The Freedom Watch

Housing Vouchers: Equal Opportunity Crime-Sharing

"There is an alliance. Libertarians do not like tax-funded education, so they oppose vouchers. The teachers' union does not like inter-school academic competition, so they oppose vouchers. Suburban parents do not like forced integration, so they oppose vouchers. All in all, vouchers have been a gigantic failure. After 50 years of failure, HUD has decided to use another form of vouchers: vouchers that are not subject to local voting. HUD has broadened the scope of vouchers. Entire families will be granted tickets out. HUD will offer subsidies of all kinds to persuade cities to let the inner cities of America spread into the suburbs." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHousing Vouchers: Equal Opportunity Crime-Sharing

Obama Seeks to Reshape Neighborhoods With Housing “Diversity”

"The Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is under fire after announcing a proposed executive decree to make American neighborhoods more 'diverse.' Under the new HUD policy, dubbed 'Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,' the federal government will gather and track data on 'segregation' and 'discrimination' across America before deploying a wide range of social-engineering schemes to ensure more 'diversity' in U.S. neighborhoods. Among the many federal targets in enforcing centrally planned diversity: local zoning regulations, public transportation, land-use policies, government housing agencies, and more." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama Seeks to Reshape Neighborhoods With Housing “Diversity”

Taxes Even Impact When We’re Born and When We Die

"Let's look at some truly remarkable examples of how taxes influence things that – at first glance – seem completely impervious to fiscal policy. Would anyone think, for instance, that taxes could impact the day people are born? This study isn’t an outlier. Other research has reached similar conclusions. Indeed, in some case the impact of taxation is found to be much larger. Let’s close by recycling some research that shows how taxes even influence when people die. When Australia repealed the death tax back in the 1970s, researchers found that people lived longer in order to protect family assets." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTaxes Even Impact When We’re Born and When We Die

Common Core Exams Put on Hold

"The common core curriculum mandates a common core system of exams. Most students will flunk these exams. This is inevitable. The results in New York are the canary in the coal mine. The failure rate was 69%. Blacks and Hispanics failed at an 84% rate. Parents are up in arms. The common core curriculum will not redeem the public schools. It will instead expose the public schools as utter failures. This will not be tolerated by local politicians, who take the heat for the failures in public schools. They will demand that the educrats turn down the heat. The tests are in the first stage of a roll-back. The Obama Administration is blaming the sequestration." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCommon Core Exams Put on Hold

Attorney General hits up Donald Trump for donations while probing his school

"Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s campaign hit up Donald Trump and his pals for contributions while he was investigating the real-estate mogul’s for-profit trade school for illegal business practices. The investigation began in May 2011 and, for more than two years, Trump aides claim Schneiderman’s office told them the case was 'very weak' and would 'go away.' While the probe was under way, Trump aides said their boss, his family and his associates were repeatedly approached for thousands of dollars in campaign donations by Schneiderman’s political operation. Trump aides say now they’re being informed Schneiderman’s office is filing a civil suit against the school." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAttorney General hits up Donald Trump for donations while probing his school

Tea partier at Ted Cruz town hall: ‘Canada is not really foreign soil’

"The Texas Tribune caught up with on of those birthers, Republican voter Christina Katok, at a tea party rally where Ted Cruz was speaking earlier this week. Earlier this week, Cruz released his Canadian birth certificate to The Dallas Morning News, proving that he was definitely born in a foreign country to an American mother. But Katok told the Tribune that she wouldn’t hesitate to vote for Cruz. 'As far as I’m concerned, Canada is not really foreign soil,' she explained, adding that she was more worried about the president’s 'strong ties to Kenya.' For his part, Cruz has vowed to renounce his Canadian citizenship, which could require a security check and an eight-month waiting period." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTea partier at Ted Cruz town hall: ‘Canada is not really foreign soil’

IRS makes useless paperwork less onerous for U.S. Persons in one country

"You do the math: 190-odd other countries & territories, each with their own unique kinds of purpose savings accounts, most speaking languages other than English, and fewer than a million affected filers in each to lobby for change. How long will it be before U.S. Persons finally have the freedom to move to any country on Earth without incurring unreasonable paperwork requirements, and the folks in the District of Columbia can start figuring out what to do with all those non-filers who moved to Mars in the intervening centuries?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIRS makes useless paperwork less onerous for U.S. Persons in one country

Manufacturing of Zeppelins temporarily shut down sausage makers in World War I

"According to a new documentary, the quantity of cow intestines used in manufacturing the airships was so enormous – and the military appetite for the dirigibles so strong – that the making of sausages was temporarily outlawed in Germany and allied or occupied parts of Austria, Poland and northern France. With the guts from more than 250,000 cows needed to produce the bags that held the hydrogen gas in each Zeppelin, the German war machine had to choose between long-range bombing and wurst. It chose the former." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingManufacturing of Zeppelins temporarily shut down sausage makers in World War I

A Curious Inspiration for the First Stethoscope

"Before he assumed the position of chief of service at the teeming Necker Hospital in 1816, Laënnec became adept at a technique called percussion, which involves striking the chest with one's fingertips in search of pathologic processes. Yet neither percussion nor the time-honored technique of listening to breath sounds by placing an ear against a patient's chest satisfied Laënnec's demand for diagnostic precision. He was especially critical of physicians' inability to hear muffled sounds emerging from the chest of an obese person, and he balked at what he described as the 'disgusting' hygiene of his patients, many of whom were unwashed or lice-ridden." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingA Curious Inspiration for the First Stethoscope

Egyptian iron artifacts, earliest ever found, made from meteorite

"The earliest iron artefacts ever found — funeral beads strung around bodies in a 5,000-year-old Egyptian cemetery — were made from a meteorite, archaeologists said on Monday. The nine small beads come from two burial sites dated to around 3,200 BC, where they were found in necklaces along with exotic terrestrial minerals such as lapis lazuli, agate and gold. X-ray scanners, meanwhile, showed that the meteorite iron had been repeatedly heated and hammered to make the precious jewels for the afterlife. This shows that in the fourth millennium BC, the Egyptians were already advanced in the art in smithing, say the researchers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEgyptian iron artifacts, earliest ever found, made from meteorite