Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Companies are feeling the heat and are pulling support for SOPA.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

More evidence that the Medieval Warming Period was warmer than today.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iran once again offers to negotiate on its nuclear program. It has offered that many times, but they always fail because western governments never acknowledge the Iranian people have a right to nuclear power.

POLITICS:

This headline shows what we've done to ourselves.

"In 2012, Obama to press on without Congress"

Over the decades, voters have created an imperial presidency, and Obama is taking advantage of it.

Somebody's poll, I don't know whose, says that Santorum has surpassed Ron Paul in Iowa to put him second behind Romney. I hope this is wrong. We've suffered many flavors of the week during the preliminary contests. From Bachmann to Perry to Cain to Gingrich, voters have flipped from one to the other until they realized who they were supporting. During all this protest drama, Ron Paul has been slowly and steadily gaining supporters. I hope Iowa caucus goers won't fall for the next flavor of the week by supporting Santorum, but they might. Ron Paul, for all his polling and internet victories, has never shown he can win an election outside his district. Prove it to me. I root for Ron Paul every election. I've disappointed every election. Prove to me you win. Win Iowa.

LOCAL:

What kind of weirdos would publish an article that pretended there was a beach along I-70. Hello. Indianapolis to Dayton to Columbus is landlocked. Not to denigrate anybody's death, but this charade is outrageous.

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FASCISM:

How socialism, in the form of fascism, created Norway's butter shortage.

REGULATION:

If demand for butter is rising in Sweden, but production is dropping, the only reason can be government intervention in the market. Otherwise production would increase to supply the increase in demand.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Comparing the dollar to the Roman denarius.

The Chinese government bans gold exchanges for commoners because the Chinese were buying gold to protect themselves from high inflation. Don't be surprised if the US follows suit shortly.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Arab observers find little evidence for the Syrian violence being reported in western papers.

POLICE STATE:

Oath Takers organizing recall elections for every member of Congress who voted for the indefinite detention of American. How political economy insiders pushed for indefinite detention of Americans. The people of Montana organize recalls of both senators for voting for this law.

POLITICS:

Side by side comparison of the top donors for Romney and Ron Paul.

The bankers love Romney, while the Air Force, Army and Navy love Ron Paul.

MEDIA:

Media busted for claiming evangelicals have rejected Ron Paul when in fact he's polling second among evangelicals in Iowa.

MEDIA:

The ruling class has benefited tremendously from 9/11.

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TAX AND SPEND:

Do you think our environment influences the decisions we make? Thanks to your tax dollars, scientists have discovered that's true. Sometime's it's impossible to illustrate the stupidity of tax dollars spent on so-called science.

REGULATION:

Ebert offers some insight into why the movie industry is declining:

""According to Ebert movie piracy isn't the problem. He contends that the industry needs to lower prices on tickets and popcorn, keep people off their cell phones, show a wider variety of films, and understand that movie streaming is here to stay. From the article: 'The message I get is that Americans love the movies as much as ever. It's the theaters that are losing their charm. Proof: theaters thrive that police their audiences, show a variety of titles and emphasize value-added features. The rest of the industry can't depend forever on blockbusters to bail it out.'""

In other words: end copyright, and the movie industry will boom.

Every now and then the news just gives you gift you couldn't imagine. In this case, LA city government is considering requiring male porn stars to wear condoms.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The euro problems are affecting oil prices. This probably explains the volatility we've seen in gas prices since before Thanksgiving.

HEALTH CARE:

I'm skeptical that the Swiss health care system works because of socialism.

"Politics is the art of the possible [thorught force]"

What behavior modification isn't possible through force? I kind of threw up in my mouth reading this article. Must research more.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Let's see if the global warming frauds who always correctly say, "Weather is not climate" when it's unseasonably cold make a big deal out of this record high temperature at the south pole. Weather is not climate whether it's unseasonably hot or cold.

POLICE STATE:

I don't remember for how many years, or more accurately decades, I've explained to people that cops are uniformed tax collectors, but I'm always happy when somebody else realizes it.

"Many of us have come to view traffic cops as little better than armed tax collectors deployed to fleece motorists for the benefit of state/local government."

Welcome to the bandwagon.

POLITICS:

No national politician other than Ron Paul talks about such powerful principles of freedom, and none other than Ron Paul back up that talk with their actions. Apparently the Ron Paul PAC put out an add focusing on a black guy whose wife was having problems birthing a baby in the 1970s. At that time, because his wife was white, he couldn't get anybody to help him. As the story goes, Ron Paul came and aided his wife. His child was stillborn, and Dr. Paul picked up the bill. How many times have we heard that we should be skeptical of anything that sounds too good to be true. Ron Paul reacts. I'm skeptical. I hope with all my brain that this story is true and Ron Paul had nothing to do with it. But I'm skeptical.

I don't believe that Ron Paul's breakfast of champions is in the least bit lonely. There's nothing more important than alone time. I love this line:

"Asked if he's concerned that if he doesn't win his followers will not rally behind the GOP nominee, he looks up from his plate of cantaloupe, honeydew, eggs, sausage and biscuit and says brusquely, "Right now, the only thing that bothers me is people who don't respect my privacy enough to leave me alone for five minutes when I'm eating breakfast." And then he goes back to reading his USA Today.
Charming. (By the way, if this were to happen to Romney, which it wouldn't, a SWAT team would immediately surround the reporter to oversee damage control.)"

I'm always amazed that conservatives even consider somebody other than Paul for the nomination. I must have a different definition of conservative than most conservatives have for themselves.

Gary Johnson endorses Ron Paul. That might win him a handful of votes, and handful of votes in Iowa might matter.

Iowa Republican bigwigs to move the caucus counting operation to an "undisclosed location" to hide the vote totaling from the people. Ostensibly they're afraid somebody (Paul supporters) will corrupt the vote count. In fact, this must be done to enable them to corrupt the vote count in favor of the establishment. Come on. How could anybody corrupt an individual caucus vote count when every participant can see the count? The only way to corrupt it is to hide the totaling of the counts. Paul supporters can't do that. Only the establishment can. This is a plan by the Republican establishment to steal the Iowa caucuses from Ron Paul.

Every now and then I stumble across the most simple yet poignant things on the internet. Like this:

MISC:

This Calvin and Hobbes cartoon shows so much of what is wrong with modern journalism and academia, it isn't funny.

Rethinking the Articles of Confederation by Mises scholar.

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ECONOMY:

China surpasses US in IPOs. That's because China is more economically free than the US.

TAX AND SPEND:

FEMA is suing Katrina victims to recover money it spent improperly. Only the government could mess up a hurricane.

Thanks to Republicans, Obama will raise the debt ceiling again. And again. And again, forever and ever until we're all reduced to hunting and gathering for a living.

"Under the agreement struck in August during the showdown over the government's debt limit, the cap is automatically raised unless Congress votes to block the debt-ceiling extension. Lawmakers have 15 days within receiving the request to vote, which is largely symbolic because the president can veto it and Congress would be unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority to override it. Moreover, the U.S. House of Representatives also is in recess until January 17."

Remember when Republicans, after being voted into power in 2010 in unprecedented numbers to stop spending its tracks, gave Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling on his own authority? Could there be any more obvious a sign that Republicans are partners with Democrats in looting the American people? How many times are Republicans going to stab taxpayers in the back before voters quit voting for them?

REGULATION:

Bad regulations is redundant.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

I'm skeptical that Congress really ended the corn ethanol subsidy.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Great comparison of cannabis and Coca-Cola.

WAR:

The US government warns the Iranian government that it's not allowed to respond to US aggression. The US is orchestrating this to start a war with Iran.

POLITICS:

Santorum rising to challenge Romney and Paul in Iowa.

Gingrich says he would vote for Obama before Ron Paul. Gingrich is admitting he's more closely aligned ideologically to Obama than conservatives which is exactly what his record shows. Apparently Newt didn't get the memo that conservatives want anybody but Obama. It looks Gingrich is already collapsing. That statement will likely end his chance to win.

Tea partiers unhappy with freshmen they elected were fooling themselves.

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ECONOMY:

Sears is shutting down over 100 Sears and K-Mart stores. Here's an interesting comment:

"Sears Holdings said the declining sales, ongoing pressure on profit margins and rising expenses pulled its adjusted earnings lower. The company predicts fourth-quarter adjusted earnings will be less than half the $933m it reported for the same quarter last year.Sears Holdings also anticipates a non-cash charge of $1.6bn to $1.8bn in the quarter to write off the value of carried-over tax deductions it now doesn't expect to be profitable enough to use."

Corporations get tax deductions for greater profit? The article hints that this is a sign of America's disappearing middle class.

"The company has seen rival department stores like Macy's Inc and discounters like Target Corp continue to steal customers. It's also contending with a stronger Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, which has hammered hard its low-price message and brought back services like layaway, which allows financially stressed shoppers to finance their holiday purchases by paying a little at a time.The tough economy hasn't helped, either. Middle-income shoppers, the company's core customers, have seen their wages fail to keep up with higher costs for household basics like food."

The rich have their stores. The poor go to cheaper stores. The middle is getting squeezed out by government looting.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Obama keeps the revolving door between the Treasury, the Fed and the Ivy League going by appointing former Treasury official and Harvard professor to the Fed.

Pretty decent explanation of how inflation steals money from savers.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Study discovers that animals adapt to climate change. You can bet taxpayers funded this study.

In a climategate 2 email, BBC journalists ask climate fraud what the BBC should be doing in its programming to promote the fraud. This shows how closely the leftist press is tied to the pseudo-scientists.

POLICE STATE:

Congress expanding TSA VIPR teams to stop traffic on highways and wherever else they choose. We should abolish this abominable organization ASAP.

WAR:

Now western countries are threatening sanctions against Iran's oil exports. You know how the talking heads are always telling us that we have to control the Middle East in order to make sure we get our oil? That's a load of crap. Middle Eastern countries get all their money from oil. They won't stop exporting because they would go broke and suffer a revolution pretty much immediately. The real threat to Middle Eastern oil exports is western governments. Western government always like to force the other guy to shoot first. That's been true since Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shot of the Civil War. This move can only be designed to provoke Iran into a shooting war.

POLITICS:

Gingrich agents blast liberal Republican establishment. That's a hoot coming from a man who co-sponsored over 400 bills with Nancy Pelosi and worked with her to promote the global warming fraud.

LOCAL:

Corruption by local section 8 administrators. That's SOP for government officials.

MISC:

Why the Soviet Union collapsed.

"Contrary to western myth, the Soviet Union was not brought down by President Ronald Reagan’s arms buildup, though Moscow’s ruinous military overspending played an important role.The principal reason was economic: failure to modernize industry and farming. In 1975, Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov had warned the Kremlin the economy faced collapse in 15 years unless modernized. His prediction was amazingly accurate."

If Americans had kept our government small, it would have collapsed much sooner. This article praises Gorbachev for not using force.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The Chinese government is creating a parallel virtual world in which the participants of social media seem to be interacting in the usual facebook and twitter world, but in fact they are operating in a replica that prevents criticism of the government.

THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Neither natural rights nor the second amendment requires Microsoft to allow users of its services to access virtual weapons. That's a matter of property rights. But let's turn this around. Do natural rights and the second amendment protect the right of the people to virtual, i.e. hacking, weapons? This is an interesting question because hacking tools are more like tools for breaking and entering. But there's also a roll for using those tools in self-defense.

REGULATION:

Regulations make it more profitable for both employers and workers to work on a contract basis instead of employers hiring workers as employees. A new business would be foolish to hire employees.

POLICE STATE:

Police coerce false confessions. Duh. The crazy thing exposed in this article is that the ex-cop seems surprised.

"Trainum says he and his fellow investigators repeatedly ignored evidence that pointed away from the suspect who confessed."It's like you're on this speeding train going down the track and it's extremely difficult to get that train to stop," Trainum says. "While you're on that train, you might be getting other leads coming in, other clues about the killer, but because we're so fixated on the suspect, often times those clues go undocumented.""

I love this rationalization of the standard mentality of cops.

" "When the police officer enters the interrogation room, they've already presumed that the suspect is guilty based on evidence that has been gathered in the course of the investigation. Often times, it's based on little more than a hunch," Drizin says. "

Imagine that. It's like they're overly aggressive human beings amped up on steroids or something.

WAR:

The Iraqi government is under duress and might fall. A couple of years ago I would looked at this as proof that US troops should have stayed in Iraq. Now I see it as proof that the US government was controlling a proxy government in Iraq through force. That means that no matter how long the US troops stayed there and promoted that government through violence, it was doomed to collapse when our troops left and that Iraqis will hate us more because our government used violence against them than if we had left well enough along.

POLITICS:

I agree that Ron Paul's support has reached a point where slanderous attacks on him work in his favor.

Gingrich calls out Romney for being a moderate and calling himself a progressive. Which is it? Is he moderate or progressive? I believe Romney when he says he's a progressive because that's what his record proves. This is good for Ron Paul.

MISC:

Anti-whaling group tracks whaling ship with drone.

Criticism of George Washington for transforming the liberty-minded American army into the European model.

The difference between society and the state.

Entrepreneurship in Vegas.

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REGULATION:

Godaddy loses control of 21,000 domains most like over its support for SOPA.

HEALTH CARE:

I'm happy to see that understanding of the importance of vitamin D is going mainstream, but I don't want to see government force vitamin D into food. You know they will screw it up and make us more unhealthy.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

A group of scientists have exposed another impressive global warming fraud. When the frauds calculate the carbon savings of biofuels, the compare it to nothing. They don't compare it to other crops. They don't compare it to grassland or forest. They pretend the land would otherwise be barren.

"The European Environment Agency Scientific Committee writes that the role of energy from crops like biofuels in curbing warming gases should be measured by how much additional carbon dioxide such crops absorb beyond what would have been absorbed anyway by existing fields, forests and grasslands.Instead, the European Union has been “double counting” some of the savings, according to the draft opinion, which was prepared by the committee in May and viewed this week by The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times."

Another fraud exposed.

POLICE STATE:

TSA agent seizes cupcake. You can't make this stuff up.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul slandered as a tin man with no heart.This is the goto attack of government-lovers. If somebody is against stealing the money of others to support leftist caused, they have no heart. This is upside down.

MISC:

Scientists make a robot scientist. This is another step toward the singularity.

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FEDERAL RESERVE:

Bloomberg puts up spreadsheets of Fed lending during the financial crisis.

WAR:

More US soldiers died of suicide than in combat. I don't mean to sound insensitive, but that's because so few died in combat. The number of casualties in our current wars is remarkably low compared to previous wars. Not that that matters to the dead and their families.

POLITICS:

Gingrich and Perry also fail to make it on the Virginia ballot. That means only Romney and Paul will be on the ballot. Gingrich calls Virginia's system a failed system. Third parties know every system is a failed system. But Gingrich knew what the system was when he started his campaign. Despite being a bigwig Republican, his campaign failed. This shows a lack of leadership and support for the candidates who failed to make the ballot.

More than 100,000 protest against Putin's corruption in Moscow. It would be nice to see that here.

MISC:

Here's another example of how government is costing the US its tech edge: Russians and Europeans plan to compete for the next generation supercomputer.

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STATES RIGHTS:

I hope the government of South Carolina tells the Justice Department to go spit over its proclamation that its voter ID law is discriminatory. It's discriminatory against frauds. This is a state's rights issue. Democrats won't be happy until every Democrat voter can vote in dozens of elections with no checks on them.

ECONOMICS:

If your investments have done better than Ron Paul's, good for you.

REGULATION:

Man tries to cook and deliver Christmas dinner to elderly shutiins, but the government shuts him down. Isn't it nice how government cares so much for the needy?

HEALTH CARE:

Dr. reverses her own MS in nine months by converting to paleo diet.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

So what's up with gas prices? I've never been much of a gas price conspiracy theorist, though I've wondered from time to time, but what about this year? A week before Thanksgiving, gas prices around here were over $3.20. In a world where supply and demand determine gas prices, one would expect they would rise over Thanksgiving because travel demand would rise. But they didn't. I bought gas on black Friday for $2.99 a gallon. That tells me the supply had been boosted to overcome the increase in demand. A week later, prices were over $3.20 again. I figured Obama had released oil out of the strategic reserve at a specific time to increase supply over Thanksgiving to generate goodwill. I bet the delay between that and gas appearing at the pump is pretty well understood. Fast forward to a couple of days ago. Gas had been over $3.20 all month. Then a couple of days ago gas prices plummeted. I bought gas at $3.03. The next day I saw gas at $2.98. I thought the same thing was happening. Yet today the station that priced gas at $2.98 on Monday, was selling at $3.34. That seems natural because demand is rising, but such wild swings around the holidays make me suspect prices are being manipulated. My theory now is Obama released oil from the strategic reserve on a schedule that fit lowering prices at Thanksgiving, then tried to do the same thing for Christmas, but because the structure of production had shifted because of the Thanksgiving release, it took much less time for that oil to get to the pump. Thus the premature decline in prices for Christmas.

How sad is it that governments allowed (I hate that word) Branson to fly straight from Britain to Fiji over the north pole. Why was it disallowed before? Money. It forced planes to land in another country.

POLICE STATE:

Vanity Fair criticizes the TSA. That means criticism of the TSA is going mainstream.

Many people believe that the police have the right to kill, but recognize the corollary that that means the rest of us have duty to die when they try to kill us.

WAR:

The Taliban seizes cell phones and computers in Waziristan, the lawless region in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, and burns them to stamp out porn. American troops are fighting, dying and killing innocents over this. There are no words to describe how stupid ordering Americans to kill and die over this is.

FOREIGN POLICY:

With the CIA agitating in Syria, you have wonder if the suicide bombers in Damascus were CIA recruits.

The CIA absolved itself of any wrongdoing because of it's association with the NYPD. That's like the fox absolving itself of any wrongdoing for it's association with the hen house. If you thought the CIA was only operating outside the US, the CIA drone pilots looking through your roof happy you're so ignorant, and they're high-fiving their FBI partners.

POLITICS:

Lew Rockwell's bloggers are up in arms about the Republicans bringing up the supposedly racist Ron Paul newsletters. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Let's imagine if Paul wins the nomination. What do you think the mainstream media will push as the lead headline every day of the general campaign? It certainly won't be Obama's record on the economy or Paul's plan to revive it. It won't be Obama's record on government spending and debt or Paul's plan to fix it. It'll be that Paul is a racist. This is an issue that must be vetted in the primary and Paul must provide a good answer for it. His explanation that he had no idea somebody was doing that in his name is lame. If that's true, and I believe it's true, he has to own that mistake and make people believe he learned a valuable lesson about delegating authority that he will never make again. Come on, Dr. Paul. Stand up, own it and move the voters past it. This is a presidential moment for you. You had a great one the other night when the Foxnews guys tried to gotcha on earmarks. Do it again.

LOCAL:

While I'm happy that Dayton city government and Ohio state government have cut their budgets by tiny amounts, those tiny cuts can't account for this increase in business. This increase is a result of more federal money flowing through Wright-Pat into police state businesses. That money won't last. It can't last. The US government is overly bankrupt. When reality hits, and that money goes away, Dayton will be devastated to an extent nobody here has ever seen before.

MISC:

I hope this doesn't become a regular feature, but look at the headline assault on my homepage:

It's interesting that photo bolds the subjects of my email even though they're not bold on my home page. It's like the bolding is intended to intimidate people not to snapshot the google homepage.

Dell has teamed up with a Chinese company. That doesn't surprise me in the least.

How to protect your assets by expatriation.

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TAX AND SPEND:

The House passes the Senate version of the payroll tax cut, making this a non-issue. Here's the real story:

"The short-term deal extends the current payroll tax rate at 4.2% from 6.2% and continues to provide unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. It also includes a Medicare "doc fix" that will prevent a drop in payments to doctors who treat seniors, and it extends and funds the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program that provides welfare benefits to 4.6 million Americans."

Republicans passed a bunch of big welfare spending. Surprise, surprise.

REGULATION:

IP infecting the fashion industry.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

China warns EU it will retaliate if the EU charges carbon fees for airlines. Trade wars are looming everywhere.

WAR:

NATO finally takes some responsibility for killing Pakistani troops Nov. 26, four weeks after the fact.

"It however stopped short of the apology that would help repair the severely damaged relations with its ally."

"But the Pentagon defended the actions of its troops and blamed Pakistan for failing to share co-ordinates of its border posts during the night time incident on Nov 26, and said they had acted in self-defence and responded with "appropriate force"."

Being in government means never having to say you're sorry no matter how many people you kill.

POLITICS:

While the media is attacking Ron Paul over racist comments somebody else made in his newsletter well over a decade ago, Paul is leading the field with non-whites.

Voters are so fed up with the two parties, they're leaving them.

"A USA TODAY analysis of state voter registration statistics shows registered Democrats declined in 25 of the 28 states that register voters by party. Republicans dipped in 21 states, while independents increased in 18 states.The trend is acute in states that are key to next year's presidential race. In the eight swing states that register voters by party, Democrats' registration is down by 800,000 and Republicans' by 350,000. Independents have gained 325,000."

It's about time.

Bachmann, Huntsman and Santorum fail to gather enough signatures to make the Virginia ballot.

MEDIA:

The Wall Street Journal attack Ron Paul's investment portfolio because it's designed to defend against inflation. In other words, Ron Paul puts him money where his mouth is, and we're supposed to believe that's a bad thing.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Note to Occupiers: freedom of speech is not freedom to steal property as I explained here.

TAX AND SPEND:

This article claims House Republicans are taking a beating for not caving to the Senate's temporary extension of the payroll tax cut, but it offers no proof such as a poll to back it up. I'm no so sure that's true. I think the temporary tax cut will be extended, and I think it will be a non-issue in 2012.

 REGULATION:

Senators advise the FTC to investigate Google as a monopoly. This is a just a shakedown for more money.

Developers are already creating workarounds for SOPA censorship.

Now government wants to regulation sperm donation. It's a little scary to think how they might regulate this, if you know what I mean.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

In a shocking turnabout for the corrupt political economy, BP exits the solar energy boondoggle. It's hard to underestimate the significance of this. This means that major corporations, all tied so closely to government they might as well be government agencies, have realized that their political masters will no longer push the green agenda.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Lew Rockwell makes an important point about libertarianism, humanity and politics: what is more radical, engaging people (Iranians) in negotiations or bombing them to death? The answer is left as an exercise for the reader.

POLITICS:

Many of us learned about the problems Ron Paul had with his newsletter in 2008. The problems sprang from his mistake empowering somebody to write a newsletter in his name in the 1980s and 1990s. He addressed this many times during the 2008 campaign. But now that he's on the verge of winning in Iowa, the Republican establishment has released the dogs to attack him on this issue again. This is a legitimate issue, and Paul has handled it as well as possible. It's Paul's mistake, and he has to deal with it. So far, he's doing a good job dealing with it. But the establishment will use it to attack Paul unrelentingly because they can't attack him on policy.

LOCAL:

Here's a little tidbit to remind us that road projects are one of government's bread and butter looting programs: I-75 construction through Dayton to continue for six more years. But this baloney. It will never end. That six years will stretch to nine years, and before the nine years is up, they'll start new projects. It's been going on since the 1990s, and it'll never end. At least not until the government runs out of money.

Apparenlty Menards hasn't paid enough tribute to local politicians to get a new, extravagant store built. You would think that most big-time national businesses would know how to suck up to local politicians, but egos always clash. I bet Menards pays enough tribute to obtain permission to sell products to us. The politicians will win. Menard's will win. Menard's competition will lose and that mean consumers will lose. That's how government coercion works.

MISC:

I guess I'm young enough that it's hard for me to believe that somebody could so denigrate and desensitize "teen spirit" to this extent, yet Miley manages. She was such a talented and cute teen. Now she's a disaster. At least she's not Lindsay Lohan. Yet. Give a month.

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ECONOMY:

Republicans have made minor cuts to the Ohio state budget and the Dayton city budget, and those minor cuts have resulted in job increases in the private sector. Unemployment has dropped in 85 of 88 Ohio counties.

"For the city of Dayton, the November unemployment rate was 9.6 percent, the lowest since a 9 percent rate in November 2008. The new monthly rate also was down from 10.7 percent in October and from 11.7 percent in November 2010.In Montgomery County, the November rate was 8.6 percent, lowest since the same rate in December 2008.
The county rate for November also was down from 9.6 percent in October and from 10.3 percent in November 2010.
The news was the same for the Dayton metro area, which includes Montgomery, Greene and Preble counties.
The metro area rate for November was 8.3 percent, lowest since the same rate in December 2008.
The metro area rate also was down from 9.3 percent in October and from 9.9 percent in November 2010."

Economics isn't rocket science. The fewer resources, including labor, government wastes in the parasitic political economy, the more resources are available to create wealth and improve the lives of the people at large.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The Fed orders too big too fail banks to hold more capital. That means money will have to come from somewhere to meet the new capital requirements. The stock market? I doubt the Fed would let the stock market fall. I bet the Fed will just print enough money and give it to the banks to meet the requirements, meaning this is just another charade.

POLICE STATE:

The other side of the drone debate: people can use them to monitor police.

Sheriff's deputy kills two, then police arrest and prosecute their families for being upset.

"Daniel Hiler ran out of gas during an evening motorcycle ride in Oildale, California on December 16. While walking his bike to a gas station, the twenty-year-old father of two ran into a family friend named Chrystal Jolley. The pair was crossing a street at a widely-recognized intersection when they were fatally blindsided by a vehicle traveling at a speed well in excess of the posted speed limit. Despite the fact that darkness had descended, the driver hadn’t turned on his headlights. The victims were killed instantly.Within minutes, police swarmed the scene, and arrests were made — none of which involved the driver, Deputy John Swearengin of the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. The four people arrested were relatives of the victims, who got into what the Sheriff’s Office described as an “altercation” with California Highway Patrol officers when they attempted to identify the victims."

Too common.

WAR:

To some people, WWI never ended in the Middle East because of the continual occupation and interference since.

You know how the US government always claims it wants to stop nuclear proliferation? Not so much.

"North Korea has long offered to junk its nuclear program – which is solely intended for self-defense – if the US would sign a non-aggression pact with Pyongyang and lift crushing trade sanctions."

Margolis is hopeful though.

"What frightens South Korean strategists the most is not North Korea’s small nuclear program, but rather what they call, "unexpected reunification:" the total collapse of the North Korean state, sending millions of starving refugees south across the Demilitarized Zone. South Korea is in no financial position to feed million or, more onerous, build a viable North Korea. In any event, many South Koreans do not want reunification.
Japan also fears waves of Korean boat people heading for its shores. Tokyo prefers a divided to a united Korea, which would be a serious economic rival.This writer, who has covered Korea for 35 years, has a sense that the most likely scenario will be a combined military-party leadership taking power and slowly moving North Korea away from the Kim dynasty’s megalomaniac leadership towards more cooperation with South Korea and better relations with the west."

Let's hope that's true. The US should pull troops out of Korea to reduce tensions and enable the two Koreas to resolve their own issues. The government should also allow free trade with North Korea.

FOREIGN POLICY:

I used to think China and Russia were waging a new Cold War against the US, but after recognizing that the US government is nearly always the aggressor, I now realize that the US government is waging another Cold War against them.

Walter Williams reports that our trade with China is grossly exaggerated.

"Hale and Hobijn find that the vast majority of goods and services sold in the United States are produced here. In 2010, total imports were about 16 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, and of that, 2.5 percent came from China."

Further:

"Much of what China sells us has considerable "local content." Hale and Hobijn give the example of sneakers that might sell for $70. They point out that most of that price goes for transportation in the U.S., rent for the store where they are sold, profits for shareholders of the U.S. retailer, and marketing costs, which include the salaries, wages and benefits paid to the U.S. workers and managers responsible for getting sneakers to consumers. On average, 55 cents of every dollar spent on goods made in China goes for marketing services produced in the U.S."

So trade is just being used as an excuse to demagogue China. Why? The US government is competing with China for oil and other natural resources all over world. Thus our many wars. It sounds like this trade demagoguery is designed to boost support from imperial actions.

POLITICS:

Americans disillusioned with political process. It's about time. Our system has always been designed to make sure the worst of the worst rise to the top. Mitt Romney tries to capitalize on the sentiment by blaming the the Super PACs. Romney has tremendously more money than any other candidate, so of course he would like to get rid Super PACs because they help even the field.

Apparently Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck prefer Ron Paul to Newt Gingrich. Good for them.

Another article trying to de-legitimize Iowa because Ron Paul might win.

"What especially worries Iowa Republican regulars is the possibility that Paul could win here on January 3rd with the help of Democrats and independents who change their registration to support the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman but then don’t support the GOP nominee next November."

In other words, only dedicated party members should be allowed to pick the nominee. The establishment wants to freeze out any outside influences because outside influences might upset the gravy train of government looting the establishment of both parties profits from.

Here's a wonderful example of the ubiquitous, legal corruption of government.

"When Senate Democrats finally brokered a compromise over the proposed health-care law, a group of hedge funds were let in on the deal, learning details hours before a public announcement on Dec. 8, 2009.The news was potentially worth millions of dollars to the investors, though none would publicly divulge how they used the information. They belong to a select group who pay for early, firsthand reports on Capitol Hill.
Seeking advance word of government decisions is part of a growing, lucrative—and legal— practice in Washington that employs a network of brokers, lobbyists and political insiders who arrange private meetings ..."

This is one of myriad ways the ruling class uses the power of government to loot us.

Here's an accusation of very specific and illegal corruption against Gingrich.

"On October 5, Sarkis Soghanalian, once the world’s largest private arms dealer, died at 82. He had sold weapons to scores of dictators including Saddam Hussein, and he took many secrets with him to his grave. But one secret he did not take involves Newt Gingrich when he was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.  DCBureau has learned that Gingrich was at the center of a U.S. Justice Department criminal investigation in the late 1990s for a scheme to shake down the arms dealer for a $10 million bribe in exchange for Gingrich using his influence as Speaker to get the Iraq arms embargo lifted so Soghanalian could collect $54 million from Saddam Hussein’s regime for weapons he had delivered during the Iran-Iraq War."

It's certainly believable, but the word bribe is charged. This is just standard political horse-trading between members of the ruling class. And yeah, this arms dealer was a member of the ruling class. The ruling class consists of people with access to the levers of government power.

MEDIA:

WXIX in Cincinnati does another reality check on Ron Paul, this one about his policy toward Israel.

Even though Ron Paul is currently leading polls in Iowa as this USA Today article points out, the headline says he's still not in the lead.

"Paul received 21.7% of potential caucusgoers, according to an average of three recent polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney trails him slightly with 20.3% and former speaker Newt Gingrich comes in third with 15.7%."

You can't make this stuff up.

MISC:

Even the NFL game last night in San Francisco illustrated how the US, especially California, is turning into a third world country.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

The lunacy of Soviet communism central planning.

FASCISM:

A definition of fascism that shows the US is a fascist government.

TAX AND SPEND:

Pat Buchanan points to David Cameron's rejection of the German sponsored Eurozone treaty as the first step in the breakup of the Eurozone.

The PIIGS are manipulating the people into buying bonds that the governments will default on. This is another way to steal the people's money and impoverish them.

REGULATION:

The government has officially killed the AT&T-T-Mobile merger.

""AT&T has officially announced that it no longer plans to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom. In a press release, the company said, 'The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.'""

Well said.

Apple, heralded as a paragon of the free market by many libertarians, teams up with the government to ban the import of HTC phones.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Obama's CAFE standards have effectively banned small pickups in America.

WAR ON DRUGS:

The violence caused by the war on drugs in Mexico is spreading south and scaring off American ex-patriots.

"Mexico is being wrecked in what amounts to an out-sourced American civil war. Huge numbers of Americans use drugs, most assuredly including people on Capitol Hill. Moralists and the Feds don't want them to use drugs. Putting many millions of white users in Leavenworth would be politically awkward. So: Export the war to Mexico, which never had a drug problem. This solution is acceptable for white users, who continue to have ample supplies at high convenience and low cost. It is acceptable to the anti-drug industry, the cops and prison guards and so on, who get fat salaries, and to the narcos. It is a splendid situation all around, except for poor blacks and Mexico. About neither of which anyone gives a damn."

I'm always impressed by the holier than thou attitude of the prohibitionists who are destroying so many lives.

"Now, it must be obvious to a mentally retarded marmoset that nothing can stop the flow of drugs to the United States. Any drug anyone might want is available at reasonable cost to anyone who wants it. When peasants in the Sierra Madre Occidental can suddenly have high-end pickup trucks and cable television by selling drugs, they are going to sell drugs. And why not? After all, if the gringos don't want drugs, they don't have to buy them, do they? When the cartels make $40 billion a year (a common figure, however arrived at) there will always be those wanting to work in the trade. The money is sufficient to buy military-grade weapons from the US, including from the US government, and it is enough to bribe officials in both countries."

I seriously wonder about people who don't understand this.

POLICE STATE:

I love that businesses are now crowd-sourcing charter flights so people can avoid the TSA. The government will quickly stop this. It can't let anybody escape from its totalitarian policies.

If only we were as free as Mexicans. Ron Paul is right about the border fence being used to keep Americans in.

Story of the first publicized use of a drone on US soil. It's another story of awesome government overreaction - a paramilitary assault employing a drone - to a minor dispute over a half dozen stray cows.

I've long argued the US was on the verge of becoming the Soviet Union. This author argues that, with the new law allowing US troops to capture Americans on US soil and imprison them indefinitely, the transformation is complete.

It's long been rumored that FEMA has been setting up camps like concentration camps around the country. Now it looks like FEMA is finally doing that.

WAR:

Pat Buchanan on the disastrous consequences of the Iraq War.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Rand Paul stopped Marco Rubio and the Senate from forcing Obama to fast-track Georgia into NATO. Nice job.

Analysis of the situation in Egypt.

POLITICS:

Remember when the Tea Party pretended to support small government? Tea Party Patriots endorse Newt Gingrich in straw poll. It was all baloney. Gingrich has dropped back into a tie with Romney.

Claim that Republicans leaders are afraid the Iowa caucuses will be hacked. This sounds like they're laying the groundwork to delegitimize a victory by Ron Paul. Gingrich falls back in Iowa as Ron Paul surges into the lead. Paul number two in New Hampshire. The tea party people claim they want small government. There's only one small government candidate in the race. The primary will be a test of the honesty of the Tea Party.

Mark Steyn is in top form taking on Newt Gingrich.

"A year ago, we were still talking about Palin and Daniels and Christie and Jindal and Ryan, an embarrassment of riches. Barely a month ago, Cain and 9-9-9 were riding high, an embarrassment of a different kind, and Gingrich was still a single-digit asterisk. But, like Gussie Fink-Nottle, we are all Newt-fanciers now. On the eve of Iowa it seems the Republican base’s dream candidate is a Clinton-era retread who proclaims himself a third Roosevelt, with Taft’s waistline and twice as many ex-wives as the first 44 presidents combined; a lead zeppelin with more baggage than the Hindenburg; a self-help guru crossed with a K Street lobbyist, which means he’s helped himself on a scale few of us could dream of. For this the Tea Party spent three years organizing and agitating?"

When Steyn is on, he's great. Here's another great line:

"Newt, says former New Hampshire governor John H. Sununu, is “inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy, and unprincipled.” But, up against an untrustworthy, unprincipled opponent of consistently non-erratic soporific caution, that’s more than enough. Mitt Romney flutters no hearts."

That sums up the pygmies at the top of the race. Where have we heard this before?

"Both leading conservative candidates have supported government mandates on health care. Both leading conservative candidates have supported massive expansion of entitlements. But they differ on the critical issue of whether we should use large numbers of welfare claimants to mine unpasteurized green cheese from the dark side of the moon."

Oh. It was on this blog.

"Newt is said to be “unpredictable.” This is true in the narrow sense that one would not have predicted that a social faux pas in placement on state transportation to the Yitzhak Rabin funeral would lead him to shut down the federal government. But, aside from such offenses to his amour-propre, Newt is actually extremely predictable. The surest way to bet is that the big-government stuff will happen and the rest won’t. It was Newt who gave us S-CHIP, the biggest expansion of Medicaid since the program was created. On the other hand, when it came to holding the line on “tax credits” for people who don’t pay any taxes, Gingrich looked into Clinton’s eyes and melted."

Oh my goodness. This is great.

"I’d prefer to formulate it this way: Gingrich is a pushover for progressivism who’s succeeded in passing himself off as a hard-line right-wing bastard"

That's a fact.

Condoleezza Rice would be a great VP pick for one of the establishment candidates.

A great graphic showing the overlap of personnel between government and seven giant corporations or corporate sectors.

MISC:

I'm equally disgusted by the electronics in cars. I hope to never buy a new car again.

The ultimate hangover cure.

Video of unbelievable model train setup.

Recently released Herbert Hoover book shows how FDR maneuvered Japan into attacking the US.

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Maybe no matter how cynical I become, I know I still hope for the best because I can't help but laugh at the concept that John Boehner, who a couple of weeks ago didn't give a damn about extending the payroll tax reduction, suddenly rejects the two month extension agreed upon by the Senate as "just kicking the can down the road." As if John Boehner has never voted to increase spending knowing full well that it couldn't be paid for. Do I need to enumerate the outrageous, unsustainable spending programs Boehner supported while Bush was president? I hope not. No matter how evil I believe the leaders of both parties to be, they always impress me by being more evil.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Thanks to the Fed's low interest rates, the price of farmland has surged while crop prices are falling. Here's another bubble created by the Fed.

HEALTH CARE:

Over half of medical techs report they routinely text during surgery.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The goofy-ass North Korean dictator who supposedly shot 18 or 27 or some stupid score on the front nine of a golf course died at age 69. It's sad that the best doctors and health care in North Korea could only keep this fruitcake alive until 69. What's worse is the US health care system doesn't perform much better. The problem is that his successor will probably wrench up tensions to prove himself to his competitors.

POLITICS:

I warned that if Ron Paul won Iowa, the Republican establishment would mount an unprecedented smear campaign against him. I didn't need any evidence to figure this out. Logic is all I needed. Apparently others have evidence.

"Tim Carney, an honest anti-corporatist conservative and a friend, has sounded the warning in the otherwise Paul-wary Examiner that should Dr. Paul happen to win Iowa, the long knives will be out for him and blood may well flow."

I hate the violent allusions applied to politics. I often challenged Lew Rockwell for calling Ron Paul heroic. I don't think he appreciated it. There's nothing heroic about standing on principle when the only thing you have to lose is votes. No blood will be shed.  That's just raw meat to draw in more readers. I bet the attacks will be unprecedented and unseemly, but they will only be verbal and media-oriented: i.e. they might try to cut Paul out of a debate. There will be no blood and no heroics. But I appreciate that Ron Paul stands up to the powerful, political establishment that controls both parties. Also, I appreciate that politics as we know it replaced the civil wars that came before.

The last poll I saw put Ron Paul within one point of Gingrich in Iowa. Karl Rove - yeah, that Karl Rove - says Ron Paul will do better than his poll numbers because of his organization. He might as well have said Paul will win Iowa. No offense to the Telegraph, and I'm glad to read it highlights the possibility (probability?) of a Ron Paul victory, but I'll trust Rove because he's the premier Republican pollster right now.

MISC:

I'm sick and tired of the mediocrity of the NFL. The NFL has hidden its mediocrity behind pretensions of parity for years now, but I'm getting disgusted with it. The most egregious example is the receiver scandal. It's unbelievable how many receivers, making millions of dollars per year, drop open passes. It's a scandal. the NFL should open investigations into this scandal.

A Victorian Renaissance in Downtown Dayton

A Victorian Renaissance in Downtown Dayton
by Mark Luedtke

Most Daytonians know the story of the reclamation of the Oregon District, but St. Anne’s Hill is a lesser known, historic Victorian neighborhood being restored by motivated residents. Just a mile east of the Oregon District, St. Anne’s Hill is bounded by Keowee and Dutoit Streets on the west, Fourth Street on the north, McClure Street and Tower Lane on the east, and Josie Street on the south with Fifth Street passing through the heart of the neighborhood.

Susan Gray bought a house in St. Anne’s Hill in 1995, and after renovating it, she and her husband moved in in 2000. She’s been active in promoting the neighborhood since 1996, and she’s currently president of the St. Anne’s Hill Historic Society. Mrs Gray recounts the history of the neighborhood, “St. Anne's Hill was part of the original platted out-lots of the city of Dayton. Originally the land comprised the farm of the Bomberger family and the orchard and farm owned by Eugene Dutoit. The original Dutoit farmhouse, built in 1833, still stands and is occupied by a wonderful family on Dutoit St. Most of the homes in St. Anne's Hill were built in the 1870's and 1880's, but building continued until the 1920's.”

The residents of St. Anne’s Hill provided valuable service to their fellow Daytonians during the 1913 flood. “During the 1913 flood St. Anne's became ‘waterfront property’. On land too high to flood, many boats delivered refugees from downtown to our ‘shores’ along what is now 5th and Keowee and residents opened their homes to people needing a place to stay until their homes could be repaired or rebuilt.” After the 1920s, St. Anne’s Hill was largely forgotten. Then, “In the late 1960's the beautiful homes here were rediscovered. Restorations began and the area was saved from the kind of Urban Renewal popular at the time, razing existing properties and building high rise apartment buildings. St. Anne's Hill was designated a historic district in 1974 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.”

Today Stivers School for the Arts and Bomberger Park serve as gates from downtown. Banners identify the neighborhood, and planters decorate Fifth Street in front of small businesses with an emphasis on the arts like St. Anne’s Hill Violins and G Strickland Guitar Maker. Mrs. Gray emphasizes the neighborhood’s art businesses, “St. Anne’s Hill has been home to The Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors (in their High St. Gallery) and the Liederkranz-Turner German Club for many years. Joining those creative outlets, Missing Peace Art Space moved into a renovated carriage house next to the home of its director in 2009.”

Improving Fifth Street is a priority for the St. Anne’s Hill Historical Society. “A lot of effort has been placed on improving the appearance of 5th St. Even in a neighborhood with a real can-do attitude like St. Anne's Hill, we know we can't do it all ourselves. Volunteers tire out, and funding is always an issue, too. But we believe that by improving the appearance of 5th St. and making it as inviting as possible, we can attract small businesses and residents back to the area.”

Big, beautifully restored old houses, many with a distinctive German character, including three churches that have been converted into residences, dominate the residential area. Ladders and workers can be seen on every block as owners renovate additional historic homes. A number of homes still need an owner to renovate them.

Every odd year, volunteers organize “A Dickens of a Christmas in St. Anne's Hill” to showcase their neighborhood. St. Anne’s Hill Historical Society trustee Keith Klein explains the name, “We call it a ‘Dickens of A Christmas’ to help paint a picture of a beautiful Victorian neighborhood filled with interesting characters.” But this isn’t a Charles Dickens dress-up event. The characters Mr. Klein refers to are the modern day residents of St. Anne’s Hill.

Mrs. Gray provides details for the upcoming event, “‘A Dickens of a Christmas in St. Anne's Hill’, our biennial holiday home tour, will be held December 9, 10 and 11 this year. This tour regularly draws close to 1,000 people to our community. It is an important fundraising event for us, as well as an opportunity to show off our community and market it to potential new neighbors. The tour, through nine homes, ends at the Bossler Mansion, where guests are served dessert and given an opportunity to shop in our tour gift shop, which features handmade gifts created by neighbors and friends of St. Anne's Hill. We limit the size of each tour to insure the enjoyment of all our guests, and therefore we ask guests to make reservations. For more information or to order tickets you can go to our website www.stanneshill.org or call 937-224-HILL (4455).”

Mrs. Gray describes why visitors might enjoy more than the Victorian architecture, “The architecture of the homes, and the romance of the Victorian era, draw us to the area, but it’s the people that make us want to stay. One thing about St. Anne’s Hill: we use the words ‘neighbor’ and ‘friend’ interchangeably. We hold monthly socials to foster a sense of community. When you know your neighbors you tend to look out for them, and they for you.” This is a great opportunity for Daytonians to experience part of the revival of downtown Dayton.

Originally published in the Dayton City Paper - Saint Anne's Hill