon Stewart: Remember 2006? The Democrats take it. The president is going to make a speech, sort of an olive branch speech. In it, he uses the phrase "the Democrat controlled congress." It's a real poke in the side. That seems unnecessary, and would only be used if you were exhibiting... What was the word I used earlier?

Tony Snow: blah blah blah

Jon Stewart: This is fascinating, what you're doing right now.What I said is, "Why did he use that phrase?" That word is an emotionally loaded word, that he is aware of. These guys are -- everything is a focus group within an inch of their lives. The phrasing that they use is repetitive and rigid.

Tony Snow: blah blah blah

More than likely we have at least 20 more years and probably a lot more.

Not the greatest time frame, but it does give us some time to push to other alternatives including nuclear energy.

Reason wrote a piece on it too, which I think is a lot more apt than anything Moyers had to say about it.

Sure I can, and did. That's what the foundational platform I posted was for. It's more or less common knowledge in Libertarian circles that up until the 2006 convention the libertarian party platform had 61 planks that while reworded for clarification over the years remained intact. So, if the platform was mostly consistent from 1972 to 2006 and Paul ran for president in 1988, the platform from any of those election years will be a lot like the one under which he ran.

There are a lot of conflicts between libertarians and Libertarians. I voted for Harry Brown when I was 18 so I'm sympathetic. The US Libertarian party is full of minarchists and anacro-capitalists who have hijacked the name. Most only pay lip service to federalism and use it as an excuse for social darwinism. It used to be that libertarian was a code word for anarchist because that word was scary. Now some small el libertarians are starting to self-identify as anarchists so as to not be confused with the Libertarians.

Anyone could start one, but competing with a large monopoly like that is impossible. They would use every trick in the book to destroy competition.

Oh really? The big media companies of today are different companies from 20 years ago. Check this out, "Does Rupert Murdoch control the media? Does anyone?". If there are problems with what TFA says then point them out, don't just trash it because who wrote or published it.

I apologize for the tardiness in my response; I was busy consuming ludicrous amounts of Calories at the in-laws :-)

No one is arguing that all Calories are created equal; at least, no one who isn't part of some random fad diet. You (and Feinman in the second article) are arguing about something that people have anecdotally known for years - fat and protein keep you "full" for a longer period of time. Logically, it makes sense that those foods are, perhaps, taking longer to digest and those using more of your energy in the process. It's good to have verifiable, empirical evidence to back up that assertion, but it's not much new.

When people say "A Calorie is a Calorie," they're trying to say that Calories matter. The unfortunate fact is that both Taubes and Atkins seem focused on "replace this bad category of food with this other one!" when the reality is that we're eating too much food, period. 3800-3900 Calories a day is too much, no matter if they're from a food source that requires more energy to digest or not. Granted, 3900 fat and protein Calories might equal less internal yield than 3900 carb Calories, but it's still too many Calories.

The reason.com article cited by another poster is a spectacular summary of the real issue: people who are told "eat all you want as long as it isn't carbs" do far worse in weight loss than people who are put on Calorie-controlled diets.

Again, read what I said. A low carbohydrate diet is a good idea, as long as it's also a diet that has a number of Calories consistent with your exercise level. Most carbs that people in the Western world consume are straight up sucrose, and getting rid of those is a spectacularly easy way to make a balanced, low-Calorie diet.

In arguing about the efficiency of machines, you and Feinman are looking at the wrong point in the problem. If we assume that a person is a transmission, and that we want the least amount of power (surplus Calories that will become fat) leaving the output stage, Feinman is caught on figuring out how to introduce the most inefficiencies to the process. It's a great plan, but it ignores the fact that we're putting too much power in at the input stage. When we reach a point where the average person is consuming 2200 Calories, research on digestive efficiency is going to help us greatly in satisfying the human urge for certain tastes while keeping things balanced. In the meantime, though, "A Calorie is a Calorie" should be interpreted to mean "I don't care if fat or protein uses more energy to digest - stop eating so damned much of it."

As for Taubes, from the Reason Magazine article "Big Fat Fake":

• But there were serious problems with this revolutionary argument about one of our nation's most serious health problems. For example, Taubes omitted any reference to hundreds of refereed scientific studies published during the last three decades that contradicted his position. Researchers from whom he could not pull even a single useful quote supportive of his thesis were banished from the piece, while many of those whom Taubes did end up quoting now complain that he twisted their words.

• "I thought [Taubes'] article was outrageous," Reaven says. "I saw my name in it and all that was quoted to me was not wrong. But in the context it looked like I was buying the rest of that crap." He adds, "I tried to be helpful and a good citizen, and I ended up being embarrassed as hell. He sort of set me up." When I first contacted Reaven, he was so angry he wouldn't even let me interview him.

• "I was greatly offended by how Gary Taubes tricked us all into coming across as supporters of the Atkins diet," says one such source, Stanford University cardiologist John Farquhar. "I think he's a dangerous man. I'm sorry I ever talked to him."
• "I was greatly offended by how Gary Taubes tricked us all into coming across as supporters of the Atkins diet," he wrote in an e-mail he broadcast to reporters and to colleagues who were stunned that Farquhar might actually hold the beliefs Taubes attributed to him. "We are against the Atkins Diet," he wrote, speaking for himself and Reaven. "I told him [Taubes] there is the minor degree of merit" to the idea that "people are getting fatter because too much emphasis is being placed on just cutting fats," Farquhar told me. But "once I gave him that opening -- bingo -- he was off and running, even though I said about six times that this is not the cause of the obesity epidemic."

Sorry to reply to myself, but this last bit of the exchange is a nice summary of Taubes's distortions.

Taubes is extremely biased in his presentation of available evidence. For a scathing critique of his abuse of science see this article.

Several scientists are furious about the way Taubes mis-quoted them and there's a lot of science that says he's simply wrong:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28714.html

My hypothesis: He simply sold out. Book contracts, maybe consulting with Atkins & co...

There was a spat in Reason years ago about exactly this.

-Ted

At a time when the prosecution can purchase expert testimony in their favor, it can be quite difficult for the defense to challenge the science behind the evidence.

Everyone knows that there will be further terrorist attacks on the U. S.

I love how this "fact" is just thrown out there and accepted as true, without giving a time frame. It's technically true, but utterly meaningless. Sure, somewhere between now and infinity years from now, there will be a "further terrorist attack". Great, I better prepare!

By casually using this talking point, you're promoting the irrational fear that you argue that you are trying to avoid.

The important questions, which get glossed over by things like the above declarative talking point, are "What is the likelihood of an attack within the next N, N+1, N+2... years?" and "What is the expected severity/method of such an attack, should it occur?" and "What is the likelihood that any given person will be affected?"

Even if terrorists pulled off a 9/11 once every year or destroyed one shopping mall a week, your chances of actually dying in a terrorist attack are utterly miniscule. A rational person, when confronted with such numbers, should not be afraid.

there are upper limits to the size of animals on earth, and it's hard not to notice that the very biggest animals--mammoths, elephants whales, rhinoceri--are extinct or likely endangered. And obviously, very large organisms are at all times vastly more rare than very small ones. A 2000 academic paper from a Swiss zoologist summarizes the reasons that this should be so: with increasing size come "viability costs...due to predation, parasitism, or starvation because of reduced agility, increased detectability, higher energy requirements, heat stress, and/or intrinsic costs of reproduction." For precisely these reasons, a state with trillion-dollar budgets and massive military might is in a precarious condition, and a good candidate for extinction. http://reason.com/news/show/121237.html

You mean the guy who saved the Roundup Resistant seeds until his crop was 95%+ resistant, and couldn't show he used anything other then Roundup to treat his crops? As well as claiming cross pollination from crops 5 miles away?

Nephilium

I strongly agree with you that both parties are broken. Voting between corrupt choice "A" and corrupt choice "B" is not democracy. But the thing that will get the fastest most bipartisan government action is anything one to actually trys to return some real power and control to the people. I read a very interesting story the other day about someone who is facing prison time for trying to get a referendum on the Oklahoma ballot. "If anyone thinking of getting involved as a citizen in the process has to factor in possibly going to prison for 10 years, a lot of husbands and wives will decide that sort of citizen activism isn't for them."http://www.reason.com/news/show/122839.html
I think that if the ability to make real true governmental change through the ballot box has been lost to us, and the powers that be can simply refuse to acknowledge the law, we are left with only two sorry choices. Either we let our country continue to degrade into a Kleptocracy, or we somehow displace the current power structure. So I think that while the problem will become clear to someone who asks "How the fuck can government regulate our telephone lines when we have a First Ammendment?" The solution will be answered when we can answer "What will I do about it?"

I'm no fan of the camera's; but they're only one aspect of Britain's Orwellian Law Enforcement plan. I'm mainly opposed to cameras because I hate the idea of a government surveillance society, not because I believe they're ineffective. Perhaps they are effective, and their deterrent effect is being offset by other crime-increasing policies?

I think there are important lessons to learn in understanding why London's crime rate has been soaring while New York's has been plummeting, but I don't think we're even close to fully understanding the causes of these trends or their relevant contributions. It's a ripe field for analysis.

Separately, the information provided in that summary makes the research appear extremely unscientific. This article makes no mention of the changes in clear-up rates over time with the installation of cameras, only comparisons across precincts. But surely there were differences in clear-up rates across precincts before the cameras. At any rate, this article only addresses the cameras in terms of solving crimes, which may be entirely irrelevant to their value if their primary benefit is deterrence.

You worry about cops with tazers?

You should be concerned about the continuing paramilitarization of the police as part of the War On Drugs.

http://reason.com/topics/hitandrun/226.html#listing

Some of the folks in these reports would have been glad to see tazers instead of military grade weapons and men in body armor telling a young handcuffed women on the floor they were going to put a bullet in her head.

your common or garden thief/burglar doesnt need a gun & wont risk the extra jail time, if law abiding people dont carry guns.

So a rapist or murderer only needs a knife. Thank goodness those are hard to come by!

if everyone has a gun, every criminal needs a bigger/better gun than the average, it starts a criminal arms race.

No, because guns don't work like that. In a close range one-on-one (or maybe one-on-two) confrontation, where only one or two shots are likely to be fired, I can kill you just as dead with a .38 revolver as you can kill me with an submachine gun. This is the scenario in which the vast majority of defenses against criminal assaults occur.

An arms race only comes into play when there might be gangs of cops and crooks shooting it out; in a running gun battle, a group of guys with .38s is at a disadvanatage versus a bunch of guys with Uzis. That's why the formation of "SWAT" teams and the general militarization of policing led to a demand for higher firepower among crooks.

• "Like almost every past McCain crusade, from fining Big Tobacco to drug-testing athletes to restricting political speech in the name of campaign finance reform, the surge involved an increase in the power of the federal government, particularly in the executive branch." They don't actually explore how any of these other "crusades" expanded executive power, but they certainly do make an excellent list of McCain's resume high-points.
  
• "Like many of his reform measures--identifying weapons pork, eliminating congressional airport perks, even banning torture--the escalation had as much to do with appearances ... as it did with reality." Again an excellent tour of the reasons to vote for McCain, but the assertion is weak at best. Opposing rendition cost McCain dearly with the administration, and had the 2006 elections gone differently, he would have been in the dog house over that move. Appearance was clearly not the goal.
  
• "McCain's dazzling résumé--war hero, campaign finance Quixote, chauffeur of the Straight Talk Express, reassuring National Uncle--tends to distract people from his philosophy of government." This bit had me hoping. I thought that at last, we'd get some insight into his seedy plan for executive power. Instead the article takes a left turn (no pun intended):
  
• "McCain regards Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln as political idols; like them, he never hesitates in asserting that government power should be used to rekindle American (and Republican) pride in government. Unlike most neoconservative intellectuals, however, McCain is intimately familiar with the bluntest edge of state-sponsored force. [he] comes from a military family [...] the Navy captain son of a four-star admiral who was the son of another four-star admiral, all named John Sidney McCain. And that just scratches the surface." No really. The article just tried to assert that because he comes from a long line of military men, he's some kind of fascist-in-waiting. Really. It just asserted that trying to rekindle patriotism was wrong, and tried to tie it to some perceived plan to use military force ... perhaps against Americans.
  

The Dvorak keyboard is more efficient by a factor of 10 and you don't see it taking over the keyboard layout landscape.

I currently type at least 110 words per minute, no errors. Do you mean to tell me that I can type 1100 words per minute with Dvorak?

Actually, I'm not aware of a well-constructed study that proves the Dvorak layout as superior. Here is an interesting article on this subject: http://www.reason.com/news/show/29944.html

I certaintly don't advocate Ayn Rand as a philosopher! But she is the distillation of a very powerful idea/fanatasy. It's also important to have some idea of what she's saying becaus so many people -- including people in government (e.g., Greenspan was an acolyte -- believe very deeply in her parables. Friedman, by the way, was a Rand fan to a certain extent. By and large, the academic philosophical community has ignored Rand but I remember a famous old prof (was it Nozick?) did finally get sick of hearing about her and wrote a long debunking of the reasoning.

Hee hee, yes. I wouldn't call it a "distinction" exactly, because the terminology itself is in a bit of a battle. The "Libertarian Party" I'm sure is in the former category. Because of the Ayn Randian image of libertarianism in the world at large, the latter category has different words (e.g., "Xian anarchist" -- but of course, anarchism is not the most public friendly term either!) Not to resurrect that "nerds are libertarian" story, but I think nerds often fall towards the latter category in spirit if not word.

I often find myself in a minority in a random political conversation, but I'm actually happy to talk with a libertarian of the former type even if I disagree. One thing common to both strains is a focus on reason, rationality, and fair debate. You can learn a lot from a libertarian of any type, often, because they have thought through a lot of things and are interested in uncovering "inconvenient" facts. Hell, the bible of the former group is even called Reason. I used to be a subscriber in high school.

Unfortunately for the handgun enthusiasts, when the government answers, they get to use the real [wikipedia.org] weapons. [wikipedia.org]

Only if they convince the military to go along with it. If the military, or enough of it, says what the government is doing is wrong... But the military has been ordered to do, and done, a lot of things I wouldn't have done when I was in.

-- Brother, Can You Spare 22 Terawatts?

Solar technologies are getting better, but they aren't getting that much better.

I'm very concerned about my civil liberties, but I'm even more concerned that the the next time I take the 'plane, the bus, the subway - or I'm just sitting at my desk, or on holiday with my family - I might get wiped out by some terrorist.

Yeah, and those Swedes really have their shit together. It may be confused drivel, but socialism isn't a utopia of any sort once you factor in human nature.

The case said if you get infected, you can sell that crop. But if you REPLANT SEED from that crop for the next year, knowing that you were infected, then you are liable for infringing the patent, because you do not have a license to plant the seed. As of this writing, there is no easy way to sort seed, so you'd either have to pony up the license fee, or scrap the seed and buy fresh seed. Even though you never wanted it in the first place.

read it for yourself: http://www.reason.com/news/show/34793.html

They state clearly that it's irrelevant how it got on the farmer's property. whether he's liable for intentionally violating the patent or not with the initial planting, when he REPLANTED the seed knowing he was infected, that was a clear cut (to the court) violation of the patent. That is a disturbing precedent whether the farmer was initially guilty or not, because then it is not saying that because he did it intentionally in the first place, he's guilty, it's saying that regardless of how it initially happened, if he doesn't trash all his seed for the next year, then he'd be liable in any case. The originally infected crops are safe from prosecution. The seeds from those crops are not.

The court, by the way, ruled that the dairy farm cannot make any claims about bovine growth hormone not being in their milk. That's the "court sorting it out for you".

NOT "you can't say that bovine growth hormone is bad"
NOT "you can't say that your milk is better because it doesn't have bovine growth hormone in it"
but "You can't say that you milk doesn't have bovine growth hormone in it at all, because the FDA has not ruled it as a hazard, and mentioning it insinuates that it is".

http://www.monsantodairy.com/updates/OakhurstDairy Inc.Filing.html

there you go. But really, it's just horrible that people like me actually get mad about companies trying to keep consumers in the dark because it hurts their bottom line. I'm not even saying bovine growth hormone is bad... but whether it's bad or not, I have a right to decide, for myself, what I do and do not want to put into my body. Period. And they wish to keep me from making informed choices that they disagree with.

But it wasn't a Democratic president that ... claims to be exempt from any laws he doesn't like,

Where were you during the 1990s?

That's exactly what Clinton did.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/30591.html

License to Grill

How the Clintons invited Ken Starr into their private lives.

Virginia Postrel | April 1998

Like just about everyone else in America, I believe Bill Clinton had a sexual affair--if not dictionary-definition "sexual relations"--with intern Monica Lewinsky. I think it's likely, though by no means a sure thing, that he lied about that affair in a sworn deposition. And I wouldn't put it past him to suborn perjury or obstruct justice, though the evidence at this writing is very murky on those serious charges.

The president has what is popularly known as a zipper problem. He appears to like the sort of women who are unlikely to head health care task forces or jet off to Davos, Switzerland, to lecture the world on the morally corrupting effects of capitalism. Given both power and charisma, Clinton seems to have ample opportunity to act on his impulses. And though it's unlikely that Lewinsky will be his final fling, he manages to hold his marriage together and even inspire ferocious loyalty in his wife. Power and charisma probably have something to do with that feat too.

Clinton also lies all the time--so much that he often appears unable to tell he's doing it. His State of the Union address was full of what Washington Post columnist James Glassman rightly calls "big, brazen, and undeniable" lies, starting with "two whoppers": that "we have the smallest government in 35 years" and that Clinton wants to spend any budget surplus on Social Security rather than new programs. The government has shrunk (modestly) by only one measure, the number of federal employees; it spends, taxes, and regulates more than ever. And Clinton is proposing so many new spending programs--without offsetting cuts--that he can't fund them without substantial new taxes on cigarettes and corporate income. Given his lies about policy, and about his past, it's not surprising that even his political allies disbelieve him about Monica Lewinsky.

Nonetheless, Clinton does not deserve his current round of legal troubles. To be publicly humiliated as a moral weakling, lacking both judgment and self-control--that he deserves. To be distrusted by both intimates and the general public--he deserves that too. But for sexual pecadillos and routine lies to lead to possible high crimes and misdemeanors takes more than just Clinton's personal flaws. It takes very bad policy.

There is one sense in which the president deserves what has happened to him: He and his political allies are the people who made it possible, who created the legal mechanisms by which his private life became a matter of public, legal record. In that bitter irony lies the one hopeful aspect of L'Affaire Monica. It may, finally, create a consensus to rein in legal excesses that threaten not just Bill Clinton but the liberties of all Americans. But if Republicans are seduced by scandal and Democrats by dreams of vengeance, it may make matters worse.

The "crisis in the White House" begins with the Independent Counsel Statute. From the start, many Republicans opposed that law for corroding the constitutional division of powers. Back then, of course, presidents were Republicans, so the opposition was easy to ascribe to partisan motives. But in 1994, when the statute was up for reauthorization, a Democrat was in the White House, and his party controlled Congress. The most vocal opposition still came from conservative Republicans, who turned out to be remarkably principled.

They were utterly unsuccessful. The reauthorized statute was passed by the Democratic Congress and signed by President Clinton. So, as columnist and former Bush speechwriter Tony Snow notes, the law still "compels courts to appo

I've since given it up, however, since I started coughing.

There *are* other ways of absorbing nicotine. Smokeless tobaccos are still carcinogenic, but are a lot safer for you than smoking are.

To deny someone the ability to entice a doctor with cash interferes with the doctor's rights. Of course, the legally enforce cabal known as the AMA contributes to the problem, by drastically reducing the supply of medical services. That's a problem caused by the government, not by the rich having money. In a truly free system, the AMA and a number of other organizations would exist, with the only legal enforcement being fraud if you falsly claim to be a member, or to have a certification from some particular group. But that would cut into their profits, and doesn't mesh with thier paternalistic instinct to protect people from themselves. For example, the resistance to making statins available OTC.

There are not enough medical services available to treat everyone for everything. Rationing based on willingness to pay is NOT any less moral than any other rationing system.

You're completely wrong about health care. Reason magazine gives a good summary why the government shouldn't be involved with health care. Further, Dr. Paul certainly knows much more about the health care system than you or I.

The real question here is why was he being asked under oath about something that isn't even illegal? He may have broken the law by lying about getting a blowjob, but the inference here shouldn't have been that Clinton lies, it should have been congress was inappropriately overreaching deep into a the personal life of our president.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/30591.html

License to Grill

How the Clintons invited Ken Starr into their private lives.

Virginia Postrel | April 1998

Like just about everyone else in America, I believe Bill Clinton had a sexual affair--if not dictionary-definition "sexual relations"--with intern Monica Lewinsky. I think it's likely, though by no means a sure thing, that he lied about that affair in a sworn deposition. And I wouldn't put it past him to suborn perjury or obstruct justice, though the evidence at this writing is very murky on those serious charges.

The president has what is popularly known as a zipper problem. He appears to like the sort of women who are unlikely to head health care task forces or jet off to Davos, Switzerland, to lecture the world on the morally corrupting effects of capitalism. Given both power and charisma, Clinton seems to have ample opportunity to act on his impulses. And though it's unlikely that Lewinsky will be his final fling, he manages to hold his marriage together and even inspire ferocious loyalty in his wife. Power and charisma probably have something to do with that feat too.

Clinton also lies all the time--so much that he often appears unable to tell he's doing it. His State of the Union address was full of what Washington Post columnist James Glassman rightly calls "big, brazen, and undeniable" lies, starting with "two whoppers": that "we have the smallest government in 35 years" and that Clinton wants to spend any budget surplus on Social Security rather than new programs. The government has shrunk (modestly) by only one measure, the number of federal employees; it spends, taxes, and regulates more than ever. And Clinton is proposing so many new spending programs--without offsetting cuts--that he can't fund them without substantial new taxes on cigarettes and corporate income. Given his lies about policy, and about his past, it's not surprising that even his political allies disbelieve him about Monica Lewinsky.

Nonetheless, Clinton does not deserve his current round of legal troubles. To be publicly humiliated as a moral weakling, lacking both judgment and self-control--that he deserves. To be distrusted by both intimates and the general public--he deserves that too. But for sexual pecadillos and routine lies to lead to possible high crimes and misdemeanors takes more than just Clinton's personal flaws. It takes very bad policy.

There is one sense in which the president deserves what has happened to him: He and his political allies are the people who made it possible, who created the legal mechanisms by which his private life became a matter of public, legal record. In that bitter irony lies the one hopeful aspect of L'Affaire Monica. It may, finally, create a consensus to rein in legal excesses that threaten not just Bill Clinton but the liberties of all Americans. But if Republicans are seduced by scandal and Democrats by dreams of vengeance, it may make matters worse.

The "crisis in the White House" begins with the Independent Counsel Statute. From the start, many Republicans opposed that law for corroding the constitutional division of powers. Back then, of course, presidents were Republicans, so the opposition was easy to ascribe to partisan motives. But in 1994, when the statute was up for reauthorization, a Democrat was in the White House, and his party controlled Congress. The most vocal opposition still came from conservative Republicans, who turned out to be remarkably principled.

They were utterly unsuccessful. The reauthorized statute was passed by the Democratic Congress a

I suspect a joyride and jailarity to ensue. =)
--
A skeptic attitude and a fair amount of reason is all you really need.

My bet is that if you look at donations to your own church as something other than "charity", then this statistic may swing the other way.

From a review of the book available at reasononline:

"And while religion is a major factor, the figures don't just show tithing to churches. Religious donors give significantly more to non-religious causes than do their secular counterparts."

"So, if you haven't got a clue when something is going to happen, and that thing could destroy mankind, it's only prudent to make it a priority. What's absurd about that?" The precautionary principle, for one. The fact that there's a lot of bad stuff we could be dealing with that will happen 100%. The fact that we care less about the eventual death of the species than about having fun now. What's with the rash of slashdot comments castigating us for having the wrong priorities?

Check the Wikipedia article... it's covered extensively there.

Actually it's not. In the Wiki article his name one appears in two sentences. It does have a link to another Wiki article about him though. On that page it discusses Controversial racial remarks made in which he states some statements were made by someone else working on his campaigns and other's he made himself was taken out of context.

If you're truly a libertarian, he comes closest to your ideas.

I had admitted to that earlier.

Just opening the border to Mexico comes nowhere near the libertarian vision of open borders, especially when states have welfare in place and illegal immigrants are benefiting from American taxpayers in a large way.

Actually illegal immigrants are barred from getting any welfare or government assistance by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. At the same tyme, 1996, the IRS created dummy SSNs illegal immigrants could get so they'd be able to get jobs. Using those numbers immigrants have paid into Social Security $50 billion, however they'll never be able to collect SS themself, thus keeping SS solvent. Last year Reason magazine had an article on this.

How can you get Social Security without a Social Security number?... yet it's possible and it's done through forging or stealing a Social Security number

That's a problem with the SSA. If someone is using forged or stolen SSNs to collect SS then the SSA is not doing it's job.

social welfare is gotten rid of,

I am all for ending welfare, both social and corporate welfare, at the federal level. Now if states want to offer it then it's up to the residents to decide to offer it.

I find it amazing that illegal immigrants are given such cushy treatment in the US.

Some are shocked by this, but anyone who wants to talk about illegal immigrants and is not a Native American India, NDN say Cherokee, Hopi, or Ottawa, is an illeqal immigrant. The ancesters of these illegals massacred Indians already here, then stuffed what was left onto small reservations with marginal land values. I don't see current illegals doing this though. And yes, I'm both. My background is French Canadian but I have an ancester who was Indian.

But anyway, Ron Paul is most likely the one who fits your views the best. I urge you not to discount him simply because of that.

Oh, when it comes to it I'll still vote for Ron Paul, at least in the primary. As of now there's just no way I could vote for any of the candidates I know is running right now, Dem or Rep. Then again I don't know the LP candidates yet.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/119442.html "Several jurisdictions, including Chicago, already have banned cannabis-flavored candy; Georgia is on the verge of prohibiting sales to minors; and legislators in other states have proposed their own restrictions or bans. Before the whole country is overwhelmed by the urge to prohibit anything that tastes like pot, let's pause to consider the aim of such legislation. Ban proponents do not claim the candy itself is dangerous. Rather, they object to the ideas it represents."

Take sea level rise for example. Gore spends a lot of time talking about how dramatic melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps that could raise sea level by 20 feet by 2100. He shows computer animated maps in which most of southern Florida, southern Manhattan, Shanghai, and Bangladesh are inundated. "Think of the impact of a couple hundred thousand refugees, and then imagine 100 million," says Gore. Of course his reference to the couple of hundred thousand refugees aims to evoke thoughts about the horrific experience of New Orleanians last year.

Well, the "consensus" of climate scientists as represented in the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is that sea level is likely to rise between 4 inches to 35 inches with a central value of 19 inches.

There's a scientific consensus that GM foods are safe.

We should listen to a "scientific consensus" when they say climate change will kill us all, but we shouldn't listen to them when they say GM foods are safe?

The key data used to promote Dvorak was collected by Dvorak.

Here's a URL from the last time Dvorak was discussed on /.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/29944.html

Xix.