Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Description of our economy as a tapeworm economy. Associated reading list. We're the host and the ruling class is the tapeworm. This is a great video. She's the first person who said what I've often written: that the 2008 bailouts were a coup. GATT. She has a great description of how government destroys wealth, but she falls for the myth that there's such a thing as good government and effective central planning. There's not. The rich, powerful and corrupt always control government for their own ends at our expense. It can't be any other way. The solution is to take away government's power.

TAX AND SPEND:

House Speaker Boehner proves he's not interested in stopping the looting by committing to raise the debt ceiling in return for spending cuts. In other words, nothing of substance will change.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

State sponsored frauds upset about non-state sponsored frauds.

Wind patterns responsible for excessive snow, not global warming, which should go without saying but must be said.

POLICE STATE:

Now the prohibitionists are calling to put touch sensors in every car to detect if the driver has some arbitrary amount of alcohol in his or her system.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) uncovers widespread misconduct by FBI agents.

"EFF has uncovered widespread violations stemming from FBI intelligence investigations from 2001 — 2008. In a report released today, EFF documents alarming trends in the Bureau's intelligence investigation practices, suggesting that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed. Using documents obtained through EFF's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, the report finds: Evidence of delays of 2.5 years, on average, between the occurrence of a violation and its eventual reporting to the Intelligence Oversight Board; reports of serious misconduct by FBI agents including lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant; and indications that the FBI may have committed upwards of 40,000 possible intelligence violations in the 9 years since 9/11."

40,000. That goes beyond widespread and would better be described as systematic.

Man arrested on terrorism charges for planning to blow up an Islamic center with fireworks. Fireworks? I'll grant that fireworks can be dangerous, but I'd hardly call them the tools of a terrorist.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Egyptian opposition leader calls on US government to cut off support for Mubarak.

Ninety-nine percent of the people in southern Sudan vote for succession. But government exists to loot the people, not improve their lives, so you can bet the government will violently put down any attempts at succession.

MISC:

Scientists replace the electron of a helium atom with a muon, and it behaves as a hydrogen atom. Wow.