https://freerepublic.com/tag/by:secretagent/ en-us Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:21:06 GMT Focus Forum 15 https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2658354/posts Vows by Congressional Republicans to slash billions from the federal budget at a time when joblessness is high and the economy needs stimulus are reckless. But here is one big-ticket saving that all members of Congress should get behind: cutting the billions of dollars in farm subsidies that distort food prices, encourage overfarming and inflate the price of land. The government spends $10 billion to $30 billion a year subsidizing mainly large-scale farmers. That includes: $5 billion in direct payments that are delivered regardless of what or even whether farmers plant; up to $7 billion in “marketing loans” that effectively... The New York Times https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2658354/posts#comment Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:21:06 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2375671/posts The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday. Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world. But David Barber, Canada's Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said... NewsDaily https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2375671/posts#comment Sun, 1 Nov 2009 03:16:51 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2352708/posts snip... A Genuine Solution The solution to America’s health care problems is not more government intervention. Government violations of individual rights through government interference in the marketplace are the source of the problems. Government meddling in health insurance has all but eliminated choice, competition, and innovation, and has driven up the cost of health insurance. Government interference in medicine has caused incalculable harm to both patients and doctors, and driven up the cost of health care. Government controls have bred more controls, as politicians and bureaucrats have tried to “solve” the problems created by one set of regulations by imposing... The Objective Standard https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2352708/posts#comment Thu, 1 Oct 2009 18:57:25 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2335789/posts Today, we are constantly being told, the United States faces a health care crisis. Medical costs are too high, and health insurance is out of reach of the poor. The cause of this crisis is never made very clear, but the cure is obvious to nearly everybody: government must step in to solve the problem. Eighty years ago, Americans were also told that their nation was facing a health care crisis. Then, however, the complaint was that medical costs were too low, and that health insurance was too accessible. But in that era, too, government stepped forward to solve the... libertariannation https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2335789/posts#comment Wed, 9 Sep 2009 21:45:39 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2334827/posts This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Alvarez v. Smith, a challenge to the state of Illinois' Drug Asset Forfeiture Procedure Act (DAFPA). (Disclosure: the Reason Foundation, publisher of Reason.com, joined in an amicus brief in the case.) The six petitioners in Alvarez each had property seized by police who suspected the property had been involved in a drug crime. Three had their cars seized, three had cash taken. None of the six were served with a warrant, none of the six were charged with the crime. All perfectly legal, at least until now. ...(snip)... In... reasononline https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2334827/posts#comment Tue, 8 Sep 2009 20:08:57 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2277079/posts The violence in Mexico is caused by prohibition, not firearms. Jacob Sullum | July 2009 Print Edition During his April visit to Mexico, President Barack Obama suggested that Americans are partly to blame for the appalling violence associated with the illegal drug trade there. “The demand for these drugs in the United States is what’s helping keep these cartels in business,” he said. “This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States.” Obama is right that the U.S. is largely responsible for the carnage in Mexico, which claimed more than 6,000 lives last year.... July 2009 https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2277079/posts#comment Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:14:56 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2276067/posts It's true that the U.S. health care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. To cure the problem requires not different or more government regulations and bureaucracies, as self-serving politicians want us to believe, but the elimination of all existing government controls. It's time to get serious about health care reform. Tax credits, vouchers, and privatization will go a long way toward decentralizing the system and removmg unnecessary burdens from business. But four additional steps must also be taken: 1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health... Ludwig von Mises Institute https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2276067/posts#comment Sun, 21 Jun 2009 01:14:17 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2002014/posts snip... James Colomb spent the bulk of his career working in an oil field, then was injured. The family’s sole source of income now is his disability check. Ann Colomb—“Miss Ann” to those who know her—is a homemaker. It was from this unlikely setting, the United States alleged, that Ann Colomb and three of her four sons ran one of the largest crack cocaine operations in Louisiana. Over the course of a decade, prosecutors said, the Colombs bought $15 million in illicit drugs with a street value of more than $70 million... ...But in the ensuing months, the government’s case... reasononline https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2002014/posts#comment Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:01:54 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979015/posts The Danish cartoonist who drew Mohammed with a bomb in his turban has been on the move since an alleged plot to kill him was uncovered last year. Kurt Westergaard told the German magazine Der Spiegel that the arrest of three alleged assassins was a "great shock." Since then, he and his wife have changed locations at irregular intervals, staying with children, in vacation homes and for three weeks at a luxury hotel in Arhus. They were evicted after the management decided the couple was putting other guests at risk. The original drawing of the cartoon is in a safe... NewsDaily https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979015/posts#comment Sun, 2 Mar 2008 01:57:09 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1971854/posts TWENTY-SEVEN years ago, in the final days of the Iran hostage crisis, the C.I.A.’s Tehran station chief, Tom Ahern, faced his principal interrogator for the last time. The interrogator said the abuse Mr. Ahern had suffered was inconsistent with his own personal values and with the values of Islam and, as if to wipe the slate clean, he offered Mr. Ahern a chance to abuse him just as he had abused the hostages. Mr. Ahern looked the interrogator in the eyes and said, “We don’t do stuff like that.” Today, Tom Ahern might have to say: “We don’t do stuff... New York Times https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1971854/posts#comment Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:15:44 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1963937/posts JUNEAU, Alaska, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- Alaska is one of 12 U.S. states considering making salvia, a potent natural hallucinogen which is a species of sage, illegal. The hallucinogenic salvia divinorum is not banned by the federal Controlled Substances Act and is only illegal in six states, The Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News reported Saturday. Republican state Sen. Gene Therriault, who said the substance's effects are dangerously powerful and similar to LSD, has been the heading the charge to ban it in Alaska A user said the drug made her and her boyfriend "melt to the wall," the newspaper said. "The... UPI https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1963937/posts#comment Sat, 2 Feb 2008 22:00:07 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961702/posts Attorney Simon Glik, 31, was a defendant in Boston Municipal Court today as his lawyer, June E. Jensen of Wayland, asked a judge to dismiss wiretapping, disturbing-the-peace and aiding-a-prisoner-escape complaints, which were issued against him last fall. Jensen told Judge Mark H. Summerville that Glik was arrested in Boston on Oct. 1 for allegedly using his cell phone to record the arrest of a 16-year-old juvenile in a drug case. She said the Moscow-born lawyer was walking through the Boston Common at 5:30 p.m. when he used his phone’s camera to videotape three police officers investigating the teen. “If you... Masslawyersweekly.com https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961702/posts#comment Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:39:23 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1940126/posts ..snip What is Google's cloud? It's a network made of hundreds of thousands, or by some estimates 1 million, cheap servers, each not much more powerful than the PCs we have in our homes. It stores staggering amounts of data, including numerous copies of the World Wide Web. This makes search faster, helping ferret out answers to billions of queries in a fraction of a second. Unlike many traditional supercomputers, Google's system never ages. When its individual pieces die, usually after about three years, engineers pluck them out and replace them with new, faster boxes. This means the cloud regenerates... Buiness Week https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1940126/posts#comment Sun, 16 Dec 2007 02:31:06 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1938678/posts Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies By M. Stanton Evans Crown Forum; 663 pp; $29.95. Eight years after Arthur Herman, here comes Stan Evans with another effort to pull off what most historians would regard as a Herculean (if not Sisyphean) task: the rehabilitation of Joe McCarthy. As did his predecessor, Evans does an excellent job of correcting excesses in the historical record — the unthinking, near-hysterical, and far too common demonization of McCarthy. Indeed, Evans’s book is more detailed, and he conducted more original and diligent research into primary... FrontPageMagazine https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1938678/posts#comment Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:31:38 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934108/posts Careful about doling out glasses of spiked eggnog to the college-aged kids in your family this Christmas. A glassful could cost you your license, even if no one gets near a car. North Carolina is taking bans on booze to a new level as part of a passel of legislation that also bans alcohol inhalers and changes requirements for ankle bracelets for boozers: "As of Saturday, people can lose their driver's licenses for providing alcohol to anyone under 21. The penalty is important because many underage drinkers get alcohol from friends or family members, said Craig Lloyd, the executive director... reason https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934108/posts#comment Mon, 3 Dec 2007 20:46:40 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929148/posts Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. "Isn't sharing wonderful?" say the teachers. They miss the point. Because of sharing, the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen. The failure of Soviet communism is only the latest demonstration that freedom and property rights, not sharing, are essential to prosperity. The earliest European settlers in America had a dramatic demonstration of that lesson, but few people today know it. When the Pilgrims first settled the Plymouth Colony, they organized their farm economy along communal lines.... Real Clear Politics https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1929148/posts#comment Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:32:18 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1924020/posts When the U.S. Navy deploys a battle fleet on exercises, it takes the security of its aircraft carriers very seriously indeed. At least a dozen warships provide a physical guard while the technical wizardry of the world's only military superpower offers an invisible shield to detect and deter any intruders. That is the theory. Or, rather, was the theory. Uninvited guest: A Chinese Song Class submarine, like the one that sufaced by the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk American military chiefs have been left dumbstruck by an undetected Chinese submarine popping up at the heart of a recent Pacific exercise and close... Daily mail https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1924020/posts#comment Sun, 11 Nov 2007 03:57:06 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1914408/posts It's true that the U.S. health care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. To cure the problem requires not different or more government regulations and bureaucracies, as self-serving politicians want us to believe, but the elimination of all existing government controls. It's time to get serious about health care reform. Tax credits, vouchers, and privatization will go a long way toward decentralizing the system and removmg unnecessary burdens from business. But four additional steps must also be taken: 1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health... The Free Market https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1914408/posts#comment Mon, 22 Oct 2007 01:51:57 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1910837/posts Can't post Vanity Fair material, but recommend this moving and thoughtful piece. Vanity https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1910837/posts#comment Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:27:21 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904652/posts On May 7, 1933, just two months after the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the New York Times reporter Anne O’Hare McCormick wrote that the atmosphere in Washington was “strangely reminiscent of Rome in the first weeks after the march of the Blackshirts, of Moscow at the beginning of the Five-Year Plan.…America today literally asks for orders.” The Roosevelt administration, she added, “envisages a federation of industry, labor and government after the fashion of the corporative State as it exists in Italy.” That article isn’t quoted in Three New Deals, a fascinating study by the German cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch.... Reason Magazine https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1904652/posts#comment Mon, 1 Oct 2007 02:06:48 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1899801/posts TALLAHASSEE -- Richard Paey is a chronic pain patient in year three of a 25-year mandatory-minimum sentence for trafficking in drugs -- his own pain medication. But his freedom is just hours away. Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet voted unanimously to grant Paey a full pardon Thursday morning for his 2004 conviction on drug trafficking and possession charges. "We aim to right a wrong and exercise compassion and to do it with grace," the governor said. "Congratulations ... and I state he should be released today." With that, Paey's wife Linda, their three children, a family friend and... St. Petersburg Times https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1899801/posts#comment Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:27:17 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1884547/posts WASHINGTON (AP) - 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. myway https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1884547/posts#comment Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:14:33 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1832373/posts Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report. Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily. The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control... The New York Times https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1832373/posts#comment Sat, 12 May 2007 05:11:08 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1827259/posts Emergency crews were scrambling to shut down a broken water main Wednesday morning causing a massive sinkhole near University Bridge in Seattle that swallowed a minivan and a sedan and gushed water and mud for hours into Portage Bay. One car landed on a gas pipeline and both were on top of the broken main, making the accident more difficult control, authorities said. They added it might take up to 30 hours before the water system is back to normal. seattlepi.com https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1827259/posts#comment Wed, 2 May 2007 17:15:48 GMT https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1825756/posts The largest single change for the better in U.S. foreign policy, and one that could be accomplished simply by an act of political will, would be the abandonment of the so called War on Drugs. This last relic of the Nixon era has long been a laughingstock within the borders of the United States itself (where narcotics are freely available to anybody who wants them and where the only guarantee is that all the money goes straight into criminal hands). But the same diminishing returns are now having a deplorable effect on America’s international efforts. Consider the case of Afghanistan.... Foreign Policy https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1825756/posts#comment Mon, 30 Apr 2007 04:16:03 GMT