A new animation from JibJab.com poking fun at FOXNEWS, CNN and MSNBC:

On Tuesday March 20, 2007, the Liberty Dollar filed a law suit — Liberty Dollar v Henry M. Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General of the United States, Edmond C. Moy, Director, US Mint — at the U.S. District Court in Evansville Indiana. The law suit is requesting for the court declare that the Liberty Dollar is not a federal crime, as the U.S. Mint has previously claimed. It would also require the court to enter a permanent injunction against the U.S. Mint, forcing it to remove any reference to the Liberty Dollar being illegal from its website.

This case is very important and could have dire consequences. If the Liberty Dollar organization happens to lose, the Federal Reserve will be the only currency allowed in the market place. This means no competition and when there is no competition, there are always bad results. This kind of precedence could also have far reaching implications. Coupons, for example, are a type of currency and — as a result of the Liberty Dollar losing this case — could become illegal. I know this isn’t likely but at the very least they could become regulated and require government approval, allowing for the creation of another money wasting bureaucracy to authorize all coupons. This may seem like a stretch, but I wouldn’t put it past the Federal government, they’ve done far dumber things.

Suing the United States government requires a lot of time, effort and money (don’t forget that the government can print money out of thin air), which is why the Liberty Dollar needs your help. If you have any money to spare, please click here to find out how to donate money to help fund their case. That page also contains other interesting ways to support their cause such as bidding on special edition Liberty Dollars on eBay. If nothing else, you can always buy some Liberty Dollars and spend them with friends and stores in your local area.

For more information check out LibertyDollar.org

Here is a great video about libertarian ideals.  A lot of you may have seen it already, but its worth posting for those of you out there that may not have.  For better quality, check out the original flash animation.

Part One:

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

One thing I noticed was his stance on immigration. It is a baby step in the right direction but it could be better. He needs to come out more strongly against the incentives (welfare, healthcare, etc.) that the federal government provides for ‘illegal’ immigrants. I also hope he starts advocating making the immigration process easier for those trying to enter our country legally. His stance on abortion also scared me at first until he mention that it should be up to the states to decide. Other than those two issues, I agree with everything he said and I will vote for him. Good luck Dr. Paul our country needs you.

A recent study conducted by MAPS.org shows that there are more ER visits per year for cheerleading accidents than there are for Ecstasy use. To quote the study:

I focused on Emergency Room (ER) visit data, the most common indicator of cost to public health. For example, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), in 1994–nine years after MDMA was criminalized, but the first for which data is available from SAMHSA– there were 253 ER visits as a result of Ecstasy use in the US. Meanwhile, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC), in 1994 there were 15,792 ER visits as a result of participation in organized cheerleading. By that measure, in 1994 cheerleading was 62 times more of a threat to our nation’s public health than Ecstasy use. Keep in mind that most users don’t know whether their Ecstasy is pure MDMA, so these statistics reflect the risks of using unregulated black-market Ecstasy, which often contains other substances and sometimes does not even contain MDMA.

To look at those numbers another way, in 2001, one out of every 152 organized cheerleading participants sought ER treatment, while only one of out of every 585 past-year Ecstasy users sought ER treatment.

There is also a graph comparing the two for each year from 1995 to 2004:

So I guess we all know what this means. It is time to start a prohibition on cheerleading. After all, the reason certain drugs are illegal is because the are ‘unsafe’ and this study clearly shows that cheerleading is far more dangerous to public health than MDMA. It seems that if the government is at all worried about the safety of its citizens then they should outlaw cheerleading. While they’re at it (since governments never seem to know when to stop), they might as well outlaw smoking and trans fat since these are also dangerous to public health.

Of course these are ludicrous claims. The government does not have the right to regulate what people can do with their bodies. They should not be allowed regulate cheerleading and they should not be allowed to regulate drug use. I just hope this study puts drug use into perspetive for those who think the government should have the right to regulate it. Just think about how you would feel if the government banned trans fats or cheerleading and you can see why the ‘war on drugs’ is the debacle that it is. People will get their fix (whether it be trans fat, cheerleading, or drugs) even if they have to go behind Big Brothers back to get it.