Free kibbles

EDUCATION:

One of the terrible things about government seizure of education is the perversion of stats. Fore example, this study claims that class size doesn't impact quality of education. This is intended to prove that government shouldn't steal more from us to create smaller classes. To that extent, it's accurate, but it misses the bigger point. The problem isn't class sizes. It's government. Of course if a tutor had three students instead of six, the three would get a better education. But that's because the tutor would be paid by parents in a system of voluntary exchange. Class size doesn't matter when students are forced to enter class at the point of the government's gun and the money to pay the teacher is stolen from taxpayers. But it matters in an education system based on voluntary exchange.

POLICE STATE:

The police have allowed Megaupload users two weeks to protect their data. That's like aliens giving humans two weeks to protect their memories.

WAR:

What happens when countries try to protect their capital from marauding US rulers? The military needs a bigger bomb.

Obama admits he's killing people in Pakistan without a declaration of war with Congress, but he justifies the murders.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Everybody agrees that Iran is obeying the nuclear proliferation treating. Some claim the US government is not.

POLITICS:

After all the corruption in the Iowa caucuses vote counting, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party is forced to resign.

Ron Paul's caucus strategy is likely to win him more delegates that Gingrich and Santorum combined.

Florida is full of old people, so it's no surprise they voted overwhelmingly for the statist candidate Romney. People don't like change, and they will resist until outside forces force it upon them in destructive and painful ways. It's as mistake.

Call me jaded, but I'm not upset about a Gingrich aid supposedly stepping on the foot of a Paul supporter. Politics is about using violence to force your will on others. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a fool.

Lack of voter ID laws enable voter fraud. Imagine that.

LOCAL:

Taxpayers win as cities cut back on stealing money from them and giving it to people who put on festivals. If the people want to pay for the festivals, they can do so voluntarily. I love festivals, and I'm willing to pay a little bit to attend them. Not necessarily the $10 City Folk is charging for a bunch of crappy music though.

We make fun of the Occupy thieves for wanting to seize the property of others, but we often forget that that is the only reason government exists. For example, local government want to seize three local properties. Here's the punchline:

"These properties were selected for the land bank because a developer, with a successful track record in Dayton, sees their potential, said Aaron Sorrell, the city’s director of planning and community development."

Does anybody want to guess how much money this developer contributed to the campaigns of local politicians? Americans used to resist corruption. After a century of corruption and government control of schools, now Americans embrace it like they can't understand a better way.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Techies consider jailbreaking as means of protecting the internet from government aggression.

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Documents reveal AG Holder was thoroughly informed about Fast and Furious and its relationship to the murder of a US agent.

SOCIALISM:

Democracy is a form of socialism.

"Democracy, of the unlimited kind lauded today,[3] is a form of socialism, in the sense that it arrogates ultimate power over all decisions to the government. Implicit in the notion of people's present love affair with mob rule is the assumption that government, through the collective "will of the people," should have the prerogatives of ownership of all resources in society, should it choose to exercise these. The democrat brooks no limitation on the legitimate powers of government and hence gives total ownership over all of society to this institution. The only limitation in his mind is the limitation of democracy itself — that the rulers in control of the government apparatus must guard against being displaced by another set of rulers, at the behest of the demands of the mob."

Great description.

TAX AND SPEND:

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees owe billions in back taxes.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

A third company that received taxpayer money from Obama has gone bankrupt. Of course this is a pattern. The pattern is Obama is trying to collapse the US economy under the burden of government, and Republicans are aiding and abetting.

Bitterly cold winter in Alaska. So far not here, thank goodness. Knock on wood.

WAR ON DRUGS:

In an attempt to fool people into believing the government is keeping us safe, headlines trumpet capture of drug cartel member who murdered 75 people. They captured one killer after he killed 75 people. Thousands if not tens of thousands continue to operate. Hundreds of tons of drugs entered the US. Some victory. Drug gangs control entire sections of major cities in the US. They've corrupted police, prosecutors and judges all over the country, especially along the border. They've infiltrated the military. They undoubtedly pay off politicians in Washington to keep drugs illegal. These propagandists make Baghdad Bob look honest. Do you feel safer?

POLICE STATE:

Power hungry politicians around the country are using the tragic event in Zanesville, when a mentally ill man released dozens of wild animals that deputies subsequently killed, as an excuse to seize animals from Americans.

Congressional supporter of wiretaps caught on wiretap promising to use her influence to aid Israeli spies.

I'm going to quote this in its entirety.

"A couple of British tourists who had Tweeted some slang were detained and deported by Homeland Security, which apparently always is on the job, ready to repel non-existent threats:Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.
The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: 'Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America'.
Leigh also had Tweeted that the pair would "dig up Marilyn Monroe" and agents searched their luggage...for spades and shovels. Welcome to Obamika, folks."

Yet Americans buy the propaganda that foreigners hate us for our freedom.

Government to delete data of users of Megaupload.

MISC:

Why were people driving down the highway if they couldn't see?

Target thinks I'm going to pay more for a product just because it's made for Target. I don't think so. I understand the problem Target is talking about, but I don't think this is the solution. Because web stores don't need brick and mortar showrooms, they offer products at lower prices. What brick and mortar stores can offer is personal service, building relationships, support for products over their lifetime, etc.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Romney battles NBC over free use versus copyright. I love it when plutocrats battle each other using the weapons they typically use against us.

Internet content managers fight back against major labels by blocking their IPs. It would be awesome if big companies did this.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION:

Remember when conservatives supported George Bush's faith-based welfare system? Remember how every time you give government power, it turns around and uses that power against you? Now Obama has ordered all faith-based employers to offer birth control in their health care programs.

"The mandate exempts churches but applies to Catholic universities, Catholic-based charities and Baptists, Methodists and other denominations."

Government's assault on freedom never ends.

TAX AND SPEND:

The German and French governments are trying to seize power over the rest of eurozone countries to save the euro. Even if this succeeded, it would only delay the inevitable. Let's hope the euro countries resist this centralization of authority.

EDUCATION:

Guess what happens when government takes over funding of universities.

"Beyonce course offered by Rutgers University in New Jersey"

You can't make this stuff up.

I've long known the expert position on learning was wrong. Now an expert agrees. Too bad the article doesn't mention the importance of sleep.

HEALTH CARE:

The establishment is trying to force dietitians out of business with licensing requirements in order to keep Americans sick and dependent on establishment medicine.

It takes online gamers only three weeks to solve HIV puzzle government scientists were unable or unwilling to solve for a decade. This illustrates the awesome advantages of the ingenuity produced in a competitive-cooperative market compared the stagnation created by central planning.

Year after year the government scares millions into thinking the new strain of flu is going to kill us all. They keep shoving vaccines on people that do more harm than good. But more and more people are aware of this fraud, so what can the government do to keep people scared and pressure them into taking vaccines? They can develop a super-deadly version of the bird flu.

"The lead author of today's announcement is Dr. Ron Fouchier, a respected molecular virologist. He heads at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, that engineered a form of "aerosolized" bird flu that can easily be passed from humans to humans through the air. The genetically-altered flu is thought to be so virulent that if the vials containing it were to get out, the virus would have the potential to spread around the globe and kill hundreds of millions."

You can't make this stuff up. Since the flu wasn't deadly enough to scare people, government made it super-deadly. With normal versions of the flu, washing your hands keeps you safe. But government won't allow that. They must have a super-deadly version to scare us with. The unbridled coercive power of government has created an insane world, and it might kill us all. A speaker from the Council on Foreign Relations explains the real reason for developing the super-bug:

""My first reaction was 'Oh, my God, why did they do this?'" says Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Second reaction was 'Oh dear, it works!' Meaning that nature could do the same thing – that they had proven how dangerous the virus could be. And then my final reaction was 'we have no capacity to control this kind of work. Our treaty systems our policy systems, will not do the job.'""

Bigger government. The US government created a super-deadly bug in order to scare people into giving the government more power to create a one world government. When normal people learn about the bird flu, they take precautions not to catch it. Like washing their hands. When government officials learn about the bird flu, they turn it into a super-deadly super-bug and use it to promote their power-mad plans for ruling the world. I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up. This level of depravity can only be found in government officials.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Burt Rutan exposes the global warming fraud. As I've been pointing for years, it really is this simple.

The mainstream media reports that global warming is not the problem, cooling from reduced solar activity is. Eventually the truth always wins out.

Co-chair of IPCC working group accidentally tells the truth.

"…we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…"

As we've long known, but it's nice to get the confirmation.

POLICE STATE:

Here's a terrible story about the consequences of perpetual war and the police state required to support it.

"The Justice Department is funding an unusual national training program to help police deal with an increasing number of volatile confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans."

If there's a silver lining in this cloud, it might be the recognition that police should de-escalate situations instead of escalating the violence which is now the norm.

Protests against ACTA.

MIT scientists develop technology that can see through eight inch concrete walls from 60 feet away. Cops are going to be spying on everybody constantly.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul sues to uncover identity of author of a defamatory video of Jon Huntsman who posed as a Paul supporter. If the author is not a Paul supporter, this is fraud. Fraud is a crime. If it is a Paul supporter, then it isn't fraud, and he should be allowed to remain anonymous. Paul would have to present a strong case that the author isn't a supporter.

Police arrest hundreds of Occupiers in Oakland. You might notice that corporations did not arrest them because they have no power to do so. Maybe these people will figure out who has all the power and start protesting the government.

"Mayor Jean Quan condemned the local movement's tactics as "a constant provocation of the police with a lot of violence toward them" and said the demonstrations were draining scarce resources from an already strapped city. Damage to the City Hall plaza alone has cost $2 million since October, she said, about as much as police overtime and mutual aid.
Oakland has logged five homicides since Friday, and Police Chief Howard Jordan said the law enforcement "personnel and resources dedicated to Occupy reduce our ability to focus on public safety priorities.""

This is exactly the point. These protests, like Obama's policies, are designed to destroy so many resources that the US economy and government collapse. This is what socialism breeds.

MEDIA:

I don't think the portrayal of pit bulls as dangerous dogs is a solely media driven creation. It's reflection of who owns them and they use them. Poor people tend to buy them for protection. Some fight them. Some train them as attack dogs. The establishment can't stand poor people being able to defend themselves and respond to attacks. That threatens the establishment. And because the owners and therefore the dogs are poorly trained, accidents happen. It's the same with Saturday night specials. It's the same with AK47s.

LOCAL:

Antioch College is a leftist institution, and administrators proved they have no concept of economics when they offered "free" tuition. Free is obviously below the market price, and that always produces shortages.

"It has recently been plagued with financial problems, but Antioch College is back open for business. The Yellow Springs college is offering free tuition to all the students accepted in its first four years. A move so popular, it has temporarily crashed its website."

This isn't rocket science, but leftists never figure it out.

MISC:

Scientists discover oldest art kit. From a related article:

"The find pushes back the date by which humans were practicing complex art approximately 40,000 years, all the way back to 100,000 years ago."

Once again a discovery explodes the hubris of modern men who thought of our ancestors as primitive.

The Android marketplace is offering a competitor to Siri named Evi for free. That's obviously below the market price. The result is shortages.

"And people are so keen to that Evi's servers are overloaded — so be prepared for a wait for answers."

I understand that you can post unpopular apps for free and get away with it. There's enough bandwidth to cover a few users. But not popular ones.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Unions are hurting themselves by protesting right-to-work legislation at the Superbowl.

TAX AND SPEND:

The European debt crisis continues, and it will continue until the debt is liquidated. All attempts to fix it so far have just made the situation worse.

REGULATION:

It always cracks me up when people blame our problems, and of our problems, on capitalism.

"With the existence of the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and other bodies that make up the 115 regulators that oversee the financial sector in the United States, the claim that such a system constitutes free-market capitalism is preposterous."

The problem wasn't too little government intervention in the market. There was way too much. This is an important point:

"Contrary to popular belief, capitalism is not a system of rugged individualism but rather one of social cooperation that expands the division of labor and offers new opportunities of employment even for those less able to compete with more-productive workers."

Contrast that with government which acts through coercion and violence, dividing people into winners and losers with its every action.

"As a rule, capitalism is blamed for the undesired effects of a policy directed at its elimination. The man who sips his morning coffee does not say, "Capitalism has brought this beverage to my breakfast table." But when he reads in the papers that the government of Brazil has ordered part of the coffee crop destroyed, he does not say, "That is government for you"; he exclaims, "That is capitalism for you.""

No kidding.

EDUCATION:

Obama wants to do price-fixing on tuitions. Price fixing always leads to shortages.

POLITICS:

Maybe the bankers backing Romney and Obama are pressuring establishment Republicans to run Gingrich out of the race because Gingrich isn't owned by them. The bankers want to insure they control both candidates. Funny how this New York Times article showing Romney's ties to bankers doesn't mention Obama's equally powerful ties.

MISC:

Two grandchildren of the tenth president, John Tyler, are still living.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Graphic shows the change of congressmen regarding SOPA during the internet protest.

TAX AND SPEND:

After four years of Strickland and Democrats controlling Ohio government, Ohio ranked 39th in overall tax climate for business. After a year of Kasich and Republicans being in charge Ohio ranks 39th still. No change. Imagine that. There's no difference worth noting between Republicans and Democrats.

REGULATION:

I remember when my vice-president at AMD left to become CEO of Rambus. It seemed bizarre that their entire business model was built on creating specifications, patenting them then licensing them. I chose to keep designing and building microprocessors. Back then the term patent troll didn't exist. Now Rambus is known as a patent troll. Now the third of three critical Rambus patents has been overturned. The article contains a good comment:

"There's something that seems unsavory and wasteful about a business environment in which a company's stock value "fluctuates sharply on its successes and failures in patent litigation and licensing." The linked article offers a brief but decent summary of the way Rambus has profited over the years from these now-invalidated patents."

Let's hope this prompts business to get back to innovating instead of playing the government rent game with patents.

HEALTH CARE:

Paula Deen the diabetes queen who hid her disease while promoting the establishment lifestyle that caused her illness is the poster child for the corruption and unhealthy lifestyle the government and its agents promote.

The Harvard "food plate" looks very similar to the FDA's food pyramid. What a shock. Who would have thought that Harvard would just echo the establishment? The funniest thing about this is it's presented as an alternative though it looks pretty much identical. The academic establishment is tinkering around the edges to create the illusion it bucks the government establishment when in fact it's really supporting it.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Unprecedented two feet of snow in Seattle.

Sixteen prominent scientists publish open letter in Wall Street Journal telling people that global warming alarmism is exaggerated.

You know how bad Obama's CAFE standards are for cars? The crooks in California one-upped him.

I love innovation, and if seawater greenhouses lower food costs, that's awesome. But how often are we going to allow these weirdos to claim that people are going starve because of population growth? They've been saying it for a century, but nobody starves unless government forces them to starve. People aren't dumb. Free people feed themselves, their families and their neighbors. It's not that hard. People have been doing that for a million years or more, and they'll keep doing it for a million more except when governments starve them to death.

It didn't take environmentalists long to come after the personal coffee makers.

POLICE STATE:

FBI to mine Facebook and Twitter data. They should not be able to mine private data.

Prisons as geriatric facilities.

Here's one of those issues that might inspire Walter Block who wrote Defending the Undefendable. Why should people be forced to delete data that's embarrassing to another if that data was gathered without coercion?

WAR:

Why does the US government have to transform an ancient ship about to be dry-docked into a floating base for SEALs? Why don't the SEALs have a modern ship designed for this purpose to work from? This just shows the poor performance of government bureaucracy.

Government uses the new NDAA provisions allowing the military to detain anybody in the world including Americans in America to justify holding a prisoner in Guantanamo. There but for the grace of Obama go us all.

POLITICS:

Paul might defeat Romney in the head to head match-up in Virginia. He also might win Maine.

On Obama's mentor Saul Alinsky and Rules for Radicals:

"“Rules for Radicals” is dedicated to Lucifer, who is praised by Alinsky, both for being “the first radical” and for winning himself a kingdom. In it, Alinsky condemns the state of the modern world, blames capitalism, boasts about his past rabble-rousing successes, then explains in detail several ways to turn citizens against each other to achieve political goals. The substance is mostly amoral, often immoral, advice on how to change public sentiment. It is essentially an instruction guide on how to foment strife, turning neighbor against neighbor until the innately civilized desire to compromise forces a political opponent to acquiesce."

At Obama has been tremendously successful at following that model as president. Here's a good reminder why the worst always rise to the top of government:

"Reading “Rules for Radicals” will depress you. Alinsky took an extremely dim view of his fellow man. He had little use for individuality. He had no compunction in using a political target’s virtue to subvert his or her values. And he actively promoted dishonesty. Understanding that his tactics might be difficult for anyone with a conscience to stomach, Alinsky offered this helpful tidbit: “Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”"

Government is an inherently violent and coercive institution. It's immoral. Only the most depraved individuals, those most eager to do violence to their fellow men, can rise to the top.

Ron Paul's highlights from last night's debate. He was very good again. I guess that's why Limbaugh was attacking him earlier.

Breakdown of how many times the Republican candidates and Obama use certain words.

The Nevada establishment moves the caucuses to accommodate Newt's billionaire benefactor.

"Bunce said in an email to the Chronicle that it appears Gingrich, lacking organization and campaign efforts in the Silver State, is “going to have his billionaire buddy try and buy an election for him.”"

Don't orthodox Jews have this problem every other election year? Do you think they'd do that for you? Sometimes the corruption is so obvious, and legal, it makes me laugh out loud.

Gingrich is fading for a second time. If Santorum drops out, I think Paul can beat Romney. Right now, Gingrich and Santorum are insuring Romney wins the nomination.

Something is going on behind the scenes. Newt Gingrich is an establishment politician. He supports every big-government, establishment position there is. He always has. He always will. You'd be hard pressed to identify any substantial policy difference between Gingrich and Romney. Yet the Republican establishment is crushing Gingrich. Maybe they know he can't be elected. Maybe that's all there is to it. But I don't believe it. I think something more has gone on behind the scenes than we know about and Gingrich is challenging them to go public with it.

One of my clients contracts a firm to produce newsletters for him. I don't know whether he checks them with a fine toothed comb or not, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't because he makes him money doing other things. He pays somebody to write the newsletters so he can spend his time doing the things that make him money. This is just standard business procedure. I'm sure Ron Paul was in the same position, so I believe him when he says he didn't personally oversee the newsletters that many have accused him of being racist.

"Ed Crane, the longtime president of the libertarian Cato Institute, told the Post that he and Paul discussed direct-mail solicitations at the time and that they agreed that "people who have extreme views" are more likely than others to respond."

Oh my goodness, this sounds like the Cato-Mises feud has attacked the Paul campaign. The Koch brothers, government supported oligarchs, fund the Cato Institute. They've banned Mises and Rothbard. They opposed the creation of the Mises Institute. Since Ron Paul is Misean, a friend and to an extent a student of Rothbard, it seems the Kochs are attacking him. But that makes sense. Paul threatens their government protected influence.

The media seems to realize that the claims that Paul knew about the supposedly racist comments in his newsletter won't work. Only the right-wing accomplice press is promoting that argument, and they'll probably lose more listeners over it. The left is taking the tact of:

"Paul pursued strategy of publishing controversial newsletters, associates say"

Shame on Dr. Paul for being controversial. When I started writing political opinions at DCP four years ago, my chosen strategy was to be controversial. You can't persuade people with facts alone. I learned that from decades of debating. People don't listen to rational arguments until you overcome their emotional barriers. In order to persuade somebody on politics, you must first engage them, and that means you must penetrate their shields. Once you do that, facts, reason, and rational arguments work. So I have no problems with Ron Paul's strategy of being controversial. That's the only way to persuade. I believe this story will quickly fade away until Paul wins a primary or the nomination, whichever comes first. But Paul will have to handle it with class once that happens.

I only hope liberals and conservatives figure this out before the next time they vote.

Please. Our political system is a scam.

LOCAL:

Butler County government is stealing money from small businesses and individuals, depressing the local economy, in order to provide corporate welfare to big retail giants.

"Approximately 3,000 construction jobs and roughly 4,500 permanent jobs would be created and it’s estimated the development would generate $1 million to $1.5 million a year in sales tax collections, according to Steiner."

No mention of how many jobs are killed or will never be created by stealing the money in the first place. This is an example of the seen versus the unseen effects of government intervention in the economy.

Guess what happens when government thinks it should engage in venture capitalism.

"A publicly funded center meant to help new businesses working with wireless technology has not generated expected revenues, resulting in its chief executive working for free for 20 months and public officials searching for a new business model.In 2007, Dayton City Commission approved a $1.4 million investment in the Dayton RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Convergence Center as an incubator for companies creating new uses for RFID. The technology lets objects or people be ID’d and tracked wirelessly via radio waves.
The center was supposed to become self-sustaining through royalties paid by companies that were based there. On Friday, public officials said that hasn’t happened."

This is Dayton's Solyndra. And it's creepy.

"Dayton City Commissioner Nan Whaley believes the center and its member businesses can still be made viable. “We just have to be thoughtful about it, and realize we’re doing this with taxpayer dollars” Whaley said."

And you have been since 2005. How's that seven years of stolen money working out for us? Not so well. How's it working out for you Nan? Wonderfully. Funny how that works.

MISC:

Facebook to go public.

Mars rover Opportunity turns eight. That's amazing, but it would be so much more impressive had it been funded voluntarily.

The third major coronal ejection in a week.

The north star is shrinking, but don't expect it to disappear in your lifetime.

I'm not in the least bit surprised that people lie more when texting. Most of personal communication is done through expressions and gestures. Without those, people can get away with lies more.

On the face of it, calling inanimate objects alive seems stupid. But at the same time, I defy you to define life. My definition is an entity with free will. Do we have free will? Do other objects have free will? Nobody knows.

Do we really need a taxpayer funded study to tell us early humans formed social networks?

""The astonishing thing is that ancient human social networks so very much resemble what we see today," said Nicholas Christakis, professor of medical sociology and medicine at Harvard Medical School and professor of sociology in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and senior author on the study. "From the time we were around campfires and had words floating through the air, to today when we have digital packets floating through the ether, we've made networks of basically the same kind.""

No, there's nothing astonishing about this. Why would anybody expect it to be any other way? I guess when you're a tax feeder trolling for more tax dollars, you have to say stuff like to impress the bureaucrats who feed you.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

How private equity firms like Bain Capital boost the economy by making resources work to create wealth instead of squander it. Unfortunately, private equity funding is drying up, meaning there's not as much wealth to rescue poorly allocated resources and put them to more productive use.

Criticism of the liquidity trap explanation for the recession.

The unfortunate truth about our economy.

"You can’t hide a flood but you can hide a financial implosion. The financial day of Armageddon occurred some time in the recent past and it is government’s job to keep the suicide rate down and to calm the masses and act like everything is normal. The goal is to keep the women shopping. The Super Bowl serves as an excellent distraction. It’s just a temporary recession, right? No, it’s the financial collapse of modern civilization and it is being papered over. If you blinked your eyes, you probably missed it. But then you probably sleep better than I do."

The collapse has already happened. Most people just haven't realized it yet.

TAX AND SPEND:

Japanese debt passes out of the trillions into the quadrillions. 16 digits. Stop the insanity.

The Tax Foundation analyzes President Obama's proposed alternative minimum tax for millionaires.

"On a very static basis, we roughly estimate that this policy would raise $40 billion, assuming that taxpayers don't change their behavior.  Compared to a $1.1 trillion deficit next year this is a drop in the bucket."

This would make Americans suffer the highest tax rate on dividend income in the western world, which means savings would be punished more here than anywhere in the world. Savings drives economic growth. Obama's plan isn't about raising revenue or balancing the budget. It's about class warfare and collapsing our economy under the burden of government.

Cato busts Obama for lying about corporate taxes in his State of the Union speech.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Global temperatures plummeting. Yikes. I've been saying this winter was going to become bad. It hasn't yet, but it might be coming soon.

Strong hurricanes have been less frequent in the last 150 years than in the previous 600. Another claim by the frauds refuted.

This is a great title for an article: Obama's Green Robber Barons. It's a very accurate analogy except for one thing: the railroads were useful. Green energy is a boondoggle.

Obama's EPA likely to regulate mud puddles in forestry operations.

POLICE STATE:

Why do we need a law to make jailbreaking electronics legal? Shouldn't it be legal by default?

Video proves police lied when they claimed Rand Paul was irate during his detention by the TSA.

POLITICS:

Obama's destructive vision for America.

"Two words hardly mentioned in Barack Obama’s 65-minute State of the Union address to Congress: freedom and liberty. President Obama’s fourth and possibly last State of the Union speech was long on big government proposals, but short on the principles that have made America the world’s greatest power. His lecturing tone exuded arrogance, and he failed to present a coherent vision for getting the United States back on its feet after three years of economic decline. It was heavy on class-war rhetoric, punitive taxation, and frequent references to the Left-wing mantra of “fairness”, hardly likely to instil confidence in a battered business community that is the lifeblood of the American economy.

...
This should have been a serious speech addressing the economic problems facing the United States. Instead it was a laundry list of half-baked proposals designed to appease the Left. The president should have been talking about reining in spending, lowering taxes, and fostering greater economic freedom, but he opted for policies that will speed America’s decline, not reverse it."

This from a Brit.

MEDIA:

Press freedom in the US, already low, plummets.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Wisconsin's minor labor reforms are saving taxpayers money. Just think what major reforms would do.

ECONOMY:

Analysis shows the folly of claims that the world is running out of resources.

TAX AND SPEND:

Lord Geithner doesn't expect to continue for a second term. Let's hope he doesn't get the opportunity, but if Obama wins, and Republicans are working hard to re-elect him, let's hope he ain't lying.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The Fed inflates, gold rises.

"Gold jumped to its strongest in more than a month on Thursday after a promise by the U.S. Federal Reserve to keep rock-bottom rates for at least two more years helped burnish the metal's safe-haven appeal."

Like day follows night.

Banks beginning to question those who withdraw money. Bank runs will be coming soon. FDIC will have no hope of covering them.

HEALTH CARE:

Mark Sisson's top 6 anti-inflammatory foods.

The number of uninsured continues to rise.

Obama's henchwoman says that Obama won't let a little thing like the Supreme Court overturning the Obamacare mandate stop him from coercing people into buying health insurance whether they want to or not.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Taxpayer funded government workers and scientists rush to defend global warming frauds using our tax dollars.

Government is inherently divisive. Every action government takes divides people into winners and losers. Obama is the biggest government president in modern times, to he's the most divisive president in modern times. He's ripping not America apart, but his supporters as well. That's why he was unable to pass much of agenda despite having large majorities in both chambers for two years. Another example is his blocking of the Keystone pipeline have split unions.

I've written a lot about how solar cycle 24 is an historically low amplitude solar cycle. I've also written about how badly the vast majority of scientists, the establishment scientists, mis-predicted solar cycle 24. Now we have a new prediction about solar cycle 25:

"First Estimate of Solar Cycle 25 Amplitude – may be the smallest in over 300 years"

I hate to beat a dead drum, but I'm skeptical. Surprise. For those of you who've been reading my warnings of a Dalton or even Maunder-like minimum, you might be surprised to read I'm skeptical. But skepticism is a natural, rational, human approach to new science. I'm as skeptical of this claim as I am of the man-made global warming claims. I say prove it. The global warming frauds have no only failed, they've been proven wrong for a decade. I hope and hope and hope these predictions about solar cycle 25 are wrong, because if they're right, many people will die of cold, and civilization will suffer.

POLICE STATE:

Did you think you were smart for staying off the internet, thinking nobody would track you? Police in California are creating a database base on license plate observations. Maybe you should stay home. Maybe that will protect you. Or not. Sticking you head in the sand just makes easier for the government to do you from behind.

WAR:

Corruption at the VA. Who would have guessed?

SEALs rescue American and Dane in Somalia. This is a wonderful, feel good story. I'm happy the American and the Dane are safe. It's also a powerful political tool for the president. But this is terrible policy. The US military should not subsidize risky behavior overseas. Our military should insure other states don't molest Americans en mass, but individuals should be responsible for the consequences of their actions. The market would do a much better job of dealing with these risks. People who travel overseas could buy rescue insurance. Insurance companies would do an excellent job determining risk based on the itinerary and other factors and charging an appropriate price based on that risk. This would enable people to make rational decisions, the cost of rescues would be significantly reduced and taxpayers wouldn't have to pay for it. Apparently the American woman was from the Dayton area. But the policy is still bad. But how do you tell a parent, sibling or child this?

Call me cynical, but I bet Obama chose SEAL Team 6 for this operation just so he could bring the alleged assassination of Osama bin Laden back into the limelight. I hate having to type some of these words. But we have no evidence that OBL was killed other than Obama's word. And it would have been stupid to assassinate him instead of capturing him and interrogating him. For all I know, OBL is in Guantanamo, answering questions, as he should be. But this is the government voters have created: one that lies to them every day, and occasionally tells the truth, just enough to convince voters to continue supporting the greatest criminal organization in human history.

Doesn't it such that goons like Obama, Bush and Clinton have turned heroes like SEAL Team 6 into political pawns?

Record year for IEDs in Afghanistan.

"Attacks with makeshift bombs hit a record high of more than 16,000 in Afghanistan in the past year, and the increasing harm they cause to Afghan civilians indicates insurgents may lack strong leadership, military officials say."

Who do you think the victims are blaming? Their neighbors or Americans? Who do you think their children are going to attack in ten years? Policies matter. Blowback kills.

Call me naive, but I don't believe Americans, even those most corrupt, evil people in government, will kill other Americans to start a war. As psychotic, sociopathic and just plain evil as politicians are, and top bureaucrats are almost as bad, most government workers are not. The rank and file tend to be good people who want to help their fellows and the American people, not harm them even though they are trapped in an system that can only do evil. The worst of the worst above them won't risk their lives or careers by trying to sabotage the USS Enterprise. Self interest will win out. The USS Maine wasn't destroyed by Cuban Spaniards. It wasn't destroyed by an American false flag operation. It was destroyed by a design flaw. I do not believe for one second that US agents will harm the USS Enterprise or her crew in a false flag attack in order to start a war with Iran. God forbid I'm wrong.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul has a great response to Obama's State of the Union speech.

Romney paid 46 percent of his income in taxes and charity. Wow. That's a lot of charity. And that's a lot of wealth created for his fellow men.

The Congressional Black Caucus claims that the new crop of voter ID laws are designed to make it harder for Obama to win re-election. Is that an admission that Obama only won because of voter fraud?

I know why the media didn't ask Ron Paul about the TSA after TSA agents detained his son. They didn't want Americans to hear Paul's answer. This is a stupid question. The question everybody should be asking is why didn't Ron Paul bring it up? The media isn't his boss. Why didn't he find a way to make this an issue in the last debate? This was the opportunity he's been waiting for his entire political career, and he failed to make it happen. I was stunned he didn't make it an issue and challenge the worms on stage with him to comment. Had he done so, he could have won the nomination right there. Instead, Gingrich is allowed to pretend he's anti-establishment. It's almost like Paul didn't want to crush his competition.

MEDIA:

It is sickening how the media focus on Giffords while completely ignoring the other people wounded and killed. The press would have us believe only the lives of the ruling class matter. The rest of us are cattle for them to slaughter as they choose.

CNN not only ignores but dismisses Obama's ties to Alinsky but tries to tie Alinsky to the tea party. You can't make this stuff up.

Daily Mail surpasses New York Times. That may seem about as important as the tortuous surpassing the snail, but the snailmail world of print, that's a big deal.

LOCAL:

Who would have thought the local police were corrupt? Me.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

One of Obama's appointments to the NLRB will continuing receiving payments from unions while on the board. I'm sure happens all the time, under the table, but Obama's lawlessness is more blatant. He doesn't even care.

The world's power-elite are meeting to plan how to stamp out the last remnants of capitalism. Note all the big corporations in support. They want government to stamp out the last of their competition. Note Bain & Company is on that list.

ECONOMY:

Movie based on Austrian Economics, Margin Call, is nominated for an Academy Award.

TAX AND SPEND:

Obama's economists consulted only like-minded economists before launching their stimulus boondoggle. But what else would you expect?

While Boehner pretends he wants to cut spending, he and Republicans have increased debt by $1 trillion.

"But as CNSNews.com previously reported, federal spending bills approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have increased the national debt by more than $1 trillion dollars in just 10 months."

Don't you love those fiscally responsible Republicans?

REGULATION:

Apple has spent more than $100 million suing Android manufacturers. That's $100 million that wasn't used to create new products or anything else in the productive private economy but was instead squandered in the parasitic political economy.

The environmentalists are butting heads with the safety nazis when it comes to car regulations.

EDUCATION:

Apple claims sole rights to distribute electronic ebooks published on iBooks. Competitors will appear soon.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

A list and explanation of the many falsehoods in Obama's green energy political ad.

Out of 22 issues, Americans concern for global warming is last.

Remember when Obama was trying to spend our tax dollars drilling for oil in Brazil? The Brazilian government chose the Chinese.

POLICE STATE:

New Jersey police to remotely shine lights on pre-criminals. How can they tell? You know this will be abused.

Drones over New York and join police-military exercises in Los Angeles.

Great comment on TSA:

"When someone is empowered by the Government to look at you naked and feel you up at will, it's clear who is in control in that relationship. Why do people think they will get any ‘respect?’"

No kidding.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Western rulers have embargoed Iranian oil and are waging war on Iran's central bank. India responds by buying Iranian oil with real money.

"India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar, DEBKAfile's intelligence and Iranian sources report exclusively.  Those sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran's total exports of 2.5 million bpd. Both are superpowers in terms of gold assets.By trading in gold, New Delhi and Beijing enable Tehran to bypass the upcoming freeze on its central bank's assets and the oil embargo which the European Union's foreign ministers agreed to impose Monday, Jan. 23. The EU currently buys around 20 percent of Iran's oil exports."

This might end the dollars reign as the world's reserve currency and bring back an international gold standard.

POLITICS:

Gingrich exposes his campaign strategy - throw popular sound bites at debate crowds - by threatening to pull out of debates if crowds can't cheer. That's how absurd our nomination process has become.

"“I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”"

He's right about that, but we'd be better off having no debates instead of choosing candidates and the president based on these shallow events that are designed to subordinate candidates to the media. American Idol has more substance.

Paul may not be spending campaign money in Florida, but a new super PAC will spend $1.4 million on his behalf in Florida.

Editor of Atlanta Jewish magazine suggests Israeli agents should consider assassinating President Obama. Calling this guy a fool is an understatement. What this shows is, as oppressive as the US government has become, there aren't too many countries where a person could get away with this. His employer should fire him now.

David Stockman on crony capitalism.

MEDIA:

The post election coverage in SC from Ron Paul's super PAC draws over 20,000 viewers. Paul is finding his way around the media and hastening the death of the mainstream media. The mainstream media would be smart to embrace Paul in order to keep viewers.

Rush Limbaugh says Ron Paul sounds almost like an Islamic terrorist for his comments in response to the detainment of his son, Senator Rand Paul, by the TSA. Rush sided with Obama and Janet Napolitano on this and will probably lose more listeners over it. Paul's comments were consistent with his positions, but they were also the comments of a father concerned about his son. Sure, Rand's a big boy and a senator, but I don't think parents ever see things that way. Paul's response was as much the healthy response of a concerned father as a champion of liberty, and any person who claims to support family values should respect that.

You might be a big government conservative

If your Republican candidate supports government control of property through regulation, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports the income tax, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports the death tax, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports confiscating property of emigrants, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports the Federal Reserve, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports regulation of telecom companies, the internet and mass transit, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports regulation of industry and farms, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports unions and government work programs, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports economic central planning, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports the income tax, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports government control of education, you might be a big government conservative

If your Republican candidate supports the health insurance mandate, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports government run health care, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports Medicare Part D, you might be a big government conservative.
If your Republican candidate supports the global warming fraud, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports welfare for corporate farmers, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports welfare in general, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports perpetual war, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate is funded by Goldman Sachs, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate is funded by the Israel lobby, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate wants to use the police power of the state to force his values on all Americans, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate talks about spending cuts but offers no clear list of programs he will cut, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate has ever voted to increase spending or the debt limit, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate wants to cut $1 trillion in spending in his first year, abolish the Fed, abolish the income tax and end the government's wars and bring the troops home, congratulations. You're not a conservative hypocrite.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The Canadian and Irish governments want to implement SOPA.

TAX AND SPEND:

The Feds might need another debt ceiling increase before the Nov. election.

EDUCATION:

People are downloading textbooks like crazy off of Apple's new service. The textbook industry was such a scam, it's great to see Apple taking it on. Ebooks will wipe the textbook as we know it out and enable real competition in textbooks.

WAR ON DRUGS:

The DEA now has death squads all over the western hemisphere.

"Late on a moonless night last March, a plane smuggling nearly half a ton of cocaine touched down at a remote airstrip in Honduras. A heavily armed ground crew was waiting for it — as were Honduran security forces. After a 20-minute firefight, a Honduran officer was wounded and twodrug traffickers lay dead.Several news outlets briefly reported the episode, mentioning that a Honduran official said the United States Drug Enforcement Administration had provided support. But none of the reports included a striking detail: that support consisted of an elite detachment of military-trained D.E.A. special agents who joined in the shootout, according to a person familiar with the episode."

Government never gets enough death and destruction.

POLICE STATE:

Rand Paul detained by TSA for refusing a full body search. This might work in Ron Paul's favor. Paul takes on the TSA.

"“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” Paul wrote in a statement provided to The Daily Caller. “One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our kids and our seniors and does nothing to keep us safe.”"

Pharaoh Obama stands with the TSA. This is great for Paul. I hope he works this into the debate tonight, and I expect he will. Issues like this is why Paul would beat Obama handily in the general election. Only he can differentiate himself from Obama.

Another TSA agent busted for stealing.

Supreme Court rules police must obtain warrant before tracking people with GPS. Every now and then they get one right.

Judge orders defendant to de-crypt hard drive.

WAR:

Feds send 12,000 US troops to seize oil wells in Libya. Where's the declaration of war? Where's the treaty?

Great graphic puts military spending in perspective. Another great graphic documents the hundreds of US military bases in the US and out.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The EU bans import of Iranian oil, harming Europeans.

"The Islamic Republic, which denies trying to build an atom bomb, scoffed at efforts to choke its oil exports, as Asia lines up to buy what Europe scorns."

This is a big boost to Asian countries and the Iranian government. I sincerely doubt the Iranian government will shut down the Straits of Hormuz as long as it can sell oil in Asia. That would be self-destructive.

The oil embargo and sanctions on Iranian banks push Iran's currency to record lows. This harms the Iranian people and forces them to turn to their government for support. This makes the government more powerful.

After the Arab spring, we might see a European winter has hundreds of thousands of Hungarians protest EU rule.

POLITICS:

Romney is the Goldman Sachs candidate.

Sheldon Adelson's money has transformed Gingrich from a middle east moderate into a hawk. Adelson's wife gives Gingrich another $5 million.

I'm skeptical of claims that Gingrich and Santorum can't win. This argument shows it will be harder for them because they failed to sign up delegates in some states, but that's a long way from "can't".

Gallop reports Romney 29, Gingrich 28, Paul 13, Santorum 11 nationally. Hopefully Santorum will drop out soon.

Newt leads in Florida: Gingrich 34, Romney 26, Paul 13, Santorum 11. Hopefully Santorum will drop out after Florida. Here's another reason Ron Paul is best candidate to run against Obama: a strong plurality of Hispanics support him.

Oliver Stone endorses Ron Paul.

Ron Paul representative documents voter fraud in South Carolina. This another good reminder that Republicans are just like Democrats.

Obama to rephrase communist slogan in State of the Union speech. Obama adopts "change is..." as his campaign slogan.

MISC:

Crowd-sourced version of Star Wars Episode IV, or as most of us know it, Star Wars.

Entrepreneur creates competing Android ap market.