Archive for July 2008
Jerome Kowalski’s Pre-Eliminary Exam Postponed…Again
Jerome Kowalksi, the man charged with murdering his brother Richard, 65, and his sister-in-law Brenda, 58, in their Oceola Township home, is facing another postponement of his pre-eliminary exam, which was delayed the first time back on May 22.
This is what the Livingingston briefs in the Detroit Free Press reports today:
Countywide: Murder hearing adjourned
The preliminary exam for a Warren man accused of murdering his brother and sister-in-law in their Oceola Township home has been adjourned again for further discovery evidence to be presented to the defense attorney and pending lab analysis. Jerome Walter Kowalski, 61, was expected to appear before 53rd District Judge Carol Sue Reader today. The exam has been rescheduled for Sept. 11 to determine if there’s enough evidence to bind the case over for trial in Livingston Circuit Court. Kowalski is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of his brother, Richard Kowalski, 65, and his sister-in-law, Brenda Kowalski, 58. He faces life in prison if convicted.
I remain unconvinced that Kowalski was behind the murder of his brother and his sister-in-law, due to the unusual nature of the police’s unwillingness to release the autopsy results that have still never been released to the public since May 6.
The Lew Rockwell Show
First, he started out as president of an educational research think tank named after a libertarian Austrian-British economist. Then, he was an author and blogger of an online popular political commentary website. And now, he’s a talk radio show host.
Ludwig von Mises Institute president Lew Rockwell has just launched his new podcast show The Lew Rockwell Show. Each episode of the show is roughly 13 to 16 minutes long, in which he comments on various issues, particularly the state’s affairs in every economic, cultural, and social facet of our lives. He also interviews prominent libertarian guests who, with him, will discuss various vile and diabolical acts against all of us committed by the state.
Here’s a list of the first three episodes so far:
- The first podcast — the “pilot” if you will, which is entitled “The Fed and Friends” — features Lew talking about what the Fed and the state are doing to our economy. (Running time: 16:12)
- The second podcast, entitled “The Banks Are Broke,” features Lew interviewing monetary/banking economist Joe Salerno who describes in depth the atrocities of the fractional-reserve and thus house-of-cards banking apparatus. (Running time: 13:19)
- the third podcast, entitled “Who Killed The Constitution?,” features Lew interviewing libertarian blogger and author Tom Woods who talks about his new book Who Killed the Constitution?, in which he posits how the Constitution was less libertarian than the Articles of Confederation and why we shouldn’t care about it. (Running time: 16:58)
The show is vibrant, inspiring, and raw, not to mention highly eloquent. Lew’s voice shows how strong and booming it is, in terms of how he communicates his pro-freedom ideas, although it may come off as somewhat intimidating to other people. His poignant interview and commentary styles are a reflection of how much of a true professional he is in the realm of liberty.
With him as my competition, I’ll have to step it up now. Grade: A (I could have gone for A+, but decided against it because Lew’s show is a bit too short).
The Court of Public Relations
YouTube member, anti-state activist, (and Free State Project member) SamIam has produced an excellent 34-minute, 26-second documentary entitled The Court of Public Relations, in which he showcases the difference between government allegedly solving market needs and the free market truly solving market needs. A lot of the footage in the documentary shows Sam in a local Texan municipal court combating an officious government judge, a government prosecutor, and two law enforcement “government” officers.
The case involves Sam being hauled into court by the state for speeding on a public “government” road. The claim, by the judge, is that he was going 62 MPH over the 45 MPH speed limit. The officials at the courthouse coerce Sam (or at least try to coerce him) to enter a plea (they were enticing him to plead “guilty,” but Sam refuse to partake in the process).
Sam appeared before the judge, attempted to ask him “a few questions.” The judge refused to allow him to ask his questions and, in a series of ludicrous and farcical statements, the judge refused to comply with Sam’s request to have his questions answered. The judge, at one point in the film, entered a “plea of not guilty” on Sam’s behalf. Then Sam asked, “Am I required to understand the nature and cause of the proceeding against me?” The judge said, “No, sir. I’m just not going to put up with it. I’ll just have you enter a not guilty plea.” Sam refused to enter the not guilty plea, and the judge declared to him, “You don’t question me, sir.”
Watch the documentary in its entirety. It just shows how inherently vile and diabolical government is, especially within its own foundations:
[H/T to Free Talk Live‘s Ian Bernard who posted this on his FreeKeene.com blog.]
Oliva on Sandefur and Kinsella
Oliva continues his bizarre, false attacks on me (last one noted here):
…about Kinsella and Sandefur. To sum up the two divergent poles of “libertarianism”:
Kinsella: True libertarians never take any action to advance liberty.
Sandefur: True libertarians murder every man, woman and child who doesn’t share his worldview.
He is partially right about Sandefur–he’s referring here to Sandefur’s devotion to mass-murderer Lincoln and war perpetrated by big Western states against bad smaller states. But the way he wrote it is an exaggeration even of quasi-libertarian Tim Sandefur’s views (and strange given his recent praise of Sandefur–here, here, and here).
He’s wrong about me–I am not opposed to taking action to advance liberty. I don’t even oppose suing the states in federal courts to try to vindicate my rights. I would do it. I simply maintain that outsider analysts should be honest. That’s all. I might argue for incorporation as a plaintiff, because I want the feds to stop a state from hurting me. My argument might even persuade the court. (As I noted in my last reply to Oliva, “I of course support any victim of any state crime using another state against the offending state. If I were on the receiving end of a bad state law, sure, I’d use every argument in the book to try to persuade a federal judge to strike it down.”)
But bhat does not mean it’s honest or correct for a libertarian to say the court’s interpretation of the Constitution is accurate, or that that feature is a libertarian one that should be part of any federal constitution.
As for this being his “last post” on me and La Sandefur, well, I remember when he “retired from blogging (2).” Uh, yeah. He has also given up (how does one do that?) “being a libertarian” — see here.
Oliva’s behavior of late is bizarre–attacking me for no reason, after years of friendly interaction. See e.g. here. Pro-Mises Instute, then against, now pro again; pro-Kinsella, now anti-; pro-Sandefur, now anti-; “libertarian”, then “no longer”. Wow, what a ride.
San Francisco to Name Sewage Plant After George W. Bush
The City of San Francisco is preparing to vote on whether to rename one of its sewage plants after George W. Bush.
Here’s an except of the story here from England’s TimesOnline:
San Francisco is to hold a vote on whether to rename one of its largest sewage treatment facilities after George W. Bush, in what supporters describe as “a fitting monument to the President’s work”.
More than 8,500 signatures have already been gathered in support of the plan — 1,300 more than the minimum required to get the proposal on the November ballot. The scheme was devised by an official-sounding group called the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco.
“On matters ranging from foreign relations to fiscal and environmental stewardship, no other president in American history has accomplished so much in such a short time,” says the group on its website. “We believe this is an appropriate honour for a truly unique president. If you think so too, join this grassroots movement to rename this important and iconic landmark in his honour.”
The official renaming ceremony — the sewage facility is currently named the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant — would take place in January, when the next President is sworn in. Part of it would include a “synchronised flush”, described as a way to send a gift to the renamed plant.
[H/T to Elizabeth Imeson on this great news tip.]
The Death of Pro-Bush Neocon Tony Snow
Like the media frenzy over the sudden yet unexpected demise of NBC’s “Meet The Press” chief Tim Russert, the media hysteria over the sudden yet expected demise of the mainstream media’s (MSM) “one of our own” pro-Bush neocon Tony Snow. Snow, who had passed away earlier today from colon cancer (which had taken its final toll on him by the way), certainly had the skills of real journalists like Russert but lacked one attribute that distinguished both gentlemen from Mencken, Hayek, Mises, etc.: the passion and desire for the truth.
While I wasn’t able to express my condolences and sympathies to the Russert family at the time of his death on June 13, I do express my condolences and sympathies to the Snow family. However, I don’t feel sorry for Snow because he was a compulsive liar, considering the dishonesty that persists to follow him to his grave. I can sympathize with a family who loses a loved one to cancer (even if that one is a politician), but I can’t sympathize with one of the practitioners person for his lies and distortions that have become the hallmarks of his life and career.
What is interesting at this point is that Snow, like Russert, was in his fifties. Maybe — just maybe — this is the result of a lifetime of an erosion of his inner life, given the fact that he was a paid shill for the state and was a defender of the state’s violent activities, especially when the ends justified the means (and, in the eyes of its current defenders, still does to this very day).
The State’s Now In Your Hotel Bed
Leviathan plans to combat and ward off bed bugs at a hotel near you.
The vile and diabolical H.R. 6068 a.k.a. Don’t Let The Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008 is a government boondoggle constructed to prop up a welfare program to “assist States in inspecting hotel rooms for bed bugs.” And guess what how much taxpayers will be forced to shell out to pay for this pork?
They’ll be arm twisted to pay for it at a tune of — get this!! — $50,000,000.
More on the story here.
Here’s the full text of the bill, in case anyone doesn’t feel like going to the Library of Congress’ website:
Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008 (Introduced in House)
HR 6068 IH
110th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. R. 6068
To establish a grant program to assist States in inspecting hotel rooms for bed bugs.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 15, 2008
Mr. BUTTERFIELD (for himself, Mr. YOUNG of Alaska, Mr. PAYNE, Ms. MATSUI, and Mr. JEFFERSON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce
A BILL
To establish a grant program to assist States in inspecting hotel rooms for bed bugs.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Don’t Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008′.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that–
(1) on February 12, 2008, a thorough inspection of a hotel in Nashua, New Hampshire, found that 16 of 117 rooms were infested with bedbugs;
(2) cimex lectularius, commonly known as bed bugs, travel through the ventilation systems in multi-unit establishments causing exponential infestations;
(3) female bedbugs can lay up to 5 eggs in a day and 500 during a lifetime;
(4) bedbug populations in the United States have increased by 500 percent in the past few years;
(5) in 2004, New York City had 377 bedbug violations and from July to November of 2005, a 5-month span, there were 449 violations reported in the city, an alarming increase in infestations over a short period of time;
(6) in a study of 700 hotel rooms between 2002 and 2006, 25 percent of hotels were found to be in need of bedbug treatment; and
(7) bed bugs possess all of the necessary prerequisites for being capable of passing diseases from one host to another.
SEC. 3. BED BUG INSPECTION GRANT PROGRAM.
(a) Administration; Amount- The Secretary of Commerce, in cooperation with the Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, may provide grants to an eligible State to assist such State in carrying out the inspections described in subsection (c). The grants shall be in amounts determined by the Secretary, taking into consideration the relative needs of the State.
(b) Eligibility- A State is eligible for a grant under this Act if the State has established a program whereby not fewer than 20 percent of rooms in lodging facilities in such State are inspected annually for cimex lectularius, commonly know as the bed bug. The Federal share of funding for such a program shall not exceed 80 percent.
(c) Use of Grants- A State may use a grant received under this Act to–
(1) conduct inspections of lodging facilities for cimex lectularius, including transportation, lodging, and meal expenses for inspectors;
(2) train inspection personnel; and
(3) educate the proprietors and staff of lodging establishments about methods to prevent and eradicate cimex lectularius.
(d) Application- To receive a grant under this Act, an eligible State shall submit an application to the Secretary of Commerce in such form and containing such information as the Secretary shall determine.
(e) Definition of Lodging Facility- For purposes of this Act and the requirement under subsection (b) for State programs receiving funding under this Act, the term `lodging facility’ means any individual hotel, motel, or inn that makes available for commercial lodging more than 10 individual rooms.
(f) Authorization of Appropriations- There is authorized to be appropriated $50,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2009 through 2012 to the Secretary of Commerce for the grants authorized under this Act.
SEC. 4. REPORT TO CONGRESS.
The Secretary of Commerce shall transmit a report to Congress not later than 3 years after the issuance of the first grant authorized under this Act, which shall contain an assessment of the effectiveness of the grant program.
[A H/T to LLR reader Elizabeth Imeson for the news item.]
Abraham Obama
Apparently, a street artist from Boston completed his grand creation — a mural that melds the faces of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama together in a rainbow of colors, although they are “multiple composite portraits.” Unfortunately, by doing so, it ignited a ruckus with the city residents who feel the artist’s ad blitz was unauthorized, considering it has covered the entire city.
Here’s a photo for those who would love to see the mural:
[H/T goes to Elizabeth Imeson for her news tip on this.]
Flint Cops to Teens: "Pull Up Pants or Face Either Fines or Jail Time"
Andrew Sullivan on the Flint, Michigan police department’s vile and diabolical crackdown on baggy pants.
Here’s an illustrated photo of the crackdown (H/T to the Free Press for posting it on its news page and Sullivan for posting it on his blog):
[H/T to Elizabeth Imeson for sending this news item to me.]
Todd Andrew Barnett
The New Let Liberty Ring 