Police Fabricating Drug Busts

Did you need another reason to oppose the Drug War? Just in case, here's reason #28173:

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

Go read the whole story.

Read more...

Radiation Risk From TSA Scanners?

A friend recently asked my opinion about the possible health risks from the new whole body "backscatter" x-ray scanners now being used by the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) at many airports.

The short answer is that the radiation risk from the TSA scanners is minimal for a member of the general flying public. (This is separate from privacy concerns -- or the fact that the bad choice offered to passengers between intrusive x-rays vs. an intrusive physical exam is a problem ultimately caused by our government's inept foreign policy.) Hence, my personal approach when I fly will be to go through the full-body scanners rather than undergo the aggressive new pat-down searches.

The news media has recently given a lot of attention to the following letter sent several months ago by scientists/physicians at UCSF (Univ. California at San Francisco) to the federal government about the radiation risks: "Letter of Concern", 4/6/2010.

This NPR story from last spring that covers the details more fully: "Scientists Question Safety Of New Airport Scanners", 5/17/2010. The NPR story also includes a sidebar listing the radiation dose generated by a TSA scanner, and comparing it to the dose one receives merely from being on a transcontinental flight, regular environmental exposure, getting a chest x-ray, etc.

Basically, just getting on a transcontinental flight exposes one to roughly 1,000 times more radiation than undergoing a TSA body scan. (This is because there is less atmospheric protection from natural solar/cosmic radiation at high altitude.)

The FDA has posted its own response to the UCSF letter: "Response to University of California - San Francisco Regarding Their Letter of Concern", 10/12/2010.

First let me note that I am philosophically opposed to the FDA and other such regulatory bodies, on the grounds that they do not serve proper functions of government. But to the best of my knowledge, the FDA's scientific arguments in that specific response are essentially correct. And the FDA letter also addresses some of the technical issues raised by the UCSF scientists, such as the question of the TSA radiation being deposited mostly in the skin (vs. in the whole body).

Female passengers who are (or may be) pregnant while undergoing a TSA scan may also wonder about radiation effects on a developing fetus.

This web page from Duke University covers this topic nicely: "Fetal Radiation Dose Estimates." As a point of clarification, the Duke website uses the older units (rems and millirems) for radiation dose rather than the newer units (Sieverts, milliSv, etc.). The conversion factor is:

1 Sievert = 100 rem or
1 milliSievert = 100 millirem

As the Duke website notes, if the fetus exposure to less than 1,000 millirem (10 milliSieverts), then there's no known risk to the fetus.

If the fetus exposure is between 1,000 and 10,000 millirem (10-100 milliSieverts), then then the fetus is probably still ok. But, this is the range where bad effects to a fetus start to be observable in some studies, using the most conservative (cautious) statistical criteria.

So if a pregnant passenger wishes to take the most cautious approach and keep her fetal exposure below the 1,000 millirem (10 milliSievert) range, she could still undergo thousands of TSA scans per year. Again, the radiation exposure caused merely by flying would far exceed that caused by the scanner. Furthermore, most of the TSA scanner radiation would be stopped at the skin before it could even reach the fetus, as opposed to the various forms of natural gamma and solar radiation received during the flight which would penetrate deeper into the body.

A pregnant woman might naturally wonder how much radiation she'd be exposed to from the air travel itself?

According to this aviation news website, if she logged 1,000 hours in the air, then she'd be at the 5-10 milliSievert range (depending on the exact altitude/route), which is the level where one might begin to be concerned: "Radiation Exposure Aloft -- Are You Being Nuked?."

So if she took 10 flights during her pregnancy totaling, say, 40 hours of air time, then that should be no problem. But she were an airline pilot or a frequent business traveler logging 1,000 hours of air time per year, then it might become a genuine issue, using the most conservative estimates for fetal exposure.

This discussion makes two important assumptions, including:

1) The TSA scanners are actually functioning properly and operating within the limits claimed by the government. Of course, if a particular machine malfunctions in a way that it produces too much radiation, then all bets are off.

2) The passenger doesn't have any special medical conditions that make him or her more sensitive to radiation than the general public.

Finally, this discussion applies only to the "backscatter" type of TSA scanner, which uses ionizing x-ray radiation. The other type of whole body TSA scanner uses "millimeter wave" technology, which does not involve ionizing x-ray radiation and does not have the same type of carcinogenic effect. Otherwise, I don't have any specialized knowledge about that particular technology and thus can't comment about any other health effects.

Conclusion: From a radiation safety perspective, it's generally safe to go through the TSA "backscatter" x-ray scanner.

Read more...

Hsieh PJM OpEd: "GOP: Dance With The One Who Brung You"

Today's PajamasMedia has just published my post-Election Day OpEd, "GOP: Dance With The One Who Brung You".

My theme is that I voted for the Republicans because I want them to pursue an agenda of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and defending individual rights -- not the "social conservative" agenda.

Here is the opening:

Republicans are rightfully celebrating their recent successes in the midterm elections, recapturing the House and making major gains in the Senate. But before House GOP leader John Boehner starts measuring the curtains for the speaker's office, he and his fellow Republicans would do well to remember the old proverb popularized by legendary University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal: "Dance with the one who brung you."

In this case, that means: Don't forget who put you in office and why -- namely, the independent-minded Tea Party voters.

Hence, the Republicans should take to heart three key lessons...

Those lessons include:

1) Americans don't want "ObamaLite"
2) Don't mistake this as a mandate to pursue a divisive "social conservative" agenda.
3) Respect the Constitution and the principle of individual rights

(Read the full text of "GOP: Dance With The One Who Brung You".)

As always, please feel free to leave comments and/or circulate via Facebook/Twitter/e-mail!

Read more...

Gus Van Horn PJM OpEd: The Silent Killer

The October 15, 2010 editio of PajamasMedia published Gus Van Horn's latest OpEd, "Government Regulation of the Economy Is the 'Silent Killer'". Here's the opening:

We've all heard public service announcements about one disease or another, calling it the "silent killer" and warning of horrible consequences for its unsuspecting victims. A similar silent killer is on the loose now, but there are no such ads. You also won't hear about it on the news. Nevertheless, millions of Americans are unknowing victims of this silent killer right now.

You are probably one of them...

(Read the full text of "Government Regulation of the Economy Is the 'Silent Killer'".)

The "silent killer" analogy is apt in so many ways. We'll never know what sorts of amazing goods and services ordinary people could have created (to the betterment of themselves and the rest of us), if they had only been left alone to live honestly, produce, and trade with others.

Thank you, Gus, for another fine OpEd!

Read more...

Biddle on the NYC Mosque

The Fall 2010 issue of The Objective Standard features a major new article by Craig Biddle, "The Ground Zero Mosque, the Spread of Islam, and How America Should Deal with Such Efforts".

Craig Biddle explains the crucial importance of recognizing that we are at war with a deadly enemy -- and the importance of defending America based on the principles of individual rights and the rue of law.

One key quote:

If we want to protect civilized society, we must unwaveringly uphold the principles of civilized society -- no matter how justifiably outraged we may become about the irrationalities and injustices perpetrated by our enemies. If, in an effort to stop Muslims from destroying America, we trample individual rights and the rule of law, we will have surrendered the very thing we were supposed to be fighting to protect.

Thank you, Craig, for a well-written and well-reasoned piece!

(The rest of the Fall 2010 lineup looks excellent as well.)

Read more...

Hsieh PJM OpEd: Get Ready For Your Health Care 'Re-Education'

The September 14, 2010 PajamasMedia has just published my latest OpEd, "Get Ready For Your Health Care 'Re-Education'".

My theme is that the government has started an Orwellian "re-education" program to get the public to embrace ObamaCare -- and Americans must respond by teaching our politicians a lesson this November.

One excerpt:

In effect, the government is saying: "Let's pretend we never said ObamaCare would lower costs -- even though that's how we sold it to the public." "Let's push patients into restrictive health plans -- and call it a 'medical home.'" "Let's label it 'misinformation' when insurers tell the truth about how our laws raise their costs -- and then punish them if they complain about it."

And as the problems of ObamaCare deepen, we can expect such "re-education" efforts to intensify.

(Read the full text of "Get Ready For Your Health Care 'Re-Education'".)

And thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the Instapundit link!

Read more...

Amit Ghate PJM OpED: Risk and Regulation

Amit Ghate has a new OpEd in the September 12, 2010 edition of PajamasMedia, "Risk and Regulation".

Here's the opening:

Every day we witness regulators denying people their freedom of action: The FDA prevents patients from taking potentially beneficial drugs; the SEC restricts the types of securities investors can buy; the FAA sets such detailed "guidelines" that airplane designers and owners find it difficult to innovate and operate profitably. Beyond these are the innumerable regulatory obstacles which individuals and firms must constantly surmount.

As economic activity dwindles, and tea party activism rises, some Americans are now beginning to question the most flagrant of these rules and regulations. But that alone won't suffice. If we're to truly effect fundamental and long-lasting change, we must identify, examine and challenge the basic premises responsible for the regulatory state...

(Read the full text of "Risk and Regulation".)

Ghate nicely dissects the fundamentals of the regulatory state and shows how it thwarts the individual's freedom to act on his own best judgment for his benefit.

Congratulations, Amit, for another fine essay!

Read more...

The Greater Danger: Islamic or Christian Dictatorship?

This video of Brigitte Gabriel discussing the barbarity of Islam has been making the rounds on blogs and social media recently:



(Note: This is a multi-part video series.)

Diana and I heard Brigitte Gabriel speak at the same LPR 2009 conference that Yaron Brook spoke at. She is a staunch Christian who took an uncompromising stand against the Islamic threat to America. She told some heart-rending stories of life as a Christian under Islamist rule in Lebanon. She made a compelling case that the Islamists want destroy America. And she had the mostly-conservative crowd eating out of her hand.

And she's just one of many eloquent Christian conservatives out there on the lecture circuit making their case against the Islamic threat -- and arguing that the only solution is for this country to recommit to Christian values.

For this reason, I regard her and her allies as a serious long-term danger to America, even though her criticisms of the barbarity of Islam are correct. She correctly identifies the current problem, but she also offers the wrong solution.

Let me explain why I regard the Christians as the greater long-term danger to America -- even while I also agree that the Islamists are the greater immediate short-term threat to this country.

Based on my reading of American culture and sense of life, I personally don't think this country can actually be conquered by the Islamists. Yes, the Islamists will try as hard as they can. And yes, they could do a tremendous amount of damage (with more 9/11-style attacks or worse). And yes, they could kill many Americans in the process. But they couldn't actually take over and impose Sharia law on us.

There's still a general "ornery streak" alive and well amongst many Americans that would reject any such an attempt to subjugate us to Sharia law. Many Americans would fight back by any means necessary -- especially in the much-maligned "Red states" where that ornery streak runs deep and where the populace is well-armed.

(This is in contrast to Europe, where I think many of those countries could fall under Sharia law due to their internal weaknesses).

But I do think that if the Islamists successfully committed more major terrorist attacks on US soil, it would arouse a backlash by decent Americans seeking some kind of forceful response. Conservatives like Brigitte Gabriel would exploit this and use pro-American rhetoric to rouse Americans against the Islamists. And this breed of conservatives might even implement a somewhat better foreign policy, at least for a while.

But they also would couple that with appeals to Christianity, sacrifice, faith, etc. -- all in the name of being "pro-America". Those are the sorts of appeals that the neocons, John McCain, and other bad conservatives have been making for many years -- and which would strike a renewed chord in an America shaken up by a string of deadly attacks at home and abroad. Americans would likely reject our current policy of appeasement (correctly seeing it as having weakened this country), but would instead embrace an even worse nationalism. And without a firm commitment to individual rights, any new conservative nationalist government would very likely impose a variety of "emergency" measures that might be superficially reasonable (and might even be appropriate in short-term wartime settings), but would somehow never be repealed.

If dictatorship ever comes to America, it won't be an Islamist one. Instead, it will more likely be a Christian one, but one which would arise as a direct result of our current weak approach to the real and immediate Islamist threats. Furthermore, such a Christianist regime could gain traction here in a way that an Islamist regime never could because the Christianist regime would have a superficially "pro-American" veneer.

Tellingly, polls taken in the past few years show the following:

• 78% of Americans identify themselves as Christians
  
• One-third of Americans believe the Bible is literally true
  
• 67% of Americans say this country is a "Christian nation"

Given these facts, I think a Christian dictatorship could appeal to many Americans in a time of crisis, especially if it came to power on a platform of fighting back against the Islamists -- and if it were viewed as the only moral alternative to the policies of appeasement and secularism that allowed such attacks to happen in the first place.

Hence, it's critical to both oppose the immediate and serious Islamist danger, but also be alert to the Christian totalitarian threat.

Back in 1980, many Americans (correctly) recognized the USSR as a threat, but also thought that we could use the Islamist mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan as allies against the communists. Of course today the USSR is no more, but the Islamists are now a real danger to us in a way that few (myself included) anticipated 30 years ago.

But as more conservatives start speaking out against Islam, I want to highlight the importance of closely examining what they stand for in addition to what they are against.

And on a positive note, I also wanted to highlight the importance of offering Americans an alternative principled self-interested approach to foreign policy that doesn't rely on appeals to faith, altruism, and sacrifice. Fortunately, we have such an approach to offer. Let's hope our message reaches enough Americans before it's too late.

Read more...

Hsieh PJM OpEd: "Transparency For Me, But Not For Thee"

PajamasMedia has just published my latest OpEd, "Transparency For Me, But Not For Thee".

My theme is that our government's ever-increasing demands for access to our personal data while simultaneously preventing us from gathering information about it threatens to turn America into a chilling "interrogation room society" where transparency only goes one way. Hence, Americans must demand government transparency as a corollary to the broader principle of properly limited government.

Here is the opening:

When President Barack Obama took office, he pledged to make his administration "the most open and transparent in history." However, government officials are now demanding ever-increasing amounts of information about ordinary Americans, while preventing citizens from gathering similar information about government operations. If this ominous trend continues, this "transparency" will be in one direction only -- which bodes ill for the future of our republic.

(Read the full text of "Transparency for Me, but not for Thee".)

Read more...

Amit Ghate PJM OpEd: Ideas and the State

Amit Ghate has another nice OpEd in the August 16, 2010 edition of PajamasMedia.

Here's the opening to his piece, "Ideas and the State":

What do the following disputes -- running the cultural gamut -- have in common?

In education: Should creationism or evolution be taught in public schools? In science: Should we form de facto boards of inquisition to maintain the government-funded consensus on global warming? In arts: Should we support "diversity" in the form of the "Piss Christ"? Or should we engage in social engineering by funding art "that would show support for Obama's domestic agenda"? And in a sad mixture of religion, politics, and science: Should taxpayers continue to support NASA with an annual budget of $19 billion so that it can pursue its new mission to "engage... with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science"?

The answer? Each seeks to determine which ideas taxpayers must fund and support. In so doing, each contributes to making modern politics more acrimonious and fractious than ever.

(Read the full text of "Ideas and the State".)

I very much like his formulation, "separation of ideas and state". Congratulations, Amit!

Read more...

Amit Ghate at PJM: "Socialism's Second Guessers"

The July 2, 2010 edition of PajamasMedia has published Amit Ghate's latest OpEd, "Socialism's Second Guessers".

Here's the opening:

In a recent marketing move, GM donated a car to Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga after his perfect game was ruined by an umpire's mistake. In the subhead to a feature article on the subject, the New York Times second-guessed GM, asking: "Was a prize to a pitcher for a near-perfect game, 'some of the best dollars invested in publicity,' or a squandering of taxpayers' equity?"

Note that the car in question was a $53,000 Corvette; GM's global revenues are on the order of $100 billion. It's like asking whether a $10 million company should have purchased a $5 box of pens. Pace the NY Times, there's nothing special about this particular decision; every business or enterprise makes similar ones daily.

And that's the point. Previously we could take for granted that private individuals or enterprises would be allowed to make such decisions for themselves. But no longer. At the behest of our political and cultural leaders, we're socializing property at an accelerating rate. The type of meddlesome question the New York Times poses is but one of its consequences...

(Read the full text of "Socialism's Second Guessers".)

Read more...

Brook and Jones on PJTV: Can Tyranny Be Stopped?

In the May 29, 2010 episode of "Front Page" on PajamasTV, Yaron Brook and Terry Jones answered viewer questions.

One question in particular should be of interest to many NoodleFood readers:

What can we realistically do to stop the advancement of tyranny? What will actually work and can we avoid violence?

Click on the image below to watch the video and hear their answer:

Read more...

Ray Niles Article on Housing Crisis

Our friend Ray Niles has just published an article on the housing crisis in the George Mason University School of Law's Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy, Vol. 6, No. 2, Spring 2010. entitled "Eighty Years in the Making: How Housing Subsidies Caused the Financial Meltdown".

Diana and I have both had the pleasure of reading it, and I found it especially valuable because it presented a thorough historical overview of the many decades of government intervention in various aspects of the market that led to the housing bubble (and subsequent collapse).

I had read several prior articles that discussed one or more of these causes, but Ray's article did a nice job of presenting all of that information in a nice integrated fashion, accessible to a layperson without specialized economic training.

The article is not available in downloadable form, at least not at present. But Ray has permission from the publisher to send PDF copies. So if you're interested, send him an e-mail at: "rayniles (at) rcniles (dot) com".

I highly recommend his article, and I'm glad to see him building on his excellent work from the past few years.

Read more...

Hsieh PJM Oped: Beware Dr. Galbraith's Snake Oil

The May 31, 2010 PajamasMedia has just published my latest OpEd, "Beware Dr. Galbraith's Snake Oil".

My theme is that even in the face of the Greek situation, some economists continue to argue that deficits don't matter. Here is the introduction:

As the Greek welfare state collapses, citizens there have been rioting over cutbacks in social spending necessitated by mounting government debt. The rioters apparently fail to recognize that whenever a government routinely promises to spend more money than it has, then eventually it will be unable to fulfill those promises. Many Americans worry that we will soon be facing similar troubles at either the state (e.g., California) or national levels.

Yet some renowned economists, such as Professor James Galbraith of the University of Texas, are trying to convince us that the U.S. government should ignore our massive federal budget deficit and instead spend even more. Galbraith argues that calls for fiscal responsibility are "misguided" and that greater deficit spending will create greater prosperity.

Galbraith's proposals are dangerous because they are based on the notion that you can get something for nothing. Unless we want to see a Greek-style collapse here in America, we must reject those ideas as economic "snake oil" and instead demand an end to our government’s fiscally irresponsible deficit spending.

James Galbraith is no street corner crank. Instead, he has a BA from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Yale, both in economics. He is a professor of economics at the University of Texas, Austin, and son of famous Keynesian economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Because of his impressive academic and intellectual pedigree, many Washington politicians and pundits take his ideas seriously. Hence, so must we...

(Read the full text of "Beware Dr. Galbraith's Snake Oil".)

As always, please feel free to leave supportive comments, blog about it, e-mail to friends, promote via Twitter/Facebook, etc.!

Read more...

Paul Hsieh LTE in NYT on Cass Sunstein

The New York Times has published my LTE on former University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, a leading advocate of so-called "libertarian paternalism".

My LTE was in response to their May 16, 2010 article in the Sunday Magazine section, "Cass Sunstein Wants to Nudge Us" praising his work as President Obama's director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) to use his philosophy to push people into behaviours the government deems desirable.

The LTE will also be appearing this weekend in the May 30, 2010 print edition of the NYT in the Sunday Magazine section (as opposed to the main letters section of the newspaper). It's the second one down:

Cass Sunstein explicitly compares Americans to Homer Simpsons requiring government guidance to live. In my view, the proper function of government is to protect individual rights and freedoms. Unless we violate others' rights by force or fraud, the government should leave us alone to live according to our best judgment.

Of course, individuals may voluntarily "nudge" themselves to achieve long-term goals, like having your bank automatically deposit a portion of each paycheck into a child's college fund. But each person must make these decisions for himself based on his goals and circumstances. These choices are his responsibility and his right -- not the government’s.

Libertarian paternalism in essence says, “Don’t worry -- we’ll do your thinking for you.” If Americans start surrendering their minds thus to the government, they will become easy prey for demagogues and dictators.

PAUL HSIEH
Sedalia, Colo.

Read more...

Gus Van Horn at PJM: "Welfare State Is Draw for Illegals"

Objectivist blogger Gus Van Horn has an OpEd in the April 30, 2010 edition of PajamasMedia, "Treat the Cause, Not the Symptom: Welfare State Is Draw for Illegals".

Here is the opening:

With Governor Jan Brewer's signing of SB 1070, the battle lines were drawn. The prospect of empowering and requiring law enforcement in Arizona to enforce federal immigration law raises civil rights concerns on both sides of the debate. Many supporters seem torn between these concerns and the prospect of overwhelming schools, social services, and the police if illegal immigration is left unchecked. However, as someone who sympathizes with its proponents, I must say that SB 1070 is wrong for Arizona for reasons far beyond civil rights issues.

SB 1070 deserves only one fundamental criticism: It would fail to protect the individual rights of American citizens -- even if it hermetically sealed our borders and the police never touched a single American hair in the process of enforcing it. This is because the biggest headaches attributed to illegal immigration are not caused by it at all...

(Read the full text of "Treat the Cause, Not the Symptom: Welfare State Is Draw for Illegals".)

Gus is absolutely right. Too many conservatives want to restrict immigration while failing to place the blame where it properly belongs -- on welfare state policies that encourage an entitlement mentality amongst American citizens as well as immigrants (and often more among the former than the latter.)

Too many liberals want both open immigration and a welfare state -- a recipe for disaster.

The only approach that respects individual rights is a policy of open immigration (which is not the same as unrestricted immigration) -- and the abolition of the welfare state. For more on this, see Craig Biddle's article in the Spring 2008 issue of The Objective Standard, "Immigration and Individual Rights".

Congratulations, Gus, on getting published in PajamasMedia!

(Please feel free to add your own comments to the PJM site.)

Read more...

Obama's Proposed Budget Cuts

Here's an amazing visual representation of Obama's proposed budget cuts. I don't see any way to embed it, but this video is a must-see. It's just 1 minute 38 seconds long. (Via C Andrew.)

Update: Thanks to Kelly, here's the embedded version:

Read more...

Blackman OpEd: "Fighting Statism"

The April 25, 2010 edition of American Thinker has published the following OpEd by Justin Blackman entitled, "Fighting Statism".

His theme is that individual rights must be the rallying point for reclaiming liberty.

Here's the opening:

The Founders of the United States hoped to create a society of free individuals, but for at least a century, the nation has been marching ever more quickly in the direction of tyranny. The independent Tea Party movement represents a renewed desire to roll back the tide of government expansion, but this cause will fail unless its participants take an uncompromising stand in favor of individual rights. A building, no matter how rigid, cannot stand upon a weak and cracked foundation. In the same vein, errors and inconsistencies in a society's philosophical foundation will cause its downfall -- even in one as great as ours.

The Republican Party inadvertently teaches this lesson...

(Read the full text of "Fighting Statism".)

Justin is a student a the Colorado School of Mines.

Congratulations, Justin, on getting published!

Read more...

Government Propaganda Machine

Via Greg Mullen, I present you with the following news item: EPA Contest Seeks Videos Promoting Government Regulations:

President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone."

The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations. The videos must be posted on YouTube and can be no more than 60-90 seconds in length. ...

As explained in the EPA press release announcing the contest, the purpose of the videos will be to remind the public that federal regulation touches "almost every aspect" of their lives and to promote how important those regulations are.

"The contest will highlight the significance of federal regulations and help the public understand the rulemaking process. Federal agencies develop and issue hundreds of rules and regulations every year to implement statutes written by Congress. Almost every aspect of an individual's life is touched by federal regulations, but many do not understand how rules are made or how they can get involved in the process."

The videos should be designed to "capture the public imagination" and to "explain" why government regulations are "important to everyone."

Jesus Christ in a Cracker! What the heck am I supposed to say about that? I have nothing... my brain is still busy boggling.

Oh and what I quoted is just a small dose of the insanity. Go read the whole thing for the rest. If only I had video skills, I might work on a satire video that satisfied all of their requirements to the letter.

Read more...

Uncle Sam Wants Your Savings

A few weeks ago, Bob Gifford posted to OActivists about the Treasury Department's proposal to "manage" our 401(k)s and other retirement accounts. (You know, because the government is such a fine example of fiscal responsibility.) The government is soliciting comments on this proposal. Bob suggested the following talking points:

Along with the obvious things to say about taking over our property, other things you could include are:

• Americans are perfectly capable of managing their own money and do not need the government to do so.
  
• The government has shown no ability to manage our money.
  
• Annuities do not have the flexibility necessary for an investment.
  
• Annuities provide fixed income and offer no protection from inflation.

Keep a close eye on this. If it is implemented, there may be some room for self-defensive actions.

Those are good suggestions. Also, as you might recall, Paul recent published an op-ed in Pajamas Media on this topic: "Government Grab of Retirement Accounts."

If you wish to tell the federal government what you think, you can send your e-mail to e-ORI@dol.gov with "RIN 1210-AB33" in the subject of the message. Here's the comment that I submitted:

I'm completely opposed to any government takeover or management of retirement accounts like 401(k)s.

The government has shown itself wholly incapable of managing its own finances. Any government interference with 401(k)s would just be yet another way to steal the hard-earned money of responsible Americans, so that politicians could spend it it on pork and welfare. That would be morally grotesque -- and grind the economy to a halt.

Respect property rights: hands off our retirement savings!

[name & address omitted]

Please do submit a comment, even if only something short and sweet! They're due on May 3rd at the very latest.

Read more...