Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

I don't think a treaty would help preserve the internet. I think it would just oppress it faster. The internet is too powerful for governments to tolerate.

SOCIALISM:

Thanks to Chavez's takeover of the Venezuelan economy, people are starving.

ECONOMY:

The recession may have officially ended in June 2009, but we haven't recovered a bit since then. It ran from Dec. 2007 until then, the longest since the Great Depression. Expect Obama to use this to blame Bush and Republicans. Here's a little injection of reality:

"Never mind that the U.3 and U.6 unemployment rates were 9.4% and 16.4%, respectively, in May of 2009, supposedly the last month of the recession while last month’s U.3 and U.6 stood at 9.6% and 16.7%. Real Private Fixed Investment continues to sink. Consumer and business bankruptcy filings continue to climb. One in 8 people in America are receiving food stamps according to Reuters. And in three-quarters of U.S. cities foreclosure filings are on the rise."

But government says the recession ended, and government has its gun pointed at all our heads, so it must be right. On a side note:

"In related news, the Japanese Prime Minister announced yet another “$11 billion stimulus plan designed to promote job creation, coax shoppers back into stores, and stem the surge in the value of the yen,” and the Bank of Japan intervened lowering the value of the yen “to protect the economy.”"

So much for fiscal austerity in Japan.

Mises.org's markets and data page.

TAX AND SPEND:

The UK tax organization wants employers to send all checks to them, and they'll deduct the tax then transfer what's left to the employee's bank account. They also propose using lie detector tests during frequent audits. I hope the British people revolt over this.

This article, while true, is also a bunch of crap. It claims president Obama thinks that income belongs to the government and the government generously allows people to keep some of it, not the people who earn it, but that's what all aristocrats have thought since 1913.

Bill Clinton falsely claims he reduced the debt while in office, and gets away with it. The Republicans in Congress reduced the deficit while he was in office, but not the debt.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Another prominent climate scientist withdraws from the global warming movement because he realizes it's a fraud, and he says so in plain language:

"Physicist Dr. Denis Rancourt, a former professor and environmental science researcher at the University of Ottawa, has officially bailed out of the man-made global warming movement, calling it a ‘corrupt social phenomenon’.

He writes this in an essay on science trust issues plus adds this powerful closing passage about climate science:

And there is a thorough critique of the science as band wagon trumpeting and interested self-deception [4]. Climategate only confirms what should be obvious to any practicing scientist: That science is a mafia when it’s not simply a sleeping pill.

Now he thinks that fossil fuel burning isn’t a problem of significance based on the scale."

I couldn't agree more.

The most effective and cost-effective carbon sequestration technique known to man has been around for thousands of years: the garbage dump.

Record spring snow in New Zealand. Oh no! It's a climate disruption event and must because by man's productivity.

Obama EPA official warns the EPA will regulate and ban household appliances. Our government recognizes no limits on its power.

POLICE STATE:

Police officer slams 84 years old man into the ground, breaking his back and putting him in critical condition, and claims self-defense. Seriously. In a related event, related because they both involve police brutalizing civilians, a police chief body slams a 50 year old woman to the ground to arrest her because she wanted her friend to record the incident, which her friend did.

WAR:

Real life often provides wonderful observations of the state of decline in our lives. This is a good example:

"I arrived at the Pentagon Metro station this morning, as usual, on the commute to work. At the entrance to the Metro were six (!!!) military-like guards all carrying enormous automatic weapons looking ready to attack someone/anyone. On the train platform were two more paramilitary types with automatic weapons at the ready. My thoughts turned to the yearly cost of these eight security guards on just one single entrance to the Metro – as I walked down the escalator which has been broken for weeks…"

It not only can happen here, it is happening here...

POLITICS:

So the Delaware Senate race is being billed as the witch against the Marxist. As far as wacky goes, the Marxist is far more wacky and enormously more dangerous. Marxists killed well over 100 million people in the the name of Marxism last century. Wiccans didn't kill anybody in the name of Wicca that I know of. In 1999, every young girl was talking about Wicca. There were stores all over selling magic supplies. Remember Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It was a fad. Marxists are the most deadly cult to ever exist.

MISC:

Woman trademarks her own name and goes after people who use it without permission. This is a new extreme in IP law. I hope she's doing it to highlight the stupidity of IP law.