A quote from the Department of Homeland Security website:

We're also actively monitoring travelers at our land, sea, and air ports. We're watching them for signs of illness, and we have appropriate protocols in place to deal with those who are sick. Precautions are being taken to protect travelers and border personnel. Anyone exhibiting symptoms is being referred to an isolation room where they can be evaluated by a public health official before proceeding to their destruction.

 The site has now been changed to read, "before proceeding to their destination."  However, a footnote still exists that references the typo and includes the original phrasiology.  Man, what a scary typo.

Kellogg has dropped Michael Phelps because someone found a photo of him smoking pot. Phelps apologized, but here’s the letter he should have written instead:

Dear America,

I take it back. I don’t apologize.

Because you know what? It’s none of your goddamned business. I work my ass off 10 months per year. It’s that hard work that gave you all those gooey feelings of patriotism last summer. If during my brief window of down time I want to relax, enjoy myself, and partake of a substance that’s a hell of a lot less bad for me than alcohol, tobacco, or, frankly, most of the prescription drugs most of you are taking, well, you can spare me the lecture.

I put myself through hell. I make my body do things nature never really intended us to endure. All world-class athletes do. We do it because you love to watch us push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Some of us get hurt. Sometimes permanently. You’re watching the Super Bowl tonight. You’re watching 300 pound men smash each while running at full speed, in full pads. You know what the average life expectancy of an NFL player is? Fifty-five. That’s about 20 years shorter than your average non-NFL player. Yet you watch. And cheer. And you jump up spill your beer when a linebacker lays out a wide receiver on a crossing route across the middle. The harder he gets hit, the louder and more enthusiastically you scream.

Yet you all get bent out of shape when Ricky Williams, or I, or Josh Howard smoke a little dope to relax. Why? Because the idiots you’ve elected to make your laws have have without a shred of evidence beat it into your head that smoking marijuana is something akin to drinking antifreeze, and done only by dirty hippies and sex offenders.

You’ll have to pardon my cynicism. But I call bullshit. You don’t give a damn about my health. You just get a voyeuristic thrill from watching an elite athlete fall from grace–all the better if you get to exercise a little moral righteousness in the process. And it’s hypocritical righteousness at that, given that 40 percent of you have tried pot at least once in your lives.

Here’s a crazy thought: If I can smoke a little dope and go on to win 14 Olympic gold medals, maybe pot smokers aren’t doomed to lives of couch surfing and video games, as our moronic government would have us believe. In fact, the list of successful pot smokers includes not just world class athletes like me, Howard, Williams, and others, it includes Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, the last three U.S. presidents, several Supreme Court justices, and luminaries and success stories from all sectors of business and the arts, sciences, and humanities.

So go ahead. Ban me from the next Olympics. Yank my endorsement deals. Stick your collective noses in the air and get all indignant on me. While you’re at it, keep arresting cancer and AIDS patients who dare to smoke the stuff because it deadens their pain, or enables them to eat. Keep sending in goon squads to kick down doors and shoot little old ladies, maim innocent toddlers, handcuff elderly post-polio patients to their beds at gunpoint, and slaughter the family pet.

Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll apologize for smoking pot when every politician who ever did drugs and then voted to uphold or strengthen the drug laws marches his ass off to the nearest federal prison to serve out the sentence he wants to impose on everyone else for committing the same crimes he committed. I’ll apologize when the sons, daughters, and nephews of powerful politicians who get caught possessing or dealing drugs in the frat house or prep school get the same treatment as the no-name, probably black kid caught on the corner or the front stoop doing the same thing.

Until then, I for one will have none of it. I smoked pot. I liked it. I’ll probably do it again. I refuse to apologize for it, because by apologizing I help perpetuate this stupid lie, this idea that what someone puts into his own body on his own time is any of the government’s damned business. Or any of yours. I’m not going to bend over and allow myself to be propaganda for this wasteful, ridiculous, immoral war.

Go ahead and tear me down if you like. But let’s see you rationalize in your next lame ONDCP commercial how the greatest motherfucking swimmer the world has ever seen . . . is also a proud pot smoker.

Yours,

Michael Phelps

Boycott Kelloggs. And let them know why.

Pretty insightful and worth the watch.

“If Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices…. By transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.”

- Ron Paul, 5 fucking years ago

by committing to attend Congressman Paul’s press conference only to declare minutes before hand that “it just isn’t worth it.” This is according to Don Rasmussen, Events Coordinator of the Campaign for Liberty.

Bob Barr has been slamming Dr. Paul publicly since he won the formerly-libertarian party nomination, but this seems to have offended more Ron Paul supporters than anything he has done so far.

For those who don’t know, Barr spent much of his life jailing people on behalf of the federal government for possessing substances that the state hadn’t approved of, before recently “seeing the light”. Even since his supposed revelation, he has praised the troop surge, argued for intervention in Iran and South America, advocated a national sales tax, and voted for the PATRIOT Act twice. This just scratches the surface, of course.

With that said, it’s probably for the best that he didn’t show up today.

I was a little shocked by how emotional I felt watching this. Fox spends the first minute playing up the rumor that Ron Paul might take Bob Barr’s place, which would completely shake up the 2008 presidential elections. How exciting! Hope for America returns! A possibility to promote a completely anti-war, anti-tax, pro-market, pro-freedom candidate! A chance to encourage people to read Ron’s new book, and explain the ideas of libertarianism.

Alas, this excitement was promptly broken and replaced with disappointment as soon as Ron Paul began responding.

If only.

Many of those who aren’t pro-war gathered in Minneapolis, MN this week to celebrate the ideas of freedom and liberty. Check it out:

It was a blast to attend.

Pete Seeger - What Did You Learn In School?

Tom Paxton - George W. Told The Nation

(You’ll need to view this post on ChrisBrunner.com in order to see the video.)

Click here if you can’t see the video.

“We gonna pop [the drug dealers] in the head,” says Mayor Valley, who just instituted a 24-hour, non-stop curfew as part of an effort to reduce violence. This means that everyone in the area is essentially under house-arrest. The people who live there are not even allowed on their front lawns.

“Nobody can walk down the street and be safe, that is, be free from police interference,” says the mayor.

According to a local television station, not all locals are thrilled:

“I don’t think it’s right,” expresses Stevens. Some neighbors say they’re being unfairly punished for the crimes other people have committed. “They know exactly who’s doing the shooting, the robbery, but it seems like we’re never going to get any justice around here,” says Stevens. “We got kids down here. They should lock up these young folks that have been doing the shooting; don’t put us hostage or on lockdown,” complains Commons.

Fortunately, the good mayor’s staff has provided his cell phone number in case people have questions.