Your tone of voice often conveys more accurately what is in your mind than your words do.

I wish Calie would take that little observation to heart. I would paraphrase that by saying; "Your words tell me what's on your mind and your tone of voice tells me what's in your heart."

I become more convinced every day that people are unwilling to accept any fact or truth that contradicts their core preconceptions and bias. How else can we explain why there is such a dichotomy in what is deemed to be truth and what is fact in the world. People who consider themselves rational and open-minded refuse to acknowledge that any viewpoint other than their own has any validity. I know I do. For instance, I will not accept that there is any nobility in the "War on Terrorism" as it is being managed by George W. Bush.

Anyone who comes up with an argument that attempts to justify what has been done in our name in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan or even Panama and Grenada will get an argument from me. I am talking about preemptive invasions of sovereign nations who are not a threat to us, aerial bombardment of civilians, and using torture and rape as interrogation techniques.

Labeling a war conceived solely for the control of oil as a "War on Terror" is brilliant in an evil sort of way, it's right out of the Tin Pot Despot's World Domination Handbook. It goes hand in hand with "Deregulation" of Big Business, Controlling the Courts, Domination of Congress... My country is being turned in to an Aggressor Nation by a bunch single-minded men and women with MBAs. I believe that there is no way that you can run a country like a business and be able to care for the citizens. There is no way to 'Focus on the Bottom Line' and have compassion for the people who have a 'Negative Affect' on Profit'. The poor, the weak, the mentally ill, the elderly, the sick... anyone who is deemed to be a 'non producer' is deemed to be a drag on Capitol Investment and is then summarily marginalized till they either go away, die or 'find a way to 'join the team'.

If we had the intelligence and the wherewithal to wage war on actual Terrorists why didn't we do it? We are not killing terrorists now, we are creating them. We are killing shopkeepers, gardeners, gas station attendants, school children, mothers and fathers. We are killing men and women who are trying to defend their country... not terrorists. How many innocents were slaughtered in the process that ultimately killed Zarqawi? is it acceptable to you? It's not acceptable to me. I believe that we [A real Coalition of the World Community] could have killed Osama and wiped out Al Qaeda three years ago if that is what we really wanted to do. Not with the United States Armed Forces but with patience, planning, stealth and the help of the worlds Intelligence Organizations. We could have had the whole network decimated if not wiped out in less than a year.

Terrorism is a tactic not a government or a country or even a philosophy... just a tactic. Blowing yourself up in a public place is Terrorism, Radio activated bombs on shopping centers is terrorism, Gas attacks on subways is terrorism, Shock and Awe invasion is terrorism. dropping a bomb on an occupied city from 30,000 feet is terrorism, torture is terrorism, excusing the gang gang rape of a 14 year old girl and the murder of her entire family as some sort of justifiable, stress induced, boys will be boys escapade is Terrorism of the worst sort because it tells the people we are supposed to be there to 'Liberate' that they are really just animals and of no significance or value. Every Aunt & Uncle, Cousin and friend of that 14 year old girl now righteously hates America and is a potential 'terrorist' seeking vengeance... just like you and I would be, hopefully. If you want to stop terrorism you need to hunt down and kill or capture terrorists... you do not stop terrorists by killing everything that moves in the belief that there 'must be a terrorist in there somewhere', it is like burning down your house to kill a cockroach. You hunt them down one by one and lock them up or kill them... eventually the word will get out that Terrorism is not a viable course of action. We have to hunt down anyone who uses terrorism as a tactic with the same intensity that we uses on Timothy McVeigh, Theodore Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph

With our policy in the Middle East and elsewhere we have insured that terrorism will flourish for many years to come.

Christy has developed a rash so we are going in to see Peggy this afternoon. The girls both have Sports Physicals this afternoon too... A Sports Physical is pretty rudimentary but I am hoping that she can take a look at Calie's rash at the same time, it looks a bit like Poison Ivy but there is no itch...

Calie got some ointment and I will pick up some other sort of ointment for Christy tomorrow. The girls are good to go for Basketball and Volleyball season...

"BP has shut down an Alaskan oil field ostensibly due to corrosion of a pipeline..."

By now you may have heard that BP shut down an Alaskan oil field ostensibly due to a corroded pipeline that needs to be replaced. Oil prices have already spiked $ a barrel as 400 000 barrels a day dropped off an already-tight market. (The US consumes around 0 million barrels of oil per

I can't help but think back to California's energy "crisis " during which Enron and other energy traders asked energy producers to take plants offline for "maintenance" at inopportune times of high demand thereby reducing supply and increasing energy prices up to eight times higher than other states. The deliberate withholding of supply led to skyrocketing prices and rolling blackouts doing untold economic damage. (More)

The Dixie Chicks have been forced to cancel several stops on their new tour... all in the South and Midwest... anyone surprised? I have learned to like the Dixie Chicks a lot because they stuck to their guns like real Americans. I learned something yesterday, Willie Nelson said he was surprised his remarks about Bush a year earlier during an overseas news conference didn't incite a similar controversy.

"I said 'He's not from Texas and he ain't a cowboy, so let's stop trashin' Texans and cowboys.' It got a little chuckle, but I didn't get run out of the country,"

Didn't make it to the dump, drove to Colville, made appt's at the Optometrist, Took the van in to get the AC fixed, Had Breakfast, picked up the van, (they couldn't fix it). We went to Wal-Mart and spent an outrageous amount of money on clothes for the girls. I replaced the back door knob, went to the Town Council Meeting here in Metaline.

The Town Council Meeting was quite interesting... and enlightening. Three members of the board were absent, the Mayor Pro Tem was presiding because the Mayor quit. The Mayor's job is voluntary, you volunteer and are voted in or out by the Board apparently. It can get contentious and the Old Mayor is too old to want to put up with the "petty bickering." I was 50% of the audience, the other half was a fella who's tone of voice implied that he wanted to argue or fight... very off-putting.

Had a visit to the clinic for Monica, Cindy and Christy... Monica is going to get her tonsils out... finally. I made an appointment to get the Van repaired... Wednesday of next week

I found out today that no one can access this website, I have written to the old Rglobal, now RPM Wireless, to see what is going on...

All better... wheew, My old ISP changed names but he put in a link to the old one so everything should still work.

Calie and I worked on mulching up some tree branches thet I has cut off on Wednesday... looks better down by the shop. We stired up a colony od gnats though and they managed to drive us out of there.

Does this turn your stomach? Bush and his henchmen are slimy, reprehensible, despicable examples of American elitism, I am ashamed of my Government. If President Bush, his Administration and their subordinates in the CIA and Military are as righteously justified in their actions and policies over the past 4 years, as they have claimed to be, why do they feel it necessary to cover their asses with an Amendment to the War Crimes Act? The sanctimonious butchers are terrified that they will be exposed and held to account for their excesses... Damn them to Hell!

Something else is bothering me... perhaps it's that I just watched V is for Vengeance but I really don't trust these bastards.

I am paraphrasing Nick at Morons.org... When I woke up I read that the Brits had announced that they had arrested 21 of their countrymen over a terrorist plot to set off bombs during flights from the United Kingdom to the United States. MI5 also raised the alert level in Great Britain to its highest level-- Critical-- indicating that a terrorist attack could be imminent.

Here in the US, the threat level was raised to "severe", which corresponds with the color Terracotta or perhaps Beet or maybe Mauve, for all flights from the UK to the US. For all other flights the threat level has been raised to "high" or Tangerine.

British police characterized the plot as "foiled." Britain's Home Secretary John Reid said he was confident the main players in the plot had been arrested.

So here's my question: if the plot has been foiled, its instigators arrested, then why has the threat level been raised? I see two possibilities:

The plot has not been foiled completely and/or some of those behind it are still at large and are still determined to get onto planes.
The governments of the US and/or the UK need to keep their citizens terrified.
Have I missed anything? Oh yeah, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are both still on vacation.

One other thing, the technique used by those idiots was invented by an American back in 1889, it is a very dangerous method to use and extremely unstable, it was already used on a plane leaving the Philippines back in 1994. Why are the authorities treating this as a new threat? Why haven't they been looking for 'Liquid Bombs" all along...?

We took an nice drive today, we went over Smackout Pass and Meadow Road to Northport and then down to Colville...

I was accused of being a snob, at first I was offended until I realized that by today's standards for Snobbery I guess they are probably right.

When I look up the top twenty shows on TV I notice that I don't watch any of them, I can't say I don't like them because, except for 60 Minutes I haven't even seen them. I think NASCAR used to be fun but now it's Big Business and it's a joke and what's more, when he was alive Dale Ernhart was an egotistical bully and one of the dirtiest drivers on the track and he didn't become a saint when he died. Professional Wrestling is the equivalent of Saturday Morning Cartoons and not nearly entertaining. I would never own a Harley, I'd sooner buy a Schwinn.

I did not attend the Larry the Cable Guy movie. I have never visited Branson, Mo nor do I have a desire to. Maybe someday I will go there after the Dixie Chicks open their own Theater. I do not watch reality TV, daytime TV or morning TV, and furthermore, think Garrison Keillor is a National Treasure and a hell of a lot funnier than anyone on TV and I think Regis Philbin has chutzpa not talent and by the endless succession of perky sidekicks so do the people who work with him.

When I was younger a snob was someone who did not associate with his "economic and social inferiors" and would hold forth for hours on the subject of "why civilization has been in decline since the un-landed gentry & women were given the vote and slavery was abolished."

To be a snob today all you have to do is not care who wins American Idol or doubt that Rush Limbaugh and Oprah Winfrey have the answer to World Peace.

Some may say that I can't be a slob because I think the best singer in the world is still Linda Ronstadt, I like to watch motorcycles race, I don't own a suit and my baseball cap says Budweiser. I am though, I have no patience for superficiality, shallow humor, insincerity, rudeness or insensitivity. Good Ol' Boys bore me to anger, (I know the usual word is 'tears' but GOBoy's are a waste of time and piss me off)

I guess the being a snob is a little complicated... There are all sorts of snobs, in a way I think some aspects of our lives we are all snobs... In the back of our minds we seem to be saying to ourselves that people who think like I do are OK, people who don't are either inferior or they are snobs...

I understand that very few people will appreciate what just happened on the Millville Motocross Track in Michigan a few hours ago... I listened to the Motocross race from Spring Creek [Millville] Michigan, the track was dry in the first moto and it was won by Ricky Carmichael, he also won the second, not terribly unusual but the cool part was that the second was won in the rain and mud. Ricky beat everyone to the first turn and proceeded to lap the entire field in the 10th lap... that has only ever been done once and that was on a Supercross Track about.

We saw our first bear, just a cub, it was eating thimbleberrys beside the road... this was taken on the way up to Canada back when the brothers and sisters in-law were up here last week... I just forgot to add it

Retroactive war crime protection drafted

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 10, 9:22 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal. The move by the administration is the latest effort to deal with treatment of those taken into custody in the war on terror.

At issue are interrogations carried out by the CIA, and the degree to which harsh tactics such as water-boarding were authorized by administration officials. A separate law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, applies to the military.

The Washington Post first reported on the War Crimes Act amendments Wednesday.

One section of the draft would outlaw torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, but it does not contain prohibitions from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions against "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment." A copy of the section of the draft was obtained by The Associated Press.

The White House, without elaboration, said in a statement that the bill "will apply to any conduct by any U.S. personnel, whether committed before or after the law is enacted."

Two attorneys said that the draft is in the revision stage but that the administration seems intent on pushing forward the draft's major points in Congress after Labor Day. The two attorneys spoke on condition of anonymity because their sources did not authorize them to release the information.

"I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That's why it's so dangerous," said a third attorney, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

Fidell said the initiative is "not just protection of political appointees, but also CIA personnel who led interrogations."

Interrogation practices "follow from policies that were formed at the highest levels of the administration," said a fourth attorney, Scott Horton, who has followed detainee issues closely. "The administration is trying to insulate policymakers under the War Crimes Act."

The Bush administration contends Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions includes a number of vague terms that are susceptible to different interpretations.

Extreme interrogation practices have been a flash point for criticism of the administration.

When interrogators engage in waterboarding, prisoners are strapped to a plank and dunked in water until nearly drowning.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., said Congress "is aware of the dilemma we face, how to make sure the CIA and others are not unfairly prosecuted."

He said that at the same time, Congress "will not allow political appointees to waive the law."

Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA's executive director, said that "

President Bush is looking to limit the War Crimes Act through legislation" now that the Supreme Court has embraced Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. In June, the court ruled that Bush's plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates Article 3.

by Greg Palast
For The Guardian (UK)
Tuesday, August 9, 2006

Is the Alaska Pipeline corroded? You bet it is. Has been for more than a decade. Did British Petroleum shut the pipe yesterday to turn a quick buck on its negligence, to profit off the disaster it created? Just ask the "smart pig."

Years ago, I had the unhappy job of leading an investigation of British Petroleum's management of the Alaska pipeline system. I was working for the Chugach villages, the Alaskan Natives who own the shoreline slimed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker grounding.

Even then, courageous government inspectors and pipeline workers were screaming about corrosion all through the pipeline. I say "courageous" because BP, which owns 46% of the pipe and is supposed to manage the system, had a habit of hunting down and destroying the careers of those who warn of pipeline problems.

In one case, BP's CEO of Alaskan operations hired a former CIA expert to break into the home of a whistleblower, Chuck Hamel, who had complained of conditions at the pipe's tanker facility. BP tapped his phone calls with a US congressman and ran a surveillance and smear campaign against him. When caught, a US federal judge said BP's acts were "reminiscent of Nazi Germany."

This was not an isolated case. Captain James Woodle, once in charge of the pipe's Valdez terminus, was blackmailed into resigning the post when he complained of disastrous conditions there. The weapon used on Woodle was a file of faked evidence of marital infidelity. Nice guys, eh?

Now let's talk timing. BP's suddenly discovered corrosion necessitating an emergency shut-down of the line is the same corrosion Dan Lawn has been screaming about for 15 years. Lawn is a steel-eyed government inspector who has kept his job only because his union's lawyers have kept BP from having his head.

Indeed, it's pretty darn hard for BP to claim it is surprised to find corrosion this week when Lawn issued a damning report on corrosion right after a leak and spill were discovered on March 2 of this year.

Why shut the pipe now? The timing of a sudden inspection and fix of a decade-long problem has a suspicious smell. A precipitous shutdown in mid-summer, in the middle of Middle East war(s), is guaranteed to raise prices and reap monster profits for BP.  The price of crude jumped $2.22 a barrel on the shutdown news to over $76. How lucky for BP which sells four million barrels of oil a day. Had BP completed its inspection and repairs a couple years back -- say, after Dan Lawn's tenth warning -- the oil market would have hardly noticed.

But $2 a barrel is just the beginning of BP's shut-down bonus. The Alaskan oil was destined for the California market which now faces a supply crisis at the very height of the summer travel season. The big winner is ARCO petroleum, the largest retailer in the Golden State. ARCO is a 100%-owned subsidiary of … British Petroleum.

BP could have fixed the pipeline problem this past winter, after their latest corrosion-caused oil spill. But then ARCO would have lost the summertime supply-squeeze windfall.

Enron Corporation was infamous for deliberately timing repairs to maximize profit. Would BP also manipulate the market in such a crude manner? Some US prosecutors think they did so in the US propane market. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) just six weeks ago charged the company with approving an Enron-style scheme to crank up the price of propane sold in poor rural communities in the US. One former BP exec has pleaded guilty.

Lord Browne, the imperious CEO of BP, has apologized for that scam, for the Alaska spill, for this week's shutdown and for the deaths in 2005 of 15 workers at the company's mortally sloppy refinery operation at Texas City, Texas.

I don't want readers to think BP isn't civic-minded. The company's US CEO, Bob Malone, was Co-Chairman of the Bush re-election campaign in Alaska. Mr. Bush, in turn, was so impressed with BP's care of Alaska's environment that he pushed again to open the state's arctic wildlife refuge (ANWR) to drilling by the BP consortium.

Indeed, you can go to Alaska today and see for yourself the evidence of BP's care of the wilderness. You can smell it: the crude oil still on the beaches from the Exxon Valdez spill.

Exxon took all the blame for the spill because they were dumb enough to have the company's name on the ship. But it was BP's pipeline managers who filed reports that oil spill containment equipment was sitting right at the site of the grounding near Bligh Island. However, the reports were bogus, the equipment wasn't there and so the beaches were poisoned.   At the time, our investigators uncovered four-volume's worth of faked safety reports and concluded that BP was at least as culpable as Exxon for the 1,200 miles of oil-destroyed coastline.

Nevertheless, m'Lord Browne preens himself with his corporation's environmental record. We know BP cares about nature because they have lots of photos of solar panels in their annual reports -- and they've painted every one of their gas stations green.

The green paint-job is supposed to represent the oil giant's love of Mother Nature. But the good Lord, Mr. Browne, knows it stands for the color of the Yankee dollar.

BP claims the profitable timing of its Alaska pipe shutdown can be explained because they've only now run a "smart pig" through the pipes to locate the corrosion.   The "pig" is an electronic drone that BP should have been using continuously, though they had not done so for 14 years. The fact that, in the middle of an oil crisis, they've run it through now, forcing the shutdown, reminds me, when I consider Lord Browne's closeness to George Bush, that the company's pig is indeed, very, very smart.

The headlines blared the re-sults of an election that 0.0001 percent of Americans paid any attention to while it was going on: “Mexico Conservative Scrapes Election Win.”

Now, the use of conservative here suggests that there is some universal understanding of the term. But what could it be?

When Russian and East European politics turned against market reforms, it was said that the conservatives were coming back. So it is in China when the Communist Party affirms its control—though this case is complicated because apparently the Communists are more pro-market than the democratic reformers. In the U.S., it means something else.

So what is a conservative in Mexico? This country was host to the first communist revolution in world history (1910). Recently, it has undergone some praiseworthy market reforms. Perhaps to be a conservative, then, means to restore the old socialist luster? It’s plausible.

But no: the press was perfectly clear on what the term means in this context. Yes, the winning candidate, Felipe Calderon, favors the business class—which is fine by me. Yes, he seems to like the idea of free trade—which is also great. He is a drug warrior—which is a very bad position but consistent with the U.S. definition of conservative. But mostly, what conservative means in this context is that he is a loyal retainer of the ruling party in the United States. In other words, what the press means by Mexican conservative is more or less the same as the way the term is used in the U.S. It means loyalty to the Republican Party state.

Many conservatives of a certain bent will object that this is not the true meaning of the word, and they will cite Richard Weaver, Frank Meyer, and the Old Right. But the truth is that the use of the word “conservative” to mean what used to be called liberal is a postwar innovation of Russell Kirk’s. It has no roots deeper in American history.

If there are conservatives who believe in true liberty today, they were called liberals in earlier times. And any socialists today who call themselves liberals have simply stolen the term and converted it to mean its opposite.

The reality is that today there are ever fewer conservatives alive who believe in true liberty as the old school believed in it. They have been ideologically compromised beyond repair. They have been so seduced by the Bush administration that they have become champions of an egregious war, ghastly bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security, and utterly unprincipled on the question of government growth.

Granted, the corruption of conservatism dates way back—to the Reagan administration, to the Nixon administration, and even to the advent of the Cold War, when conservatives signed on to become cheerleaders of the national security state.

But it’s never been as bad as it is today. They sometimes invoke the names of genuinely radical thinkers such as F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. But their real heroes are talk-radio blabsters, television entertainers, and sexpot pundit quipsters. They have little intellectual curiosity at all.

In many ways, today’s conservatives are party men and women not unlike those we saw in totalitarian countries, people who spout the line and slay the enemy without a thought as to the principles involved. Yes, they hate the Left. But only because the Left is the “other.”

This is why they fail to see that the Left has been making a lot more sense on policy issues in recent years. It is correct on civil liberties, on issues of war and peace, and on the critical issue of religious liberty. By “correct” I mean that in these areas the Left is saying precisely what the liberals of old used to say: as much as possible, society ought to be left to manage itself without the coercive intervention of the state.

Many of us had profound hopes at the end of the Cold War that the conservative movement in this country would give up its warmongering and attachment to party politics and follow the path of pure principle. For awhile, while Clinton was office, this seemed to be happening. How well I can recall the years from 1992 to 1996, when the Republican Party was against government expansion and Clintonian foreign intervention.

But it was a brief moment. We might say that time revealed the truth. To be a conservative in this country means to hold a deep and implacable attachment to the regime insofar as it is run by the Republican Party. Note that I’m not saying that this is a corruption of the term “conservative” or a misunderstanding. This is what the word means in reality, and there is nothing that can be done about it.

I think there are intellectual reasons for this. A crude form of Hobbesianism has corrupted every conservative thinker in this country. They sincerely believe that it is not liberty that gave rise to civilization but state-generated law, without which society would crumble. So when push comes to shove, they defend the state, no matter how bloody it becomes.

Do you protest? Have I misstated your own political views? You truly love liberty and hate the state and all its works? Good. Bail out of conservatism. Call yourself a libertarian, a liberal, an anarchist, an independent, a revolutionary, a Jeffersonian radical. Or make up your own name. But please, wake up and smell the massivo espresso: when it comes to mindless party loyalty, conservatism today is as bad as communism ever was.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and editor of LewRockwell.com.

Bombs and Baloney

The news is full of little else than the foiled terrorist plot to blow up a number of airliners in midair. Every official who can possibly justify it is popping up before the cameras with something to say, including, of course, the president.

Does Mr. Bush ever consider that, perhaps, he has become so accustomed to glib platitudes that he has actually come to believe them? I just saw him emerge from Air Force One and tell us, with appropriate solemnity, that Islamo-fascists (as distinct from Red-State-fascists?) are again trying to destroy us because we are free. Wake up, George! If they are trying to destroy us, it has nothing to do with our nominal freedom, but the fact that we are supplying Israel with the bombs, napalm, missiles, etc., with which they are destroying Lebanon, as we have destroyed Iraq, and occupied Afghanistan. If they are trying to destroy us, it just might be because we ARE destroying them! At some point, wouldn’t it be appropriate to consider that?

Of course, the terrorist destruction referred to is that of six, or ten, airliners, mostly, but not necessarily exclusively, American. Details are sketchy. But is that the plot? Quite possibly. But maybe the plot is simply to inconvenience as many people as possible for as long as possible. That can be done with virtually no effort or expense on the part of the terrorists, and the cost, to the U.S. and Britain, must be staggering. Reports are that 400,000 people have had their travel plans disrupted by this plot. More precisely, they have had their travel plans disrupted by the reaction to the plot!

In that regard, consider the statements of New York’s Mayor Bloomberg. In his TV appearance he assured us that the way to defeat terrorism is to be brave. He urged that we not let the terrorists disrupt our way of life, but continue going on about our business as always. But obviously, the 400,000 people whose travels have been disrupted cannot go about business as usual, and the people in the Mayor’s town of New York planning to travel to London – or even within the United States – will be subjected to delays and inconveniences. They cannot go about business as usual, despite their Mayor’s exhortation.

Are these increased security measures accomplishing anything? Absolutely! They are increasing the demand for ever-increased security, which means ever-decreased personal freedom. They may succeed in pushing financially strapped airlines into bankruptcy, to be taken over by the government. Combined with high gasoline prices, travel restrictions may have the effect of keeping Americans at home, or close to it. They will serve to justify the need for personal ID to be carried at all times. They encourage observation of anyone looking remotely foreign, or suspicious; and that could mean almost anyone.

Who benefits from all this? The terrorists? Yes, to the extent that their aim is to disrupt our lives as much as possible. Even more directly and immediately, however, that organization benefits which is dedicated to regulating, limiting, and controlling society: government. Indeed, to govern is defined as controlling, limiting, and regulating.

Isn’t it interesting that, only days before the frustrated terrorist attack, eleven Egyptian students arrived in this country and promptly disappeared? Here are foreigners – Muslims, yet – who got off an airplane and, at least for a while, vanished. For some reason, the disappearance of these young men didn’t result in TV appearances by local officials warning of an "Islamo-fascist" threat. So much for security!

When a single phone call to authorities revealing a nefarious plot, or a single leaked message, or suspicious email, can put an entire country on alert, and disrupt the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, at a cost of many millions of dollars, terrorism is winning the war. Is the challenge to our freedom any greater when it comes from well-groomed Americans spouting banalities?

Retroactive war crime protection drafted

The Brilliantly Profitable Timing of the Alaska Oil Pipeline Shutdown

Bombs and Baloney