Yearly Archives: 2004

Maximizing Government Revenue

This entry was posted in Domestic Terrorism Law Enforcement Libertarianism on by

Yet another novel approach to funding government:

On Tuesday, Blunkett will fight in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for the right to charge victims of miscarriages of justice more than �3000 for every year they spent in jail while wrongly convicted. The logic is that the innocent man shouldn�t have been in prison eating free porridge and sleeping for nothing under regulation grey blankets.

I’m kind of surprised he doesn’t want to charge these unlucky folks the full cost plus a little instead of a paltry �3000 but then the British may be able to house someone for much less then it costs in the US.
This kind of crap fits right in with things like forfeiture laws.
Via Samizdata and White Rose.

Some Possible Good News on the Spam Front

This entry was posted in Internet Spam Technology on by

This looks like a good thing:

Comcast, the US cable giant, is threatening to disconnect customers whose infected PC are being used to relay spam messages.
Up to 30 per cent of spam is now spewing from hijacked “zombie” PCs. Spammers use Trojan horses and worms to take over PCs and use them as spam engines, a practice that can severely disrupt the operation of ISPs.

I’d like to see them extend this to include PCs infected with Blaster and other worms that continually spew out probes looking for machines to infect. There policy should provide a mechanism for these users to regain access once they have cleansed their PC.
There is some risk that Comcast will block some innocents as well. Remember, Comcast is the outfit with the Kafkaesque usage policy.

guardsman bush

This entry was posted in bush on by

The discussion of bush’s military record seemed to die away rather abruptly some weeks ago. It is good to know, though, that not everyone has bought into the idea that the complete record is now before the public.
Check out this article:

Some military researchers and a former Texas Guard lieutenant colonel believe the stringent regulations — known as the Human Reliability Program — may have been invoked to stop Bush from flying Texas Air National Guard jets in 1972.

Yes, this is speculative stuff as the record still seems to be incomplete.
As Rick says:

I have all these documents and more, copies of every set of orders I ever received, academic reports for every course I attended. Now, maybe that’s just me; I kept a copy of everything. But, when I ordered an updated copy of my Fische, it was all there.
Can we just access his MicroFische?

Via Orcinus.

American Taliban

This entry was posted in Constitution Domestic Terrorism Libertarianism on by

Is in action:

The FCC is seeking the maximum $27,500 for each of the alleged violations, or $247,500 in all, from a March 13, 2003, broadcast that included a graphic discussion about pornographic film star Ron Jeremy. Portions of the conversation were rebroadcast eight times in promotional spots for the show.

I’d change the station if this schlock came on and would not have Elliot in the Morning on in the first place. However, for those who want to tune in I can think of no justification for saying no.

Talking Freely

This entry was posted in Constitution on by

Ron Paul has a few thoughts on our esteemed congess’ efforts to make us be good via the �Broadcast Indecency Act of 2004�

This atrocious piece of legislation should be defeated. It cannot improve the moral behavior of U.S. citizens, but it can do irreparable harm to our cherished right to freedom of speech.
This attempt at regulating and punishing indecent and sexually provocative language suggests a comparison to the Wahhabi religious police of Saudi Arabia, who control the �Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.� Though both may be motivated by the good intentions of improving moral behavior, using government force to do so is fraught with great danger and has no chance of success.

He follows this by hammering both the left and the right for past and present support for violations of our free speech.
Hey, he may be a republican but he has this one right.
Via Freespace.