Free kibbles

LIBERTY:

The advance of liberty around the world leveled off in 2009. Look for it to retreat with the decline of the US. But the triumph of the rule of law over democracy in Honduras is a good thing.

ECONOMY:

Owners stripping homes before foreclosure. This shows how government interference in our lives brings out the most base instincts of humans unlike a system of voluntary exchange which restricts those instincts and brings out the most positive.

Transforming America into a command economy.

"America is transforming itself, without forethought, debate, or pause, into a command economy. A command economy is a top-down, state-controlled economy directed by planners and bureaucrats, boards and bodies, administrators and authorities. A command economy is not characterized by mutuality of interest and agreement between parties. It relies on edict. A command economy, as the name implies, orders the affairs of a nation by coercion. In a free economy goods and services are bought and sold by consent; business transactions are based on agreement; contracts depend upon a meeting of the minds of the parties involved. In a command economy government sets prices, controls and directs resources, and oversees production and consumption. Free economies produce prosperity; command economies produce poverty. The transformation of America is already taking place at breakneck speed, even before the current economic crisis is full blown. Historical precedents insist that as conditions worsen, the transformation into a command economy will accelerate."

Why did we do this to ourselves? This didn't just start under Obama. It just accelerated under him. Why are we continuing to support the same two parties who brought us to this point?

"The reasons that the United States would choose to follow a pattern that hollows out economies the way it did the British are many. But as a symptom, although not a cause of this self-inflicted harm, look to the modern American politician. For today’s breed of politician, power is their very passion. Their every concern and the entire public debate about politicians centers around the use of power. How may power best be exploited and aggrandized? Who is to be bailed out, who is to be plundered to pay for it? Who is to be subsidized, who penalized? Who shall be taxed and who shall be paid? In contrast, the founders looked upon power very differently: How can it be kept in check? In yielding to the former and to their command economy, the current generation of Americans, blessed with so much, will be the shame of the ages."

This is a frightening essay. What ever happened to "Love your country. Fear your government?" Why did parents stop teaching that to children? I think it started with teaching children, if they ever need help, to go find a police officer. Parents can't teach children that government agents are to be trusted to help solve problems without creating an adult who looks to government to solve his or her problems. From the beginning, parents should teach children that power corrupts, and government agents have power and so are to be avoided if at all possible. Teach children, if they ever need help, to run to another parent as a first option and a working person as a second option.

HEALTH CARE:

Post-mortem on the Senate health care vote.

GLOBAL WARMING:

877 new snow records set in the US last week.

Satellite measurements show that because of the inactivity of the sun during solar cycle 24, the upper atmosphere of the Earth called the thermosphere is cooling.

"“The Sun is in a very unusual period,” said Marty Mlynczak, SABER associate principal investigator and senior research scientist at NASA Langley. “The Earth’s thermosphere is responding remarkably — up to an order of magnitude decrease in infrared emission/radiative cooling by some molecules.”"

That's a huge impact.

2/3 of the country gets a white Christmas. Not us though.

Some wonderful person took the CRU emails, data and programs and organized it into a time-line showing that climategate was a 30 year process of corrupting science to fulfill a political agenda. Very impressive.

Former global warming true believer admits his mistake and becomes a skeptic. Welcome the world of thinking people.

The push for one world government.

"The mere utterance of [the word global] was assumed to sweep away any consideration of what was once assumed to be the most basic principle of modern democracy: that elected national governments are responsible to their own people – that the right to govern derives from the consent of the electorate."

I get sick to my stomach when aristocrats start throwing around the word global, but I'd never thought why. This is why. It's intended to undermine self-government even further than it's already been undermined.

"Nor was much consideration given to the logical conclusion of all this grandiose talk of global consensus as unquestionably desirable: if there was no popular choice about approving supranational "legally binding agreements", what would happen to dissenters who did not accept their premises (on climate change, for example) when there was no possibility of fleeing to another country in protest? Was this to be regarded as the emergence of world government? And would it have powers of policing and enforcement that would supersede the authority of elected national governments? In effect, this was the infamous "democratic deficit" of the European Union elevated on to a planetary scale. And if the EU model is anything to go by, then the agencies of global authority will involve vast tracts of power being handed to unelected officials. Forget the relatively petty irritations of Euro‑bureaucracy: welcome to the era of Earth-bureaucracy, when there will be literally nowhere to run."

This woman definitely understands the threat.

Thomas Sowell has it right about science.

"Like anything valuable, science has been seized upon by politicians and ideologues, and used to forward their own agendas. This started long ago, as far back as the 18th century, when the Marquis de Condorcet coined the term "social science" to describe various theories he favored. In the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels distinguished their own brand of socialism as "scientific socialism." By the 20th century, all sorts of notions wrapped themselves in the mantle of "science.""

What this global warming fraud illustrates is that big government begets bigger government regardless of who's on top. George Bush didn't support the global warming fraud, but on his watch, the government funded those frauds to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. This should be a reminder that there's no such thing as good government. Government is like a voracious dinosaur, living only to grow and grow and grow. It doesn't matter who we put on top to ride it, it goes where it wants based on its own needs and crushes anything in its path. We can't direct it. All we can do is dramatically reduce its size until we can keep it on a short leash, then keep it tiny.

WAR:

Government implements new airline restrictions in the wake of attempted terrorist attack on airliner. As always, these restrictions are worthless except for created a false sense that government is "doing something". I don't want government to do anything except get out of the way. I want to return security for airplanes back to the people who have the most to lose and therefore will do the best job securing airplanes - the airports, airlines and passengers.

This terrorist was radicalized in London. We're fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when the terrorists keep coming from other countries including Europe and the US.

Israel's invasion of Gaza produced a 90 percent reduction in rocket attacks because Hamas lost much support and power. Excellent. I hope the people of the West Bank wake up and oust Hamas and reduce them to nothing so they can make peace with Israel and start building a society.

I think the enlisted men and women in the US military are so different from everybody else in government because they work in an environment of stiff competition and because they're the most accountable people in the government. They're less powerful than the average citizen. It might seem an paradox that the men and women we arm and empower to kill our enemies are more powerless than citizens, but citizens have the power to arm themselves and kill our enemies, null and void gun control laws pretending to take away that power not withstanding. The same could be said for low level officers, but as they go up the ladder, they gain power and become more bureaucratic. But there's always competition up to the very top, unlike pretty much every other government position.

But we terribly abuse our troops. They shouldn't be nation-building in Iraq or Afghanistan. They shouldn't be patrolling the Korean border. They shouldn't be fighting drug was in South America. They shouldn't be in Germany, Japan or anywhere else either. None of these tasks are about defending America, and that should be their focus.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iranian police shoot protesters dead.

POLITICS:

I think mainstream liberals and conservatives have so much in common it's ridiculous. Other than the extremists on both sides, everybody wants tolerance, strong families, prosperity, etc. But because government divides the people every time it takes power from us on any issue, because our politicians and their accomplice press divide us every day, mainstream liberals and conservatives can't even talk to each other about issues. Government has stolen our ability to have meaningful debate. We just sit and watch politicians and the talking heads of the accomplice press debate instead of debating among ourselves. Once we start taking our power back from government, liberals and conservatives can start talking about issues to each other again and create a far happier society.

MEDIA:

Why do we need to hear from the president after a terrorist attack? Was he there? Was he the guy who passed the terrorist through security? Is he a security expert? Why do I care what any president has to say about a terrorist attack? The last thing I want is the president to get more involved in the day to day activities of our lives.

MISC:

The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud.

How Emperor Hirohito used the atomic bombs dropped on Japan to stay in power.

It's kind of scary to think that the Earth was affected by a magnetic flare from 50,000 light years away. I hope there's nothing like that within a few thousand light years.

Economic lessons from the birth of Christ.

"In any case, the second chapter of St. Luke doesn’t say that they were continually rejected at place after place. It tells of the charity of a single inn owner, perhaps the first person they encountered, who, after all, was a businessman. His inn was full, but he offered them what he had: the stable. There is no mention that the innkeeper charged the couple even one copper coin, though given his rights as a property owner, he certainly could have.

It’s remarkable, then, to think that when the Word was made flesh with the birth of Jesus, it was through the intercessory work of a private businessman. Without his assistance, the story would have been very different indeed. People complain about the "commercialization" of Christmas, but clearly commerce was there from the beginning, playing an essential and laudable role.

And yet we don’t even know the innkeeper’s name. In two thousand years of celebrating Christmas, tributes today to the owner of the inn are absent. Such is the fate of the merchant throughout all history: doing well, doing good, and forgotten for his service to humanity."

That's a great observation.

I can't help but like anything named Whiskey and Gunpowder.