Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

US home prices are in a double-dip recession, and so is the rest of the economy.

TAX AND SPEND:

The myth of efficient government service. Does anybody believe in efficient government services? Maybe stuff like police and roads.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Scientists discover natural climate variations in Greenland over the last 5,600 years. Climate changes naturally. Imagine that.

POLICE STATE:

I'm not impressed with Obama's supposed crackdown on abuses by local law enforcement.

WAR:

NATO calls for more money to stay in Afghanistan longer. I have a better idea. Let's get out of Afghanistan and abolish NATO.

Claims that the US Navy cluster-bombed Misrata then blamed Qaddafi. News crew films western forces on the ground in Libya.
"The westerners were seen by al-Jazeera on rebel lines late last week, days before British and French attack helicopters are due to join the Nato campaign. They are likely to be deployed on the outskirts of Misrata, from where pro-Gaddafi forces continue to shell rebel positions to the east.There have been numerous reports in the British press that SAS soldiers are acting as spotters in Libya to help Nato warplanes target pro-Gaddafi forces. In March, six special forces soldiers and two MI6 officers were detained by rebel fighters when they landed on an abortive mission to meet rebel leaders in Benghazi, in an embarrassing episode for the SAS.
The group was withdrawn soon afterwards and a new "liaison team" sent in its place. Asked for comment on Monday, a Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: "We don't have any forces out there.""
Oops. Somebody, or should I say everybody in the governments involved, got caught in a lie.

POLITICS:

Now police arrest an Egyptian banker for groping a hotel maid in New York. This is another sign of the horrific corruption of government because banks are basically owned by the government, and the most corrupt rise to the top because of it.

Rick Perry's Bilderberg connections.

MISC:

Senior citizens willing to risk cancer to clean up Fukushima power plant. I'm riveted by the stories of the Fukushima heroes.
""At this moment I can say that I am talking with many key government and Tepco people. But I am sorry I can't say any more at this moment. It is on the way but it is a very, very sensitive issue politically.""
There we go again. A clear solution to a problem: let these volunteers clean up the plant and pay them very well to insure the rest of their life is fantastic. But government is the obstacle because of politics.

Regarding WWII:
"Yet in “No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939-1945” (2007), the British historian Norman Davies begins from the premise that “the war effort of the Western powers” was “something of a sideshow.” America lost 143,000 soldiers in the fight against Germany, Davies points out, while the Soviet Union lost 11 million.And if the main show was a war between Hitler and Stalin, he wonders, wasn’t World War II a clash of nearly equivalent evils? “Anyone genuinely committed to freedom, justice and democracy is duty-bound to condemn both of the great totalitarian systems without fear or favor,” he concludes. As a historian of Poland, Davies is especially aware of what few Americans remember: that World War II began with a joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of that country. For the first two years of the war, Hitler and Stalin were allies; the fact that they then turned against each other, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, doesn’t change the moral equation. “If one finds two gangsters fighting each other, it is no valid approach at all to round on one and to lay off the other. The only valid test is whether or not they deserve the label of gangsters.”"
It's a mistake to look at war as just a numbers game. The people who died when the Nazis invaded France and in the Battle of Britain aren't inconsequential compared to the people who died in the Soviet Union and Poland.


Here's an example of economic illiteracy applied to futurism.
"First let us postulate that the computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do all things better than human beings can do them. In that case presumably all work will be done by vast, highly organized systems of machines and no human effort will be necessary."
The presumption that no human effort will be necessary is wrong. Creating machine intelligence greater than our own won't get rid of scarcity. It might greatly increase production, but people will always want more, and therefore there will always be work to do and wealth to create. Maybe everybody will want luxury yachts. Space yachts. That travel to the stars. Or other galaxies. People will always want more.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Lehman Brothers as a model for how to fix the economy: end government intervention and let the market correct.

WAR:

Islamic fundamentalists take over city in Yemen. US bomb strikes are making things worse there too.

POLITICS:

The Onion nails Congress on how it treats the Constitution.

MISC:

Ohio State coach Tressel resigns. The NCAA's oppression against students claims another victim because the students sold some of what they thought was their own memorabilia.

Here's a dire warning that the next generation of TVs will monitor us, but since most of us were brainwashed in government schools, we won't understand the danger until it hits us like a bolt of armored lightning. Government will use this feature to kill Americans. In a free society, people would have the opportunity to reject that feature or turn it off, but we don't live in a free society.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Free kibbles

GLOBAL WARMING:

Russia, Canada and Japan reject Kyoto. Good for those people.

"May snow depths are deeper than anything we have seen in the last 45 years"


Warmer temperatures prompt tree growth, leading to more CO2 being sequestered in trees. I'm sure this is true for all plants. CO2 is plant food. The more there is in the atmosphere, the more plants grow, and therefore the more CO2 they both store and break down into oxygen. It's another negative feedback mechanism.


"Study finds local temperature influences belief in global warming" Duh. This stuff is cracking me up. If most people don't see a change in temperature, year after year, then the globe isn't warming.

POLICE STATE:

A bunch of people arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial. All of these cops should be arrested for abrogation of rights under color of law and kidnapping. From a previous court case on dancing at the memorial:
"The federal lawyers wrote ““The Memorial is akin to a temple or a shrine (both in terms of its purpose and its physical characteristics), not a place of public expression.” They wrote “The Memorial is, has long been, and is intended to be a place of calm, tranquillity, and reverence—a place where visitors can go to celebrate and honor Jefferson and enjoy and contemplate the Memorial itself without the distraction of public demonstrations and other expressive activities.”"
It's nice to see government admit it considers itself a religion. It loves to play God.

WAR:

NATO air strike kills two women and twelve children.
"My house was bombarded in the middle of the night and my children were killed. The Taliban were far away from my home, why was my house bombed?"
More innocents killed. More Muslims who want to kill us in retaliation.

POLITICS:

Retired three term senator hired by Goldman Sachs so he can personally make more money in his new role within the ruling class. The ruling class isn't homogeneous, it's made up of individuals and it has factions, but you can't tell where the government ends and the corporations begin.

LOCAL:

Officers involved in pursuit that killed a sheriff's deputy had been previously reprimanded for pursuits.
"Lacon and Keene chased after the driver would not pull over. The chase, which at times exceeded more then 100 mph through Franklin, Springboro, Clearcreek, Wayne and Turtlecreek townships, ended tragically as Dulle was struck and killed after being hit by the Cadillac on U.S. 42 near Lebanon,"
That's a lot of people to endanger. What's worse...
"Whiteman said from preliminary indications, the pursuit was within the department’s guidelines. Cpt. Ross Coulton said the internal investigation of the chase is still ongoing and should be completed in the next couple of weeks."
Don't you love it when government agencies investigate themselves or even each other? As if the outcome is no pre-ordained? You would think it would be against guidelines to endanger so many people because it greatly increases the odds of injuring or killing somebody, but no. Police departments laugh at the motto "to protect and serve." Being a cop is about aggression - government aggression against the people and the personal aggression that encourages and rewards - and it often kills.

MISC:

It cracks me up when people are surprised to find out that the way our ancestors did things for hundreds of thousands of years is superior to the way modern people do them.
"“This information is a wake-up call,” says Susan Newman, a social psychologist, author, and parenting expert. “It may get mothers and fathers who are on a treadmill to stop and pay really close attention to their children and think, ‘Hey, putting my child on my lap or cuddling him is more important than looking at my BlackBerry or answering my email.’"
Shocker.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Free kibbles

REGULATION:

Farmer threatened with $4 million in fines for selling bunnies. You can't make this stuff up. This is what happens when you encroach on the business of the ruling class.

MEDIA:

USA Today says the Republican race is heating up, and this article focuses on Texas Governor Rick Perry.
"Last month, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, fresh off a turn as the chairman of theRepublican Governors Association, said he wouldn't make a White House bid; that unlocked many of the donors for Perry.It also opened the door for a sought-after Southern candidate.
While Gingrich is running his campaign from Georgia, he has lived near Washington for decades and is hardly the regional candidate Perry could be."
Opened the door for a southern candidate? It's funny to see this article ignore Ron Paul.

LOCAL:

This article shows just how oppressive our government has become.
"Task force spokesman Major John DiPietro said officers at the checkpoint, which moved around to seven different locations between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. Friday, stopped 1,332 vehicles.One arrest was made for an open container violation. One arrest was made for a narcotics violation."
Unbelievable. The old Soviets think the US government is oppressive.

MISC:

2011 deadliest year for tornadoes since 1950. Of course the country only had 150 million people in 1950.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Free kibbles

MISC:

I had no idea you could by ebooks this cheap. This cozy mystery is only $2.99 at Barnes and Noble. It's $2.99 at Amazon too. Here's Zoey Hathaway's blog.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Free kibbles

POLITICS:

I guess the British Royal Society is unhappy that President Obama snubbed them when they were trying to give him a medal. Obama visited a local school instead. I don't feel sorry for the ruling class scientists who were trying to use the US president to boost their prestige.  I don't care to see Obama or Cameron use students to boost their standing either, but I bet those kids got a real kick out of it, so I'm happy for them.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Many allegedly ordered to leave federal park because of Ron Paul bumper sticker.

STATES RIGHTS:

The feds threaten to shut down all flights into and out of Texas if the state government makes groping people before a flight illegal.
"On May 24, 2011, the Texas Senate read on the floor for the first time HB 1937, which bans the TSA and any other State or Federal Government official from using a “pat-down” without probable cause as a condition for entering an airplane or a public building.Earlier that Tuesday, the US Department of Justice delivered a letter to the Speaker of the House Joe Straus and Lt. Governor David Dewhurst threatening the State of Texas with legal action if they passed this bill:
If HR 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute. Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely berequired to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.
Let’s be absolutely clear here: the Federal Government just threatened to make Texas a no-fly zone if they can’t sexually assault us.
During the hearing, Senator Patrick, one of the Senate bill’s sponsors, defended HB 1937 and denounced the DOJ’s actions as threatening and insulting. Indeed, the Federal Government is not allowed to lobby for legislation in any state, yet here they are not only lobbying but threatening us! Finally, Patrick called this a “Come and Take It” moment in front of the entire Senate."
Sounds like a great speech, but...
"Yet despite his impassioned speech in support of the bill, Senator Patrick withdrew the bill from consideration that evening, not even allowing it to come to a vote."
Just like a politician. Maybe I should give him a break. Maybe his decision was strategic because he realized the bill would not pass at that time. In the mean time, you have the opportunity to send the Texas Senate an email on the subject.

TAX AND SPEND:

Thomas Sowell on the welfare and the poor.
"The poor have been used as human shields behind which the expanding welfare state can advance.The goal is not to keep the poor from starving but to create dependency, because dependency translates into votes for politicians who play Santa Claus.
We have all heard the old saying about how giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Independence makes for a healthier society, but dependency is what gets votes for politicians.
For politicians, giving a man a fish every day of his life is the way to keep getting his vote. "Entitlement" is just a fancy word for dependency."
Well said. But it's not just the politicians. The ruling class, banks, corporations, labor bosses and special interests, all make money off of welfare one way or another.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Media blaming global warming for tornadoes. Dog bites man.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans won't buy and all-electric car. They want gasoline backup. Part of this is cultural. The other part is the very real problem that if they run out of electricity, they're screwed, and there are few places to charge up.
"Such cars "are very much niche vehicles. They find acceptance among a core group of passionistas, but too many questions remain for mainstream consumers," says Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. He says consumers worry about range per charge, recharge time and battery replacement cost. Electrics also are priced thousands of dollars more than similar gasoline cars."
Those are big problems. If there was a general market for them, all those things could be overcome, but as gasoline cars become more efficient, which they will in response to rising gas prices, it's hard to see a general market for all-electric cars developing.

POLICE STATE:

British police scramble a helicopter and a riot van to hunt down boy who accidentally kicked his soccer ball through a greenhouse window.

Sheriffs and school administrators carry out armed intruder drill in school without informing students it was a drill.

MISC:

NASA understands that if it wants to shock and awe people with its white elephant riding a column of fire so it can continue receiving more stolen money, don't copyright the picture. From the linked article about copyright:
""The culture of the Internet is this concept of sharing everything. That things belong to us, not to a person," she said. "And they are surprised when someone says, 'You've taken this, it's mine.""
This has nothing to do with the culture of the internet and everything to do with human nature. Copyright is alien to people. People instinctively know that copying is not stealing. Sharing information is natural, communication is natural, and we all benefit from it. As with all government policies, copyright law is forcing something unnatural on us to our detriment.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Free kibbles

HEALTH CARE:

Thanks to socialized medicine in Britain, two patients died in ambulances waiting outside a hospital.

WAR:

Bipartisan group of senators introduce a resolution to support Obama's unconstitutional war in Libya. Who needs that anachronistic old piece of paper anyway?
"And Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) announced that he was introducing another resolution, this one demanding that Obama stop operations in Libya altogether."
I rarely agree with Kucinich, but good for him.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Free kibbles

REGULATION:

Feds expected to mandate all cars have black boxes. That'll depress new car sales and push up demand for used cars.

EDUCATION:

I often refer to our government school system as communist education. It seems I'm not the only one.
"It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody’s role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve: it more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."
That from the head of a teacher's union.

College students sign petition to ban talk radio while confirming they support free speech. That's what government schools produce.

HEALTH CARE:

Medicare's chief actuary explains how Obama double counts revenues to make his claim that Obamacare doesn't add to the deficit.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Shell to build floating oil refinery that displaces six times more water than an aircraft carrier.
"The ship will be moored at the Prelude gas field for 25 years where it is expected to produce the equivalent of 110,000 barrels of oil in gas a day."
I wonder if this is a bubble indicator like the skyscraper index. The thing is, the demand for oil really is outstripping supply and this ship addresses that problem.

WAR:

Evidence that somebody inside the bin Laden compound may been a mole for the US. If so, that mole should get the reward.

POLITICS:

Obama must fear Chris Christie because he's digging up dirt on him. Hopefully somebody will dig up some dirt on Obama this time.

Quote from Paul Ryan:
"I don't consult polls to tell me what my principles are or what our policies should be. Leaders change the polls."
As much as I distrust this guy, every day he makes it worse. Why would he be celebrated for saying the American people are too dumb to know their own minds and it's up to guys like him to manipulate them into thinking the right way? This from a sycophant who voted for every big spending program Bush wanted. What a bunch of elitist hogwash.

I'm impressed with how shameless Obama is in declaring Ireland his ancestral home. I wonder how many people think of Obama when they think of Ireland. This weirdo will grasp at anything to promote himself. If he thought it would get him money or votes, he'd promote himself as an Eskimo. Like Paul Ryan, no matter how little I think of Obama, he constantly comes up ways to make me think less of him.

MISC:

Japanese people are frustrated with the government's handling of the recovery from the tsunami. Central planning never works.

Identifying and resisting Marxist psychology.

More reports make this IMF chief sound like a monster.
"Strauss-Kahn also made passes at two separate female concierges during his 24-hour stay. When he checked in, he grabbed and massaged the hand of the concierge and invited her to his room. She declined. Later on that night, Strauss-Kahn called downstairs and invited a different female concierge up to his room. “Come upstairs, I’ve got a beautiful room, a great bottle of wine.” That employee also declined the Frenchman’s advances, sources said."
"Additionally, a room service employee cleared Strauss-Kahn’s room and found the room empty minutes before the maid entered. Investigators said they believe the man known as the “Great Seducer” may have intentionally hid from the room service employee, knowing that the maid would enter the room shortly after."
They're killing this guy in the press. But it may all be true.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Most people think politicians are stupid because government fails to provide decent services at a decent price. Those people don't understand the nature of government. If you think that government exists to provide efficient services to people, then you're a sucker. Once you realize that government exists for the sole purpose of looting the people on behalf of the ruling class, and it uses pseudo-services to fool us into allowing government to loot us, everything government does makes sense. Medicare is a perfect example.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

You can't turn on the TV without a show on how man-made global warming is going to cut off the Gulf of Mexico conveyor belt and plunge the world into a new ice age. Unfortunately for the frauds, it's not happening.

WAR:

Sometimes headlines are accidentally honest.
"Obama, Israelis are not willing to commit suicide"
Nope. They order others to die in their place. It's way less painful that way. You can't make this stuff up.

POLITICS:

Another establishment favorite, Mitch Daniels, chooses not to run. I wonder what the deal is. Are they all afraid to be called racists for attacking Obama's record? Obama's making me nostalgic for Jimmy Carter. The establishment recruits Paul Ryan, the most prominent, evil Republican in Congress. There's never been a Republican spending program he hasn't supported, but he's so slimy, he's convinced people he supports cutting spending. In the Republican field, he's a liar without par, and people believe him. No thank you.

MEDIA:

According to the press, the first black president is visiting his ancestral homeland in Ireland. I wasn't aware Ireland was the ancestral  home of black people. Either the press or I have made some mistake, or more likely Obama is trying to have it both ways. IMO, either Obama's homeland is Ireland or he's black. Not both. Nobody can have it both ways.

MISC:

Well known murderer who got away with it, Ray Lewis, claims that if the football season doesn't start on time, crime will increase. I take that as a threat that Lewis will kill more people if the owners don't let the players play. I've been a stanch supporter of the players in this situation because the owners have unilaterally cancelled the contract and locked the players out. This is a blatant money-grab by the owners. But for murderers like Lewis to make threats about committing crimes if the owners don't cave makes me sympathize with owners.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Free kibbles

FEDERAL RESERVE AND BANKING:

California passes a law protecting banks from innovative electronic money exchanges.

HEALTH CARE:

More and more mainstream media outlets are recognizing that the establishment's dietary guidelines and policies are making Americans fat and sick. I love the article comparing carbs to cocaine.

POLICE STATE:

TSA agents stage a bomb drill at airport but don't tell the cops it's staged. Luckily nobody got killed.

WAR:

Have ever noticed how every place NATO bombs is a command center? I think that's code for bombing whatever they want. Any place where two people talk could be a command center. Libyan government describes how NATO is creating a humanitarian crisis.

POLITICS:

The ruling class loves Mitt Romney.

Political protests in Spain miss the point: you have to take your power back from government, not tinker with the system.

MISC:

Home remedies for natural reflux.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Is anybody surprised that the culture at the IMF is one of abuse towards women? The same is true of Congress and US government bureaucracies. This is the dirty little secret of government that the press covers up for the benefit of the ruling class. This is a product of the inherent corruption and violence of government. Because government is violence - it forces others to bend to its will at the point of a gun - and it funds itself through theft, it attracts the worst people in the country. It rewards the most violent and the best liars and thieves. The worst of the worst rise to the top. These are not normal people. They're sickos. They're the kind of people who sexually assault others.


Welfare is always corrupting, and government attempts to change that just expand the government and the black markets, making things worse.


FEDERAL RESERVE:


Prediction that when the Fed ends QEII, a bust will occur. What could stop that is bank lending, which is starting to happen, fueling inflation.


LinkedIn's massive IPO raises concerns about a new dot.com bubble. No doubt.


EDUCATION:


If you send you kids to government schools, the government raises them as it wishes, not you.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama thanks Romney for helping pass Obamacare. He should be careful. Humor is fine, but Romney is probably the weakest Republican. He shouldn't run him out of the race. But like I said, I think a monkey could beat Obama with the declining economy we're suffering.

GLOBAL WARMING:

For a long time environmentalists have claimed the earth is experiencing a massive extinction event without backing it up with evidence. Now a skeptic challenges that claim.

The reason government banned phosphorous in household cleaners is supposedly because it harms the environment, but this industrial cleaner which contains several different kinds of phosphorous is considered biodegradable.

The polar bear population is not shrinking.

POLICE STATE:

Privacy resists the police state.
"Privacy is the single most effective means of preserving freedom against an encroaching state. Privacy rests on the assumption that — in the absence of specific evidence of wrongdoing — an individual has a right to shut his front door and tell other people (including the government) to mind their own damned business. This is a presumption of innocence. It is also the bedrock of civil society."
Like gun ownership, privacy is a product of sovereignty. They're stealing it fast.

Skeptics still wonder if the IMF chief was caught in a honey-trap.
"What great timing for Sarkozy! Just as a major "much anticipated" negative film is about to dominate the news about Sarkozy, Sarkozy's chief political opponent is caught in a major sex scandal that not only knocks him out of the race but results in knocking news about the Sarkozy negative film off the front pages in France.Sarkozy is one very, very lucky dude, or France's Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure is pretty damn good."
I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

WAR:

NATO escalates the war in Libya by sinking eight Libyan warships. Western forces have now extended this war for nearly two months, increasing the casualties by doing so. Before NATO intervened, Qaddafi had been targeting rebels. Afterwards, he began indiscriminately bombing their strongholds, producing more casualties. This war has nothing to do with humanitarianism.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Ron Paul's foreign policy on the Middle East. I'm tired of hearing about this president or that president's plan for Middle East peace. It's a crock. The ruling class always profits from war. War is the health of the state. War is a racket. That's why governments so often promote war. The US government promotes war. The Israeli government promotes war. The Palestinian government promotes war. The Arab nations around Israel promote war. The idea that the US government, the Israeli government and the Palestinian government are trying to achieve peace is a joke. The idea that adding a third party with a third set of interests to peace negotiations will aid in achieving peace is a joke. The Middle East peace process has never been about peace. It's always been about advancing the interests of the ruling classes in the US, Israel and surrounding nations.

Syrian troops shoot at protesters, killing at least 23.

POLITICS:

Gangster government.
"The essence of Gangster Government was summed by a comment President Barack Hussein Obama made in October, 2010:We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us."
I don't think this is new to Obama. He just took it to a new level. The next president will probably take even further.
"His contempt for the Republican opposition was summed up when the Democrat-in-Chief said: “They can come for the ride, but they have to sit in the back.“ So now, Jim Crow has also become a philosophical tenet of the Obama regime."
It not only showed his contempt, it was also priceless pandering to black voters.
"Published by Regnery in 2011, the book leaves no doubt that what we are dealing with in the White House is unprecedented corruption on a scale that can only be characterized as criminal in its violations of the U.S. Constitution, violations that have all of the earmarks of gangster activity."
Obama's is the most lawless presidency I've ever seen, but I didn't see LBJ's, FDR's, Wilson's or Lincoln's. Those guys were pretty lawless, so I'm skeptical of calling Obama the most lawless ever.

Any headline that reports "people defy ban" grabs my attention.
"MADRID (AP) — Tens of thousands of people are defying a pre-election ban on demonstrations and protesting unemployment in squares around Spain in defiance of an order to quit at midnight."
Every day we read a new story about people who are throwing off their parasitic governments. But I don't see them replacing them with free societies. Freedom is answer.

MISC:

Amazon now sells more ebooks than hardbacks and paperbacks combined.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Rep. Maxine Waters admits she wants to nationalize the oil companies.

TAX AND SPEND:

Rich people are moving their money overseas. Who can blame them?

REGULATION:

Small Business Administration reports that federal regulations cost $1.7 trillion 2008. I'm surprised that number isn't much higher.

EDUCATION:

If the internet can end snow days, maybe it should end all days locked up in government prisons for students.

Substitute teacher arrested for urinating in garbage can in class of fourth graders.

HEALTH CARE:

Report claims health care costs to rise 8.5 percent in 2012, exacerbated by Obamcare.

Nice to see this in the mainstream media:
"The legacy of the government's dietary guidelines may turn out to be a disturbing list of unintended consequences, including possibly the current obesity epidemic."
Let's hope this message grows and breaks the back of the corrupt government-corporate food and health care establishment. Mark Sisson explains the human body is designed to run on fat, not carbs. It's a crime, literally, that the establishment pushes a carb agenda. The reason I call it a crime is that corporations make more money off land that produces grains, therefore they have more money than meat and vegetable producers to buy our power from the politicians and bureaucrats, so the government uses our money and power to push a pro-grain, pro-carb agenda through its food-producing and health-care-providing agents that makes Americans obese and sick with multiple chronic diseases. It's all about using the power of government to line the pockets of politicians, bureaucrats and their corporate agents. That's why they stubbornly cling to that agenda despite all evidence to the contrary. This is an inevitable consequence of government control of our food supply and health care. It could not happen in a free market.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Boortz summarizes: "The Democrats plan to combat high gas prices is to "find less" oil and "tax more."" Exactly.

NOAA once again predicts a higher than normal hurricane year, just like they've done every year for years now. Like a broken clock, they're going to be right one of these times.

POLICE STATE:

The Onion nails TSA with this one. Bad language.

WAR:

It turns out the US government has been involved in a covert ground war in Lybia since February. Western powers fomented the phony Libyan revolution. It's not like the groundswell revolutions in neighboring countries. And we wonder why they hate us.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Obama to buy control of new middle eastern governments with money stolen from US taxpayers.
"Speaking in Washington, the president will attempt to reposition the US as a champion of the newly-emerging Arab democracies."
What a laugher. After nearly a century of propping up some of the worst dictators in the region, suddenly our government supports democracy? Now this is a vision for peace according to his sycophants. I guess he plans to bomb and bribe the Middle East into peace.

POLITICS:

It's interesting to see a member of the mainstream press entertain the idea that democracy is the enemy of prosperity in the long term.

MISC:

Don't the plaintiffs in this copyright case realize that if they win this battle, they'll lose the war?

Big Ten considers paying players. This would be a fabulous development. It would start a bidding war that would give star college players leverage to negotiate for a pseudo-market wage.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

I've been using the internet since it was created, and I've never had a problem other than a slow download. Businesses are amazingly adept at protecting themselves from threats. All the tools we need to protect our personal computers are available for free. Yet authoritarians like this guy keep calling for internet passports and IDs. This is a charade. It's about controlling speech, not protecting anybody from crime.

SOCIALISM:

GM, which is now owned by the US government and unions, socialist institutions both, sponsored a documentary celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party with our tax dollars.
"Presently, GM's business in China is selling more autos in the Asian country than in the United States. The Washington Post noted last week that China was GM's solution to help the car-maker recover from bankruptcy, so the company "is only expected to widen as an increasing number of Chinese grow rich enough to purchase their first car.”"
Peas in a pod.

TAX AND SPEND:

One way of looking at Geithner's plan to stop paying into the pension plans of government employees is that the government is seizing those pension plans. Another way of looking at is is government cut spending, and that's the way I prefer.
"Like I said, there are certain times in life where a person’s true nature comes shining through. The government is telling us here that, even when faced with insolvency, it will happily confiscate any source of capital it can, and then continue squandering it all on useless folly.It really leaves me wondering when people are going to wake up and say to themselves, “Enough is enough!”"
Not soon enough to avoid collapse.

REGULATION:

Australian town bans bottled water. Coming soon to a town near you.
"The tiny town, two hours south of Sydney, voted in July to ban bottled water after a drinks company moved to tap into a local aquifer for its bottled water business.
"In the process of the campaign against that the local people became educated about the environmental impact of bottled water," said Dee."
If they became so educated, why didn't people stop drinking bottled water voluntarily? This is a bunch of crap being pushed by petty tyrants.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Strong growth in the True (Austrian) Money Supply, and that means strong inflation.
"The U.S. money supply aggregates based on the Austrian definition of the money supply, what Austrians call the True Money Supply or TMS, saw robust growth in April, with narrow TMS1 posting an annualized rate of increase of 10.7% and broad TMS2 showing an annualized rate of increases of 16.5%.  That brought the annualized three-month rate of growth on TMS1 and TMS2 to 8.0% and 13.7% respectively, up 270 and 390 basis points from the growth rates seen in March."
Worse,
"Second, and far more important, the private banking system will by June’s end be sitting on somewhere between $1.6 and $1.7 trillion in excess reserves, meaning the fuel for the banking system to expand the money supply is in a word explosive.  Indeed, at a reserve requirement ratio of 10% (the most restrictive reserve requirement ratio currently imposed by the Federal Reserve on private banks) the private banking system – if it be willing to lend, or if it can’t find willing/able borrowers at the very least be willing to buy existing securities – is in a position to expand the money supply by a massive $17 trillion.  On a TMS2 metric that as of April 2011 stood at $7.6 trillion, we are theoretically looking at a money supply some 3.2 times higher than today."
This is going to hurt.

HEALTH CARE:

Claim that drug companies are ignoring a potential cancer-fighting drug because it can't be patented.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

New light bulbs designed to replace incandescents to cost $50 per bulb. Will banning the light bulb be the straw that broke the camel's back?

IPCC agrees to disclose conflicts of interest. So what? That doesn't get rid of them.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Supreme Court allows police to search homes for drugs without a warrant. All they have to do is claim they heard something. What this means is practice is police will enter any home they want without a warrant on the pretext they heard somebody destroying drug evidence. In court, judges will rubber stamp whatever the cops say the same way they always do regardless of how absurd it is. The Fourth Amendment is dead, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

POLICE STATE:

Accusations the government jury-rigged its experimental set-up for the nude scanners to produce phony data making them appear safe. The government lie and cover it up? Say it isn't so.

Everything we do is a crime.
"Raising prices is “gouging”.Lowering prices is “predation”.
Keeping them the same is “collusion”."
We can't win.

WAR:

US government preserving smallpox just in case it needs it for biological warfare.

Congressman attempts to make the war on terror legal by authorizing the president to attack anybody in the world he deems a terrorist forever. No thanks.

Pakistani forces and a US helicopter exchange fire in western Pakistan. Another cold war is turning hot. Funny how this isn't huge news.

Fears that the Chinese might reverse engineer stealth technology from the helicopter which crashed in bin Laden's compound.

POLITICS:

Newt is still apologizing for his stupid remarks immediately after announcing his candidacy. He ended his run before it even began. What a moron.

Texas Governor Rick Perry is "waiting to be summoned into the race". I just kind of threw up in my mouth a little. This is what passes for a down to earth guy in the ruling class.

MISC:

Robots invent language.

The atmosphere heated right before the Japanese earthquake. But it happened under water.

Calls for major changes in flood control.
"With millions of acres of land underwater, the groups say the flood of 2011 illustrates the limitations and possible harm of the government's decades-long effort to control the largest river system in North America. They say the rivers should be allowed to run more freely."
You mean the government should stop playing god and allow individuals to deal with nature in a way that suits their personal interests and the interests of their families instead of government agents destroying their lives and livelihoods and pretending it's an agonizing decision? What a novel concept. There should be a word for that. Freedom? Liberty? I guess in today's world, those words don't mean much. As long as we vote for people to solve our problems, the government is going to be controlled by little people with god complexes, and they'll keep destroying our country and our lives.

Interesting take on the wisdom of crowds as applied to people.
"Social influence 'diminishes the diversity of the crowd without improvements of its collective error.' In short, crowd intelligence only works in cases where the opinion of others is hidden."
Free markets are the expression of the wisdom of crowds in human society.

These people don't want vehicle to vehicle communication to make us safer. They want it to track and control our vehicles.

Social networking enables people to charter flights like a rich person at the price of commercial. This is genius. You know the government will stop this. Government left general aviation alone when it was for only upper middle class and rich people.

This chart shows why artists love releasing music on the web and why record companies don't.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Wisconsin union thugs threats against legislators released.

ECONOMY:

Once again the self-proclaimed experts are surprised by the economy. This time it's by the low housing starts. To paraphrase from The Princess Bride, I don't think the word expert means what they think it means.

Buying local only makes sense if local producers provide greater value.

The job market for college graduates is abysmal.

The Dayton Daily News has figured out what many of us have long been explaining: when you pay people to not work, they won't work except for significantly more money.
"The high cost of going to work has led some displaced Ohio workers to choose not to, instead relying on their weekly unemployment benefits, which can pay more than many of the jobs available to them."
Nice to see it reported in the mainstream media.

TAX AND SPEND:

Study confirms what Austrian economists knew all along about Obama's stimulus boondoggle:
"Our benchmark results suggest that the ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs. State and local government jobs were saved because ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than boost private sector employment. The majority of destroyed/forestalled jobs were in growth industries including health, education, professional and business services."
1,000,000 / 450,000 = 2.2 productive private sector jobs destroyed for each parasitic political economy created. This is the exact same number revealed by the study of government creation of green jobs in Spain. Two data points are not many, but I wouldn't be surprised to find this ratio is pretty universal for the creation of political economy jobs.

Ron Paul wants to sell the government's gold to pay off government debts and put it back in the hands of the people. I'd rather repudiate the debt instead paying back those who aided the government in its campaign of oppression and violence against us and use the gold to replace fiat money.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Boortz writes:
"Why are gas prices sky-high?  A new study points to two reasons: the weakening dollar and the Federal Reserve."
That's one reason. What's the second?

Now that the Zimbabwean central bank has destroyed its currency, the bank chief calls for a return to the gold standard. So even Zimbabwean government makes more sense than ours.

China to open gold exchange in Hong Kong. Prediction that China will be the new great enemy like the Soviets then bin Laden. We could win with the Soviets, and we did. But we can't win the war on terror by fighting a hot war. And we can't fight a hot war with China, nor can we win an economic war with them. The only way to win the war on terror and to keep the Chinese from surpassing us is to dramatically reduce the size and scope of government at the federal, state and local levels and engage in peaceful, mutually beneficial exchange domestically and with all countries.

EDUCATION:

Report claims 85 percent of college grads are moving back home, and they have on average $22,900 worth of debt. That's what the government monopoly on schools has done to our students.

HEALTH CARE:

The US pharmaceutical system exists to restrict access to drugs and drive up their price.
"Vast amounts of those drugs that people should be permitted to purchase of their own free will are withheld from the market. Instead, people who know what they need are forced first to fork over to a physician — who then gets overpaid by insurance — then part of the buck is passed to the overtrained checkout clerks at the pharmacy. We are all treated like babies in order to sustain and fund an industry filled with bamboozlers in white coats.The commercial Internet in its early days (perhaps 1998 to 2008) represented a wonderful alternative to this apparatus. Suppliers all over the world popped up to give us what we want, bypassing the whole cage of government regulations and private monopolists who rule them like prison wardens. You know what you need, so just click and buy it!
So the pharmaceutical industry solicited the help of government. Together, they worked to crack down on "counterfeit" medicines — meaning the real thing that bypasses patent restrictions and supplier monopolies. In their view, people must not be allowed to get prescription medications without doctor approval — or else an entire fake industry could collapse. So they bandied together and instituted a medieval guild system for the digital age."
What a great description.
"Over the years, Google has accepted some advertising from some of these so-called rogue elements. In a free market, they would be perfectly legitimate advertisers. Google makes no guarantee of the exact nature of the goods and services of all those who choose to advertise on its network. It has some degree of interest in quality control, of course, but if the customers are buying and happy, what could be the problem?Well, the medical cartel, of course, and it asked for the Justice Department to intervene. As of this writing, Google is assuming that it is going to be in hot water very soon. Its recent report to stockholders says that it has put half a billion dollars in escrow to deal with the Justice Department investigation. The presumption here is that Google is going to be held liable for permitting ads to run from market-based drug sellers."
This is another excellent reminder that the government exists to steal from the people and enrich the ruling class. Nobody can make the case that restricting access to drugs and driving up their price makes us healthier.
"People commonly blame the markets for all this spam, but they really should have been fingering the government for having created the black and grey markets for these drugs in the first place! This is what creates the incentives to dump trillions of unsolicited emails on the world. The spammers knew that their product was valued, but without normal markets they resorted to globalized promotions.In fact, this is why Congress made spam illegal. The antispam law had absolutely nothing to do with keeping your inbox clean. It was all about protecting the medical monopoly against competition."
Interesting.

Medicare trustees are skeptical Obamacare will reduce medical costs. Those are government agents, and they're not towing the line. That tells us Obamacare is going to increase costs. A lot.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Another fraud busted.
"Professor Kennedy said that the doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the past 50 years is “like hitting our ecosystem with a sledge-hammer”"
Reality? There's only been a 27 percent increase in the last 50 years. The only reason the frauds lie so egregiously is they know they can get away with it.

Because of high property taxes, solar plant losing money. This is central planning in action.

Yet another study provides evidence that cosmic rays promote cloud cover, and when the sun is inactive, blocking fewer cosmic rays, more clouds form.

WAR:

Obama's Osama bump is gone according to Gallup. I told he'd have been better off capturing him and trotting him out every now and then to boost his ratings. He could have scheduled his military tribunal for next August, executed him in September, stolen all the press coverage from the Republican nominee, and taken a big boost into November. He's not even a smart politician, just a crook, preferring convenient assassinations to embracing the rule of law to his political advantage.

Rothbard's libertarian theory of war seems to be cut and dry, but only because it avoids addressing many important questions. For example, what about people who provide food, shelter and supplies for the aggressor? Seems to me they become legitimate targets in war. But what if those people have kids? If the kids voluntarily supply the aggressor, are they legitimate targets? Or are they just obeying their parents? Surely young kids can't be held responsible. I used to think populations were responsible for the actions of their governments, especially in a democracy, and could be held responsible for its actions since they support their government. I believe that belief is common and is used to justify civilian casualties in war. I thought that was cut and dry. Now I realize the people in general are the victims of their own government, usually unknowing or accepting victims but they still support the government. They still feed, shelter and supply the government aggressors despite having the power to remove that government at any time. There's nothing cut and dry about this.

FOREIGN POLICY:

French politics is drowning in corruption, just like everywhere else. The rape charge against this French IMF chief is sounding more and more like another conquest by a serial sex offender.
"DSK's political allies are howling entrapment. Yet his rap sheet is long. Called the Great Seducer, he was charged with the sexual harassment of a co-worker at the IMF and accused by a young French novelist of behaving like a "rutting chimpanzee" and trying to rape her when she contacted him about a book she was writing in 2002."
It could still be a honey-trap, but it sounds like this is a bad man.
"What is this satyr doing running the IMF? How was a man of his Eurotrash reputation approved by the United States government? Such conduct may be pooh-poohed over the pond, but has our country dropped that low?"
Not our country. Our government. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our government is the most powerful institution in history and is therefore the most corrupt institution in history.
"As is not infrequently the case, Rep. Ron Paul nails it: "These are the kind of people running the IMF, and we want to turn the world's finances and the control of the money supply (over) to them?""
These are also the kind of people running the US government, sitting in Congress and sitting on the Supreme Court. And we want to turn the country over to them? Does nobody remember Ted Kennedy? Here's my email to Buchanan.
"Why are you so surprised to discover that the powerful IMF head is a serial sex offender? Power corrupts. Because government is violence and funded by theft, the worst people in the world turn to politics. The worst of the worst rise to the top. Every top politician is a crook who should be disqualified from office.
Forget the IMF. The US executive branch, Congress and the Supreme Court are packed with psychopaths and sociopaths like DSK."
I've long contended that our instinct to support government flows from our instinct to support family. The original governments were family clans, and our instincts fool us into thinking the politicians we elect have our best interests at heart as if they were family. That's why Americans always greatly disapprove of Congress, and they think all politicians are liars and crooks except for their own representative, whom they consider a good person and reelect 94 percent of the time. This is one instinct we have to overcome with reason. Fortunately, the evidence eventually becomes so strong that that happens, and we started seeing Americans kicking incumbents out of office in the primaries in 2010. But it's too little, too late. Our government is going to collapse and take us all with it.

POLITICS:

Remember how ACORN was disbanding? Not so much. Those Marxists are gearing up to try and steal the 2012 election, and they're undoubtedly still funded by our tax dollars.

LOCAL:

City to cut $10 million from budget including jobs. That's better than raising taxes, but they should cut more spending and cut taxes.
"Personnel costs account for 68 percent ($105 million) of the city’s $154 million general fund expenditures. There are about 1,200 city workers funded by the general fund."
That's an average salary of $87,500. It's good to be in the parasitic political economy.

Dayton government schools to cut $9 million including 139 teachers. I bet they cut very few bureaucrats. Local news says only eleven administrators will be cut.

MISC:

Binge drinking correlated with memory loss in college students. It's good to know older people are... what's the word I'm looking for?

Do we really need to give every light bulb an IP address? Really? Don't get me wrong. I've long thought I should be able to control every electric appliance in my house, including lights, from my computer. But giving them all IP addresses seems like using a sledgehammer to kill an ant.

What Bieber's rise to stardom tells us about the technological revolution and its effect on society.
"It turns out that this kid is incredibly talented, wholly deserving of his fame and fortune. And the story of his meteoric rise to the top — from first song release to megastar bestriding the globe as a colossus in little more than one year — is really a story of how digital media has, as never before, put the star-making power squarely and directly in the hands of listeners."
Power to the people comes from getting around government and its corporate agents.

Obama ends supposed program that made immigrants from Muslim countries register with the federal government. But all immigrants have to register with the federal government. Immigrants must have federal permission and papers to come to the US. They must have taken additional information from them.

I love this quote:
"A Texas county attorney has described the federal government in a way that is both insightful and destined for greatness. He said, "That bunch has a real corner on stupid."Tom Edwards was talking about the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Explosives, regarding a fire ATF agents accidentally set in Motley County, Texas, practicing detonations in an area locally designated no-burn. The county attorney is now helping Texans whose property was destroyed to apply for damages from the federal government."
Greatness indeed.