http://thedartmouth.com/…

David Boaz, a libertarian author and television commentator, discussed the need to prevent the U.S. government from encroaching on freedoms in a lecture held in Kemeny Hall on Thursday. The event, “Freedom in Crisis,” was sponsored by the Dartmouth College Libertarians.

“My own attitude towards the Free State Project is that the federal government should move to New Hampshire and leave the rest of us free,” Boaz joked.

“Freedom is under assault again,” he said. “It is easy to let the immensity stop us. But it didn”t stop Thomas Paine, it didn’t stop Frederick Douglass and it didn’t stop us.”

Another student asked Boaz about the Free State Project, a group that aims to recruit 20,000 “liberty loving people” to move to New Hampshire and direct the New Hampshire government in a libertarian direction.

While I agree moving the federal government to NH rather than activists would be a better solution… however that’s not possible and that wasn’t the question. By giving the answer he did it seems to me that he thinks very little of the FSP and it’s goal.

If the goal is freedom… how much of it has Cato brought about? Seems to me their goal is to ride the Washington DC statists coat tails and preach half baked liberty oriented ideas to the most statist of them all… DC bureacrats.

Not to say that the FSP had brought about much change yet. Then again they haven’t been around for 32 years.

http://www.aynrand.org/…

Washington, D.C., February 23, 2009–Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for the same period in 2008. This continues a strong trend after bookstore sales reached an all-time annual high in 2008 of about 200,000 copies sold.

“Americans are flocking to buy and read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day” said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Americans are rightfully concerned about the economic crisis and government’s increasing intervention and attempts to control the economy. Ayn Rand understood and identified the deeper causes of the crisis we’re facing, and she offered, in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ a principled and practical solution consistent with American values.”

Argh… couldn’t it have been Mises’ Human Action, works by Rothbard or Bastiat?

Those author’s works are likely on the rise too given the Ron Paul movement and all… but still. I’d much rather have someone read Human Action or America’s Great Depression than Atlas Shrugged.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

Hail the Eternal Regime!

Posted by Bill Anderson at January 16, 2009 07:15 AM

Peggy Noonan, one of the dinner guests of George Will the other night, has decided that gushing over Obama is not enough. No, she must gush over the entire regime and its symbols.

Today, she writes of seeing these monuments and other Greek temples in Washington and gets teary-eyed:

Flying in, we take the route over the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson, the Tidal Basin: the signs and symbols of the great republic. And you’ve seen it all a thousand times but you can’t stop looking, and you can’t help it, your eyes well. After a minute you realize you must have a moony look on your face, and you lean back.

Yes, the Regime that has bankrupted the county, jailed millions, started wars abroad, and violated every principle of decency, must be worshiped. It is our god, our very sustenance.

I will be so very happy when this Obama and State worship stops and reality sucker punches people in the face. Between this and the Keynesian love fests I hear on CNN daily (it was particularly bad this morning) I’m starting to become physically ill.

Hopefully it slows up after the 20th.

http://www.boston.com

Massachusetts officially decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana yesterday, but many police departments across the state were essentially ignoring the voter-passed law, saying they would not even bother to ticket people they see smoking marijuana.

“We’re just basically not enforcing it right now,” said Mark R. Laverdure, chief of police in Clinton, a Central Massachusetts town of about 8,000 residents, who said the law was so poorly written that it cannot be enforced. “You’ll probably have a lot of officers that, unless there’s a caller complaining about it, won’t even bother with it. They probably handled a lot of it informally before and probably more so now.”

Andrew J. Sluckis Jr., chief of police in Auburn, said his 39 officers would not be issuing $100 citations for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, as required under the ballot initiative known as Question 2.

“If the Legislature enacts some changes, we’ll be happy to do it in the future, but as it stands now we’re not going to be issuing civil citations,” he said. If an officer spots someone smoking marijuana, he said, “We will confiscate it and the person will be sent on their way.”

“It is frustrating,” he added, “because we have to deal with a law that is almost non-enforceable at best.”

John M. Collins, general counsel for the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, said he had been fielding calls from dozens of members across the state who believe the law is so flawed that it is “going to become a joke.”

The ballot question passed in November with 65 percent of the vote. Backers said they were frustrated that possession of small amounts of marijuana in Massachusetts was a criminal offense, punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500. Those convicted of possession could also receive a criminal record that could taint their job prospects for years, the backers said. Under the ballot measure that took effect yesterday, possession of an ounce or less is a civil violation, punishable by a $100 fine, with no risk of a criminal record.

Police say they have two main problems with the law.

Many complain that their current citation books lack a check-off box for marijuana possession and they have yet to receive updated ticket books, although temporary forms are available through a state website.

More fundamentally, they complain that officers have no way of determining the identity of people they stop on the street for smoking marijuana. Before the law was changed, officers could arrest them, or threaten them with arrest to force them to show identification. Now, they say they cannot force users to show IDs, and cannot arrest them if they refuse to identify themselves. And they say there is no penalty if a marijuana user gives a false name to a police officer.

“Many of them are saying that until the law gets straightened out, we’re not going to let our people waste their time chasing their tails on this,” Collins said.

But some police departments have resolved to enforce the law, despite their reservations. Boston and Worcester, for example, sent out training memos detailing the ins and outs of the law.
Read More…

http://www.acm.org/…

Washington, DC – December 16, 2008 –  As Arne Duncan is announced as the next U.S. Secretary of Education, ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery) today issued a set of recommendations supporting the new Administration’s stated goal of making science and mathematics education a national priority at the K-12 level, and urging the new Administration to include computer science as an integral part of the nation’s education system.  The ACM recommendations cite the strong outlook for computer science-related jobs despite extraordinary challenges confronting the nation, and highlight the role of computer science in driving the technology sector, which is expected to continue its ability to make substantial contributions to economic growth in the near future.

“Computing education benefits all students, not just those interested in pursuing computer science or information technology careers,” said Bobby Schnabel, chair of ACM’s Education Policy Committee (EPC).  “But students often do not have many opportunities to engage in rigorous computer science study at the K-12 level,” said Schnabel, dean of the Indiana University School of Informatics.  “To meet the nation’s educational and professional needs in the face of insufficient numbers of undergraduates majoring in computer science, we need to work harder to increase interest at the K-12 level, and to expand the pipeline supplying the necessary workforce for an information-based economy.”

ACM CEO John R. White welcomed the Obama team’s efforts to increase the pool of students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields and identified key recommendations to address the particular challenges at the K-12 level.  “The new Administration can play an important role in strengthening middle school education, where action can really make a difference, to introduce these students to computer science.  They can also expand efforts to increase the number of females and underrepresented minorities in this field and expand professional development opportunities for high school computer science teachers.”

Among the other recommendations are: a focus on research funding for K-12 computer science education to address many gaps in understanding how students engage with this critical field; and a review of how states can better coordinate and improve existing teacher certification requirements, particularly for computer science teachers.

The ACM recommendations cite several challenges to computing education that inhibit students from experiencing the excitement and creativity of the discipline.  For example, courses in the fundamentals of computer science often count only as a general elective, not as a college-preparatory elective, making it unlikely that college-bound high school students can afford to explore the field.  In addition, as schools have increasingly stepped up the need to integrate, use, and teach information technology, the distinctions have blurred between what is called computer science and what is, in fact, information technology literacy and the use of technology to support literacy.

The ACM recommendations also urge action from federal, state and local policymakers as well as from the high-tech industry, and scientific and education societies to address these pressing issues.  The entire statement is available at Computing in K-12 STEM Education Critical for 21st Century Skills (pdf).

In college I had considered becoming a member of ACM… I’m glad I didn’t give them any of my money. Not only are they advocating expanding government indoctrination center’s size and scope but they (of course) are looking to expand it in their own particular way. Though I find interesting is how different this is from other technical field organisations. The ACM asking to have CS taught to all students is like some international vehicle mechanics union pushing for everyone to be taught how cars work. No union would advocate increasing the pool of potential non-unioned workers or minimizing the need of current workers by increasing the knowledge of the layman. Not without laws making it illegal to do such work oneself or without a license.

I am however interested in what the results would be of such a program. CompSci is a narrow subject which seems unlike most other components of science and math taught in K-12. Would it lead to an increase in the number of kids wanting to work in the field and result in a reduction in wages? Would there actually be any increase in the quality of computer technology? We saw during the dotcom bubble that a high percentage of those in school for CS were in it only for the money resulting in (IMO) a lowering of the quality of the average CS student/employee. This seemed to put strains on businesses which required higher quality employees in that they had more chaff to shift to find what they needed and ended up with more people who could talk a good game but performed poorly. Both increase costs. Both in time and money in having to hire new people and in dealing with the solutions they (poorly) created in their time.

I came across the story on Slashdot which isn’t exactly known for libertarian thought but I was glad to see a few comments indicating not only is such a plan unconstitutional but that top down, nationally controlled education plans are detrimental to students.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/…

As Ted Galen Carpenter has noted, the War on Drugs is active in Afghanistan. Below is a photo from the DEA website of Special Agents burning a bunker of hashish in Afghanistan. Repeat: These guys are DEA agents, not U.S. soldiers.

Looks like they are putting their domestic training of busting down people’s doors to good use.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/…

Northcom has announced that two more U.S. military units will be assigned for domestic homeland security missions, bringing the total number of combat ready service members operating inside the U.S. to around 4,700, as fears grow about the increasing militarization of law enforcement.

The announcement follows the controversy surrounding a September 8 Army Times report (revised on September 30), which revealed that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, fresh from combat duties in Iraq, would be operating inside America for tasks including “civil unrest and crowd control,” a detail that was later denied by Northcom despite the concession that forces would be armed with both non-lethal and lethal weapons as well as having access to tanks.

“In the next three years the military plans to activate and train an estimated 4,700 service members for specialized domestic operations, according to Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of U.S. Northern Command, which was created in 2002 for homeland defense missions,” reports the Colorado Independent.

“It’s to help us manage the consequences of a large-scale event,” said Renuart. “We have one [unit] now trained and equipped and assigned to the Northern Command. We’ll grow a second one this calendar year of 2009 and a third one in the calendar year 2010 so we can provide the nation three sets of capabilities that could respond to an event of the size of 9/11 or larger.”

But as Mike German, national security counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in Washington., D.C., points out, “This isn’t a military police brigade or a civil affairs brigade. This is actually a combat brigade being assigned a domestic mission.”

With these stories… combined with Biden and Powell saying shortly into the Obama presidency he will face a great test… well the conspiracy theorists sound less crazy. Lets hope they aren’t.