Free kibbles

REGULATION:

Plethora of "get milk" patents illustrates that our patent system, because it's based on coercion, has entered the theater of the absurd.

HEALTH CARE:

Obamacare's chief legal advocate, not Supreme Court justice, refuses to recuse herself from case. It's funny how Democrats try to pretend Thomas has a conflict because his wife opposed the law. By that standard, every conservative would have to recuse themselves. But never Democrats.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Police and soldiers burn protester's tents in Cairo. Remember when Egyptians celebrated the military? How's that process of installing a new coercive government to replace the old coercive government working out for Egyptians? Do you think Obama will send in troops?

POLICE STATE:

This initial report makes it sound like the cops busted a real, potential terrorist, not just their usual patsy. But that's what first reports always do. But there is one important piece of information that is perfectly believable:

""The suspect was a so-called lone wolf, motivated by his own resentment of the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan," Bloomberg said at a news conference. "He was not part of a larger conspiracy emanating from abroad.""

More evidence the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan make us less safe. All these patsies and would-be terrorists say the same thing. Get our troops out of there so the wars will stop radicalizing people to attack us.

POLITICS:

I agree with this assessment that Ron Paul handled a hostile interview very well. It's one his best interviews that I've seen. It's funny how liberal media guy Bob Schieffer is obviously a supporter of aggressive foreign policy for which the press usually blames Republicans. More on the hostility:

"Bob Schlieffer promised Ron 2o minutes on Face the Nation, but cut him off after 10, because he was demolishing that establishment shill. Catch Schlieffer's smirk. Also, there was a loud buzzing from Ron's earpiece during the entire interview. Deliberate? Who knows, but the flaw had been pointed out again and again 15 minutes before airtime. BTW, Ron and Schlieffer are the same age. One is vibrant, youthful, on top of his game. The other is not.And speaking of media bias, at the Christian right forum yesterday in Iowa, all the candidates were positioned so they looked directly into the camera. Ron, alone, was placed so only his profile showed."

If they can't ignore him, they'll attack him. Here's another theory of why the media ignores Ron Paul: he makes them look like stupid, old, tired shills for the state, the way Paul made Schieffer look today. As I pointed out above:

"Schieffer's knee-jerk defense of the Beltway consensus on Iran tells you all you need to know about the Beltway crowd. There really is no difference between the parties when it comes to the embrace of the liberal internationalist approach to foreign policy."

This is an important point. People who believe in government control of domestic society through force also believe in government control of foreign societies by force. There's no such thing as a non-interventionist at home who intervenes abroad or vice-versa. It's a matter of character. Either a person believes that government should in the affairs of people, in which case he supports that intervention both at home and abroad, or he believes government should not intervene in the affairs of people, in which case he resists intervention at both home and abroad. This is a hard concept for conservatives to understand because they think they believe in non-intervention at home but in violent intervention abroad. But they don't. No conservative wants to end the war on drugs. Conservatives haven't wanted to abolish the Department of Education since Reagan claimed to then didn't do it. They all claim that some, whatever some means, regulation of the economy is necessary. Conservatives want massive intervention at home and abroad, they just won't admit it to themselves.

Ron Paul could win California, which would go a long way toward him winning the nomination. Let's hope.

It looks the Spaniards have ousted the socialists. Let's hope Americans are as smart in 2012.

"State television TVE gave Rajoy's party between 181 and 185 deputies in the 350-seat lower chamber. The socialists, meanwhile, were on target for one of their worst defeats ever with between just 115 and 119 seats."

That's an improvement, but don't expect conservatives to be much better.

Spanish civil servant pithily sums up politics and government:

"'We can choose the sauce they will cook us in, but we're still going to be cooked."

That's what voting for the lesser of two evils gets you. For all those dumb people who think they have to vote for the Republican to beat Obama - I guarantee they used that same argument to vote for every Republican ever - that's baloney. If 20 percent of voters voted Libertarian and Obama won a plurality, he'd be paralyzed. His socialist agenda would be stopped in its tracks because both parties would be forced to pander to libertarians. On the other hand, if Obama beats the Republican by 51 - 49 , he will advance his socialist agenda. In addition, if the Republican wins by any margin, the Republicans will advance their socialist agenda. If you're against socialism, there's only one way you can vote to stop it: vote Libertarian.

MISC:

This is a really interesting point:

"With at least 12 compulsory years in public schools, one would think that most of the twenty-something Wall Street protesters would have some understanding of capitalism, its actual history, and its accomplishments. Well, maybe not. One can only wonder what passes for economic education these days."

I had no economic education in high school, and my history class was a history of governments, not people or societies. It really never struck me before how biased that perspective was. The problem is this guy, and so many others, either fails to understand the partnership between corporations and government or intentionally whitewashes them. For example:

"Corporations such as Apple and Wal-Mart and Allstate are all large organizations that compete in an open market with other businesses (large and small) for the favor of consumers. Their overall success depends not on any government grant of "power" but solely on their internal efficiency and their ability to convince consumers to purchase their products and services every hour of every day; if they fail, they get smaller, and their employees and investors suffer."

Bull****. Apple at least has thousands of patents that prevent all a but a few gigantic corporations from competing with it. If you don't believe me, build your own iPhone and see what happens to you. Allstate agents work with government agents to write regulations that prevent competition from all a but a few gigantic corporations from competing with it. I'm not aware of any comparable, huge government intervention in retail that Walmart lobbies for and exploits, but I'm sure there's some. Corporations are like government agencies. Their agents and government's agents team up to benefit both at the expense of the rest of us so thoroughly you can't tell where the government ends and the corporation begins. Anybody who minimizes the impact of the corporate partnerships with government is ignorant or dishonest.