No Democracy Without Dissent

Huckabee joins FOX news as political commentator

2008-06-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

This will be interesting to say the least. My favorite quote:

"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

He was referring to the fact that the US Constitution does not use the word God and makes no reference to religion.

McCain/Huckabee '08 has my vote.

New information on Ryan Frederick case

2008-06-13T15:50:00.001-07:00

Radley Balko has an interesting article that adds a few more layers. Radley was a former policy analyst with the Cato Institute and now is a Senior Editor at Reason Magazine. Check out his blog if you get a chance.

What would Dagny think?

2008-06-10T09:07:00.000-07:00

"The White House on Monday threatened to veto legislation funding Amtrak for the next five years, saying House members did not include language in the bill making the railroad more accountable for its decisions."

Amtrak is a government owned corporation formed in 1971. It was created to try and save the lagging passenger rail. This is off of Wikipedia:

"Literature suggests that the causes of the decline of passenger rail were complex. The industry was hobbled by government regulation and labor inflexibility, which undermined passenger rail just as the industry faced an explosion of competition from flexible and subsidized automobile and airplane transportation.^[10]^[11] These for-profit railroads were structured to sell access to elaborate, efficient roads at a profit; they lost in the competition for passengers to parallel, publicly-funded, non-profit turnpikes, air strips, and highways in the sky."

The key word is government regulation. The railroad was killed by it. Maybe we should stop throwing money at this quasi government corporation and let private enterprise take over. $14 billion (of your money) is a lot of money for something that hasn't worked in over twenty years.

Censorship: Then and Now

2008-06-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

The above scenes were all deemed offensive by the government. Laughable today, even more laughable is that this department still exists.

This car will be empty when the rapture comes

2008-06-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

South Carolina becomes the first state to offer a "Christian License Plate." On the bottom of the plate (where the county goes on GA plates) it says, "I Believe."

To be honest, I could care less. If this makes people happy, let 'em do it. Although it does bring up some issues of the separation between church and state. Also, as far as I know there are only Christian license plates available. So does this make Christianity the state religion of South Carolina?

I think they should have a license plate like these bumper stickers. Just to avoid confusion.

In case that doesn't work you can always sign up for Rapture Letters. Here's the description from the website:

" After the rapture, there will be a lot of speculation as to why millions of people have
just disappeared. Unfortunately, after the rapture, only non believers will be left to come up with answers. You probably have family and friends that you have witnessed to and they just won't listen. After the rapture they probably will, but who will tell them?

We have written a computer program to do just that. It will send an Electronic Message (e-mail) to whomever you want after the rapture has taken place, and you and I have been taken to heaven."

Don't get caught unprepared.

Ryan Frederick

2008-06-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

I encourage everyone to research this story. Here's the basic gist of it.

"During a jailhouse interview, Frederick said he was sleeping in a back bedroom because his job as a soft drink merchandiser required him to get up early. His dogs, Dora and Bud, were in the house. He woke up because his dogs “were barking like crazy. They’re going like really crazy, so I grab my gun. As I’m walking through the hall, someone comes busting through my door.”

He said intruders were pushing through the bottom panels of the four-panel door, he said. The lighting in the house was dim. Frederick said he didn’t hear anyone say “police” or see identification.

“I was like, 'Oh, God, if I don’t shoot, then he’s going to kill me’ … I think I shot twice. I can’t remember. It happened so fast. All I know is the gun jammed.”

Frederick said he then went back to the bedroom to get a telephone. When he realized police were outside, he walked out of the house and surrendered."

The police had a no knock warrant based on information provided by an informant. This informant broke into Ryan's house a few weeks prior to the raid.

Although few details have been released, it seems to me that the informant was arrested on an unrelated charge and offered a reduced sentence if he could provide information on others. This guy is probably thinking, well there was that guy that I burglarized a few weeks ago. He had a lot of gardening equipment, maybe he's got a grow operation. Ryan was an avid gardener and has a back yard to back this claim up. The raid was carried out, one officer is dead, but they found a few grams of marijuana.

The prosecutor has now raised the crime to capital murder from 1st degree homicide. That means that Ryan purposely and knowingly killed an officer of the law.

So let’s get this straight. This man has a few grams of weed in his house. He hears police at his door and thinks to himself, I'm not going down for a misdemeanor charge of possession alive. So he fires two shots into the door, gun jams. He goes back upstairs to call the police on the police. Then surrenders without a fight when he realizes the police are at his door. Most people following this case will agree that the state messed up. Not just a little bit, but fucked up bad. So the prosecutor is upping the charges to try and force a plea deal (this man is possibly facing the death penalty).

Two more innocent casualties in the war on drugs.