Sen. Rand Paul Speaks Out Against the Continuing Resolution

Via The Battle Of Atlanta

THE ENIGMA, PART 1: STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Programmer under oath admits computers rig elections

Via Billy

Is This An Appropriate Way To Honor A Veteran?

I've posted before about the ongoing battle over Oakwood Cemetery in Richmond. (See here and here) Oakwood has more (17,000) combat-related Confederate graves than any cemetery in the United States. But the current U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs administration doesn't want to honor these veterans with any proper V.A. issued headstones. I think they're playing politics. What an absolute disgrace.

As Lee Hart of the SCV noted in a recent Richmond Times piece about the ongoing battle:

"This is total, total discrimination," said F. Lee Hart III of Suffolk, chairman of the SCV Oakwood Restoration Committee. "I don't think they want to see an Arlington of Richmond, with all of the positive media and tourism that this cemetery will draw, this being the largest combat casualty Confederate cemetery."

EPA Rules Force Shell to Abandon Oil Drilling Plans

And every other state to boot.
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Shell Oil Company has announced it must scrap efforts to drill for oil this summer in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska. The decision comes following a ruling by the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board to withhold critical air permits. The move has angered some in Congress and triggered a flurry of legislation aimed at stripping the EPA of its oil drilling oversight.

Shell has spent five years and nearly $4 billion dollars on plans to explore for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The leases alone cost $2.2 billion. Shell Vice President Pete Slaiby says obtaining similar air permits for a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico would take about 45 days. He’s especially frustrated over the appeal board’s suggestion that the Arctic drill would somehow be hazardous for the people who live in the area. “We think the issues were really not major,” Slaiby said, “and clearly not impactful for the communities we work in.”

Dumbest Criminal Ever?

You ever watch the show "Prison Break?" Essentially, it's about a dude who gets himself arrested and put into prison so that he can break out his brother who's been wrongfully convicted. All over his body, the hero tattooed the blueprints for the prison as a map to escape the prison.

Well one California criminal used his tattoos to get him INTO prison. For a loooong time.

Via Weasel Zippers

IPAB: A death panel by any other name. Bring out your dead!

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."
--James Madison
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"One of the most fundamental concepts in economics is the reality of scarcity. No matter what economic system a nation employs, no matter what laws are passed, there will simply never be enough resources to fully satisfy everyone's desires. Every nation therefore must choose a way to allocate their limited resources. This has been done by the sword and spear, on the whims of politicians and bureaucrats and, in the free market system, through the free decisions of individual citizens reflected by the price system.

In the long and miserable history of government intrusion of health care, perhaps the single most damaging act has been to hide medical care prices from the patient. Americans are actually very sophisticated consumers but the government doesn't trust them to to consume health care. Instead they've created a system that utilizes third-party payers (insurance companies, Medicare, etc.) and while the prices may be hidden from the consumer the ever-increasing costs in the form of premiums and taxes certainly aren't.

Imagine using the government's health care economic model for any other sector of our economy."

Taliban Break More Than 450 From Afghan Prison

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- "Taliban militants dug a lengthy tunnel underground and into the main jail in Kandahar city and whisked out more than 450 prisoners, most of whom were Taliban fighters, officials and insurgents said Monday.

The massive overnight jailbreak in Afghanistan's second-largest city underscores the Afghan government's continuing weakness in the south, despite an influx of international troops, funding and advisers. Kandahar city, in particular, has been a focus of the international effort to establish a strong Afghan government presence in former Taliban strongholds.

The 1,200-inmate Sarposa Prison has been part of that plan. The facility has undergone security upgrades and tightened procedures following a brazen 2008 Taliban attack that freed 900 prisoners. Afghan government officials and their NATO backers have regularly said that the prison has vastly improved security since that attack.

But on Sunday night, about 475 prisoners streamed out of a tunnel that had been dug into the facility and disappeared into Kandahar city, prison supervisor Ghulam Dastagir Mayar said. He said the majority of the missing were Taliban militants."

Hospital Tells Vet To Hide Confederate Flag

This has been in the news for a while, many letters written and I believe HK is going there. Ridiculous, since the Mississippi flies outside! They should be challenged by taking a small Mississippi flag inside.

Mississippi Flag below *S&S

*My Suggestion For Equal Time For The S&S

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Via T

Guerrilla Jurors: Sticking it to Leviathan

Citizens in our (once) free republic founded under the English common law system, have both the power and the right to vote according to conscience when they sit on a jury and can vote not guilty even in the face of the law and in the face of the evidence. The defendant also has a right to expect that his jury will be fully informed of their rightful power to vote "not guilty" if they believe justice requires it, regardless of the evidence. Anything less is not a real jury trial.

The jury issues no opinion, gives no explanation of its decision. It simply renders its verdict, and if the verdict is "not guilty," that acquittal cannot be questioned or overturned by any court. It is telling that a conviction can be overturned, but an acquittal cannot – the deck is stacked on the side of the liberty of the individual on trial. While a judge can overturn a jury conviction that in his judgment is unsupported by the evidence, or where the jury harbors prejudicial animus toward the defendant, the judge cannot overturn an acquittal even if the evidence is overwhelming – even if the defendant admits on the stand that he did the actions of which he is accused.

A landmark case in jury history is that of William Penn,