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Liberty and Power

  • Dec 3, 2004

    Feds Say Sex With Boys Will Give You Cooties

    by Liberty and Power

    A law school friend sent this story from the WaPo about how all of those federal funds for abstinence-only sex education are being put to good use. Among the things public school kids are being taught:
    -- HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, can be spread via sweat and tears.

    -- One curriculum, called"Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion"are more prone to
  • Dec 3, 2004

    Shameless Self-Promotion

    by Liberty and Power

    I had a piece on the drug war that ran on the Cato site yesterday, and that generated this lengthy, sometimes banal-sometimes insightful discussion on the Fark site (one commenter called me"another white liberal, ridden with guilt"!).

    Also, I wrote an I-told-you-so piece for Tech Central on the CDC's admission that it's incessant claim of 400,000 people dying each year
  • Dec 3, 2004

    BushWhacked in Canada

    by Liberty and Power

    It was disconcerting to watch Bush on Canadian turf thank the people of Halifax, Nova Scotia for taking into their homes thousands of Americans who had been stranded when U.S. airports were closed and flights diverted Northward on September 11, 2001. Of course, his thanks came three years late. Of course, his gratitude was a prelude to making demands. (Neither the thanks nor the demands came with any concessions on trade issues, I note.) His talk of a longstanding friendship between Canada and t
  • Dec 2, 2004

    I Have a Gub

    by Liberty and Power

    I guess I don't quite understand what this antigun program was supposed to be about. Are armed robberies committed with illegally-obtained guns somehow worse than armed robberies committed with legally obtained guns? Do they require a separate (federal) program? I wouldn't have thought that state and local law-enforcement agencies needed special federa
  • Dec 1, 2004

    Observation

    by Liberty and Power

    Considering the state’s long bloody record, asking it to solve any problem is like asking the registered sex offender down the street to baby-sit.
  • Dec 1, 2004

    False Alternative

    by Liberty and Power

    "Medicine by regulation is better than medicine by referendum." So said U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer yesterday while listening to arguments in the medical-marijuana case. (The Californian who brought the case is represented by Randy Barnett. See this.)

    In other words, for Breyer medical oppression by an elite is preferable to medical oppression by the mo

  • Dec 1, 2004

    Tom, Dan, Goodbye Already!

    by Liberty and Power

    If there's anything more nauseating than a state funeral for a president, it's the retirement of a network anchorman. Is the fact that we will no longer watch Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather read the news every night really a reason for what is tantamount to national mourning by the media elite? (For an example, see this by Dorothy Rabinowitz today.) Who are these people anyway? Have they demonstrated some unique perspicacity over the
  • Nov 30, 2004

    Goodbye and Good Riddance

    by Liberty and Power

    [cross-posted at Austro-Athenian Empire]

    I'm tempted to cheer Tom Ridge's departure. Problem is, I cheered when Janet Reno left, and they replaced her with John Ashcroft; then I cheered when Ashcroft left, and they're replacing him with Torture Bertie. So there's no reason to think Mr. Panic Button's replacement is going to be any sort of improvement. Still I can say this much: I won't miss Ridge. Not even a little bit.
  • Nov 29, 2004

    India, anyone?

    by Liberty and Power

    I leave for India in a couple of days -- a brief trip, to return to the village on the southeastern coast where I began my career as an anthropologist almost thirty years ago.

    Ever wonder what a system of"affirmative action" would look like if were permitted to completely run amok? For decades India has employed what it calls a"reservation system" whereby up to 80% of positions are set aside for"backward" castes. Universities (as one might expect) are particularly keen on set-asides. Th

  • Nov 29, 2004

    So what if Ukraine split?

    by Liberty and Power

    On Sunday the Donetsk region council in eastern Ukraine, who are supporters of Prime Minister ViktorYanukovych, announced they will hold a vote next Sunday for autonomy. On Tuesday there will be an emergency session to consider the plan to hold a referendum on 5 December. And officials from some other regions have met to consider seeking autonomy in case the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko becomes president. Readers will find the story