News Cologne mist sparks airport probe Chicago Tribune

"A Saudi Arabian traveler set the city's anti-terrorism machine into full gear when he sprayed three airport guards with cologne while trying to demonstrate that the liquid wasn't dangerous. The security screeners were rushed to Methodist Hospital after being spritzed Wednesday as the student passed through a checkpoint at Philadelphia International Airport. Unsure whether they had a biological attack on their hands, hospital officials ordered a full quarantine." (02/20/03)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-cologne-mishap0220feb20,0,6784925.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed

News Swiss crack e-mail encryption code CNN News

"Researchers at a Swiss university have cracked the technology used to keep people from eavesdropping on e-mail sent over the Web, but U.S. experts said on Thursday that the impact would likely be minimal." (02/21/03)

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/02/21/email.encryption.reut/index.html

News Staging a political invasion Baltimore Sun

"Plans are underway for an invasion of New Hampshire. Or Wyoming. Or maybe Delaware, Montana or Alaska. Sparsely populated and independent in spirit, they're all attractive targets for a certain bloodless coup in the making .... In this utopia called the Free State Project, schools would be severed from the state, gun-control laws abolished, drugs legalized, health and social services privatized, most federal aid rejected. Government's only job would be to protect against 'force and fraud.'"
(02/22/03)

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/printedition/bal-te.journal22feb22.story

News UK truancy sweep picks up 20,000 children Independent

"An astonishing 20,000 children were picked up in shopping centres in the UK's first ever truancy sweep -- and more than a third were with their parents. The findings, to be made public this week, have prompted Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, to order a purge on middle-class parents who take their children on term-time holidays and shopping trips." (02/23/02)

http://education.independent.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=380848

Commentary We have nationalised the elderly Independent by Johann Hari

"The real alternative to the ongoing misery of care homes is radical. We must shift care of the elderly from depersonalised care homes back on to the extended family. In Britain today we have nationalised our old people, handing them over to the Government so we can get on with our terribly busy lives. But the Government does not care for the old any better than it provides for children in care; governments should not be in the business of looking after people directly through institutions, because it always ends in disaster." (02/21/03)

http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists/johann_hari/story.jsp?story=380118

Commentary If I ran the circus The Libertarian Enterprise by L. Neil Smith

"At this moment we all have one foot in a concentration camp and the other on a banana peel. What's more important, making social calls on your friends, or letting the country know it has a chance to express its dissatisfaction with the current regime by voting for somebody who isn't a lying, thieving parasite or a warmongering son-of-a-bitch?" (02/24/03)

http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe212-20030224-02.html

Commentary Why we must invade Iraq right now by Mark Fiore

Animated cartoon by Mark Fiore. (02/23/03)

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/corrections.html

Commentary The US government is dying Ether Zone by Michael Rivero

"The US Government is dying. Its ultimate fate was sealed the moment the Federal Reserve Fiat money system was put into place. Like a recreational drug user enjoying that first chemical rush, those who created the federal Reserve luxuriated in the seemingly endless flow of money pouring forth from the Federal Reserve, money used to prolong and consolidate power, money spent without worry in the full knowledge that it was going to be someone else's problem to pay it all back." (02/21/03)

http://www.etherzone.com/2003/rive022103.shtml

Commentary The duct tape economy Washington Times by Alan Reynolds

"Endless efforts to keep Americans in a constant state of near-panic may help the sales of duct tape, but they are sure to discourage long-term planning by households or businesses. And hearing government officials cry "Wolf" too often, particularly when it comes to hypothetical exotic weapons from distant lands, could easily make us insufficiently alert to far more likely dangers from terrorists using the same weapons here they use in Israel -- old-fashioned bullets and bombs." (02/23/03)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030223-3227706.htm

Commentary Why not just outlaw the potatoes? Las Vegas Review Journal by Vin Suprynowicz

"When will the totalitarians (functional definition: only the government police can have guns) figure this out? Trying to disarm industrious young males who want to blow things up is about as productive an endeavor as the king in the old fairy tale trying to destroy all the needles in his kingdom, so his daughter wouldn't be able to prick her finger, as foretold in the witch's curse." (02/23/03)

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Feb-23-Sun-2003/opinion/20736059.html