Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Because Democrats are afraid of the political ramifications if they advance a budget, Senate Democrats don't even bother to show up to the budget committee.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Techies understand the Fed is fueling another tech bubble.

Explanation of how the Fed steals from the rest of us to further enrich the richest people in America.

"The Fed, having gone on an unprecedented credit expansion spree, has benefited the recipients who were first in line at the trough: banks (imagine borrowing for free and then buying up assets that you know the Fed is aggressively buying with you) and those favored entities and individuals deemed most credit worthy. Flush with capital, these recipients have proceeded to bid up the prices of assets and resources, while everyone else has watched their purchasing power decline."

He fails to mention that the Fed also favors the politically well connected and how they turn around and give a bunch of the money the Fed gives them to their political patrons.

HEALTH CARE:

This is just one of many doctors offices shutting down because of Obamacare.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Obama isn't satisfied with the billions he's wasted on green energy boondoggles so far, so he wants to double down in order to collapse our economy even faster.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Today is pot celebration day to protest marijuana criminalization. If enough people protest, maybe our rulers will change the law. They're starving to tax revenue badly, so there's an opportunity.

POLICE STATE:

Advocated of jury nullification wins in federal court.

I'm skeptical that these FBI reports were critical. There hasn't been a terrorist threat beyond any other petty criminal attack in the US since 9/11 despite the FBI entrapping dozens of patsies.

Info on the spy box government is requiring every new car to carry as of 2015.

"Our cars were once a tangible expression of the freedom ideal. They are fast becoming mobile cages. And the really devilish thing is they’re making us pay the costs of our own imprisonment, too."

Security people talk about levels of security, and the job of the police is to protect the government from the people. That means cars will be one level. Houses will be another level. Cameras on the streets will be another level. Drones in the sky will be another level. They are boxing us in.

Right after I wrote the above, I read this:

"U.S. Building a Domestic Population-Control Grid Based on Military Ops. The U.S. military has become expert at controlling urban populations in Iraq – but why is the Department of Homeland Security building similar capabilities here?"

Because the function of police is protect the looters from their victims. This is an excellent article with a larger list of surveillance-control measures including descriptions. Surveillance is always about control. Our rulers know the dollar and our economy with it are doomed. They are controlling us to protect their position as apex predators when the unrest follows. They also know that time is short, so they are putting these oppressive programs in place fast.

POLITICS:

Obama's former green jobs czar Van Jones spews a Marxist, hate-filled rant.

Sociopaths have taken over the world.

"If I'm correct in my assessment, it would imply that the prospects are dim for conventional investments – most stocks, bonds and real estate. Those things tend to do well when society is growing in prosperity. And prosperity is fostered by peace, low taxes, minimal regulation and a sound currency. It's also fostered by a cultural atmosphere where sociopaths are precluded from positions of power and intellectual and moral ideas promoting free minds and free markets rule. Unfortunately, it seems that doesn't describe the trend that the world at large and the US in particular are embarked upon."

As long as government has the power of coercion over the people and as long as it has a monopoly on violence, sociopaths and psychopaths will be drawn to government, and they will manipulate to meet their personal desires at our expense. It doesn't matter if the government is a democracy, a dictatorship, a monarchy or anything else. The form doesn't matter. The power is what matters.

"It's hard to pick an exact time America's moral bankruptcy started; perhaps the draconian Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were the first real breach in the country's ethical armor – but they were quickly repealed and subsequently served as an example of what not to do for many years. There were real moral problems that arose because of the Mexican War, the War between the States and the Indian Wars. There were early attempts to create a central bank, but they fortunately failed. But I believe the real change in direction came with the Spanish-American War, which resulted in the accretion of an overseas empire, particularly in the Philippines where 200,000 locals were killed. As Randolph Bourne said, "War is the health of the state.""

From the beginning, European colonists began wiping out the Indians and taking their land, so institutionalized theft was part of the American character from the very beginning, but the Spanish-American war is an interesting choice because that's when America's rulers began competing with European nations in colonialism on the world stage.

"There is no truly capitalist state in the world today; perhaps Hong Kong comes closest (although not very close).The early US came quite close in some regards. In fact, the West as a whole was quite free in the century from the fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the start of World War 1 in 1914. Almost everywhere taxes were low and regulations few; there was no inflation because gold was currency everywhere; there were almost no serious wars and passports hardly existed, which enabled most anyone to travel almost anywhere without permission. It's no accident that, in percentage terms, the 19th century saw far greater and wider advances in prosperity than any time before or since. Capitalism is both natural and ideal – but, oddly, it doesn't exist anywhere. Why not? I'll explore that shortly."

Sad truth.

"Do you think for a moment that if you could make Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or any of the other sociopaths who control the state sit down and listen to intellectual arguments, it would change their attitudes? The chances of that are Slim and None. And Slim's anorexic.

Why am I so certain of that? It's not because these people have low IQs and can't understand the arguments. It's because most of the people at high levels of government are sociopaths. They're susceptible to reasoned argument against a police state to about the same degree that a cat can be convinced he shouldn't torment a mouse before killing it. People like Obama, Hillary or Cheney – which is to say most people with real power in Washington and every other government – do what they do because it's their nature. They're as cold, unemotional and predatory as reptiles, even though they look like people."

They're not cold and unemotional. They're just incapable of empathizing with others. They get quite happy when they advance their personal interests and quite angry when they are prevented from doing so.

"You may think I'm kidding or exaggerating for effect. I'm not. It's been said that power corrupts, and that's true. But it's more to the point to say that the corrupt seek power. A good case can be made that anyone who wants to be in a position of power should be precluded from it simply because he wants it."

Where have I hear that before? Oh yeah... I talk about it all the time. But while the corrupt are certainly drawn to power, power does corrupt. You can't dismiss either effect.

"There are lots of ways to divide people into two classes: rich/poor, male/female, smart/dumb, etc. But from the perspective of political morality, I'd say the most useful dichotomy may be people who want to control the material world vs. those who want to control other people. The former are scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs; the latter are politicians, bureaucrats and assorted busybodies. Guess which group inevitably – necessarily – gravitate toward government?"

Absolutely.

"There are different types of intelligence – emotional, athletic, mathematical and literary intelligence, for instance. A person can be a genius in one and an idiot in the others. The same is true of stupidity; it comes in flavors."

I used to talk about that all the time in the past. I never heard anybody else say it.

"I would like to suggest that what really distinguishes political elites from normal people is not just a predilection for stupidity but a real capacity for evil. Evil might best be defined as the intentional and usually gratuitous commission of acts that are cruel or unjust. A person who commits many evil acts is a sociopath. The sociopaths who are naturally drawn to government eventually come to dominate it. They're very dangerous people. They reset the social mores of the country they control. After a certain point, a critical mass is reached, and it's GAME OVER. I suspect we're approaching that point."

As do I.

LOCAL:

How clueless is this? The City of Dayton Office of Economic Development has contracted a Colorado firm to do a website instead of contracting a Dayton firm.

How stupid is it to charge a 14 year old boy with rape because he had consensual sex with a 12 year old girl? Where is it written that 13 is a magic age? The more interesting question is why did this government school enable these two to get together and have sex in a school bathroom during the school day.

UD celebrates the higher education bubble with $30 million in new construction. Brown Street is going to get wiped out when that bubble pops. We're also seeing signs the education bubble is popping.

"“We are notifying staff of pending board action on reductions in force which is part of a larger comprehensive cost reduction plan,” Donnelly said. “The cuts are necessitated by the $10 million in lost state funding over four years and the defeat of the school district 6.99 mills levy request last November."

At some point, probably very soon, the federal government will be forced to cut education spending, and people hurting economically will continue to refuse levies for schools. The laws of economics are like the law of gravity. When people jump, on the way up they can fool themselves into thinking they've defied gravity, but gravity always wins. People can fool themselves into believing they've overcome the laws of economics too, but the laws of economics always win also.

MISC:

I can't help but laugh at this baloney about how game developers are trying to kill the resale market. Imagine if car producers killed the resale market for cars. The exact same arguments apply, and they're wrong. People will take a risk on expensive games know they can resell them and recoup some of the money. Many won't take that risk if they can't resell. Game developers are cutting their own throats.

Government domination of science has produced unprecedented scientific fraud. The more government grows, the more scientific fraud will grow.