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SOCIALISM:

Politicians trying to run GM. Of course they are. Dumb as it is, that is their duty once they bought the company. This is one of many reasons socialism always makes problems worse.

ECONOMY:

In Q3, the Fed managed to inflate a new economic bubble at the rate of 3.5 percent.

D.C. Suicide Mission.

"The urgent problem is the giant riverboat gamble that Washington can save the economy by doing what comes naturally--spending money carelessly, creating massive new entitlements without funding them, dishing out cheap credit to politically favored sectors, telling business people where and how to invest.

Mr. Feinberg is an apt symbol indeed, for this gamble is built on the conceit that Washington can hector the recipients, whether auto companies, banks or homeowners, into behaving in ways that are "responsible." So far, however, human nature is proving a disappointment: Take the outbreak of tax fraud related to the government's emergency home-buyer's credit.

Nor is the larger gamble looking so good either. Banks continue to fail at an alarming rate, the dollar is under assault, and Washington is looking at a future of trillion-dollar deficits. One might have guessed it would take a decade of Obamanomics to produce European welfare state levels of youth unemployment, but at 18.5% we're there.

About the only positive sign is the price surge in normally uncorrelated assets--stocks, bonds, commodities, gold--as fund managers use cheap credit to play the carry-trade opportunity...."

I've been saying for years that we were very close to becoming the Soviet Union, and Obama is trying to get us there in four years. If we're lucky, we might run into the best of terrible situation starting 2011 - Democrats control the presidency and the Senate, but Republicans control the House. If we're really lucky, Congress will pass no laws for 2 years. That's the best we can hope for from the two parties. Unfortunately, since Republicans aren't much different than Democrats, I bet they find plenty of common ground to loot us and continue our transformation into the Soviet Union, just as a slightly slower pace.

Is the commercial real estate collapse the next crisis Obama won't let go to waste?

"If then–Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke could convince Congress to expose the taxpayers to several trillion dollars in the face of the residential-real-estate bubble and a handful of struggling (but too big to fail) companies, imagine the vast sums of currency Secretary Geithner may deem necessary to protect against this larger, looming crisis. Indeed, there is already evidence of the Federal Reserve team entering this game.

Given the ample, mounting evidence for looming catastrophe in the commercial markets, who knows — perhaps we will see an even more explicit organization for purchasing commercial-real-estate mortgages opened under the Federal Reserve's purview. The guarantees and funding for such an organization would need to be vastly greater than the already-gargantuan $1 trillion currently in place for the purchase of illiquid mortgage-backed securities. Further increases in the money supply, and further price inflation as the commercial lenders trade illiquid assets for new, loanable funds, will inevitably result."

While this collapse was in the making before Obama, as Obama continues to orchestrate collapses, there'll be no end to crises for him to take advantage of. That's his strategy.

HEALTH CARE:

House unveils 1990 page health care oppression bill that pretends to cost only $896 billion over 10 years which Democrats want us to believe will save us $30 billion because huge government programs that take away a huge amount of our freedom always save us money.

The misleading statistics of hunger in the US.

GLOBAL WARMING:

In one short letter, physicist destroys all the arguments of the man-made global warming frauds. I'd like to quote it, but it's so concise and important, I'd have to quote the whole thing. Just like health care oppression isn't about making us healthier, cap and trade isn't about saving the planet. It's all about seizing power.

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ECONOMY:

George Soros funds effort to expunge free market economics from mainstream economics. The fraud continues. Michael Moore and Soros keep blaming the failures of government intervention in markets on free markets. What a joke. Moore and Soros both know the truth. They're just lying. We haven't had a free market in the US for so long, we wouldn't know what one looks like. The closest thing we have to a free market is the internet, and business on it is still thriving. We can't have that now, can we?

GLOBAL WARMING:

More Americans believe in haunted houses, 37 percent, than believe that man is warming the planet, 36 percent.

Solar cycle 24 produces a significant sunspot. Finally. Hopefully this means we're not going into a new ice age.

John McCain realizes Waxman-Markey bill is a farce. Waxman-Markey will have no impact on climate. Cap and trade likely to be the biggest tax in history. Spain loses 2.2 jobs for every green job created.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:

Obama signs thought crimes bill into law.

FREE SPEECH:

Now the government wants to control the internet during a flu pandemic. I guess they're afraid the computers will get sick too. Obama really used the power of the internet to his advantage over McCain, and the aristocrats want to make sure that no outsider or upstart can ever do that again.

WAR:

Taliban kills over 100 in attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

MISC:

Conservative Angela Merkel is re-elected chancellor of Germany. I thought liberals dominated Europe. At least that's what the press used to tell me.

Government has regulated airlines so much their service sucks and is getting worse. I don't think for a minute that airlines are safer than they were on 9/11. While TSA agents are busy stripping old ladies to get their personal kicks (you know they have contests about this just like cops have contests about who can tase the most innocent people), a terrorist could still sneak a weapon on board. I think all this regulation has once again lulled many into a false sense of security.

Gamma ray burst at 13.1 billion light years away the farthest object ever observed.

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SOCIALISM:

Boortz claims he's been telling me for six months that there was a bank seizure coming up. I read Boortz regularly, though not every day, and I don't remember him ever saying that. I've been saying that Obama is planning to seize the big financial firms and use them to wipe out the entire financial segment of our economy, but I haven't heard that from Boortz before either. I don't think they can seize all the banks yet. That's a later step in the process. I look forward to reading what he's talking about.

It turns out Boortz was exaggerating. Frank's legislation is to seize firms that are determined too big to fail. That's what I've been saying. I'm sure Frank and Obama have been planning this since Paulson first advocated TARP. The surviving Wall Street firms think they're flying high on taxpayer money right now, but they made a deal with the devil, and the devil is going to literally own them soon, to the tremendous detriment of us all. This is how communism comes to America. Note to Charles Krauthammer, who thinks it's perfectly fine for Marxists to run around the White House: communism is alive and well and more threatening to America today from the inside than it ever was from the outside.

ECONOMY:

Physics student writes simple, concise summary of how and why an economy works and the roles of different players.

Even some mainstream economists are catching onto the impending crash, this one claiming the S&P is overvalued by 40 percent.

TAX AND SPEND:

Stunning graph of federal deficit or surplus since 1895. I keep using the analogy that the aristocrats are driving us over a cliff, and this graph makes my point.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The dollar setting new lows is not news. If it bounces back, more than temporarily, that would be news.

HEALTH CARE:

Senate bill will include government trojan horse. Reid and Pelosi are between a rock and a hard place. Democrats have threatened to vote against the bill if it doesn't have a public option. No Republican will vote for it if it does. They're sticking with their base, and that's probably the smartest thing from their perspective. Now we have to put the fear of losing their jobs into enough Democrats to defeat the bill, but unfortunately, my Democrat senator Sherrod Brown doesn't fear that at all because he's not up for election for five more years. We have to write and call anyway. There's still hope to kill this disaster before it happens.

Lieberman plans to filibuster a bill with a government option.

""I think that a lot of people may think that the public option is free. It's not," Mr. Lieberman said. "It's going to cost the taxpayers and people that have health insurance now, and if it doesn't, it's going to add terribly to our national debt.""

How hard is that to figure out?

How hard is it to figure out that taxing existing plans is part of the plan to push consumers to the government option? This is all planned.

Painfully little more information on the Senate bill. Lord knows Democrats don't want the people to actually see it. Cuts in Medicare.

Nancy Pelosi has changed the name of the public option to the consumer option.

Medicare fraud? Say it isn't so. I think $60 billion is a serious low-ball estimate. Wikipedia suggests it's more like 20 percent, or $74 billion. I wonder how much more fraud would happen with a significantly huger program like the government option.

"Of all the problems facing the United States right now, none are more important than health care. "

You can tell who's agenda CBS is pushing. Or maybe CBS hasn't heard about our deficit, debt, unfunded liabilities, the seizure of GM, AIG, Citibank, other banks, Fannie & Freddie, etc.

Barney Frank says single payer systems work like in Scandinavia. He's misinformed (to be charitable). In the European countries where health care works, citizens pay copays. That brings market forces to work so they ration health care. This is what insurance companies would create if they weren't so limited by government. Our system has more government interference that takes the market forces out of the system.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Of course Obama is promoting a tax and trade bill that would intentionally kill US jobs. He told us so before the election. He told us he planned to make coal so expensive that the coal industry and coal power plants would go out of business. He told us he wanted to make gasoline more expensive, not only making us all poorer because of the direct costs, but also driving up the costs of every product we buy. Poorer people suffering higher priced products buy less, meaning people will lose jobs. That's the plan.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Just like I predicted, now officials are talking about legalizing marijuana so they can tax it, in this case to pay for health care. Just like repealing prohibition, except prohibition was enacted legally, with a constitutional amendment. Our politicrooks are so transparent.

POLITICS:

Obama heads the P.T. Barnum Administration of hucksters and conmen.

"It’s an era of hoaxes and hucksters. Balloons shaped like 1950s UFOs dominate the skies, and missing children out their parents for their stupid stunts. TV news shows are filled with made-up news stories and made-up quotes about Rush Limbaugh, and instead of the three-ring circus, the master of ceremonies tried to bring us all five Olympic rings.

"That's pretty funny because it rings so true.

WAR:

Afghan bombs kill eight US troops in deadliest month since we invaded in 2001.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Boortz suggests a blockade of Iran. I've been suggesting that for years. It's about time the idea started gaining steam.

Charles Krauthammer is still fixated on foreign policy. Apparently he's yet to realize that the greatest threat America has ever faced is our government, not any foreign government. What would you expect from a man who thinks we defeated communism, not just the Soviet Union, and doesn't care that Obama's White House is crawling with Marxists?

MEDIA:

What if George Bush had done that? Obama gets a pass on many things that would have got George Bush lambasted in the press. There's nothing remarkable about this double standard. It's been on parade for decades, getting bigger and more obvious every day.

CNN drops to last place in cable news. And I saw Anderson Cooper, who was the flagship CNN personality while this collapse happened, doing a network gig the other day.

MISC:

One down side of term limits - politicians never fear losing their jobs. They're going to lose them anyway.

Drupal is an open source content management platform.

Mark Steyn contrasts the response to two sound bites, one real, one fiction.

"If you say, “Chairman Mao? Wasn’t he the wacko who offed 70 million Chinks?”, you’ll be hounded from public life for saying the word “Chinks.” But, if you commend the murderer of those 70 million as a role model in almost any school room in the country from kindergarten to the Ivy League, it’s so entirely routine that only a crazy like Glenn Beck would be boorish enough to point it out."

Wow. That statement, frozen in clarity, is so stunning because it shows just how insane we've made our culture. Steyn continues,

"Which is odd, don’t you think? Because it suggests that our present age of politically correct hypersensitivity is not just morally unserious but profoundly decadent."

Not just decadent but insane and destructive. At least Steyn isn't a fool like Krauthammer:

"There’s the bad totalitarianism (Nazism) and the good totalitarianism (Communism), whose apologists and, indeed, fetishists can still be found everywhere, even unto the White House."

As if there was a difference in practice.

FAA revokes licenses of unresponsive pilots. I should hope so. The story that these guys were distracted by their laptops is unbelievable. Does that make them deaf to the radio too?

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FASCISM:

The US is following about five years behind Argentina on the Road to Serfdom. The similarities to Argentina 2003 and US 2008 are stunning and the implications terrifying.

Indiana Treasurer angrily describes the abuses of power the Obama Administration used to strong-arm through the Chrysler bankruptcy.

TAX AND SPEND:

Democrats to increase spending by 12 percent next year. I hope anybody who ever thought that anybody in either party was putting our best interest ahead of his or her best interest is finally over that.

"For a laugh-out-loud moment on all of this, we recommend yesterday's performance by New York Senator Chuck Schumer on NBC's "Meet the Press." Mr. Schumer declared that "Barack Obama and we Democrats—this is counterintuitive but true—are really trying to get a handle on balancing the budget and we're making real efforts to do it." Counterintiutive? He said this four days after Senate Democrats lost a vote to add $250 billion to the deficit for doctor payments without any compensating spending cuts."

If and when Republicans get back power, they'll slow growth to seven percent or so and act like they did us a favor.

ECONOMY:

Growth in unproductive government sector jobs is hiding the unprecedented loss of productive, private sector jobs.

Of course Obama has declared war on Wall Street. All those idiots who thought Obama was a friend of Wall Street because he bailed them out can't see the forest for the trees. Obama bailed them out to help crush our economic system. Now he's attacking the executives on pay to drive the best and brightest out of that industry, causing those companies to fail. He plans to blame the failure of these companies on the market, not his assault on them. Finally, he plans to seize control of the entire financial segment of our economy and nationalize the Wall Street firms. The Fed is carrying out a parallel attack on banks. This is all part of a bigger, orchestrated plan to bring about Marxism in America.

"Moral of the story: Wall Streeters are greedy when they try to earn money for their families, shareholders and the taxpayers to whom they’re now indebted — but not when they’re forking over cash to Democratic pols."

Yep.

HEALTH CARE:

Senate health care bill coming to the floor today or tomorrow.

Contrary to what leftists have been proclaiming, many industries are more profitable than health insurance and health care.

Democrats want us to believe they can lower health care prices by taxing it. You don't have to be Milton Friedman to understand the consequences of this. Prices will go up, so demand will go down. Profits will fall as demand drops. In response, supply will drop until profits stabilize. The end result is worse health care at a higher price, a reduction in quality of life, with all the negative economic consequences that follow that, and a reduction in life expectancy. This is the attack on profits I've been warning about that threatens to drag the entire world into a new health care dark ages.

This opt-out option for the states is a red herring. As soon as the legislation passes, Obama will threaten to cut off funding to any state that opts out. Cato explains that since government will take money from the people of the states by force to fund the public option, state citizens won't allow state governments to opt out.

Health insurance industry ranks 86th highest in profitability.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Obama not going to Copenhagen global warming fraud conference in December, but he is going to Oslo during that time. None of the excuses listed here make sense. Why would the Narcissist-in-Chief pass up a chance to grandstand with his commie buddies in the global warming scam? This article doesn't mention a very likely possibility - he's not going because tax and trade legislation won't be passed here. Easier to blame the failure on China and India, but the American people aren't the fools Obama takes us for.

EDUCATION:

Indoctrinating school kids into government love with the census. What else would you expect?

More evidence of the worthlessness of a bachelor's degree - lack of professionalism keeps grads from getting jobs.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Another bad aspect of the war on drugs is that domestic federal agencies like the DEA now routinely operate outside the US. Not only do we use our military to play policeman of the world, we use our policemen to play policeman of the world as the deaths of DEA agents in Afghanistan highlights. The hubris of this can only hurt America.

WAR:

It costs about $1 billion a year for every 1,000 troops in Afghanistan. It's nice to know that Obama cares about cost of troops. Too bad he doesn't care about the tremendously higher cost of his domestic programs.

POLITICS:

Some are speculating that Obama is delaying his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, which you know is the decision he's going to make since he's not going to admit he was wrong, until after the gubernatorial elections in November. He doesn't want to alienate liberals right before those elections. That sounds par for the course for Obama - playing politics with the lives of Americans.

Obama and Democrats continue to alienate the American people at a record pace. They've earned our antipathy, and we shouldn't hesitate to make that clear. And Republicans still refuse to capitalize on this, choosing not to change a thing and just say, "No matter how terrible we were and will be again, Democrats are worse, so vote for us again."

Government officials receiving more threats than ever. Like I said, they're earning them. It's all part of Obama's plan to foment a revolution.

Apparently Obama doesn't have enough czars so John Kerry is stepping up. Does that mean my TV will have that guy on it more often too?

MISC:

History of printing.

So what should happen when a police officer pulls over a driver who doesn't speak English? It's not the officer's responsibility to know any language other than English. I guess the officer should just ticket them and give them the ticket and the same explanation as anybody else. If the person fails to take care of the ticket, that's his or her own responsibility.

Maybe the Palestinians should develop their own economy instead of living in squalor and depending on the Israelis and others for necessities like water.

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TAX AND SPEND:

Peter Schiff has a novel idea to fix our fiscal problems - stop spending

!"While all the talk at present is about economic corners turned and markets charging ahead, no one is paying much notice to an American economy deteriorating before our eyes. These myopic commentators seem to be simply moving past the now almost-universally held conclusion that before the crash of 2008, our economy was on an unsustainable course. If these imbalances had been corrected, then perhaps I too would be joining in the euphoria. But evidence abounds that we have not veered at all from that dangerous path."

Now that Schiff is running for Senator against corrupt Chris Dodd, his language is a little more politically correct. I hate that.

"The recent 'rebound' in GDP is not resulting from increased economic output, but merely from the fact that we are borrowing more than ever. That is precisely how we got ourselves into this mess. An economy cannot grow indefinitely by borrowing more than it produces. Not only is such a course untenable, but the added debt ensures a deeper recession when the bills come due."

But you can't get any more clear than that. Except he should have said borrowing and printing instead of just borrowing.

"The primary factor that enables our government to peddle economic snake oil is the dollar's unique role as the world's reserve currency, and our creditors' willingness to preserve its status. By buying up dollars and loaning them back to us through Treasury debt, productive countries give American politicians carte blanche to play Santa Claus."

That's the Peter Schiff I've come to respect talking. That comment also explains why our crash is going to be so much more huge than the Soviet Union's. The world didn't prop up the Soviet Union's currency. Remember the old saying, the bigger they are, the harder they fall? Not only do we have a much larger economy than the Soviet Union (that's why we won the Cold War), we're also being propped up by other nations, which is exactly the opposite of the Soviet Union's position before the collapse. On the plus side, we have a much more vibrant economy to cushion our collapse, but on the whole, it's going to be much harsher because the world will collapse with us, though to a lesser extent.

You can think of the world economy as an umbrella being held up by multiple strings from an ancient oak tree poisoned by government. Poles poles rise from under the umbrella to hold up the dying tree. That tree is the US on the verge of collapse. When it falls, it's going to crash to the ground. Hard. And splinter. The umbrella will fall too, but it will have a softer landing and the people of the world will lift it back up with their poles much easier than anybody will be able to lift up the pieces of the collapsed tree.

"The bottom line is that foreign governments can lecture us all they want about the need for prudence but if they keep lending, we'll keep spending. Any parent knows that if you give your child a curfew yet never impose any penalties when it's violated, it will not be respected. My gut feeling is that foreign governments are tiring of our conduct and on the verge of finally imposing some discipline. That means the dollar's days as the world's reserve currency are numbered, and the days of American austerity are about to begin."

I already live in austerity.

ECONOMY:

With the ammo shortages Obama has created and the dollar crashing, it makes sense to evaluate ammo as money.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The Chinese are abandoning the dollar for a basket of currencies and precious metals.

EDUCATION:

Grade inflation, dumbed down college curriculums and absurdly high prices make a college education, at least a bachelor's degree, a joke.

WAR:

Two synchronized car bombs kill at least 147 in Baghdad. Obama is furious. I guess I'm supposed to care more about Obama's fury than the lives of the victims. Obama doesn't have empathy for victims. Obama made it perfectly clear he preferred that Iraqis were still suffering from mass murder and filling the mass graves of Saddam Hussein. Obama is a tyrant wannabe angry that other tyrant wannabes are making his conquest of America harder. If he really gave a damn about the Iraqi people, he wouldn't have spent two years attacking George Bush (who acted under authority from Congress) for liberating Iraqis from a mass murderer. Whether he was right about Iraq being the wrong war or not is immaterial to Obama's feelings because Obama never tried to make the case that, despite the liberation of Iraqis, Congress's decision to invade was wrong. Instead, he attacked every aspect of the war, blaming it all on Bush as if Congress didn't vote for the invasion, including the liberation of Iraqis from one of the world's greatest mass murderers. He gave our enemies aid and comfort, and the inevitable and easily and often predicted result is increased violence. Besides which, I don't give a damn what that tyrant wannabe is furious about.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iraqi officials gave the IAEA the Disney tour of the nuclear facility they have kept secret for years and years. Needless to say, the IAEA saw nothing behind the scenes and is looking forward to another show. Especially the Pirates of Persia show in 3D.

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ECONOMY:

It's hard to come up with a more striking sign of the impending suicide of western civilization than having China's President Hu be the world's most powerful champion of free markets. That's why China is enjoying stunning growth while we regress.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The dollar continues its collapse.

Inflation's impact on morality - social, spiritual and cultural cost.

"Inflation is what happens when people increase the money supply by fraud, imposition, and breach of contract. Invariably it produces three characteristic consequences: (1) it benefits the perpetrators at the expense of all other money users; (2) it allows the accumulation of debt beyond the level debts could reach on the free market; and (3) it reduces the PPM below the level it would have reached on the free market.
While these three consequences are bad enough, things get much worse once inflation is encouraged and promoted by the state (fiat inflation). The government’s fiat makes inflation perennial, and as a result we observe the formation of inflation-specific institutions and habits. Thus fiat inflation leaves a characteristic cultural and spiritual stain on human society. In what follows, we will take a closer look at some aspects of this legacy.
...
These effects [of inflation] are "especially strong among the youth. They learn to live in the present and scorn those who try to teach them ‘old-fashioned morality and thrift.’ Inflation thereby encourages a mentality of immediate gratification that is plainly at variance with the discipline and eternal perspective required to exercise principles of biblical stewardship—such as long-term investment for the benefit of future generations."
...
The spiritual dimension of these inflation-induced habits seems to be obvious. Money and financial questions come to play an exaggerated role in the life of man. Inflation makes society materialistic. More and more people strive for money income at the expense of personal happiness. Inflation-induced geographical mobility artificially weakens family bonds and patriotic loyalty. Many of those who tend to be greedy, envious, and niggardly anyway fall prey to sin. Even those who are not so inclined by their natures will be exposed to temptations they would not otherwise have felt. And because the vagaries of the financial markets also provide a ready excuse for an excessively parsimonious use of one’s money, donations for charitable institutions will decline.
...
In such an environment, people develop a more than sloppy attitude toward their language. If everything is what it is called, then it is difficult to explain the difference between truth and lie. Inflation tempts people to lie about their products, and perennial inflation encourages the habit of routine lies. The present writer has argued in other works that routine lies play a great role in fractional-reserve banking, the basic institution of the fiat money system. Fiat inflation seems to spread this habit like a cancer over the rest of the economy."

And we wonder why we see such moral degradation in our society, but because inflation is invisible, we never think of it as powerful cause."

There seems to be no choice, then, but for everyone to have constant regard to his own pile, and to try to outwit the economic moth and rust that threaten to erode all but the largest fortunes: He must speculate, or risk losing nearly everything. The question of whether it is best to hold shares, or bonds, or property, or some combination of them, is constantly before him. Further, funds’ managers and investors do not always have the same interests. A man trying to preserve a competence learns to trust neither himself nor others.
...
I still remember the letter that the bank sent me when I was a student, pointing out with considerable asperity that I was almost £3 overdrawn and asking when I would correct this serious irregularity. Nearly 40 years later, I briefly overdrew my account again and wrote to the bank, explaining that I would clear the balance in a few days. Unusually, the bank called me: a banker wanted to see me, and would like to come to my house.
When he arrived, I repeated that I would pay off the overdraft in less than a week’s time. “Oh, we don’t want you to do that,” he said. “I’ve come here to ask whether you want to borrow more money.”
...
Some time later, I was thinking about buying another house, for which I would need a short-term loan. Passing my bank, I entered and inquired about how I would arrange such a loan. Within five minutes, the bank had offered me a sum that was 20% larger than the single asset that it had evidence that I owned. I came away feeling that the bank was careless to the point of frivolity. The bank was nationalized two years later and its three million shareholders wound up virtually expropriated.
...
But asset inflation as the principal source of wealth corrodes the character of people. It not only undermines the traditional bourgeois virtues but makes them ridiculous and even reverses them. Prudence becomes imprudence, sobriety becomes mean-spiritedness, self-control becomes betrayal of the inner self, patience steadiness becomes inflexibility. And circumstances force almost everyone to join in the dance.
Except in one circumstance: the possession of a salary and a pension that the government promises to index against inflation. This is the situation of public-sector workers and is a pyramid scheme, too. But meantime, such employment will seem a safe haven, and the temptation will be for government to expand it, with the happy consequence -- for itself -- of increasing dependence. And dependence, too, undermines character."

And it's going to get a lot worse.

This bet on Bear Stearns couldn't be luck.

"On Tuesday, March 11th, 2008, somebody – nobody knows who – made one of the craziest bets Wall Street has ever seen. The mystery figure spent $1.7 million on a series of options, gambling that shares in the venerable investment bank Bear Stearns would lose more than half their value in nine days or less. It was madness – "like buying 1.7 million lottery tickets," according to one financial analyst.

But what's even crazier is that the bet paid.

At the close of business that afternoon, Bear Stearns was trading at $62.97. At that point, whoever made the gamble owned the right to sell huge bundles of Bear stock, at $30 and $25, on or before March 20th. In order for the bet to pay, Bear would have to fall harder and faster than any Wall Street brokerage in history.

The very next day, March 12th, Bear went into free fall. By the end of the week, the firm had lost virtually all of its cash and was clinging to promises of state aid; by the weekend, it was being knocked to its knees by the Fed and the Treasury, and forced at the barrel of a shotgun to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase (which had been given $29 billion in public money to marry its hunchbacked new bride) at the humiliating price of … $2 a share. Whoever bought those options on March 11th woke up on the morning of March 17th having made 159 times his money, or roughly $270 million. This trader was either the luckiest guy in the world, the smartest son of a bitch ever or…"

The Fed had to be complicit in this.

Ron Paul just rips Ben Bernanke and our government by telling the truth. Wow.

EDUCATION:

Liberal homeschooler.

"My wife will talk as long as you want her to about the fact that there's no real evidence to back up the recent move toward "academic," full-day kindergarten, and plenty of evidence that young children need more unstructured playtime than most of them get. The real purpose of all this formal schooling is to get the kids out of the house and train them to stand in line and follow instructions while mommy and daddy get back to their ultra-important lives as economic production units."

No kidding.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:

Prosecutors suborned perjury at Enron executives' trial and conflicts of interest in the reporting.

WAR:

Defense authorization bill is more security welfare to the world. As with all forms of welfare, both recipient and provider are addicted to it.

It costs $400 to deliver one gallon of fuel to troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan takes a second Taliban stronghold. Pakistan has the ability to defeat the Taliban in Pakistan without our help. They always have had. The best way we can help them is to stop creating instability in Afghanistan.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iran pushes back deadline to agree to nuclear enrichment proposal.

MISC:

Caves on the moon.

Why is government setting milk prices?

US government bans import of Spanish ham, supposedly for health reasons.

Cato scholar exposes weak argument of Heritage Foundation scholar over the Patriot Act. Problems with Patriot Act and intelligence gathering.

"In recent hearings, Justice Department officials made quite clear that they vacuum up reams of telephone, Internet and bank records in the preliminary phases of investigations to "close down leads" and spot suspicious patterns. This is another way of saying that the vast majority of people surveilled are innocent — not when this authority is misused, but by design. The FBI issues tens of thousands of National Security Letters each year, and the majority seek information about U.S. citizens. That information isn't discarded; it goes into a massive FBI database containing literally billions of records. Simple math suggests there just aren't that many terrorists out there."

So these intelligence agents are not targeting suspected terrorists. They're casing huge nets over innocent Americans in the hopes of finding a few terrorists. That should not be allowed.

"So-called sneak-and-peek warrants that were sold as a vital tool for terrorism investigations are now overwhelmingly used in ordinary criminal investigations — contrary to what the public was told, certainly, but in accordance with the letter of the law. If we look back to those abuses uncovered by the Church Committee, we find some cases in which surveillance of journalists, activists and even Supreme Court justices was initiated for manifestly unlawful political purposes. But just as often, information gathered in the course of an initially legitimate national security investigation was later used for an illegitimate political end."

Yet more abuse. The longer we allow abuses like these to go on, the more they will become institutionalized, and the worse they will get.

REAL ID is rearing its ugly head again, this time under the name PASS ID. This has nothing to do with stopping terrorists. This is about controlling citizens while endangering us with a false sense of security.

Congress uses financial crisis as an excuse to grab power over payday loan businesses.

Powerful argument that the US is a failed state. If this essay didn't name the US, you would think it was about some banana republic. Wait a minute...

A tale of two hoaxes.

"I am amused at the reaction of government officials who feign indignation – and threaten criminal prosecution – over individuals or groups who engage in harmless hoaxes to promote their interests, but who pip not a squeak when the state – with the support of its paid propagandists (AKA as the mainstream media) – actively fosters hoaxes that serve its ends.
...
I am reminded of the role played by the "joker" in medieval society. He was a bright person, whose general irreverence for established interests allowed others to observe and to laugh at the absurdities present in the society in which they lived."

I doubt the media will change anything.

Never letting a good crisis go to waste, Obama declares swine flu emergency. If this is to remove bureaucratic hurdles so patients can be treated more easily, why don't we just do that all the time? This is misinformation. Our government is the emergency, not the swine flu. If only we could wash our hands of the government as easily.

Female Saudi journalist sentenced to 60 lashes for story about extra-marital sex. The man who had the affairs and told the story was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and five years prison. That's barbaric.

Shop owner electrifies sidewalk outside his shop to shock vandals who urinate on his shop. Ouch. This illustrates a breakdown of law and order. I have a feeling this is going to dramatically escalate the vandalism, not solve the problem. He'll be lucky if somebody doesn't burn the place down.

My Bearcats finally have a football program. I don't think I went to one football game while I was in school.

RFID chips smaller than a grain of sand. OMG. These are going to be in everything. They'll be in our clothes, our food, our money, everything. We'll be transmitting RFID from our stomachs and never know it.

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

We've already gotten all the bang out of the stimulus we're going to. I disagree. I think the stimulus will continue to damage our economy next year just like it damaged our economy this year.

FREE SPEECH:

FCC writing net neutrality rules. This is the nose of the camel entering the tent of controlling free speech on the internet. Good for McCain for trying to block it. He has no hope of succeeding. Is this a Fairness Doctrine for the internet?

HEALTH CARE:

Simple desert island allegory helps understand the economics of health insurance and health care.

Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee can't tell reporter where the Constitution gives government the power to mandate people buy health insurance.

Comparing famous works of literature to the Baucus bill, it becomes obvious that the bill is about control.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Fewer Americans are drinking Al Gore's kool-aid.

"Only about a third, or 36 percent of the respondents, feel that human activities — such as pollution from power plants, factories and automobiles — are behind a temperature increase."

That's why the frauds have become more outrageously irresponsible with their alarmism.

WELFARE:

George Will lampoons Obama's naked attempt to buy votes from seniors with a $250 check in the name of Social Security.

Long than usual essay from Doug Bandow warns of Social Security's impending collapse and explains that our entitlement culture will end whether we want it to or not. The only question is will we end it with as little pain as possible or not, and with the two parties in power, the answer is undoubtedly it will end with maximum pain. You can't help but wonder if one motivation for our politicrooks pushing Obamacare is to reduce longevity and make Social Security and Medicare sustainable. It's obscene what the two parties make us wonder about.

POLITICS:

Republicans send out political letter requesting donations masquerading as official census forms.

The tremendous drop in Obama's approval ratings from Q2 to Q3 is the single biggest drop in that quarter for a first year president since polling began, and one of the biggest drops ever for a first year president.

Empathizing with totalitarians is not key to being popular with everybody. It's key to being popular with liberals.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iran backing away from deal to let France and Russia enrich uranium. Surprise, surprise.

MISC:

Obama's Health and Human Services secretary to donate swine flu vaccines to foreign countries before meeting US demand. What country is Obama president of again?

New video of ACORN in Philadelphia released that exposes ACORN's claims as lies.

Norway publishes all tax returns online. You've got to be kidding me. This is another reason to abolish the income tax.

Free kibbles

A couple years ago or so I wrote on my message board that the US was a handful of years away from becoming the Soviet Union and 230 years away from the Republic founded by Jefferson and Madison. I wrote that it was a joke that we call ourselves the land of the free. Americans mistake the privilege to vote for the person who puts his boot on our necks and robs us blind with freedom. While our government has been fairly benevolent in the personal freedom department, we enabled it to turn our rights into privileges to be revoked arbitrarily for the so-called good of society, which really means the good of the aristocrats and bureaucrats. I wrote that most of the damage had been done in the last 100 years since the creation of the Federal Reserve, the income tax, the War on Drugs.

Needless to say, most laughed and called me alarmist. Only the Obama supporters are still laughing. Of course they thought we were turning into Nazi Germany when Bush was in charge. Nobody will be laughing when Obama seizes the remnants of our finance sector like he seized GM.

Partisan politics is distracting us from the reality of oppressive government. It's easy to blame this all on Obama, but that's wrong and dangerous, just as it was wrong and dangerous to blame it on Bush. Obama may be taking us the last few steps at breakneck speed, but both parties have been racing the country down this path for 100 years. Lincoln put us solidly on the path by destroying states rights after Jefferson's disciples lost power. Hamilton prepared the path for us when Washington was president and sooner when he had the General Welfare clause inserted in the Constitution, fully intending it would be abused as it has been. We have to stop the madness of the two parties and take our country back.

FASCISM:

Obama's pay fuhrer doesn't cut salaries at the socialized Fannie and Freddie. No, Mr. President, I'm not offended by any pay an executive receives. That's what happens in a competitive marketplace. Nor am I offended when people beg for money, even if those people run corporations like AIG, Citibank and Bank of America. That's human nature. I'm offended when politicians like you put a gun to my head and take money from me by force and give it away to these people.

Apparently that wasn't enough. The Fed announces pay restrictions for thousands of banks. Are you frigging kidding me? The companies that asked for bailout money are getting what they deserve for making a deal with the devil, but many of these companies and banks didn't ask for help. I think all the employees of those banks should strike, go to Washington and mob Congress until these pay restrictions are rescinded. Government is taking us to the verge of a general strike, which is part of Obama's plan, but the strikers will protest the government, not businesses, which isn't what he wants.

ECONOMY:

A lot has been said about how we can't spend or print our way to prosperity, and I've seen other attacks on specifics of Keynesianism, but I haven't read anybody attack Keynesianism on the basis that it declares all work to be equal and therefore work has no value. We're supposed to borrow and print money to pay people to work, but the work doesn't matter. Whether it's building a bridge to nowhere or digging a ditch then filling it back in, it doesn't matter. Waste doesn't matter. But if that was true, we could get the same effect by paying people not to work. What's the difference between paying somebody to dig and fill in ditches and paying them to nap, watch TV or do their nails? Keynesianism seems to completely ignore the role of the creation of wealth in an economy.

Businessmen always argue that it's a special circumstance when they're company wants government to intervene on their behalf. Nobody ever supports economic intervention in general, only when it benefits themselves and that's what they mean by special circumstance.

Prediction of currency controls: regulations to limit how much money you can take out of the country and taxes on purchasing foreign investments.

TAX AND SPEND:

Is anybody surprised that the cost of TARP is actually higher than the $700 billion advertised?

FEDERAL RESERVE:

I just discovered that the Fed printing money faster than it could grow on trees if it could grow on trees isn't responsible for the declining dollar. Trillion dollar deficits aren't responsible for the declining dollar. It's Matt Drudge's fault. If Drudge would just quit reporting on the declining dollar and keep the people in the dark, it would stop declining.

HEALTH CARE:

What do you do if you're Democrats and the people just won't let you force a government health insurance option that would destroy private health insurance down their throat? You change the name to... you guessed it... Medicare. This is a stroke of evil genius. I'm surprised they didn't just claim they were expanding Medicare to everybody earlier. People on Medicare love Medicare because everybody loves having other people's money handed to them. This is a way to fool seniors into thinking their coverage won't change and pass the Trojan horse for socialized medicine. This term came up a few times in August, and I was surprised Democrats didn't jump on this idea then. Of course Medicare for seniors is bankrupting the country already, but most voters obviously don't care about that. The senior vote will make all the difference.

This guy tells us what many of us already know about the government option:

"The truth is that the public plan is a carefully devised scheme, a sneaky strategy, to deceive American voters. It’s a political marketing ploy designed to move the nation to a single-payer system – like the one in Canada – over the next decade. The public option is the Trojan horse. On the outside it’s all about “choice and competition”, but once it has been dragged within the walls of American medicine it’s true nature will become evident. By that time, it’ll be too late."

Yup. Includes links to all kinds of Democrats explaining that it's a Trojan horse.

"More damning still, we uncovered video of the original architect of the public option, Yale professor Jacob Hacker, describing how it was designed to not “frighten people into thinking they are going to lose their private insurance” even though that is the inevitable result. In another clip he denies the plan is a Trojan horse saying, on the contrary, “it’s right there”. In other words, it’s not even a secret. Most relevant of all, Hacker admits in another clip that the real advantage of his plan is that “at least you can make the claim that there is competition between the public and private sectors”. In other words, this is all a marketing strategy designed to get around public resistance to government-run health care."

But liberals think this is a good thing. Liberals think surrendering power to Republicans is dangerous but surrendering power to Democrats is healthy, just like conservatives think the other way around. Surrendering power is never healthy no matter who is in charge.

State regulations drive up the cost of health care. True. But should the federal government override state regulations? What about states' rights? But regulations block interstate commerce (as well as charity as the essay mentions), and the constitution gives the federal government the power to knock down barriers to interstate commerce. Does that mean the federal government should knock down all regulations created by state governments? The interstate commerce clause is a delineated power of the federal government so it overrides states rights when they come into conflict. That's why the interstate commerce clause should be rewritten to narrowly allow the federal government to knock trade barriers, including regulations, erected by state governments and nothing else.

Cato asks why we don't fix the two public options we have now, Medicare and Medicaid, before we add a third one. Silly Cato asking questions like that. That probably got them on the president's enemies list.

Five minor reforms that would enable free market principles (but they are not free market reforms) to reduce the cost of health insurance and health care. These are not radical reforms by any stretch.

EDUCATION:

How does a governor award 100,000 degrees? Why is this a political topic?

WAR ON DRUGS:

Thousands of US drug police in 19 states arrest 300 in sweep on Mexican drug cartel in the US. The result of this will be higher prices for drugs. The government will claim this is a victory in the war on drugs, but the consequence of this raid is the drug cartels will become richer and more powerful because of the higher prices. We can never win this war. All it's doing is killing and imprisoning people who would otherwise be living normal, peaceful lives.

Think of the consequences. Suppose you're on Obama's enemy list. Rahm Emanuel goes down the list and picks out your name and calls your police department and leaves an anonymous tip that he saw you dealing drugs out of your house. A few nights later, a paramilitary police force busts in your door at 4am, shoots your dogs, puts a gun to your head, and if you're lucky enough to live through this, drags you to jail. While you're in jail, they ransack your house, knock your breakables to the floor, slit the seat cushions on your couch and do thousands of dollars worth of damage. When they don't find anything, they're as likely as not to plant evidence in your house in order to justify their raid. And they'll almost certainly get away with it.

Naming Obama and Emanuel in this makes it far fetched, but not that far fetched. Maybe it'll be an ex-girlfriend instead. Individuals use the justice system as a willing weapon against others. The point is we gave government this power, and government uses it against us, and government is escalating its use of force against us year after year to justify the power. Don't believe me? This is a systemic problem, the inevitable and foreseeable consequence of surrendering our freedom to eat, drink, smoke or inhale whatever we want to politicians, police, prosecutors and judges. We have to take our power and our freedom back.

Typical government-speak about failed programs, in this case Mexico's war on drugs:

""The most important thing is that the Mexican government is on the offensive," said Bernard Aronson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs from 1989 to 1993. "They're not in a state of denial. They're getting going.""

And not to be outdone in the battle for worthless government-speak, another official said:

""I'm not sure where this is going, but something had to be done,""

The consequences?

"The war has unleashed an unprecedented carnage as rival drug gangs fight for territory and routes into the lucrative U.S. market. They're also fighting among themselves for leadership spots as former drug lords are arrested or killed."

Could you imagine if the director of a business unit said that? "We're not getting any results from our policy, and lots of people are getting killed as a consequence of our actions, but the important thing is we're on the offensive because something had to be done." That guy wouldn't just be fired, he'd be arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned for life. But we allow government to take our freedom and use it on policies that kill people, and instead of firing and imprisoning the politicians, we turn around and give them more of our power to kill more people. And we repeat that spiral for decades and centuries. It's insane. Finally something intelligent:

"The problem is not the drug themselves," he said. "The main reason for going after the drug-trafficking organizations is that they are corrupting public life."

Somebody understands the problem is the black market, not the drugs, but naturally the policy empowers the black-marketeers at the expense of the people. The info in this article is amazing.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:

Tell your senators not to vote for the thought crimes legislation.

WAR:

Report claims Bush administration used Pentagon propaganda techniques on Americans to generate support for the Iraq war. They sure didn't work very well. This doesn't seem like news to me. Of course the administration, Pentagon and retired generals all worked to generate support for a war they wanted. Do you think Roosevelt ran around telling the American people we shouldn't be in WWII? Do you think Washington ran around telling Americans we shouldn't be fighting the Revolutionary War? Name me one president who didn't try to increase support for the war he was fighting or wanted to fight.

It's amazing how often this happens. Today a wrote a rant about our constant mistaking of a vote for freedom, and tonight I run across an essay entitled "Western Export of the Ballot Box Elixir is Pure Hubris". US politicians have long used the excuse of an election in a primitive country to support their foreign wars. Bush was the latest champion and now Obama is taking up the cause. An election does not equal freedom. Democracies are not free. Gaining freedom is a process starting with security, then economic freedom which enables individuals to take responsibility for their own lives, the lives of their families and their futures. Once people gain prosperity from economic freedom, they can achieve personal freedom - the freedom to move about, obtain higher education, pursue art, etc. Only after those things have been obtained can people gain political freedom. As I wrote earlier, voting for which guy puts his boot on your neck and steals you blind is not freedom. This is a wonderful essay:

"If Osama bin Laden cannot be found, if the Taliban cannot be eliminated, if troops cannot be withdrawn, if victory cannot be declared, then western leaders must find a reason for soldiers to die. Like Crusaders of old, they are told to die for the sacrament of a holy grail, in this case the franchise. Therefore it must not be desecrated by dodgy registers, fabricated returns and bought voters' lists.
...
The excuse that we are preventing another 9/11 is ludicrously thin. That event, whose plotting and training were in Europe and America, will cause the US to spend what Congress puts at a staggering $1.3 trillion in wars and related security by 2019. And still no one has arrested Bin Laden. It must be the most extravagant punitive expedition to the Asian mainland since Agamemnon set off for Troy.
...
We need look no further for an answer to the question posed by the American pundit Richard Haass. Surveying the wreckage of the Clinton/Bush/Blair years last summer, he asked why the west had squandered the legacy of its victory over communism. It had shifted Russia from humiliating defeat to chauvinist belligerence. It had antagonised half the Muslim world. It had left Europe squabbling and protectionist. China had risen to astonishing commercial power. America had beggared itself with military spending. In sum, the architects of victory had shot themselves in the foot."

And our misadventures there are reminiscent of the Odyssey.

MEDIA:

I'm glad somebody else has noticed that Obama's attack on Foxnews is pure Alinsky. I'd like to read this on Foxnews and from other news sources.

Special Report just reported that the White House today made the pay fuhrer available to all the pool networks except Foxnews. The pool reporters got together and refused to interview the fuhrer unless Foxnews was also allowed to interview him. Assuming this is true, I can't find a link to back it up, I'm impressed. They slapped down Obama's Alinsky play and stood on principle.

MISC:

In praise of The Dutchess.

The flu vaccine fiasco, like cash for clunkers and every government program before, shows once again that central planners have no way of comprehending the demand or costs for goods or services because there are no prices to guide them. This makes them unable to produce, transport or deliver goods or services to meet demand.

Another article on seasteading. This may be the last hope for liberty.

John Stossel celebrates Nobel Prize for economics winner Elinor Ostrom for showing that common property users can manage common property like fisheries and pastures without ownership or central planning. How'd that work out for the buffalo? Or the passenger pigeon? Europe's forests? How's that working out for ocean fisheries today? I'm sure she's found examples where this works, but there have to be external factors, most likely associated with community. If everybody knows each other, play golf together and go drinking together, I'm sure they can manage common property with a voluntary contract agreement. But if some of the fisherman are American, some are Japanese and some are Russians, trying to feed growing families and populations, some starving, that's not likely to happen, or at least not until the fishery is on the verge of destruction, maybe past the point of no return. The likely result will be the destruction of fisheries that we're experiencing right now. We know private ownership works. Visit any farm that's been run for centuries. I think ownership rights is the only thing that's going to save our fisheries.

Roosevelt meets Keynes.

Scientists discover 5,000 year old city sunk of southern Greece.

The powerful economy of Texas would make it a fine, independent country.

Tennessee General Assembly sends letter to the other 49 states proposing a "joint working group" about returning the federal government to its Constitutional limits.

"We invite your state to join with us to form a joint working group between the states to enumerate the abuses of authority by the federal government and to seek repeal of the assumption of powers and the imposed mandates."

There's several links to www.tenthamendmentcenter.com in this letter. Is this the next step in creating a 10th amendment convention?

Free kibbles

FASCISM:

Pay fuhrer to slash pay for executives at private firms.

"The U.S. pay czar will slash compensation for the 25 highest-paid employees at seven firms receiving large sums of government aid and demand a host of corporate-governance changes at those firms, according to people familiar with the matter."

This is to guarantee these firms will fail, then Obama can say that he tried using the free market and it failed, so for the good of country he has to seize these companies and turn America into a socialist country.

TAX AND SPEND:

I think Social Security, as much as people don't like to think of it as one, is a welfare program already. It has the illusion of being otherwise because the benefit is tied to how much you pay in, but that tie is arbitrarily determined by politicians. It's not like your payments sit in a savings account earning interest until you draw on it.

Here come the new taxes over our protests.

One consequence for cash for clunkers is becoming more clear as dealers are unable to find inexpensive used cars to sell to people who need them. The consequences of government destruction of wealth continue to drag us down.

Cost of aircraft carriers. Why do we need 10? Why are we building three more? These total costs are deception, though. We pay tremendously more for weapons that are only slightly superior to Russia's. We have to get our military costs under control, and that starts with redefining the role of the military to be for defense instead of nation-building, policing the world, making the world safe for democracy, projection of power, protection of US interests abroad or whatever euphemism aristocrats come up with for waging foreign wars.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Britain's counterpart to Ben Bernanke suggests breaking up banks that are too big to fail because he understands the banks are always going to be ahead of the regulators and they're control the regulators. I like how this article says he's not a socialist, but that's exactly what he is. Central banking is government controlling the means of production of money. It's pure socialism.

HEALTH CARE:

Wolf Blitzer makes Obama adviser David Axelrod look like a fool for paying lip service to competition but opposing allowing the the sale of health insurance across state lines. I'm sure Wolf was embarrassed for his buddy. He obviously expected a better answer.

Mises scholar goes after the Wall Street Journal writer for supporting the public option.

Democrats selling favors to states to buy votes from senators. This is one of many ways they use our tax dollars against us.

Man joins army to get health care to treat his wife's cancer. This is why government is intent on destroying our health care system - to gain complete control over the life of every American.

Liberal admits that the health oppression plan isn't about helping people live longer, healthier lives. Since he can't admit what it's really about, power, he claims it's about helping anxiety for people who don't have coverage. Let's spend a couple trillion dollars reducing the life span and health of the people because it eliminates some anxiety. Can you say vote buying?

Democrats threaten health care companies for criticism of their health oppression plan (for not going far enough). How dare they speak against Great Pharaoh?

Cato policy analysis explains how free market reforms would meet Obama's stated goals for health care reform. The problem is that Obama's stated goals aren't the real goals. Obama's real goal is to grab power for himself and his cronies, move the country left through force of government and collapse the system.

The many ways that the government health insurance option would compete unfairly with private insurance and put private insurers out of business.

GLOBAL WARMING:

British climate skeptic claims UN treaty on global warming, about to be signed by Obama, eviscerates US sovereignty and establishes a world government. That's to be expected. The global warming fraud has always been about implementing world-wide communism. We'll have to kill this treaty in the Senate. Includes link to a powerful video. The link to the draft text of the treaty doesn't work though. The document was probably removed so we couldn't read it. Here is Lord Mockton's entire 95 minute speech. The draft text links works. The problem was with my pdf reader. This from the draft:

"The government will be ruled by the COP [Conference of the Parties] with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will operate as such, as appropriate."

That sounds like an attempt to create a world government to me.

WAR ON DRUGS:

In praise of Obama ending raids on medical marijuana parties in states where it's legal.

"Arguments for and against decriminalization of some or all drugs are familiar by now. Distilled to the basics, the drug war has empowered criminals while criminalizing otherwise law-abiding citizens and wasted billions that could have been better spent on education and rehabilitation."

That's it in a nutshell.

Good for Mark Cuban for saying steroid use should not be criminal.

Afghan opium does not fuel global chaos. The war on drugs fuels global chaos. This is a wonderful article for exposing the disastrous failure of the stated goal of the war on drugs - though that's not it's point. Of course, since the real goal of the misnamed war on drugs is to create chaos and empower politicians, police, prosecutors, judges, jailers, jail companies, cigarette companies, alcohol companies, cotton companies, etc., etc., etc. and take freedom from us all you realize the program has been fantastically successful.

WAR:

In response to Republican criticism that Obama is wasting time getting troops to Afghanistan, Democrats counter that Republicans didn't care about Afghanistan for seven years. One one level, that's a reasonable response and if this was a school yard game of kickball, it would be appropriate. But Americans are dying in Afghanistan so childish attacks and comebacks from the crooks in Washington, no matter how accurate, are inappropriate. I can't help but visualize a bunch of elementary school social misfits running around pointing fingers at each other and hitting each other with sticks then running away.

POLITICS:

Another Mao admirer in Obama's White House. I told you this would be the norm. Obama is a communist wannabe, and we've known that since long before he was elected.

"We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system ... we know that this is largely about power. That this is an adults only, no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun."

He's describing government, not a free market. You can't game the free market. You can only convince people to buy your products voluntarily. Government has the monopoly on force. But one part of this is true: the idea that we have a free market in the US is nonsense.

It's none of the federal government's business if the people of Kinston, NC get rid of party affiliation for local elections or not. Of course Pharaoh Obama thinks otherwise. And naturally his decision is all about race. Apparently Obama thinks black people are too ignorant to vote "correctly" unless the candidates have an 'R' or 'D' next to their name. I'm sure the vast majority of Americans think otherwise. Who's the racist?

I might be the only person in America who doesn't care that Sarah Palin will be on Oprah.

Democrats discover that racism isn't a factor in the tea parties - they are being driven by fear of government. Who said Democrats were slow? Apparently this mentality affects 20 percent of the electorate. If that 20 percent had voted Libertarian last election, Obama's agenda would be dead in its tracks and both Democrats and Republicans would be fighting to reduce government to get those votes. On the flip side, how inept is the Libertarian Party that it can't reach that 20 percent? Still voting Libertarian in large numbers, they don't have to win, is the only way to move the party toward smaller government.

The rise of the oath-keepers.

Obama must be a fan of this movie or play.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:

How government convicted an innocent man (a successful lawyer) of a non-crime and let a criminal (a governor) go for the same non-crime.

"The legal term for this activity is "structuring," and readers might remember that Elliot Spitzer, a.k.a. "Client Number 9," was caught doing something similar (except he was making small withdrawals rather than deposits). However, there is a huge difference between the two acts. Gaskins did not make his deposits in order to cover up any illegal activity, while Spitzer did.
Thus, it seems to be the perfect commentary on federal criminal law that Spitzer never was charged while Gaskins faces more than 30 years in prison. This is a compelling story, and as one who has seen injustice after injustice in the federal system, this perhaps is the worst injustice I ever have seen."

This is a phenomenal story.

"Over the years, Gaskins would represent more than 20 clients facing the death penalty, nearly all too poor to afford their own lawyers. In recent years, though, Gaskins carved a niche representing clients in massive federal drug conspiracy cases. His clients stretched across this state and into others."

Prosecutors targeted him because of his success as a defense lawyer.

Taser tells police not to aim at victims' chests. Tasers should be banned. If a policeman needs to use lethal force, he should use his gun. If he doesn't need to use lethal force, he should not electrocute anybody.

FOREIGN POLICY:

I would love to see this deal to have France and Russia enrich uranium for Iran go through, but this could still be a bait and switch. We also need full access to Iranian sites to prove they're not enriching weapons grade uranium internally. More details.

"David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, which has tracked Iran for signs of covert proliferation, said any deal would buy only a limited amount of time. He said Tehran could replace 2,600 pounds of low-enriched uranium "in little over a year.""

I'll take a year. Anything that will keep the mullahs from the bomb and keep us from bombing them is a plus, but this article makes it sound like we know a lot more about Iran's program than the news is informing us. I sure hope that's true, and I hope this agreement comes with free access to guarantee there is no hidden weapons program.

Cato suggest Europe would be better off without a central government like ours, and I wholeheartedly agree.

China is no risk to the US, and we should encourage our Pacific allies to use their own resources to deter China, not ours. It's arguable that in the wake of WWII, when Europe and Japan were reduced to rubble, when Korea was a farming community, and when the Soviet Union was expanding, that we needed to be the world's policeman. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's arguable. It's not arguable today. With the rebuilding of Europe and Japan and the emergence of South Korea, China and India and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it's indefensible, immoral and counterproductive for us to spend our resources being the world's policeman.

MEDIA:

Author thinks Obama's biggest flaw is he's too perfect. I think I'm going to puke.

No wonder 63 percent of Americans say that news stories are often inaccurate.

This Orwellian quote makes me think Obama has bigger plans for silencing Foxnews.

"To what is the underlying rationale for this hypersensitive strategy of trying to delegitimize the voice of cable opposition? "We're doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible," a White House official explained to Politico."

Foxnews lawyers better be gearing up for a fight.

MISC:

Dolphins play water polo with jellyfish.

Chicago Mayor Daley orders all non-union city workers to take 24 days off next year unpaid. Just non-union?

Man joins army to get health care to treat his wife's cancer. This is why government is intent on destroying our health care system - to gain complete control over the life of every American.

Obama is even ruining Monday Night Football.

Yet another government study considered foundational is discovered to be inaccurate because it wasn't science, it was politics masquerading as science to promote smoking bans. Government money corrupts everything it touches including science.

It's amazing how leftists refuse to admit how and why we won the Cold War.

After many months, Main St. in Dayton is reopened just in time for the mayoral election. This is another way government uses our money against us to the advantage of aristocrats. Main St. was fine six months ago. I'm sure it's fine now. But we have to have a party to celebrate. I would personally like to thank Pharaoh Obama for enabling the city to tear up a perfectly fine street and cost us so much money for six months or so.

Facts on flu vaccines.

People are still investigating JFK's assassination.

Super wi-fi network created after FCC gives up grip on bandwidth. Why does the FCC control this?

Amazing photo-real pencil drawings.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

On the one year anniversary of TARP passing, we know that TARP was unnecessary and ineffective. The graph in this essay shows that lending was just fine when TARP passed, contrary to what Sec. Paulson told us. Lending didn't start to dry up until after it was passed. I still think TARP was a coup, guaranteeing Obama would win the election (remember that McCain had just taken the lead for the first time in the polls right before this), and part of that coup was transforming our banking sector into a socialist institution. Bush just blindly did what Paulson told him to, like a puppet, and he paved the way for the Obama agenda.

Graph of year to year credit growth shows commercial credit shrunk for the first time since 1974, and it's still shrinking.

Because it was so effective at trashing our economy and ruining lives the first time, Obama to create a new subprime mortgage crisis. Reason calls this insane.

"A former executive of mortgage giant Fannie Mae told a congressional subcommittee that the FHA "appears destined for a taxpayer bailout in the next 24 to 36 months." Commissioner David Stevens had to assure the subcommittee that it would not need help—well, unless there is a "catastrophic home price decline.""

Not insane. Evil.

Michael Moore isn't confused. He just hates freedom.

TAX AND SPEND:

Our budget deficit for last year is officially $1.42 trillion. Do we really need the CBO to tell us our spending is unsustainable? Some people probably still don't believe it. Perspective.

We're all subsidizing the New York Yankees.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Ben Bernanke wants the Chinese to stop saving money and start spending like us. I have no words.

HEALTH CARE:

The Baucus bill that's already been voted on and passed out of the Senate Finance Committee has finally been written and is 1,502 pages long.

$1 trillion (actually $2 trillion) to cover 5 percent of the population. This isn't correct. The CBO reported that 25 million people would remain without coverage, so that means this supposed health care reform bill will only cover about 3 million people.

Republican plan to halt health care oppression:

"Republicans are demanding a deceleration of the process and moving to define whatever plan that emerges as a combination of Medicare cuts, tax increases, higher insurance premiums and rising overall costs."

In other words, they're going to tell the truth. That's so alien to them, they probably think that's a stroke of genius.

Health insurance providers report that Obamacare could lead to system collapse.

"Their concern: People will buy insurance only when they desperately need it, such as after they're diagnosed with cancer or heart disease."

That's the plan.

Obama is already harming our health care industry.

One way the Baucus bill pays for itself is the hidden cost (off budget) of raiding Social Security funds.

GLOBAL WARMING:

I appreciate Senator Inhofe reminding everybody that tax and trade wouldn't reduce global warming even if global warming existed. Too many Republicans have bought into this global warming fraud.

UK PM Brown says we have 50 days to stop global warming or we're all going to die a horrible, hot death. Remember when I warned that the global warming frauds would up their alarmism to even newer levels of absurdity? That didn't take long. Somebody should teach Brown to read a thermometer.

Hurricane Katrina victims suing big energy companies saying they caused the global warming that create Hurricane Katrina. The court didn't kick this bogus lawsuit out yet.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Obama stops medical marijuana raids. Good for him.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:

Even though crime has been dropping for 20 years, politicians keep convincing Americans it's going up so they can expand political and prosecutorial power.

POLITICS:

Top Obama adviser tells high schoolers that Mao Tse-tung is her favorite philosopher. I'm sure most of Obama's advisers would agree.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iran claims Britain and US behind terrorist attack. The problem is, they might be half right. We might well have trained the people who did this. Or this could be pure propaganda.

MISC:

I like the looks of this nook ereader.

Obama subsidizing the purchase of golf carts.

Lostpolitics message board is back up.

Energy Dept. doesn't insure that products with the energy star label actually meet the specification. Underwriters Laboratories doesn't have this problem.

Obama energy adviser advocated forcing radio and TV stations to run ads about global warming and overpopulation. These leftists love using force against others. For our own good, of course.

More evidence that subsidizing college just drives up the price. If you're willing to pay $20 grand a year to send your kid to school, and the government pays $20 grand to send your kid to school, the school will raise the price from $20 grand to $40 grand. Government can't undo the laws of economics. All it can do is pervert them to our detriment.

Internet giants ask government to regulate the internet. This is how it always works. The big corporations always ask government for regulations so they can capture the regulatory agencies and use the regulations to crush their competition and become even bigger. The end result is lower quality goods and services at a higher price and corporations that government declares are too big to fail.

AT&T lobbyist encourages 300,000 AT&T employees to lobby the FCC for rules that favor AT&T. This makes perfect sense because it's in the interest of those employees. What doesn't make sense is giving government our power to regulate telecommunications or anything else because this is the inevitable result.

The government's war on tobacco.

"Back then, America sent its boys to war with a pack of cigarettes as part of a soldier’s daily rations. Today our tobacco policy more closely resembles that of Nazi Germany. Even the U.S. military, which defeated the Axis with cigarettes blazing, announced this summer it was considering a total smoking ban for soldiers."

Ban, ban, ban, ban, ban.