Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Time magazine jumps on the internet license bandwagon. I wonder what they would think about magazine licenses. This is another blatant attempt of a corporation to use government to stifle competition.

In another step toward seizing control of the internet, the House passed a new cyber-security bill. Maybe nobody noticed that government computers are notoriously insecure and the to fix that problem, government uses private contractors.

TAX AND SPEND:

Here's another way in which government lover Obama is just like government lover Bush's big brother.

"In February 2008, before the recession made the disparity much worse, The New York Timesreported that “George W. Bush is in line to be the first president since World War II to preside over an economy in which federal government employment rose more rapidly than employment in the private sector.” The Obama administration has extended the hiring binge, with executive branch employment (excluding the Postal Service and the Defense Department) slated to grow by 2 percent in 2010—and more than 15 percent if you count temporary Census workers."

Both these presidents and their parties hate freedom and the system of voluntary exchange that's part and parcel with freedom, and both have done serious harm to our country.

HEALTH CARE:

Top Canadian politician on the advice of his doctors comes to the US for heart surgery. So Canadian doctors and politicians know our system is superior. Why can't liberals figure it out?

GLOBAL WARMING:

Walter Williams explains how global warming frauds cherry-picked temperature stations to make global temperatures appear warmer than they actually are.

"During the 1960s and into the 1980s, the number of stations used for calculating global surface temperatures was about 6,000. By 1990, the number of stations dropped rapidly to about 1,500. Most of the stations lost were in the colder regions of the Earth. Not adjusting for their lost made temperatures appear to be higher than was in fact the case."

This is massive, obvious fraud, and these scientists profited from it. It's criminal. These people should be prosecuted for fraud. But here's the rub:

"Mounting evidence of scientific fraud might make little difference in terms of the response to manmade global warming hysteria. Why? Vested economic and political interests have emerged where trillions of dollars and social control are at stake. Therefore, many people who recognize the scientific fraud underlying global warming claims are likely to defend it anyway. Automobile companies have invested billions in research and investment in producing "green cars." General Electric and Phillips have spent millions lobbying Congress to outlaw incandescent bulbs so that they can force us to buy costly compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL). Farmers and ethanol manufacturers have gotten Congress to enact laws mandating greater use of their product, not to mention massive subsidies. Thousands of major corporations around the world have taken steps to reduce carbon emissions including giants like IBM, Nike, Coca-Cola and BP, the oil giant. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Dell have vowed to become "carbon neutral."

Then there's Chicago Climate Futures Exchange that plans to trade in billions of dollars of greenhouse gas emission allowances. Corporate America and labor unions, as well as their international counterparts have a huge multi-trillion dollar financial stake in the perpetuation of the global warming fraud. Federal, state and local agencies have spent billions of dollars and created millions of jobs to deal with one aspect or another of global warming.

It's deeper than just money. Schoolteachers have created polar-bear-dying lectures to frighten and indoctrinate our children when in fact there are more polar bears now than in 1950. They've taught children about melting glaciers. Just recently, the International Panel on Climate Change was forced to admit that their Himalayan glacier-melting fraud was done to "impact policy makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action."

What would all the beneficiaries of the global warming hype do if it becomes widely known and accepted that mankind's activities have very little to do with the Earth's temperature? I don't know but a lot of people would feel and look like idiots. But I bet that even if the permafrost returned as far south as New Jersey, as it once did, the warmers and their congressional stooges would still call for measures to fight global warming."

The power brokers aren't going to admit their culpability. We're going to have to force them to. Prosecutions for fraud might be necessary to end it.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE:

The more power you give government, the more power it wants. Think of government power as a balloon, then the desire to expand that power is the surface of the balloon. The bigger the balloon gets, the bigger the surface gets. Until it explodes. In this case, police want more power and a fasttrack to to get personal information on people on the internet. Because electronic information is effectively stored forever, it's a gold mine for police and prosecutors.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Now Romania is going to host a US missile shield. What happened to Obama killing this missile shield plan? This is nothing but a very dangerous welfare program for Europe which is perfectly capable of developing its own missile shield or buying ours and deploying it themselves. This shield makes the US less safe by angering Russia.

Pat Buchanan claims that legislation punishing companies from selling gasoline to Iran is an attempt to force the country into war. I used to think that cutting off gasoline to Iran would be a good way to pressure them to stop their nuclear program, but I don't think so any more. The Iranian government would still have access to all the gas it needed to continue. If the Iranian government is developing nuclear weapons, I can't think of a peaceful way to stop it. But it might not be developing nuclear weapons. I don't put much faith in the intelligence community that failed to notice that India, Pakistan and North Korea had developed nuclear weapons after the fact, let alone when they were getting close, but it seems to me, with all our modern technology and focus on Iran, we should have a high confidence one way or the other, and they still say Iran is not developing nuclear weapons. But on the other hand, it seems pretty obvious they're developing everything needed to quickly develop a nuclear weapon if they wanted to.

POLITICS:

Good video from Republicans showing how ridiculous Democrats jobs plans have been.

MISC:

Researchers communicate with patients previously thought to be in a vegetative state.

People move faster when reacting than when acting. But that doesn't explain what this guy is talking about. It takes about 6 tenths of a second to react to a stimulus, so while the shooter may move faster, I doubt it's enough faster to make up 6 tenths of a second for equally skilled shooters.

Murray Rothbard on the metastasization of the equality movement and political correctness.

"But now, as the ranks of the oppressed and therefore the groups specially privileged by society and the State keep multiplying, and the ranks of the oppressors keep dwindling, the problem of income and wealth egalitarianism reappears and is redoubled. For more and greater varieties of groups are continually being added to the parasitic burden weighing upon an ever-dwindling supply of oppressors. And since it is obviously worth everyone's while to leave the ranks of the oppressors and move over to the oppressed, pressure groups will increasingly succeed in doing so — so long as this dysfunctional ideology continues to flourish. Specifically, achieving the label of officially oppressed entitles one to share in an endless flow of benefits — in money, status, and prestige — from the hapless oppressors, who are made to feel guilty forevermore, even as they are forced to sustain and expand the endless flow. It is not surprising that attaining oppressed status takes a great deal of pressure and organization. As Joseph Sobran wittily puts it, "it takes a lot of clout to be a victim." Eventually, if trends continue the result must be the twin death of parasite and host alike, and an end to any flourishing economy or civilization."

This is a great essay.