"When the big nations quit meddling, the world will have peace." -- Will Rogers

I saw that quote recently at the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore, OK. If you ever find yourself in the Tulsa area, be sure to pay it a visit.

The same way the Colorado theater shooter got his hands on tear gas -- with help from someone in the government.

And the Colorado theater shooter (an unemployed college geek) used a federal education grant to get the money needed to acquire that huge weapons cache.

I was about to disagree with you. Then I suddenly recalled how ESPN spent much of last week hyping the event. Normally, anyone who doesn't live in New England can go to bed on Patriots' Day without knowing the Boston Marathon had occurred. But this year the sports media were eager to generate public awareness and a big TV audience.

Something else to consider: the timing of the explosions. I saw a video which showed the 1st bomb going off at the 4:04 mark. That's about two hours after the winner crossed the finish line, which means most of the spectators had already left. Any terrorist seeking to cause the greatest mayhem possible would have timed the blast to coincide with the arrival of the fastest runners. That also would have played havoc with the Red Sox game, which IIRC historically starts at the same time. (According to several reporters, Fenway Park is ~1.5 miles from the finish line.)

Speaking of Waco, today is the anniversary of both that act of government terrorism and the OKC bombing, which Clinton later admitted was critical to his re-election.

You should have been in the Air Force in 1986 (like I was). A modest proposal to trim the overmanned officer corps by just 6% over three years was denounced as TEOTWAWKI. Meanwhile, every 4-6 months thousands of enlisted people were discharged before their terms were up (or forced to re-up early and forfeit part of their bonuses) under a slew of "early out" programs, supposedly the result of insufficient funds to pay them.

I suspect the Iranian embassy snark was an attempt to imply that Chavez was an Iranian puppet. After all, the US embassy in Baghdad is in fact a symbol of Iraq's status as a US puppet.

James, you left out the fact that Lincoln's blue-clad goons also pioneered the cowardly tactic (now used throughout the Mideast) of using noncombatants as "human shields." It was SOP for Union artillery units to place Confederate POWs in front of their positions, thus putting those men at severe risk of "friendly fire" deaths,

No, it's the same. Only governments wage war, so those who oppose war have every reason to be paranoid about government. Especially a totalitarian police state like the Bush/Obama USA.

In fact, the Keynesian imbecile Paul Krugman advocated that very thing a few years ago.

Everyone should make Ixquick their default search engine -- it is 100% private. For that reason it is also my browser's home page.

At Starbucks or anywhere else (including at home), you should surf and send/receive e-mail through an anonymous proxy. Tor is free, but because of its architecture it can often feel like dial-up. IMHO a subscription proxy such as Anonymizer is a better choice.

Another essential utility is KeyScrambler, which thwarts keyloggers by encrypting keystrokes at the kernel level.

Just as important is to have a pre-paid no-contract phone such as TracFone. Just be sure to pay strictly cash for the phone and the minutes, so there's no paper trail linking you to the phone. And by all means avoid their Web site.