After Copenhagen: The Myth of Civilized Censorship
by Brendan O'Neill. Hate speech laws legitimize violence against those who offend. The two recent acts of censorship-by-murder in Europe—first at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, and then at a free-speech debate in Copenhagen—have put the continent's political classes in a pickle. For as much as European rulers want to, and do, condemn the brutal ... MORE
Labels:
censorship,
Daesh,
free expression,
free speech,
hate crime,
hate speech,
intolerance,
terrorism
Killing Jobs & Closing Doors — A Minimum-Wage Warning
by Michael Saltsman. NY needs to take note of SF. Couples across the country spent Valentine’s Day watching the rom-com “You’ve Got Mail,” where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fight over customers as his bookstore behemoth threatens to gobble up her neighborhood Shop Around The Corner. That storyline resonated with viewers in 1998, and ... MORE
A Search Engine That Brings The Dark Web To Light
by Mark Stockley. The Dark Web is reflecting a little more light these days. On Monday I wrote about Memex, DARPA's Deep Web search engine.
Memex is a sophisticated tool set that has been in the hands of a few
select law enforcement agencies for a year now, but it isn't available
to regular users like you and me. There is another search engine ... MORE
Pedro Gonzales: How To Teach Kids About Socialism
Reality therapy for the young. It used to be that if you wanted to teach kids about capitalism, you’d tell them to open a lemonade stand. By producing a product, marketing it, and selling it, they would get a small taste of what it is like to run a business. But now telling your kids to open a lemonade stand is the best way of teaching them about ... MORE
Mark Cuban Says Net Neutrality Will ‘Fuck Everything Up’
by Dawn Chmielewski. Billionaire investor and ABC “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban unloaded on the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to fundamentally change how it oversees the open Internet. “That will fuck everything up,” said the voluble Cuban in remarks Wednesday at the Code/Media conference at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel, Ca. ... MORE
Labels:
consumer,
FCC,
government,
Internet,
media,
net neutrality,
online,
regulation,
restrictions
Global Warming Protest Postponed Due To Cold Weather
by Michael Bastach. A propaganda fail at Yale. Yale anti-fossil fuel campaigners have indefinitely postponed a
protest that was set for this weekend due to “unfavorable weather
conditions and other logistical issues.” Fossil Free Yale, a group pushing the university to divest itself from fossil fuels, told the Yale Daily News that frigid, snowy ... MORE
Labels:
climate,
environment,
fossil fuels,
global warming,
government,
propaganda,
protest,
regulation
How The Supreme Court Enabled Policing For Profit
by Evan Bernick. Ignoring a vital principle of a just government. At this point, the only people defending the notorious and noxious practice of civil forfeiture are those that stand to gain from seizing Americans' property. Policymakers across the political spectrum have expressed
outrage at the way in which civil forfeiture, which enables the
government ... MORE
Are Guns About To Become Off-limits In California?
by Pete D'Amato. Lefty politicians plot to neuter the 2nd Amendment. California's requirement of 'microstamping' technology means that no guns manufactured after 2013 have been sold in the state, known as having some of the strictest gun control laws. Now gun-rights groups are hoping that a federal judge will overturn the provision that gun ... MORE
Labels:
2nd Amendment,
ammunition,
California,
government,
gun control,
liberalism,
tactics,
tyranny
Vermont Could Be Next State To Legalize Recreational Pot
by Matt Ferner. Vermont could become the first state in history to legalize recreational marijuana via state legislature with a new bill submitted Tuesday that aims to end prohibition of the plant. Senate Bill 95
would legalize the possession, use and sale of recreational marijuana
in the state for those 21 and older. Adult residents could possess ... MORE
Labels:
cannabis,
drug war,
federalism,
freedom,
legalize,
legislation,
marijuana,
prohibition,
recreation
Questions Over Missing Cash After Warrantless Search
by Kumi Tucker. A local attorney says Albany police broke the law when they went into her client's apartment without a warrant. Her client says he is now missing thousands of dollars in cash. Attorney Cheryl Coleman's client, Joshua Horne, was arrested on a drug charge in June. She says police took his keys and then used them to get See video ... MORE
Labels:
authority,
drug war,
government,
police state,
search and seizure,
theft,
warrantless search
Gilbert Ross: The Madness Of The War On E-Cigs
Corruption + distorted facts = clampdown on vaping. Is it mass insanity, or something even darker, that has led America’s public-health leaders to engage in a mass assault on electronic cigarettes? To put this in perspective, their target is not smoking, our number-one preventable health problem, but a product that could prove to ... MORE
John Stossel - No Gatekeepers
Crowdsourcing works. For years, people assumed encyclopedias had to be created by professionals. Then Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales attempted to create an encyclopedia without central planners. That sounded like a terrible idea to the old gatekeepers — people who hired experts to carefully fact-check and edit every encyclopedia ... MORE
Program That Enables America To Spy On EVERY Home Computer In The world Is Uncovered By Outraged Russia
by Reuters reporter and Chris Spargo. America caught violating everyone's privacy. The National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives, allowing them to monitor and eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers - even when they are not connected to the internet. The Moscow-based security ... MORE
Labels:
cyberwar,
deception,
government,
monitor,
NSA,
privacy,
Russia,
snooping,
spying,
surveillance
Businesses Find Ways To Cope With Minimum Wage Hikes
by Chris Kirkham. Low-skill workers, consumers pay the price. When the minimum wage in San Jose went from $8 to $10 an hour in 2013,
Adolfo Gomez started sending kitchen staff at his Mexican restaurant
home early. His mother and brother handled the extra work. In
Albuquerque, Myra Ghattas told cooks and hostesses to come in later when
the ... MORE
Thomas Sowell: Glib, 'Happy Talk'
Presidential ignorance is not bliss. When Alfred E. Neuman said "What me worry?" on the cover of Mad magazine, it was funny. But this message was not nearly as funny coming from President Barack Obama and his National Security Advisor, Susan Rice. In a musical comedy, it would be hilarious to have the president send out his "happy talk" message ... MORE
Walter E Willliams: Shame
Poetic victimization is politically correct. Today's liberals are not racists, but they often behave that way. They would benefit immensely from considering some of the arguments in award-winning scholar Dr. Shelby Steele's forthcoming book, "Shame: How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country." Steele, a senior fellow at the Hoover ... MORE
Montana Poised To Ban Government License Plate Cameras
by J.D. Tuccille. Cops in Big Sky Country aren't happy about it,
but Montana lawmakers look ready to ban the use of license plate
cameras by government agencies to track motorists' movements.
The legislative move comes after a stream of revelations of local,
state, and federal tracking and databasing of Americans' movements
by car, without cause ... MORE
Congressman Blasts San Francisco Medical Pot Prosecutions
by David Downs. Calling out the feds. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher blasted San Francisco’s local U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag Sunday, saying she was “breaking the law” in her attempts to seize major Bay Area dispensaries Harborside Health Center and Berkeley Patients Group. The libertarian-leaning Republican from Huntington Beach has ... MORE
Labels:
authority,
cannabis,
federal,
federalism,
government,
health care,
medical marijuana,
medicine
John W. Whitehead: Creepy, Calculating and Controlling
All of the ways Big Brother is watching you. None of us are perfect. All of us bend the rules occasionally. Even before the age of overcriminalization, when the most upstanding citizen could be counted on to break at least three laws a day without knowing it, most of us have knowingly flouted the law from time to time. Today, however, ... MORE
Labels:
DEA,
FBI,
government,
NSA,
police state,
privacy,
snooping,
spying,
surveillance,
technology
Sheldon Richman: The Inherently Humble Libertarian
Libertarianism has humility baked in. You would think that the advocates of a philosophy of political
economy that embraces spontaneous social order, bottom-up
rule-making based on peaceful voluntary exchange, and even
competing polycentric law at least at some level would be
safe from the charge of conceit. How conceited can ... MORE
Labels:
economics,
freedom,
government,
incentives,
individual liberty,
libertarian,
philosophy,
politics
Jacob Sullum: 'Drugged' Drivers Who Aren't
What if the risk ratio is statistically insignificant? Last year, during a congressional
hearing on the threat posed by stoned drivers, a
representative of the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) was asked how many crash fatalities are
caused by marijuana each year. "That's difficult to say," replied
Jeff Michael, NHTSA's ... MORE
Labels:
automobile,
behavior,
cannabis,
drugs,
marijuana,
politicians,
pot,
research,
safety,
statistics
Democrats Seek Relief From Obamacare Penalties
by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar. Politicians fear the ugly truth. The official sign-up season for President Barack Obama's health care law may be over, but leading congressional Democrats say millions of Americans facing new tax penalties deserve a second chance. Three senior House members told The Associated Press that they plan to strongly ... MORE
Tammy Bruce: FCC, FEC Look To Ruin The Internet
The left lifts its boot toward the free flow of information. We knew this was coming. Within the last couple of weeks, both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Election Commission
declared their intention to regulate the Internet. Fascists always
explain their actions as efforts to either make something more
efficient, ... MORE
Labels:
deception,
dishonesty,
FCC,
FEC,
government,
Internet,
online,
politics,
regulation,
restrictions
Scott Shackford: One Way To Deal With DUI Checkpoints
Police aren’t happy about it. Warren Redlich, back in 2010,
was the Libertarian Party candidate for governor of New York (Nick
Gillespie even highlighted him on the blog here).
Needless to say, he didn’t win. But Redlich is back in the news getting publicity for his method
of dealing with police DUI checkpoints in Florida (where he lives
now) while ... MORE
Labels:
checkpoints,
coercion,
DUI,
government,
police state,
roadblocks,
tactics,
warrantless search
Andrew Napolitano: A Worthless Piece Of Paper
No document can defend itself. President George W. Bush was fond of saying that "9/11 changed everything." He used that one-liner often as a purported moral basis to justify the radical restructuring of federal law and the federal assault on personal liberties over which he presided. He cast aside his oath to preserve, protect and defend the ... MORE
Labels:
agenda,
America,
Constitution,
dishonesty,
government,
integrity,
oath,
politicians,
tyranny
John Stossel: Spontaneous Order
Most of life happens without a central planner. Yet people think we need one. Suppose you'd never seen a skating rink, and I told you that I want to lay down some ice and charge people money to strap sharp blades on their feet. They will zip around on the ice — young and old, skilled and unskilled. My only rule: Go counter-clockwise. ... MORE
Walter E Williams: Fairness And Justice
What you need to know about them. Oxfam reports that the richest 1 percent of people in the world own
48 percent of the world's wealth. Many claim that we should be alarmed
by income inequality because it hampers upward mobility. Others argue
that because income is distributed so unevenly, justice and fairness
require income ... MORE
Labels:
crony capitalism,
economics,
equality,
fairness,
incomes,
justice,
low-skill workers,
taxicab
J.D. Tuccille: Check Out On Your Own Terms
Tragic or self-empowering? Every couple of years, some well-intentioned scribbler pens a
hand-wringer about the national tragedy of suicide among the
elderly. "Suicide
rate for elderly men is alarming," noted Dennis Streets in the
Chatham Journal last month. "Suicide
rates are high among the elderly," cautioned Paula Span in a
2013 New York ... MORE
Thomas Sowell: Measles, Vaccines And Autism
Vaccines don't cause autism. The current controversy over whether parents should be forced to have their children vaccinated for measles is one of the painful signs of our times. Measles was virtually wiped out in the United States, years ago. Why the resurgence of this disease now? The short answer is that false claims, based on other false claims, ... MORE
Labels:
children,
deception,
government,
incentives,
policy,
protection,
public health,
vaccinations
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