News Capsules (November/December 2000)

On the Frontiers of Science

"A few weeks ago, Governor George Bush delayed the execution of a Texas inmate so that DNA evidence could be reviewed. That review backfired, providing additional evidence that the inmate was, indeed, guilty. University of Utah Professor Paul G. Cassell had this observation about all the death-penalty yada-yada:

" Avowed opponents of the death penalty caught the attention of Al Gore among others when they released a report purporting to demonstrate that the nation's capital punishment system is 'collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes.' Contrary to the headlines written by some gullible editors, however, the report proves nothing of the sort. ...Indeed, missing from the media coverage was the most critical statistic: After reviewing 23 years of capital sentences, the study's authors (like other researchers) were unable to find a single case in which an innocent person was executed. Thus, the most important error rate --- the rate of mistaken executions --- is zero. '...The Bureau of Justice statistics has found that of 52,000 inmates serving time for homicide, more than 800 had previously been convicted of murder. THAT sounds like a system collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes --- and innocent people are dying as a result.'

"And last, remember all the 1997 hoopla over the 'racially motivated church burning' conspiracy --- that wasn't? Turns out the Justice Dept. did nab one arsonist who has pleaded guilty to 26 church arsons in eight states. But he wasn't a racist. He was a Satanist who called himself a missionary of Lucifer. And, for the record, the only church arson in the last decade involving fatalities was the one precipitated by the Justice Department's presence outside the compound of a religious cult in Waco, Texas."

(The Federalist, July 14, 2000, 00-28 Digest)

Improving Your Software

"In the 1960s, we had by far the best health care system in the world. Health insurance was available to anyone, young or old, even those with pre-existing medical problems. Doctors made house calls, and a hospital stay for an appendectomy or other routine operation cost the equivalent of only a week or two of one's income. Every city had free clinics and charity hospitals that took care of those who were short of money.

"Then the politicians said, 'We're from the government and we're going to improve your health care.' The federal government jumped in with Medicare, Medicaid, the HMO Act, and tens of thousands of regulations.

"Thirty years later, government now spends half of all the health care dollars in America, and we can see how well the politicians have helped us:

° Doctors no longer make house calls and their waiting rooms look like Grand Central Station.

° Charity hospitals have disappeared, and a routine operation can cost as much as a year's pay.

° Health insurance has been priced out of the market for those in their 20s or 30s, and people with special medical problems must rely on the government for insurance.

° Senior citizens now pay from their own pockets at least twice as much for health care as they did before Medicare began --- even after allowing for Medicare's contribution and after adjusting for inflation. And if they need a medical procedure that isn't approved by Medicare, they're plain out of luck.

"Similar disasters have flowed from government intrusions into education, charity, farming, and many other areas of society. The War on Poverty has escalated poverty in America. The War on Drugs has expanded drug use and produced the worst crime wave in the history of America.

"Now the government is going to apply this same expertise to your computer software..."

(Harry Browne is the Libertarian candidate for president in 2000, http://www.HarryBrowne2000.org)

Runnin' From Gore Like "Scalded Dogs"

"Of Republican candidates, everybody wants George W. Bush (to campaign with them) in their districts. That's how you know things are going well. How many Democrats are in competition to get Al Gore in their districts? If Al Gore comes into some of these southern districts, some of these western districts, you won't be able to find these Democratic candidates with a search warrant."

(Rep. Tom Davis [R-Va.], Washington Times Weekly, June 4, 2000)

On the Eve of the Election, Castro Says Bush and Gore Are Boring

"Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore are boring, says Fidel Castro, a man who regularly stultifies his captive audiences with five- and six-hour-long speeches.

"The two opponents in this year's presidential election are 'boring and insipid,' Castro told some 200,000 Cubans while celebrating the 40th anniversary of his communist revolution...

"The Cuban dictator criticized the GOP platform plank on Cuba, which demands that no trade or travel restrictions should be eased until Castro releases all political prisoners --- at the very time when the Clinton administration and some lawmakers are trying to ease sanctions...

"The platform also calls for 'active American support for Cuban dissidents' and says sanctions will be lifted when Castro also legalizes opposition political parties and commits to democratic elections.

"These GOP platform provisions, Castro charged, cater to the 'terrorist and annexationist mafia of Miami,' referring to Florida's Cuban-American exile community...

"While reserving most of his venom for Bush, Castro nonetheless took a swipe at Gore, saying, 'Perhaps never in times so complex and chaotic... has there been a competition between two candidates more boring and insipid.' "

(NewsMax.com, August 7, 2000)

The Doctor Is Out

"Ilene Cohen designs software. David Chung founded an Internet start-up. Rod Altman helps pick investments for a venture capital company. Gigi Hirsch is a career consultant, and Stephen Sherwin runs a $33 million biotechnology firm.

"Their workdays, incomes, ages, and aspirations may differ, but they have one thing in common: They're all doctors.

"Frustration over managed care --- coupled with exploding opportunities in Internet ventures, medical technology, biotech, and finance --- is spurring more and more physicians to try careers in other fields, doctors and medical organizations say.

"Some go looking for autonomy, creativity, status, and financial reward, the hallmarks that once attracted them to the medical profession but now seem to be ebbing away...

"Yet a recent survey of 300 doctors over age 50 found that 10 percent were planning to seek jobs outside clinical practice, according to Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, a national physician headhunting firm. Of physicians who planned to stop working with patients or to retire, 48 percent cited managed care as a significant reason. 'That trend is making it harder for hospitals to recruit top specialists,' said company spokesman Phil Miller.

"Meanwhile, a small but growing number of young doctors are postponing, skipping, or curtailing residency training --- or leaving just after residency --- to start businesses, join Internet start-ups, or work as consultants.

"Companies, in turn, are taking a new look at doctors as a pool of intellectual capital: In the last five years, McKinsey & Co. and the Boston Consulting Group have begun recruiting at medical schools nationwide. Hirsch, of Brookline, quit psychiatry to found a company that helps such firms locate and hire physicians.

"Perhaps surprisingly, these trends are meeting little resistance or concern from the established medical community, which seems to view them as a sign that doctors and educators are adapting to the changing health care landscape."

(Anne Barnard and Kathryn Tong, The Boston Globe, July 9, 2000)

Correct Coding Initiative Hits Outpatient Departments

"A federal initiative to improve coding in outpatient settings began August 1, the same day the hospital outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) took effect. Most outpatient departments have had at least a year of practice to prepare for the National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI), Peggy Breiner, a senior nosologist with the HP3 Research Institute, said late last week.

" 'All facilities knew before (the OPPS began) that they'd have to follow the NCCI,' Breiner said. 'Most outpatient units also have been using encoding software that catches bad edits before claims are sent out,' she said.

"Physician practices and physical therapists in private practice have used the NCCI since 1996. The NCCI system pairs codes that do not go together and rejects claims that contain them. But the NCCI for physicians and therapists also uses the controversial 'black-box edits,' code pairs known only to HCFA and the contractor who created them. Providers have criticized HCFA for rejecting claims based on black-box edits, because claimants have no opportunity to defend themselves.

" 'Outpatient departments won't face that problem, because HCFA has said the OPPS won't include the black-box edits,' Breiner said."

(Compliance Monitor, August 9, 2000)

Hate Crimes

"The Senate has passed a so-called hate crimes bill which, should it become law, endangers the liberties of all who are not part of a protected class. In fact, the legislation, pushed by Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR), so expands the number of protected classes in this country that the only group not now covered is white males who are not handicapped.

"That's right. Every other group, including racial minorities, the handicapped, homosexuals, and women all belong to a protected class. So if a homosexual kills a non-handicapped white male it is not a hate crime. But if that white male kills a homosexual it is a hate crime. Likewise with women. If a woman maims a white male it is not a hate crime under this legislation but if a white male maims a woman of any color for any reason it is a hate crime and so it goes.

"So for the first time in American history there are two classes of people before the law in the United States. Those who are of a protected class whose crimes will be regarded just as they are --- and those white males, who under this theory are the oppressors, and who therefore must be guilty of hate if they commit a crime against any one of the protected class. The only way a white male can now escape being charged with committing a hate crime is to commit the crime against another white male."

(Paul Weyrich, Free Congress Foundation, July 17, 2000)

Children and Gun Phobia

"In the past year, a kid in grade school was suspended for a year because he brought a gun to school. You might not think that's so crazy, until you realize it was a toy gun, from a GI Joe doll. That's right; the gun wasn't life sized. There was no way you could mistake it for a real gun, and about the only way it could hurt a kid was if he swallowed it.

"Now, compare that to the kid in Flint, Michigan who brought a real gun to school and killed one of his classmates. This kid has a history of violence, too. He was suspended once for stabbing another classmate with a pencil before he shot the little girl. So, they must have really slammed it to this kid, right? Wrong. He was expelled for 90 days. Next year he'll be back at the same school, with the same classmates, ready to do damage to another kid.

"Does this make any sense at all? To expel a kid for a year for a tiny, plastic model of a gun, while expelling a killer for only 90 days? What's the reasoning behind something like that?"

(Columnist Charles E. Perry, The Common Conservative, April 1, 2000)

Children and Sexual Harassment

"One 9-year-old boy who reached for a piece of fruit in a school lunch line and accidentally brushed against a girl was arrested, handcuffed and fingerprinted for sexual harassment, even though the charges later had to be dropped. A boy of three was punished in school for hugging another child. The feminist dogma is that such things are precursors of wife-beating, rape and other crimes of men against women --- and so must be nipped in the bud."

(Columnist Thomas Sowell, GOP News and Views, June 20, 2000)

Bible Too Violent For Kids?

"A German government minister has been asked to reclassify the Bible as a book considered too dangerous for children because of its violent content.

"Christian Sailer and Gert-Joachim Hetzel, two lawyers from Bavaria, made the request in a letter to Family Minister Christine Bergmann, in which they said the Bible contained 'bloodthirsty and human rights-violating passages.'

"The Bible should remain on a list of books unsuitable for children until the offending passages are removed, they argued. The two claimed to be acting on behalf of 'some parents of minors.'

"A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in the area was quoted as saying the lawyers clearly had no understanding of Scripture. Every history book and most newspapers would also have to be listed if the same standards were applied.

"The Bavarian Consti-tutional Court threw out the case, on the grounds the German constitution prohibits courts from interfering in church matters."

(CNSNews.com, August 4, 2000)

JAMA Article Questions Effectiveness of Brady Act

"An article recently published in the anti-gun Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) indicates that the Brady Act has had no significant impact on violent crime. The research itself, however, is hardly ground breaking, merely confirming what NRA and other researchers have said for years.

"The article's authors, Jens Ludwig and Philip J. Cook, are notoriously anti-gun, and their work was funded by the anti-gun Joyce Foundation. Prior research on the Brady Act has been far more thorough, looking at areas Ludwig and Cook failed to explore, such as the law's effect on robbery, rape, and aggravated assault. Ludwig and Cook studied only homicide and suicide --- and their study of homicide included incidents where law-abiding citizens defended themselves against violent criminal attack. Yale University School of Law Senior Research Scholar John R. Lott, Jr., in contrast, studied the Brady Act's impact on all violent crime, and found that its waiting period had no significant impact on murder and non-negligent manslaughter (rather than homicide) and robbery rates, and was associated with a small increase in rape and aggravated assault rates.

"Furthermore, Ludwig and Cook didn't account for variables such as the death penalty, arrest rates, conviction rates, prison-sentence lengths, other gun control laws, or Right to Carry laws --- variables normally associated with crime deterrence. Lott's research took these variables and many others into account.

"So why are anti-gun researchers so interested in promoting research that seems to support pro-gun views? The answer is simple --- they are attempting to promote federal regulations on the private transfer of firearms. The gun ban extremists at Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI) have already started using the Ludwig/Cook study to promote firearms registration schemes and NICS checks on all private transfers of firearms, stating that 'Ludwig and Cook assert that the effectiveness of the Brady Law is undermined by the unregulated secondary market.'

"But, if the Brady Act approach were really crime-preventing, it should have had some beneficial impact on crime. The Brady Act was enacted, after all, based on the insistence of its promoters that a significant minority of criminals obtained their guns from dealers --- and the Brady Act would put a stop to this.

(NRA-ILA Alert, August 5, 2000)

UK Gun Policy Backfires

"The London Daily Telegraph reported that high crimes in England and Wales can be linked to restrictions on guns. A new survey shows that the risk of contact crime is higher in England and Wales than anywhere else surveyed.

" 'The main reason for a much lower burglary rate in America,' the paper stated, 'is householders' propensity to shoot intruders. They do so without fear of being dragged before courts and jailed for life.'

"In 'Fighting Back: Crime, Self-Defense, and the Right to Carry a Handgun,' Jeffrey R. Snyder analyzed the 1987 Florida law that allowed citizens to carry concealed firearms in public and found there was a decrease in violent crime, not the increase many people had predicted.

"Recently, the Cato Institute hosted a forum featuring legal scholar John R. Lott, Jr., author of More Guns, Less Crime. His book presents the most comprehensive analysis ever performed on crime statistics and the Right to Carry laws."

(Video of the forum is available at http://www.cato.org.)

Prescription Drugs for Seniors

"The prescription drug issue has become a hot-button issue this campaign season. Recently, the U.S. House passed a bill that would protect senior citizens from being thrown into bankruptcy just to pay for their medicines.

"Democrats promptly walked out of the House chamber in protest following the vote. For many of you who are foggy on the details of the measure, here it is in a nutshell, as provided by the Seniors Coalition...

"Never again will the high cost of prescription drugs force seniors into poverty should they fall victim to a catastrophic illness. The bipartisan Medicare prescription drug benefit covers all prescription drug costs that you have paid over $6,000 and includes a special provision for low-income seniors. Under the plan, singles with incomes below $11,272 and married couples with combined incomes of less than $15,187 will enjoy full premium and cost-sharing subsidies. Those with slightly higher incomes ($12,525 for singles and $16,875 for married couples) will receive a substantial premium subsidy. Here's how it works: $30-$40, your monthly premium; $250, your annual deductible; $2,100, your initial drug benefit; $6,000, the most you'll pay for medicine."

(GOP News and Views, August 11, 2000)

Socialized Medicine Rears Its Costly Head

"Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) introduced legislation into the U.S. Senate for universal health care Wednesday but admitted he has a tough road ahead if even Hillary Clinton, architect of the president's disastrous 1994 socialized medicine plan, won't support it.

" 'I decided at the end of 1994 to just get back to work,' Clinton said. 'And I took with me the lessons that I learned from that experience. One of the biggest lessons that I took away from it is that in our political system, the most effective way to get things done is to work step by step, making the changes that are needed toward achieving the same larger goal.'

"Many believe it was the universal dislike of the First Lady's universal health care plan that resulted in the Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994.

"Sen. Wellstone hopes universal health care will once again become part of the national legislative agenda. Service Employees International Union, the nation's largest health care union, has promised to fund commercials to help garner grassroots support for the plan."

(UPI, July 21, 2000)

Cuban Doctors Denounce Castro's Exportation of Socialized Medicine as Propaganda

"Two Cuban physicians who defected from the regime of Fidel Castro had been imprisoned for more than two months in Zimbabwe. They were finally granted asylum in the United States the first week of August and arrived in Miami on August 8, 2000.

"The two physicians, Leonel Córdova Rodriguez, 31, and Noris Peña Martinez, 25, defected from Cuba during a "humanitarian" medical mission to Zimbabwe, where they were part of Fidel Castro's medical aid program for developing countries.

"After a month there, they criticized Cuban President Fidel Castro in a Zimbabwean newspaper. On May 23, the two doctors applied for asylum at the Canadian Embassy, saying they chose to defect there because it was closer than the U.S. Embassy. The day after they applied for asylum, the pair were arrested by Zimbabwean agents and put on a plane bound for Cuba. But when the plane made a stop in Johannesburg, South Africa, they managed to slip a note to the Air France pilot saying they had been kidnapped after criticizing Castro. The pilot refused to fly them any further, and the South African authorities sent them back to Harare, where they were put in jail without formal charge."

The incident as reported by the media went as follows:

"The doctors described their two months on a medical mission in remote hospitals of Zimbabwe as a farce. They said they were not allowed to treat patients. Their only purpose there, they said, was to support Zimbabwe's embattled President Robert Mugabe, a former leading Marxist, who counts Castro among his closest political allies. 'According to Fidel Castro, the reason for sending doctors outside the country is to help the neediest people,' Peña said. 'Mugabe only wanted us to support his policies.' Peña and Córdova said they did not have the necessary permits to work as doctors in Zimbabwe. 'I didn't touch a single patient,' Córdova added. 'We were not allowed to.'

"They spent a month in jail in Zimbabwe, where they described the conditions as 'miserable.' The pair then sought, and got, temporary refuge in Sweden until the United States approved their refugee status.

"After he declared his intent to defect, Córdova said his wife, 3-year-old daughter and 10-year-old stepson were evicted from their home on the second floor of the medical office where Córdova once worked in Cuba. 'They were immediately told they had to leave, it didn't matter where,' he said. Córdova said he fears for their safety as long as they remain in Cuba.

"Peña said her parents, who are both doctors, may not be allowed to leave Cuba despite being granted two of the 20,000 visas the U.S. government randomly grants in Cuba every year. 'Like my parents, there are many doctors who are prevented from leaving for 5 or 6 years,' she said. 'It is not fair that a doctor who has sacrificed so much and saved lives does not have the opportunity for freedom,' she said.

"The Cuban government had denied rejecting doctors' requests to leave the country."

Upon arriving in Miami and breathing the air of liberty, the doctors denounced Cuba's medical care system as mere propaganda for Cuban President Fidel Castro.

(Reuters, Ltd., August 6, 2000; Sun Sentinel Company and CubaNet News, Inc., 145 Madeira Ave., Suite 207, Coral Gables, FL 33134.)

From Echelon to Carnivore

"First it was Echelon, the global eavesdropping system Uncle Sam and John Bull have been using to spy on satellite-transmitted phone calls, e-mails and fax messages. Now it's Carnivore, the FBI's newest electronic snooping device that can read your e-mail right off your mail server.

"Capable of scanning millions of e-mails a second, Carnivore can easily be used to monitor everybody's e-mail messages and transactions, including banking and Internet commerce. If they want to, the feds can find out what books you're buying online, what kind of banking transactions you conduct --- in short, everything you do when you go online and send e-mail, whether private or commercial.

"The FBI has been quietly monitoring e-mail for about a year. Two weeks ago the feds went public and explained the high-tech snooping operation to what The Wall Street Journal called 'a roomful of astonished industry specialists.'

"According to the bureau, they've used Carnivore --- so called because it can digest the 'meat' of the information they're looking for --- in less than 100 cases, in most cases to locate hackers but also to track terrorist and narcotics activities.

"But there is nothing to stop Carnivore from making a meal of your e-mail messages and transactions if they decide that's what they want to do and can get a judge to issue a court order allowing them to tap your e-mail as they would your phones.

"That's scant comfort considering the underhanded means the feds employed to get court orders to raid the Branch Davidian compound, or to win a judge's permission to stage what amounted to an illegal armed raid on Elian Gonzalez's Miami home.

"Carnivore is nothing but a store-bought personal computer with special software that the FBI installs in the offices of Internet service providers (ISPs).

"The computer is kept in a locked cage for about a month and a half. Every day an agent comes by and retrieves the previous day's e-mail sent to or by someone suspected of a crime..."

(NewsMax.com, July 12, 2000)

The IRS and Taxes

"The total U.S. government haul in taxes --- income, corporate, capital gains, gasoline, excise taxes, telecommunications, payroll, and so on --- amounts to about 20 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP), more than any time since 1944," notes The Washington Post.

"At the beginning of the 20th century, federal taxes were equal to 3 percent of GDP and the entire tax code was only a few hundred pages. Now at 20 percent of GDP and 46,000 pages (481 separate tax forms), Americans will spend 6.1 billion hours complying with the code. Due to the code's complexity, more than half of filers will pay for 'professional preparation' of their taxes (up from only 20 percent in 1960) at a cost of more than $200 billion --- almost 10 percent of what the IRS actually collects.

" 'From its beginnings as a simple, two-page form in 1913, the income tax has grown into a monstrosity because politicians have been unable to resist the temptation to use it for political purposes,' according to taxation expert Daniel M. Mitchell. 'No longer are taxes merely the means to raise revenue. They have become the tools politicians use to pursue social engineering, backdoor industrial policy and ham-fisted attempts to steer private behavior with subsidies and penalties. And what is the result after 87 years of letting politicians and lobbyists run amok? A tax code nobody can understand. Money magazine sent a hypothetical family's tax return to professional tax-preparers in 1998, they got back 46 different responses, every one of them wrong.' "

(The Federalist, 00-15 Digest, April 14, 2000)



NEA and Political Contributions

"The National Edu-cation Association (NEA), America's largest teachers union, recently reported to the IRS that they spend no union dues on political activities. The reality, reported by the Associated Press, is the NEA 'spent millions of dollars to elect candidates, produce political training guides, and gather teachers' voting records.' The NEA 2000 election strategic plan calls for some $4,900,000 in expenditures for 'organizational partnerships with political parties, campaign committees, and political organizations.' Money will also be spent on 'candidate recruitment, independent expenditures, early voting, and vote-by-mail programs.' No political expenses were reported to the IRS from 1993 through 1998."

(Adam Smith's Columns, July 5, 2000)

Gore: Pied Piper of Children's Health Care?

"Dr. Jane M. Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons issued this statement in response to Al Gore's plan to expand the Children's Health Insurance Plan by $42 billion, or $42,000 per child:

'Al Gore apparently thinks that positioning himself as a modern Pied Piper of children's health care will help seal his presidential bid.

'Two years ago, Gore kicked off a taxpayer-bankrolled, cross country caravan to search for uninsured children - because parents weren't flocking to sign up. And that was for a program funded only at a cost of $4,800 per child, which even the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration acknowledged most people would call 'nuts.'

'The caravan was an unqualified failure because parents refused to hand over their children's well-being to the federal government. Or because there never was a 'crisis' of uninsured children in the first place.

'There's a lot of profit to be made from children's health programs. They buy votes for Vice Presidents who want to be President. They channel more profits to rich foundations, thinks tanks and companies. A representative of Deloitte and Touche, an accounting firm conducting the KidCare outreach program, admits 'The beauty of it is, you can go back to the same student time and time again, and even if you never actually find a problem, [you] have a chance to be financially reimbursed simply because...personnel spend time engaged in the activity.'

'Instead of siphoning millions to opportunists who never treat a single child, consider what can be done with $42,000 per child:

° Pay for 4 years of college

° Fully fund a Medical Savings Account for 35 years

° Invest at market rates to retire as a millionaire

° Pay private insurance premiums for a family of 14 for 5 years

'There have been children's caravans before. In Hamelin, it was led by the Pied Piper who promised everything, telling a little boy that his lame foot would be cured. That little boy was the only one left behind as the healthy children trooped off, never to be seen by their parents again.

'When children are lured from their homes, it is time for outrage --- even if the piper wraps himself in the American flag to hide his presidential ambitions."

The next day after this press release went to the media, it resulted in a large, splash, page one story in which Dr. Jane Orient, Executive Director for AAPS, was interviewed and quoted at length by Patrick Poole in a WorldNetDaily article entitled, "Gore-care induces doc sticker shock. $42 billion kid insurance plan 'unqualified failure,' say MDs." It's still worth reading on the eve of the presidential election which may decide the direction of medical care. http://www.worldnetdaily.com. ---Ed.

Books in Brief

Hillary Rodham Clinton: What Every American Should Know by Christian Josi. The American Conservative Union, 1007 Cameron Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, 703-836-8602, http://www.conservative.org, 2000, $3.95, 92 pp., (Paperback).

Chapter 8 of this booklet, "Hillary Care," deals with Hillary Clinton's legacy of failed health care reform and the "take-no-prisoners" approach to health care. Other chapters include, Cattlegate, Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, bimbo eruptions, Vince Foster, etc. The booklet can easily be read in one sitting.

Al Gore --- America in the Balance by Kerri Houston and Patricia Fava. The American Conservative Union, 1007 Cameron Street, Alexandria, VA 22314, 703-836-8602, http://www.conservative.org, 2000, $3.95, 92 pp., (Paperback).

This book takes a definite partisan view of politics. Nevertheless, it does expose the machinations of those in high places who betrayed our trust taking our country ever closer toward socialism. The book does not take kindly to the politics of Vice President Al Gore. This booklet may be just what one, who is undecided, needs to read before the November elections.

DIAL 911 and DIE: The Shocking Truth about the Police Protection Myth by Richard W. Stevens, Esq. Hartford, Wisconsin, Mazel Freedom Press, Inc., 1999, ISBN: 0-9642304-4-5, $8.95, 278 pp., (Paperback).

Among other things, this book demolishes the myth that police have a duty to protect individual citizens from violent crime. No matter what state you live in, the same laws permeate the system. Readers will find that they must have the ability to use a firearm for self and family protection. Dialing 911 may prove to be too late.

This edition of News Capsules was compiled by Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Sentinel of the AAPS. It appeared in the Medical Sentinel 2000;5(6):188-194. Copyright©2000 Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).