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Dept. of Homeland Security Enforces Expired Patent
Fouquet writes "Apparently the Department of Homeland Security does not have enough to do in keeping the US safe, and now is enforcing copyright law as well. The AP reports that a toy store owner in Oregon was requested by Homeland Security officials to remove a potentially copyright-infringing Rubik's cube-like toy from her shelves. The patent for Rubik's cube was issued in 1980, and so it is expired."
Abuse of rights, law, and tax dollars. This is why you should vote Libertarian.
Take the Advocates.org "World's Smallest Political Quiz" to find out what party you belong in based on real issues. According to them, "Take the Quiz now and find out where you fit on the political map!"
It is my belief that everyone is a Libertarian, but they they just don't know it.
Vote Michael Badnarik in 2004. Send a message to Washington and don't choose between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich.
I'm very serious. Bush has done a wonderful job given the circumstances. He got to deal with all of the fallout for the previous four presidencies:
* Terrorism (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and to a lesser extent GHWB)
* Enron (Clinton, maybe others [have not searched it back further than him])
* Accounting scandals (probably back as far as Raegan, definitely on an increase w/ Clinton. Clinton led by example -- we had a "surplus" with an increasing debt -- great job!)
* Stock market bomb (this was due to circumstances which were in place under Clinton, but I actually don't think it's his fault -- it's our fault for being so greedy we got stupid)
* Social Security (this one hasn't hit yet, but it's coming -- Bush did a realistic estimate for how big the national debt is if we accounted for Social Security properly -- I don't remember the exact number but it was between 40 and 60 billion).
* Illegal immigration (haven't read up enough on the subject to know when it really started and what's been done about it)
Almost all of these, although they had been building for years, came to a head under Bush. Part of it was because he refused to abuse his power on behalf of large corporations. In fact, it was the former Clinton Secretary of the Treasury Rubin who tried to convince the administration to help Enron out with their credit rating (helping out Enron was basically a normal policy under Clinton -- foreign aid to India was tied to India's contracts w/ Enron). The administration's refusal to abuse its power on Enron's behalf is what triggered its destruction.
Terrorism was essentially caused by Raegan, and to a lesser extent Carter. Raegan fought the Soviets by propping up Soviet enemies. Unfortunately, Raegan wasn't real picky on who these enemies were, so we wound up w/ Al-Qaeda. Clinton tried to ignore the problem by covering it up. He did not pursue the middle-east links to OKC even though almost all eyewitnesses pointed out that middle-eastern men were with McVeigh on the day of the bombing. Richard Clarke even mentions in his book that Terry Nichols likely learned bomb-making from Ramzi Youssef, the terrorist from WTC1. For the full scoop on the middle-eastern terrorists that McVeigh and Nichols were involved with, see the book The Third Terrorist by Jayna Davis (she was actually sued for libel by the person she names as John Doe #2, and _she_ won). Clinton covered up TWA 800, which has been referred to as a terrorist attack by both George Stephanopolous and John Kerry. Clinton also ignored the middle east connections to the olympic park bombing, wrongfully pinning it on a US citizen (who was not convicted).
Given all of that, I'd say that Bush has done a great job at keeping us from a national disaster, and keeping the country together while the media tries to divide us.
Engineering and the Ultimate