Medicinal pot growers are suing a newspaper for disclosing too much about their location.

Apparently, violence is involved in the illegal drug trade. This according to the allegedly injured grower, one Michael Maniotis:

"What happens to locations in Vancouver that are known to be cultivating cannabis, legal or otherwise? The doors get kicked down, people come inside, there's home invasions, people sometimes get killed."

Gee, then, why don't you not invite the media to your grow-op? Especially after already getting into trouble with the cops:

Maniotis has been charged with trafficking in marijuana at the Merlin Project's Marijuana Tea House, which was shut down by police in January after only a few weeks in operation. Police said people without Health Canada licences were smoking pot and that equipment was being set up to grow plants.

Medical officers of health are free to speak on Kyoto, confirms Ralph Klein, premier of Alberta. The Palliser Health Authority plans to meet today to reconsider the firing of David Swann.

But perhaps David Swann wasn't fired for his unpopular views on Kyoto? Was he perhaps fired for inappropriately using his public position to air his political views? After all, when he gave a speech titled "Genocide In Iraq", he was identified only by his University of Calgary affiliation.

(The Iraq genocide Swann is concerned about is caused by UN sanctions, not Saddam. And according to this Globe and Mail reporter, the 1.5 million body count Swann attributes to sanctions is made up.)

Coffee demand is down. So are world coffee prices. For some farmers, the price that buyers are willing to pay for their product does not cover the cost of producing the crop.

This is not surprising: coffee demand varies rapidly, and coffee production varies slowly. Land needs to be cleared to be put into cultivation and maintained once cleared. Farmers who grow cash crops are in business, and sometimes a business has a bad year. Or two. Or four in a row.

(But I don't see restaurant owners crying out for price subsidies and handouts. I don't see benefit concerts organized for local hardware store owners.)

Oxfam's proposed solution is to destroy some 5 million bags of coffee, thus raising the market price. They're asking the major retailers (Kraft, Nestle, Sara Lee etc.) to do this. The major retailers, sensibly enough, claim that this will only address this year's surplus and will actually encourage more overproduction.

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that the Ayn Rand Institute is a non-profit organization?

Copyright © 1995–2002 Ayn Rand® Institute (ARI). All rights reserved. Reproduction is prohibited. ARI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions to ARI in the United States are tax-exempt to the extent provided by law.

What's more, a non-profit that discourages volunteerism? (But some volunteerism is okay.)

Non-profit means immoral doesn't it?

At least it's a FAQ.