Accidents and allegations of market fixing destroy environmentalist image

BP’s tie-up with its United States rival Amoco was supposed to create an ethical champion at the top of the global oil industry. Negotiated by Lord Browne over a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet in a London restaurant, it was one of the biggest mergers in history. But eight years on, BP’s US arm is becoming America’s most accident-prone business.

Federal regulators have accused BP of price gouging. Its corroded pipelines have been leaking in Alaska. A BP oil spill has polluted the coast of California. Civil rights activists are picketing its petrol stations. (more…)

Hostility to Zionism seen as ‘major threat’

A leading voice of the pro-Israel lobby is pushing for an old-style “witchhunt”—under the guise of “homeland security”—to identify (and expel) individuals in the U.S. government and our military who are suspected of being hostile to Israel.

The call for a witch-hunt is based on the outlandish thesis that “Islamo-fascists” and Muslim “jihadist” operatives and, perhaps more particularly, their “sympathizers”—however loosely defined—have infested America’s defense, national security and federal law enforcement community. (more…)

You have to wonder. Why didn’t NYC investigate the forensics of 9/11? Why didn’t Rudy Giuliani forbid the removal of materials from Ground Zero and do his own investigation? Why? Because he couldn’t. The WTC was under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority.

The Port Authority is a governmental body appointed by the Govenor of NY, Govenor Pataki, and Govenor of NJ, Govenor Whitman. This means that the Federal Government removed critical forensic evidence from WTC with the blessing of both Pataki and Whitman. (more…)

MIAMI – The case of suspected Al Qaeda sympathizer Jose Padilla is raising fundamental questions about whether a US citizen’s harsh treatment - and alleged torture - while in US military custody should prevent his later prosecution in the criminal-justice system.

Lawyers for Mr. Padilla charge that he was tortured while being held for three years and eight months as an enemy combatant in a military prison in Charleston, S.C. The lawyers are asking that all criminal charges against him be dropped because of the government’s alleged illegal and abusive treatment.

Translation: Any evidence the government coerced through torture is admissable. (more…)

SAN FRANCISCO — Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman has died at the age of 94, according to media reports Thursday. Friedman, one of the most influential economists of the past century, died last night, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site, citing an official at the Cato Institute in Washington. Friedman was a professor at the University of Chicago from 1946 until 1976. He was awarded the Nobel in 1976.

This is a sad day for Libertarians everywhere. Even sadder is the fact that the world has not yet learned the lessons that Friedman dedicated his life trying to teach.

Famous Milton Friedman quotes:

“Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.”

“Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.” (more…)