My time zone letter ran in The Republic (Columbus, Indiana)

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 00:15:17 -0500 (published Thursday, 13 October 2005)
To: "Harmon John -- letter to the editor"
Subject: Favor Central Time

I still favor the DOT putting all of Indiana into a single time zone. Central still appears to be the best choice to me.

Eastern proponents prefer to have the latest sunset (nominally 7:32 pm) extended 103 minutes later than Local Mean Time (LMT) to 9:15 pm and prefer to have the earliest sunset in December no earlier than 5:20 pm. They value these later sunset times enough to tolerate having the sunrise extended to as late as 8:15 am just before we go back to standard time for the winter in early November (starting 2007).

On the other hand, most Central proponents value either an earlier winter morning sunrise, a not quite so late summer sunset, or both, and therefore prefer a more modest 43-minute extension of the latest sunset (compared to LMT) from 7:32 pm to 8:15pm (as we have had with year-round EST / CDT since the 1960's). To achieve this, they are willing to tolerate sunsets as early as 4:20 pm in December.

There is not really a right or wrong side. It primarily comes down to individual preference and would perhaps best be decided by some sort of statewide referendum.

I see the major benefit of Daylight Saving Time (DST) to Indiana commerce as not primarily due to a specific time zone into which the DOT could decide to put Indiana, but as primarily due to almost everyone else in the U.S. always knowing exactly how many hours different their time is from any given city in Indiana.

With about 394 miles of Indiana bordering the Central time portions of Illinois and Kentucky and about 393 miles bordering the Eastern time portions of Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky, there would be approximately as many people having to adjust to having neighbors an hour different across the state line whether Indiana were placed entirely on Central or Eastern, so I don't see that as a significant factor favoring either time zone.

Business in the rest of the country is already accustomed to dealing with Indiana on Central Daylight during the 7 summer months of the year and on Eastern Standard the remaining 5 months, so year-round Central should require a slightly smaller adjustment for our business partners than year-round Eastern.

Being on Central time would serve the convenience of commerce by putting Indiana at most two hours away from all businesses in the continental U.S., rather than being up to three hours different from the west coast on Eastern time.

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce points out that 39 percent of Indiana's exports are with states that observe Eastern time. This implies that the remaining 61 percent is with states that lie west of Indiana, with whom our time difference would be one hour less on Central time.

Regardless of which time zone the state may end up in, individual business executives are still free to operate their businesses on whichever schedule provides the greatest competitive advantage, as they always have been. It is already common practice to ask employees to plan their work week around a very early or very late conference call with a business several time zones away.

Some Eastern proponents express concern that it might not seem worthwhile to observe DST if Indiana is on Central time. This is a valid question that deserves evaluation. Let us compare Indianapolis with other cities across the country that are about midway between the middle and eastern edge of a standard time zone, like Indiana.

Indianapolis is about 15 minutes earlier than the center (90 degrees) of the nearest standard time zone. Other major U.S. cities which are also located 10 to 20 minutes east of their nearest standard time zone meridian include Spokane WA (10 minutes), Nashville TN (13), Boston (16), and Las Vegas (19).

The most benefit from DST is received in late July, when the sun passes overhead the latest in the day, and the maximum shift of sunlight occurs from before noon to after. The accompanying table shows how many more minutes of daylight are received after noon than before. As the table shows, Indianapolis would receive approximately as much benefit from DST on Central Time as these other similarly-situated cities.

The benefit received by Indiana from DST on Central time is nearly identical to that received by Boston on Eastern time (which lies almost exactly one standard time zone to our east). We don't hear about Boston's residents asking to be in the next time zone to their east (Atlantic Time) because they don't think they get enough benefit from DST.

City	More minutes pm than am
Las Vegas	94
Boston	101
Indy (Central)	102
Nashville TN	107
Spokane WA	112
Indy (Eastern)	222

The Republic

Not Yours to Give

Words of wisdom from Congressman Dave Crockett and constituent Horatio Bunce:

Originally published in "The Life of Colonel David Crockett," by Edward Sylvester Ellis.

we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it.

We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money...

We cannot without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please...

the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the honest he is...

In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man...

there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.

If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give at all; and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. 'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.

'Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose...

'The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.

'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people...

There are in that House many very wealthy men - men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon... the insignificance and worthlessness of money... Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.

Not Yours to Give

My DOT post of 2 Oct 2005 favoring Central Time for Indiana

Title: Time Zone Boundaries in the State of Indiana
Docket: OST-2005-22114
- dms.dot.gov/search/searchResultsSimple.cfm?numberValue=22114&searchType=docket

To: Joanne Petrie
via "http://dms.dot.gov/submit/"
Office of the General Counsel (C-50)
400 7TH ST SW
WASHINGTON DC 20590-0001

PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME (supplement)
===========================================
From following the time zone issue, I think some people probably have a hard time putting Indiana's geographic location into perspective, as it relates to our time zone.

Chris's post of 23 September 2005 (OST-2005-22114-445) gave me an idea of how to put this into very simple terms.

Indianapolis is 11.3 degrees west of the Eastern time zone meridian. Buffalo, New York is 11.3 degrees east of the Central meridian. Given our geographic location, putting Indiana on Eastern time makes about as much sense as putting Buffalo on Central.

Howard Trexler, columnist for the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, has recently made note of the five-week extension of Daylight Saving Time coming up in 2007, and its implications for late sunrises the first week of March and November.

Now might be the time for Central Standard

Based on sunrises as late as 7:48 in March and 7:46 in November, he proposed in July that the Florida legislature consider exempting itself from Daylight Saving Time (sounds familiar). But now, Trexler reports, Jeff Stabins, county commissioner and former Florida state legislator, has proposed moving the entire state of Florida to Central time.

"After all, Stabins points out, part of Florida's Panhandle already lies in the Central zone. We would be unifying our state, while putting the sunrise back where it ought to be." (sounds familiar too)

St. Petersburg, at 82.7 degrees, is the same longitude as central Ohio (also 82.7). Florida, like Ohio, is bisected by the 82.5-degree midpoint between the Eastern and Central standard meridians.

Trexler's proposal is analogous to a columnist from Columbus, Ohio proposing that the whole state of Ohio should consider observing Central time in order to avoid these extreme late sunrises when Daylight Saving Time is extended, starting 2007.

If Trexler thinks 7:46 and 7:48 am sunrise in St. Petersburg sounds extreme, just imagine how he would feel about 8:07 or 8:20 am those same two days in Indianapolis on Eastern Daylight Time.

Sincerely, Bill Starr
Bartholomew County resident
Sun, 2 Oct 2005

Document OST-2005-22114-496

My DOT post of 18 Sep 2005 favoring Central Time for Indiana

Title: Time Zone Boundaries in the State of Indiana
Docket: OST-2005-22114-401

To: Joanne Petrie
via "http://dms.dot.gov/submit/"
Office of the General Counsel (C-50)
400 7TH ST SW
WASHINGTON DC 20590-0001

PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME (supplement)
===========================================
I just wanted to add one more little bit of data for your consideration in deciding whether to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on any proposed time zone changes for Indiana.

The following table compares the earliest summer sunrise and earliest winter sunset times for Indianapolis with several other major cities approximately evenly spaced across the U.S., which also fall between the 38th and 42nd parallels (lines of latitude) like Indiana.

I have shown two entries for Indianapolis, illustrating where we would fall in the range depending on the time zone to which Indiana is eventually assigned.

As you can see, if Indiana remains in the Eastern Time Zone when we begin to observe Daylight Saving Time, our earliest summer sunrise and winter sunset would be 13-to-66 minutes later than all of these other major cities at our latitude.

Whereas if we are moved back to the Central Time Zone, we are near the early end of the range (although not the earliest), but still within 0-to-47 minutes of all of the other cities in this list.

City Earliest sunrise (mid-June) Earliest sunset (early Dec)
==== =========================== ===========================
Providence RI 5:10am 4:15pm
Chicago 5:15am 4:20pm
Indy (Central) 5:16am 4:20pm
New York 5:24am 4:28pm
Denver 5:31am 4:35pm
Reno NV 5:31am 4:35pm
Saint Louis MO 5:36am 4:40pm
Sacramento CA 5:41am 4:45pm
Washington DC 5:42am 4:46pm
Pittsburgh PA 5:49am 4:53pm
Kansas City MO 5:52am 4:56pm
Salt Lake City UT 5:56am 5:00pm
Columbus OH 6:03am 5:07pm
Indy (Eastern) 6:16am 5:20pm

Ref: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.html (U.S. Naval Observatory sunrise/set times)

Sincerely, Bill Starr
Bartholomew County resident
Sun, 18 Sep 2005

My DOT post of 18 Sep 2005 favoring Central Time for Indiana

My DOT post of 16 Sep 2005 favoring Central Time for Indiana

Title: Time Zone Boundaries in the State of Indiana
Docket: OST-2005-22114-391

To: Joanne Petrie
via "http://dms.dot.gov/submit/"
Office of the General Counsel (C-50)
400 7TH ST SW
WASHINGTON DC 20590-0001

PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME (supplement)
===========================================
I think it is helpful to make one final wrap-up of what I see as the pros and cons of Central time versus Eastern time.

The baseline to which I mentally compare our two alternative time zones is Indianapolis local mean time (LMT).

There is a pretty good definition of LMT at "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_mean_time". This page defines LMT in part as follows. "Local mean time was used from the early nineteenth century... until standard time was adopted..."

In other words LMT is the time Indianapolis would have observed before the the U.S. Standard Time Act first established the four continental U.S. standard time zones in 1918. LMT is similar to apparent local time, but corrected for the inherent 15-minute-per-year or so variation of the sun's east-to-west position in the sky.

With LMT and without any daylight time, the earliest sunrise of the year in Indianapolis would be 4:32 am about June 14. The latest sunrise would be 7:22 am about January 5. The earliest sunset would be 4:35 pm about December 7 and the latest sunset would be 7:32 pm about June 28. These are the baselines against which we compare the shift in time by observing Central or Eastern standard time.

I perceive that the major benefit of Daylight Saving Time (DST) to Indiana commerce is not due to the specific time zone into which the DOT decides to put Indiana, but is primarily due to nearly all of Indiana being on a single time, and everyone else in the U.S. who observes DST always knowing exactly how many hours different their time is from any particular city in Indiana. If the DOT ends up putting all, or nearly all, of Indiana in a single zone, this would obviously make it even easier for anyone in the U.S. to know the time almost anywhere in Indiana any day of the year.

With about 394 miles of Indiana bordering the Central time portions of Illinois and Kentucky and about 393 miles bordering the Eastern time portions of Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky, there are going to be approximately as many people having to adjust to having neighbors across the state line on a different time whether Indiana is on Central or Eastern, so I don't think that is a significant factor favoring either time zone.

I believe that so many Hoosiers feel so strongly about the time because with our particular north-south latitude we have such a wide variation in the amount of sunlight over the course of a year. At the summer solstice (about June 21), the longest day is about 14.99 hours in Indianapolis. At the winter solstice (about December 22), the shortest day is only 9.35 hours. This is about 5½ more hours of daylight to figure out how to distribute most conveniently in June compared to December, when we start being concerned about people getting safely to their destinations in the morning or evening darkness or dusk.

Although couched in the preferred DOT criteria of "convenience of commerce", I believe that a lot of the passion on the issue, particularly away from the border counties of the state, mainly comes down to the following individual preference.

The Eastern proponents prefer to have the latest sunset (nominally 7:32 pm) extended 103 minutes later than LMT to 9:15 pm and prefer to have the earliest sunset in December no earlier than 5:20 pm. They value these later sunset times enough to tolerate having the sunrise extended those same 103 minutes to as late as 8:15 am just before we go back to standard time for the winter in early November (starting 2007).

On the other hand, I believe most Central proponents value either a not quite so late winter morning sunrise, a not quite so late summer sunset, or both, and therefore prefer a more modest 43-minute extension of the latest sunset (compared to LMT) from 7:32 pm to 8:15pm (as we have had with year-round EST / CDT since the 1960's). To achieve this, they are willing to tolerate sunsets as early as 4:20 pm in December (15 minutes earlier than we would have with LMT).

As I mentioned in a previous comment, this is virtually the same amount of additional sunlight that several other parts of the country are seemingly content to achieve with Daylight Saving Time, including a number of other major U.S. cities such as Spokane WA, Las Vegas NV, Nashville TN, Montgomery AL, and Boston MA.

In my opinion, neither side is objectively right or wrong. It just comes down to individual preference and would perhaps therefore best be decided eventually by some sort of statewide referendum.

It appears to me that collective individual preference should have greater weight than the collective voice of the business owners and executives. The reason I say this is that regardless of which time zone the state ends up in (and I hope that it does end up predominantly in a single zone), individual business owners and executives are still free to operate and manager their businesses on whichever schedule provides them the greatest competitive advantage, as they always have been.

They don't need to be in a particular time zone to ask an employee to work whatever shift is needed for best communication with business associates in other time zones. It is already common practice for U.S. businesses to ask employees to plan their workday or work week around a very early or very late conference call with a business several time zones away.

I hope that helps to bring the emotions on this issue into a little better perspective.

Sincerely, Bill Starr
Fri, 16 Sep 2005, 11:49pm EST / CDT

My DOT post of 16 Sep 2005 favoring Central Time for Indiana

My DOT post of 14 Sep 2005 favoring Central Time for Indiana

Title: Time Zone Boundaries in the State of Indiana
Docket: OST-2005-22114-130

To: Joanne Petrie
via "http://dms.dot.gov/submit/"
Office of the General Counsel (C-50)
400 7TH ST SW
WASHINGTON DC 20590-0001


PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME (supplement)
===========================================
I have noticed that quite a few proponents of Eastern time express a concern that it would not be worthwhile observing Daylight Saving Time if Indiana is in the Central zone.

This is certainly a valid concern that deserves evaluation against solid facts. I find that it is helpful to compare how much additional evening daylight we would have on Central Daylight Time with other places in the country that are about midway between the middle and eastern edge of a standard time zone, like Indiana.

Indianapolis is a handy city to use for reference, since it is almost exactly the geographic center of Indiana, as well as the state capitol. According the the U.S. Naval Observatory website, the longitude of Indianapolis is 86.13 degrees. This puts us 3.87 degrees east of the nearest standard time zone meridian, which is at 90 degrees (Central time). The other standard time zone meridian lines for the continental U.S. are at 75 (Eastern), 105 (Mountain), and 120 (Pacific).

Being 3.87 degrees east of the nearest meridian means that the sun sets in Indy about 15 minutes earlier than at the center of the nearest standard time zone. Other major U.S. cities which are also located 10 to 20 minutes east of their nearest standard time zone meridian include Spokane WA (10 minutes east), Nashville TN (13 minutes east), Boston (16 minutes east), and Las Vegas (19 minutes east).

The following table illustrates the additional number of minutes of daylight each of these comparably-situated cities enjoys after noon than before, for four representative dates in 2006. The sunrise and sunset times used to make this calculation are from the U.S. Naval Observatory website (with one hour added for Daylight Time April through October).

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.html

The first date (January) is mid-winter, about midway through the standard time period. The following three dates are representative of the beginning (April), middle (July), and end (October) of the daylight saving time period. On January 15, although the evening and morning daylight is about equal, the parentheses indicate that there are a few more minutes of sun in the morning than in the evening that time of year (when not observing Daylight time).

MORE MINUTES OF SUN AFTER NOON THAN BEFORE

1/15 4/15 7/15 10/15
===== ===== ===== =====
Spokane WA (2) 100 110 70
Nashville TN (7) 95 105 65
Indianapolis (12) 90 101 60
Boston (12) 90 100 60
Las Vegas (19) 82 93 53

As the table shows, the facts give little basis for concern that Indiana will not still receive the benefit of significant additional evening sunshine while observing Central Daylight Saving Time (just as we effectively have for the past few decades on EST). Daylight Saving Time gives a substantial shift of daylight from morning to evening throughout the daylight saving period.

The amount of extra evening daylight is in the same general range enjoyed by other areas of the U.S. which are also located midway across the eastern half of a standard time zone like Indiana.

In fact, the table shows that the benefit to Indiana from Daylight Saving on Central time is nearly identical to that of Boston on Eastern time (which lies almost exactly one full standard time zone -- 15 degrees -- to our east). I don't see anything in the news about Boston's wanting to be in the next time zone to its east (Atlantic Time) because it doesn't think it's getting enough benefit from Daylight Time.

Sincerely, Bill Starr
Bartholomew County resident
14 Sep 2005

My DOT post of 14 Sep 2005 favoring Central Time for Indiana

My DOT post of 11 Sep 2005 favoring Central Time for Indiana

Title: Time Zone Boundaries in the State of Indiana
Docket: OST-2005-22114

To: Joanne Petrie
via "http://dms.dot.gov/submit/"
Office of the General Counsel (C-50)
400 7TH ST SW
WASHINGTON DC 20590-0001

PETITION FAVORING CENTRAL TIME
==============================
I request that the Department of Transportation issue a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), which will solicit public comment, and schedule public hearings on the proposed time zone change for Indiana.

I respectfully petition the DOT to seriously consider moving Bartholomew County and the entire state of Indiana back to the Central time zone. When time zones were first enacted by Congress (Standard Time Act of 1918), the Central-Eastern line bisected Ohio, so the western half of Ohio and virtually all of Michigan and Kentucky fell within the natural boundaries of the Central time zone. All of Indiana was located in the Central time zone. This was because, with longitude ranging from 85 to 88 degrees, it falls well within the 15-degree range for Central time from 82.5 to 97.5 degrees longitude.

I think it would be less confusing for Indiana residents, as well as for the rest of the country, if as many Indiana counties as possible all observe the same time. Central time appears the most logical choice to me, from business as well as personal perspectives.

The primary selling point that Governor Daniels made for Indiana's switch to daylight saving time was to put Indiana in sync year-round with most of the rest of the United States. From this perspective, either Eastern or Central time would be equally advantageous -- we would still change our clocks with the rest of the country twice per year, and always be the same number of hours different from just anywhere else in the U.S. that observes Daylight Saving Time.

And the rest of the country is already accustomed to dealing with Indiana businesses on both Central and Eastern time for about six months of each year, so neither zone should require more of an adjustment for our business partners than the other.

Since 1963 or so, most of Indiana has been three hours ahead of the west coast from October through April, and two hours ahead through the summer. We have observed year-round Eastern Standard Time (UTC -0500), which based on our longitude, is equivalent to year-round Central Daylight Saving Time.

Being on Central time would serve the convenience of commerce by putting Indiana businesses at most two hours away from all of our customers and suppliers in the continental U.S., rather than being up to three hours different from the rest of the country on Eastern time. This would expand opportunities for business with the west coast, without harming our relations with the east coast, which is already accustomed to being one hour ahead of us half the year anyway.

Kevin Brinegar, President, Indiana Chamber of Commerce, points out that 39 percent of Indiana's exports are with states that observe Eastern DST. This implies that the remaining 61 percent is with states that lie west of Indiana, with whom our time difference would be the one hour less if we observed Central time.

Another argument for Central time is to align ourself most closely with the population center of the country. The mean center of population of the United States is in Missouri, and moving westward with every census.

One argument for Eastern time is that Indiana borders more states that are in the ETZ than the CTZ. However, counting states gives only a superficial assessment. Michigan, Ohio and part of Kentucky are in the ETZ. Illinois and the western part of Kentucky are in the CTZ. The shared border with ETZ states is approximately 400 miles, while the border shared with those in CTZ is approximately 390 miles. A difference of only ten miles makes this argument nearly pointless. And, even those parts of Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky that currently observe eastern time where they border Indiana actually fall within the Central time zone according to their longitude as well.

Obviously, wherever a time zone boundary occurs, residents living near that boundary have to learn to live with it, so I see no compelling argument for or against Indiana's observing either time zone. It's just a question of whether residents on the west and south or those on the north and east sides of the state need to make the adjustment, and there are about as many miles of border affected either way.

Some worry that if Indiana is on Central time that we will not enjoy the benefit of Daylight Saving Time, but by observing year-round Eastern time while lying geographically in the Central zone, we were effectively already enjoying year-round Daylight Saving Time and would not lose out on the additional hour of summer evening sunlight by observing Central Daylight Saving Time. On Central time, we will continue to enjoy the same additional sunlight in the summer evenings -- about 1.5 hours more evening sun than morning sun per day on average, while gaining one hour additional morning sunlight during the late fall and winter months of the school year.

Some Indiana business people like being an hour behind when the stock markets in New York close, so they can leave work an hour earlier and spend more time with their family.

Drive-in theater owners also favor Central time because families can get home an hour earlier after a night at the movies.

After we have begun to observe Daylight Saving Time in 2007 on Sunday, March 11, it appears much more sensible to be on Central time and have the sun rising in Indianapolis at 7am rather than 8am and setting at 6:50pm rather than 7:50pm. This gives motorists commuting to work, and schoolchildren walking and catching buses to school, in the morning an additional hour for well-lit safe travel compared to Eastern Time.

In addition to the concern about children waiting outside in the dark for their school buses in the morning, many argue that sending children to bed while it's still daylight can be difficult and might even affect a child's performance at school.

Some point out that having to stay up later to watch television shows will be an inconvenience for many people, possibly even affecting their performance at work the following day.

On Central Daylight Time, we would still have 1.8 hours more evening sun than morning sun on March 12. Shifting the time by one hour is intended to give a net two surplus hours in the evening versus the morning, and this is about what we would have with Central Daylight Time. Eastern Daylight Time would effectively be double daylight time, with almost two hours shifted from morning to evening, giving 3.8 hours more evening sun than morning sun.

When the time zones were initially established in the United States, they were approximately 15 degrees wide, centered every on every even multiple of 15 degrees longitude. This layout had the effect of putting local mean time for every point in the country within 30 minutes of the standard time for its time zone.

Indianapolis is about 15 minutes east of the 90-degree central meridian for the Central zone, but about 45 minutes from the 75-degree central meridian for Eastern, making Central the obvious choice for the whole state.

If Indiana remains in the Eastern zone, I understand that we would be the only state in the U.S. that lies completely within the mathematical boundaries of one time zone (Central) and yet observes a different time zone.

Sincerely, Bill Starr
Bartholomew County resident
http://hoosiersforcentraltime.com
Sun, 11 Sep 2005

http://dms.dot.gov/search/document.cfm?documentid=345026&docketid=22114

WorldNetDaily: Is it permissible? -- federal hurricane relief unconstitutional

Dr. Walter E. Williams writes:

"Last week, President Bush promised the nation that the federal government will pay for most of the costs of repairing hurricane-ravaged New Orleans...

"There's no question that New Orleans and her sister Gulf Coast cities have been struck with a major disaster, but should our Constitution become a part of the disaster? ...

"In February 1887, President Grover Cleveland, upon vetoing a bill appropriating money to aid drought-stricken farmers in Texas, said, 'I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and the duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.'

"President Cleveland added, 'The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.' ...

"In 1854, after vetoing a popular appropriation to assist the mentally ill, President Franklin Pierce said, 'I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity.' To approve such spending, argued Pierce, 'would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.' ...

"James Madison, the father of our Constitution, irate over a $15,000 congressional appropriation to assist some French refugees, said, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.' ...

"In 1828, South Carolina Sen. William Drayton said, 'If Congress can determine what constitutes the general welfare and can appropriate money for its advancement, where is the limitation to carrying into execution whatever can be effected by money?'

"Don't get me wrong about this. I'm not being too critical of President Bush or any other politician. There's such a broad ignorance or contempt for constitutional principles among the American people that any politician who bore truth faith and allegiance to the Constitution would commit political suicide."

WorldNetDaily: Is it permissible?

Hurricane Katrina Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State

Robert Tracinski writes:

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider 'normal' behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

"But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

"The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting."

WorldNetDaily: What independence?

Vox Day writes:

"There is always an inherent conflict between government and freedom. Nearly every act of government, almost every law and regulation that is imposed from above, is intended to limit freedom. What conservatives must understand is that it is not always possible to be a fine, upstanding, law-abiding citizen and be a free man at the same time. In fact, for most of human history, it has been impossible. The American revolutionaries were lawbreakers of the worst kind, for they were directly challenging those who were their rightful masters in the eyes of the law. And yet even today, few would argue that their disobedience was both just and right.

"The question of justice turns on the point of whether government – on all levels – has overstepped its lawful bounds. For if the laws of government have passed those limits, they are not law, but mere dictatorial assertions, with no more force than that which the government can muster. And while it is wise to obey under the threat of force, one has no moral obligation to do so, and as the recent history of Eastern Europe shows, once the people become aware that the threat of force is empty, they will begin to ignore both the government and its illegitimate laws with alacrity.

"It is impossible to know what the future holds for the United States, but one thing is sure. All governments fall in time. Ironically, governments that rely on force are more fragile than most and tend to fall even faster. The merciless totalitarians of the Soviet Union lasted a mere 72 years, a historical blip when compared with the lifespan of the British monarchy, the Roman Empire or even the neo-democratic oligarchy of the United States of America.

"The genius of America was its independence. As that independence has been systematically reduced over the years, so too has its competitive advantage over other, less free, nations declined. The best and brightest have been leaving the country for years, and the American brain drain is accelerating as the Internet has made it possible to run a software company from the Bahamas or an import-export operation from Ireland, where the taxes are lower and there's no danger of losing your home to a Wal-Mart.

"In summary, this is not a day to celebrate American independence. It is, instead, a day to mourn America's passing and pray for its eventual rebirth."

WorldNetDaily: What independence?

WorldNetDaily: Is Bush adopting a Nixon strategy?

Pat Buchanan writes:

"While Bush continues to insist Iraq is the central front in the war on terror and will never be abandoned 'on my watch,' U.S. war policy is emerging as a 21st-century version of 'Vietnamization.'

"For the president just wagered the ultimate success or failure of this mission on the ability of Iraqis themselves. 'As the Iraqis stand up,' said Bush, 'we will stand down.'

"Clearly, the president has heard the message of an impatient country. His rhetoric has been reconfigured to conform to reality...

"Bush appears to have begun to understand that for many Iraqis, the cause of this war – why they fight – is that we are there. They do not have to love Saddam to want Americans gone...

"There is another reason Bush will not be sending 100,000 more troops. The Army, Reserves, Marines and National Guard are failing to meet recruiting and re-enlistment quotas. Soon, Bush will not even have the option of sending another 100,000 troops, unless he is prepared to go to Congress and ask for a draft...

"Democracy may be the antidote to terrorism, Bush is saying, and democracy may be the future of the Middle East, but democracy is not going to be brought in on the turrets of Abrams tanks. Whether the Arabs are free will depend on the Arabs themselves. And that is as it should be...

"Thus, whether we win or lose this war is going to come down to the question it came down to for Nixon – as he pungently put it in the early 1970s – 'Can the Vietnamese hack it?'

"Can the Iraqis hack it? Can Iraqis build up their political institutions and military and security forces not only to take over from the Americans, but to win a war the Americans were unable to win? The answer to that question will give us the answer to a far greater question: Will Iraq be a historic triumph for the United States and George Bush, or is it destined to end in a defeat and a debacle more disastrous than Vietnam?

"What persuades me we are headed for a crisis is that, within the president's speech, lies a contradiction. He calls the war in Iraq 'vital to the future security of our country' – i.e., defeat would be life-threatening for America.

"But if victory is vital to this country, how can President Bush ever entrust the outcome of this war to Iraqis? If victory is vital, how can he rule out more troops? If victory is vital, how can he even rule out a draft?

"Has President Bush thought this through?"

WorldNetDaily: Is Bush adopting a Nixon strategy?

WorldNetDaily: Let's end the drug problem tomorrow

James Rutz writes:

"We now have a way to halt the illegal drug trade.

"It will require twin solutions – one at the supply end of the pipeline, the other at the demand end.

"Let's look at the demand problem this week. That's the easy one because it can be solved by government decree: Just get Congress to pass a law legalizing drugs and setting up super-discount outlets for heroin, pot, and other flavors of dunce drugs, and – poof! – the game is 90 percent over.

"A baggie of white powder that would sell for five dollars in the Colombian bush (or $1,000 in Boston) will then sell for $5.95 in Uncle Sam's Death Emporiums from coast to coast.

"Initially, a few people will overdose and die, of course, but they will amount perhaps to half a percent of the 100,000 drug-related homicides that we would otherwise expect by 2015 in our present pursuit of the increasingly insane dream of Prohibition II, the Great Drug-Free Society.

"The magic of the forbidden fruit will evaporate...

"Think back to the 1920s. Marijuana could often be found growing wild down by the river in most states, and all the kids knew what it would do if you smoked it, but no child with any social standing would have anything to do with a loser who was brainless and pathetic enough to try it more than once. That, I suggest, would soon become the prevailing attitude again if we demystified drugs by putting them where they'd be readily available...

"One big factor that keeps drugs attractive to the young is the excitement of getting away with something forbidden. So we'll take that away and give them instead the embarrassment of being the laughingstock of their peers.

"Liberals don't understand sin. They prefer to pretend that people are basically good. That way, they don't have to repent and submit their personal habits to the lordship of Jesus Christ and the standards of the Bible. They prefer to maintain their righteous self-image by howling about the horrors of a few dope dens in Amsterdam or Kathmandu. Unfortunately, people are basically flawed. The Bible says the default condition of the human heart is evil. Even the most saintly believer starts off sinful in life. Conclusion? Forget the liberal utopia. Drug dabbling is going to be with us for awhile.

"But that doesn't mean regular drug use will continue to be a problem. In any other country of the world, drugs are hardly more than a blip on the national consciousness – regardless of how lax their laws are. As Yale law professor Steven Duke says, 'Neither cocaine nor heroin is habitually consumed by more than a small fraction of the residents of any country in the world. There is no reason to suppose that Americans would be the single exception.'

"The main force that keeps drugs so popular in the United States is the war against drugs. As Paul says in Romans, the power of sin is in the Law, which goads us to sin.

"So let's change the law."

WorldNetDaily: Let's end the drug problem tomorrow

Phyllis Schlafly: Republican appointees disappoint again

Phyllis Schlafly writes:

"An unacceptable decision by Congress or the president can be corrected in the next election cycle. Yet a bad decision by the Supreme Court can burden us for decades.

"Republican presidents are elected by promising to appoint good Supreme Court justices, but have abysmally failed to deliver on their campaign pledges. Congress has promised to pass laws curbing judicial abuse, so when will it honor its pledge?

"The only good news is that the Supreme Court rendered only 76 full decisions in the past year, far fewer than its average of a decade ago. Just imagine the damage that could have been done had it worked harder!"

Phyllis Schlafly: Republican appointees disappoint again

May God save the United States from this honorable court

Judge Roy S. Moore writes:

"'All told this Court's jurisprudence leaves courts, governments, and believers and nonbelievers alike confused--an observation that is hardly new.' With these words Justice Clarence Thomas accurately described the Supreme Court's latest efforts in McCreary County v. ACLU and Van Orden v. Perry to determine whether public displays of the Ten Commandments on state property are consistent with the U.S. Constitution...

"No wonder the American people are confused by such conflicting results contained in 10 separate writings that have no consistent legal analysis. The text of the First Amendment's Religion Clauses reads, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' but was quoted in its entirety only one time in all the writings of the justices.

"As Justice Thomas so appropriately noted, one may, and indeed must, question why the court cautiously avoids the words of the First Amendment. We need to restore the original definitions of 'law,' 'establishment' and 'religion' in the First Amendment. A monument or display could never be a 'law,' the mere posting or installation of it is not an 'establishment,' and the recognition of God by the public display of the Ten Commandments is not 'religion...'

"With these cases, it should be clear that, as Justice Antonin Scalia opined in his McCreary County dissent, 'nothing stands behind the court's assertion that governmental affirmation of the society's belief in God is unconstitutional except the court's own say-so.'

"In 1952, Justice William O. Douglas, writing for the court, stated in Zorach v. Clauson, 'We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.' And in 1961 in McGowan v. Maryland, Justice Douglas observed that the 'institutions of our society are founded on a belief that there is an authority higher than the authority of the state, that there is a moral law which the state is powerless to alter, and that the state possesses rights conferred by the Creator which government must respect.' However, this week in McCreary County and Van Orden, the high court contradicts history, logic and law in denying our inalienable right to acknowledge God.

"Certainly our courts have become arbitrary in depriving Americans of life by legal abortion or starvation, by snatching property rights for private economic gain (as we saw in Kelo v. New London), and now this week by restricting our freedom to acknowledge God. Every state constitution acknowledges God and so does our national motto, 'In God we trust.' Ironically, the Supreme Court itself opens with what they called a prayer in Engel v. Vitale, 'God save the United States and this honorable court.'

"A remedy is available in the Constitution Restoration Act of 2005--pending in both houses of Congress as H.R.1070 and S.520--which would enjoin the federal courts and the Supreme Court, under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, from interfering with the right of public officials to acknowledge God, and prevent those courts from ruling by foreign law rather than the United States Constitution they are sworn to uphold.

"Article VI of the Constitution requires all state and federal officials to support that Constitution as the 'supreme Law of the Land.' The American people ask no more and they deserve no less.

"May God save the United States from this honorable court."

Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal - Extra

WorldNetDaily: No sex, brands or politics in choosing next Justice

Mychal Massie writes:

"The speculation with bated breath for the announcement of President Bush's nominee to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has begun...

"But from my perspective, what is oftentimes argued as best for the country is not what is best for America, because what is best for America is that which upholds our Constitution...

"In my opinion, Sandra O'Connor's replacement... should be an originalist that understands their singular function is to uphold the U.S. Constitution, not rewrite it...

"Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States have the sole authority to interpret the Constitution and render final decisions pertaining to all federal laws; nothing more – nothing less.

"The Framers provided for a federal government superior to that of state governments within the confines of its enumerated powers, i.e., those powers absolutely necessary to fulfill the limited role of the federal government. All other powers were to be invested with and in the citizenry of the individual states, thus creating a unique system of checks and balances that were divided among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

"It was the will and intent of the Framers that '[A]ll political power rested with the people.'... Such was the reasoning of James Madison when he wrote: 'The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Government are numerous and indefinite...'

"And such was the order of America until Roosevelt's 'New Deal...'

"Roosevelt unleashed a flood of legislation creating expansive federal programs purportedly to curb the effects of the Depression. These New Deal programs dramatically increased the size and scope of the federal government above and beyond its historic – and constitutionally mandated – role...

"Those Rooseveltians who would subvert and further undermine the Constitution and the will of the Framers are the offspring of Charles Evans Hughes, chief justice of the Supreme Court, 1930-1941, who uttered the words: 'We are under the Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is ...'

"Maintaining control of a court that finds a right to privacy where none exists; that finds a phrase in the First Amendment that is not only nonexistent, but is contradictory to every state constitution on at least some level; that finds in the Fifth Amendment the right of government to seize the private property of citizens for the financial benefit of the elite and influential is the type of court those unable to achieve same legislatively on any level are determined to maintain control over...

"We must insist the president appoint one who will benefit all Americans as the Framers intended. We must insist on one who has the temperament and requisite constitutional learnedness and understanding the Framers foresaw."

WorldNetDaily: No sex, brands or politics

WorldNetDaily: How O'Connor Supreme Court justice got job

Joseph Farah writes:

"Sandra Day O'Connor is stepping down as a Supreme Court justice after 24 years, and most Americans still have no idea how she got the job in the first place.

"She got it through deception.

"She fooled President Reagan into thinking she was a supporter of the Constitution as written, and she did it with the help of a conservative Republican icon named Kenneth Starr...

"I'm sure there will be many nice words expressed about the O'Connor legacy over the coming weeks and months. But the truth is that O'Connor has been a disaster on the court. She has no respect for the U.S. Constitution. She fancies herself a lawmaker, not a justice. And that is just how she has handled her long tenure on the court.

"She is also one of the majority members of the court who believes the U.S. Supreme Court should look to foreign courts for precedents. It is an astonishing betrayal of American sovereignty, independence and our Constitution.

"While others today are extolling Sandra Day O'Connor's tenure on the court, I say, 'good riddance.'

"What was Starr's role in elevating O'Connor to this position?

"In 1981, it was – as recounted by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak – 'a hurriedly prepared, error-filled memo by a young Justice Department lawyer' that convinced President Reagan to go through with the nomination of O'Connor to the court – despite tremendous opposition from those who believed she was unfit and unworthy of Reagan's support.

"That young Justice Department lawyer was Kenneth Starr.

"The memo gave O'Connor a clean bill of health on abortion by 'using legal gymnastics to explain her Arizona legislative record,' wrote Evans and Novak. He wrote that she had 'no recollection' of how she voted on a 1970 bill to legalize abortion when, in fact, she was a co-sponsor of the measure that was defeated 6-3 in committee.

"Starr misrepresented that O'Connor was something of a friend and associate of the leader of the state's Arizona pro-life leader, Dr. Carolyn Gerster. In fact, Gerster told Evans and Novak: 'I had an adversary position with Sandra O'Connor' and called her 'one of the most powerful pro-abortionists in the [Arizona] Senate.' ...

"The Starr historical legacy can best be summarized like this: He deceived President Reagan about O'Connor and let Clinton off the hook for monstrous crimes. Just what is it about the career of Kenneth Starr that some find so heroic and laudable?"

WorldNetDaily: How O'Connor got job

Separating school and state - The Boston Globe

Jeff Jacoby writes:

"Once there was a solid consensus about how public schools should be run.... But... that day is past.

"From issues of sexuality and religion to the broad themes of US history and politics, public opinion is fractured... No longer is there a common understanding of the mission of public education. To the extent that one camp's vision prevails, parents in the opposing camp are embittered. And there is no prospect that this will change -- not as long as the government remains in charge of educating American children.

"Which is why it's time to put an end to government control of the schools.

"There is nothing indispensable about a state role in education. Parents don't expect the government to provide their children's food or clothing or medical care; there is no reason why it must provide their schooling. An educated citizenry is a vital public good, of course. But like most such goods, a competitive and responsive private sector can do a much better job of supplying it than the public sector can.

"Imagine how diverse and lively American education would be if it were liberated from government control. There would be schools of every description -- just as there are restaurants, websites, and clothing styles of every description. Parents who wanted their children to be taught Darwinian evolution unsullied by leaps of faith about an Intelligent Designer would be able to choose schools in which religious notions would play no role. Those who wanted their children to see God's hand in the miraculous tapestry of life all around them would send them to schools in which faith played a prominent role.

"Rather than fight over whether reading should be taught with Phonics or Whole Language, parents who felt strongly either way could choose a school that shared their outlook. Those who wanted their kids to learn in single-sex classes would send them to schools organized on that model; other parents would be free to pick schools in which boys and girls learned together. Some schools would reflect a Christian or Jewish or Muslim philosophy; others would be quite secular. In some, athletics would have a high priority; in others, there might be an emphasis on music, language, technology, or art. And no doubt many parents would stick with schools that resembled the ones their children attend now.

"With separation of school and state, the education battles would come to a peaceful end. Robust competition and innovation would dramatically lower costs. Teachers, released from their one-size-fits-all straitjacket, would be happier in their chosen profession. Children would be happier, too -- and, perhaps best of all, better-educated to boot."

Separating school and state - The Boston Globe

Who is a terrorist and who is a patriot?

Lady Liberty writes:

"According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, terrorism is either 'the unlawful use or threat of violence especially against the state or the public as a politically motivated means of attack or coercion' or 'violent and intimidating gang activity.'

"The idea behind terrorism is basic: to generate terror. The methodology, regardless of the specifics, is just as simple: sudden and deadly violence of the kind that any rational human being would find terrifying. Terrorists hope their actions will engender whatever change it is they're aiming to facilitate through such intense fear...

"In its knee jerk reaction to the 9/11 attacks, the federal government rapidly defined its targets not only as terrorists but as those who are broadly defined as 'potential' terrorists... From the perspective of both the laws and the agencies, the most immediate result was that of a curtailment of civil liberties...

"Distilled down to its most basic premise, virtually any human being could loosely be termed a 'potential' terrorist...

"The biggest problem for those of us who are innocent is that some in government have gone much further. They've enaged in what is essentially a rewriting of definitions so as to target some people who are not... particularly popular with those same government authorities. Coincidentally (or perhaps not so coincidentally), many of the people falling under these more refined definitions are the same people who are the most likely to be railing against government inroads against various freedoms...

"For reasons that can easily be logically refuted, the government has determined that the ID cards are a great way to fight terrorism. Do you really think they're going to take any refusals to participate particularly well?

"recently... at a kind of educational seminar... conducted by the Department of Homeland Security... he was also informed that those supporting a strict interpretation of the Constitution are terrorists.

"Even as the label 'terrorist' is being redefined, so is the term 'patriot.' A patriot is, quit simply, one who loves his country. But now some government officials suggest that anyone who criticizes the war effort in Iraq is 'unpatriotic.' Others in positions of government authority... have made it clear that anyone who suggests that civil liberties might be more important than absolute safety are behaving unpatriotically...

"I do believe that the National ID card and similar tracking measures are evil because they undermine freedom... I am concerned at the rapidly growing mindset that potentiality is all but synonymous with actuality... I do support a literal interpretation of the Constitution as well as a return to the ideals of the Constitution as they were originally presented to the 13 colonies prior to ratification...

"In George Orwell's infamous novel 1984, one of the hallmarks of the tyrannical government under which his characters lived was something called 'newspeak.' By using 'newspeak,' the government redefined various words to mean whatever it wanted them to mean, and via incessant propaganda, it made sure the general population knew the 'correct' definitions as well. In the novel, bad was redefined as good, and war became peace; history was rewritten on an almost daily basis to conform.

"This habit of redefining words might be a little more subtle in the real world, but there's very little question that it's happening. The recent discoveries of government propaganda films released as 'news' stories was dismaying, but not unsurprising... In the short run, I suppose, then, I should consider any government attempts to label me and people like me as 'unpatriotic' or a 'terrorist' as actually being a compliment. But in the long run, government's predilection to change such definitions on a whim doesn't bode well for me...or for any of the rest of you, either."

03-13-05: By Definition

The Price of Patriotism ... by Christopher Manion

Christopher Manion explains why it's getting more and more difficult to fill the ranks of the all-volunteer army:

"as the war in Iraq grinds on, it offers a rare glimpse into market forces and their impact on patriotism...

"military recruiters are working night and day to fill the ranks of the U.S. government’s 'volunteer forces.' In spite of signing bonuses of $20,000.00, there are still not enough enlistees. When asked why recruiting is so tough, military recruiters... answer simply and truthfully: 'the war.'

"Second, the Financial Times reports that American mercenaries in Iraq, coyly referred to as 'private forces,' receive just under half a million dollars per man a year to perform the same duties, and run the same mortal risks, that most U.S. government troops do...

"As the war grinds on and troop strength continues to diminish, two options emerge clearly on the horizon. Either the pay received by the 'volunteer' forces will continue to rise toward the market value, or involuntary conscription will become the law of the land. A third option – that the war will end and the need for additional troops will subside – has been ruled out by the Bush Administration...

"Rousseau gave us that timeless slogan of ideological empire: the citizen 'must be forced to be free.' ...

"America’s Founding Fathers recognized the entire democratic charade as the nightmare of power-hungry madmen. They embraced instead the notion of a national government with strictly limited powers, where the voice of the states and of the people commanded the government, and not vice-versa. With regard to war, the Founders sided with Augustine and the Just War theory that had reigned in Christendom for a millennium and more...

"Increasingly, the American population is turning against the war. In a traditional democracy, where the people rule, that judgment would eventually lead to disengagement and peace...

"But not in Rousseau’s totalitarian democracy. There, instead of heeding the will of the people... the Sovereign imposes the 'General Will' – his ideological vision of what is good for them. And then, logically, 'they must be forced to be free,' and they are conscripted and sent into mortal combat...

"The rising demand for troops invites a closer look at the two alternatives. The first – the market – is unlikely to provide the necessary manpower. As the value of patriotic 'goodwill' declines even further, the bonus and pay formulae would have to approach the price of $450,000.00 per man per year already paid in the market – to the mercenary forces now serving by the thousands in Iraq.

"The only alternative is the draft. What the free market and natural law... cannot provide must be supplied by coercion – involuntary servitude of the youth who refuse to buy into the flag-waving happy-talk endless wars of the Leviathan state...

"Of course, this scenario reveals the profound contradiction between the symbolic language of 'democracy' that the U.S. government uses to justify its wars...

"And the future conscripts? 'They must be forced to be free.'

"May they rest in peace."

The Price of Patriotism ... by Christopher Manion

Spy vs. Spy in the Drug Wars :: PEJ News

Bill Piper writes:

"Proposed legislation would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, forcing all Americans to become foot soldiers in the war on drugs.

Neighbors spying on neighbors? Mothers forced to turn in their sons or daughters?

These are images straight out of George Orwell's 1984, or a remote totalitarian state. We don't associate them with the land of the free and the home of the brave, but that doesn't mean they couldn't happen here. A senior congressman, James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is working quietly but efficiently to turn the entire United States population into informants--by force..."

Spy vs. Spy in the Drug Wars :: PEJ News

Why I prefer Indiana in the Central timezone

Indiana's Governor Daniels signed Senate Bill 127 into law on May 13. This act requires Indiana to observe daylight saving time (DST) throughout the state, beginning in 2006.

In addition, this act also requires the governor to petition the United States Department of Transportation within ten days to initiate proceedings to hold hearings on the location of the boundary between Eastern and Central Time in Indiana.

Now that we will be observing DST, I would very much like to see as much of Indiana as possible on Central Time.

State Representative Jackie Walorski of Lakeville says, "If we do nothing, we'll end up in Eastern Time. If we're proactive and do something, we can probably petition to be in Central Time.

"Several of the counties are going to go together and give a resolution to the governor in a couple of weeks and say we're petitioning to be on Central time. I really want us to be in this consortium of counties that makes a presentation to the governor, because we have a lot more power when we come together, as separate counties in a region instead of being all by ourselves on the issue..."

A "Central Time coalition... plans to make a presentation to the governor in a few weeks, which is well in advance of the federal hearings that will probably take place this summer."

I would like to see as many counties as possible be part of this consortium or coalition.

Because most localities prefer to have their clock read 12:00 at local noon, the earth has been divided up into 24 natural time zones, each 15 degrees wide on the average. This results in approximately the same number of hours of sunlight in the morning (before noon) as in the evening (after noon) in the middle of each zone. The Eastern zone is centered on 75 degrees and the Central on 90. This puts the natural boundary between Eastern and Central time at 82.5 degrees.

If you look in the atlas, with Fort Wayne at 85 degrees in the northeast and Evansville at 87 degrees in the southwest, you can see that all of Indiana lies well within the natural boundary of the Central timezone, as well as virtually all of Kentucky and Michigan, and the western half of Ohio.

Over the years, the statutory boundary has gotten moved quite a bit west of the 82.5 degree line in the U.S., especially north of Kentucky. I would like to see this boundary moved back closer to the natural boundary in Indiana by being drawn up our eastern border, aligning our time with our neighboring states to the west rather than those to the east.

Because most of Indiana has been observing Eastern time, and since Indiana is well within the natural boundary for Central time, there is already plenty of daylight in the evening to suit me. Even as we have been from 1966 until now (year round Eastern Standard) we already have anywhere from nearly an hour (November) to nearly two hours (February) more daylight in the evening than in the morning.

If Indiana successfully petitions to go to Central time, this would stay the same in the summer. If we continue on Eastern time, the sun would rise in July about 6:40 am and set about 9 pm, giving us only 5.3 hours before noon and 9 hours after noon, or a whopping 3.7 hours more sun in the evening than in the morning. Our clocks would read 1:50 pm at local noon. This just seems excessive to me.

I find it helpful to be able to wait until twilight before trying to get the family to bed. I find 8:45 pm already late enough for that in the summer months. It would be even tougher to get children to bed at a decent hour if we had to to wait until 9:45 pm for twilight on Eastern Daylight time.

Central Daylight Time, which most of Indiana effectively observes now in the summer, would still give us nearly two extra hours of sunlight in the summer evenings. Observing Central Standard Time in the winter would give us one more hour of morning sunlight than we have now. Having the sun up by 7am instead of 8am in December would be a nice help to dispel the mid-winter gloom.


Ref: http://www.wndu.com/news/052005/news_41952.php (3 May 2005, Jackie Walorski quote)
Ref: http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~oliver/ast3722/lectures/CoordsNtime/time.htm
Ref: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/us_tzones.html (timezone history)
Ref: http://www.mccsc.edu/time.html (more Indiana time history)


Following are some of the e-mail addresses and websites at which Indiana citizens can contact politicians and bureaucrats who are likely to have some influence on Indiana's timezone.

http://www.dot.gov/ost/ogc/subject/faqs/regulation/timezone.html
- joanne.petrie@ost.dot.gov { U.S. Department of Transportation }

Governor Mitch Daniels
- http://www.in.gov/gov/contact.html

Indiana state legislators
- http://www.in.gov/cgi-bin/legislative/contact/contact.pl

U.S. legislators
- senator_lugar@lugar.senate.gov
- http://bayh.senate.gov/LegForm.htm
- http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

The case for sweatshops and child labor in developing countries

Radley Balko makes an interesting case for sweatshops and child labor in developing countries.

--[ Libertarian International. Network of liberty-minded individuals and organizations in Europe. ]--

WorldNetDaily: The law or good ideas?

Dr. Walter E. Williams writes:

"Whether 'evolving standards,' the 'weight of international opinion' and good ideas should determine court decisions underlies much of the ongoing conflict over President Bush's federal court appointees. A federal court appointee who'd say his decisions are guided by the letter and spirit of our Constitution would be tagged by Democrat senators and a few Republican senators, such as Arlen Specter, as an extremist. They'd prefer justices who share former Chief Justice Charles E. Hughes' vision that, 'We live under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.' Translated, that means we don't live under the Constitution; we live under tyrannical judges.

"Many law professors, and others who hold contempt for our Constitution, preach that the Constitution is a living document. Saying that the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don't have a Constitution. For rules to mean anything, they must be fixed. How many people would like to play me poker and have the rules be 'living'? Depending on 'evolving standards,' maybe my two pair could beat your flush.

"The founders were right about a lot of things, but they were dead wrong when they bought into Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Paper No. 78 prediction that the judiciary was the 'least dangerous' branch of government."

WorldNetDaily: The law or good ideas?

Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder by Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff writes:

"For all the world to see, a 41-year-old woman, who has committed no crime, will die of dehydration and starvation in the longest public execution in American history.

"She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state...

"I saw no sign that [the ACLU] has ever examined... the egregious conflicts of interest of her husband and guardian Michael Schiavo, who has been living with another woman for years, with whom he has two children, and has violated a long list of his legal responsibilities as her guardian, some of them directly preventing her chances for improvement. Judge Greer has ignored all of them.

"Michael Schiavo, who says he loves and continues to be devoted to Terri, has provided no therapy or rehabilitation for his wife (the legal one) since 1993... He insists she once told him she didn't want to survive by artificial means, but he didn't mention her alleged wishes for years after her brain damage, while saying he would care for her for the rest of his life.

"Terri Schiavo has never had an MRI or a PET scan, nor a thorough neurological examination. Republican Senate leader Bill Frist... said reasonably, 'I would think you would want a complete neurological exam' before determining she must die.

"In death penalty cases, defense counsel for retarded and otherwise mentally disabled clients submit extensive medical tests. Ignoring the absence of complete neurological exams, supporters of the deadly decisions by Judge Greer and the trail of appellate jurists keep reminding us how extensive the litigation in this case has been — 19 judges in six courts is the mantra...

In his book Forced Exit (Times Books), Wesley quotes neurologist William Burke: 'They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! . . . It is an extremely agonizing death.' ...

"Contrary to what you've read and seen in most of the media, due process has been lethally absent in Terri Schiavo's long merciless journey through the American court system.

"'As to legal concerns,' writes William Anderson — a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard University — 'a guardian may refuse any medical treatment, but drinking water is not such a procedure. It is not within the power of a guardian to withhold, and not in the power of a rational court to prohibit.'

"Ralph Nader agrees. In a statement on March 24, he and Wesley Smith... said: 'If this were a death penalty case, this evidence would demand reconsideration. Yet, an innocent, disabled woman is receiving less justice. . . . This case is rife with doubt. Justice demands that Terri be permitted to live.' ...

"What kind of a nation are we becoming? The CIA outsources torture — in violation of American and international law — in the name of the freedoms we are fighting to protect against terrorism. And we have watched as this woman, whose only crime is that she is disabled, is tortured to death by judges, all the way to the Supreme Court.

"And keep in mind from the Ralph Nader-Wesley Smith report: 'The courts . . . have [also] ordered that no attempts be made to provide her water or food by mouth. Terri swallows her own saliva. Spoon feeding is not medical treatment. This outrageous order proves that the courts are not merely permitting medical treatment to be withheld, they have ordered her to be made dead.'

"In this country, even condemned serial killers are not executed in this way."

village voice > news > Terri Schiavo: Judicial Murder by Nat Hentoff

WorldNetDaily: The culture of death advances

Pat Buchanan writes:

"Terri Schiavo will not have died a natural death. She will have been put to death by the state. The coroner's report should read: This was a state-sanctioned killing of a woman because she was brain-damaged, and the method of execution was by starvation and denial of water. These are methods most of us would protest if imposed on the Beltway snipers.

"Why did Florida put Terri Schiavo to death? Because that was the demand of a husband who refused to divorce her and denied her medical care, while he lived with another woman. Michael Schiavo is the ACLU poster boy for family values.

"In the Old Testament, King Solomon ruled that the mother who had been willing to give up her baby to the woman who had kidnapped the child rather than see the baby cut in half should have the child. Our Florida Solomon ruled that the husband who wanted Terri dead should have custody of her, not the parents who wanted her alive.

"Under the Constitution, no person may be deprived of life without due process of law. This has traditionally meant a trial of one's peers, proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a heinous crime and no cruel or unusual punishment. Though she committed no crime, Terri was put to death in a manner most decent men and women would not use to put a suffering animal out of its misery...

"Americans must face a hard truth. The state of Florida put Terri Schiavo to death. Before Holy Week, she was neither dead nor dying. For 15 years, she had been cared for by nurses and visited by loving parents. She was not dying until the judge ordered her dead, by ordering her feeding tube removed. Then it has taken her nearly two weeks to die, as he blocked the reinsertion of the feeding tube and ordered police to prevent anyone from giving her water.

"When the courts failed Terri, and Congress and the Florida Legislature failed Terri, the governor of Florida, who took an oath to defend the constitutional rights of Florida's citizens, should have taken custody of Terri, ordered the tube reinserted and let the federal courts proceed with the de novo hearing of the evidence, while Terri was still alive... He should have rescued Terri from the death sentence unjustly imposed upon her. If the court held him in contempt, so what? Who does not hold that Florida court in contempt?"

WorldNetDaily: The culture of death advances

Four Years Growth by Laurence M. Vance

Laurence M. Vance writes:

"George Bush was right when he said a few years ago: 'The American people have been overcharged for Government, and they deserve a refund.' The only problem with his statement is that it is now Bush and the Republicans who have overcharged the American people for government, and there is no refund in sight."

Four Years Growth by Laurence M. Vance

Remarks at the Founding Meeting of Primary Challenge by James Ostrowski

James Ostrowski writes:

"Duh, if they [politicians] were going to spend your money the way you wanted, why would they have to get you to pay up by threatening to throw you into a dungeon if you don’t?"

Remarks at the Founding Meeting of Primary Challenge by James Ostrowski

Against the Central Planners of Left and Right by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. writes:

"Forget going after government armed with public-policy studies showing that federal farm policy has been an expensive boondoggle or that federal poverty policy has only entrenched social pathologies that have rendered our cities unlivable. True and valuable as these statements are, they do not penetrate to the fundamental immorality of a system that is based on fleecing ordinary citizens in order to bestow special privileges on sectors of the population that did nothing to earn them...

"this supposedly 'failed' government program hasn’t failed at all. It has done just what its architects wanted it to do: it enriched well-connected big farmers as well as a huge class of bureaucrats in the Department of Agriculture. These people... are ripping us off...

"Rather than agitating for this or that reform, the entire system must be demystified and delegitimized. Superstitious reverence for Washington, D.C., must yield to the conviction that society, like the market itself, can order its affairs without the central direction of an imperial capital. Property owners, families, voluntary organizations, churches – in other words, all the institutions that the central state consistently seeks to marginalize or displace – can maintain a livable and decent social order far better than the would-be central planners of left and right."

Against the Central Planners of Left and Right by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Those Bush Vetoes by Laurence M. Vance

Laurence M. Vance writes:

"So for those who still think that Bush has a fiscally conservative bone in his body, read the following statement slowly and carefully: During his first term in office, George W. Bush did not veto a single bill sent to him by Congress. Not one. This means that Bush shares responsibility with the spendthrift Congresses that have for the past four years squandered not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money. To argue that Bush did not veto any bills because he was a Republican with a Republican Congress is ludicrous. Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Jimmy Carter were Democratic presidents with Democratic Congresses and it didn’t stop them from vetoing bills."

Those Bush Vetoes by Laurence M. Vance

Tangle Tongue by William Norman Grigg

William Norman Grigg writes:

"During a recent interview with the Washington Post, Mr. Bush was asked if significant changes needed to be made in his policy toward Iraq. After all, the administration now admits that Saddam did not possess a fearsome arsenal of Weapons of Mass Destruction. With casualties mounting, and scandals accumulating with respect to torture and faulty intelligence, the Post inquired, could we expect to see changes in policy or personnel? To judge from Mr. Bush’s astoundingly self-serving reply, the answer is – apparently not.

'We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections,' Mr. Bush told the Post. 'The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me.'

This statement earns a full 9.0 on the Clinton Scale of artful dishonesty... the president did not say that his assessment was truthful or reliable, but only that a spare majority of the voting public bought into it. Rather than being subject to accountability, in other words, Mr. Bush and his handlers are now beyond accountability."

Tangle Tongue by William Norman Grigg

Walter E. Williams: Not yours to give

Walter Williams writes:

"What about President Bush's $350 million commitment for earthquake and tsunami relief... ? Charity is reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need. Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity. When done privately, we deem it theft, and the individual risks jail time...

"I'd like to ask President Bush and members of the 109th Congress whether they've discovered the constitutional authority for charitable expenditures undiscovered by James Madison, William Giles, Presidents Franklin Pierce and Grover Cleveland, and Davy Crockett...

"[T]he lion's share of the blame rests with 280 million Americans. Elected officials simply mirror public misunderstanding or contempt for constitutional principles. Tragically, adherence to the constitutional values of men like James Madison and Davy Crockett would spell political suicide in today's America."

Walter E. Williams: Not yours to give

Thomas Sowell: Ending slavery

Thomas Sowell writes:

"It seems so obvious today that, as Lincoln said, if slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. But no country anywhere believed that three centuries ago...

"Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today's intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world. And if it doesn't fit their vision, it is the same to them as if it never happened...

"As anti-slavery ideas eventually spread throughout Western civilization, a worldwide struggle pitted the West against Africans, Arabs, Asians and virtually the entire non-Western world, which still saw nothing wrong with slavery. But Western imperialists had gunpowder weapons first and that enabled the West to stamp out slavery in other societies as well as in its own...

"It was a worldwide epic struggle, full of dramatic and sometimes violent episodes, along with inspiring stories of courage and dedication. But do not expect Hollywood to make a movie about anything so contrary to their vision of the world."

Thomas Sowell: Ending slavery

Iraq: Purple or Still Black and Blue?: Newsroom: The Independent Institute

Ivan Eland writes:

"When armed guerrillas roam the countryside, even a free and fair democratic vote may be irrelevant to the outcome. According to a New York Times article from 1967, the Johnson administration was pleased as punch then about an 83 percent voter turnout in South Vietnamese elections. We all know how that conflict turned out: the majority went to the polls and the armed minority eventually went to the halls of power.

"In Iraq, as in Vietnam, the key to peace and prosperity is to get the armed minority to cease committing acts of violence. To do that, the U.S. government must honestly examine why the Sunni insurgents are fighting. Instead, the president calls the rebels terrorists, criminals, and holdovers from Saddam’s regime. In fact, although some of them fall into those categories, experts agree that most are average Sunnis battling the perceived foreign occupier and fearing that any new Shiite government would exact reprisals for years of oppressive Sunni rule. The insurgency wouldn’t be nearly so effective without substantial support in the Sunni community.

"If the president and the Republican Congress really wanted to do the Iraqi people a favor—after authorizing an unneeded invasion, which caused widespread chaos and violence against Iraqis—they would abandon the illusion that merely allowing the Iraqis to vote will eventually make them free and prosperous."

Iraq: Purple or Still Black and Blue?: Newsroom: The Independent Institute

Bullies and Their Pulpits - Mises Institute

P. Gardner Goldsmith writes:

"Bush has opted to put a government mask on private charity. The participants of the free market, though their money will be collected, will not be seen by those who are helped...

"The government of the United States will take the credit around the world...

"Of course, this is nothing new. In an abstract way, the US government has been taking credit for private international aid since the close of World War Two. When the federal Marshall Plan showered $1.7 billion in loans and direct aid on West Europe, it was heralded as a profound success. There was little mention that the money was expropriated from the citizens of America for an entirely unconstitutional program, and that the system actually worked to retard economic growth in the area... It... has been instrumental in creating a false impression in the minds of many Americans that if international help is needed, it must be done through the 'mighty' power of government...

"Government aid, be it direct financial aid, or below-market loans through quasi-governmental entities like the World Bank, can only exist at the expense of private citizens...

"There is no way that government aid can help rebuild a devastated economy as efficiently or as fast as private enterprise...

"It is the players in the free market, who risked their own capital, and now freely donate it to causes in which they believe, who ought to be seen around the world."

Bullies and Their Pulpits - Mises Institute

HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Apply 'Ownership Society' to Government Schools by Terence P. Jeffrey

Terence Jeffrey writes:

"As in all socialist regimes, this one redistributes wealth in perverse ways. America's education bureaucracy takes money from working and middle class families who sacrifice to send their children to religious and private schools (because they prefer the values and perspectives taught there to those taught in government-owned schools) and spends it for the benefit of those rich families who don't mind sending their children to the government-owned schools in their neighborhoods.

"Parents who struggle to scrape together the tuition to send their children to religious and private schools are now doubly taxed--locally and federally--to support government-owned schools they do not like and do not use.

"When 'moderate' Bob Dole was the Republican presidential candidate in 1996, he ran on a platform calling for abolition of the federal Department of Education because the Constitution does not grant the federal government a role in primary and secondary education

"Conservatives in Congress should fight to kill Bush's new federal education spending plan and return to the principles of the Dole platform and the U.S. Constitution. If every American family cannot instantly be given sole ownership of their children's schooling, at least they shouldn't have to pay twice for the schools the government insists on owning."

HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE :: Apply 'Ownership Society' to Government Schools by Terence P. Jeffrey

Bush Reveals the Truth on Iraq :: PEJ News :: Features, Opinion and Analysis: Peace, Earth & Justice News

Kurt Nimmo writes:

"... the current political landscape of the Middle East is a result of American and European colonialism and direct and covert intervention in the political affairs of millions of Arabs for more than a hundred years. No mention of the fact that the borders of modern Iraq were not drawn by Iraqis, but an Oxford-educated “Arabist,” Gertrude Bell. No mention of the fact Britain spent forty years killing Iraqis, who resisted occupation from 1920 onward with the same ferocity they are now resisting the Americans. Not a word about Winston Churchill, who did “not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas” against “uncivilized tribes,” in other words Iraqis resisting occupation. No mention of the CIA’s role in the Ba’athist coup of 1961—that would result in Saddam Hussein’s brutal dictatorship—a coup the Ba’ath secretary-general at the time remarked upon as follows: “We came to power on a CIA train.” Certainly no mention of the fact Saddam Hussein “was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim” in 1959, according to United Press International. If there are “hate-ridden psychologies” in the Muslim Middle East, they were sustained and magnified—indeed, imported—by Americans and Europeans..."

Bush Reveals the Truth on Iraq :: PEJ News :: Features, Opinion and Analysis: Peace, Earth & Justice News

To Whom Does the Bill of Rights Apply? by Harry Browne

Harry Browne writes:

"The important point is that the Constitution doesn't apply to Americans, it doesn't apply to citizens, it doesn't even apply to 'people.' It applies to the federal government. The body of the Constitution tells the federal government what it is allowed to do... The Bill of Rights tells the federal government what it is not allowed to do...

"[U]ntil a suspected 'terrorist' gets a fair and impartial trial, you don't know whether he is a terrorist. So even if you think non-citizen terrorists have no rights, how do you even know for sure that they are terrorists – or that they are non-citizens – until every facet of due process has been applied."

To Whom Does the Bill of Rights Apply? by Harry Browne

Campaign Launched Against Dietary Supplements by Bill Sardi

Bill Sardi writes:

"[A] concerted effort is being launched against dietary supplements. The obvious reason – don’t let the public discover dietary supplements as alternative to prescription drugs that can duplicate the biological action of most prescription medicines with far lower costs and side effects."

Campaign Launched Against Dietary Supplements by Bill Sardi

WorldNetDaily: Man battles state over working sons

WorldNetDaily: Man battles state over working sons

Evolution vs. Creationism by Steve Farrell at newsmax.com

"... when we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition...

"We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to maintain the universe in its course and order..."

"So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful agent, that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed through all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal preexistence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent universe..."

Thomas Jefferson, 11 April 1823

Evolution vs. Creationism

Let's Look Within Ourselves for Iraq's WMD by Jacob G. Hornberger

Jacob G. Hornberger writes:

"Why were U.S. officials so certain that Saddam had WMD? Because they knew that the United States was one of the nations that had supplied them to him. The entire experience will ultimately go down as one of the biggest setups in history. Give a dictator WMD, encourage him to use them against others, and then invade his country for possessing them...

"But something went wrong along the way. What all the brilliant and calculating U.S. politicians and bureaucrats never figured on was that Saddam Hussein had already “disarmed”... that he could be telling the truth when he repeatedly told the world that he had, in fact, destroyed his WMD... that he might in fact have complied with the UN resolutions... that Saddam Hussein had in fact rid Iraq of the WMD that the United States and other Western nations had delivered to him during the 1980s.

"And so the principal justification for the invasion and war of aggression had to be shifted in the minds of the American people – to a supposed love for the Iraqi people, manifested by a need to “liberate” them, and to a purported devotion to “spreading democracy” in the Middle East, both of which could be achieved with a brutal war and military occupation that would kill upwards of a 100,000 Iraqi citizens, not to mention the tyranny and chaos that the war and occupation have produced...

"To do otherwise – to admit that tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed, maimed, tortured, sexually abused, and murdered as a result of a mistake or a lie is simply too painful, psychologically...

"After all, if love for the Iraqi people was the principal rationale for the war, then why the imposition and continuation of the brutal sanctions against the Iraqi people for some 11 years preceding the invasion? When it became increasingly clear that the sanctions were contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, wouldn’t people who were concerned about the well-being of the Iraqi people have called for the sanctions to be lifted? But they didn’t...

"... as the brutal effect of the sanctions imposed against Iraq increasingly became clear, year after brutal year, the U.S. response was to implement a deadly and corrupt new government policy on top of the old deadly and corrupt policy... the infamous “oil-for-food” program... a program that actually entrusted money to Saddam Hussein – the brutal dictator who we were told was refusing to disarm his WMD – in the supposed hope that he would use the money for the well-being of the Iraqi people. What a cruel joke...

"It is impossible to overstate the horrific consequences of an imperial foreign policy based on “regime change” that U.S. officials, especially those in the CIA, State Department, and the Pentagon, have wrought for the American people..."

Let's Look Within Ourselves for Iraq's WMD by Jacob G. Hornberger

Tsunami and Abortion

J. Dominguez writes:

"The death toll of the Tsunami topped 150,000 today, about 50,000 children, the greatest natural tragedy in centuries.

"By abortion, 54 million children have been killed worldwide in the last year, over one million per week."

Tsunami and Abortion

No tsunami compares to U.S. abortion law -- The Herald Democrat

Jerome J. Jones writes:

"If we compare the Indonesian tsunami deaths to American abortion deaths, simple mathematics demonstrate it would take 300 Indonesian-size tsunamis to equal the death toll from 32 years of abortions in the United States of America."

The Herald Democrat

America, Iran, and Operation Ajax: The Burden of the Past by Steven LaTulippe

Steven LaTulippe writes:

"In essence, the United States [in 1953] had engaged in a massive covert operation designed to remove a democratically elected [Iranian] leader from power and reinstall an authoritarian monarch (a move which makes a mockery of our currently stated desire to 'spread democracy' in the Middle East)...

"If Mossadeq’s regime had been permitted to continue, it is entirely possible that Iran could have evolved into an authentic democracy. American interventionism destroyed that opportunity and set the stage for many of the tragedies currently haunting the Middle East...

"If America is ever to have even remotely cordial relations with Iran, we must accept responsibility for the terrible effects of Operation Ajax and admit that we had no right to intervene in a controversy that was wholly the business of the Iranian people...

"While the American public often quickly forgets the interventions and mischievous actions of its government, our overseas victims seldom do. The current climate of international terrorism should prompt the American people to take a more active interest, since these transgressions often come back to haunt us in the most unexpected ways."

America, Iran, and Operation Ajax: The Burden of the Past by Steven LaTulippe

Joel on Software - Who hires the top one percent?

Joel Spolsky writes:

"By the way, it's because of this phenomenon—the fact that many of the great people are never on the job market—that we are so aggressive about hiring summer interns. This may be the last time these kids ever show up on the open market. In fact we hunt down the smart CS students and individually beg them to apply for an internship with us, because if you wait around to see who sends you a resume, you're already missing out."

Joel on Software - Thursday, January 27, 2005