Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Twenty facts about US inequality show that as we centralize more power in the federal government, we centralize wealth accumulation in the hands of the ruling class to the detriment of everybody else. Duh.

TAX AND SPEND:

Dick Durbin took the demagoguery lead in the budget battle claiming:

"Durbin, one of President Barack Obama's top allies in Congress, said he opposed going beyond the $10.5 billion in domestic, non-defense discretionary spending cuts that Democrats have backed.Republicans want $61 billion in spending reductions.
"I think we've pushed this to the limit," Durbin told the "Fox News Sunday" television program as Congress and the White House prepared for another week of showdowns that threaten a government shutdown.
"To go any further is to push more kids out of school," Durbin said. "It stops the investment of infrastructure, which kills good-paying jobs right here in the United States.'"

If government reduces the amount it steals from us by more than $10 billion, government won't be able to brainwash kids in government schools. Give me a break.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Price increases for school lunches blamed on the weather, not the Fed. Weather plays a role, but so does inflation.

EDUCATION:

Middle schoolers suspended and expelled over facebook posts. Like kids have never talked bad about teachers before.

Northwestern University professor puts on live sex show for students. This is what government funding has done to our education system.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Claim that solar power is now cheaper than nuclear power. I'm skeptical.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Old propaganda message saying that if you buy drugs, you're helping the Japs. It was probably true then, just like today, if you buy drugs, you aid the Mexican drug gangs and the Taliban. But the problem isn't  buying drugs. The problem is that government has made growing, selling and buying drugs, peaceful activities all, illegal. If government doesn't want drug users to support the drug gangs and the Taliban, it should legalize drugs. Our government is the violent aggressor, not the users.

POLICE STATE:

Lawyer for whistle-blower Bradley Manning claims jailers forced him to strip every night in response for a sarcastic comment.

"David Coombs, who is representing Manning in his court martial procedure, criticised the commanders of the Quantico brig for punishing the prisoner for a sarcastic comment he made in protest at his treatment. Coombs said Manning quipped that if he wanted to harm himself he could do so with the elastic waistband in his underpants or with his flip-flops.Though the comment was sarcastic, Coombs claims it was used by the military guards to tighten Manning's already harsh treatment under a prevention of injury order or POI. Each night since Wednesday, and for the indefinite future, Manning is forced to remove all his clothing and sleep naked in his cell, then required to endure what Coombs calls the "humiliation of standing naked at attention for the morning roll call"."

Does anybody remember Abu Gharib? Americans were prosecuted for making those prisoners strip. Maybe the difference was photographs, but I doubt the law recognizes that difference.

"According to Coombs, Manning made his off-the-cuff comment about the elastic in his waistband in order to protest against what he regards as the "absurd" restrictions he is already under. Coombs alleges that the military jailers tightened the terms of the POI rather than imposing a suicide watch order because they knew that prison psychiatrists would never approve it.The brig's psychiatric team has on several occasions indicated that they do not regard Manning as a mental health risk."

This punishment isn't designed to prevent suicide. It's designed to encourage it.

Reports of several recent police state abuses. This stuff happens every day. It's not rare. It's the norm.

I've always said that the most dangerous situation most Americans will ever find themselves in is a run-in with the police, and the FBI's UCR confirms this.

"According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting statistics, between January 2010 and September 2010, 31 kops per 100,000 committed homicide and 73 committed sexual assault. In comparison to 100,000 of the general population (this includes blacks, whites, Mexicans, gang members etc) only 5 citizens committed homicide and 29 committed sexual assaults."

That doesn't include all the murders and assaults police get away with which you read about every day.

WAR:

British special forces team captured by rebels in Libya. This is confirmation NATO is already operating in Libya. It's funny how they call it a diplomatic team.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The revolution in Egypt continues as protesters storm the headquarters of the secret police and demand its abolition. This is great news.

Exploding the latest neo-con fantasy that radical Muslims created the financial crisis in 2008 as part of a grand plan to wage war against the US economically.

"Whatever third-rate propagandist thought up this wacked-out “theory,” which is the post-9/11 version of the Protocols, he seriously misjudged the American people. Although I admire Mencken, I don’t believe his cynicism reflects reality: this blame-the-Arabs narrative is going nowhere, fast. For someone to suggest that a population living on $2 a day, on average, is somehow engaging in “economic warfare” against the US, and taking us down, is just bonkers: we are waging economic warfare against ourselves, and have been for quite some time. Our politicians have been waging that war, using the US Treasury as their arsenal – and everybody knows it."

I wouldn't bury this propaganda yet. When Glenn Beck starts preaching it, his followers will believe.

LOCAL:

If these people want to put solar panels up on their property, nobody has a right to use violence to stop them.

MISC:

Mises explains an import point lost on those who support central planning. The marketplace is not some unplanned, random institution. Human action is planned by individuals interacting with each other to improve their lives. So the question become is whether it's better for individuals to plan for themselves or for a handful of faceless bureaucrats plan for all of us. The answer is obvious.