Mel's Poly-tics Corner
Poly (many) + Tics (bloodsucking parisites) = Politics
      

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Take the world's smallest political quiz! Where do you fit into the spectrum?
Why the NYPD wrote tickets while citizens directed traffic during the blackout August/03
New study shows that smoking pot has no ill effects on the brain!!
June 27, 2003
Read about the "cold, hard slap in the face" of Drug Warriors everywhere (yay!)
June 6, 2003
Libertarian view on the proposed statewide smoking ban in Ma. May 29, 2003
Hypocrisy at its worst- the Bush "get out of jail free" card September 10, 2002
No joke- your money is paying for stuff like this. August 9, 2000
When anti-discrimination laws go too far. What's next? Blind cab drivers? May 14, 2002
Come on John Noel, it's a frickin glass of tea April 7, 2003
Better keep your mouth shut the next time you see a transsexual, you could be breaking the  law for calling a "he" a "he" if he'd really like to be called a "she"... April 11, 2003
The essence of government: 24 political truths June 17, 2003 (but it's timeless)
New story from Talk Left: (find it verbatim here.)
(even though I seem to agree with some of their articles... this one got me thinking)
June 5, 2003
California Expands 24 Hour Lockdowns
   We find this reprehensible. California is expanding the use of 24 hour lockdowns in prisons--as a cost-cutting measure.
   The state's financially strapped corrections department is prohibiting inmates from leaving their cells at three prisons in an attempt to reduce overtime pay for guards and is considering further cost-saving restrictions at most of the system's 32 institutions, according to the chairwoman of the state Senate committee that oversees prisons.
   The ACLU says the policy is unconstitutional but has no plans to sue. Too bad.

ok... some convicts can't leave their cells for 24 hours... is that really so bad? what would be better... raising everybody's taxes (including the victim's!) to raise funds to pay the security guards? i thought people go to prisons to learn and change from their mistakes-- so put em in their cells for a day and give em time to think! my- how cruel!!!

the next two pieces are from the
Washington Post June 8, 2003:
Liberating Iraq
American authorities say they are working on a directive that would ban hate speech and incitements to violence and create a system for registering publications to lend some order to the media landscape...
L. Paul Bremer III, the top US administrator in Iraq... said it was not a matter of trying to control the media but more "a question of having some orderly process by which one registers newspaper or magazine, as you'd have in any other country."
Come on. I could sum up "some orderly process by which one registers newspaper or magazine" in one word: censorship. But we're liberating Iraq, right?

Profiles in Incoherence
[Sen. John Edwards] tells receptive Democratic audiences that one major motivation for his running is to safeguard civil rights and other values he cherishes against the "right wing" judges Bush is picking. That segues into the biggest applause line in his speech, a vow that he will do all in his power to assure that "we do not in the name of the war on terrorism and the need for homeland security let people like John Ashcroft take away our lives, our liberties, our freedom." (Edwards opposed Ashcroft's confirmation but voted for the USA Patriot Act, expanding the surveillance powers of the Justice Department.)
JFK once said something like "A country which values its privileges over its principles soon loses both." Harry Browne made a fitting modification: "A country which values its security over its principles soon loses both."




The War on Drugs Clock
Now you can WATCH your taxdollars be thrown away in real time!!!
SO usually when something happens that Americans don't like, we say "oh ya... that really sucks, man... there should be a law against it or something". In April 2003, a statewide smoking ban was passed in Connecticut because 2/3 of voters agree "second hand smoke is bad". now i'm not saying that i like sitting in smokey restaurants or anything, but i don't like the fact that we've given our government the power to determine what goes on in privately-owned businesses. does this mean the OWNER of the restaurant can't even smoke in his/her own establishment anymore? come on- these battles need to be won in a court of public opinion- not with meddling new policies and laws.
Below are some more articles which i think you'll find interesting-- even if you don't agree with the views expressed
"To be governed is to be watched, inspected, directed, indoctrinated, numbered, estimated, regulated, commanded, controlled, law-driven, preached at, spied upon, censored, checked, valued, enrolled, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so."
-Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
HEY EVERYBODY! I know why schools are failing! It's because in 9 states, welfare recipients make more money than entry-level teachers!
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