Set a Place for Freedom at Your Thanksgiving Table

 Contents

A Place at the Table, a Place in Our Hearts
Terrorists and Nuclear Power Plants: How Frightened Should We Be?
It Must Have Been a Very Nice Snake
Ford Buys the Rope by Which Others May Hang It
Speaking of Rope
Isn’t a Name A Symbol?

A Place at the Table, a Place in Our Hearts

Terrorism and the war will be on everyone’s mind this Thanksgiving, so why not set an empty place at your Thanksgiving table in memory of lost Americans and in honor of our soldiers abroad? This act, multiplied across the nation, would put a warm spot in the hearts of those whose dinner tables will be a little less crowded this year, and it would tell our armed services that while we may not be with them in person, we’re with them in spirit.

Terrorists and Nuclear Power Plants: How Frightened Should We Be?

"A terrorist assault on a nuclear power plant would attract a lot of attention, and some types of attack could conceivably prompt a limited evacuation. However, the chance of dangerous release of radioactivity to the atmosphere is remote, and there seems to be no credible way that any members of the public could be seriously irradiated. Many easier and more lucrative targets (where damage could be comparable to the World Trade Center disaster) are available for terrorists to attack. Our ultimate protection against terrorism will lie in lack of terrorists, not in scarcity of targets." From "Terrorism and Nuclear Power: What are the Risks?," National Center for Public Policy Research National Policy Analysis #374 by nuclear physicists Gerald E. Marsh and George S. Stanford, available on the Internet at https://nationalcenter.org/NPA374.html.

[Editor’s note: Author George Stanford will appear on a Townhall.com live chat about this paper online on Wednesday, November 14 at 8 PM ET at http://www.townhall.com/chat/#stanford.]

It Must Have Been a Very Nice Snake

The Liberty Matters News Service at http://www.libertymatters.org/11.6.01bart.htm reports that a California Department of Fish and Game investigation into the death of a garter snake caused a two-week delay in construction of a BART subway line and cost the taxpayers $1.04 million.

Foul play is not suspected — in the death of the snake, anyway.

Ford Buys the Rope by Which Others May Hang It

Osama bin Laden isn’t the only one acting suicidal. Take the Ford Motor Company, which gave $5 million to the Audubon Society ­ which says oil drilling is akin to terrorism.

If this is true, driving an oil-driven car must be a terroristic act. This is an odd PR message for a car company.

From the Audubon Society’s Save the Arctic website, downloaded November 9, at http://www.protectthearctic.com/news.asp :

"Terrorists struck and destroyed some very special places in America – the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We should not let them destroy other special places in America like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Do not let the terrorists win again by drilling in the Arctic Refuge."

Meanwhile, the League of Conservation Voters kindly informed us that the Blue Ribbon Coalition’s website at http://www.sharetrails.org/alerts/index.cfm?mr=47 provides contact information for Ford. Some Ford stockholders may ask Ford if it is out of its corporate mind.

Meanwhile, the AP reports that Democrats and environmentalists are accusing the White House and Republicans of "exploiting terrorist fears to allow drilling" in ANWR. We guess some folks haven’t visited the Audubon Society’s website.

Speaking of Rope

NBC, owned by GE, is reportedly considering giving Erin Brockovich a TV show of her own, where she is likely to give trial lawyers a nice forum for drumming up business against big corporations.

Isn’t a Name a Symbol?

ABC News is the "American" Broadcasting Company. Yet, it has banned the wearing of American flag pins by personnel because, as ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider says, "we cannot signal how we feel about a cause, even a justified and just cause, through some sort of outward symbol."

If we just called it an "A" flag, would that make a difference?

(See the Media Research Center’s report at http://www.mediaresearch.org/news/Terrorism/terrorismarchive.html#Network%20Policies for more on TV network flag-wearing policies.)



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.