Free Speech

"Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLU’s legal director, has said his group is in a "Catch-22" because the government says the identities of people whose communications have been intercepted is secret. But only people who know they have been wiretapped can sue over the program"

from Associated Press: High court turns away challenge to domestic-spying program

It's a nice sunny day so you decide to go anti-war protesting with your friends.

You will be arrested.

If you obey all the rules, demonstrate peacefully, don't trespass or block building entrances, or obstruct public sidewalks or impede auto traffic, or destroy property and don't run with scissors, you will still be arrested.

You may be arrested for kneeling or shrugging or leafleting or wearing a plain T-shirt or holding a bucket of paste.

It has become illegal in the USSA to unknowingly break unknown, never-before-heard-of laws while protesting war.

Soundbite from a TV commercial for a new channel:

FOX Reality
All reality all the time,
because you just can't get enough!

Does that scare you as much as it does me? How insane has the general US public become?

Two men with foreign, suspicious-sounding names, Elahwal and Iqbal, were arrested for the capitalistic entrepreneurial crime of using satellite dishes to distribute Hezbollah television station broadcasts to their New York-area customers. Since the USSA government designated the station, al Manar, as a global terrorist entity, the two men face five-year prison terms for stupidly believing that freedom of speech exists in America. The thinking, apparently, is that anyone watching a terrorist TV station is guilty of aiding global terrorism. In related news, SWAT-clad FBI agents raided the HBO studios where the TV series "The Sopranos" is taped and roughed up everyone they could get their gunbutts on.

The website you've just come from “GREENIE WATCH” (http://antigreen.blogspot.com/), by John Ray, engages in content theft and copyright infringement. As Mr Ray is a self professed academic professor, claiming a Ph.D. no less, I can only believe he has knowledge of international 'fair use' and copyright laws. He has been sent email before from us, which he ignored, requesting he cease stealing our content. So,

• Please flag his Blog by using the Blogger “FLAG BLOG” at the top of his blog.
• Please email him you're displeasure at his engagement in stealing.
• Please contact Google, owner of Blogger, and inform them that he engages in content theft and copyright infringement, he's been ask to quit and to start following international law, and has refused to do so, and therefor you request Google to delete his blog.

Do you have a high traffic Blog or website, are a member of one of the below Blog traffic swap programs, and want to earn some extra credits? Interested in doing something like "Rent my Blog" from BlogExplosoin?

Eighty someodd entries. Additional "Good Reads" are broken out into their own pages. --MJ

While we have a fine article this week on Republican sex scandals, the front page is being dedicated to finding more authors to satisfy your cravings for truth, ethics, and the original American way. In other news, our Authors now have the capability to run Blogs on 'from Reason to Freedom' ( http://www.reasontofreedom.com/blogs ), so I've added a new newsletter section for interesting blog posts from the last week as well. Best Regards All, MJ

Are you a libertarian writer who can produce an article on roughly a weekly or biweekly basis?  And you would like to get paid for it?  Would you rather use your time writing and thereby spreading the libertarian message than learning search engine optimization techniques (SEO), researching revenue generation methods, understanding visitor acquisition techniques, or devoting time to marketing?

It’s a clever advert. It creates a string of powerful associations, to do with mountains, fresh air, clarity and sunlight. It makes feeling better a matter of owning a car. Even so, I wonder how many people have gone out and spent £26,225 on a new Volvo because of it.

"So what is a free festival? "It's a party. It's a camping trip. It's a social gathering. It's a spiritual occasion. It's a celebration. It's a political protest. It's a rally...."

Mr. Speaker, anyone needing proof that federal funding leads to federal control should examine HR 609, the "College Access and Opportunity Act." HR 609 imposes several new federal mandates on colleges, and extends numerous existing mandates. HR 609 proves the prophetic soundness of warnings that federal higher education programs would lead to federal control of higher education.

"But, my fellow Americans, these are dark and drastic times. And drastic times demand drastic measures.

In order to combat this unprecedented threat against our great nation – unprecedented steps must be taken.

And so, effective immediately, I have issued Executive Order 1000 – General Martial Law."

The Abramoff scandal has been described as the biggest Washington scandal ever: bigger than Watergate; bigger than Abscam; bigger than Koreagate; bigger than the House banking scandal; bigger than Teapot Dome. Possibly so. It’s certainly serious and significant.

It has prompted urgent proposals of suggested reforms to deal with the mess. If only we have more rules and regulations, more reporting requirements, and stricter enforcement of laws, the American people will be assured we mean business. Ethics and character will return to the halls of Congress. It is argued that new champions of reform should be elected to leadership positions, to show how serious we are about dealing with the crisis of confidence generated by the Abramoff affair. Then all will be well. But it’s not so simple. Maybe what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg, an insidious crisis staring us in the face that we refuse to properly identify and deal with.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Health Freedom Protection Act. This bill restores the First Amendment rights of consumers to receive truthful information regarding the benefits of foods and dietary supplements by codifying the First Amendment standards used by federal courts to strike down the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) efforts to censor truthful health claims. The Health Freedom Protection Act also stops the Federal Trade Commissions (FTC) from censoring truthful health care claims.

The American people have made it clear they do not want the federal government to interfere with their access to dietary supplements, yet the FDA and the FTC continue to engage in heavy-handed attempts to restrict such access. The FDA continues to frustrate consumers’ efforts to learn how they can improve their health even after Congress, responding to a record number of constituents’ comments, passed the Dietary Supplement and Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). FDA bureaucrats are so determined to frustrate consumer access to truthful information that they are even evading their duty to comply with four federal court decisions vindicating consumers’ First Amendment rights to discover the health benefits of foods and dietary supplements.