Commentary on government as an institution.
This week FBI agents arrested Muhammad Hussain, née Antonio Martinez, as he tried to blow up a military recruiting facility in Catonsville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Hussain/Martinez’ bomb, like the one Somalia-born Mohamed Mohamud tried to detonate at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon, two weeks ago, was obligingly supplied by the … Read more Do you feel safer now?
“They hate us for our freedoms,” said former President George W. Bush by way of explaining the 9-11 attacks. Well, thanks to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), we no longer have one of our freedoms, namely freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. This month, the TSA escalated its screening procedures to require airline travelers to … Read more Maybe they won’t hate us anymore
Insanity, according to an aphorism often attributed (probably erroneously) to Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Last week Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the Federal Open Market Committee plans to purchase $600 billion in longer-term Treasury securities between now and the middle of next … Read more Monetization and insanity
I was planning to write something patriotic for Independence Day — you know, something about how an oppressed people living on the edge of an untamed continent stood up to tyranny; a people who, though vastly outnumbered and under-supplied, fought and won a long, hard war against the greatest economic and military power on Earth … Read more Big Brother wants to know…EVERYTHING!
Last week Dan Rodricks, a local columnist for The Baltimore Sun, wrote about being issued a $40 speeding ticket after an unmanned speed camera clocked his car going 40 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone. He thought it was terribly unfair, because the stretch of road with the speed camera ran by a … Read more Smile! Big Brother is watching you!