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POLICE STATE:

Homeland security had its own goons create a report saying that its X-ray machines are perfectly safe. That's like the mafia ordering its own goons to say breaking knees is perfectly safe.

In the wake of another, typical, outrageous government failure event that ended with one student-prisoner killing three other student-prisoners, the government wants every parent and teacher to treat any threatening behavior as a life or death terrorist event. Children everywhere should be scared. As should adults.

POLITICS:

RINO Snowe won't seek re-election in Maine. Thank goodness.

Have you ever wondered how to measure how badly Boehner's Republicans have done since they were empowered in 2010?

"Democrats grow confident of House win"

Sure, this is a bunch of propaganda, but like all good propaganda, it has truth at its basis. Thanks to Boehner's government-loving house and the Republicans' government-loving presidential candidates, all the people who wanted small government have been abandoned completely. Those are the people who were excited in 2010 despite knowing full well that Republicans including tea party Republicans were going to betray them. There's no longer a question of betrayal. It's here. The only hope our country has is if small government lovers rally to make Ron Paul the Republican nominee. If they don't, kiss America as we know it goodbye.

If this is true, when?

"Scientists at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when an unshakable belief is held by just 10 percent of the population, that belief will always be adopted by the majority of society.  Here is an article link to their findings. "

I'm sure that every libertarian is salivating for this to be true. But I'm skeptical. I don't see how a finding like this could be universal. It seems to me this ten percent number must vary with the number of people being bought off or lied to. On the other hand, maybe it's true given decades or centuries, in which case, who the hell cares? We'll all be dead by then. I want freedom now. I've been fighting for it for decades. I want it now.

Good for Ron Paul for honestly explaining that dramatic reductions in government and economic change will happen soon regardless of what voters vote for. The only intelligent thing to do is vote for a person who recognizes this and, because his informed enough to understand this is inevitable, can manage the process to limit the damage to all of us.

Thousands flock to listen to Ron Paul at Michigan State. No Republican inspires crowds on this scale besides Paul. He's inspiring a movement. But so far these people aren't winning him elections, so the question remains, is this a liberty movement or bowel movement? I'm sure many of my libertarian colleagues will be scandalized by that comment, but show me the votes. Show me the political victories. Until then, it's just hype. Growing hype. Promising hype. Hopeful hype. But hype nonetheless. I'm reminded of Anna Kournikova. Win something already. As thrilled as I am that Ron Paul has galvanized a movement, I'm afraid that movement will fade when he does. Rand Paul is not his dad.

MEDIA:

I listened to Rush all afternoon today, and he did everything in his power to convince people in Michigan and Arizona to vote for Santorum instead of Romney. He lost.

LOCAL:

I've gotten a lot of grief over my explanations that all government, federal, state and local exists for the sole purpose of looting the people. This item is unlikely to persuade sycophants, but I present it anyway.

"The board of the National Aviation Hall of Fame expects to decide soon whether to accept an offer from Charlotte, N.C., to convene this year’s Hall of Fame enshrinement dinner and ceremony in that city, rather than in Dayton, where the annual ceremony has taken place for years.
Bill Harris, board president of the National Aviation Hall of Fame, said the offer made through the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte includes $100,000 in cash and $50,000 in in-kind support services from US Airways, which operates a flight hub in Charlotte."

It's all about money. Government programs are always all about money for the individual who profit from the programs. Ignore the propaganda and focus on who profits, and you'll see what I mean.

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TAX AND SPEND:

I made a half-joking comment about Europeans making Germans angry by forcing them to bail out the PIIGS because making Germans mad hasn't worked out that well for Europeans. Now I read this:

"Potentially the fate of the global economy now lies in Germany's hands as it heads the effort to keep heavily indebted Greece (where people mutter about a "Fourth Reich") from going under and pulling down other Eurozone countries with it. On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel successfully steered approval for a $175-billion Greek bailout through the German Parliament, a deeply divisive measure for German taxpayers who will foot more than half the bill."

I guess it's only natural for people to be reminded of Germany's record, but then why are they making the Germans angry by stealing more money from them? It was the punitive action toward the Germans after WWI that led to WWII. Please, let's not do this again.

The budget plans of Romney, Santorum and Gingrich would all increase the national debt just like Obama. Only Ron Paul's plan would reduce the debt. It's interesting that Romney's plan would grow the debt the least of the three big-government Republicans.

HEALTH CARE:

Nice graphic called the ultimate guide to eating paleo.

How more natural agriculture increases yields and profits.

POLITICS:

Paul now tops Obama in a head to head poll nationally. Who were they saying is unelectable?

Ron Paul explains his attacks on Santorum, not Romney, just as I expected.

"As for the Texas Congressman's attack ads, which have been harsh on Santorum but absent on Romney, particularly in Michigan, Paul said that "right now the anti-Romney candidate is Santorum, so I have to get his votes, as I did at one time with Gingrich.""

Paul wants to win, he has a strategy to win and he's executing that strategy well.

Romney went for a stadium speech like Obama in 2008, and nobody showed up. This looks terrible.

LOCAL:

Government traffic planners blow it again. This isn't about incompetence. Government planners don't fail because they're stupid. They fail because they have no prices to guide them. Because government funds itself through theft, it cannot perform rational economic analysis. No matter how smart and benevolent the central planners, all government activities are doomed to be less efficient than if they were performed by market actors.

"“Imagine what this interchange will be like in 15 years after the area is more fully developed ... . Existing roads — many of which are already a hodgepodge of corrections — and new ‘fixes’ will only complicate the convoluted traffic design,” Sue Shay of Centerville said in an email.
Last year, Miami Twp. police reported 18 crashes at the Austin-Ohio 741 intersection and 25 crashes at I-75 and Austin. Despite new signs and other changes, the area requires heightened police attention, Major John DiPietro said.
Some people point to the fact that traffic projections used in the design were completed about a decade ago, in 2003 — five years before construction began.
Transportation officials say such a gap between traffic projections and construction is common."

Another example of all government programs including building roads are performed to loot the people first and secondarily provide services.

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RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Father arrested and strip-searched in Canada because his daughter drew a picture of a gun at school.

ECONOMY:

If you remember, there was a big global warming job bust in Spain a couple of years ago, and subsequently  a study showed that every green job created by government theft cost 2.2 jobs in the productive private sector economy. The damage is worse. Now we know that the parasitic government economy killed not only 2.2 jobs per phony green job, it also created ghost towns in Spain.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Evidence that Dr. Glieck committed identity fraud to get Heartland data because he was bested in a debate by a skeptic from Heartland. He pretended to be an insider to get donor information he could publicize so his partners in crime would harass them in order to obtain personal revenge. He also allegedly faked a document. Glieck requests leave of absence from Pacific Institute. There's a lot of truth in this quote.

"The Gleick incident, he said, shows that the “debate” over global warming is not really a debate any more. It’s a war, and when people are waging war, they always lie for their cause."

Much as the government is waging a war on drugs, poverty, and all other social ills, it's also waging a war on carbon dioxide. There's never been a public debate about this. It's been a mission from the start. The government hands out billions to frauds to promote their fraud and it makes sure skeptics get nothing. Ultimately this is about who controls and therefore gets rich off the government money. For decades, the frauds have controlled it and used to thorough corrupt the peer review process and the scientific literature while enriching themselves. But the skeptics are carrying on a public debate and are winning it, and that threatens the gravy train of all the frauds and environmental groups. That's why they resort to fraud to try and keep the money flowing. Law enforcement groups, prosecutors, judges, jailers and big corporations do the same thing to make sure they continue profiting from government's war on drugs.

The Glieck pseudo-science story continues to grow.

Politics use the faked documents to demand real documents from Heartland which they will subsequently publicize for the same purpose as Glieck. 

EPA restores the record of its funding to Glieck's Pacific Institute. Because Glieck is on the side of the government and its money, he'll survive this just like Phil Jones survived climategate, just like Michael Mann survived the hockey stick and James Hansen survives fraud after fraud.

I hate to feel bad for Glieck. This guy is one of the biggest frauds who has stolen our money to promote the anthropomorphic global warming fraud, and like all his fraudulent compadres, he deserves nothing but contempt. But his actions have exposed such an extensive series of frauds committed by him, that I can't help but feel bad that he's been exposed. Shame on me. I hate to think so badly of anybody, it seriously bugs me, but Glieck earned it.

Breakdown of funding for the climate fraud.

Greenpeace mining the trash of skeptics. Why not? This is big money for them.

POLITICS:

Smart Republicans want to attract libertarians to the party, then take advantage of them. Santorum is not smart.

"In June 2011, Santorum said he would continue to 'fight very strongly against libertarian influence within the Republican party and the conservative movement.' In an NPR interview in the summer of 2005, Santorum discussed what he called the 'libertarianish right,' saying 'they have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do. Government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulation low and that we shouldn't get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn't get involved in cultural issues, you know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world, and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can't go it alone...'"

Republicans have a huge problem this election. All the excitement comes from Ron Paul supporters. If Paul doesn't win the nomination, most of them won't vote for the Republican nominee. If Paul doesn't win the nomination, this election will be even more lame than Clinton versus Dole. If Republicans lose this election against the worst president in my lifetime, it's hard to see how the party survives.

MEDIA:

Claim that Foxnews edited a video to make it appear the audience applauded John Bolton's support for the Iraq war made by a veteran who asked Bolton a question about it.

LOCAL:

Apparently wage theft, when businesses don't pay employees for overtime or other reasons, is a big local issue. As bad as this sounds, I want to hear the other side of the story. But that side will never be publicized. This is one of those many problems created by government that now people want government to solve.

You know how governments always lie about future conditions, and I don't mean they make mistakes, I mean they know full well that future conditions will be worse than the claim? Locally, traffic at the Austin Blvd exchange has already exceeded the lying levels politicians claimed for 2035.

Free kibbles

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The US government is upset that North Korea doesn't honor the Fed's monopoly on counterfeiting money.

Hillary Clinton wants to run the World Bank.

HEALTH CARE:

Antibiotic use in pigs produced super-bug affecting humans.

The licensing of dentists artificially restricts the supply of dentists, creating higher prices. The ADA opposes increasing licenses.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Australia's Labor party is imploding because of its support for a carbon tax.

I've been reading about global warming for a decade or more, and I've made the following argument many times, but I don't remember seeing anybody else make it.

"There are literally thousands of feedbacks, each of which either reinforces or opposes the direct-warming effect of the extra CO₂. Almost every long-lived system is governed by net feedback that dampens its response to a perturbation. If a system instead reacts to a perturbation by amplifying it, the system is likely to reach a tipping point and become unstable (like the electronic squeal that erupts when a microphone gets too close to its speakers). The earth's climate is long-lived and stable — it has never gone into runaway greenhouse, unlike Venus — which strongly suggests that the feedbacks dampen temperature perturbations such as that from extra CO₂."

It's funny that this author claims this is the standard argument of skeptics, but I've never seen it.

Climate fraud confesses to email fraud. He might well be prosecuted over this. The EPA is covering up over half a million dollars in grants it paid to this fraud.

WAR:

Claim that US troops are in Syria, starting a civil war, just like in Libya. This is an incredible video. The Syrian government is learning the hard lesson that it doesn't pay to be friendly with US government. One day it calls you an ally, the next it's foment revolution against you. Secretary of State Clinton has already predetermined the rebels will win.

"There will be increasingly capable opposition forces. They will from somewhere, somehow, find the means to defend themselves as well as begin offensive measures."

How many people are we going to allow our government to kill? The majority of Syrians support Assad.

FOREIGN POLICY:

At least the New York Times is reporting that US intelligence does not believe that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. With all the propaganda about that being tossed around, it's nice to see a prominent mainstream source report this.

POLITICS:

Specter calls Santorum a liar. They're all liars.

Santorum may be crashing.

British newspaper explains Paul's delegate strategy. You don't see many articles like this in the US press.

MISC:

UK minister proposes to heat a swimming pool with energy from a crematorium.

Free kibbles

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Bailing out banks is inflationary.

The euro is an example of the tragedy of the commons.

 "The second cause is that the euro is a tragedy of the commons, as I explain in my book The Tragedy of the Euro.
In the eurozone, several independent governments can use one central banking system to finance their deficits. The costs of these deficits can be partially externalized in the form of higher prices on foreigners. Take the following example: The Greek government spends more than it receives in taxes. For the difference, the Greek government prints bonds. The banking system buys these bonds because banks can use them as collateral for new loans from the ECB. When the banks pledge the Greek government bonds as collateral with the ECB, they receive new central-bank money. Banks can then use these new reserves to expand credit. The money supply increases, and prices rise. The deficit is thereby indirectly monetized, and the users of the currency pay."

It's a great scam if you can get in on it. This article does a good job of laying out the two major factions determining who will pay for all the debt and how, no matter which wins, the eurozone might break up.

"But who is likely to win? In principle Germany has the better cards because it is paying and it could just threaten to stop guaranteeing for the periphery. However, there may be even better arguments for the other side to win. France was on the winning side of WWII and has more geopolitical power than Germany. The French government and her allies managed already to get rid of the hated Deutsch Mark. Germany has been paying other countries since WWII due to a combination of guilt complexes and implicit threats of isolation. As geopolitical conditions have not changed radically, it is likely that Germany will keep paying in the future and that the euro will be a weak currency."

Haven't Europeans figured out that's it not a good idea to punish and radicalize Germans?

We often complain that big corporations, especially financial corporations, tend to be short term planners. That mentality has permeated our entire culture with short term thinking and disposable products. In a discussion of how to return to the gold standard, Ron Paul explains one reason that happened.

"In 1971, the international definition of the "dollar" as 1/42 of an ounce of gold was also dropped. The Treasury and Federal Reserve still value gold at $42.22 per ounce, but that is a mere accounting device. In addition, IMF rules now prohibit any member country from externally defining its currency in terms of gold. The word "dollar," quite literally, is legally meaningless, and it has been meaningless for the past decade. Federal Reserve notes are not "dollars"; they are notes denominated in "dollars." But what a "dollar" is, no one knows.
This absurdity at the basis of our monetary system must be corrected. It is of secondary importance whether we define a "dollar" as a weight of gold or as a weight of silver. What is important is that it be defined. The current situation permits the Federal Reserve — and the Internal Revenue Service for that matter — to use the word any way they please, just like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland.
No rational economic activity can be conducted when the unit of account is undefined. The use of the meaningless term "dollar" has all but wrecked the capital markets of this country. If the "dollar" changes in meaning from day-to-day, even hour-to-hour, long-term contracts denominated in "dollars" become traps that all wish to avoid. The breakdown of long-term financing and planning in the past decade is a result of the absurd nature of the "dollar." There is very little long-term planning occurring at the present. The only way to restore rationality to the system is to restore a definition for the term "dollar." We suggest defining a "dollar" as a weight of gold of a certain fineness, .999 fine. Such a fixed definition is the only way to restore confidence in the markets and in the "dollar." Capitalism cannot survive the type of irrationality that lies at the basis of our present monetary arrangements."

I'd say another reason is the short term thinking of politicians who look only to the next election and who force policy on us based on that short term outlook. Uncertainty of the value of money in the future combined with uncertainty of the future dictates beyond the next election makes planning for the future a waste of resources.

Inflation and government regulations continue to drive up the price of commodities and therefore the price of farmland.

"As mentioned by one farmer in the film King Corn, “I don’t know a single farm out here that isn’t in a government program.”"

Another Marxist policy fulfilled thanks to Republicans as well as Democrats.

HEALTH CARE:

Smart phones, following computers, are enabling DIY medicine.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Global warming alarmism is triggering a kind of carbon trade war. The pain people are suffering because of these frauds and the policies they've promoted is the real threat.

Are you looking forward to $6 gas like in Florida? The article fails to mention the impact of inflation on these prices.

POLICE STATE:

Chertoff busted for lying to Congress, with no consequences, about a suspected terrorist.

TSA exposed for lying about another suspected terrorist.

Skepticism over claim that a water leak shut down TSA's new, low-def porno scanners, forcing agents to go back to the old high-def porno scanners.

WAR:

US satellite photos of Syria reported used for propaganda purposes. All government programs are used to support the interests of our rulers against us.

LOCAL:

USPS to close Dayton distribution center.

MISC:

More details on the fall of communism in the Virginia colony.

It's only a matter of time until it becomes profitable to mine garbage, especially for rare earth materials in electronics.

The history of post delivery in the US.

"The first postage rates were extremely high, as Congress tried to force easterners to subsidize the more expensive service to outlying settlements on the western frontier. As the Postal Service's official history notes, "Until 1851, the cost of sending a single sheet letter 40 miles was either 6› or 8›. When the letter traveled over 400 miles, it cost 25›. These prices doubled, tripled, or quadrupled with each additional sheet."[3] In 1843, "it cost 18 1/2› to send a letter from New York City to Troy, New York, but only 12 1/2› to send a barrel of flour the same distance."[4] The government charged 25› to deliver a letter from Philadelphia to New York.
Henry Wells (later of Wells-Fargo fame) entered the market, charged 6› a letter, and delivered faster.[5] In the Boston area alone, over a hundred private express companies carried the mail. Private companies delivered letters directly to addressees' homes, while the government still required people to pick up their mail at the nearest post office.
As private business flourished, government postal revenues declined. The postmaster general admitted in 1843 that many people thought the government's monopoly was "odious," but insisted that it had to be preserved for the good of the country.[6] In 1845, Congress tightened the laws prohibiting competition and increased the penalties for violators. In 1851, Congress lowered postal rates and began providing a direct subsidy for postal operations."

Here's more on the private delivery of post.

One of the most important lessons we should teach our kids is that rules don't matter. Celebrity matters. And I don't mean this is the way American society should be. I mean this is the way government has transformed American society, and children should be educated to take advantage of it. What prompted me to write this is:

"Ryan Braun wins appeal of suspension"

And as baseball claims,

"National League MVP Ryan Braun's 50-game suspension was overturned Thursday by baseball arbitrator Shyam Das, and a source told ESPN that Major League Baseball officials are livid over the decision."

I don't want to condemn the guy based on the establishment accusations. But that's how the system works. On the other hand, nobody has ever overcome the system. So maybe Braun is right. Maybe all the other people who've been destroyed by this process were right. The only difference is celebrity. Celebrity is a license to kill. It's also immunity from government oppression. All the rest of us are serfs to be crushed under the jackboots of the state. One more comment: the state's prohibition against people putting stuff in their bodies is illegitimate.

Free kibbles

POLITICS:

Ron Paul kicked some serious butt in tonight's debate, especially Santorum's. I can see why people think Paul is somewhat teamed up with Romney because both are going after Santorum, but Paul might well just be trying to knock down the so-called conservative candidate so he can become the conservative alternative to Romney and beat him. Whatever the motivation, it makes Romney and Paul have the same target.

The Greed of Predators Knows No Bounds

The Greed of Predators Knows No Bounds
by Mark Luedtke

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously asserted, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” Hogwash. As Frank Chodorov explained, all taxes are robbery. “All history points to the economic purpose of political power. It is the effective instrument of exploitative practices. Generally speaking, the evolution of political exploitation follows a fixed pattern: hit-and-run robbery, regular tribute, slavery, rent-collections. In the final stage, and after long experience, rent-collections become the prime proceeds of exploitation and the political power necessary thereto is supported by levies on production.” There’s nothing civilized about institutionalized robbery. Government is the world’s most successful protection racket. We pay tribute to our rulers to keep their brigands from assaulting us and seizing our property through violence.

Chodorov explains why we tolerate this robbery, “Centuries of accommodation have inured us to the business. Custom and law have given it an aura of rectitude; the public appropriation of private property by way of taxation and the private appropriation of public property by way of rent collections be­come unquestioned institutions. They are of our mores.” Justice Holmes’s statement was political propaganda designed to reinforce our mistaken perception of taxes.

Carrying on this predatory tradition, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley wants to charge sales tax on digital downloads and internet retail sales. The governor appeals to “fairness” to make his case. Since brick and mortar businesses collect sales tax, internet companies should as well. It’s ironic that fairness is regularly used to justify increased predatory looting of the people. If the governor really wanted fairness, he would abolish the sales tax. That would level the playing field for businesses and would be a step toward leveling the playing field between Maryland’s rulers and the people they prey upon.

O’Malley also proposes to raise taxes on gasoline, tobacco, nursing homes, water and sewers. But raising taxes is bad policy even for the predators at the state level. People can still move freely from state to state in the US, and people tend to flee high tax states and move to low tax states, taking their wealth with them. Business owners take their businesses and the jobs they create with them. Since taxes chase people and their wealth out of high tax states, in the long run these new taxes will lead to reduced revenues for Maryland’s government.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Governor O’Malley already experienced this after adding a surtax on millionaires, “One immediate impact of the millionaire tax was that the yacht owners who were supposed to pay this higher rate suddenly went missing. The number of $1 million tax filers shrank to 4,151 in 2009 from 6,899 in 2007, meaning four of 10 seven-figure earners vanished from the rolls. In 2010 the millionaire pool partially recovered to 5,282, but that was still 23% below the number before the tax was enacted. A big part of the decline was a result of the recession, but some of the missing millionaires left the state and stopped filing Maryland returns. According to the Baltimore Sun, thanks to years of exodus there are now ‘135,000 Marylanders, rich and otherwise’ living in Florida alone. Florida has no income or estate tax, while Maryland has one of the nation's highest estate taxes.”

This isn’t rocket science. People act in their own interests. They want to keep more of their money, so they flee high tax states. That’s human nature. But politicians are human to, and they act to advance their own interests just like everybody else. Governor O’Malley knows increasing taxes will hurt the people in his state. He just doesn’t care. His primary concern is filling his campaign coffers and getting re-elected so he can send his kids to better private schools or buy a second house. In Florida. He believes that pushing these new taxes will benefit him personally.

The same is true for Ohio politicians. Most don’t care that the high state income tax and Dayton city income tax depress our state and our city. Supporting those taxes benefits them personally.


But the freedom to move is a powerful force. It’s the force that drives federalism. In numerous states, politicians are looking to abolish income taxes because they believe doing so will get them re-elected. According to the Wall Street Journal, state governments in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Carolina, Idaho, Maine, New Jersey, Indiana and Ohio are all considering lowering or abolishing their state income tax. People are voting with their feet, and those left behind are beginning to instigate positive change to improve their own lives and make their states more competitive and attractive to producers. Too bad for the people of Maryland that O’Malley is going the wrong way.

Federalism empowers the people to resist state government oppression. That’s one reason our rulers in Washington are trying to stamp it out by seizing as much power from the states as possible. And the US government doesn’t allow Americans to freely leave the US to move to less oppressive countries. It seizes the property of expatriates through an expatriation tax to keep Americans from fleeing its oppression.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Russia and China are pushing to have the UN seize control of the internet. All governments hate free speech, so they all hate the internet.

SOCIALISM:

After Indiana passed right-to-work legislation, Ohio is now considering it. This is one of those government created solutions to a government created problem. The problem is that government gave unions the power of coercion. The government prohibits businesses from firing striking workers. The solution should be to take away that power of coercion and restore the voluntary labor market. In that environment, if a business agrees that it will only hire union workers, so be it.

TAX AND SPEND:

Obama claims that Romney and Santorum would increase the deficit. While that seems like the pot calling the kettle black, he might be right. Both will increase spending much like Obama, and our economy will continue to decline.

New Greek government bailout boosts the euro and the stock market, but it's just more wasted money, making Europe's sovereign debt and euro crisis worse.

HEALTH CARE:

The AMA wants government to forcibly vaccinate people.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Global warming pseudo-scientists admit they are political activists.

Peter Glick used as a scapegoat by the global warming frauds.

POLICE STATE:

Guess what happens when we allow government to put chips in our passports? When the chips break, the government refuses to allow travel.

" The claim has been made that breaking the chip in the passport shows that you disrespect the privilege of owning a passport, and that the airport was justified in denying this child from using the passport."

Disrespect the privilege... We're the stupidest people who ever lived. Our children - prisoners in a slave state - will spit on our graves.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iranian government reportedly rejects demands of IAEA. The more I read about this, the more I realize how easy it is for politicians to manipulate the media and therefore the people. For example, every time the IAEA puts out a a hundred page or more report, the media trumpets the five page political summary which never reflects the facts in the report. Who among us will read the hundred or more page report? What reporter will? Now we have no idea what the IAEA demands were, but the media leads us to believe they were perfectly reasonable and that the Iranian government has something to hide. I wonder if the IAEA made demands to inspect US government nuclear facilities if the US government would agree. I doubt it would.

POLITICS:

Obama taps his corrupt Chicago machine comrades for money.

Santorum wants to use the government to fight Satan. Santorum boasts of stealing people's money to fund Planned Parenthood on Greta Van Susteren. Here's text documentation. In this case, his rhetoric and his votes match. In the past Santorum explained he had been pro-choice until he ran for Congress. It appears the corrupting effect of government was very thorough on Santorum.

The Kennedys never stop stealing our money.

Ron Paul has a billionaire supporter too.

MEDIA:

Because of the ubiquitous corruption in the Republican primaries, Ron Paul Super PAC unveils smartphone app to empower supporters to conduct exit polls, video and publish to compete with establishment reporters.

"Revolution PAC will broadcast the results in real time as part of its “Boycott the Mainstream Media” initiative, which will be streamed live throughout the day during the Arizona and Michigan primaries."

This is an awesome idea.

LOCAL:

Begging incidents up 400 percent in Centerville. God forbid Ohio's and Dayton's economic problems show up in Centerville. Maybe the beggars discovered the people in Centerville had more money than those in Dayton.

"Centerville Police information officer Matt Dunn said the department received a total of four complaints about panhandling in the city between July 2010 and July 2011. “Since then, we’ve had 17.”"

OMG. Call in the National Guard. I can see why this is such an important article for the DCP.

MISC:

Hackers force privacy centric search engine offline. I hope they don't do the same to DuckDuckGo.

Spurs to retire Bruce Bowen's number. Wow. I doubt a defender like Bowen, who was fantastic, ever got an honor like this. The Spurs are on top their division. They're 13-1 at home, and they're 9-1 in their last 10. But all the talking heads and the media people want to talk about is Jeremy Lin and the Knicks. I understand while people talk about the Yankees. They win. They win often. They win over and over. But the Knicks suck. They've sucked for a decade. They were mediocre for decades before then except for a couple of years when they won the championship. But the size of the market is all that matters in the NBA. The Knicks have the biggest market in the NBA, so the league and the media will do everything in their power to promote them. Meanwhile, San Antonio continues to kick butt. On the flip-side, the Spurs had the best record in their history last year, but they got swept out of the playoffs by the Grizzlies. So what they're doing now doesn't mean much. Unless, I hope, they're holding the trophy at the end of the playoffs.

The Copyright Police State

The Copyright Police State
by Mark Luedtke

For six months, many internet users were monitoring and informing everybody we could reach about SOPA and PIPA. The Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) was a draconian House bill that would have given the feds terrible powers to attack the owners of websites ostensibly to combat piracy of copyrighted material. PIPA was the Senate version.

Despite this overwhelmingly negative response from the people, both bills, pushed by giant movie and record corporations, were smoothly sailing to become law. These plutocrats paid big money to Congress-crooks to purchase this legislation. Then a funny thing happened: internet giants revolted. Google, Facebook, Wikipedia and dozens of other popular websites blacked themselves out, informed visitors of the dangers of SOPA and PIPA and provided contact information for representatives. Concerned citizens crashed the email and phone services in the Capitol, and by the end of the day, both bills were dead. The upstart rebels feel flush with power after destroying the copyright Death Star.

But the empire will strike back. Government hates free speech for good reason. As Murray Rothbard explained in Anatomy of the State, “The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property; it renders certain, secure, and relatively ‘peaceful’ the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society. … The State has never been created by a ‘social contract’; it has always been born in conquest and exploitation.” There are only two ways to obtain wealth; through production or predation. The government doesn’t want the people to realize it’s a predatory institution - a super-mafia - and can never be anything else.

You can find Rothbard’s essay, others like it and entire books on economics and liberty for free at mises.org. This is unprecedented in history. Because the internet provides unlimited access to this kind of free information, governments have been working overtime to seize control over it since it was created. Last year the US Congress entertained multiple bills to seize control of the internet including one giving the president a kill switch to arbitrarily shut down the internet under the guise of national security. As Mac Salvo wrote, “SOPA was an attempt to put the power of information back in the hands of an elite few who are rapidly losing the ability to control what the masses are reading, hearing and seeing. Alternative news and ‘extremist' information was the target (and still is).”

But even as the rebels were destroying the Death Star in Washington, the empire reached around the world to Hong Kong and New Zealand and snuffed out Megaupload Limited, claiming it was dedicated to copyright infringement, and arrested its owner. The data of customers of megaupload.com remains in limbo. This would be like the government shutting down a bank and seizing all the bank accounts because it claimed that criminals sometimes saved money there. Your money may or may not be lost.

This police state attack in the name of copyright enforcement was clearly intended as a threat. Government is using copyright as an excuse to shut down speech it doesn’t like and to intimidate internet companies. Government is god over corporations. It creates them, destroys them and raises them from the dead with the stroke of a pen. You can bet Google and Facebook will think twice before organizing their customers against government’s agenda again.

Corrupt Chris Dodd, the senator from Countrywide turned chief lobbyist for the Hollywood plutocrats, hinted at the empire’s revenge, “‘It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on [these sites] for information and use their services,’ Dodd wrote. ‘It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today.’” Congress will force the executives of these companies into Congressional show trials to demonize them soon. Then the empire will pass something much like SOPA either quietly or in a fervor related to some phony national security concern.

But Americans shouldn’t be surprised that the government uses copyright to quash speech it doesn’t like. The purpose of copyright from its inception was to give governments control over information. Copyright is not a grant of rights as supporters pretend. It’s a grant of monopoly privilege that makes the producer’s profits beholden to the government. Copyright is a ban on everybody else from sharing information. The same is true for patents and all so-called intellectual property (IP). Government doesn’t fight monopolies. It creates them to control producers.

Copying is not stealing. If you took my bicycle, I wouldn’t have a bicycle anymore. That’s stealing. But if you copy my article, I still have my copy. That’s not stealing. Contrary to the assertion in the forum center, piracy doesn’t cost anything. IP costs consumers billions every year by transferring wealth from consumers to producers, and by hindering the exchange of ideas, it impedes the advance of civilization. IP is corporate welfare for the purpose of corporate control.

People are using the internet to expose the fraud of government, and those predatory dinosaurs will do everything in their power to stop them. Fortunately smart people are designing a decentralized internet that can resist government control.

Free kibbles

EDUCATION:

A picture of government-created chaos.

 HEALTH CARE:

One in ten doctors admit to lying to patients in the last year.

"The results also show 34 percent of doctors surveyed did not "completely agree" that physicians should disclose all significant medical errors to affected patients. Instead, these doctors said they only somewhat agreed, or disagreed."

Government control of health care has institutionalized lying to patients.

"Our findings raise concerns that some patients might not receive complete and accurate information from their physicians."

Ya think? Try getting your doctor to discuss something with you. I've tried. He won't. Doctors hate the internet because they can no longer keep patients ignorant.

I can't imagine letting a government doctor embed some device under my skin that would medicate me without my knowledge. I'd have to be nearly dead with no other options to allow this.

"In other words, diabetes patients might never need to give themselves another shot. They wouldn't have to worry about remembering to bring medicine everywhere, and they might even be free of having to constantly monitor their blood-sugar levels. Plus, many diabetes patients lapse into comas or die during sleep because that's eight hours every day when they can't monitor their levels. The NASA Biocapsules would work automatically, regardless of whether you're awake or not. As of 2010 there were an estimated 285 million people living with diabetes, so saying that this invention could potentially save millions of lives is not an exaggeration."

It makes more sense for those diabetics to quit eating the government disease creation diet so they can cure their diabetes. Using NASA to promote this abomination is, well, a greater abomination. This is seriously twisted. Just a few days ago the propagandists didn't mention NASA. Apparently the response was less than stellar so they reloaded the propaganda and boosted it using NASA.

POLICE STATE:

Canadian government becoming more aggressive than the US.

I just did a Google news report on "FBI terrorist plot" and discovered this:

"Within the last week, authorities say, Amine El Khalifi’s plan to wreak havoc was proceeding as hoped: An al-Qaida associate handed him an automatic weapon to kill security officers inside the U.S. Capitol. A bomb-laden vest would detonate the building. He would die as a martyr.
But there was a problem: The explosives were inert, the gun inoperable and the supposed al-Qaida member was actually an undercover officer, according to court documents."

In other words, FBI agents provocateur radicalized another patsy and entrapped him into promoting the phony terrorist threat against the US. Every supposed terrorist threat I've read about in the last several years was originated, organized, funded then thwarted by the FBI. The FBI has created a cottage industry out of creating phony terrorist threats.

I want to make this clear. The FBI is far more dangerous to the average American than any Muslim terrorist, and I'm far more afraid of the FBI than I am of a Muslim terrorist.

POLITICS:

The sham recount by the Republican establishment in Maine indicates more corruption, not less. The Republican establishment should quit before it falls further behind.

Military warns active duty, reservists and veterans not to march in support of Ron Paul. The military supports Ron Paul for a reason: he's trying to save their lives while all the rest of the candidates want to kill them to enrich their cronies. You can't make this stuff up.

Goofball Santorum says Obama's policies elevate the earth above the man. Is that his idea of being poetic? How his policies are bankrupting Americans and the US government? That's probably too honest. I was disgusted by the candidates in 2008. There's a branch of libertarian philosophy that claims that each president is worse than the one before him. Of course we can identify a couple of exceptions: Jefferson, Eisenhower and Reagan for example. But, other than Paul and as bad as Obama is, the current crop of Republicans fits the worse than Obama bill.

The mis-named experts say that the negativity in the Republican campaign is hurting Republicans. You know what I think about so-called experts, so I disagree. The problem with the Republican race isn't the negativity. It's the crappy quality of candidates. That's like saying that the reason people hate a spoiled ham sandwich is somebody pointed out the sandwich is spoiled. No. The reason people hate it is it's spoiled. Pointing it out isn't the problem. The Republican candidates, other than Ron Paul, suck. All of them claim to support limited government, but none of them other than Ron Paul does. And Ron Paul is a terrible messenger for small government. Not once have I heard him explain how every dollar government spends makes us poorer. But IMO there's good news in all of this. It's best to get the negativity out in the primary. Come November, people either won't remember or won't care what was said in the primary. The primary will greatly immunize the candidate from the criticism he's receiving today.  That's why primaries exist.

MISC:

Scientists have created a working transistor from a single atom. I'm skeptical. Quantum uncertainty must make the results uncertain. I'm sure engineers can develop error correction, but you can't have it both ways. Semiconductor physics is based on quantum mechanics. Single atoms cannot behave with certainty.

I recently wrote that all the phony hype around Jeremy Lin would ultimately do him harm when he was brought back down to earth. Now we know that three ESPN personalities have been punished for their comments regarding Lin. It's disgusting how the David Stern and ESPN are trying to use this man like a drug. They are so desperate for a success in New York, they'll destroy anybody to get it. Leave Lin alone to excel, succeed or fail. Leave the fans alone to embrace him or not. He doesn't deserve being burned to the crisp under this self-serving corporate-government microscope.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Remember when universities pretended to be bastions of free speech? Not any more.

"The universities of Western Ontario and Toronto have signed a deal with Access Copyright that allows for surveillance of faculty correspondence, defines e-mailing hyperlinks as equivalent to photocopying a document, and imposes an annual $27.50 fee for every full-time equivalent student to pay for it all."

The copyright police state is on the march.

ECONOMY:

CBO report exposes the Obama economy. It's bad when the government admits real unemployment is 15 percent.

TAX AND SPEND:

It looks like Obama will need to raise the debt limit shortly before the November election. If this is accurate, and it might just be wishful thinking on the part of Republicans, Republicans might just get a little political benefit from giving Obama the power to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling after all, but I doubt it can offset the damage already done by losing the 2010 momentum. Besides, Republicans have done so poorly since taking the House, Obama may turn the tables on them on this issue too. If you remember, after Democrats trounced Republicans in 2006, they kept that momentum and trounced them again in 2008, except for Obama who barely won. The McConnell plan made it very unlikely Republicans will do the same in 2012. In the mean time, we all lose from increased spending and debt.

HEALTH CARE:

This article tells of a shortage of a cancer drug, but all it tells of the cause of the shortage is this:

"Four of those companies made a preservative-free version. So, when one of the biggest makers of the preservative-free methotrexate, Ben Venue Laboratories Inc., recently shut down its four factories in Bedford, Ohio, possibly for a year, due to serious quality problems, the on-again, off-again methotrexate shortage that began in late 2008 quickly turned into a crisis. That’s because the other companies cannot quickly pick up the slack."

I wonder why other companies can't quickly make up the slack. Could it be... government regulations? Note that the company that shut down production had serious quality problems. That happens when a company is protected from competition by government regulations.

Obama's birth control and morning after pill mandate is the tip of Obamacare's mandate iceberg.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Speaking of socialism, according to Obama's Department of the Interior, only the Venezuelan government steals more money from domestic oil companies than the US government.

"Nearly 64 percent of the revenue from oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico is marked for either income or royalty tax, according to the study done by the Department of Interior."

Ouch.

WAR:

US violates Syrian airspace with drones in an act of war.

"The West has ruled out a Libya-style military intervention in Syria to stop 11 months of bloodshed. "

I wouldn't count on it. This is playing out exactly like Libya. First British and French agents spark protests. Then they arm protesters. Then send in special forces. Then they drone support. Soon they'll be calling on NATO ostensibly to stop the bloodshed they started but really to increase the bloodshed, topple Assad and install a fractured, radical Islamic government they expect to be able to control by playing the factions against each other. Turkey may be keeping NATO out of it. Let's hope NATO stays out of if. We don't need to create terrorists in Syria who want to kill Americans too.

POLITICS:

The recount of the Maine caucus votes done by the same establishment that corrupted the first count reportedly increased Mitt Romney's margin of victory, still not counting Washington County which Ron Paul won handily.

"It turns out Paul won many of the communities that hadn't previously been counted. Paul beat Romney 21 to 5 in Waterville, according to the new GOP data. Paul also beat Romney 72 to 59 in Waldo County.

But the vote tallies were revised enough in other towns to add to Romney's lead, according to the new data.

In Limington, Paul originally received 20 votes. But after the recount, Paul received zero votes.

In Portland, Paul originally beat Romney 106-91. But after the recount, Romney beat Paul 106-91.

In Bar Harbor, the GOP originally said 22 people voted. But after the recount, it said 27 voted and the five extra votes went to Romney.

In Trenton, the GOP originally said 15 people voted. But after the recount, it said 20 voted and all five extra votes went to Romney."

Pretty much just as predicted. It's laughable.

Does Republican establishment corruption in South Carolina hide in the safety of numbers?

"Upon reviewing the Greenville County Precinct election vote data from the 2012, a disturbing pattern arose: Ron Paul averaged 24% in precincts where less than 250 people voted; he averaged less than 12 percent in precincts with more than 800."

Could be. Or maybe Paul just did better in rural areas.

Adelson to dump another $10 million on Gingrich. Gingrich must have threatened to drop out without the money.

Free kibbles

PROPERTY RIGHTS:

All rights, property, civil, and economic, are derived from the most fundamental right of self-ownership. I feel stupid for never having clearly made this case in four years. I'm going to make it in the paper this weekend then publish it here.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Corporate alliance uses government power to shut down two more file hosting sites. That reduces the ability of people to communicate with each other. Here's another example of how government works against the advance of civilization. The copyright cops are taking us back to the dark ages.

The elites have canceled Freedom Watch. Apparently they also suspended the Colbert Report. The government hates free speech. It always has. It always will. We are entering an unprecedented age of coerced censorship in the US. The internet as we know it will not survive. Let's hope smart people will establish a shadow internet before the government shuts down the original.

Another eastern European country rejects ACTA.

TAX AND SPEND:

Here's what Obama and his Republican partners have done to our debt:

"Spending has gone up from $2.98 trillion in 2008—the year before Obama came into office—to a proposed $3.80 trillion in 2013. That is a 28-percent increase in five years, which represents a compound annual growth rate of 5.0 percent. Because the economy has stagnated during this period, spending has increased as a share of GDP."

I thank both parties for stealing this money from us.

HEALTH CARE:

Why don't people live beyond 114?

Another reason for government's war on the internet: people are learning their doctors are full of crap. This puts the doctors in a bad situation. If patients refuse some treatment, and they get sicker, the doctor might get sued for malpractice. This is probably why doctors are firing patients. I bet homeschooling parents are the ones refusing vaccinations.

God help us resist drugs on a chip. I'm sure many people will say this is a wonderful thing because it will take away the responsibility of people to take drugs. Maybe we should take away people responsibility to think too. Oh wait. Government is already doing that, and its control of chipped drugs will pretty put an end to independent thinking.

Government could force every topic I bring up here under POLICE STATE. I try to organize them otherwise, and I believe raw milk stories belong under health care.

"The FDA won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington, D.C., region after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines and he told his customers he would shut down his farm altogether."

So the government treated this Amish farmer like a terrorist, and we're all supposed to believe it protected us from him. What a crock. In fact, our government oppressed this American, and we're all poorer because of it. I don't know how to make this clear to people. I write essays with a strategy to provoke in hope I will penetrate people's barrier of bias.  I'm happy if I reach the minds of one or two people a week. But in the mean time, government is destroying businesses and families by the thousands. I can't keep up with its monstrous attacks. It's too big, too monstrous itself. All I can hope for is convince one person or save one person. If I succeed, I'm happy, and the people become stronger.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Centrally planned allocation of resources for drugs by the DEA fails like all central plans.

POLICE STATE:

Indian government requires cell phone companies to track all cell phone users in real time. If the US government did that, I stop carrying a cell phone regularly. This is another example of how government works against the advance of civilization.

It sounds like one US government agent shot two others.

WAR:

The geographic distribution of terrorists points to US government aggression as their motive.

POLITICS:

Voter outrage in Maine grows. The Republican establishment is damaging itself with the rampant fraud. The Texas Republican establishment is changing the rules to prevent Ron Paul from getting delegates. The Maine establishment caves, sort of. They claim they will recount all the caucus votes, but they same crooks who counted them the first time will be counting them the second too. The Paul campaign doesn't want a recount. Paul would probably be better off leaving this in controversy. That's probably why the establishment chose to recount.

I fear the conservative strategy of "anybody but Obama" is going to backfire with catastrophic consequences. If conservatives continue on that path and nominate another typical big-government Republican, that Republican will lose and the Republican party will cease to exist. It's hard to imagine that anybody could lose to the worst president in my lifetime, but that's exactly what conservatives are about to make happen. There are probably only half a dozen Americans who could lose to Obama in November. Government-lovers Romney, Santorum and Gingrich are at the top of that list. Conservatives sold their souls to the big-government devil generations ago, and for all their lip-service to the contrary, they refuse to take them back. And they're helping Obama and progressives destroy our country.

 In relation to what I posted above, Republicans can't defeat Obama if the economy seems to be recovering, and Ben Bernanke will cut his own mother's throat to make it appear it's recovering. Republicans have nothing to stand on. Obama has principles that his party has championed forever. He can express a positive agenda, no matter how much of a lie it is. His principles are the progressive income tax, health care is a right, government spending creates jobs, etc. The problem for Republicans is they support the same policies while pretending they have different principles. In fact, they can't point to any substantial difference between themselves and Democrats or Obama. They've supported the exact same principles and policies, with minor tweaks, forever. The Republicans have no principles. They have no principled basis for engaging people. And unless the economy enters a double-dip, the big-government Republican they nominate is likely to lose.

How should I explain the symbiotic relationship between conservative and progressives?
Suppose it's 1910. Americans suffer under very little government. Over the last couple of centuries, Americans working with the tiniest burden of government in the history of the world have created the most productive and moral country in the world. But that's all about to change. Republicans since the War of Northern Aggression have been pushing centrally planned, punitive taxes on the South. After a period of years of political struggle, progressives, starting with Teddy Roosevelt then Woodrow Wilson, dominated both parties.

Since then, there's been no difference of substance between the parties. Conservatives tepidly resisted the income and the Fed. A couple of years later, they supported both criminal institutions. This isn't surprising except to fools. From its inception, the conservative movement was designed to support the status quo. In other words, whatever outrage the progressives implemented, conservatives embraces as the status quo. So the claims that conservatives today resist the tyranny they helped create are laughable. Look at the history. Marxi's income tax, his central control of money, his central control of farms, his central control of schools, all originally resisted by conservatives have within a couple of years embraces by the champions of the status quo.

Often libertarians look to conservatives as allies based on their rhetoric. This is a farce. For a century at least, conservatives have been the allies of progressives, slavishly following behind by a year or two in their march towards totalitarianism while pretending they support they libertarian principles they betray year after year.

MEDIA:

Some people are surprised that Obama is intimately in control of Media Matters along with Soros. I'm not. I'm surprised that Republicans haven't tied him to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, Saul Alinsky or all the other radical leftist organizations he's part of. This is like complaining that Castro liked cigars while ignoring he killed thousands of people. Get your priorities straight. Obama is a Marxist. His entire history tells us this. This is the front we need to attack him on. Who gives a crap about the window dressing? But of course, Republicans are Marxist too. That the dirty little secret we're not allowed to speak of.

MISC:

Years ago the government promised to restrict telemarketers. How's that working out for you? I bet you get several calls a day from anonymous numbers just like me. (I'm no the pretend no-call list just like you.) Rest assured the FCC is coming to your rescue. If you trust the FCC to stop that spam, please send me a nickel for every call you receive so I can use that money to point out how naive you were to trust the government.

In a capitalist society, miniaturization often means less cost to do more work. That in turns means more money for workers and more profit for capitalists. Everybody wins. Isn't that goal?