Thanks to Micah Nelson.  Via Bill St. Clair.

Scientists drug-test whole cities:

Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city's sewer plant.

The test wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country.

Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking.

"It's a community urinalysis," said Caleb Banta-Green, a University of Washington drug abuse researcher who was part of the Oregon State team. The scientists presented their results Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

Two federal agencies have taken samples from U.S. waterways to see if drug testing a whole city is doable, but they haven't gotten as far as the Oregon researchers.

I can't see what use such information could have, except to give some cities and states yet another excuse to institute even more heinous and oppressive measures all in the name of the "War on Drugs."

Classic line:  "Wastewater facilities are wonderful places to understand what humans consume and excrete."

A man in Atlanta gets "interviewed" by the FBI because someone reported he was reading something that looked suspicious:

Trippi's partner speaks up: "Any reading material? Papers?" I don't think so. Then Trippi decides to level with me: "I'll tell you what, Marc. Someone in the shop that day saw you reading something, and thought it looked suspicious enough to call us about. So that's why we're here, just checking it out. Like I said, there's no problem. We'd just like to get to the bottom of this. Now if we can't, then you may have a problem. And you don't want that."

You don't want that? Have I just been threatened by the FBI? Confusion and a light dusting of panic conspire to keep me speechless. Was I reading something that morning? Something that would constitute a problem?

Read the whole thing for his experience, or if you want to know what diabolical document he was reading at the time (or if you want to know what inspired the title of this post).

My co-worker, Craig, says that we should probably be thankful the FBI takes these things seriously; I say it seems like a dark day when an American citizen regards reading as a threat, and downright pitch-black when the federal government agrees.

You got that right.

Via EFF.

At Radio Free NJ:

I’ve been thinking about how we’ve come to the state we’re in and when it comes right down to it, I think it’s all a result of a single pernicious idea. Somewhere along the line, a majority of the people in this country began to believe that our lives would be better if government relieved us of our responsibilities and managed them in our place. It’s not true of course… it only leads to a corruption of the spirit. It’s like an addictive drug, which rapidly spirals downward to a point where we are no longer capable of tending to ourselves and soon require government to handle everything for us. The real opiate of the masses isn’t religion; it’s the belief that somewhere there is a benefit that can be delivered without a corresponding cost.

Read it all. Via Oleg Volk.

I was catching up on blogs this morning and came across this brief post by Claire Wolfe which pointed to an excellent essay called "Deliberative Democracy" Dementia at the Foundation for Economic Freedom.  I must admit that I had not heard the term "deliberative democracy" before, but after I started reading about it I realized it's just the Official Name for a phenomenon I've been aware of for a long time.  I would consider the link above as essential reading, and is so full of good quotes it's hard to choose (also I want everyone to go read the whole thing), but here's a good one:

Being permitted to talk about politics is no substitute for being free.

I don't want to give link credit to such a group, but if you search the term you will find a link to the Deliberative Democracy Consortium.  One quote:

At the beginning of the 21st Century, democracy is in the midst of a particularly major shift in its development. All kinds of leaders are realizing that the traditionally distant relationship between citizens and government is inadequate for solving public problems. They are recognizing that the usual formats for decision-making often waste public resources, create unproductive conflict, and fail to tap citizen potential. They are attempting many different civic experiments -- some successful, some not -- to help citizens and governments work together more democratically and more effectively.

Trying to solve a problem by exploiting the problem never works.  I don't agree that there should even exist a dichotomy between the citizenry and government.  I admit that this is currently not the case (although it may be in some areas on a strictly local level) but I believe that it should be.

Public deliberation can have many benefits within society. Among the most common claims are that public deliberation results in better policies, superior public education, increased public trust, and reduced conflict when policy moves to implementation.

There's another quote from the same site.  Note that it says nothing about protecting fundamental rights or increasing personal liberty.  It's all about hoodwinking the masses into believing that further infringements are just fine because we all got to discuss them first.

I was surprised at the candor of the Wikipedia entry for "deliberative democracy."

Deliberative democracy, also sometimes called discursive democracy, is a term employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior.

The most influential scholars of deliberative democracy have each described deliberative democracy in a slightly different way. Common to all definitions is the attempt to mobilize entire populations in support of the official state ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, entailing repression or state control of business, labour unions, churches or political parties. Deliberative democracy regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cult, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, single-party state, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics.

I wonder how long it will be before someone changes it.

An underpinning of this concept seems to be that everyone has an opinion that's worth listening to, and that everyone deserves respect.  If someone is dedicated to stripping me of my rights, infringing on what little liberty I have managed to garner for myself, why should I bother listening to them?  Why should I waste even a single minute listening to their reasons for why I will be better off by submitting to the mob consensus?

UPDATE:  I was thinking about a follow-up to this post, but there's no point.  Just go read this exchange of comments at Random Ramblings of a Republitarian.

Also, congrats to rlubensky for being the first to refer to me as a libertarian.  All of you people who kept calling me a conservative were starting to get on my nerves.

It's not that I place a great emphasis on labels.  I don't.  I believe that most people use convenient labels as a substitute for thinking.  "He said what?  Oh, that means he's a so-and-so."  Eyes glaze over, all thinking stops.  It's just that sometimes I don't particularly appreciate a label that's used by some politicians and their supporters who I know good and well are not looking out for my best interest.  Who are, in fact, whole-heartedly trying to figure out yet another way to screw us all out of a little more freedom.

David Freddoso writes on the recent claims that "Ron Paul warns of staged terror attack":

My first reaction to the Politico headline — most people’s reaction, I’m sure — was that Paul should not be elected or defeated, but institutionalized. Then I read what is actually posted there, and I saw no quote from Paul about a “staged terrorist attack.” I did see a summary by Politico blogger Dan Reilly that says Paul “clearly insinuated that the administration would not be above staging an incident to revive flagging support.”

So I listened to the interview, trying to find what Reilly describes. And I listened to it again. And again. And I heard nothing of the sort.

Look, Paul doesn't have a chance of winning.  But he has a lot of important things to say.  And, since he is not an obvious "mainstream candidate" he must be silenced by those who have better chances of winning.  Many  bloggers who really should know better (no links, think for yourself) are dismissing Paul out of hand and even sometimes looking for reasons to call him a crackpot because he is actually a libertarian who only called himself a Republican.  And why did he do that in the first place?  Because the two-party system has become such a hallowed institution that anyone who doesn't want to play that game is automatically shunned and outcast.

Libertarians:  the political lepers of America.

Read both articles linked above.  I'll leave you with Freddoso's conclusion:

Paul is a barely relevant figure who has no chance in the election anyway, but you don’t need to like him to see the danger of this kind of sloppy headline-writing and summarizing. Careless reporters caused riots in the Middle East when they did a similar number on Pope Benedict XVI and his citation of Emperor Paleologus. The pope had actually given a very thoughtful and academic speech about Islamic-Christian relations, but thanks to the journalists, all hell broke loose. Other examples of this dangerous silliness abound.

The media has other problems besides its liberal bias, such as the need for quick sound-bites, inaccurate summaries, and headlines that often come at the expense of getting things right.

Via John Lott.

Very interesting article at Wired. Top Secret: We're Wiretapping You:

It could be a scene from Kafka or Brazil. Imagine a government agency, in a bureaucratic foul-up, accidentally gives you a copy of a document marked "top secret." And it contains a log of some of your private phone calls.

You read it and ponder it and wonder what it all means. Then, two months later, the FBI shows up at your door, demands the document back and orders you to forget you ever saw it.

By all accounts, that's what happened to Washington D.C. attorney Wendell Belew in August 2004. And it happened at a time when no one outside a small group of high-ranking officials and workaday spooks knew the National Security Agency was listening in on Americans' phone calls without warrants. Belew didn't know what to make of the episode. But now, thanks to that government gaffe, he and a colleague have the distinction of being the only Americans who can prove they were specifically eavesdropped upon by the NSA's surveillance program.

No one else has been able to challenge the legality of unwarranted wiretaps because the only evidence that it happened is in the hands of the organization committing the crime:  the NSA.

And all they say is, "Neener neener neener!"

So what?  They're busting terrorists, so they should be able to skirt the law, right?

It depends on how you define "terrorist," now doesn't it?

Via EFF.

Make your own postage stamps at stamps.com.  Here's my first one.


It occurs to me that this might be a good way to sidestep the postal service's reluctance to print certain politically incorrect religious-themed holiday stamps, as well.  If that's the kind of thing that turns you on.

UPDATE:  See also the John Moses Browning stamp.

I'm thankful that today is a holiday.  Working in this weather would be really miserable.  It was bad enough yesterday, and it didn't rain nearly as much as it already has today.  We have a 90% chance of rain all day today, and flash flood warnings for all of this part of Texas.  At least we shouldn't have to worry about fireworks starting fires.  This is the first wet 4th we've had in three years, if I recall correctly.  I guess the drought is officially over.

I went over to my dad's already to check the deer, but over there it was raining so hard I could barely see to drive--and this was going only about 15-20 mph on that old dirt road.

Lots of other bloggers have already made much more eloquent comments on Independence Day than I can.  Many freedoms we still have, but many have been taken from us.  The saddest thing to me is that many people either don't believe our liberty is being infringed upon, or they think we are better off because too much freedom is dangerous.  We should not count our blessings for the freedoms we do enjoy without reflecting on what we have lost and how we can get it back.


Happy Independence Day, everyone.  Make some noise--firearms are always preferable to fireworks--if you're not getting rained out.

UPDATE:  It stopped raining long enough for me to check the deer.  Still no new fawns.  My dad is going to have to build a foot bridge across his little creek if it doesn't stop raining soon.  There are sporadic, weak breaks in the clouds right now, but more rain is expected later today.

When he said:

"We must stop tolerating the rejection and distortion of science. We must insist on an end to the cynical use of pseudo-studies known to be false for the purpose of intentionally clouding the public's ability to discern the truth."

Of course, he would have been more accurate if he had said, "I must stop rejecting and distorting science."

Read this article in the Chicago Sun-Times for a handy list of inconvenient truths.

Via The Liberty Sphere.