News Flash: Anti-Smoking Groups are Liars

Jacob Sullum notes that the claim that secondhand smoke exposure causes atherosclerosis and heart attacks is bullshit, purposely advanced by anti-smoking groups to scare people.

Remember kids, "Smoking is Healthier Than Fascism"

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...puff, puff, pass...

Affirmative Action at the CIA

The Bush Administration is showing their commitment to the "differently abled" by nominating a man to run the CIA who can't read.

Hat Tip: Radley Balko

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...idiots...

Bush Still Supports Preemptive War

The President still supports preemptive war, despite the Iraq fuck-ups. Not only that, but he's got an even longer list of bad countries that we're thinking of striking against.

What an asshole.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...angry...

Mohammed Cartoons

Professor Eugene Volokh has a good analysis of the cartoon controversy, complete with illustrations.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...instablogging...

Something to Think About

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws." -John Adams, 2nd US president (1735-1826)

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...strangely fitting...

Get Your Passport In Order

Looks like the DOJ believes that the President can order a killing on U.S. soil.

Emigration looks better and better.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...wtf...

Government to Steal Church for Development

Stephen Gordon at Hammer of Truth notes a shitty, though predictable, outgrowth of the Kelo v. New London decision. The government in Sand Springs, OK is taking a black church to redevelop a "rundown area of town".

With bulldozers churning up the earth at the front door, the small Centennial Baptist Church in this struggling industrial hub west of Tulsa seems about to fall to the wrecker.

The Rev. Roosevelt Gildon in his Centennial Baptist Church, in Sand Springs, Okla. The church is resisting the city's plan to clear the church and other occupants to make way for superstores like the Home Depot.

But the construction is just roadwork, for now. And that is all it will ever be if the congregation has its way.

"The Lord didn't send me here to build a minimall," said the longtime pastor, the Rev. Roosevelt Gildon

Admittedly, the city is not using eminent domain yet; they're just keeping it as a last resport, if they can't come to an agreement on the price of the buyout. So, either negotiations are successful, or we steal your church. What an option.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...disgusted...

Cereal Killer

In These Times story, "Snap, Crackle ... Patents" reports on how one Arizona company is using IP law to prevent anyone else from selling cereal the way they sell cereal.

Back in 2000, David Roth had one of those "eureka" moments that are the stuff of American entreprenurial legend. After spotting a box of Cocoa Puffs hidden behind the desk of a Wall Street executive, Roth dreamed up a retail business that would sell cereal all the time.
...
Across the country, Rocco Monteleone was getting set to open Bowls, a cereal cafe in Gainesville, Florida, (near the University of Florida) when he found out that Cereality had beaten him to the punch. OK, he figured, no harm, no foul: It's America. Anyone can open a restaurant selling cereal. Right?
...
In May, Monteleone received a letter from Cereality's attorney warning him that he may be in violation of a patent application the company had filed for its "methods and system" of selling cereal. These included: "displaying and mixing competitively branded food products" and adding "a third portion of liquid."

That's right, this company decided to patent selling cereal with milk to college kids.

In the end, the PTO denied the patent application, but this is the kind of bullshit that begs for IP reform.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...happy new year...

Action: Stop the Patriot Act

Act now to stop the renewal of the Patriot Act. Check out
this post at Hammer of Truth for step-by-step instructions on what you can do to block the Patriot Act.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...still angry...

There Oughtta Not Be A Law: Airplane Toilet Edition

Christopher Elliott writes in the New York Times about the fact that there is not a law requiring all airplanes to have a working restroom.

Unbelievable as it may sound, the only apparent law on the books that requires an aircraft to fly with a working restroom, the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, applies to planes with more than one aisle that were delivered or refurbished after April 1992. That's a huge loophole, given the number of jets that are older or have just one aisle. Plus, federal law seems to be mum when it comes to the all-important passenger-to-toilet ratio on a plane.

Oh my God, whatever shall we do? I mean, if there's no law, it's merely a matter of time before airlines force their passengers to "hold it" for the duration of the flight. Emergency session! Pass a law now, before there's stinking planes full of piss and shit flying around our fair country!! Oh noes!!

Or maybe it's not such a big problem after all, because airlines don't want to piss off their passengers.

Of course, airlines don't exploit this regulatory lapse. United, like other domestic and international airlines, operates all its planes - no matter their age or size - with a full complement of working restrooms. Most of the time. "If a lavatory is malfunctioning, we will close it down and refer customers to an alternative one on the plane," said a United spokeswoman, Robin Urbanski. "If more than one lavatory is malfunctioning, we typically divert the plane."

As Derek was saying to me, "I think there are people who believe basic physical forces would cease to function if the American legislature did not enact a regulation requiring them to occur. So of course airlines wouldn't put washrooms in just to keep their passengers happy and using their airline..."

Next time someone suggests a law to fix a non-problem, just remind them of the idiocy of toilet regulations for airplanes.

Hat tip: Nick Gillespie at Hit and Run

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...not dead yet...

The Grey Lady Catches Up

As mentioned here back in July, IJ is winning the New London war, even though the Supreme Court ruled against them.

It looks like the New York Times figured it out today. My favorite passage:

"We need to have some positive things happening so that every lender and investor I go to doesn't say, 'I want to be 100 miles away from here,' " Ms. Jones said. "Eminent domain in Fort Trumbull has been on the front page of every newspaper in the country, and it has not put New London in the most positive light."

Despite losing in court, the holdouts have gained political leverage, largely through the public relations effort led by the Institute for Justice, Mr. Joplin said.

Scott G. Bullock, a lawyer for the Institute for Justice who argued for the resistant property owners before the Supreme Court, said, "We might have lost the battle, but the overall war is really going in our favor."

"What developer is going to want to build on land that was received through probably the most universally despised Supreme Court decision in decades?" Mr. Bullock asked.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...vindicated...

Do you have a permit for that satire?

Looks like the White House is suing The Onion for the use of the Presidential Seal without "official approval."

Hammer of Truth has come up with their own...umm...use of the the Seal. Wonder how long it'll take to get approval for that. Given how far the Administration has stretched the collective ass of the country, it should be a no-brainer.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...tee hee...

D.C. Council Fixes Mistake

Props to the D.C. Council for repealing their 'zero-tolerance' DUI law. Too bad it took a lot of people getting arrested for having a single glass of wine to make 'em do it.

"D.C. is once again open for business," said council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large), principal author of the legislation. She said visitors "can come in and have a glass of wine and not be harassed or intimidated."

The changes would place alcohol levels from .05 to .079 in a "neutral zone" that would require other factors, such as sobriety field tests, to establish a driver's impairment. The changes would bring District law in line with that of Virginia, Maryland and other states.

It still remains to be seen whether Mayor Williams will sign the legislation.

Before yesterday's vote, Williams wrote the council a letter in which he questioned the need to change the law and said police are "not unfairly targeting drivers who have a drink at dinner." After the vote, he issued a statement that criticized the council's action.

Williams noted that six people in the District died last year in alcohol-related crashes in which the driver's blood alcohol level was less than .08.

"The fact that people are dying on the road is reason enough for us to think long and hard about undoing years of federal and local public safety messages that stress: 'Don't Drink and Drive,' " Williams wrote.

How disingenuous can the Mayor be? Six people died last year justifies arresting people who have had one glass of wine? Not hauling people to jail for having one drink is 'undoing years of federal and local public safety messages'? What a tool.

Maybe Mayor Williams just hasn't been teased enough at parties yet.

Members said they are concerned that the story was making headlines across the country and portraying the District as the last refuge of Prohibition. Ambrose said she attended a wedding in Maine this weekend and was teased about it. Council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5) said participants at a recent business meeting were jokingly warned not to have a glass of wine lest they be carted away.

"The press is killing us," Orange said.

Note to press: Please keep killing them.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...drinky drinky...

Irony Translates Well

Check out this post about ambivalent Spanish honoring of George Orwell. I'll bet he's spinning in his grave right now.

Hat tip: Samizdata.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...who watches the watchers...

Fuck MADD, Fuck 'Zero Tolerance,' and Fuck Asshole Cops

Dear All,
This very special episode of the the Angry Libertarian Alliance is brought to you by the latest abuse of government power by the DC Police (and DMV). As this WaPo story relates, Debra Bolton had a glass of wine with dinner and ended up in jail for blowing a .03. Let me repeat that for emphasis, 'point oh fucking three.' Most of you are probably thinking that that's well below the legal limit, and it is. However,

Bolton, 45, an energy lawyer and single mother of two who lives in Alexandria, had just run into a little-known piece of D.C. law: In the District, a driver can be arrested with as little as .01 blood-alcohol content.

As D.C. police officer Dennis Fair, who arrested Bolton on May 15, put it in an interview recently: "If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in D.C. We have zero tolerance. . . . Anything above .01, we can arrest."

Bolton fought the charges and got them dropped (prosecutors apparently have better things to do). Annoyance over, right? Oh hell no! Time for that bastion of abusive bureaucracy, the DMV, to get involved. Even though the charges were dropped and there was no conviction, the DC DMV "warned that it would suspend her driving privileges at the end of this month unless she went through an alcohol prevention program."

Corey Buffo, the DMV's general counsel, explained that the agency drops its procedures only after a case goes to trial and is dismissed on its merits. "Our burden of proof is lower" than the Superior Court's, he said. "Not enough evidence for them may be enough evidence for us." Yesterday, the DMV decided not to suspend her privileges and issued her a warning instead.

Does anyone else smell a violation of 'due process' rights, because I sure do. Suspending someone's driving privileges based on an arrest alone looks like it's ripe for a Constitutional challenge.

Lesson of the day: Don't drink in DC. At all. Ever.

From today's follow-up story, it looks like MADD, the DC Council member who sponsored the law in the first place, and various other interest groups are backpedalling on this piece-of-shit, nanny state law.

Even D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large), who has sponsored legislation to lower the legal limit for drunken driving, said she was not aware that police officers are arresting drivers who have as little as .01 percent blood alcohol content -- less than from drinking a glass of wine or beer -- in their systems. Nor did she think that such a policy was a good idea.

...

D.C.'s zero-tolerance policy goes back about seven years. In 1998, at the same time Schwartz introduced an amendment to lower the blood alcohol limit for intoxication from .10 to .08 with much media attention, then-Council member Sandy Allen introduced a provision that lowered to .03 the level that a driver could be presumed impaired by alcohol. Both measures passed.

Gee, maybe people should be careful before passing stupid laws. Fuckers.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...grrr...

UPDATE: If you want to do something about it, then contacting the DC Council would be a good start.

Public Service Announcements We Can Get Behind

The PSAs linked over at mychoice.ca provide some great tips for people who might feel that government has too much control over their lives.

They cover important topics like recycling, water conservation, and the issue that started the ALA, obesity.

"Your government...let us do the choosing."

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...free to choose...

We're down with CLC

Check out College Libertarian Central, another resource for the angry libertarian.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...keeping it real...

Compounding Government Mistakes, Nuclear-style

Steve Gordon over at Liberty for Sale, notes that a draft policy doctrine put forth by the administration would authorize pre-emptive nuclear strikes against an adversary "adversary using or intending to use WMD against US, multinational, or alliance forces or civilian populations."

Woo fucking hoo! Now, instead of just getting a bunch of ground troops stuck in a tar-baby of a war under false pretenses, we're gonna up the ante by nuking the shit out of countries that talk trash about WMDs. Really, does this seem like a good idea to anybody? Bueller?

Read the whole post, it's quite good.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...nukyoolar...

Sauce for the Goose

According to the Christian Science Monitor, North Korea and Iran will continue their nuclear efforts, claiming that peaceful nuclear energy development is their right.

'Rogue nation,' 'axis of evil,' and other diplomatic perjoratives can be translated as 'country that doesn't play by our rules.' The United States is particularly hypocritical in trying to refer other nations to the UN Security Council for violations of rules that we never have, nor ever will, respect.

Freedom is the one thing one cannot have if one is unwilling to give it to others. This applies to states as much as to individuals. By attempting to prevent the self-determination of other countries, we create security threats that make us less free.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...back from the dead...

The Libertarian Party is No Longer a Membership Club

Steve Gordon reports that the Libertarian National Committee has passed the Squyres proposal for zero dues. That's right, boys and girls, our little party is growing up. No longer will your LP bona fides consist of whether or not you sent the Party your $25 this year. Rather than requiring you to pony up the dough to be a member of the party, we're going to use the voluntary approach of encouraging you to pony up the dough, with such libertarian tactics as guilt and shame.

Hey, it works for those other parties.

Yours truly,
Mr. X

...pleased...