Loose Ends... Vol. LV

I hoping posting will return to a more normal rate this week. Here's a handful of thoughts on various items from the week...

File this first one under "Are You Kidding Me?" I just read this story over at United Liberty. A kid had her lemonade stand shut down by the authorities because she didn't have a permit. I don't believe that children should have some special exemption from the law. The article quotes the authorities as saying that the vendor laws must be enforced because "otherwise we'll have people on every corner." Would it be that horrible to allow people to sell things on street corners? Whose rights are being protected by these laws such that is requires government force?

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On a similar note, the City Council (of Indianapolis) will be considering an anti-panhandling law this week. I wrote about laws set up to manage people's pet peeves in this post. While it may be annoying to have people ask you for money, are these panhandlers infringing on your rights? Do we need to take their freedom of speech away because they are a nuisance?

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I just love this quote:

I expect to be held responsible. But I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking.

These words are from Barack Obama at a recent campaign rally - story here.

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How about this one:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov

Yes, this is from the White House blog. Read it here. Fox News has a story here featuring Judge Andrew Napolitano.

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I caught a little bit of an FCC meeting on the National Broadband Plan on CSPAN. Watch it here. There are a lot of details at Broadband.gov. This is a subject I'd like to address in a more thorough article at some point as it is a subject that gets right to the heart of some fundamental questions regarding the role of government such as: public utilities, freedom of the press, education, the democratic process, tax policy and more.

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Lastly, former President Bill Clinton flew to North Korea and came home with two U.S. journalists who were imprisoned there. They received full pardons. I did not understand at first why Al Gore was at the press conference; then he spoke. I hadn't realized two things: the two journalists worked for Current TV; Al Gore co-founded and chairs the media company. I found that interesting.

One last point on this story... there must have been some good work done behind the scenes (haven't researched this - I'm sure there's plenty out there) as there is no way Bill Clinton would have gone there is failure was a possibility.