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When it comes to hip hop, there's perhaps no other label that can serve as the almanac of the culture like Def Jam Records. From its doors opening 30 years ago, to the thriving, sustaining business it is today, the label has served as the cornerstone of hip hop culture providing us with an abundance of acts including from it's inaugural era in the '80s, (LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Slick Rick) to the 90-00s golden era of hip hop (DMX, Jay Z, Foxy Brown, Ludacris, Scarface) to even it's current era (Kanye West, Jeezy, Rick Ross, Nas, Big Sean). Def Jam continues to set the benchmark for the genre and their contributions have certainly made a noticeable dent in the framework of the culture over the last 30 years.
Alongside their thriving rock-hard raps, Def Jam Recordings is also recognized for their contributions to R&B music. From their first R&B release in 1986 with Oran "Juice" Jones, Def Jam has made their mark in R&B. Over the past three decades they've incorporated spin-off labels like Def Soul Recordings, created subsidiary imprints like OBR Records, merged with Island Records to create 'Island Def Jam' all the while introducing the world to acts like Ashanti, Ne-Yo, Musiq Soulchild, The-Dream, Frank Ocean, Rihanna and making them into superstars. Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Def Jam Records, we are celebrating their R&B contributions by counting down the Top 30 Def Jam R&B Hits.
Get into the Def list below!


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SMX Advanced Recap: Hardcore Social Tactics
This morning, I had the pleasure of presenting at SMX Advanced about Hardcore Social Media Tactics. My presentation covered a variety of ways to market your business or personal brand with Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook.
First, I shared my Pinterest Persona post, which outlines an advanced strategy for mining Pinterest data to guide link building efforts. Then, I walked through Shawn's awesome Twitter process for converting Twitter prospects into followers. Finally, I highlighted a few Facebook tools and search-friendly tactics that take advantage of the new Timeline for Facebook Pages and Open Graph features.
Below is my presentation, which is available for download. Thanks to the wonderful folks at SMX for having me back again!

subset: commoncrawl


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You are such an inspiration Sara! You could make a living doing consultations for people (we could send you pics of our house and you could tell us what to do and in which colors).
Thanks for sharing this!
Thanks for sharing this!
Sara-I am curious. We battle coats, mittens, boots, hats, etc. Will the area Matt is building hold all that? I have finally solved my problem with them but I am always wondering if there is a better solution. Also where do you store things like Christmas decorations/ornaments, baby keepsakes, your and Matts keepsakes, picture albums, etc? Are your parents storing some things for you guys? Under the Compact are you able to get cool paint second hand? I try to keep an eye out at Goodwill/SA but everything they get is all dried up or ugly. So many questions...
How do you get out of your leases without paying through the nose? That's TWO apartments now...or were you on month to month leases? I'm very curious about that!


text: I suppose a mea culpa may be in order. I just added cutting activities to my Valentines activities, right after responding to Chris's email on the lack of resources for high school students. At least two of them could be used with older kids: the Teddy Cupid (cute is okay for high school kids, ask any High School Girl) and the Valentine Heart. I have also added the dot to dots and the cutting activities to my Valentines resources list: I hope you will all (preschool and up) find activities that your students will enjoy this week!


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Museum of the Albemarle had a stellar year with, among other things, its highly successful "Real to Reel: The Making of Gone with the Wind" exhibit. But all of that is in the past, so it's time to look forward to another great year at the museum.
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Graduate of the University of Texas, 1974. Married to Esther Gomez for 28 great yrs. Two adult children, Bianca 26 and Patrick 25. Started at Vicad 31 years ago, when photos were taken on B/W film. Remember that stuff?
Detective Pappy
Tim Blakeney Yoakum Assit. Baseball Coach
Bloomington rollover.
Saint Dennis Mission Church
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NCIS: Watch Season 11 Episode 13 Onlineby Matt Richenthal at .
This was definitely a somber episode of NCIS.
It didn't complete the Parsa storyline, but it did pick up where last Tuesday's installment left off: Delilah is awake. And McGee is at her bedside.
He then had to go back to work, but he was clearly not himself. Gibbs advised his colleague to take it easy, while Tony has his own solution for McGee: Casserole!
The gesture didn't exactly work, but it was very sweet and enjoyable to witness.
Elsewhere, Bishop is coming along well, don't you think? We're getting more and more of her each week.
Watch NCIS online below to find out what she's been up to and why she's growing on us:
Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.Tags: NCIS
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Tim and Tony are great characters when they are allowed to work a case, can't figure out where the storyline will go now that Tim's girlfriend is paralyzed. I liked this show much better when it was about solving crimes. Teamwork has been the strength in the successful past, and is being lost now. Bishop is not growing on me at all, so I respectfully disagree with your assessment. Admittedly, I miss Ziva, but the Bishop character detracts from the show, and I feel sorry for the actress playing the character.


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Man charged with South Side robberiesSeptember 28, 2013 12:00 AM
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The preliminary hearing for a man accused of robbing three people one night in the South Side was postponed, and Pittsburgh police have filed additional charges against him.
Terrance Ross, 35, of Morgantown remains in the Allegheny County Jail, where he has been held since police arrested him Sept. 14.
Police wrote in a criminal complaint that Mr. Ross threatened his jitney driver paramour and persuaded her to drive him around the South Side the night of Aug. 24 and the early morning of Aug. 25. He would ask her stop, saying he needed to urinate or wanted to grab a drink, and instead robbed people, police wrote.
He faces charges of kidnapping, robbery, aggravated assault and other crimes in connection with that night. Court records show Pittsburgh police obtained a warrant Sept. 19 charging him with an additional two counts of robbery, simple assault and criminal mischief in connection with that night.neigh_city


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February 13, 2012
The centerpiece of the President's FY 2013 budget for the department is a six-year $476 billion surface transportation reauthorization proposal that will improve America's highways and transit networks, continue to ensure that these systems are safe, and give travelers new options by enhancing and expanding passenger rail service.
April 29, 2011
The proposal, which will be presented at a series of public hearings in May, is focused on maintaining MARTA's long-term financial sustainability, preserving transit service and state-of-good-repair, enhancing some bus routes and implementing new security initiatives.
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(VIDEO) 2012 Street Art Images of the Year from BSA
Of the 10,000 images he snapped of Street Art this year, photographer Jaime Rojo gives us 110 that represent some of the most compelling, interesting, perplexing, thrilling in 2012. Slideshow cover image of Vinz on the streets of Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo) Together the collection gives you an idea of the range of mediums, [...]
This art is Not Safe for Work or School, even though it's on public streets. It sounds strange to say it but these images of Street Art are erotic, sometimes violent, and might even be considered prurient or pornographic by some viewers – yet they are part of today's free-wheeling ever expanding visual feast on [...]
Images of the Week 01.02.12: Miami Special Part I
Ding Ding Ding! The New Year has been rung in and your head has stopped ringing, so it's back to work – and back to Images of the Week, our weekly interview with the street. This week we're bringing you incredible new work from Miami. In fact there is so much there since Art Basel [...]
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text: The Multiracial Activist Focusing on multiracial activism and political advocacy. http://multiracial.com/site 2014-04-24T01:54:08+01:00 FeedCreator 1.7.2 Who's White? 2014-03-31T19:04:54+01:00 2014-03-31T19:04:54+01:00 2014-03-31T19:04:54+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1771/27/ Mixed-Race Scandinavians by Emily Monroy (mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com)April - May 2014 The George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case has put the subject of race front and centre in the American public mind. The shooter, George Zimmerman, was originally referred to in the media as 'White,' making the case seem like a White-on-Black issue. Then it came out that his mother was Peruvian, which led to Zimmerman being described as a 'Hispanic' or 'White Hispanic.' Now it has been revealed that Zimmerman may have African roots on his maternal grandmother's side. (Peru has a history of Black slavery from colonial times and a sizable African-descended population today.) One article on the right-wing website Coach Is Right asked sarcastically whether Zimmerman should be called an 'Afro-Peruvian White Hispanic.' Sarcasm aside, the Zimmerman-Martin drama raises a question that begs to be addressed: Who is White? Even before the Zimmerman-Martin affair, who was regarded as 'White' or not varied across time and place. Politician J.D. Goss, a candidate in Alabama in the 1920s, thundered against 'the Jew, the Greek, and the Syrian,' insisting he wanted to be elected by 'the White man.' While Greeks have since been welcomed into the White fold, the status of Jews is still somewhat precarious. (Syrians, on the other hand, seem stuck in the separate category of 'Middle Eastern,' even if many of them are physically indistinguishable from Greeks or Southern Italians.) For example, when Dr. Henry Morgentaler first opened an abortion clinic in Toronto, the phrase 'The Jew kills White babies' was scribbled on the front of his building. For the most part, though, Jews are seen as White by people at all points of the political spectrum other than White Supremacists. What has not changed, however, is the reality that at least in the Anglo-Saxon world, anyone with known African ancestry is not viewed as White. This is the case for my two nephews, whose mother - my sister - is White and whose father is Black. My nephews can at most aspire to the label 'biracial,' even though they have spent much more time with our side of the family than their father's and though most people in their immediate environment have been White. I must admit it bothers me that my nephews and I are not considered part of the same race, regardless of our family bonds. I remember a humorous incident when I was staying at a school dorm for a summer course and had a picture of my nephews on the dresser. A cleaning lady later told me that she looked at all my family photos on my bulletin board to try to figure out who 'Emilia's Black family' was: not mulatto family or biracial family, but Black family. In contrast, individuals of White mixed with anything other than Black descent tend to be taken as White. Commenting on the Trayvon Martin incident, National Review columnist John Derbyshire, a White Briton married to a Chinese woman, writes a letter to his sons telling them that while they are of Northern European and Northeast Asian background, they will be seen as White. Cris Judd (the second Mr. Jennifer Lopez) was similarly described on an online forum as 'the only White guy that looks cool with a shaved head' - even if Judd's mother is Filipina (his father is Portuguese). Another site claimed that transsexual beauty contestant Jenna Talackova, who has an Aboriginal Canadian mother and Czechoslovakian father, received the public support she did to re-enter the Miss Universe Canada pageant (from which she had been temporarily barred on account of not being a 'natural born female') because she was an 'attractive White woman;' ironically, Talackova seems to be more easily accepted as White than as female. The 'one-drop rule' that still affects my nephews does not appear to apply to people like Judd or Talackova. I have been romantically involved with two men whom British geneticist Steve Jones might term 'ambiguous Aryans,' in reference to a group of self-described 'White' Brazilians who nonetheless possessed significant amounts of non-European ancestry. The first, whom I'll call 'Boyfriend A,' was a Filipino with enough Spanish background to let him 'pass' as a Southern Italian in the eyes of a barber in Toronto's Little Italy. This despite the fact that my ex spoke a native Filipino language with his family, had spent his childhood and half his adulthood in the Philippines, and had never been to a Western country besides Canada. Yet he insisted he was 'White' and - unlike the White liberals frequently accused of being ashamed of their race - proud of it. A few years later comes Boyfriend B, who is from Nicaragua. Like many other Latin Americans, he considers himself White and denies any Native American ancestry. His certainty about his allegedly pure European ancestry came into doubt, though, when our daughter was born. When I called him to say that I'd given birth to a girl, his first question was 'Is she White?,' and it wasn't because he thought I'd 'cheated' with someone of another race. Rather, he feared his daughter might have inherited Indian features from him. His concern might not have been completely misplaced. Interestingly, despite living in the West all his life, speaking a European language (Spanish) as his mother tongue, and so on and so forth, physically he looked less 'White' than Boyfriend A. In other words, likely no one would have mistaken 'B' for an Italian. Yet for cultural reasons, I'm more comfortable in referring to him as 'White' than I am Boyfriend A. The Philippines, in my view, is not a Western country; Nicaragua is. Final question: Is my daughter White? In her five years of life, she's generally travelled in White/mixed milieus. In her class, for instance, most of the other children are white - a large proportion of whom have blond hair and blue eyes - but there is a little Filipino boy and another child with a Jewish mother and Chinese father. I've always figured my daughter could 'pass' for Italian or Greek and would not necessarily stand out as non-European. However, at her end-of-the-year school party last June, the nanny of one of her classmates asked me whether my daughter was 'Latin American or something' (of note, the nanny herself had an interesting ethnic history, being born to a White British father and mixed Jamaican Black and Chinese mother and later marrying and having a son with a Black African man). So perhaps my little girl isn't quite as Caucasian-looking as I thought. Then again, I used my daughter's American Indian ancestry to my advantage when I went to the Native Canadian Friendship Centre in Toronto to look for a back pouch to carry her in. I remember telling the staff there that I wasn't Native but she was. Post-script question: How will my daughter identify as she gets older? That's difficult to answer now. Just as in Toronto she'll have a choice of which religion she might wish to follow, or the choice not to follow any religion at all, she can 'choose' a racial identity that best suits her, whether that be White, Hispanic, or, more remotely, Native American. Or she can decide to be just plain old Canadian. But will she ever be considered completely 'White?' Only time will tell. Emily Monroy is a professional translator and is of Irish, Italian and Norwegian descent. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she now resides in Toronto. Her articles have appeared in several publications, including Interracial Voice, Cats Canada, and Urban Mozaik. She welcomes feedback on her articles. You can contact Emily here Mixed-Race Scandinavians 2014-03-31T19:01:17+01:00 2014-03-31T19:01:17+01:00 2014-03-31T19:01:17+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1770/27/ Mixed-Race Scandinavians by Emily Monroy (mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com)April - May 2014 One day last December I was shopping at Toronto's Kensington Market and saw a car with a sticker of the Danish flag on the back. As I stopped to look more closely, a young mulatto girl came up to me and asked, "Can I help you?" Curious to know what her connection to Denmark might be, I said, "I noticed you have a sticker of the Danish flag on the back of your car." "My mom's Danish," she replied. "Oh, I'm of Norwegian descent. Our flag is just like yours except that it has a blue cross." (Denmark's flag is red with a white cross, Norway's red with a blue cross outlined in white.) Just then an older White woman who had apparently been listening to the conversation walked over, smiled, and started talking to me in what must have been Danish (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are so similar they're often called the dialects of the Scandinavian language). I apologized and told her I didn't speak Norwegian. I wished a Merry Christmas to the mother and daughter, and we parted ways. I felt somewhat ashamed of myself for automatically presuming that the girl was NOT Danish. After all, thanks to some Italian and Irish ancestry I'm hardly the typical blond-haired blue-eyed Scandinavian. But as I pondered the matter further, I realized there were a number of mixed-race Scandinavians in my midst. A children's group to which I once brought my daughter included a small and very pretty mulatto girl with a Swedish mother. My best friend on a summer exchange program to Quebec was a young woman whose mother was from Sweden and father from Egypt (for the purpose of this essay, I'll go by the Canadian government's current classification of Arabs as non-White, even if some of them are physically indistinguishable from Greeks or Southern Italians). My family is no stranger to interracial relationships either. A cousin of mine married a Black American man and has two biracial sons. My own daughter is part Native American on her Nicaraguan father's side, though like most Latin Americans he has Spanish ancestry as well. Scandinavia boasts several well-known individuals of mixed heritage in its ranks. Among them are singer Nenah Cherry (Swedish mother, African father), Kersti Bowser (a Black-Swedish model who joked she went to tanning salons to "keep her Swedish side in check"); and Rikke Roenholt (Danish mother, Ghanaian father), a runner who will be representing Denmark in the 2008 Olympics. Famous White Scandinavians who have been involved in interracial unions include Icelandic singer Bjork (had a relationship with a Black man named Goldie which caused an anti-miscegenation fan of hers to commit suicide on videotape), Swedish actress May Britt (wife of musician Sammy Davis Jr.), Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren (ex-lover of Grace Jones), and Denmark's Prince Joachim (formerly married to a woman of Austrian and Chinese descent). Any discussion on mixed-race Scandinavians would be incomplete without a mention of Greenland. An overseas territory of Denmark, Greenland was colonized by that nation in the 1700s. Most Greenlanders are of mixed Danish and Inuit descent. Recent genetic studies have shown that as with Latin America, Greenland's present population resulted from unions of European men with native women. However, while colonization in Latin America led to an almost complete Westernization of that region (most Latin American mestizos, like my daughter's father, speak Spanish as their first language and don't identify at all as Indian), Greenlanders have kept much more of their original culture. For example, Greenlandic, an Inuit language, is the mother tongue of most Greenlanders, though many know Danish too. On the other hand, the bulk of Greenland's population belongs to the Lutheran Church, as does Denmark's. At an individual level, the degree to which mixed-race Scandinavians retain their culture varies. My above-mentioned friend in Quebec, for instance, spent long periods of time as a child in Sweden and spoke fluent Swedish. In contrast, my grandmother, whose family came from Norway, married a non-Scandinavian man and didn't teach Norwegian to my mother, so I am unfortunately unable to pass the language on to my daughter and any other children I may have in future. One "marker" of Scandinavian heritage is Lutheranism, even if not all Scandinavians are Lutheran and many of those who are are not particularly religious. Here again, families differ. Though her father was Muslim, my Swedish-Egyptian friend was raised Lutheran. However, a Finnish-Canadian colleague married to a Filipino woman was bringing up his children in his wife's Catholic faith. I myself have had my daughter baptized in the Lutheran Church. While the principal reason for doing so is to share my personal faith with her, an added bonus is the "link" it provides to her Scandinavian ancestors. On my kitchen wall is a picture of a girl in traditional Norwegian dress. My mother remarked that she might make a similar costume so that my daughter could be a "little Norwegian girl" for Halloween. "But she's already a little Norwegian girl!" I protested. "With those big brown eyes [courtesy of her father]?" my mom responded, and we both laughed. *** Now I would like to include an interview with a real-life mixed-race Scandinavian – writer Heidi Durrow, author of the book Light-skinned-ed Girl. Check out her website at www.heidiwdurrow.com (http://www.heidiwdurrow.com/) – and read her answers to my questions. Q: From what I understand, your mother is Danish and your father African-American. How and where did your parents meet? A: My parents (my mother is from Herning, Denmark and my father was originally from Texas) met on an American Air Force base in Germany. My mom was working as a nanny to an American family – she wanted to practice her English while she earned some money to go back to school. Q: Where were you born? A: I was born in Seattle, WA at the Swedish Hospital . Both my brothers (one older and one younger) were born in Herning. I am jealous of this to this day – but tease them that they cannot ever be President of the US because they were born on foreign soil. Silly, right? Q: Do you speak Danish fluently? If so, is it your first language (meaning the first language you learned as a child)? A: Yes, I would say I'm fluent in Danish – though each time I've gone back as an adult I hear more of an accent developing –an unintelligible one at that—a strange mixture of American and ???? Also, my language is kind of dated and I sound like my mother from forty years ago – I haven't updated my slang-and I haven't updated my accent to go with the Copenhageners –but they are kind to me when I go and don't make fun of me –heee hee. Q: Have you spent long periods of time in Denmark? A: As a child we spent long summers and holidays there. Recently, I received a grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation to do research for a book I'm writing. I spent a month in Copenhagen in a little apartment I rented. I spent time at the libraries and doing interviews and also with my family. It was an amazing experience to be part of Danish life for so long as an adult on my own terms. Q: Would you say that when growing up your father's or your mother's background had the greatest influence in your home? A: My mother's background was the most important. We spoke only Danish with my mother until I was about 11 or 12. When my dad would come home from work, we would speak English around him but if he wasn't in the room it was Danish again. We ate Danish food, celebrated holidays the Danish way – and I think were raised with a Danish sensibility – the bad part: Janteloven – but also something more intangible that I think people here would say is European but to me seems specifically Danish. Q: Were you raised in the Church of Denmark (the Lutheran Church, that is)? A: I was christened Lutheran, but did not have a confirmation. It was a great wish to have one as a child, but by the time I was 14, we were in the US and it would be another several years before we could AFFORD for me to travel to Denmark again. Q: How do you identify ethnically now? A: My ethnic identification has gone through many changes. For the last long while, I have embraced saying that I am biracial and bicultural – African-American and Danish. I think this specificity annoys some people – some who think, get over it you're black since you don't look white and also those who think: but you're American and that whole Danish thing is just quaint. I am tired of thinking what they are thinking and just say what is the truth now. Q: Do you find that racism is widespread in Denmark? Have you ever encountered racism in that country? A: I feel lucky not have experienced racism in Denmark. I was either too ignorant to recognize it or I have been shielded from it. That is not to say that I haven't been privy to people making comments about me. Comments like "there are more and more of THOSE people coming" – an overhead remark when I had lunch with a cousin – I assume they thought I was Arab? Turkish? A foreigner who was now living in Denmark? There is a lot of discrimination against them. It's disturbing. My brothers have experienced racism, I think – but those are their own stories. I think ignorance about racial difference is widespread in Denmark, unfortunately. It's a small land and for a long time they haven't had contact with "others" - but I think it is changing. There are more and more mixed-race Danes who are in the media and I think that makes it all less strange. Q: In the past few years the Danish government made news because it tightened its immigration laws, making it more difficult to obtain political asylum and bring foreign-born spouses to that country. As a person of part non-European ancestry, what did you think of these new laws? A: The new anti-immigrant laws are disturbing and not at all Danish – Danes have always been and I believe will again be free-spirited and forward-thinking in regards to race. That's my belief. Emily Monroy is a professional translator and is of Irish, Italian and Norwegian descent. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she now resides in Toronto. Her articles have appeared in several publications, including Interracial Voice, Cats Canada, and Urban Mozaik. She welcomes feedback on her articles. You can contact Emily here Peoria Pundit Revists Matt Hale's Influences 2014-01-15T20:11:11+01:00 2014-01-15T20:11:11+01:00 2014-01-15T20:11:11+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1769/27/ Billy Dennis, writing for Peoria Pundit, on Matt Hale's mom blames his father, while she enables him (http://thepeoriapundit.com/2014/01/15/matt-hales-mom-blames-his-father-while-she-enables-him/) :You remember Matt Hale, right? He's the morally defective little piece of excrement who — from the safety of his daddy's basement — became pontifex maximus of the World Church of the Creator, a church that literally worships white people. Whenever asked about his son's behavior, his daddy said boys will be boys. Well, poor little Matt is now serving a sentence in a Super Max prison for trying to get a church supporter to kills a judge.I opposed and denounced (content/view/98/49/) this worthless sack of (unintelligible foul mutterings not fit for print) publicly and often in the late 1990s as the publisher and editor of The Multiracial Activist (http://www.multiracial.com). He was from Central Illinois, same as me, so I took his vile spewings personally as the father of multiracial children. I'm glad to see that he is still rotting in SuperMax. He and his ugly ilk serve no purpose in the 21st Century.Rot away Matt. Rot away. The world is a better place despite your continued consumption of precious oxygen. Read the rest here: http://thepeoriapundit.com/2014/01/15/matt-hales-mom-blames-his-father-while-she-enables-him/ (http://thepeoriapundit.com/2014/01/15/matt-hales-mom-blames-his-father-while-she-enables-him/) Statement of James Landrith on Melissa Harris-Perry's Mockery of Kieran Romney 2013-12-30T19:15:14+01:00 2013-12-30T19:15:14+01:00 2013-12-30T19:15:14+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1768/27/ Statement of James Landrith on Melissa Harris-Perry's Mockery of Kieran RomneyEditor and PublisherThe Multiracial Activisthttp://www.multiracial.com (http://www.multiracial.com) I am neither conservative, nor liberal, neither Republican, nor Democrat. I am my own man. I answer to no party. As a writer and publisher, I've taken on Republicans and Democrats equally when they've gone too far. I am not beholden to either of the dominant political beasts in American society. I prefer it that way.As the publisher of The Multiracial Activist, I have spoken out against many organizations and individuals for bigoted and hateful behaviour toward interracial relationships, multiracial individuals and racially blended families by marriage or adoption. Over the years, I've called out the likes of Trent Lott, Robert Byrd, George Allen, the Council of Conservative Citizens, Matt Hale and his World Church of the Creator and even Harold McDougall of the NAACP (for openly bullying a biracial child in a Congressional Hearing), among others.I even took on fundamentalist Christian racism when I waged a media war with Bob Jones University, eventually resulting in the overturn of their ban on interracial relationships. I spoke out strongly and swiftly against hate crime attacks and unlawful detentions of Arabs and Muslims following the attacks on September 11, 2001. For all of that, I endured death threats, denial of service attacks on my website properties and countless character assasinations by extremists, racists, racialists and domestic terrorists. I make no apologies. I don't regret doing any of it. They all deserved the negative attention they received, even when I was receving friendly fire by those who favor political labels over integrity and racial tolerance.Today, Melissa Harris-Perry and her panel (http://www.mediaite.com/online/melissa-harris-perry-guests-from-romney-grandson-segment-offer-various-apologies-on-twitter-2/) has drawn my disgust and ire. On Sunday, Melissa Harris-Perry and her panelists took potshots at the son of Mitt Romney and his adopted, black son. It was pathetic, ridiculous and immature. It was also the type of behavior I would have called out from a conservative talk show host. Harris-Perry does not get a break for being a woman of color, nor for being a Democrat. There is no excuse for her behavior, nor that of her panelists.So, in keeping with my own beliefs and the long track record of The Multiracial Activist, I hereby demand an apology from Harris-Perry and her panelists and expect MSNBC to take punitive action against the host and panelists involved. Children are not political pawns and this behavior is completely inexcusable.Ms. Harris-Perry, like Trent Lott and George Allen before you, I am disgusted by your behavior and find your use of a child for racialist, political purposes to be callous and abhorrent.You should be ashamed. Stop-and-Frisk: How Government Creates Problems, Then Makes Them Worse 2013-08-14T07:00:00+01:00 2013-08-14T07:00:00+01:00 2013-08-14T07:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1767/27/ Stop-and-Frisk: How Government Creates Problems, Then Makes Them Worseby Sheldon Richman Two recent law-enforcement decisions illustrate yet again that when government sets out to solve a problem it created, things get much worse. This week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department will keep nonviolent small-scale drug sellers who have no links to criminal organizations from getting caught in the mandatory-minimum-sentence trap. Under current law, judges must impose a mandatory minimum prison term for defendants convicted of selling more than a specified quantity of illegal drugs. With prison populations and costs mushrooming — America has more people behind bars than any other country in the world — Holder has instructed U.S. attorneys to evade the mandatory-minimum law by not specifying drug quantities when they charge qualifying suspects. He also wants alternatives to prison pursued where possible. While it's good news that some people who would have faced long prison sentences now will not, we nevertheless should be concerned whenever the executive branch unilaterally declares it will write its own law. The other decision, this one from a court, criticized New York City's stop-and-frisk policy, under which the police can stop, pat down, and question anyone on the street who arouses suspicion, a highly subjective criterion indeed. Federal District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the New York Police Department carries out the policy in a manner that violates the Fourth Amendment rights of blacks and Hispanics. The judge specified the ways that the city could fix the policy and appointed a monitor to keep an eye on the police. In both matters, horrendous policies are to be tweaked to make them less egregious. But this won't be satisfactory. New York police will still have the arbitrary power to stop people walking down the street, and the federal judges will still put some people away with long mandatory prison terms regardless of the particulars of their cases. In other words, deeply flawed policies can't be tweaked enough to make them acceptable. Stop-and-frisk and mandatory minimums should be abolished. Yet even this would fall short of what's needed. The problems purportedly addressed by stop-and-frisk and mandatory minimums are of the government's own making. Thus, if we got to the root, the "need" for these bad policies would disappear. Stop-and-frisk is largely aimed at finding youths who are carrying guns and drugs. Mandatory minimums are directed at drug sellers. It's not hard to see what is at the root: drug prohibition. When government declares (certain) drugs illegal, those drugs don't disappear; instead they move to the black market, which tends to be dominated by people skilled in the use of violence. Because the trade is illegal and the courts are off-limits for dispute resolution, contracts and turf will be protected by force. Those who operate on the street will find it wise to be armed. So, as a result of prohibition and its attendant violence-prone black market, in some parts of town a percentage of young men will likely be walking around with guns and drugs. Seeing this, politicians and law-enforcement bureaucrats turn to stop-and-frisk and mandatory minimum sentences. But the only real solution is to repeal prohibition. There's no need for intrusive police tactics or prison terms. In a free society, government has no business telling us what we can and can't ingest or inject. Before drug prohibition, America had no drug problem. It's prohibition that created the problem, just as alcohol prohibition gave America organized crime on a large scale. As we've seen, when government tries to ban drugs, it creates bigger problems by putting drugs in the streets and gangs in control. Ask yourself why after so many decades of apparent failure — drugs are plentiful, accessible, and inexpensive — prohibition persists, as if spending more taxpayer dollars or coming up with some new law-enforcement gimmick will bring success. Maybe prohibition has not failed at all. Maybe the purpose is simply to spend the money and expand law enforcement. May all the moralizing is simply a ruse. And maybe what Thomas Paine said about wars also applies to the war on drugs: "a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes." Sheldon Richman is vice president and editor at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va. (www.fff.org). What the Immigration Bill Overlooks 2013-07-09T08:00:00+01:00 2013-07-09T08:00:00+01:00 2013-07-09T08:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1766/27/ What the Immigration Bill Overlooksby Sheldon Richman In passing the monstrosity known as immigration "reform," the Senate overlooked a few things of importance. This is unsurprising. A bill on immigration that is backed by leading Republicans and Democrats, big business, and government-co-opted unions is bound to have missed some things. The bill, whose fate in the House is uncertain, would appropriate $40 billion over the next decade to "secure the border." This would entail hiring 20,000 more border patrol agents and building 700 more miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. The spending would include $4.5 billion on technology for surveillance. As the an unjust law is no law at all (http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/tgif-is-edward-snowden-a-lawbreaker/) (lex iniusta non est lex). The idea is that no one should be compelled to do what is unjust or be prevented from doing what justice requires or allows — such as freely moving about. Conservatives and progressives alike are vexed that the 11 million U.S. residents without papers violated the law to get here. How dare they! But according to the ancient principle, what they violated was a not a law but a mere legislative decree, which conflicts with the natural law and hence is contrary to justice and freedom. It is an established maxim that no one is obligated to obey an unjust law. Since that's the case, we should not be talking about amnesty for residents without papers; amnesty implies wrongdoing, and these human beings did nothing wrong. They should be left free to go about their lives. Incidentally, there also should be no amnesty for the government officials who have harassed residents without papers rather than leaving them in peace. "I was following orders" is no excuse. Third, the free-enterprise system, which conservatives claim to support and pretend that we have, necessarily includes the freedom of business owners to hire whoever is willing to work for them. It is the height of hypocrisy for conservatives to call for harsh penalties on businesspeople who hire "illegal workers." When it's a choice between free enterprise and border control, most conservatives choose border control — and that speaks volumes. The flip side, of course, is that any individual should be free to accept a job offer from any business owner. The government — and all those who want a border lined with armed agents and barbed wire-adorned walls — should butt out. Finally, if we mean what we say when we express sympathy for the world's poor, we cannot in good conscience maintain barriers to free immigration. The foreign-born are people too, as deserving of a shot at the good life as any American. When individuals move from capital-poor to capital-rich societies, their productivity increases, enabling them to better provide for themselves and their families. (They also present new opportunities for exchange to the indigenous population.) It is cruel and hypocritical for America not to do the one thing that would best lift the fortunes of the world's poor and oppressed. Sheldon Richman is vice president and editor at The Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va. (www.fff.org). Coalition Letter to Congress Regarding E-Verify Reforms 2013-05-03T09:00:00+01:00 2013-05-03T09:00:00+01:00 2013-05-03T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1765/49/ May 3, 2013 Dear Member of Congress: We, the undersigned organizations, representing thousands of businesses and millions of Americans from all sides of the political spectrum, write to express our desire for greater accountability in the electronic employment verification (E-Verify) provisions of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (Title III of S. 744). We believe that a simple reform is needed to protect small businesses and their legal employees. Our concern is that the system could create unnecessary burdens on Americans by initially failing to confirm hundreds of thousands of authorized workers. If the present E-Verify error rate (0.26%) was applied nationally, it would fail to approve 156,000 authorized employees every year. As E-Verify's rollout expands from just 7.5 percent of employers to 100 percent, it is vital to us that the error rate remains at least this low. Errors thrust employers into a state of regulatory uncertainty as to whether their new hire will be able to work or not. Many small employers lack the full time human resource staffs necessary to help workers correct these problems, and they will often incur significant costs attempting to do so. Errors also burden legal workers, forcing them to spend time and money sorting out the errors at federal offices. These errors will disproportionately impact authorized foreign-born workers and naturalized citizens, who are at least 20 times as likely to receive an error as a native born American, according to E-Verify's most recent independent audit. Based on this number, one recent study found that foreign-born workers would receive 82 percent of all errors. This could create an incentive for discrimination against foreign-born workers. It also places an undue burden on the Social Security Administration, impacting seniors and those with disabilities who rely on a timely response from SSA. Basic accountability can protect both workers and employers. We propose that Congress require that E-Verify's error rate remain at or below its current level before small businesses are forced to comply with the mandate. This gives the government over four years to work out any issues with the system, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano has already testified that she believes that the current rate can be maintained. Requiring the government to consider the impact on small businesses and foreign-born workers before E-Verify implementation is just simple accountability. It will protect businesses from the bureaucratic limbo that comes from not knowing if a new hire will be able to work, and it will give authorized employees the confidence that their transition to a new job will not be subject to costly and unnecessary delays. For these reasons, we urge you to support this commonsense reform. Sincerely, Advocacy for Principled Action in Government American Civil Liberties Union American Immigration Lawyers Association American Library Association American Policy Center Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform (AZEIR) Arizona Small Business Association Campaign for Community Change CALEGISLATION CAMBIO CASA In Action Center for Digital Democracy Center for Financial Privacy and Human Rights Competitive Enterprise Institute Consumer Action Council of Smaller Enterprises Electronic Frontier Foundation Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Liberty Coalition The Multiracial Activist National Center for Transgender Equality National Council of La Raza (NCLR) National Consumers League National Immigrant Justice Center National Immigration Forum National Immigration Law Center National Small Business Association OneAmerica The Rutherford Institute Patient Privacy Rights Privacy Activism Privacy Journal Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Privacy Times Rights Working Group SEIU Small Business Entrepreneurship Council Small Business Association of Michigan Small Business California Small Business Majority Taxpayers Protection Alliance UFCW International Union World Privacy Forum Coalition Letter to Congress Regarding E-Verify Reforms 2013-02-20T09:00:00+01:00 2013-02-20T09:00:00+01:00 2013-02-20T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1764/49/ February 20, 2013Dear Member of Congress: We, the undersigned organizations, representing thousands of businesses and millions of Americans from all sides of the political spectrum, encourage you to vote against a mandatory national "E-Verify" electronic employment verification system established by S. 202 or in subsequent comprehensive immigration reform bills. Although we believe it is irredeemably flawed, we believe reasonable amendments can mitigate some of its negative effects. E-Verify imposes immigration enforcement costs on Americans. System errors will make hundreds of thousands of legal workers visit federal offices to exercise their right to work. Reform: Make E-Verify's deployment contingent on due process for workers, a low error rate, and a strict limit on wait times for employers and employees to resolve database errors. E-Verify errors disproportionately impact minority groups: including young workers, married women, naturalized citizens, legal immigrants, and individuals with multiple surnames, including many Hispanics. Reform: Suspend E-Verify's rollout if it has a discriminatory impact on these groups. E-Verify conscripts employers to act as immigration agents. According to Bloomberg Government, small businesses will spend $2.6 billion every year to implement the system. Reform: Avoid draconian penalties and allow businesses to correct paperwork errors. E-Verify will exacerbate identity theft. E-Verify will increase demand for stolen identities and enable thieves to use its database to determine the validity of a Social Security number. Reform: Send written notifications to any individual whose name is checked by E-Verify and prohibit E-Verify use without employees' prior knowledge. E-Verify creates a de facto national ID system. Since the system permits identity verification, it can be used to monitor access to any public or private service based on immigration status or any other criteria. Reform: Prohibit the inclusion of biometrics and state motor vehicle records in the system and authorize E-Verify to be used only to determine work eligibility. The case for E-Verify presumes that Congress cannot create a system that prevents unauthorized entries at the border. This is wrong. Congress can and should address illegal immigration without sacrificing Americans' privacy or imposing the costs of immigration enforcement on small businesses and workers. If an E-Verify mandate is enacted anyway, these reasonablereforms are essential. Sincerely, Advocacy for Principled Action in GovernmentAmerican Civil Liberties UnionAmerican Library AssociationBill of Rights Defense CommitteeBlacks in Law Enforcement of AmericaCenter for Digital DemocracyCenter for Financial Privacy and Human RightsCenter for Media and DemocracyCenter for Media JusticeCompetitive Enterprise InstituteConstitutional AllianceConsumer ActionConsumer Federation of AmericaCyber Privacy ProjectDefending Dissent FoundationDRUM - Desis Rising Up MovingElectronic Frontier FoundationEqual Justice AllianceThe 5-11 CampaignFormer Congressman Bob BarrThe Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support NetworkHispanic Leadership FundHome School Legal Defense AssociationInsituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA)La Asamblea de Derechos Civiles de MinnesotaThe Leadership Conference on Civil and Human RightsLiberty CoalitionMain Street ProjectMedia AllianceMedia Literacy ProjectThe Multiracial ActivistNational Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC)National Small Business AssociationNational Workrights InstituteNew York Immigration CoalitionPatient Privacy RightsPrivacy ActivismPrivacy JournalPrivacy Rights ClearinghousePrivacy TimesRights Working GroupThe Rutherford InstituteSouth Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)Taxpayers Protection AllianceWorld Privacy Forum No Immigation Trouble at the Check-Out Counter 2006-09-22T09:00:00+01:00 2006-09-22T09:00:00+01:00 2006-09-22T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1763/39/ NO IMMIGRATION TROUBLE AT THE CHECK-OUT COUNTER (http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/immigration-trouble-checkout-counter/) by Scott McPherson (http://fff.org/author/scott-mcpherson/) September 22, 2006 To hear anti-immigrant types and their spokesmen tell it, any intelligent American only needs to look around to see all the trouble that immigrants cause us.A heterogeneous society just won't work, they say. Too many problems with language differences and clashing cultures.And then there's the burden on the school system; students from non-English-speaking countries have to be accommodated, often at great expense.Along with bilingual education, some people even want bilingual ballots. What's next, the anti-immigrant asks, street signs in two languages?Law and order is being undermined as well, you should know. Illegal immigrants are "breaking into" to our country!But while demagogues and nativists exploit these alleged problems, a headline from the September 3 New Hampshire Union-Leader aptly demonstrates a major flaw in their arguments. "As the nation becomes diverse," it reads, "so do grocery stores."As that headline suggests, private enterprise seems to be handling the "immigration problem" just fine.Walk down the aisle of Compare Foods in Raleigh, North Carolina, the story says, and "the shelves are lined with mainstream products: neat rows of Del Monte canned fruit, Sun-Maid raisins, StarKist tuna, and Capri Sun juice pouches."The next aisle over, however, is a different matter altogether. There you'll find a large stock of Hispanic foods. "Traditional grocery stores and ethnic markets are adding new products, hoping to increase sales by making their stores one-stop shopping destinations," the story reports.Compare Foods is run by Julian Hernandez. His clientele has traditionally been Spanish-speaking, but he wants to attract more English-speaking patrons, so he's stocking "mainstream" products and employing bilingual cashiers. Signs around the store are written in both English and Spanish.The same thing is happening in the nearby town of Cary. At the Grand Asia Market, signs are written in Chinese and English and the employees are also bilingual. Two years ago they expanded to make room for more diversified stock and added a bakery and a restaurant. "We didn't want to," said the store's owner, Jenny Chen, "but a competitor came into town."According to the Food Marketing Institute, 90 percent of grocery stores in the country offer some kind of ethnic food items, reflecting the growing purchasing power of America's immigrants. Hispanics are expected to spend around $992 billion a year by 2009; that same year, Asian Americans will be spending about $528 billion a year."You have to find out what each group needs and then get it," said Hernandez. Enough said.Major food manufacturers are even getting into the act. Kellogg's, Campbell's, and Hormel are experimenting with new products, advertising, and labeling to attract ethnic shoppers.Most important, no government edict was necessary to make any of this happen. While social engineers on both the political Left and Right fret over diversity, the marketplace seems to be a step ahead of them. Hoping to literally capitalize on people's differences, many private businesses are radically changing the way they do business. Far from claiming anyone is "breaking in," these intelligent capitalists are looking for ways to get more people into their stores.This admittedly can require a measure of accommodation that some store owners would rather not have to supply, but unlike government, they respond to these challenges with efficiency, diversification, and ingenuity, rather than handwringing, bureaucracy, and demagoguery.If a population made up of different kinds of people is unworkable, someone forget to tell the nation's grocery stores. There, aisle by aisle, and in increasing numbers, Americans seem to be handling different cultures, languages, signs, and customs like grownups. When the ballots cast are dollars, the melting pot seems to bubble along just fine.No doubt it could be argued that supermarkets and other private businesses are radically different from public-sector endeavors, like schools. These have the burden of answering to elected boards, city councils, and state legislatures — not customers.This is no doubt correct. But given the deplorable state of public schools, and other government-run activities, shouldn't that be just one more reason to free more of society's undertakings from government command and control?Scott McPherson (http://fff.org/author/scott-mcpherson/)Scott McPherson is policy adviser at The Future of Freedom Foundation. An advocate of the Free State Project, he lives, reads, writes, plays music, and homeschools his kids in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. More Victims of Immigration Control 2008-01-18T09:00:00+01:00 2008-01-18T09:00:00+01:00 2008-01-18T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1762/27/ MORE VICTIMS OF IMMIGRATION CONTROL (http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/victims-immigration-control/) by Sheldon Richman (http://fff.org/author/sheldon-richman/) January 18, 2008 Consistent advocates of individual liberty often point out that government restrictions on free immigration violate the rights of people not born in the United States. Not only are they denied their freedom to move and improve their lot in life, but if they make it into the United States, they are subjected to police-state raids and exploitation because their illegal status denies them access to justice.While the immigrants themselves bear the brunt of U.S. immigration policy and will suffer even more regardless of who becomes president next year, they are not the only victims. Additional victims are to be found among American citizens. For example, business owners who are threatened with huge fines and imprisonment for hiring workers not approved by the government are victims. They have violated no one's person or property. All they have done is engage in voluntary exchange with workers who do not have government permission to be here. Big deal! I thought we believed in free enterprise in this country. That the political party which claims to embrace free markets countenances employer sanctions and interference with the right of association speaks volumes. Could hypocrisy be more plain?But employers are not the only victims. Another group is found on the U.S.-Mexico border. They are property owners who refuse to let federal agents onto their property to determine whether the proposed border fence should be built there.The Associated Press reports,The government is readying 102 court cases against landowners in Arizona, California, and Texas for blocking efforts to select sites for a fence along the Mexican border, a Homeland Security Department official said…. With the lawsuits expected soon, the legal action would mark an escalation in the clash between the government and the property owners. The Bush administration wants to build 370 miles of fencing and 300 miles of vehicle barriers by the end of the year.A number of property owners have granted the government access to their land. But others have refused.The AP goes on to report, "The government may not need all the properties for the project. Officials need to determine which to buy or seize through eminent domain, or whether alternatives such as lighting, more Border Patrol agents, or technology would work better in those areas" [emphasis added].Apparently, at least some of 102 landowners fear the government will steal their land — using the euphemism "eminent domain" — to build a fence to keep independent immigrants out of the country. Who can blame them for not letting the federal agents on their land? Eminent domain is the doctrine that government is the ultimate landlord of the country and people hold their property at the pleasure of the state. If it wants the land, it can take it. To be sure, the Constitution says it has to pay for the land. But there can be no "just compensation" in a forced sale. What makes compensation just is consent, which is absent with eminent domain.Eloisa Garcia Tamez, 72, who owns three acres in El Calaboz, Texas, is heroically defiant: "I'm waiting for whatever they've got coming and I'm not going to sign. I'm not."Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says he doesn't have all day. "The door is still open to talk if people want to engage with us, if they have some alternative ideas. But it's not open for endless talk. We do need to get moving on this proposition," he said.Well, isn't that nice in the land of the free? The government wants to trespass on private property in order to determine whether it will seize it to build a Berlin-style wall to lock out people who are looking for work from willing employers. And the secretary wants no back talk from the mere landowners. He's a busy man. His patience is limited. Say what he wants to hear or realize the awesome power of the state. It's the Wizard of Oz blustering about eminent domain.Ignore the little men behind the curtain.Sheldon Richman (http://fff.org/author/sheldon-richman/)Sheldon Richman is vice president of The Future of Freedom Foundation and editor of FFF's monthly journal, Future of Freedom. For 15 years he was editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York. He is the author of FFF's award-winning book Separating School State: How to Liberate America's Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State. Calling for the abolition, not the reform, of public schooling. Separating School State has become a landmark book in both libertarian and educational circles. In his column in the Financial Times, Michael Prowse wrote: I recommend a subversive tract, Separating School State by Sheldon Richman of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank... . I also think that Mr. Richman is right to fear that state education undermines personal responsibility... Sheldon's articles on economic policy, education, civil liberties, American history, foreign policy, and the Middle East have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Scholar,Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Washington Times, The American Conservative, Insight, Cato Policy Report, Journal of Economic Development, The Freeman, The World I, Reason,Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Liberty magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. A former newspaper reporter and senior editor at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies, Sheldon is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia. He blogs at Free Association (http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/). Send hime-mail (mailto:email@example.com). Immigration Policy Reveals What We Are 2007-03-25T09:00:00+01:00 2007-03-25T09:00:00+01:00 2007-03-25T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1761/27/ IMMIGRATION POLICY REVEALS WHAT WE ARE (http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/immigration-policy-reveals/) by Sheldon Richman (http://fff.org/author/sheldon-richman/) March 25, 2007 The new compromise immigration bill is drawing lots of flak, not least from conservatives who object to granting amnesty to millions of so-called illegal aliens in the country. (I prefer to think of them as independent migrants.) Here I have to agree with the conservatives. The illegals shouldn't be granted amnesty. Amnesty connotes forgiveness for doing something wrong — and they have done nothing wrong. Indeed, the government should be asking forgiveness from them.But they broke the law to get into the country. Did they? They weren't under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government until after they entered the country. It's amusing that conservatives think illegals are covered by the law but not by the Constitution. Talk about having it both ways. The Constitution and Bill of Rights do not distinguish between citizens and noncitizens. Besides, there is no obligation to obey an immoral law.But they came into our country without permission, conservative talker Tucker Carlson and his ilk say incessantly. Without whose permission? The whole population of the United States? The federal government? Why the assumption that either of those aggregates can have the right to give or withhold permission for someone to relocate here? This is a country, not a country club, and rights are natural not national. If someone wants to come here and can do so without trespassing on private property, that's his right and his own business.Which bring us to something that conservatives need to explain. Why do they applaud "tough sanctions" against employers who hire illegals? Aren't they advocates of free enterprise? It turns out they are as enthusiastic for social engineering as any state socialist. They are willing to curtail economic freedom when it clashes with their cherished goal of planning the composition of the U.S. population. With friends like these, free enterprise hardly needs enemies. Their demand for tamper-proof identification doesn't flatter them either.If conservatives don't like the guest-worker aspect of the immigration bill, I'm with them. But my reasons are different. How degrading such a program is. Mr. and Ms. Immigrant, we don't want you to move here as a free person to live and work as you wish. But we are happy to bring you here for a few years to do some heavy lifting, after which we will send you back. Dash that.The nativists can't quite make up their minds whether their chief fear about immigrants is jobs and wages or welfare. No need to lose sleep over either. Immigrants are consumers as well as workers, so they help expand the market and summon more production into existence. The fear about wages is misplaced, since the small effect is quickly offset by the demand immigrants add to the market and the increased investment they make possible.As for welfare, conservatives really ought to be ashamed of themselves. Even if immigrants wanted to live off the taxpayers (they don't seem to), why would conservatives try to save the welfare state from such strains? There is no better way to convince the American people to dump the welfare state than to show them it is financially unsustainable.As for the stresses on schools and hospitals, it's been said once but apparently needs to be said again: only government services abhor an increase in the number of customers. Private retailers don't lobby against letting more consumers into the country.Border security is an issue for demagogues. Timothy McVeigh crossed state borders to commit terrorism in Oklahoma City, but you didn't hear the "secure the border" mob call for internal passports and walls along state lines. Leave crime to the normal law-enforcement institutions.Immigration is an emblematic issue. What kind of country are we if we refuse to recognize such a basic right as the right to move?Sheldon Richman (http://fff.org/author/sheldon-richman/)Sheldon Richman is vice president of The Future of Freedom Foundation and editor of FFF's monthly journal, Future of Freedom. For 15 years he was editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York. He is the author of FFF's award-winning book Separating School State: How to Liberate America's Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State. Calling for the abolition, not the reform, of public schooling. Separating School State has become a landmark book in both libertarian and educational circles. In his column in the Financial Times, Michael Prowse wrote: I recommend a subversive tract, Separating School State by Sheldon Richman of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank... . I also think that Mr. Richman is right to fear that state education undermines personal responsibility... Sheldon's articles on economic policy, education, civil liberties, American history, foreign policy, and the Middle East have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Scholar,Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Washington Times, The American Conservative, Insight, Cato Policy Report, Journal of Economic Development, The Freeman, The World I, Reason,Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Liberty magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. A former newspaper reporter and senior editor at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies, Sheldon is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia. He blogs at Free Association (http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/). Send hime-mail (mailto:email@example.com). Migration Affirms Hunger for Freedom 2011-06-14T09:00:00+01:00 2011-06-14T09:00:00+01:00 2011-06-14T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1760/39/ MIGRATION AFFIRMS HUNGER FOR FREEDOM (http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/migration-affirms-hunger-freedom/) by Fergus Hodgson (http://fff.org/author/fergus-hodgson/) June 14, 2011 The Mercatus Center has just released a tantalizing ranking of freedom for the American states (http://mercatus.org/freedom-50-states-2011), including individual state profiles and a feast of data analysis. Most compelling, though, is the insight that people know where freedom is, and they're migrating to it.Over the 2000 to 2009 period, the difference between a state ranked in the bottom third, such as Connecticut at 38th, and a state in the top third, such as Iowa at 13th, translated to higher positive migration equal to 5.9 percent of population. In other words, over-governed states tend to have lost 3 percent of their population through domestic migration, while freer states tend to have added 3 percent to their population.Click here for a three-minute video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bQBAkhz_-A) explanation of the rankings and their findings.So people are voting with their feet, and they're willing to uproot themselves for less state government.Other rankings of state freedom, such as that by the revealed preferences (http://www.economist.com/research/Economics/alphabetic.cfm?letter=R#revealedpreference)," as economists call them. The preference is for what the authors describe as an individual rights conception of freedom, which they sought to measure."Individuals should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties as they see fit, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others."Further, people are migrating more for personal freedoms than for economic freedoms. Freedom of speech, homeschooling, legalized gambling, ease of gun ownership, and relaxed liquor and tobacco laws appear, for example, to have a greater influence than the magnitude of government spending and taxation.Economic freedom does appear to attract migrants, but the weighting of importance suggests a desire to rule one's self, an intrinsic appreciation for liberty, even in the absence of superior economic opportunity. This is akin to the young adult who leaves the comfort of home for a dinky apartment, so he can follow his own rules.It's also a reality check for the prominent nanny states — New York (50th), California (48th), and Massachusetts (46th). They are no longer the Meccas of immigration they once were. Each has suffered substantial outward migration, with New York the worst. Between 2000 and 2009, its net outward migration was equal to 8.9 percent of its population.But they only have themselves to blame. California, for example, continues to lose residents, but its neighbors, Nevada (6th) and Oregon (8th), have continued to receive migrants. Both Nevada and Oregon were the biggest improvers in the freedom rankings since the first 2007 data, rising from 16th and 22nd, respectively.Not only are people voting with their feet, they're bringing their wallets with them (http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/09/us-taxes-us-idUSTRE7485N020110509), and companies are doing the same (http://reason.tv/video/show/more-taxes-or-more-jobs-what-d). Even a few politicians have shown their true colors and started crossing state lines. In 2009 the as their various Ponzi schemes crumble (http://www.thepelicanpost.org/2011/04/13/research-looming-pension-crisis-ignored/), would do well to look at their Mercatus report card rather than introduce (http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/27296.html) or raise taxes (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-13/news/ct-met-tax-hike-what-it-means-0112-20110112_1_income-tax-tax-rate-tax-bill).Freeing a state and attracting migrants can actually save money due to lower enforcement costs. What is the cost of fewer health-insurance mandates, fewer gun controls, fewer occupational licences, and unfettered homeschooling. Nothing — only a willingness to give up the reins over people's lives.As Nevada and Oregon attest, in just two years states can make substantial improvements relative to their peers and begin attracting residents. This competition for constituents could well be the leading mechanism for keeping government officials in check. Why else would tyrannical regimes outlaw departure?Let's be thankful we have open borders between the states and at least some degree of federalism and local governance to enable competition.Thanks also go to those who prepared the state freedom ranking, which will hasten the accountability. Jason Sorens, one of the ranking's authors, should know. He happens to be the founder of the Free State Project (http://freestateproject.org/), the ultimate liberty migration. His idea has already attracted almost 1,000 people to New Hampshire, and the organization hosts the annual Porcupine Freedom Festival (http://porcfest.com/) (which happens to be next week), perhaps the world's largest gathering of libertarians.Fergus Hodgson (http://fff.org/author/fergus-hodgson/)Fergus Hodgson is Capitol Bureau Reporter for the Pelican Institute, and you can follow him on twitter. Endless Immigration Reform 2011-05-12T09:00:00+01:00 2011-05-12T09:00:00+01:00 2011-05-12T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1759/27/ ENDLESS IMMIGRATION REFORM (http://fff.org/2011/05/12/endless-immigration-reform/) by Jacob G. Hornberger (http://fff.org/author/jacob-hornberger-2/) May 12, 2011 The title of today's Los Angeles Times editorial says it all: "Get moving on immigration reform."The operative word is "reform." Here we go again. More calls for immigration reform after decades of immigration reform. I thought that Berlin Wall type of fence they were constructing down on the Southern border was supposed to be their final reform. I thought they said that the fence would solve America's immigration woes once and for all.But of course, we have heard this reform claptrap for decades. Every few years, the immigration "crisis" surfaces once again. The anti-immigration crowd, reinforced by the mainstream press, goes into one of its periodic paroxysms of outrage over the fact that the United States is being "invaded" by the illegals.People get all upset and demand that something be done to protect our jobs and our nation's borders.Enter the calls for reform. The anti-immigration crowd demands reform. The editorial writers demand reform. The members of Congress demand reform. The president demands reform. Every statist in the country demands immigration reform.But as soon as the reform is adopted, no one is happy. Almost immediately, the anti-immigration types start screaming about how the illegals are taking over America and not speaking English. The editorial writers pick up the theme and call for action to deal with the new immigration crisis. The statists go into emotional hyper-drive … and call for immigration reform.How many decades of this ridiculous nonsense must be go on before people finally realize that no reform is going to work? Let me repeat that: No matter whose reform is adopted, it's not going to make one bit of difference. The reform will immediately begin producing a new series of crises, which will then produce more calls for reform.The reason that no immigration reform will ever succeed is because the basic immigration paradigm is fundamentally flawed. Immigration controls are nothing more than a system of socialistic central planning, one in which some government body plans, in a top-down command-and-control manner, the peaceful activities of people. Central planning was a core element in the socialist economic system of the Soviet Union, where people were beset by the same endless series of crises and reforms that Americans have been subjected to in the area of immigration.Why is immigration central planning inherently flawed. As the Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek pointed out, government planners lack the requisite knowledge and understanding that is entailed in the constantly changing valuations that are taking place in the marketplace. The more people whose activities are being planned, the worse the problem.In a free market, each individual is planning his own life and making his own decisions. In doing so, he is taking into consideration a multitude of factors that affect his own individual life, factors that are constantly changing. Since such factors are personal, subjective, and constantly changing for each individual person, there is no way that government planners can accumulate, process, update, and incorporate them into the central plan. In fact, as soon as the planners come up with a plan, it's already seriously outdated because of constantly changing subjective valuations of the people whose activities are being planned.Consider an immigration central plan. It sets forth a quota for its concept of the ideal number of immigrants from a particular country. It sets forth what the qualifications that the immigrants should have, including educational background, work skills, amount of wealth, and age. At the same time, the planners are examining the domestic scene and evaluating what types of workers are needed in the marketplace.However, the plan always results in perversions and distortions because, again, there is no way that government planners can ever have the requisite knowledge to plan a complex human activity, especially a labor market involving millions of people from different parts of the world. The workers that American businesses need — numbers, types, background, etc. — are constantly changing.Why should it surprise anyone that there are immigrants risking their lives to cross the borders to seek to better their lives through labor? All that reflects is that the central planner's plan was all screwed up. It failed to allocate a sufficiently large number of workers to a particular country in accordance with the subjective valuations of American employers. That's because the planner can't do it, and when he tries to do it, he is afflicted by what Hayek called the "fatal conceit."Unfortunately, all too often it is the illegal immigrant — the person who has done nothing wrong in a moral sense — who pays the price for the planners' fatal conceit, by becoming a fatality in the decades-long folly known as immigration controls.What's the solution to perpetual immigration crisis and endless reform? Abolishing immigration controls and restoring a free market to immigration, which means opening the borders to the free movements of people (and goods and services). It is the only way to bring peace, prosperity, harmony, and morality to the immigration arena.Jacob G. Hornberger (http://fff.org/author/jacob-hornberger-2/)Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com (http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster13.html) and from Full Context (http://220.127.116.11/explore-freedom/article/full-context-interview-with-jacob-g-hornberger/). Send him email (mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com). Immigration Statism Vs. Economic Liberty 2011-05-27T09:00:00+01:00 2011-05-27T09:00:00+01:00 2011-05-27T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1758/27/ IMMIGRATION STATISM VS. ECONOMIC LIBERTY (http://fff.org/2011/05/27/immigration-statism-economic-liberty/) by Jacob G. Hornberger (http://fff.org/author/jacob-hornberger-2/) May 27, 2011 The Supreme Court has upheld an Arizona law that imposes harsh penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. The penalty of violating the law entails the suspension of a firm's business license. The law requires state companies to verify that employees are legal by using a federal database.Oh, for the days of substantive due process! That was the period of Supreme Court history when the Court protected people's fundamental rights from infringements by both the federal government and the state governments. Federal infringements were declared unconstitutional by virtue of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment and state infringements by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.Or, perhaps I should backtrack a bit. It's not that the Supreme Court won't protect some fundamental rights from both federal and state assault. They certainly do. It's just that ever since the Franklin Roosevelt statist revolution, the Court has refused to protect economic liberty from both state and federal infringements.For example, if Arizona had enacted a law punishing employers who gave speeches and handed out pamphlets opposing Arizona's immigration law, the Supreme Court would have easily declared the law to be an unconstitutional infringement on the fundamental right of freedom of speech. The Court would have relied on the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause to protect people's right to free speech.The same goes for religious liberty, another well-recognized fundamental right. If Arizona required people to attend church on Sunday, the Court would hold that the law is an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of religion.The problem arises with respect to economic liberty, which Supreme Court justices, like good, little statists everywhere, look upon not as a fundamental right but rather as a privilege bestowed on people by government.Look at that Arizona immigration law. How does it punish employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens? By revoking their licenses to do business in the state.Did you catch that? A license to do business! What's a license? It's a government-granted permission — a permission that must be bought and paid for and issued before someone can go into business.In other words, in order to sustain and improve their lives through labor and economic activity, people must ask for permission from the state. That's as antithetical to the notion of fundamental rights as one can get.Did I mention that businesses in Cuba and China must also secure licenses from the state as a prerequisite to engaging in economic activity? Statists everywhere think alike.Do you see how different statists are from libertarians? Libertarians hold that a person has the fundamental, God-given right to not only speak his mind and decide whether to go to church but also the right to sustain his life through labor by engaging in economic activity, including the buying and selling of products and services, and deciding what to do with his own money.Given that economic liberty is a fundamental, God-given right, people should no more have to secure a license from the government to exercise that right than they should to give a speech or operate a church.After all, it's your life, isn't it? The government didn't create you, God did or, if you prefer, nature did. Whatever talents and abilities a person has have come to him from nature and nature's God, not from government. You have the inalienable right to use those talents and abilities by offering goods and services to other people, who have the right to choose to purchase them or not.Moreover, the fruits of your earnings belong to you, not to the government, and you have the fundamental, God-given right to do whatever you want with your own money. If you choose to use your money to hire Mexicans, Guatemalans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Americans, that is your right, just as it is their right to accept or refuse your offer of employment.That's what economic liberty is all about. Unfortunately, we were all born and raised in an age of statism, one in which statists are everywhere, including on the Supreme Court. As such, we have to put up with such statist nonsense as occupational licensure and sanctions for associating with employees that statists don't like or approve of.As statism generally continues heading people into endless economic woes, we can only hope that there will be a rediscovery and renewed appreciation for the principles of fundamental rights and economic liberty. Wouldn't it be great to see the following amendment added to the Constitution: "No law shall be passed by either the federal government or the states respecting the regulation of commerce or abridging the free exercise thereof"?Jacob G. Hornberger (http://fff.org/author/jacob-hornberger-2/)Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com (http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster13.html) and from Full Context (http://184.108.40.206/explore-freedom/article/full-context-interview-with-jacob-g-hornberger/). Send him email (mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com). Immigration and Liberal Hypocrisy 2011-05-31T09:00:00+01:00 2011-05-31T09:00:00+01:00 2011-05-31T09:00:00+01:00 http://multiracial.com/site/content/view/1757/27/ IMMIGRATION AND LIBERAL HYPOCRISY (http://fff.org/2011/05/31/immigration-liberal-hypocrisy/) by Jacob G. Hornberger (http://fff.org/author/jacob-hornberger-2/) May 31, 2011 Let's give credit where credit is due: When it comes to hypocrisy, liberals can be just as two-faced and duplicitous as conservatives.We're all familiar with conservative hypocrisy. The favorite mantra of conservatives is: "Private property, free enterprise, and limited government."Yet, the favorite programs of conservatives are: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, education grants, community grants, corporate bailouts, protectionism, empire, torture, the drug war, the war on terrorism, and all sorts of other things that violate the principles of "free enterprise, private property, and limited government."What about liberals? Their favorite mantra is: "We love the poor, needy, and disadvantaged." In fact, their favorite invective that they love to hurl at libertarians (who favor the dismantling, not the reform, of all welfare-state programs) is: "You just hate the poor, needy, and disadvantaged."Well, according to this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/us/politics/30raid.html) in Sunday's New York Times, the Obama administration has initiated a fierce crackdown on businesses that hire illegal aliens.But get this: They're going easy on the immigrants, just deporting them instead of charging them with any crimes. Instead, they're going after the American businessmen who commit the dastardly crime of hiring these poor people.The most recent example involves Chuy's Mesquite Broiler chain in Arizona, which is popular among consumers for its Mexican food and margaritas. The feds busted the place and charged the restaurant's two owners, Mark Evenson and his son Christopher, with crimes entailing a possible 80 years in jail.Only one of the 42 illegal aliens caught in the raid was charged with a crime, one unrelated to the raid. The others were detained on civil charges, which usually involve deportation, detained as material witnesses against the Evensons, or permitted to remain in the United States to legalize their status.Why the differentiation in treatment?Isn't the answer obvious? Unlike conservatives, liberals love "the poor, needy, and disadvantaged." This way, they can say to themselves, "We're helping the poor by sending them home rather than putting them in jail, like Bush and his conservative cohorts were doing. We're punishing the evil, greedy, profit-seeking, bourgeois, swine of capitalist pigs who are exploiting the oppressed workers."Like I say, rank hypocrisy! Hurting people in the name of helping them. How do you get more two-faced than that?Those illegal aliens had entered into a mutually beneficial arrangement with Chuy's restaurant. Both sides had struck a negotiated deal in which the immigrants were performing labor services in exchange for an agreed-upon wage. Both sides were happy with the deal, given that they both voluntarily entered into it.What better way to help the poor, needy, and disadvantaged than to let them have a paying job in the private sector, especially compared to forcing them to return home to a life of guaranteed poverty? When they're free to accept gainful employment in the private sector, they make their own money, much of which they send back home to help the poor — e.g., spouses, children, parents, and grandparents.And let's not forget: The money that is being used to pay the immigrants' salaries belongs to the owners, not the government and not to society. Since it's their money, the owners have the moral right to do whatever they want with it, including giving it to anyone they want, including immigrants who are working for them.Of course, given the liberal mindset that everything belongs to society and, therefore, subject to confiscation and redistribution, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the concept of private ownership of property is anathema to liberals.What business is it of government to interfere with private work relationships that have been voluntarily agreed upon between employers and employees?Answer: No business at all.What have Obama and his liberal cohorts accomplished with their vicious raid on Chuy's restaurant.They've hurt the immigrants, who now no longer have a job and are being forced to return to Latin America to suffer dismal economics conditions.They've hurt the owners, who must now spend tens of thousands of dollars in attorney's fees and possibly spend years in a federal penitentiary for committing the dastardly crime of using their own money to hire some of the poorest people in the world.They've hurt customers of Chuy's restaurant, given the good chance that restaurant operations will be disrupted and possibly ended by the federal assault on its private property and economic enterprise.Why can't the feds simply leave people alone? Because despite their two-faced mantras, liberals, like conservatives, are consumed with destroying the lives and happiness of people who are simply trying to better their lives and the lives of their families through voluntary contracts and economic activity.Jacob G. Hornberger (http://fff.org/author/jacob-hornberger-2/)Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com (http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster13.html) and from Full Context (http://188.8.131.52/explore-freedom/article/full-context-interview-with-jacob-g-hornberger/). Send him email (mailto:firstname.lastname@example.com).


text:
SELOUS, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe's biggest platinum producer has become the first foreign-owned company to hand over shares under the southern Africa nation's black empowerment program.
South-African-controlled Zimplats company Thursday ceded 15 percent of its stockholding to a local Zimbabwe community trust.
The nation's "indigenization" laws require foreign-owned companies to yield a 51 percent stockholding to black Zimbabweans.
Zimbabwe's longtime ruler President Robert Mugabe spoke at the handover in the town west of Harare. He said that while he may not be regarded favorably in most parts of the world, he wants a "fair" partnership with foreign investors in Zimbabwe.
Critics have said the nation's "indigenization" laws scare off much needed investment in the troubled economy.


text:
If I make $500-$1000 weekly, do I need college?
If I make $500-$1000 weekly, do I need college?
I'm 20 years old and college is a drag. Over the past seven months, I have been playing poker online and consistently have been making $500-$1000 weekly.
Asked By: blue.apple - 6/24/2008
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
mmkay dude, im not of college age, I'm just in middle school actually but heres my advice for you: Poker, yes it contains some skill but a lot of its just luck. You may stop playing online and play in groups for a chance to make more money, but its also a better chance to lose money. Gambling can be come an addiction... More
Answered By: SoccerLuvver - 6/24/2008
Additional Answers (6)
Get your education and make that money!
Answered By: 36 chuck - 6/24/2008
Just finish college, you can't "fall back on" poker! Think of it as convenient income for now while you are in school, but save some for a 'rainy day.'
Answered By: Hott Doggiez - 6/24/2008
Play your way through college man. Swings in poker are brutal. Its always better to finish. Especially because of all of the wallet-depleting temptations that come along with the poker lifestyle. And if you hate college that much, go part time. JUST STAY IN SCHOOL... More
Answered By: nkapusta87 - 6/24/2008
Good luck buying a house, or buying a car, or getting a loan for anything if your application shows your occupation as "online poker player." You don't need a college education to be successful, but get a freaking job and contribute to society.
Answered By: RM - 6/24/2008
I think its a decision you really have to think about! If you're playing cash games i defintley wouldn't quit college because there's too many up and down swings. On the other hand if you play tournament poker and cash consistently then it's something to think about... More
Answered By: kavanax85 - 6/24/2008
are you putting money aside for taxes and keeping accurate records of your losses? if no, you're going to get a big surprise from the IRS next year You will get a 1099 showing the total of all your winnings and if you can't prove any losses - it will be all income and you'll be owing 20-30% for income taxes - there's... More
Answered By: Doctor Deth - 6/24/2008
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