Animal Rights "Compassion"?
The world of professional bunny huggers never ceases to amaze and startle us, but a few recent events underscore just how twisted and bizarre the whole movement has become. Yesterday arson and terrorism investigators in Los Angeles were called to the home of UCLA researcher Edythe London after it was set on fire. Police suspect that the arson was the work of animal activists. London, whose work with animals focuses on uncovering the causes of addiction and substance abuse, was also targeted in October by criminals from the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) who broke a window and used a garden hose to flood her home. At the time, the ALF released an anonymous statement warning London that "It would have been just as easy to burn your house down." The same group tried to torch the home of another UCLA scientist in 2006, but hit the wrong houseleaving a deadly Molotov cocktail on the front porch of a 70-year-old retiree. Eight time zones away, animal rights activists in Great Britain are criticizing a grocery-store chain for making chicken more affordable. Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket company, had announced that it would double its stock of more expensive "free range" birds while slashing prices on conventional chickens by 60 percent, so everyone could have at least one affordable option. Setting aside the fact that "free range" chicken production isn't always the most "humane" (click here and here for details), what's wrong with having the freedom to choose? Plenty, if you believe in legal "rights" for animals. If a chicken were to have rights, the very first one would be the right to not be eatenregardless of how comfortably it was kept. Ultimately, complaints about cheaper poultry, and PETA's recent call for a special environmental tax on meat, amount to the same thing: Animal activists would love see choices they don't think we should have gradually priced out of our reach. And as a lunatic arsonist in Los Angeles demonstrated yesterday, they also don't want us to have access to scientific discoveries that promise to improve our lives. How's that for "compassion"?
Your Money, Your Choice
From Benjamin Franklin to Ronald Reagan, key figures in American history have warned us that sacrificing freedom for security is a recipe for losing both. Unfortunately, that counsel seems to have fallen on deaf ears. A bureaucrat-knows-best mentality is spreading across the nation. At local, state, and national levels, self-appointed "experts" are lobbying to regulate the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the goods we buy, assuming that we are too stupid to choose for ourselves. These measures have created a slippery slope. And now officials are expanding their reach once more, getting ready to go after our finances. Virginia politicians are poised to wedge the government between you and your wallet. The state legislature has crafted a bill to restrict the number of payday loans any one person can receive in a year. Why are lawmakers singling out these loans? Payday lending is a specialized service that is willing to provide cash advances to "high risk" individuals when no else will. Because there's already a lot of regulatory red tape on these loans, the processing fees are higher than the rates given by banks to "low risk" individuals. Virginia's Big Brother legislation suggests that "high risk" consumers aren't smart enough to handle their own money. These loans often help people pay for necessities, like housing and child care, when their bank accounts run dry. Deciding to "not pay the rent" is not an option. And now the legislature is planning to take away their only real choice. Economists project that an arbitrary cap on payday loans will result in countless bounced checks and late fees. And the financial burden of those charges would be far greater than the interest rates that lawmakers are claiming to "protect" us from.
Breaking News
Here's a sampling of other stories that have caught our interest today. To see a one-week archive of these items, click here.
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