Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Canada considers extending copyright 20 years to align with world. Don't do it.

I understand that many of the freedom of speech issues I bring up might be esoteric to many. I bring them up because, in addition to their immediate consequences, they set precedents for even worse censorship. For example, this French court ordered Google to remove a term from its searches.

ECONOMY:

Remember when temporary jobs pushed the unemployment rate down to 8.6 percent in November. That number has been revised up to 8.7 percent. But temporary jobs have pushed unemployment down to 8.5 percent in December. We can expect that number to be revised up next month too.

"December's biggest growth came in transportation, especially courier services that staffed up for the holidays, and in health care and manufacturing, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics."

The press is making a mistake by promoting these temporary numbers so strongly. Unemployment is going to go back up as those temp jobs disappear, and Obama will get the blame.

POLICY:

FBI changed definition of rape to include men as victims. As obvious as this is, I have a feeling this part of some bigger social engineering scheme. Government officials don't just do the right thing out of the blue.

FOREIGN POLICY:

As soon as I saw the US threaten sanctions on Iranian oil exports, I knew this was intended to start a war. I didn't need anybody to tell me this, and I'm sure most Americans didn't either. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that since Iran gets something like 80 percent of its income from selling oil, that plans to cut off those exports are designed to start a war. But apparently this guy can't think for himself. Only the opinions of so-called experts are worth anything.

"A week ago Ron Paul tried to convey how the ever-tightening sanctions on Iran--which may soon include an embargo on its oil--look from an Iranian point of view: It's as if China were to blockade the Gulf of Mexico, he said--"an act of war".
This is sheer conjecture; Ron Paul is no expert on Iran. But now someone who does have relevant credentials has weighed in, and the picture he paints is disturbingly reminiscent of the one Paul painted. It suggests we may be closer to war than most people realize.Vali Nasr, in addition to being a highly respected expert on the Middle East, belongs to a family that, according to Lobelog's sources, has "a direct line into Iranian Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's inner circle." In a Bloomberg View piece that is getting a lot of attention, Nasr reports that "Iran has interpreted sanctions that hurt its oil exports, which account for about half of government revenue, as acts of war." Indeed, the Iranian leadership now sees U.S. policy as "aimed at regime change.""

Duh. Ron Paul also sits on the foreign policy committee in the House. I do not.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul supporter who helped count votes in Iowa identifies vote count error in favor of Romney.

"The Paul supporter, Edward True of Moulton, told The Associated Press that he helped count the ballots cast at his precinct caucuses and that Romney received two votes. True said he was shocked to see the official results on the Republican Party website showed Romney with 22 votes in the precinct."

That's a huge bonus favoring Romney. Other errors have been reported. So the suspicions that the establishment manipulated vote counts to steal the caucuses are confirmed.

Iowa is officially a three way tie as Romney, Santorum and Paul would all get seven delegates if the results were binding. But they're not, so Paul might get more because of his superior organizing.

Great story about a bad Romney campaign event. The last line makes the story.

Romney demonstrated in support of the draft for the Vietnam War, but he was exempt because of his Mormon missionary status.

Ron Paul took down Newt Gingrich by exposing his duplicity. Now he's doing the same to Rick Santorum. I love this. You can't imagine how much I love this. It's about time somebody exposed the frauds at the top of our ruling class.

People pretending to me Ron Paul supporters attacked Jon Huntsman - if you haven't heard of that supposed Republican candidate for president, that's because nobody else has either - but the details suggest the attackers are supporters of Romney and Santorum trying to slime Ron Paul.

I doubt it works for Ron Paul to have Rand Paul photographed in a shirt that seems like he's wearing a Spock costume. As much a geek as I am, I'm pretty sure that every American would see this the same because of the ubiquitiness of Star Trek. I'm sure Rand didin't plan it that way, but the photographer knew exactly what he was doing when he snapped the picture.