Visit this site to see where you land on the "political compass".


My score is here.

More from TED here.

From the LA Times:

Susan Maguire tells jury she paid the private eye nearly $1 million to locate her estranged husband's assets.

The ex-wife of prominent Los Angeles developer Robert Maguire testified Thursday that she paid former private eye Anthony Pellicano nearly $1 million to locate her estranged husband's assets during a divorce and heard numerous wiretapped recordings of Maguire's conversations with his psychiatrist, onetime mistress, world-famous architect Frank Gehry and others.

The account by Susan Maguire represented the first time in the two-week-old trial that a former Pellicano client had acknowledged listening to the alleged wiretaps, which federal authorities contend were a key part of the private detective's lucrative business.

Maguire's testimony overshadowed the long-anticipated appearance of Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey, who was among Pellicano's most famous former clients. Grey said he had no knowledge of any illegal activity by the onetime investigator.

From TPM's Election Central:

A McCain campaign aide actively pushed an incendiary, racially-charged video that uses the controversial words of Barack Obama's pastor to tar Obama as unpatriotic -- despite the fact that McCain himself has suggested that Obama shouldn't be held accountable for Wright's views.

The aide, Soren Dayton, who works in McCain's political department, has been suspended from the campaign, a McCain spokesperson, Jill Hazelbaker, confimed to me.

The move by McCain's aide could create controversy for the McCain camp, because the video itself is thoroughly reprehensible -- it interweaves footage of Obama explaining why he won't wear the American flag pin, Wright saying "God damn America," Malcolm X, and Obama's wife saying that his candidacy has made her proud of America for the "first time."

More here.

Gov. Bill Richardson, declaring that Sen. Barack Obama is an "extraordinary American," endorsed Obama for the Democratic nominee for president on Friday.

Richardson -- who sought this year's Democratic nomination for president himself -- joined Obama at a rally in Portland, Oregon, where the senator from Illinois is campaigning.

"Barack Obama will make a great and historic president," Richardson said, Obama standing at his side. "[It] is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our nation and you are a once-in-a-lifetime leader."

Obama said, "I am extraordinarily grateful to have the support of one of the great public servants of these United States."

More here.

More from TED here.

Via Bill Blogins @ Wicked Theory (via TED)

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, John Adams, the new miniseries from HBO is a must see for those of you who enjoy great television. It has all the hallmark of a great television series: political intrigue, drama, and romance.

Besides, you might actually learn a thing or two from this show.

I urge you now to seek it out and add it to your season pass.

Visit the John Adams site on HBO.

You might recall that last month an American businesswoman in the great, freedom-loving nation of Saudi Arabia was arrested, strip-searched, finger-printed, and detained for having the audacity of hanging out in a Starbucks with a man who wasn't a relative.

Spurred in part by the infamy of this incident, a brave female journalist with Arab News is now posing some tough questions for the famously brutal Saudi religious police (Known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice).

Among the questions she's seeking answers for: "Why is having coffee in a public place with an unrelated man considered 'illegal seclusion'?"; "Is a strip search really necessary for women arrested for khulwa (illegal seclusion)?"; and finally, "Is brutally beating a suspect to death a form of promoting virtue or preventing vice?"

We here at the Professor Politico Show commend this woman for her courage in trying to put a cruel and corrupt system on trial.

From Politico.com:

One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.

Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

As it happens, many people inside Clinton’s campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.

The real question is why so many people are playing. The answer has more to do with media psychology than with practical politics.

Journalists have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is. Most coverage breathlessly portrays the race as a down-to-the-wire sprint between two well-matched candidates, one only slightly better situated than the other to win in August at the national convention in Denver.

One reason is fear of embarrassment. In its zeal to avoid predictive reporting of the sort that embarrassed journalists in New Hampshire, the media — including Politico — have tended to avoid zeroing in on the tough math Clinton faces.

More here and here.

From the little I've read, this book looks to be another excellent addition to my library.

About the book:

As Americans head into a crucial election year, pundits are coloring everything in red and blue. But according to David Boaz, the old labels of left and right don’t tell us much any more. What we are witnessing is a contest of "Big-Government Conservatives" vs. "Big-Government Liberals."

In The Politics of Freedom David Boaz takes on both liberals and conservatives who seek to impose their own partisan agendas on the whole country. He explains
• why freedom is both "pro-choice" and "pro-life"
• the growing libertarian vote in America
• how the Republicans became the tax-and-spend party
• how the Democrats joined the Republicans in foreign adventurism
• the failure of the war on drugs and what can be done about it
• how competition can give us better schools
• the betrayal of our constitutional rights
• why markets work and government planning doesn’t
• and everything from gay marriage and the nanny state to taxes and terrorism.

For nearly 30 years, David Boaz has been speaking directly to the large and growing number of Americans who are fed up with politics as usual. His articles speak to the perspectives and values Americans have always held privately and more and more are coming to embrace openly. Now, for the first time, his best writings are gathered in one collection.

A recent survey found that 59 percent of respondents described themselves as "fiscally conservative and socially liberal." Boaz shows that majority that their fundamental political value is freedom. Whether it’s the freedom to choose a church, a school, or a lifestyle, The Politics of Freedom gives voice to a value most Americans embrace. For the millions of Americans who don’t neatly fit into the red or blue, who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal, who reject big-government conservatism and nanny-state liberalism, this book offers a new politics of freedom.

Buy it here.

Also From Blog Critics Magazine:

Barack Obama apparently deftly delivered another bullet to his foot with his recent comments about his "white grandmother." He called her a "typical white person" and the news commentators on radio and TV are lovin' it! The tone of their comments boil down to this: 'How dare he, a black man running for president, use racial stereotypes when racial stereotypes have done so much to hurt civil rights.'

Well take it from a 'typical white person', stereotypes or not, I can certainly understand his grandmother's fear of walking past certain people (be they white, black, Hispanic or other) on any street. WHY? Simply because some of them are very different and different is, to many of us typical white people, not good — in fact it's scary sometimes.

More here.

From Blog Critics Magazine:

On the heels of President Bush demanding that Congress give and/or restore broader presidential surveillance powers over private citizens, a new wrinkle in the story surfaced today. The U.S. State Department Inspector General’s office revealed that contractors connected with that agency had breached security protocols in order to obtain travel records of the three remaining presidential candidates.

The incidents were reported to the Bush administration only yesterday, despite the fact that news of some of the breaches was brought to the attention of officials several months ago. It also came to light that apparently no upper-level personnel within the State Department were notified of the breaches until Thursday, March 20.

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s records were compromised in 2007, apparently during a training exercise. The trainee was supposed to enter a family member’s name, but instead he entered Hillary Clinton’s instead. Information was read concerning the senator’s private itineraries, along with other undisclosed and confidential details.

More on this breaking news here.

In this video a man tells the police officer he won't sign a speeding ticket until he's shown the temporary speed limit sign, the cop then asks him to get out of the car. When the man points back down the road and insists he was going the speed limit, the police officer tazes him right there on the road. Naturally, the man's pregnant wife freaks the f*ck out.

Listen to the cop's explanation at the end. Was law and order helped or hindered through the actions of law enforcement? Please answer in the comments.

Oh, by the way; You actually have the right to refuse to sign a traffic ticket no matter what the cops may say.

No man has the right, under any circumstance, to initiate force against another man, nor to threaten or delegate said initiation of force. - The Zero Aggression Principle


As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government. -Dave Barry


I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will not live for the sake of another man's life, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine. - John Galt's Oath from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

From D. T. Armentano @ the Future of Freedom Foundation:

I have been teaching economics at the university level for twenty-five years. Easily the most often-asked questions relate to monopolies. The questions are often put in the following form: "In an economy free of governmental regulation, wouldn't a firm or group of firms obtain a monopoly over some vital resource or product? And won't the monopoly then exercise its power by raising prices?"

The issues most often revolve around the oil industry and the famous Standard Oil Company antitrust case. The history of Standard Oil, students frequently tell me, proves that monopolies exist in free markets — and that they do raise prices arbitrarily — and that this is precisely why we need antitrust laws.

Are monopolies truly an inherent problem in a free market? And do we need antitrust laws to combat them?

The clearest definition of monopoly is one seller, with the law prohibiting competitors from entering the market. Local telephone and cable-television companies are examples — they are usually provided a monopoly by their local governmental officials — that is, they are made the only provider of the service in a certain locale — and competition is prohibited by the local governing body. Obviously, this is not a monopoly arising in a free market since it is the government not the market that is dictating the number of suppliers. The best way to get competition in these types of activities is to remove the legal restrictions on market entry — which, by the way, is happening in some cable-television markets, which has resulted in a decrease in prices.

More here.

Today is a sad day in SF my friends; Arthur C. Clarke died today in his home at the age of 90.


From AOL News:

Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday (remember folks, this is on the other side of the world. They're a day ahead of us over there.) in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, an aide said. He was 90.

Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30 a.m. after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva said.

Co-author with Stanley Kubrick of Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey," Clarke was regarded as far more than a science fiction writer.

He was credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits.

More here.

What can you do to provide yourselves and your families with the promise of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Maybe the Free State Project (FSP) is what you're looking for.

For those of you who don't know, the FSP is an effort to get 20,000 liberty-loving individuals to move to New Hampshire.

They're looking for productive, tolerant folks from all walks of life and of all ages, creeds and colors who agree with the simple political philosophy that government exists at most to protect people's rights and should neither provide for people nor punish them for activities that interfere with no one else.

Here's a quick primer on the FSP:





Get more info about the Free State Project here.

This just in; An interesting article from Forbes.com about those greatest of pop culture icons, superheroes ( yes, those superheroes) and their leadership abilities.

From Forbes.com:

You remember Quasar, the superhero created by artists and writers at Marvel comics back in 1978?

Of course you don't because he didn't have the staying power, so to speak, like many of the superheroes that still are brilliantly being splashed on the pages of their own graphic novels decades after they were first introduced to the world.

These are the ones making it to the big screen and the ones appearing in videogames.

These are the most enduring of all time. But who is at the top of that list? It quite possibly could be, and should be, Superman, who turns 70 this year.

The rest is here.

This is my tribute to all you drunk bastards this holiest of holidays.......St. Patrick's Day.

So here you go....


This segment is sponsored by:




Drunk Yank on St.Patrick's Day




The After-effects of a Heavy St. Patrick's Day




Drunk Guy in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day




And Lastly we have some nice traditional irish music for ya:
Kiss Me I'm Sh*t-Faced


I'm sailing up to boston

For those of you who are sick and tired of having a singular view of global warming (or climate change I think it's now called) shoved down your throat; There is an excellent website called Climate Debate Daily that I think you would all enjoy.

Good day and safe surfing.

From Lifehacker.com:

The New York Times reports that the push-up, longtime signifier of fitness, really is an indicator that we should take seriously.

The push-up is the ultimate barometer of fitness. It tests the whole body, engaging muscle groups in the arms, chest, abdomen, hips and legs... Push-ups are important for older people, too. The ability to do them more than once and with proper form is an important indicator of the capacity to withstand the rigors of aging.

More here.




I promise you, this will not become a regular segment.

From BusinessWeek:

Call it an attempt to lock the barn door before the next group of horses escapes. Even as criticism has mounted that the Bush Administration has moved too slowly to stem the slide in housing and credit markets, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Mar. 13 announced a series of recommendations intended to prevent a recurrence of the lapses and errors that led to the meltdown in the first place.

"As we continue to address the current market stress, we must also examine the appropriate policy responses," Paulson said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington. But he also sounded a note of caution aimed at heading off calls for more radical regulatory changes emanating from Congress, consumer groups, and others critical of the financial industry.

More here.

Nothing, aside from the panic that most older adults have that the Internet is turning their brains into gray goo.

From Salon.com:

The other week was only the latest takedown of what has become a fashionable segment of the population to bash: the American teenager. A phone (land line!) survey of 1,200 17-year-olds, conducted by the research organization Common Core and released Feb. 26, found our young people to be living in "stunning ignorance" of history and literature.

This furthered the report that the National Endowment for the Arts came out with at the end of 2007, lamenting "the diminished role of voluntary reading in American life," particularly among 13-to-17-year-olds, and Doris Lessing's condemnation, in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in literature, of "a fragmenting culture" in which "young men and women ... have read nothing, knowing only some specialty or other, for instance, computers."

More here.

From CrunchGear:

Remember the X-ray technology from Total Recall? A British company has developed what it calls “ThruVision” — a similar technology that “uses what it calls ‘passive imaging technology’ to identify objects by the natural electromagnetic rays — known as Terahertz or T-rays — that they emit,” according to Reuters. “Depending on the material, the signature of the wave is different, so that explosives can be distinguished from a block of clay and cocaine is different from a bag of flour.”

More here.

From People of the Web:

Walter Lewin is not merely dangling at the bottom of a 15-foot pendulum. He is swinging high and wide, his rapt audience of 300 counting off each cycle.

At 71, he's likely missed his window for a shot at Cirque du Soleil, but the Netherlands-born MIT physics professor seems happy with his own high wire act -- revealing to students, in the most unorthodox ways, the beauty of science.

More here.

From BoingBoing.com:

The Chinese government this week dispatched military troops and police to important monasteries in Tibet to crack down on the largest protests by ethnic Tibetan Buddhist monks in the Himalayan region in 20 years. Witnesses are reporting that trucks full of troops have surrounded Drepung monastery in Lhasa, as police surround nearby Sera monastery.

More here.

From the ACLU:

In September 2007, the Inspector General of the Justice Department reported (warning: link is to a pdf document download) that the Terrorist Screening Center (the FBI-administered organization that consolidates terrorist watch list information in the United States) had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 - and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month.

At that rate, our list will have a million names on it by July. If there were really that many terrorists running around, we'd all be dead.

More here.

Here's just a sampling of the names on that list (via the ACLU website):

Robert Johnson - 60 Minutes interviewed 12 men named Robert Johnson, all of whom reported being pulled aside and interrogated, sometimes for hours, nearly every time they go to the airport.
Alexandra Hay, a college student with a double major in French and English at Middlebury College in Vermont in 2004, when she joined an ACLU lawsuit due to problems she was having with the airline watch list.
Sarosh Syed, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan working for the ACLU of Washington in Seattle also had problems flying. (Syed was also a plaintiff in the ACLU suit in 2004.)
9/11 Hijackers. While certainly these were individuals we all wish had been watched out for, they are, in fact, dead. Yet, the names of 14 of the 19 hijackers from 9/11 were on a copy of the list obtained by 60 Minutes . More evidence that the list is poorly maintained and full of junk names that will only serve to ensnare the innocent.
Evo Morales, president of Bolivia. Name found on list obtained by 60 Minutes .
Saddam Hussein. Although he was imprisoned in Baghdad and in U.S. custody at the time, his name was also found in the database obtained by 60 Minutes. Again, this accomplishes nothing except ensnaring the innocent, diluting the list, and wasting the time of security workers.
Gary Smith. Another name that is extremely common in the United States, found on the no-fly list by 60 Minutes.
John Williams. Yet another common name found on the airline watch list by 60 Minutes.
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy (D, Mass.) After repeated delays at airport security, the senator had trouble getting removed from the airline watch list despite calls to Homeland Security and eventually a personal conversation with the Secretary of DHS.
Representative John Lewis (D, Georgia). Being a hero of the Civil Rights Movement isn't enough to keep off the aviation watch lists, apparently.
Akif Rahman, founder of a computer consulting company from suburban Chicago, was detained and questioned for more than two hours by U.S. customs officials on four separate occasions when crossing the Canadian border. On one occasion he was held for 5 ½ hours, shackled to a chair, and physically searched. He was also separated from his wife and children (who were forced to wait in a small dirty public area without food or telephones). A U.S. citizen born in Springfield Illinois, Rahman is being represented by the ACLU of Illinois in a lawsuit over this treatment.
Marine Staff Sgt. Daniel Brown was blocked from flying while on his way home from an 8-month deployment in Iraq. He was listed as a suspected terrorist due to a previous incident in which gunpowder was detected on his boots, most likely a residue of a previous tour in Iraq.
Asif Iqbal, a Rochester, NY, management consultant and University of Texas graduate who flies weekly to Syracuse for business, has been weekly detained and interrogated by local law enforcement because his name is shared by a former Guantánamo detainee (who was himself released from the extrajudicial detainment, presumably because of lack of evidence of terror involvement).
James Moore, author of a book critical of the Bush Administration, Bush's Brain ; problems flying.
Catherine ("Cat") Stevens, wife of Senator Ted Stevens (R, Alaska). Problems flying.
Yusuf Islam, a singer and pop star formerly known as Cat Stevens. Author of song "Peace Train." His flight from London was diverted and forced to land in Maine once the government realized he was aboard, and he was barred from entering United States.
Major General Vernon Lewis (Ret.); a recipient of the Army's highest medal for service, the Distinguished Service Medal who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars, Lewis had problems flying.

From CNBC:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke should resign and the Fed should be abolished as a way to boost the falling dollar and speed up the recovery of the U.S. economy, investor Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Europe Wednesday.

Asked what he would do if he were in Bernanke's shoes, Rogers, who slammed the Fed for pouring liquidity in the system and accepting mortgage-backed securities as guarantees, said: "I would abolish the Federal Reserve and I would resign."

More here.

From FoxNews.com:

Treffly Coyne was out of her car for just minutes and no more than 10 yards away.

But that was long and far enough to land her in court after a police officer spotted her sleeping 2-year-old daughter alone in the vehicle; Coyne had taken her two older daughters to pour $8.29 in coins into a Salvation Army kettle.

Minutes later, she was under arrest — the focus of both a police investigation and a probe by the state's child welfare agency. Now the case that has become an Internet flash point for people who either blast police for overstepping their authority or Coyne for putting a child in danger.

More here.

We have a new weekly segment here @ the Professor Politico Show which will focus on one subject each episode.

And here's our first subject:

Global Warming/Climate Change

From Cosmic Variance:

The widely accepted Global Warming Theory, is a pseudo science and must be abandoned. Here I explain what it is and why it is totally wrong.

The Global Warming Theory (GWT) believes that human activity considerably increased the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. As a result it leads to considerable warming up of the arth's surface. As a consequence it could leads to the melting of polar ice and cause raising sea level, and other catastrophies that would eventually render the planet earth un-inhabitable to human. Some GWT doomers even believe that we have passed a point of no return. i.e., the global warming cause by human is already so high it releases the methane gas frozen in the polar ice, and methane, being a more effective green house gas, causes more global warming, and it leads to to more green house gas being release and so it leads to run off global warming that destroys all life on earth.

More here.

And from Biology Cabinet:

Global Warming is not pseudoscience because it has always occurred cyclically in nature since the Earth was formed. However, the idea of an anthropogenic global warming is a pseudoscience. There is not convincing scientific support that human discharge of CO2, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the projected future, cause disastrous warming of the Earth's atmosphere and disturbance or change of the Earth's climate. There is considerable evidence that the current warming is entirely natural and obeys the periodical changes in the planetary system. The attribution of global warming to the CO2 generated from human activity is a fallacy.

More here.

Remember kids believe half of what you read and none of what you hear, especially when it comes to the mainstream media.

From Wired's Threat Level blog:

A new web service that lets users rate and comment on the uniformed police officers in their community is scrambling to restore service Tuesday, after hosting company GoDaddy unceremonious pulled-the-plug on the site in the wake of outrage from criticism-leery cops.

Visitors to RateMyCop.com on Tuesday were redirected to a GoDaddy page reading, "Oops!!!", which urged the site owner to contact GoDaddy to find out why the company pulled the plug.

More here.

From theSeminal.com:

Montanans have themselves a fine Governor.

The Department of Homeland Security is trying to force states to issues "Real ID-compliant" drivers licenses. The Real ID Act of 2005 requires licenses to hold electronically encoded information, along with more complicated background checks for license applicants.

Let's hope more states follow suit.

More on this story here.

From David Mamet @ the Village Voice:

I wrote a play about politics (November, Barrymore Theater, Broadway, some seats still available). And as part of the "writing process," as I believe it's called, I started thinking about politics. This comment is not actually as jejune as it might seem. Porgy and Bess is a buncha good songs but has nothing to do with race relations, which is the flag of convenience under which it sailed.

But my play, it turned out, was actually about politics, which is to say, about the polemic between persons of two opposing views. The argument in my play is between a president who is self-interested, corrupt, suborned, and realistic, and his leftish, lesbian, utopian-socialist speechwriter.

The play, while being a laugh a minute, is, when it's at home, a disputation between reason and faith, or perhaps between the conservative (or tragic) view and the liberal (or perfectionist) view. The conservative president in the piece holds that people are each out to make a living, and the best way for government to facilitate that is to stay out of the way, as the inevitable abuses and failures of this system (free-market economics) are less than those of government intervention.

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

More here.

The mystics finally show their true colors.

Reason and logic are the only things that provide humanity with it's means of survival.

Because without reason or logic we are nothing more than primitive animals living only for the moment.







P.S. What side do you think I'm on, hmmmm?

Candy canes glisten, green frosted hills sparkle, and battered steel weapons glint in the setting sun. Tensions flare on both sides of the battlefield. Gumdrops glare with hatred at the Chocolates. Chocolates wait with confidence, eager to slaughter their opponent. High above in the crimson sky candy corn vultures circle in anticipation of the devastation to come. On a far away hill bright white eyes wait. They wait...

This is the premise of Goobees, an animated short that shows us how our favorite candies are really made.



For more info visit this link.

From The Chicago Tribune:

More than two decades after the U.S. set the national drinking age at 21, a movement is gaining traction to revisit the issue and consider allowing Americans as young as 18 to legally consume alcohol.

Serious discussions already are under way in several states.

More here.

From United Press International:

In America we like our juries dumb and predictable. God forbid they should know anything about the case they're judging, much less the law they're judging it by. We need to protect them from all sorts of things that could infect their brains with information.

If we didn't do that, it would be like trusting 12 guys off the street to dispense justice. What a quaint idea. And, obviously, a dangerous one.

The idea of a jury is at least 3,000 years old -- the Greeks thought 12 was the perfect number of panelists -- but our version of it is much younger. We're coming up on the 800th anniversary of the year when King John was told, essentially, stop forcing your laws down our throats or we're going to burn down your castle.

Voila! The modern jury system was born. The king could decree all the laws he wanted to decree, but from then on it would be 12 guys from the neighborhood who decided whether they would actually be used against anybody.

More here.

From HowStuffWorks.com:

Most people know what communism is at its most basic level. Simply put, communism is the idea that everyone in a given society receives equal shares of the benefits derived from labor. Communism is designed to allow the poor to rise up and attain financial and social status equal to that of the middle-class landowners. In order for everyone to achieve equality, wealth is redistributed so that the members of the upper class are brought down to the same financial and social level as the middle class. Communism also requires that all means of production be controlled by the state. In other words, no one can own his or her own business or produce his or her own goods because the state owns everything.

More here.

From HomeGuide123:

The worst housing slump since the Great Depression is prompting all sorts of new bailout plans. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is encouraging banks to forgive portions of mortgage debt, the Democrats want to use billions in federal money (actually, it's taxpayer money) to buy up bad loans and the Bush Administration is preparing to dump bank losses on the shoulders of taxpayers.

In reality what the Democrats and Republicans are doing is exactly the same thing: They're using welfare (either social or corporate) to drop the burden of these bad loans on the shoulders of the middle class.

More info here.

From AOL News:

A California court ruling that challenges parents' legal right to teach their children at home is angering home schoolers, who hope the state's Supreme Court will overturn the decision. Otherwise, advocates say, thousands of families may be forced to abandon home schooling.

More here.

From wired.com's how-to wiki:

You might as well check your dignity curbside. Soon you'll be shoeless and flustered, spilling comics across the floor as you dig your MacBook from the depths of your duffel. But take a deep breath, frequent fliers: It is possible to pass security with your ego intact. Here's how.

more here.




Just a rhetorical question: When did it become the government's job to provide security for private business?

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing the Human Jukebox performing the Beastie Boys classic Intergalactic Planetary:

Here the animated animal population of Busy Town -- you remember them from your childhood, right?! -- rap, altogether convincingly I might add, to the Beastie Boys' 'Sure Shot.'
And without further ado:

From Yahoo News:
A former adviser to Barack Obama who resigned Friday after calling rival Hillary Rodham Clinton "a monster" said Obama may not be able to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within a year as he has promised on the campaign trail.

Samantha Power, a Pulitzer Prize-winner author and unpaid adviser, made the comments in two separate interviews with foreign media while promoting her latest book. In a tight Democratic presidential campaign where attacks are becoming increasingly bitter, Power's comments ignited a flurry of accusations between the two candidates.

More here.

From the National Secular Society:

After an acrimonious debate in which the bogeyman of secularism was repeatedly invoked, the House of Lords (in England) on Wednesday accepted the amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill that abolishes the common law of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

The amendment had originally been introduced by Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris in the House of Commons, but the Government had persuaded him to withdraw it after promising to introduce its own amendment later in the Lords. This it has now done, although — if Baroness Andrews’ speech was anything to go by — with something less than enthusiasm.

More here.

From Star News Online:

More than a year after a law enforcement officer’s mistake left a teen dead and a family in grief, Peyton Strickland’s parents finally have found closure.

That closure came on Tuesday evening with a settlement of $2.45 million and a public apology from New Hanover County Sheriff Sid Causey. Additionally, Causey agreed to an independent review of the heavily armed team responsible for Strickland’s death.

More here.

From MetaFilter.com:

Would you like a latte while I print that up for you? The Espresso Book Machine that was in the New York Public Library has just moved to the Northshire Bookstore in Vermont. The beta versions of this portable book-making machine are pumping out paperbacks around a book a minute at the Open Content Alliance, The Library of Alexandria, The New Orleans Public Library, and the University of Alberta. The mass produced commercial version of the machine is scheduled to roll off the assembly line within the year and will be priced between $50,000 and $20,000. Combined with one of these, publishing as we know it may never be the same.

From The Earth Times:

An armed student at Jerusalem's Mercaz Haray seminary played a crucial role in stopping a gun-wielding terrorist Thursday, but the American press is downplaying his heroism because it proves that armed students can stop campus gunmen, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

Yitzhak Dadon, 40, was described as "a private citizen who had a gun license and was able to shoot the gunman with his pistol" by reporter Etgar Lefkovitz with the Jerusalem Post. However, many news agencies in the United States are downplaying Dadon's decisive role in the incident.

More here.

A leader is seen as someone with a can-do attitude, the person always with an optimistic attitude. Hurdles in the road are not obstacles that prevent him from achieving his goal. Rather, they are challenges to be faced, to be overcome, and to be learned from. A leader believes that failures present the opportunity for self-improvement, and that performance on the next go-round will only be enhanced through the lessons previously learned.

From Dumb Little Man:

A leader does not point to a location, tell his followers to go there, then tell them how to accomplish a goal. Rather, the leader is at the front of the pack, forging ahead of the rest and blazing a trail. The leader demonstrates to everyone else how things should be done, and works harder at accomplishing his goals than anyone else.

Whether you are striving to be a leader in your career, or simply want to be a leader in your own private life, there are many lessons and characteristics that will serve you well in either of these endeavors.

More here.

From The San Fransisco Chronicle:

A California appeals court ruling clamping down on homeschooling by parents without teaching credentials sent shock waves across the state this week, leaving an estimated 166,000 children as possible truants and their parents at risk of prosecution.

The homeschooling movement never saw the case coming.

More here.

From Wired.com:

Fred Krupp is not your typical tree hugger. Chided by radicals for wooing corporate partners, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund is revered in Silicon Valley for championing a capitalist approach to clean energy. His new book, Earth: The Sequel (with Miriam Horn), spotlights the most promising climate solutions, from nanotech to flying windmills. Wired asked Krupp how these technologies can compete.

More here.

From Wired's Threat Level Blog:

A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed access to a major wireless carrier's systems, exposing customers' voice calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled surveillance, according to a computer security consultant who says he worked for the carrier in late 2003.

"What I thought was alarming is how this carrier ended up essentially allowing a third party outside their organization to have unfettered access to their environment," Babak Pasdar, now CEO of New York-based Bat Blue told THREAT LEVEL. "I wanted to put some access controls around it; they vehemently denied it. And when I wanted to put some logging around it, they denied that."

More here and here. (via boingboing.net and wired.com)

From BoingBoing.net:

A Quaker math teacher at California State University East Bay has been fired for inserting the word "nonviolently" into the loyalty oath that state employees are required to sign. The woman, who works with young people who need remedial help with math, has always made this change in the loyalty oaths she's signed throughout her long teaching career, but the CSU East Bay administration fired her for refusing to pledge to violate her religion's tenets to in defense of the Constitution (a document that guarantees religious freedom).

more here.

And from the San Fransisco Chronicle:

California State University East Bay has fired a math teacher after six weeks on the job because she inserted the word "nonviolently" in her state-required Oath of Allegiance form.

Marianne Kearney-Brown, a Quaker and graduate student who began teaching remedial math to undergrads Jan. 7, lost her $700-a-month part-time job after refusing to sign an 87-word Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution that the state requires of elected officials and public employees.

more here.

From Hot Air:

Count up the delegates at the close of business on Tuesday night and whoever’s got the bigger pile is your nominee, says Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the UN turned Secretary of Energy, knowing full well that even if Her Majesty steals Texas and Ohio from Obama the margin won’t be enough to close the gap. Thus did a man once touted as Hillary’s VP, who spent Super Bowl Sunday glued to the tube with Billy Jeff himself, render a de facto endorsement while pretending not to endorse anyone at all. Exit question: If Obama beats her in both states and she refuses to concede by the next day, does Richardson make his endorsement official?

More here.

From FoxNews.com:

The research began with the discovery of black fungus growing on the walls of the damaged, highly radioactive Chernobyl nuclear reactor and collected by robots.

The fungus was rich with melanin, the same pigment that gives human skin its color, protecting the skin from solar and ultraviolet radiation. Melanin is found in many, if not most, fungal species.

More here.

The complete list is here.

From Jacob Sullum @ Reason:

Under the Second Amendment, Barack Obama says, "There is an individual right to bear arms, but it is subject to common-sense regulation, just like most of our rights are subject to common-sense regulation." The leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination thus seems to be on the same wavelength as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which in a decision last March said "the protections of the Second Amendment are subject to the same sort of reasonable restrictions that have been recognized as limiting, for instance, the First Amendment."

More here.

From Jules Crittenden:

America’s largest news agency has sent the lawyers after a blogger, who happens to be a long-time critic, on fair use.

More here.

From Pajamas Media's Charlie Martin:

Web reaction to Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism has been a classic example of what James Taranto calls a kerfuffle: the book, a serious historical argument about the roots of many threads of modern political thought with an inflammatory cover, was immediately resoundingly denounced by the right-thinking, often in essays starting “I haven’t read the book and I don’t think I’m going to bother, so I don’t think I should express an opinion…” followed by thousands of words of opinion.

More here.

Many thanks to Bill Blogins for designing the New Logo.













See his design and logo stuff here and his t-shirt designs here.

This is an excellent blog on Stuff White People Like.

Check it out.