Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Indiana government forces Amazon to collect sales tax in 2013.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

New study shows what people have known for a century or more: wind power is a poor energy source.

"Wind power is expensive, inefficient, does little or nothing to offset CO2, and isn’t economically viable without taxpayer funded subsidies. Oh, and they blight the landscape too."

This is another example of how government drags civilization backwards.

The up-front costs of hybrids outweigh any potential gains.

The price of incandescent light bulbs soars by 174 percent because of government in Europe. It'll be worse in the US.

WAR:

John Huntsman wants to kill more Americans with a ground invasion of Iran. Wouldn't it be cheaper just to line Americans up against a wall and shoot them? But of course you couldn't kill foreigners at the same time that way.

For six weeks, nobody in Pakistan was killed by a US attack. That must have been heaven for them. But Obama changed all that by killing four Pakistanis today.

POLICE STATE:

How bad laws attract bad cops to enforce them.

POLITICS:

Google accidentally posts the results of the New Hampshire primary before people voted. I would say the fix is in, but I don't think Gingrich is going to win New Hampshire. If he does, we'll know the fix was most definitely in.

Nice picture of Obama dressed as a pharaoh. Somebody has been reading my blog.

Obama's Alice in Wonderland themed Halloween party.

"Key details of the Halloween event, revealed in a new book, The Obamas, by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor, were reportedly kept secret in order not to offend public opinion at a time when unemployment was running as high as 10 per cent. The party was staged by Hollywood director Tim Burton and his leading actor Johnny Depp ahead of the release of theirAlice in Wonderland film."

This is how the ruling class lives on the money they steal from us. And yes, actors are members of the ruling class enjoying stolen money. Copyright excludes competition from the movies. Unions exclude competition from the movies. Because there's so little competition, actors and actresses make outrageously high salaries, artificially inflated by government coercion. The same is true for musicians, writers and other celebrities. Patents do the same for CEOs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and other top corporate execs. The Fed does the same for bankster executives.

"Coming on the heels of the Obamas’ $4 million taxpayer-subsidised vacation in Hawaii, this latest story is an embarrassment for a White House that seems not to have heard of the age of austerity that the vast majority of Americans are now living through. It will further bolster the impression of an out-of-touch, celebrity-obsessed elite ruling the country with an air of impunity."

Because it's true. Notice this story is reported in the British press, not the American.

Ron Paul stands up for Romney's business record and capitalism, just as you would expect.

Limbaugh suddenly attacks Gingrich, pretending he had no idea Gingrich hated the free market. Bull****. Limbaugh is no idiot. He knows all these big government Republicans are no different than Democrats. They all hate free enterprise because they cannot profit from free enterprise. The get rich from government domination of businesses. Whatever Limbaugh's true motives, he just ended Gingrich's run for president. Of course, it was already over, and Limbaugh undoubtedly knew that and capitalized on it. I've never seen Republican internal politics publicized in such a cut-throat fashion. I've never seen Limbaugh blow up a Republican to this extent. Not even Ron Paul. Of course he has no way to blow up Ron Paul to this extent.

Romney is the first Republican to win both Iowa and New Hampshire in modern history. Of course those 20 phony votes, and who knows how many more, are the only reason he won Iowa. Ron Paul came in a strong second in New Hampshire. So far he's far above expectations. The RCP poll average has him at 17 percent. With 46 percent of precincts reporting, he stands at 23 percent. John Huntsman cleared the field for third with 16 percent so far. He's the Santorum of New Hampshire. But Paul out-performed poll expectations and Romney under-performed. So far this race is about Romney versus Paul versus the flavor of the day. Let's hope as the flavors of the day quit, Paul catches Romney.

Apparently John Huntsman is too cool to put an h in his first name. I'll try to remember to type Jon when I report he's dropped out of the race. He's also apparently has too little support to get on some major ballots.

Firmly ensconced in second place, Ron Paul's campaign calls for all other Republicans to drop out of the race since none of them have a chance to defeat Romney. I love it. It's audacious. It makes every other Republican who doesn't drop out responsible if Romney wins. It makes every other Republican choose whether to be a tool of the establishment who helps Romney win or and advocate for the American people against the establishment. It bolsters the Paul brand. I love this tactic.

I predict most, because they are tools of the establishment, will stay in to insure Romney defeats Paul. I further predict that this will dramatically increase support for Rand Paul in 2016. Obviously Paul would like to win this year, but he also understands that's a long shot. It's probably been his underlying strategy from the beginning to alienate the establishment from the American people so Rand Paul can win in 2016. This tactic seems designed to do just that. This is also why Paul will not run a third party campaign.


I don't feel like linking the articles, but based on the headlines I'm reading, Santorum, Gingrich and Huntsman will continue. By doing so, they empower Mitt Romney to win and promote Ron and Rand Paul as the alternatives to the establishment. I think the Pauls have a long-term strategy that will win, if not this election, then next. I really believe that Ron is teeing it up for Rand to hit a hole in one in 2016. The only problem is the US as we know it may not exist then. Unless Ron Paul wins this year, I will be very surprised if the US, because of the pressure our rapidly deteriorating economy is putting on our political associations, is comprised of the same 50 states in the same configuration in 2016.

A number of people have claimed some conspiratorial reason why Paul hasn't attacked Romney. They're mistaken. This is a matter of strategy. As I pointed out above, Paul has been positioning himself as the conservative alternative to Romney. To that end, he's attacked others who claim to be the conservative alternative to Romney. Paul is trying to make it a two man race. He thinks because of Romney's record of big government and flip-flops, he can win a two man race. So he doesn't spend resources attacking Romney. He spends them ousting conservative pretenders. That's why he challenged them to withdraw. You don't have to be an insider or a rocket scientist to figure this stuff out.

Will this picture of recently drafted Ron Paul in military uniform with son Rand Paul, now Senator from Kentucky, both sitting on the elder Paul's bike win Ron Paul the presidency? You might think that's a silly question. I beg to differ.

Appearance matter disproportionately in presidential elections. No candidate in 2012 can come close to matching this photo because no other candidate was in the military. And no other candidate can match Paul's record supporting small government nor his knowledge of economics. The establishment says Ron Paul is un-electable. No sane person would say this man would not trounce Barack Obama in an election.

Sometimes the transparent hypocrisy of the ruling class crooks just cracks me up.
"Just two weeks ago, Bolton said on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show that Ron Paul’s foreign policy is “worse than the Obama administration.”"

Apparently two weeks ago Bolton wouldn't work for a non-establishment guy like Ron Paul. I'm sure he was consistent last night, right?

"On Fox Business Channel’s Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano, Bolton said “I would seriously consider serving in a Department of Defense under Ron Paul, if asked,” according to Napolitano’s Twitter and Facebook accounts."

What? Apparently Ron Paul is suddenly respectable in establishment circles. Mitt Romney should be very afraid. Worse, every American should be very afraid because this signals, for the first time I've seen, the establishment's willingness to embrace and corrupt Paul. I think and hope that Paul won't fall for it, but power corrupts everybody to some extent. The only question is how fast and how far.

Paul's speeches keep getting better and better.

If I had a dime for every time I argued that libertarianism was the ultimate populist philosophy, I'd be rich. If I had a dime for every time those arguments were dismissed, I'd be nearly as rich. No libertarian I ever talked to acknowledged it. But today I read this:

"The battle for second was won with surprising strength by the quirky populist Paul, whose small-government message resonated with voters to defeat a surging Huntsman and Santorum, the runner-up to Romney at last week's Iowa caucuses."

It's wonderful to realize the libertarian arguments I've been making for decades are finally being understood by the people including libertarians. I have to admit I wasn't a good debater a decade ago. It's hard to debate the obvious. How would you debate whether or not the sky is blue with somebody who was too blind to see it? That's the problem libertarians face every day. I've learned that appeals to reason are worthless until you first break through the shell of emotionalism. When it comes to politics, everybody wields Starship Enterprise-like emotional shields. You must use emotional arguments to penetrate those shields so you can subsequently engage people in rational debate. Both leftists and conservatives instinctively know to engage people emotionally, but is completely alien to libertarians because they tend to be rational. But once a libertarian understands this, he can make the easy argument that libertarianism is the best system for everybody: the ultimate populist argument. Ron Paul is making that argument, he finally has a national audience, and it's working.

Romney offers his own passionate speech. This is a great tactic for him, one he failed to master four years ago. Because the American people have no time to vet candidates because they work hard to advance their own interests and are focused on that goal, they always fall prey to the rhetoric they want to hear instead of investigating the records of the politicians who rob them blind. It's easy to call the American people ignorant. I've done it. And for most it's true. But it's not because they lack character or ability. It's because most are too damn busy providing for themselves and their families to do the work necessary to delve into the history and character of candidates. Out of short term interest, they defer to the the media to their detriment. The American political-criminal system is designed to take advantage of that reality.

As all the precincts report, Romney

MISC:

The US government provides a legal mechanism for a president to nullify all government employees: think snow.

How predators use the human nature to accept incremental changes to prey on us:

Mises advanced a recursive theory of money. Today money is worth pretty much the same thing it was yesterday, and yesterday it was worth pretty much the same as it was the day before. And so on back to the point where it was worth whatever value it had as a commodity. Pardon my brevity.

So in politics, people work their asses off to provide for themselves and their families, so they depend on the press to inform them about political candidates. The reason they trust the press is people trusted the press last election. And people trusted the press the election before. And so on...

I'll go further. When I was a child, my dad would take us for drives in the county. Every road we drove past was filled with cows in pastures. Those were the cows we ate. They were free range, grass fed, no hormones, no anti-biotics. Today, people think the beef they buy in stores is healthy because the beef they grew up eating was healthy.

Predators are preying on us using this natural, incremental acceptance the past. They're changing things to our detriment while we remain ignorant of the changes. In the examples I mentioned above, the Fed is using our human nature to steal our money by debasing the currency, the press is using our human nature to promote politicians who are acting against our interests, and factory farms are using our human nature to convince us to accept unhealthy sources of food.

Eight simple truths about western countries in 2012. They ain't pretty. If you believe it can't happen here, you're going to pay.