Check out this article on agriculture and free trade. All I can say is, you are either for Free Trade or not. You can’t demand it of other countries and not apply it to your own. Again, I say, governments everywhere in the industrialized world are simply too comfortably in bed with business. It’s gonna have to be torn apart before anything like a really representative, or responsible, government will be seen anywhere at all. Because after all, a government sometimes needs to tell its citizens that, no, this or that thing simply violates the fundamental principles that make the …

Another link courtesy of Adam’s A violently executed plan. How can the Republicans actually argue that demanding freedom from a theocracy is religious bigotry? It’s beyond me. But apparently it’s beyond those of faith to imagine that not having another’s religious beliefs and practices imposed on one is crucial to living in a free society… and crucial to their own right to practice the religion of their choice. I wonder how they’d deal with living in an America run by Scientologist or New Age fundamentalists. I almost wish I could see that happen for the amusement pattern.

Here’s an article that was sent to me by two people, both John Wendel and, about an hour later, by Mer. It’s about how the cuddly feelgood New Age version of the Dalai Lama is our fantasy creation. The “us” to whom I ascribe this “our” being, of course, the New Age feelgood-addicted West. I know John and Mer both very likely know that my own thinking on the issue of Tibet and the Tibetan government-in-exile (ie. the theocracy that was desposed by Chinese soldiers) is far from blind sympathy, but I did realize that perhaps many of the people …