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If you bought a home 10 years ago for $100,000 and just sold it for $300,000, have you engaged in price gouging? Most people would say “no,” provided there were willing buyers and sellers of both sides of the transaction merely responding to the market at the time.
As a result of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, some politicians have demanded prosecution of “price gougers.” In many states, like Florida, “price gouging” is illegal. The Florida statutes say, “It is illegal to charge unconscionable prices for goods or services following a declared state of emergency.”

Hmmm, I know what the law means when says burglary or murder are illegal, but an “unconscionable price”?

So I looked in Webster’s Dictionary, and found unconscionable is defined as “excessive; extortionate” and gouge is defined as “to extort from or to swindle.”

Harrisburg, PA — The case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District opened in federal court yesterday with the ACLU calling its first expert witness in an effort to tell the court how it should define science. The ACLU is suing the school board of Dover, Pennsylvania for adopting a policy that requires students to listen to a three-paragraph statement about Read More ›

Original Article Two members of the Discovery Institute attended the trial but did not participate. The Discovery Institute, the leading proponent of intelligent design, took aim at both sides in the Dover Area School District’s case that started Monday in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg. Representatives for the Seattle-based organization oppose the district mandating a policy that it says Read More ›

Original Article The “Monkey trial” of John Scopes is generally thought to have set back the anti-evolution forces which were gathering momentum 80 years ago, but in recent years they have massed again. Intelligent design—a theory that acknowledges evolution yet presumes a “designer” behind it—appears poised to deliver better results for doubters about Darwin’s view of evolution. While some call Read More ›

This article, published by MSNBC, mentions Discovery Institute: Indeed, the Discovery Institute —— the Seattle-based think tank that is the intellectual engine of the movement —— finds itself opposing both sides. While it criticized the ACLU for pursuing an “Orwellian” stifling of scientific debate, it also disagreed with the Dover school board’’s vote last year. The rest of the article Read More ›

Original Article Intelligent design isn’t meant to re-insert God into science but rather to question the mechanisms of the Darwinian theory of evolution. That is what Phillip E. Johnson, a retired law professor who is sometimes called the “father of intelligent design,” told a group of Washburn University students and members of the community Saturday night. “I thought it went Read More ›

This article, published by The York Dispatch, mentions Discovery Institute: Seattle-based Discovery Institute, the leading proponent of intelligent design, has issued a statement disassociating itself with Dover school board’s “misguided” policy. The rest of the article can be found here.

Click here to view a PDF of the text below. The shriek of Katrina’s 140 mph winds and rat-a-tat-tat of its driving, torrential rain left in its tumultuous wake a coast silenced by vast devastation. Darkness ruled not just night but day, as the electric grid crash darkened shelters and the lights of fiber-optic cable went off in an instant. Cell towers Read More ›

The Internet has flourished without oversight by the Federal Communications Commission, yet, for some reason, a draft proposal for re-writing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 tells the FCC to regulate it.   Regulation is the enemy of innovation, and all sides have agreed that as competition develops it should be possible to eliminate regulation. Unfortunately, that’s not the overall direction of Read More ›