Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

A British paper reports on a US Labor Department report that nearly 20 percent of America's working age men are out of work.

"Two in 10 or 17 per cent of men aged 25 to 54 – traditionally the backbone of the workforce – are unemployed."

Thanks, government. I wonder if any US papers will report on this.

TAX AND SPEND:

Democrats join Republicans in unanimously rejecting Obama's budget.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Canadian government to eliminate its penny. Central banks have made pennies virtually worthless.

EDUCATION:

The captain of the Ben-Gals cheerleading squad was busted for having sex with one of her high school students. This story is wrong for so many reasons. First, why is this smoking hot 26 year old having sex with a minor? Why would she put herself in this position? Second, how stupid are these laws that would make this a crime? Every young man in that high school wants to have sex with this teacher. She is not a predator taking advantage of her position to prey on some poor child. The young man she had sex with wasn't harmed by this incident. What's so magic about turning 18?

HEALTH CARE:

You know how many people make the knee-jerk claim that the US has the best health care in the world? Here's the reality of what government has done to our health care system.

"According to the 2011 Health Grades Hospital Quality in America noticed doctors or hospitalStudyii, the incidence rate of medical harm occurring in the United States is estimated to be over 40,000 harmful and/or lethal errors each and EVERY day."

Our government run health care system is far from the best in the world.

"However, there are solutions; it is possible to make hospitals better, and the book addresses this in depth. Nutrition is a key element. As Dr. Saul points out, hospital food is almost universally associated with bad food. Most of it is highly processed, but you can sometimes get better fare simply by asking for a vegetarian meal. He also explains why it can be helpful to get a simple note from your primary care physician if you take vitamins and want to continue taking them while in the hospital. And, your rights, should the staff insist you can't take them while staying there."

Our bad government health care system is in cahoots with our bad government food system.

"... The lowest estimate makes hospitals one of the top 10 causes of deaths in the United States... The highest estimate makes hospital and drugs the number one cause of death in the United States..."

Almost all hospitals are owned by government. Government ownership of the production of health care is socialized medicine, and this is exactly what one would expect from our socialized medicine system.

"Many believe training hospitals will provide them with the latest and greatest care, but they can actually be more dangerous. As a general rule, avoid elective surgeries and procedures during the month of July because this is when brand new residents begin their training. According to a 2010 report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, lethal medication errors consistently spike by about 10 percent each July, particularly in teaching hospitals, due to the inexperience of new residents.iv Also be cautious of weekends."

Government hospitals training residents who graduated from government universities are killing people.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

The global warming frauds never cared about real climate science. It was always about alarmism as a tool to expand government power.

Natural sources emit much more mercury than human sources, and the North America emits a very tiny fraction of the total, but that isn't stopping the EPA from passing new, expensive mercury regulations.

Praise for cheap electricity.

"I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.

...

I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its tradeoffs is something to be ashamed of."

Well said.

Al Gore fires Keith Olbermann and will replace him with disgraced former prosecutor and governor Elliot Spitzer.

Thanks to EPA regulations, US companies will export coal. Commentary.

"[The EPA] has just ordered that in the future, American coal will be burned in the most polluting way possible. She ruled that coal can’t be burned in new US power plants, so it’s going to be exported to shabbily built highly-polluting furnaces in third world countries. That’s environmental protection at its finest."

The green movement has nothing to do with protecting the environment. It's about destroying capitalism.

No global warming link to 2011 tornadoes. No global warming link to hot Russian summer in 2010.

POLICE STATE:

I guess it's a natural progression of our celebrity and IP obsessed, morally degraded culture that the killing of Trayvon Martin would turn into a marketing brand.

"A phenomenon on that scale is bound to be commercialized, said Donna Hoffman, a marketing professor at the University of California-Riverside."

Since our society is dominated by government theft and government violence, it breeds that kind of amorality in the people. What a bunch of "sharing the pain" bull-hockey.

Police courtesy cards are good reminder that laws are for the serfs, not our rulers.

The Frenchman who recently killed Jewish school kids was a French intelligence asset.

"Merah’s trip to Israel is also getting a second look, with some unconfirmed claims that French spy agencies supported the trip. The details behind this aren’t clear either, but seems to support Bonnet’s speculation that Merah’s ties with DCRI are more than meets the eye.

Merah, 23, killed seven in a spree targeting “apostate” French Muslim soldiers and Jewish school children. The gunman said he was avenging the Palestinian people. In a raid to capture Merah, French police shot him dead."

Isn't it convenient they killed him so he couldn't talk?

Not too long ago I wrote that Kinect is the implementation of George Orwell's big brother technology. Now Samsung TVs have it built in. From now on, your TVs will be spying on you.

The US is requiring British passengers who fly to Canada, Cuba or Mexico to be cleared by DHS as if they were flying to the US. I wonder how our government bribed those governments to put up with that.

WAR:

US government trained Mali rebels attack another city.

"The two towns are major prizes for the Tuareg rebels, who launched an insurgency in January fueled by the flow of arms from the fall of neighboring Libya, where many of the rebels had been on the payroll of Moammar Gadhafi."

More deadly unintended consequences of NATO's coup in Libya.  Death and destruction continues in the wake of NATO's war in Libya.

Government to spend $1.1 trillion for the F-35s over the next 55 years, but it already spent $395.7 billion, so that $1.1 trillion estimate seems way too low. And 55 years? That's crazy.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Israeli is increasing its military presence in Georgia as well as Azerbaijan.

"There are concerns within the U.S. intelligence community that the Israelis are playing fast and loose with their affiliation in what are known as false-flag operations, frequently representing themselves as Americans in actions similar to those relating to Mossad’s efforts to recruit Jundallah militants in Western Europe. Israel also reportedly attempted to hide behind a false flag in January when one of its drones that had been operating over Syria went down in Turkey. The Israeli Foreign Ministry initially denied any knowledge, suggesting that the device was American. But the Turks, who have U.S. drones flying from airbases in their own country, recognized that the drone was not of American manufacture, and the Israeli Embassy was forced to recant and eventually apologize. No apology was forthcoming to the United States. Back at home, the FBI is investigating persistent reports that Israeli intelligence officers operating in the U.S. are again pretending to be FBI or CIA to obtain the cooperation of Arab-Americans."

This shows what political contributions can buy.

POLITICS:

This is an interesting setup:

"The economy is in a mess, and – in spite of the Obama administration’s pathetic attempts to conjure a "recovery" out of thin air — looks like it is tanking. The European banks are on the verge of a meltdown, and the jobless rate in this country is much higher than anyone in officialdom is willing to acknowledge (although ordinary people know the truth). What’s more, America’s position abroad is none too good: after being driven out of Iraq, which is falling into the Iranian orbit, we’re well on our way to losing the war in Afghanistan, and the whole region is in turmoil. Israel is threatening to start World War III with an attack on Tehran, an act that would drive the world economy over a cliff. Would you want to be President when the price of oil is over $200 a barrel?

Which brings us to the question that has been hovering around the edge of my consciousness ever since the Republican primary battle commenced: is the GOP deliberately throwing the 2012 presidential election?"

The economy will decide this election regardless of which establishment Republican wins the nomination.

"It makes sense if we take the economic critique proffered by anti-inflationists like Ron Paul and Gerald Celente seriously: would you want to be President if we’re on the brink of another Great Depression? As the American dollar is destroyed, and the buying power of the average American is about to become the equivalent of a consumer in, say, Zimbabwe, is it really in the GOP’s interest to take the White House this year?"

If our economy continues to go downhill, the Republican will win whether he wants to or not.

Obama has already outspent all Republicans combined, yet his approval rating remains well below 50 percent. This is why I keep saying this election will be decided on the economy. Not spending. Not which establishment Republican wins the election.

Free kibbles

HEALTH CARE:

The New York Times is showing its bias by declaring that even conservative justices should support the Obamacare mandate.

"Thus did this week’s Supreme Court arguments over the Obama administration’s health care law emerge as a historic test of federal power versus individual liberty, all the more remarkable given that just a few weeks ago, the overwhelming view of constitutional scholars was that this wouldn’t be a close case, with even conservative justices likely to uphold the law.

That it now looks not only possible but perhaps likely that the Supreme Court will strike down the health care law as unconstitutional, probably in its entirety, is a tribute to some skilled and passionate advocacy and the persuasive power of conservative media — and what seems a breathtaking departure from decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence."

That's quite the assertion with no evidence presented to back it up. If you look at Supreme Court jurisprudence, given that the law is identical for conservative and liberal justices, the only explanation for split decisions is politics, which is a giant factor in this case. Like all cases, this case will be decided by what's in the personal interest of the justices, and politics will be at the top of those personal interests. It's likely Kennedy will be the deciding vote again.

POLICE STATE:

This article presents more evidence that government is losing its legitimacy in the eyes of many Americans. I'm sure that's scary for the people who use institutionalized theft to fund themselves, and it probably means violence for the most adamant resisters, but this is good for everybody else despite this article's attempt to present the situation as scary. I can't believe cops have allowed a fugitive to remain outside of custody because of threats of violence. Cops never de-escalate. They always escalate and maximize violence.

"At its most extreme, McArthur said, sovereigns have been linked to threats of violence and the murders of six police officers since 2002, including the slayings of officers Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans in West Memphis, Ark., in 2010."

As opposed to the unknowable threats of violence contained in all the laws passed by government and the thousands or more Americans government kills with its guns every year and the hundreds of thousands more it kills indirectly on its highways and in its hospitals and the millions more it makes sick with its food and its drugs.

This might be the most intelligent statement I've heard about the Zimmmerman case: let's try in the courts, not the the public. The only problem is, the government won't charge Zimmerman. Again, I'm not saying Zimmerman should be charged. What I'm saying is tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans are charged in similar circumstances every year. For some reason, Zimmerman is being treated differently. I like different. I think the way the police are treating Zimmerman should be the norm, not the exception. But it'll be a cold day in hell before that happens.

WAR:

Bin Laden lived mostly in Pakistan since 2002 in five different houses.

"During the manhunt for bin Laden, most U.S. and Pakistani officials said that bin Laden was likely living somewhere along the remote Afghanistan-Pakistan border, possibly in a cave."

This was justification for the war in Afghanistan. While I believe the US government is so incompetent that it really did take ten years to find bin Laden, what private companies could have done in weeks, I think claims he was on the border were pure propaganda.

POLITICS:

5,200 people attend Paul rally in Wisconsin. Find me another bigger.

LOCAL:

Local hoodie rally.

MISC:

I've read a dozen articles this week about the lottery, and all of them want you to believe that winning it is a bad for you. I'm not joking. I don't get it. For example.

""The perception is once you win the lottery, you are set — you're in great shape. But in reality the battle has just begun," says Andrew Stoltmann, an attorney who has represented lottery winners who have hit financial troubles.

"Often lottery winners do not have much experience with managing money and lack basic investing skills," he says. In turn, they can easily make bad investments, fritter their money away on big-ticket purchases and fall prey to scam artists."

Of course some people blow their winnings, but come on.... Our rulers want us to believe that winning tens of millions of dollars will harm us. You know why. They don't want you or I to join the ruling class. So they publish articles claiming we're too stupid to be rich. The audacity is amazing.

The greatest scene in the history of movies.

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

There's no doubt that House Republicans, because they have stymied a little bit of the damage Obama had been doing, have helped our economy be less bad than it otherwise would. This is why so-called gridlock always leads to an improved economy. Just blocking a few big-government programs helps the American people by leaving resources in their control. But this doesn't mean the economy is improving. It's not. Inflation is making it appear as if the economy is improving. But it's not getting worse as fast as it was. Even Ben Bernanke disputed Obama's job growth numbers:

"In other words, the U.S. job market is in a constant state of flux, with people leaving the workforce due to retirement, or being fired, or leaving a job for a better position, etc. Likewise, some of the positions will be refilled, taking a person out of the ranks of the unemployed. These are not jobs created, but replacement hirings. Then Bernanke concluded, "the increase in employment since the end of 2009 has been due to a significant decline in layoffs but only a moderate improvement in hiring.""

As I said, the economy is still going down, just not as fast.

TAX AND SPEND:

While Republicans wine about regulatory overreach, they continue to fund the regulators.

The US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world, but politicians blame others for jobs leaving the country.

A few Republicans have offered a budget with deeper spending cuts that would balance the budget in five years. It's nice to see somebody in Congress being reasonable.

Mark Steyn reminds us of the terrible truth about government spending.

"Including the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, the United States owes 911 percent of gross domestic product, more than even Greece."

And it's growing every day.

"Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute calculates that, if you take into account unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare versus their European equivalents, Greece owes 875 percent of GDP; the United States owes 911 percent – or getting on for twice as much as the second-most insolvent Continental: France at 549 percent.

And if you're thinking, wow, all these percentages are making my head hurt, forget 'em: When you're spending on the scale Washington does, what matters is the hard dollar numbers. Greece's total debt is a few rinky-dink billions, a rounding error in the average Obama budget. Only America is spending trillions. The 2011 budget deficit, for example, is about the size of the entire Russian economy. By 2010, the Obama administration was issuing about a hundred billion dollars of Treasury bonds every month – or, to put it another way, Washington is dependent on the bond markets being willing to absorb an increase of U.S. debt equivalent to the GDP of Canada or India – every year. And those numbers don't take into account the huge levels of personal debt run up by Americans. College debt alone is over a trillion dollars, or the equivalent of the entire South Korean economy – tied up just in one small boutique niche market of debt which barely exists in most other developed nations."

Are you getting the picture now?

The US debt crisis is a lot like a car going over a cliff. We've already gone over the cliff, so arguing whether we should speed up or slow down is immaterial. The only thing we should be debating is how to soften the landing. I don't think Americans realize this yet.

EDUCATION:

Student expelled for tweeting a profanity.

Four students arrested after cafeteria food fight.

It's bad enough that government kidnaps children from parents and locks them in prison-schools 180 days a year, but now they're kidnapping them out of their prison schools and sending them elsewhere under the guise of terrorist evacuation drills. This must be brainwashing them for sticking them in FEMA camps.

"Do we really need to have "active shooter" drills where men point guns at our kids and fire blanks at them? Do we really need to have "relocation drills" where kids are rapidly herded on to buses and told that they must surrender their cell phones because they will not be allowed to call anyone?"

Once you know the nature of government and you ask what do the people in charge have to gain, politics and policy become pretty easy to understand and predict. But I don't get this one. Other than just deeper brainwashing children and parent to acquiesce to our rulers, I don't see the point. Maybe, given the economic collapse on the horizon, they feel the deeper brainwashing is necessary so people won't question government's legitimacy.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Great Pharaoh OKs oil exploration off the Atlantic coast. How generous of him. We should all bow down and kiss his scepter. But he still won't allow drilling.

White House officials were heavily involved in the Solyndra collapse.

Great Pharaoh has cut oil production on federal lands by 17,000 barrels a day.

Canadian government drops some climate change budget items. If only our government was that benevolent.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Thanks to the war in drugs, there are now more people in prison in the US than in Stalin's gulags. US elites are finally considering legalizing marijuana after decades in order to collect tax revenue. And since they want the American people to be stupefied and distracted, why not allow marijuana to work for them? It might help keep the masses docile during the coming economic collapse. But when they admit they lied to us about marijuana for all these decades, will the American people realize they're also lying about cocaine and opium? I doubt it. Government schools have brainwashed people to nod their heads at whatever their rulers tell them regardless of how stupid it is. Here's a couple of more reasons why our rulers might be changing their stance on marijuana:

"It is hard to say why the elites have decided to soften the rhetoric on the drug war at this time. One speculation would be that reducing drug usage penalties or eliminating them tends to blur the increasingly authoritarian line that Western governments are taking as regards "austerity" and other Draconian measures.

Or perhaps the inevitable sociopolitical debate over drugs will simply distract attention from other more important moves the elites are making to impose global government."

Government has to remain legitimate in the eyes of its citizens, and right now doubts about its legitimacy are growing fast. Legalizing marijuana might boost its legitimacy temporarily, but ultimately libertarians will make hay if they do it. If they legalize marijuana, it will be fun to watch both parties scramble to claim they've always wanted to legalize it.

POLICE STATE:

So it turns out police did arrest Zimmerman after he shot Martin, and this video shows no apparent wounds.

"It was already known that the shooter was treated by paramedics at the scene, but the lack of any clear injuries has led some to suggest that they have been overstated."

Whether they were overstated was not the issue. If he was treated by paramedics, he must have been injured. The paramedic report will tell us about those wounds. Wounds prove nothing anyway. You can get wounds in self-defense or if the other guy is acting in self-defense. What matters is who initiated the conflict, and we know Zimmerman stalked Martin. To the best of my knowledge, we have no reason to believe Martin initiated the conflict other than the claims of his stalker. But because Martin is dead, there is no evidence to contradict Zimmerman.

WAR:

Israel allying with Azerbaijan to attack Iran.

POLITICS:

Great observation: unemployed people, because they have nothing better to do, are more likely to vote. That means that putting people out of work then promising them unemployment benefits is a great way to buy votes.

MEDIA:

ABC journalist admits ABC journalism is about advocating positions, not attempting to be an unbiased information source.

The news can't publicize the Zimmernam case enough, but it's ignoring the case of Allen Coon.

"The boy raised his hand, eager to answer the question. "What would you know about it?" exclaimed the teacher dismissively. "You're not our race."

This was not dialogue from a Hollywood movie. According to a woman named Melissa Coon, it was what a teacher at East High School in Kansas City told her 13-year-old son, Allen, when he attempted to answer a question during Black History Month. Coon identifies that teacher as Mrs. Karla Dorsey, who is black; Allen is white.

As has already been reported, Allen was a victim of a vicious racial attack last week in which two older black teens doused him with gasoline and set him alight, saying, "This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy." Not surprisingly, Coon has pulled her son out of East High and, concerned about further racial violence, intends to leave the K.C. area."

What else would you expect from advocacy journalists?

Apparently endorsements, including the endorsement of a past president, only has impact if CNN says it has impact. Can you imagine this headline being written about Obama four years ago?

MISC:

Solar tornadoes bigger than earth.

The giant sunspot group that sent two CME's our way a couple of weeks ago is still going strong and rotating back around to face earth again.

Free kibbles

EDUCATION:

Everything government touches is in an unprecedented race to the bottom.

"New York educators banned references to 'dinosaurs,' 'birthdays,' 'Halloween' and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests. That is because they fear such topics 'could evoke unpleasant emotions in the students.' Dinosaurs, for example, call to mind evolution, which might upset fundamentalists; birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah's Witnesses; and Halloween suggests paganism. Homes with swimming pools and home computers are also unmentionables — because of economic sensitivities. The city asks test companies to exclude 'creatures from outer space' as well — for unspecified reasons."

You can't make this stuff up.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

2011 pretty much the same as 1974. Around here we remember 1974 as the year tornadoes pretty much destroyed Xenia.

New EPA rule, if implemented, would shut down pretty much all coal power plants in the US, taking away 44.9% of our power. The rule...

"… will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO2 per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt."

This will never be implemented. Only a few ruling class individuals will gain from this. All the rest, and everybody else in America, will lose. Our rulers aren't stupid. They don't act to harm themselves. Some bureaucrat, and maybe Obama, will be slapped down hard over this.

POLICE STATE:

Here's a good reminder that government is inherently lawless institution: the FBI taught counter-terrorism agents that they did not have to obey the law.

"politkal writes

"According to the FBI's internal inquiry on counterterrorism training, the FBI taught agents that the Bureau 'has the ability to bend or suspend the law to impinge on the freedoms of others;' that agents should 'never attempt to shake hands with an Asian;' that Arabs were 'prone to outbursts' of a 'Jekyll & Hyde' nature."

Even better: "That review, now complete, did not result in a single disciplinary action for any instructor. Nor did it mandate the retraining of any FBI agent exposed to what the Bureau concedes was inappropriate material. Nor did it look at any intelligence reports that might have been influenced by the training.""

I bet many Americans support this. We have nobody to blame for his but ourselves.

The EU proposes a minimum sentence of two years for hacking.

I've often claimed that judges rule in their personal best interests, and I really like this examination of their priorities. What it's lacking is mention of the political pressure on justices. I agree that Supreme Court justices decide cases in their own interest and their own interest in generally in expanding the power of government as long as doing so doesn't undermine the legitimacy of the government based on the current political climate because that would threaten their power.

"The Court knows that it risks its reputation and hence its ability to sanction government growth generally if it upholds this law."

It's a good bet that, given the political climate, failing to overturn the individual mandate in Obamacare would threaten their legitimacy, so the justices will probably overturn it, 5-4. That's probably why they scheduled the Wednesday hearing to see how much of Obamcare they could salvage after overturning the individual mandate.

WAR:

This North American command thing is another step toward one world government. The point about 'defence' instead of 'defense' is spot on, as the British say.

MISC:

These sound like six pretty good books all related to the primal lifestyle.

Open source designs for Star Trek inspired tri-corders.

The city of Munich has saved 4 million euros by dumping Microsoft and switching to Linux.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

UK politicians threaten Google if it doesn't self-censor search results. We live in very scary times. This is a good reminder that government has all the power. Corporations are its agents.

British student jailed for racist comments, but the New Panther Party can put a $10,000 bounty on an American with impunity.

ECONOMY:

The forgotten man is now the working chump.

TAX AND SPEND:

A bunch of Democrats labeling themselves the Congressional Progressive Caucus have made their pitch to buy votes by dramatically increasing government.

"Liberal House Democrats on Monday unveiled a 2013 budget that increases taxes by $4.7 trillion more than President Obama proposed in his own budget last month.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus said the taxes are necessary to fund $2.9 trillion in new stimulus spending to “put Americans back to work” and “rebuild the middle classes” while reducing the deficit. This new spending includes canceling the cuts in last August’s debt-ceiling deal between Congress and the White House."

Both parties are being split right now. Democrats are being split by radical leftists. Republicans are being split by big-government Republicans like Boehner, Cantor and Ryan. The American people made themselves crystal clear in 2006, 2008, and 2010: they rejected big-government Republicans twice in 2006 and 2008, then they rejected big-government Democrats in 2010. The criminals in Congress know this, but they don't care because they're using money stolen from us to insure they get re-elected. No matter how many times voters reject the big-government party in power, the other party will respond by continuing to grow government because that's in the best interest of the individuals who use the money government steals from us to by re-election votes.

The push seize your private retirement accounts continues.

Here comes another big tax hike.

"Unless Congress takes action, the top tax rate for the highest earners on most dividends, currently 15%, is set to jump to a whopping 43.4% next year. That is a maximum income-tax rate of 39.6% -- since dividends will once again be taxed as regular income -- plus a 3.8% tax on investment income as part of the health-care overhaul passed in 2009."

That'll produce less savings and therefore less economic growth.

Who do you think is profiting from Obama's high speed rail boondoggle?

"Harry Reid’s Pet Bullet Train Project on Verge of Securing $4.9 Billion Government Loan"

Cronyism at its most obvious.

REGULATION:

Many Americans think it makes sense for the government to make it illegal for politicians to trade on insider knowledge. But they're wrong. That costs money and makes market more inefficient. But the same is true for all insider trading. Anybody should be free to trade on any information they have. That reduces the burden of government and makes markets more efficient.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Every now and then, a picture comes along...

But he has to have government as an ally.

HEALTH CARE:

As promising as this story sounds, I don't trust the media to present an accurate prediction of what the Supreme Court might decide.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Even the mainstream media is recognizing the study showing the Medieval Warm period was global. This is another nail in the coffin on the global warming fraud movement, but don't give up. Like the zombie apocalypse, that movement refuses to die because the frauds will lose billions of taxpayer funds if they lose.

Remember during the campaign when Obama claimed he was going to bankrupt the coal industry by making it too expensive? The EPA is carrying out his dictates.

POLICE STATE:

Police and a witness claim that Martin attacked Zimmerman, after Zimmerman had stopped following Martin. This doesn't pass the sniff test. If Zimmerman had stopped following Martin, why would Martin have turned on him then? It's certainly possible, but it doesn't seem likely. It also doesn't jive with the information Martin's girlfriend, who was on the phone with him at the time, told the press. Frankly, I like that the police haven't arrested Zimmerman. I hate that police always knee-jerk arrest people who shoot others before taking the time to investigate whether or not it was self-defense. And they're often prosecuted despite evidence of self-defense. But still, what the police are doing in this case, while admirable, goes against SOP. Martin's mother is filing for trademarks on phrasing using her dead son's name.

"Trademark attorney Kimra Major-Morris told the Associated Press in an email that Fulton wants to protect intellectual property rights for “projects that will assist other families who experience similar tragedies.”

Fulton has no desire to profit from the trademarks, Major-Morris said."

We'll see. While police are blaming the young man who got killed, I don't think it's to help Zimmerman. They're doing it to help themselves by justifying not arresting Zimmerman. The New Black Panther party has offered $10,000 for the capture of Zimmerman. That has to be illegal. If you try to pay somebody to kill another, that's a crime. If you try to pay someone to kidnap another, that has to be a crime too. Why aren't they arresting these criminals either? First police leaked info about Martin's marijuana use as if that had any bearing on this case. Now they're leaking information about jewelry that also has no bearing on the case.

"Women's jewelry and a watch found in Trayvon Martin's school backpack last fall could not be tied to any reported thefts, the Miami-Dade Police Department said Tuesday."

Suppose it did relate to a threat. That would have no bearing on the situation at hand. Shut up. Quit sliming this young man. Let's investigate the facts of the case and leave everything else alone. I don't care whether or not Zimmerman was a bigot or not. All I want to know is who initiated the conflict, and as of now we have conflicting stories between Zimmerman and Martin's girlfriend. This case is not about public opinion. It's not about what the principles did before the incident. It's about the facts of their conflict. Period. The press is trying to distract us with this hoody crap. I love my hoodies, I've been wearing hoodies since I was a kid, nobody ever stalked me because of a hoody, nobody ever told me to take my hoody off, and nobody ever shot at me because of my hoody.

What happens when commercial jet pilot goes nuts on a plane? Who can you count on for security? The passengers. This is more evidence that government cannot protect you. The only way the people can protect themselves is to work together cooperatively. Government is not a god. It's not all-seeing, all-knowing or perfect. Government is made up with human beings who are as limited and fallible as any other and as vulnerable to the corruption as power as any other. Government, because every action it takes is coercive, prevents people from working together. Surrendering power to government and police makes us more vulnerable to criminals and nut cases. Fortunately, since 9/11, the American people are realizing this and stepping up to protect themselves.

Back in March and April of 2010, I commented on an entrapment case by the FBI of a bunch of Michigan yahoos in a militia. The FBI agent provocateur agitated them into making threats against local cops, threats they weren't serious about, would never have made on their own, and were incapable of following up on their own. The the FBI swooped down on them and pretended they were protecting us from terrorists. It was a bunch of crap. Now a judge has agreed and thrown out most charges against the defendants, than goodness. But this is not a unique event. Pretty every time the FBI trumpets how it saves us from a terrorist attack, it turns out the supposed attacker was actually entrapped into the event by an FBI agent provocateur who goaded them and provided all material support. It's a fraud. Few people in the US have the desire and means to attack us. The FBI is the organization that is radicalizing, planning and providing the material for the vast majority of terrorist plots in America. I put a Google alert on this judge to see if the FBI and prosecutors set this judge up.

Cops can crack your smartphone in seconds.

Boston City government pays man $170,000 because police arrested him for videoing them. This is the third positive story I've posted in a row about the police state. And while this is certainly cause for celebration in the short term, nobody should mistake it for a trend. While judges occasionally side with the people, as in the last two items, they almost always side with government. Of course there's also a downside to this story. Who do you think will pay the $170,000? Boston taxpayers.

Congressmen are seeking to use the killing of Trayvon Martin as an excuse to grab more power.

FOREIGN POLICY:

I'm underwhelmed by this supposedly telling hot mike comment with Russian President Medvedev about the nuclear missile shield. Obama is a consummate liar. He lies to us. He lies to Medvedev. He lies to everybody. And why is the US required to provide a nuclear shield over Europe? That's welfare that brings hostility on the American people. If Europeans want a missile shield, they can build their own.

POLITICS:

Great review of The Hunger Games which excoriates the tyrannical US government.

A new iPhone app claims to show the real(TM) Republican delegate count, and according to it Ron Paul is doing very well, but not as well as the Ron Paul campaign is hinting.

Funny video of an alien trying to understand human government.

LOCAL:

Greene County native becomes Air Force's first four star general.

MISC:

It's popular to blame the current president for killing Constitution, but that's been going on for centuries. I think it died the day it was ratified. Alexander Hamilton and others began subverting it immediately, and they had planned to subvert it while it was being negotiated. To its credit, the Constitution slowed the growth of government for a long time, helping the American people create the greatest country the world has ever known. Even after the Civil War, government growth stayed relatively slow. It wasn't until the progressives took over both parties in the twentieth century that government growth really took off. The income tax, the Fed and the popular election of senators doomed us.

Contrasting Jefferson's vision of a liberal republic and Lincoln's vision of an empire enforced by violence.

Apparently there is a star in the Milky Way that is 13 billion years old and has planets equally as old. I like how the article in passing claims the star was probably captured by the Milky Way when it gobbled up some smaller, older galaxy. Where's the evidence?

Free kibbles

REGULATION:

I had no idea that telecom companies were forced to provide landline phone service.

HEALTH CARE:

Supreme Court to hear Obamacare case.

POLICE STATE:

Man arrested on two felony counts for pointing his finger at police. What the heck is assault by way of intimidation?

Have you ever wondered who was in charge of the government? According to the Constitution, Congress has the most power by far. But not in reality. For example, the TSA just pressured Congress to drop a critic from testifying at hearings about the uselessness of the TSA. You can bet that somebody in Congress was threatened if that critic was allowed to testify. J. Edgar Hoover might have blown the blackmail government to new heights, but I think now it's ubiquitous. The executive branch has all the wiretapping tools. It has all the policing tools. That means it has all the blackmail tools. I wouldn't be surprised if the first minute a president enters the Oval Office, some staff member informs him that if he does anything to limit the power of government, government agents will ruin or kill him and his family.

WAR:

What's happening in Syria?

"The US, Britain, France, and some conservative Arab allies have funded and armed the Syrian rebellion from its start a year ago. In fact, the US has been funding anti-Asad groups since the mid 1990's. Arms and munitions are said to be flowing to Syria's rebels through Jordan and Lebanon. Extreme rightwing groups in Lebanon, funded by western and Arab powers and Israel, are playing a key role in infiltrating gunmen and arms into northern Syria."

I wonder who will make our rulers' wine and electricity after they've killed everybody.

"The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood has once again risen against the Alawi-dominated regime in Damascus. In 1982, this writer was outside the Syrian city of Hama when government forces crushed a Brotherhood uprising, killing an estimated 10,000 people and razing part of the city with heavy artillery.

Enter the jihadis. Recently, small numbers of al-Qaida veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have entered Syria and are using car bombs to try to destabilize the government. Current al-Qaida leader, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, has called for all-out war against the Asad regime.

Interestingly, the US, France and Britain now find themselves in bed with the very jihadist forces they profess to abhor – but, of course, whom they used in Afghanistan inn the 1980's and, lately, in Libya."

Our government empowered the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadist allies including al Qaeda in Egypt, Libya and now Syria. It created al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The war on terror is a farce. Our supposed enemies were created by our government, and our government is allying with them and empowering them.

It's funny that talking heads keep telling us Americans don't support Ron Paul's foreign policy, but now the news reports that support for the Afghan war has collapsed over the last several months. Who else has been saying we should get out of Afghanistan during that time? This is another debate Ron Paul is winning.

Free kibbles

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

People are criticizing the stand your ground provision of Florida law because the police are using it as a reason not to arrest Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Trayvon Martin. But the stand your ground law is not the problem. The police are. Jeb Bush is right about this:

"“Stand your ground means stand your ground. It doesn’t mean chase after somebody who’s turned their back,” Bush said while speaking at the University of Texas in Arlington."

I can't come up with a reason why the police haven't arrested Zimmerman yet, but I think they will. They must just want to pass the buck the grand jury, but I don't know why.

"In fact, last Wednesday, a Florida judge threw out the second-degree murder case against a man who chased a burglar more than a block and stabbed him to death. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom cited "stand your ground," the Miami Herald reported."

But this article fails to report on the crucial fact: did the thief have possession of the man's radio? If he did, the man had every right to chase the thief down and get his radio back. No man is required to allow a thief to get away with his property. If the thief refused to return the radio and attacked the pursuer instead, the pursuer has a right to defend himself. This is a different situation than the Zimmerman case. Martin had not stolen any property of Zimmerman's.

"Zimmerman remains free because Sanford police said he invoked the "stand your ground" defense and there were no witnesses to disprove it."

One of the unfortunate truths exposed by these cases is dead men tell no tales.

ECONOMY:

Chinese company gives its village workers gold and silver bars. Wow. You don't see that in the US.

Claims of a manufacturing recovery are exaggerated.

"But a new report argues that recent headlines touting a nascent manufacturing renaissance belie a grimmer reality: The sector suffered a cataclysmic decline over the last decade and is in much worse shape than most economists will admit.

The report -- out today from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a technology policy think tank -- says that measured by job creation, manufacturers registered their worst performance in history over the last decade, shedding 5.7 million jobs. As a share of total jobs, that decline is worse even than the one manufacturing suffered during the Great Depression."

Tell me something I can't see with my own eyes.

REGULATION:

Patents harm real people. The damage is not abstract.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

How inflation perverts economic numbers, making it appear the economy is recovering when it is not.

"Take retail sales, for example. On the surface they are encouraging, since February’s sales gain was the most in five months. And since retail sales are one-half of consumers’ spending, which in turn makes up two-thirds of overall economic activity, one might be tempted to conclude that the worst is over.

One would be wrong. First of all, these are dollar figures, adjusted for the time of year but not for inflation. Second, most of the rise reflected a 6% surge in gasoline prices."

Rising gas prices is making every American poorer, but they make government statistics look good.

"Getting back to retail sales, it is important to be aware that rising gasoline prices will not be confined just to this category. Indeed, because they are used to transport goods, power machinery and as a feedstock in the production of plastics, clothing and many other items, rising prices of gas and oil will ripple throughout the economy — especially since the Federal Reserve has flooded the economy with lots of cheap, easy money.

This surge in prices is already having a deleterious effect on people’s ability to spend. Average weekly earnings, adjusted for inflation, fell 0.3% last month on top of a 0.1% decline in January. Over the past year, this important measure of consumers’ buying power is down 0.4%."

All of this artificially inflates GDP numbers.

People are stealing Tide detergent and using it as black market money. How long until government limits the amount of Tide somebody can buy?

EDUCATION:

Great chart shows that increasing spending on government schools doesn't boost the quality of education.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

This was predictable. Climate frauds blame the unusually warm weather in the central and eastern US on global warming. As for the unusually cold weather in the Pacific northwest, South America and the eastern hemisphere, there's nothing to see here.

The global warming frauds never give up.

"As the USA simmers through its hottest March on record — with more than 6,000 record high temperatures already set this month — a new study released Sunday shows that average global temperatures could climb 2.5 to 5.4 degrees by 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated.

The study findings are based on the results of 10,000 computer model simulations of future weather overseen by researchers at Oxford University in the United Kingdom."

There's too much money at stake for them to give up.

FOREIGN POLICY:

North Korea announces missile launch during Obama's nuclear security summit in South Korea.

POLITICS:

Condoleezza Rice not interested in being VP. Not now, anyway.

MEDIA:

The media reported that Obama's 13 years old daughter was going on spring break to Mexico with 25 Secret Service agents, then they removed the story from the internet at the request of the Obama administration for privacy and security reasons. What in the world are these people doing allowing their 13 year old daughter to go to Mexico for spring break? How come Americans have to pay for 25 Secret Service baby sitters? If Obama was really worried about the privacy and security of his 13 year old daughter, he wouldn't let her go to Mexico on spring break. And I don't remember the press scrubbing any stories about Bush's daughters. I remember Jenna Bush being in Austin on spring break while in college and having one Secret Service agent.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Facebook tries to trademark the world 'book'.

TAX AND SPEND:

Analysis shows that money from Obama's stimulus boondoogle went to states in proportion to Democrat representation in those states. Once again, science has uncovered the obvious. Of course he favored Democrats. The alternative was to boost Republicans. Nobody is stupid enough to think he would do that. I always get a kick out of how stupid Washington creeps think the American people are. This is like reporting that sharks eat more fish than cows.

Here's a crazy graph, compressed to make it look like Paul Ryan's budget is significantly different that Obama's. What a joke. According to the graph, the Ryan budget will go to zero sometime after 2050. No kidding. Government will not spend a dime after that. And pigs will fly. We'll all keep unicorns in our house because they don't eat or poop. Hooray! I'd rather read science fiction. Ryan talks about allowing Medicare competition in 2023. Maybe he didn't realize that was ten years and five Congresses from now. I'm surprised anybody had the guts to post this budget and graph as if it was serious.

EDUCATION:

If anybody thought that tagging students with ID chips would never happen, it's happened in Brazil. US schools are just better at keeping such atrocities quiet.

Bureaucrats found cheating on student test scores in Ohio. Imagine that. It's like thieves have no honor or something.

Ohio schools busted for cheating, but the press doesn't want to admit it.

"The analysis does not prove cheating has occurred in Ohio. But interviews and documents show that state officials do not employ vigorous statistical analyses to catch possible cheating, discipline only about a dozen teachers a year and direct Ohio’s test vendor to spend just $17,540 on analyzing suspicious scores out of its $39 million annual testing contract."

I guess that means no cheating occurred. And I have some land in Florida to sell the paper...

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Here's what Robert Murphy learned from Fakegate:

"The Heartland affair has shown not merely that some climate alarmists (namely Gleick) will stoop to outright deception, and most of his peers will close ranks to defend him in a sort of Green Wall of Silence. Perhaps more disturbing, it reveals that these people really have no idea how their opponents on the climate issue actually view the world. So when they dismiss skeptics as having no legitimate arguments, it should make outsiders take pause.

Without being a trained climate scientist, I can read the various blogs and try to parse the academic papers, but ultimately I have to rely a lot on the good faith and judgment of the scientists themselves. The Heartland affair has reassured my earlier conviction that the case for climate alarmism is far weaker than the alarmists have been telling us."

I think most Americans realized that before Fakegate. That's why it's always at the bottom of every list of concerns of the American people. Fakegate illustrates how desperate the frauds are because the science is not in their favor.

Record cold and snow in the Pacific northwest. We just set a series of record highs here that had stood for nearly a century. What that tells us is it was hot around here nearly a century ago. Today's a typical spring day though.

More evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was global.

What a great example of how foolish and fickle voters are:

"In 2006, 73 percent of Democrats believed the Bush administration could reduce gas prices. Today, just 33 percent of Democrats believe there is anything President Obama can do about them."

You can't make this stuff up.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Pope decries evil behind drug violence. That evil is government which declared war on peaceful drug users, sellers and producers, creating an avalanche of violence.

Have you ever wondered about the real reason government wages a war on some drugs?

POLICE STATE:

Japanese big brother camera can scan 36 million faces per second. Complaining about this technology is useless. By the time you wake people up, the cameras will can billions of faces. The only way to address these threats to privacy in on principle, never on technology.

From a criminal point of view, it doesn't matter whether the neighborhood watch killer was sanctioned by the neighborhood or not. The only question that matters is who initiated the confrontation. If it was Zimmerman, he should be arrested for murder. If it was Martin, Zimmerman should be absolved. But from all the evidence I've seen in the public domain, and public is the key, Zimmerman should be suspected of murder, and an investigation should be conducted from that point of view. If there is other evidence to the contrary, that should be released into the public domain. All the discussion I've heard about this misses the point. If I saw somebody I feared was going to rob my neighbor, I would follow him. But if I intercepted him, started a confrontation, and subsequently killed him, my suspicion wouldn't matter. Whether or not I was freelancer, a neighborhood watch guy, a cop, or the head of FBI wouldn't matter. Actions matter, not uniforms or titles. Boortz thinks the Grand Jury will take care of it. Let's hope so, but that's no excuse for the cops allowing this guy, given all the public, and I repeat public, evidence.

WAR:

US trained forces stage a coup in Mali over the democratically elected government. US forces had trained the foreign fighters to help topple Qaddafi. Everything the government tells us is a lie.

I didn't realize the accused Afghan mass murderer was from Ohio. Why is it always Ohio?

"Speculation has focused on Bales’ prior traumatic brain injury (TBI), reportedly suffered during a previous deployment in Iraq."

This whole thing still stinks to me. I bet he gets off. There's more to this than the press is telling us.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Boy, this article misses the point. The Australian government banned this Chinese company because it isn't part of the western ruling class, not for any privacy reasons. Governments never care about obeying the law.

Neal Boortz wants you to stop voting for Santorum so Romney can win a clear victory. I hope you vote for Ron Paul against Romney until all states are done. If you can't bring yourself to vote for Ron Paul, please vote for Santorum. The best thing you can do for our country at this time is help produce a brokered convention in Tampa. If we manage to produce a brokered convention, Ron Paul will have tremendous power to advance his dramatic cuts in government spending and foreign aggression. As a result, no matter who win the White House, we will all suffer less pain when our economy collapses under the burden of government.

POLITICS:

Santorum wins Louisiana, flexing southern and all other kinds of flab. How pathetic does Reuters have to be to pretend Santorum is muscular? I know it was meant metaphically, but it was still stupid.

Why are people spending outside money to defeat Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown? He's toast. He's one of the most liberal senators in Washington. He was only elected because of the Taft corruption six years ago. He was a major backer of Obamacare. He has no hope this year.

MEDIA:

After Devin and I watched Hunger Games, she finally realized we live in tyranny. She's edited my essays for years, but she refused to acknowledge that truth. But the Hunger Games movie made it clear for her. If you have not seen the Hunger Games already, please do so. It's not an action flick, but it has lots of action. It's not a political flick, but it exposes more about the corruption of politics than any movie I've seen. The subtle and not so subtle touches in this movie sting like arrows from government archers. From a recent article:

"Yet everyone should know one thing: “Games” is not just another slasher/horror scream flick--but rather a furious critique of our political system, in which the central government grows rich from the toil of the masses, even as that same political elite finds entertainment in the contrived and manipulated death of its subjects. "

If you don't recognize that that's what's happening in the US, you're willingly blind. Please watch the Hunger Games, and please teach your children about the predatory nature of the state. From Devin's lips to God's ears. Let's end this tyranny. I put this post under media because movies are media, but the article I quoted gets it right, not just in representation of the movie, but in reality:

"So yes, the film has some of the conventional elements of a love-triangle. But what’s truly startling about the movie, then, is its implicit politics: Ordinary folks are good, government is bad--really bad. There are no evil corporations in this movie; the bad guys are bureaucrats and TV hosts."

Exactly. Blaming corporations instead of government for actions in our society is like blaming hands instead of brains for the actions of people.

"Taken literally, Hunger Games is a black-helicopter-ish portrayal of state power. But taken figuratively, the film is an Anthem (novella) for our time, a well-crafted cry from the heart against top-down injustice and oppression. Nobody has made a rallying-cry of a movie that’s this effective in a long, long time."

Amen. This is a wonderful, libertarian movie. We've needed a movie like this for decades. Thank goodness for the Hunger Games, and let's hope people figure it out like my girlfriend.

Reason quotes Mises. With picture. This may be nothing, but it may be something interesting. I wonder if Cato is trying to drag Mises Institute scholars into their internal problems.

MISC:

This story about the top 100 Tebow distractions cracks me up. Could the Jets ownership have made a stupider move? Fine. They probably could have. They hired Rex Ryan after all, the guy who's dragging that team into quicksand. I guess a mongoose could lay down and be bitten by snakes. But both are beyond belief.

How long would it take before the feds arrested you if you had been caught on tape materially supporting a designated terrorist organization?

Patrick Kennedy was recently caught on tape materially supporting a designated terrorist organization. It turns out that many of our rulers in Washington support the same designated terrorist organization. Everybody in Washington knows about it, but nobody is arrested. So...

How long would it take before the feds arrested you if you had been caught on tape materially supporting a designated terrorist organization?

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Ron Paul skewers the big-government budget of phony Paul Ryan.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Mining magnate accuses CIA of funding Greenpeace and other green groups.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Patrick Kennedy caught on tape accepting $25,000 from a designated terrorist group. And he's not the only one doing it.

"That a large bipartisan cast of Washington officials got caught being paid substantial sums of money by an Iranian dissident group that is legally designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization, and then meeting with and advocating on behalf of that Terrorist group, is very significant for several reasons."

... 

"In August of last year, The Christian Science Monitor‘s Scott Peterson published a detailed exposé about “a high-powered array of former top American officials” who have received “tens of thousands of dollars” from a designated Terrorist organization – the Iranian dissident group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) — and then met with its leaders, attended its meetings, and/or publicly advocated on its behalf. That group includes Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, Michael Mukasey, Ed Rendell, Andy Card, Lee Hamilton, Tom Ridge, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark, Michael Hayden, John Bolton, Louis Freeh — and Fran Townsend."

This is a great reminder that our ruler's laws are for us, not for them. What do you think would happen to you if you did the same?

WAR:

Map of US bombing in Cambodia. They bombed half the country. It was clearly not limited to

Updated reports claim only one shooter in the Afghan massacre. It still seems hard to believe.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul slams Romney, Santorum and Gingrich for playing Etch-a-Sketch games. He is the only candidate of substance in the race. The mainstream media says Paul's delegate strategy still gives him hope. Poll shows Paul is the most electable of the four Republicans.

The press is reporting inaccurate delegate counts. Nobody knows the delegate counts at this point because delegates haven't been selected yet and that selection process has very little relation to the popular vote counts.

It's ghoulish but completely expected that Obama would try to capitalize on the death of that poor young man in Orlando.

Anybody who reads this will recognize the seven rules of bureaucracy.

LOCAL:

Kettering to require tax forms from all adults.

Free kibbles

HEALTH CARE:

It's not just cows that are being raised unhealthy in factory farms. Poultry too, with the aid of the government. Unhealthy animals make unhealthy food.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Now Obama is pretending to support part of the Keystone pipeline.

POLICE STATE:

Police chief suspends himself for not arresting neighborhood watchman who killed teen. This is bizarre.

Free kibbles

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Human action ignored in the energy debate.

Obama is playing games with the energy debate. Of course he is. He has more power than any Pharaoh ever dreamed of. He can play all the games he wants. But Republicans would be fools if they don't recognize the end-game.  Obama is making energy an issue to set Republicans up to kick their asses. Right now, he looks weak on that issue. That's the way he wants it because sometime this summer, he will release oil from the strategic reserve to temporarily drive down gas prices. When he does that, all energy prices will fall. Obama will look like a genius. He'll look like a hero. He will praise his policies for lowering prices. Sure, Republicans will slam him for using his dictatorial powers for political gain, but nobody will care at that point. Republicans aren't smart enough to recognize Obama's strategy and address it in advance, so they will look like the pathetic, whining wannabes they are compared to Great Pharaoh.

WAR:

Here's another stupid article that doesn't provide enough information for readers. This article claims the  accused mass murderer of Afghans was a con man.

"Federal documents show how Staff Sgt Robert Bales scammed pensioner Gary Liebschner of Carroll, Ohio, of more than $800,000 in a stock scam just before he enlisted in the army."

When? The article doesn't say when.

"Financial regulators found in 2003 how Bales 'engaged in fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, churning, unauthorised trading and unsuitable investments'."

So it was allegedly before 2003, but when?

"Bales joined the Army two months after 9/11 - and before that had studied business at Ohio State University for three years but didn't graduate."

Is that when? How did a guy who hadn't graduated business school become a broker who stole a pensioner's life savings? What is a pensioner anyway? Is that retired person?

"He went on to found an investment company called Spartina Investments Inc. in Doral, Florida with his brother Mark Bales."

When? The article presents this as happening after he joined the Army. How hard is it to publish dates in a news article, especially one profiling events in an effort to establish a person's character?

"Although the business was struggling, Captain Alexander said Bales had chosen to give up his bright prospects to join the Army in the wake of the terror attacks."

When? The article just presented that Bales had joined the military when he quit Ohio State.

"Previously Bales had completed 20 hours of anger-management counseling following a 2002 arrest at a Tacoma hotel for investigation of assault against a previous girlfriend."

How did this guy become special forces? Was he actually special forces? This article claims he was a sniper, but it describes a regular infantryman. Every article I read about this guy is crap. The more I read about this guy, the more I think the military and the government propagandists are lying about him and what happened. It's hard to see how justice can be meted out against the propagators of this crime when no evidence was collected. And here's one of the most critical questions we have to ask about the government's tactics:

"Why are civilian deaths by drone attack treated differently than the deaths that occurred in this case?"

How can the poeple know if they are accidents or murders without an investigation, at least?

FOREIGN POLICY:

The US government can't control the Saudi Arabian government with a stick - can you say $20 gas? - so they control it with welfare. Welfare is always about control.

POLITICS:

Romney wins handily in Illinois.

Senior Romney aid goes on TV and admits that Romney is a phony.

"“I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Eric Fehrnstrom, a longtime adviser to Mr. Romney, said in response to a question about pivoting to a matchup with Mr. Obama and appealing to moderate swing voters. “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”"

In other words, everything Romney has said is a lie. The funniest thing about this article is phony Rick Santorum acting like he's any different. You can't make this stuff up.

"“The issues I’m running on will be exactly the same,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m running as a conservative Republican, I was a conservative Republican governor, I’ll be running as a conservative Republican nominee — or, excuse me, at that point, hopefully, nominee for president.”"

A conservative Republican governor who implemented Obamacare in his state while raising taxes and fees tremendously and promoting gun control. This is a wonderful reminder that Romney, Santorum and Gingrich are liarns and hypocrites, as Ron Paul has repeatedly pointed out. This election is a joke. This election is about the bankers favored candidate versus the bankers other favored candidate. Anybody who votes a candidate other than Ron Paul is either a lover of big government or fool. Other than Ron Paul, these candidates and the people who vote for them are losers who are destroying our country.

MEDIA:

Why is the USA Today running a story about a young Muslim woman who was punished by her family for wearing a hijab?

""My family didn't allow me to wear it at first," the petite Chechen girl said as she wrapped a pastel-colored scarf around her head and neck, concealing every strand of her long, brown hair.

"They said I was too young. My mom beat my sister and me every day, but I didn't care: I am a Muslim and it is my duty to wear it.""

This is like running an article praising somebody for self-censorship - burning books - but more important. This story, while weakly pretending to present both sides, is clearly championing the wearing of the hijab.

""I didn't want them to wear the hijab. I argued, yelled and even beat them," said Seda's mother, Rosa Makhagieva, 45, whose three daughters all cover themselves in loose-fitting, modest clothes. "My husband was against me. He said, 'If you don't allow them to wear it, I am going to make you put it on.' ""

So the innocent fawn daughter wanted to wear the hijab but was beaten by the brutal mother who tried to stop her. Yay hijab daughter. Boo violent mother. This is not the real story. Children are not voluntarily confining themselves against their parents' wishes. Human nature tells us otherwise. Something else is going on here. I promise you, this is not the real story. This is propaganda.

MISC:

It's goofy enough when scientists spend money to discover what people have always known, but it's doubly goofy when they spend money to discover what they've already discovered. The law of angular momentum is well understood. Why spend money measuring that people weigh less where angular momentum is greater than where it is less? I bet the government paid for this. People would not invest their own money for stupid research like this.

A police chief in an Orlando suburb refuses to arrest a man who, according to all the public evidence except his own statement, chased down and confronted a black boy in his neighborhood, initiating a conflict in which he subsequently shot the boy dead. If you think about it, pretty much every time somebody is shot, the shooter is arrested. Maybe later they are released because of self-defense. I'm not saying this is right, in America, nearly every shooter is considered guilty until proven innocent, and that's wrong. It's a bad system. But how is it, given all the public evidence that this man initiated the conflict, he hasn't been arrested? Maybe a full investigation will absolve him - it's OK to chase down somebody and talk to them; if they respond violently one has a right to self-defense - but since we have so many statements claiming he initiated the conflict before he shot the boy, he should be arrested. Not necessarily prosecuted, based on a thorough investigation, but arrested. Sadly, if the aggressor had been black and the victim (off)white, there's no doubt the aggressor would have been arrested.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

This fantastic story comparing the privatized House barbershop with the socialized Senate barbershop will knock your socks off. It's a beautiful, encapsulated lesson of the failures of socialism versus capitalism.

TAX AND SPEND:

I guarantee that this Republican budget does not include spending cuts. It might include tiny reductions in the growth of spending, but it does not include spending cuts. It will continue to grow spending.

"The proposal would produce $3.1 trillion in deficits over the next decade, a little less than half as much as President Barack Obama's budget plan. The deficit would shrink to $166 billion in 2018 under the proposal, though it would begin growing again in subsequent years. The plan would not balance the government's books until 2040."

And those are the most optimistic figures. As bad as this budget is, the reality, if it passed would be worse. I doubt it includes the cost of a war in Iran either.

Private company SpaceX to take over missions to the ISS. This is a step in the right direction. Privatizing the ISS would be another step in the right direction. Space X entrepreneur believes he can get the cost of a round trip to Mars to about $500,000. That's what happens when you unleash the power of the .marketplace

REGULATION:

Congressmen propose warning label for all video games, claiming all cause aggression. Here's another important issue for Santorum to campaign on.

Tax hikes are scheduled for January.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Advancing toward the cashless society.

"Sweden is rapidly moving towards a cashless economy. How will Sweden, and other countries in the future, balance efficiency, privacy, government control, and civil liberties? Or will they do all that technology allows? 'Bills and coins represent only 3 percent of Sweden's economy, compared to an average of 9 percent in the eurozone and 7 percent in the U.S."

I prefer cash. Governments are waging a war on cash by depreciating the currency but failing to release larger bills.

"The United States stopped printing large denomination notes in 1945 and officially discontinued their issuance in 1969, when the Fed began removing them from circulation. Since then the largest currency note available to the general public has a face value of $100. But since 1969, the inflationary monetary policy of the Fed has caused the US dollar to depreciate by over 80 percent, so that a $100 note in 2010 possessed a purchasing power of only $16.83 in 1969 dollars. That is less purchasing power than a $20 bill in 1969!"

So people are being forced to use electronic media for large purchases, which also makes electronic media more convenient for small purchases.

EDUCATION:

Brits are trying to prevent children from having best friends, promoting them to play in large groups, in order to wipe out individualism. We need to end this horrific social experiment of government schools now.

Teacher suspended for reading Ender's Game to students because a parent claimed it was pornographic. There's so many things wrong with this story. First, I've read Ender's Game. There's nothing pornographic in it. This is just some loon parent going off. The bigger question is why was a teacher reading a book to 14 year old students? Fourteen year old students should be able to read books by themselves. I don't think a teacher ever read to one of my classes after the second or maybe third grade. This goes back to my essay published (but not linked) today: teachers are not the problem.

Harvard professor wants to train people to be entrepreneurs. This is folly because,

"What distinguishes the successful entrepreneur and promoter from other people is precisely the fact that he does not let himself be guided by what was and is, but arranges his affairs on the ground of his opinion about the future. He sees the past and the present as other people do, but he judges the future in a different way."

Education grounds one in what is. A successful entrepreneur creates something that currently is not. If we need entrepreneurs, why not have government fund them?

"Instead of the unfettered market directing capital to successful entrepreneurs, the Small Business Administration (SBA) seeks to direct capital to anyone who thinks they might be an entrepreneur, especially if they fall into certain favored categories of race and gender."

Don't forget cronies. Cronies of politicians would get the most money.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

This is a terrible blow to the global warming frauds.

"“President no longer worried about CO2!” That’s what the headlines should have read last week after Obama presented an elaborate argument that alternative energy is the only viable response to high energy prices without ever once mentioning CO2, global warming or climate change. Instead, he presented the need to lessen our reliance on oil purely as an economic imperative."

When the cheerleader-in-chief of your cause doesn't even mention your cause, your cause is hurting.

POLICE STATE:

Video of TSA harassing a three year old in a wheelchair. Taken by his father. You can't make this stuff up.

WAR:

So the story of the soldier accused of murdering 16 Afghan civilians is he had financial problems at home and he doesn't remember anything about the murders. None of this rings true. No wonder the Afghans are so skeptical. Afghans continue to doubt this story. The AP reports that Afghan villagers claim American soldiers threatened to kill at least 20 of them after an IED attack.

US commander in Afghanistan says mission is on track. On track for what? For killing more Americans, NATO personnel and Afghans? For creating more terrorists who want to kill us? For bombing that country back into the stone age? For transferring hundreds of billions more from the American people to war profiteers? For producing more opium? For setting up a certain civil war as soon as US troops leave? If that what he means, I agree with him.

I'm happy to see the war on terror transformed into an intelligence war. That's how it should have been handled from the start. But I also agree with this article. It will make the war invisible to the American people, and that's a bad thing. The problem is drone strikes and CIA covert actions. Those should be abolished. If the president believes somebody should be targeted for assassination, he should get a Letter of Marque or Reprisal from Congress. Then the people would have insight into what's going on.

Reporter finds reams of US military documents in a dumpster outside Baghdad that were supposed to have been destroyed because they document the killing of Iraqi civilians by US troops.

"Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, the commander of American forces in Anbar, in his own testimony, described it as "a cost of doing business." According to other testimony: "Troops, traumatized by the rising violence and feeling constantly under siege, grew increasingly twitchy, killing more and more civilians in accidental encounters. Others became so desensitized and inured to the killing that they fired on Iraqi civilians deliberately while their fellow soldiers snapped pictures.""

And we wonder why they hate us. Where were the arrests and court martials?

POLITICS:

Police arrest Ron Paul supporters during a political meeting.

"You might have seen those articles about how a number of Ron Paul supporters were arrested during what seemed to be a routine floor fight at a caucus in Missouri.

That sounds like the sort of thing you might expect in Russia."

I expect it here too.

Paul raises $3.3 million in February.

Widespread ballot problems in the land of Obama. I'm sure this is perfectly innocent. CBS called Illinois for Romney pretty quickly. Where is the delay for hand counting?

Polls shows the perception gap between blacks and whites regarding Obama's policies. We know one thing for sure: Obama's policies have made Wall street fat cats even richer while everybody else is getting poorer. My mistake. Obama has also made the people who live around D.C. richer.

LOCAL:

In an economy, there's always two sides to every exchange, so while local governments may have saved millions on salt and overtime due to the mild winter, many people who depend on that overtime, shoveling and plowing snow lost income.

MISC:

Arnold Schwarzenegger repackages the one world government baloney in a project called Sustania.

New technique for analyzing satellite photos reveals interconnections of settlements dating back 8,000 years.

Strong earthquake in Mexico.

The history of the conflict between the Virginia colony and Indians.

"Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the affair, for its long-run consequence in poisoning Indian-white relations in Virginia, was the white aggression later in 1622 against the friendly Potomac Indians. The powerful Potomac tribe had refused to join the Powhatan confederacy plot to massacre the whites, and indeed had helped to save the colony from destruction by warning the colonists of Opechancanough's plot.

While on an expedition to the Potomacs to obtain corn, Captain Isaac Madison allowed himself to believe, without proof, the false tale of an exiled Potomac chief and of a renegade Polish interpreter, Robert Poole, that the Potomacs were planning to massacre the expedition. Madison then kidnapped the Potomac king and suddenly attacked and massacred any Potomac Indian he could lay his hands on."

The colonists couldn't understand the complex interactions between Indian tribes, and they fell for the lies of disgruntled individuals. Sounds like Iraq. Sounds like Afghanistan. It sounds like these problems of colonization are universal.

"Even collective guilt was imposed on the Indians, it being provided that if an Indian murdered a white man, all the people of the neighboring Indian town would be "answerable for it with their lives or liberties." But this law taxed even the often elastic consciences of the Virginians of the day, and was soon repealed."

Sounds like the story the Afghans are telling of the recent massacre.

"Arrant self-righteousness and a flagrant double standard of morality are often characteristic of the side with the superior weapons in any dispute, for its one-sided version of morality can be supported by force of arms if not by force of logic."

Colonists generally have superior weapons, so this sounds like another, related, universal rule of colonization.

"It is another common rule that militarization of a society ostensibly to bring force majeure against an enemy often succeeds also (or even only) in bringing that force against the very society being militarized. Thus, soldiers, conscripted into the garrisons, were to be subject to highly rigorous articles of war: any blasphemy, for example, when "either drunk or sober" was punished by forcing the soldier to run the terrible gantlet. Public prayers were to be read in the field or garrison twice a day, and any soldier refusing or neglecting to attend the prayers or the preaching or to show proper diligence in reading homilies and sermons was to be punished at the whim of the commander."

This seems to be another, related, universal rule of how wars lead to oppression at home. In this case it led to rebellion. That produces more oppression at home.