Vox Popoli

From Drudge: It’s a groundbreaking court decision that legal experts say will affect everyone: Police officers in Louisiana no longer need a search or arrest warrant to conduct a brief search of your home or business. Leaders in law enforcement say it will keep officers safe, but others argue it’s a privilege that could be abused. The decision in United States v. Kelly Gould, No. 0230629cr0, was made March 24 by the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Two dissenting judges called it the “road to Hell.” The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in Denham Springs in 2000.

New Orleans Police Department spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo said the new power will go into effect immediately. “We have to have a legitimate problem to be there in the first place, and if we don’t, we can’t conduct the search,” Defillo said. But former U.S. Attorney Julian Murray said the ruling is problematic. “I think it goes way too far,” Murray said, noting that the searches can be performed if an officer fears for his safety.

Freedom is just another word for something the government took away from you. I don’t know why the Bush administration passed the Patriot Act. All they needed to do was wait around and have federal judges create it for them. I imagine it won’t be long before the only person you are permitted to legally marry is a same-sex Nazi police officer, who can decide to end your suffering and allow you to die with dignity whenever it suits him.

“But Frank, it’s just a hangnail!”

“Sorry, Ralph, I just can’t bear to see you like this. Heil Klinton!”

From the Washington Times: U.S. Air Force members in Iraq are furious over a recent order to take down all American flags at Kirkuk air base to avoid offending Iraqis. “The reason we were given is so we would not offend the Iraqi people,” said Air Force Technical Sgt. Samuel D. Arbuckle. “We were told that we are not occupying this country. And apparently we are not in charge. Well, my question is this: If we are not in charge, then who is?”

And more importantly, if we are not occupying the country and we are not in charge, why are we still there? I don’t have a problem with fighting the war that’s been declared on us. End the mullahs and the House of Saud. But this charade of establishing a democracy that isn’t a democracy isn’t going to work.

DJS writes: Based on your column, I must conclude that President Bush, Dr. Rice and the whole White House apparatus is composed of liberals, judging from their response to recent revelations regarding their lack of focus on terrorism.

I don’t think that their response has been as bad as all that, but I haven’t been paying much attention to it and whys aside, you’ll get no argument from me on the overall conclusion. There’s plenty of ways to build that case.

Mike Adams writes: Well, I suppose it had to happen. After eleven years of teaching at a public university, I finally got a call from one of my superiors informing me that I had made one of my co-workers feel “uncomfortable” in the workplace. For those who may not know, the right to feel “comfortable” at all times trumps the First Amendment at most public universities. Naturally, when I found out that I made a co-worker feel “uncomfortable,” I wanted to know what I had said or done to produce such an unthinkable result. That was when I learned that the “discomfort” occurred because I had been discussing some of my weekly columns here in the workplace (i.e., at the public university). The penalty for that transgression was simple: a ban on discussing my columns in the office in front of those who might be offended by my opinions. This was accompanied by the shocking revelation that “not everyone sees things the way you do, Mike.”

Here’s what I don’t understand about conservatives. If I was ever presented with such an outrageous demand, I would tell the person that they could stick something very prickly in a place that would make them very uncomfortable, doing so with words carefully chosen to make them feel uncomfortable. Prof. Adams goes on to write an amusing column about his hypothetical response, but it doesn’t obscure the apparent fact that he caved.

As I’ve previously written, the only way to handle these passive-aggressive control freaks is to up the ante. They object to “girl” start using “bitch” in front of them. If they complain about “queer” then use “flamer”. They’re only trying to unsettle you by making you feel guilty; once you make it clear that you not only don’t feel guilty but are perfectly willing to unsettle them, they give the whole thing up as a bad cause.

Duane Cross proves he remembers: Owens’ one shining moment came in 1999 when he caught the game-winning TD against Green Bay in the Divisional round. But even that is tainted. Ask any Packers fan and they will tell you that on the Niners’ game-winning drive that Jerry Rice fumbled the ball but the pass was ruled incomplete to eventually set the stage for T.O.’s “heroics.”

I’m no Packer’s fan, but that was a terrible call. Rice clearly fumbled after catching the ball; no question that Green Bay was robbed by the officials. Another thing that’s always bothered me is that I can recall thinking that the Falcons called four timeouts in the second half of that awful NFL championship game of 1998.

You can tell me to get over it. But I won’t.

Joseph Farah’s intelligence briefing reports that the jihad is getting very excited about Paul Muad’dib making an appearance soon. Here’s a few of the predictions that appear to have been made by jihadist prophets.

Two European countries will be attacked.

Spain and Italy, I would assume.

Another attack is planned against the U.S.

I don’t know that you need to be a serious prophet to call that one.



Followers are asked to get rid of euros and as true Muslims replace them with gold.

So maybe THAT explains the recent pop from 390 to 423. Rampant inflation plus the gold dinar equals buy gold.



A mass gathering of jihad warriors is expected in the cities of the twin holy mosques Mecca and Medina.

I’m wondering just how keen those warriors will be on showing for this mass gathering subsequent to the Sheikh Yassin affair last week.

Strange desperately blathers: The GDP grew by 1.7% in the third quarter of 2003. Still higher than Europe as a whole and most European countries, but you can actually find growth rates near 0 during some quarters in the last 3 years. If you go by the last 30 years, and particularly the last 15, you’ll find that the U.S. is behind some European countries, and almost identical to many others.

Meanwhile, in the real world, those of us who know that the actual annual growth rate supersedes that of the annual growth rate projected by a single quarter dismiss this apparent dichotomy thusly: While the USA was barely growing, large parts of Europe were contracting. That’s why the Eurozone growth was barely positive for 2002 and 2003. “Following two consecutive quarters of slight contraction,economic growth in the Eurozone turned positive again in the third quarter. Preliminary data show that GDP rose at an annualized rate of 1-1/2% in Q3 relative to Q2. That said, the year-on-year growth rate remained rather anemic, rising just 0.3% in the third quarter. In contrast, growth in theU.S. was much stronger in the third quarter. On a sequential basis the U.S. economy expanded at an annualized rate of 8.2% in Q3, which pulled the year-on-year growth rate up to 3.5%.”

I’d say more than 10x growth is substantial, wouldn’t you? Especially when Europe probably has around 2x the socialism, not that we’ve defined a measure of it yet. As for the last 30 years, those numbers were posted previously, courtesy of the OECD. US growth is 28 percent greater than the average of Europe’s big four, and that doesn’t include the last three years when the US outperformance has been increasing. The fact that Malta and Luxembourg may have grown faster is irrelevant, as they are not large, mature economies; even a bad small company has more growth potential than a Fortune 500 giant.

I’m interested in giving this CAVE idea a try, especially if it will help newcomers get their repetitive questions answered more easily. Is anyone willing to set up and run a blog listing these things as they come up? I’m willing to commit to addressing one CAVE topic every two weeks until we have ten items, then we’ll add more as they happen to come along.

So, what is the first topic of address? We already have two votes for an explanation of the flaws of the Marx’s labor theory of value and why they matter. I’m personally leaning towards an articulation of the evils of the NCAA football overtime rules.

Veni, vidi, perputi….

From the Star Tribune: Adjusting for inflation, gasoline prices in 1981 were the equivalent of nearly $3 a gallon now. Earlier generations didn’t have it any better — fueling a Model-T in 1919 cost $2.75 a gallon in today’s dollars. “No question about it, in the long term gas prices are very much at the bottom by historical standards,” said Cyrus Bina, an economist at the University of Minnesota/Morris and a student of energy markets.

Compared with the prices of most consumer goods, gasoline prices have been falling in relative terms for generations. To buy 1,000 gallons of gasoline at today’s prices requires less than 6 percent of per capita personal income, adjusted for inflation. In 1981, the year gas prices peaked, the same quantity would have extracted 14 percent of personal income. Why are so many people seething about gas prices?

Probably because they’re constantly told how low inflation is.

So, I’m in line at the airline check-in. And the guy in front of me is trying to check a freaking PROPANE TANK. “But I emptied it out,” he protests, to no avail and little sympathy from his fellow travellers. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt any empathy for the quasi-humans on the other side of the counter. The airline lady cracked up when after Propane Guy left for his gate, I asked if checking a 105mm artillery shell would be okay, or if I should just carry it on instead.

Unbelievable. No wonder the globalist elite believes it has a right to rule over the idiot masses. On days like this, I’m kind of sympathetic to the concept.