Month: April 2003

I found some helpful suggestions on how you can make processing your tax return as unpleasant an experience for the IRS as possible.

happiness. Iraq is liberated. How can any thinking person not feel joy for Iraqis as they tore down the iron symbols of their oppression and slapped it with sandals to demonstrate their utter contempt?thisi s history, and must be celebrated by all. Those of us who oppose war must not begrudge this victory. [Shi’a Pundit]

Well put.

Gavin Sheridan posts gruesome pictures of war death. [Scripting News]

A reminder to Crusaders: this is what you wanted.

KIRKUK. 15 MINUTES OUTSIDE OF KIRKUK, Iraq — The highway to Kirkuk is packed with thousands of civilian vehicles at mid-afternoon today, after news broke that peshmerga had entered this oil-rich city that Kurds have claimed as their own, despite the Turkomen, Arab and Assyrian residents. [Back In Iraq 2.0]

There have been several updates recently about Christopher Allbritton’s trip to Kirkuk.

Delta Airlines still being targeted by privacy boycott [Politech]

bq. Song (and Delta) is collaborating in a test of the CAPPS II system, an invasive and un-American program that forces citizens to undergo a background investigation that includes personal banking information and a credit check simply to travel in his or her own country.

I’m boycotting airports in general, but people who are forced to fly but still value freedom might find this information useful.

BusinessWeek: Why do Feds ignore simple security for surveillance? [Politech]

The Feds aren’t interested in security. If they increased security, they might stop terrorist attacks, and if that happens they won’t have anything to frighten people into submission with. From their point of view, it’s better to increase their power with surveillance, then be ready to increase it again the next time terrorists succeed at killing people.

How far will the State Department go to smear an Iraqi freedom-fighter? [OpinionJournal]

The War Street Journal is working with the Crusaders in the government (although since it’s an anonymous editorial, it may be the same people) to push Chalabi as their Iraqi puppet leader. Since they’re the ones running things, they will presumably just install him regardless of what people think. This raises a question–what happens when a national leader is a fugitive from justice in a neighboring country?

Disarmament vs. Liberation. Now that Baghdad has fallen, you have to wonder yet again why the Iraqi regime has not used chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces. Earlier in the war, the speculation was that Saddam did not want to alienate world opinion and vindicate the Bush administration by using weapons of mass destruction he has long denied having. Instead, the theory went, he was counting on a bloody, drawn-out battle for Baghdad to compel a settlement that would allow him to remain in power. But now he (or whoever is in charge now) has nothing to lose.

Could it be that Iraq never had a siginificant WMD capability? So far the search for evidence of one has turned up nothing but false alarms. A lot of ground remains to be covered, of course, but the administration’s decision to play down disarmament as the war’s goal seems to anticipate the possibility that nothing much will be found.

If so, will it matter? Even before jubilant Iraqis started pouring into the streets, waving improvised flags and tearing down Saddam’s statues, “Operation Iraqi Freedom” had metamorphosed from a pre-emptive act of self-defense into a humanitarian mission to rescue people from a brutal dictator. It’s hard not to rejoice that Iraqis are finally free of Saddam, but it is also hard not to worry about the precedent set by their liberation. A policy of using our military to free oppressed people would lead to war with half the world. [Hit & Run]

British launch gun amnesty in Basra. Locals are asked to hand in their weapons as UK troops try to restore law and order to the southern Iraqi town. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition]

bq. The troops have been largely successful in stamping out the looting which has dogged the city in recent days but the large number of weapons in circulation is still a cause for concern, military officials said.

Residents are being urged to dump their guns in an “amnesty pit” close to one British military compounds.

“Iraq has a culture of weapons. There are a lot of them around, most held quite legally,” said Captain Cliff Dare, of 3 Commando Brigade Engineer Group.

“If we want to give the new Iraq a chance these weapons have to be taken out of circulation.”

I have to admit, I’m surprised that they’re already doing stuff like this. I knew it would happen eventually, but I figured they’d at least wait until the fighting had stopped before they started “liberating” the Iraqis from their newfound (and apparently very short-lived) freedom.

Fed Monopoly Cracking?. The state of Nevada contemplates its own silver coinage. [Hit & Run]

bq. Nevada is the first of the 50 states to consider taking such steps against the Federal Reserve, and one has to wonder which, if any state, will be next. At a minimum, it’s not good news for a Federal Reserve that has made printing money and manipulating the amount of money and credit in circulation into an art form, especially on its 90th anniversary.

I doubt this will go anywhere, but it’s interesting to see a state even thinking about standing up to the Feds like this.