Strip Search Case Going To Supreme Court

A case in which a 13 year old eighth grade girl was strip searched at school for prescription drugs is now going to the Supreme Court. Many of the details are disputed so I won't go through a lot of it but what is not disputed is that a 13 year old girl, suspected of having Ibuprofin, was forced to expose herself to the school nurse and secretary in a hostile environment. Minors have rights too but the government doesn't seem to recognize that. In the state of NJ you can't buy cigarettes until you are 19. That means you can drive, vote, enlist in the military, die for your country, buy a house, get a mortgage, then lose your house, get married, have kids, run for elected office, and be a model citizen but you are not or mature enough to inhale tobacco smoke.

This has been a repeating theme in NJ, we even have curfews in place for kids under the age of 18 in certain townships here in the Garden State. At the age of 16 I was employed as waiter at a local restaurant. If the town I worked in had curfew laws then I would have been fired. And now the government has taken the additional step and basically has said that if you are under 18 and over a month old they can strip you down and poke and prod at you until satisfied. No warrant, no real evidence, not even a police officer present (though I don't know how much that would have changed things), or a phone call to the parents. This kind of news makes me sick.

For the article click here.

#5 On The Top 10 Food Trends of 2009

Now you may be asking yourself what do food trends have to do with individual liberties and small government? Well, to answer that question I will now unveil the #5 food trend as chosen by The Food Channel... too much focus on nutritional information by both consumers and the government. Consumers have a right to count calories all day long but part of the #5 trend is that more "obesity-related legislation" is seen on the horizon. This is one of the worst kinds of legislation, where the government tells you what you can and cannot eat, and its based solely on preventing obesity! Some people are heavy because of their body structure, their genes, and because they have bad eating habits. But the government should stay out of our palates. If I want to sit on the couch all day and eat doughnuts, french fries, and deep-fried snicker bars (they do exist in Wildwood) then that is my right.

Let me know what you think.

Pres. Barack Obama and Tres. Timothy Geithner Asking For More Power

Whenever the most powerful person in the whole world asks for more power you should be very VERY scared. Of course Pres. Obama nor Mr. Geithner are stating that they will misuse and abuse it but in the end they all do. What is really frightening is that all they need is Congressional approval to get it. I didn't know that our system of checks and balances could kicked off to the side on Congress' say so.

Lets focus more on the power grabbers for a moment. What powers do they want and why? Lets see what they said...

From Bloomberg:

Regulators should be able to safeguard the entire financial system as well as monitor the health of specific institutions, Geithner said. This oversight should cover “all institutions and markets that could pose systemic risk” he said, according to the excerpts.

That is oddly vague. What is the definition of a "systemic risk" and why does the Treasury Department need to safeguard the entire financial system? Is that their job? Lets see what pops up on Wikipedia.

Managing federal finances;
Collecting taxes, duties and monies paid to and due to the U.S. and paying all bills of the U.S.;
Producing all postage stamps, currency, and coinage;
Managing government accounts and the United States public debt;
Supervising national banks and thrift institutions;
Advising on domestic and international financial, monetary, economic, trade and tax policy - fiscal policy being the sum of these, and the ultimate responsibility of Congress.
Enforcing Federal finance and tax laws;
Investigating and prosecuting tax evaders, counterfeiters, forgers, smugglers, illicit spirits distillers, and gun law violators.

Nope, I don't see anything on that list of responsibilities of the Treasury Department that include safguarding the entire financial system. Any powers handed over on such broad and vague wording can be abused on such a large scale. We are supposed to have a limited government here in the US, not an omnipotent one.

You can find the article here.