This time, it’s the Philadelphia Police Department that’s under scrutiny: PHILADELPHIA — A half-dozen police officers kicked and beat three suspects pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation, and the city’s police commissioner said “it certainly does not look good.” The video, shot by WTXF-TV, shows three [...]

A great deal of attention is focused on the recent raids on the FLDS compound in Texas. The behavior of the state has rightly been condemned, most effectively by Les Jones who wrote: Imagine that some parents in a school district were accused of child abuse. Now imagine that the authorities took every child from [...]

California trying to say pets can’t ride on driver’s lap: A California lawmaker wants to ban motorists from holding pets on their laps while driving. Getting caught could net a $35 fine. The bill passed the California Assembly on a 44-11 vote Monday and now heads to the Senate. Assemblyman Bill Maze said his legislation [...]

Over at Cafe Hayek, Don Boudreaux linked to his article discussing Bryan Caplan’s book, The Myth of the Rational Voter. In the always-wonderful comments section, a commenter named Bret made this point: So let me get this straight. If I vote in a way that makes me feel fantastic and wonderful about myself and I [...]

About a month ago, I blasted an article by a tongue-in-cheek reporter who wanted to use Raul Castro’s easing of restrictions on cell phone ownership as an excuse to criticize cell phones (suggesting– implicitly– that oppression and no phones is better than freedom and phones). I stand by that post, but I stepped over the [...]

The Hillary Clinton campaign has sent out mailers criticizing Barack Obama for trying to have it both ways on the Second Amendment. The mailer reads as follows: These are all valid criticisms of Barack Obama; I have made some of these very criticisms myself (here, and here). But the source of these criticisms (Hillary Clinton) [...]

(WSB Radio) Opening arguments begin today in the trial of an Atlanta police officer charged in connection with killing of Kathryn Johnston. Arthur Tesler is the only cop to go on trial for the shooting of the 92 year old woman in her Atlanta home. Tesler did not fire a shot during the November 2006 [...]

In an earlier post, I discussed the economic damage that “energy independence” would cause to U.S. consumers. In a recent conversation in meatspace, I ran into someone who acknowledged this problem, but argued that the price is “worth it” because when we trade with people who make oil, those people use the wealth to do [...]

I found this little gem on reason.tv. On April 16, 2008 a group called Ad Hoc National Network to Stop Evictions and Foreclosures held a protest in Washington D.C. What were they protesting? As the name of the organization suggests, Ad Hoc was advocating a freeze on all evictions in the U.S. Many of the [...]