Freedom is always the right answer

Free kibbles

2012-01-31T16:13:00.002-05:00

WAR:

What happens when countries try to protect their capital from marauding US rulers? The military needs a bigger bomb.

POLITICS:

After all the corruption in the Iowa caucuses vote counting, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party is forced to resign.

Ron Paul's caucus strategy is likely to win him more delegates that Gingrich and Santorum combined.

LOCAL:

Taxpayers win as cities cut back on stealing money from them and giving it to people who put on festivals. If the people want to pay for the festivals, they can do so voluntarily. I love festivals, and I'm willing to pay a little bit to attend them. Not necessarily the $10 City Folk is charging for a bunch of crappy music though.

Free kibbles

2012-01-30T11:51:00.000-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Techies consider jailbreaking as means of protecting the internet from government aggression.

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Documents reveal AG Holder was thoroughly informed about Fast and Furious and its relationship to the murder of a US agent.

SOCIALISM:

Democracy is a form of socialism.

"Democracy, of the unlimited kind lauded today,[3] is a form of socialism, in the sense that it arrogates ultimate power over all decisions to the government. Implicit in the notion of people's present love affair with mob rule is the assumption that government, through the collective "will of the people," should have the prerogatives of ownership of all resources in society, should it choose to exercise these. The democrat brooks no limitation on the legitimate powers of government and hence gives total ownership over all of society to this institution. The only limitation in his mind is the limitation of democracy itself — that the rulers in control of the government apparatus must guard against being displaced by another set of rulers, at the behest of the demands of the mob."

Great description.

TAX AND SPEND:

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees owe billions in back taxes.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

A third company that received taxpayer money from Obama has gone bankrupt. Of course this is a pattern. The pattern is Obama is trying to collapse the US economy under the burden of government, and Republicans are aiding and abetting.

Bitterly cold winter in Alaska. So far not here, thank goodness. Knock on wood.

WAR ON DRUGS:

In an attempt to fool people into believing the government is keeping us safe, headlines trumpet capture of drug cartel member who murdered 75 people. They captured one killer after he killed 75 people. Thousands if not tens of thousands continue to operate. Hundreds of tons of drugs entered the US. Some victory. Drug gangs control entire sections of major cities in the US. They've corrupted police, prosecutors and judges all over the country, especially along the border. They've infiltrated the military. They undoubtedly pay off politicians in Washington to keep drugs illegal. These propagandists make Baghdad Bob look honest. Do you feel safer?

POLICE STATE:

Power hungry politicians around the country are using the tragic event in Zanesville, when a mentally ill man released dozens of wild animals that deputies subsequently killed, as an excuse to seize animals from Americans.

Congressional supporter of wiretaps caught on wiretap promising to use her influence to aid Israeli spies.

I'm going to quote this in its entirety.

"A couple of British tourists who had Tweeted some slang were detained and deported by Homeland Security, which apparently always is on the job, ready to repel non-existent threats:Leigh Van Bryan, 26, was handcuffed and kept under armed guard in a cell with Mexican drug dealers for 12 hours after landing in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting.
The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: 'Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America'.
Leigh also had Tweeted that the pair would "dig up Marilyn Monroe" and agents searched their luggage...for spades and shovels. Welcome to Obamika, folks."

Yet Americans buy the propaganda that foreigners hate us for our freedom.

Government to delete data of users of Megaupload.

MISC:

Why were people driving down the highway if they couldn't see?

Target thinks I'm going to pay more for a product just because it's made for Target. I don't think so. I understand the problem Target is talking about, but I don't think this is the solution. Because web stores don't need brick and mortar showrooms, they offer products at lower prices. What brick and mortar stores can offer is personal service, building relationships, support for products over their lifetime, etc.

Free kibbles

2012-01-29T16:50:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Romney battles NBC over free use versus copyright. I love it when plutocrats battle each other using the weapons they typically use against us.

Internet content managers fight back against major labels by blocking their IPs. It would be awesome if big companies did this.

FREEDOM OF RELIGION:

Remember when conservatives supported George Bush's faith-based welfare system? Remember how every time you give government power, it turns around and uses that power against you? Now Obama has ordered all faith-based employers to offer birth control in their health care programs.

"The mandate exempts churches but applies to Catholic universities, Catholic-based charities and Baptists, Methodists and other denominations."

Government's assault on freedom never ends.

TAX AND SPEND:

The German and French governments are trying to seize power over the rest of eurozone countries to save the euro. Even if this succeeded, it would only delay the inevitable. Let's hope the euro countries resist this centralization of authority.

EDUCATION:

Guess what happens when government takes over funding of universities.

"Beyonce course offered by Rutgers University in New Jersey"

You can't make this stuff up.

I've long known the expert position on learning was wrong. Now an expert agrees. Too bad the article doesn't mention the importance of sleep.

HEALTH CARE:

The establishment is trying to force dietitians out of business with licensing requirements in order to keep Americans sick and dependent on establishment medicine.

It takes online gamers only three weeks to solve HIV puzzle government scientists were unable or unwilling to solve for a decade. This illustrates the awesome advantages of the ingenuity produced in a competitive-cooperative market compared the stagnation created by central planning.

Year after year the government scares millions into thinking the new strain of flu is going to kill us all. They keep shoving vaccines on people that do more harm than good. But more and more people are aware of this fraud, so what can the government do to keep people scared and pressure them into taking vaccines? They can develop a super-deadly version of the bird flu.

"The lead author of today's announcement is Dr. Ron Fouchier, a respected molecular virologist. He heads at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, that engineered a form of "aerosolized" bird flu that can easily be passed from humans to humans through the air. The genetically-altered flu is thought to be so virulent that if the vials containing it were to get out, the virus would have the potential to spread around the globe and kill hundreds of millions."

You can't make this stuff up. Since the flu wasn't deadly enough to scare people, government made it super-deadly. With normal versions of the flu, washing your hands keeps you safe. But government won't allow that. They must have a super-deadly version to scare us with. The unbridled coercive power of government has created an insane world, and it might kill us all. A speaker from the Council on Foreign Relations explains the real reason for developing the super-bug:

""My first reaction was 'Oh, my God, why did they do this?'" says Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Second reaction was 'Oh dear, it works!' Meaning that nature could do the same thing – that they had proven how dangerous the virus could be. And then my final reaction was 'we have no capacity to control this kind of work. Our treaty systems our policy systems, will not do the job.'""

Bigger government. The US government created a super-deadly bug in order to scare people into giving the government more power to create a one world government. When normal people learn about the bird flu, they take precautions not to catch it. Like washing their hands. When government officials learn about the bird flu, they turn it into a super-deadly super-bug and use it to promote their power-mad plans for ruling the world. I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up. This level of depravity can only be found in government officials.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Burt Rutan exposes the global warming fraud. As I've been pointing for years, it really is this simple.

The mainstream media reports that global warming is not the problem, cooling from reduced solar activity is. Eventually the truth always wins out.

Co-chair of IPCC working group accidentally tells the truth.

"…we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy…One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…"

As we've long known, but it's nice to get the confirmation.

POLICE STATE:

Here's a terrible story about the consequences of perpetual war and the police state required to support it.

"The Justice Department is funding an unusual national training program to help police deal with an increasing number of volatile confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans."

If there's a silver lining in this cloud, it might be the recognition that police should de-escalate situations instead of escalating the violence which is now the norm.

Protests against ACTA.

MIT scientists develop technology that can see through eight inch concrete walls from 60 feet away. Cops are going to be spying on everybody constantly.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul sues to uncover identity of author of a defamatory video of Jon Huntsman who posed as a Paul supporter. If the author is not a Paul supporter, this is fraud. Fraud is a crime. If it is a Paul supporter, then it isn't fraud, and he should be allowed to remain anonymous. Paul would have to present a strong case that the author isn't a supporter.

Police arrest hundreds of Occupiers in Oakland. You might notice that corporations did not arrest them because they have no power to do so. Maybe these people will figure out who has all the power and start protesting the government.

"Mayor Jean Quan condemned the local movement's tactics as "a constant provocation of the police with a lot of violence toward them" and said the demonstrations were draining scarce resources from an already strapped city. Damage to the City Hall plaza alone has cost $2 million since October, she said, about as much as police overtime and mutual aid.
Oakland has logged five homicides since Friday, and Police Chief Howard Jordan said the law enforcement "personnel and resources dedicated to Occupy reduce our ability to focus on public safety priorities.""

This is exactly the point. These protests, like Obama's policies, are designed to destroy so many resources that the US economy and government collapse. This is what socialism breeds.

MEDIA:

I don't think the portrayal of pit bulls as dangerous dogs is a solely media driven creation. It's reflection of who owns them and they use them. Poor people tend to buy them for protection. Some fight them. Some train them as attack dogs. The establishment can't stand poor people being able to defend themselves and respond to attacks. That threatens the establishment. And because the owners and therefore the dogs are poorly trained, accidents happen. It's the same with Saturday night specials. It's the same with AK47s.

LOCAL:

Antioch College is a leftist institution, and administrators proved they have no concept of economics when they offered "free" tuition. Free is obviously below the market price, and that always produces shortages.

"It has recently been plagued with financial problems, but Antioch College is back open for business. The Yellow Springs college is offering free tuition to all the students accepted in its first four years. A move so popular, it has temporarily crashed its website."

This isn't rocket science, but leftists never figure it out.

MISC:

Scientists discover oldest art kit. From a related article:

"The find pushes back the date by which humans were practicing complex art approximately 40,000 years, all the way back to 100,000 years ago."

Once again a discovery explodes the hubris of modern men who thought of our ancestors as primitive.

The Android marketplace is offering a competitor to Siri named Evi for free. That's obviously below the market price. The result is shortages.

"And people are so keen to that Evi's servers are overloaded — so be prepared for a wait for answers."

I understand that you can post unpopular apps for free and get away with it. There's enough bandwidth to cover a few users. But not popular ones.

Free kibbles

2012-01-28T15:21:00.002-05:00

SOCIALISM:

Unions are hurting themselves by protesting right-to-work legislation at the Superbowl.

TAX AND SPEND:

The European debt crisis continues, and it will continue until the debt is liquidated. All attempts to fix it so far have just made the situation worse.

REGULATION:

It always cracks me up when people blame our problems, and of our problems, on capitalism.

"With the existence of the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and other bodies that make up the 115 regulators that oversee the financial sector in the United States, the claim that such a system constitutes free-market capitalism is preposterous."

The problem wasn't too little government intervention in the market. There was way too much. This is an important point:

"Contrary to popular belief, capitalism is not a system of rugged individualism but rather one of social cooperation that expands the division of labor and offers new opportunities of employment even for those less able to compete with more-productive workers."

Contrast that with government which acts through coercion and violence, dividing people into winners and losers with its every action.

"As a rule, capitalism is blamed for the undesired effects of a policy directed at its elimination. The man who sips his morning coffee does not say, "Capitalism has brought this beverage to my breakfast table." But when he reads in the papers that the government of Brazil has ordered part of the coffee crop destroyed, he does not say, "That is government for you"; he exclaims, "That is capitalism for you.""

No kidding.

EDUCATION:

Obama wants to do price-fixing on tuitions. Price fixing always leads to shortages.

POLITICS:

Maybe the bankers backing Romney and Obama are pressuring establishment Republicans to run Gingrich out of the race because Gingrich isn't owned by them. The bankers want to insure they control both candidates. Funny how this New York Times article showing Romney's ties to bankers doesn't mention Obama's equally powerful ties.

MISC:

Two grandchildren of the tenth president, John Tyler, are still living.

Free kibbles

2012-01-27T13:20:00.005-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Graphic shows the change of congressmen regarding SOPA during the internet protest.

TAX AND SPEND:

After four years of Strickland and Democrats controlling Ohio government, Ohio ranked 39th in overall tax climate for business. After a year of Kasich and Republicans being in charge Ohio ranks 39th still. No change. Imagine that. There's no difference worth noting between Republicans and Democrats.

REGULATION:

I remember when my vice-president at AMD left to become CEO of Rambus. It seemed bizarre that their entire business model was built on creating specifications, patenting them then licensing them. I chose to keep designing and building microprocessors. Back then the term patent troll didn't exist. Now Rambus is known as a patent troll. Now the third of three critical Rambus patents has been overturned. The article contains a good comment:

"There's something that seems unsavory and wasteful about a business environment in which a company's stock value "fluctuates sharply on its successes and failures in patent litigation and licensing." The linked article offers a brief but decent summary of the way Rambus has profited over the years from these now-invalidated patents."

Let's hope this prompts business to get back to innovating instead of playing the government rent game with patents.

HEALTH CARE:

Paula Deen the diabetes queen who hid her disease while promoting the establishment lifestyle that caused her illness is the poster child for the corruption and unhealthy lifestyle the government and its agents promote.

The Harvard "food plate" looks very similar to the FDA's food pyramid. What a shock. Who would have thought that Harvard would just echo the establishment? The funniest thing about this is it's presented as an alternative though it looks pretty much identical. The academic establishment is tinkering around the edges to create the illusion it bucks the government establishment when in fact it's really supporting it.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Unprecedented two feet of snow in Seattle.

Sixteen prominent scientists publish open letter in Wall Street Journal telling people that global warming alarmism is exaggerated.

You know how bad Obama's CAFE standards are for cars? The crooks in California one-upped him.

I love innovation, and if seawater greenhouses lower food costs, that's awesome. But how often are we going to allow these weirdos to claim that people are going starve because of population growth? They've been saying it for a century, but nobody starves unless government forces them to starve. People aren't dumb. Free people feed themselves, their families and their neighbors. It's not that hard. People have been doing that for a million years or more, and they'll keep doing it for a million more except when governments starve them to death.

It didn't take environmentalists long to come after the personal coffee makers.

POLICE STATE:

FBI to mine Facebook and Twitter data. They should not be able to mine private data.

Prisons as geriatric facilities.

Here's one of those issues that might inspire Walter Block who wrote Defending the Undefendable. Why should people be forced to delete data that's embarrassing to another if that data was gathered without coercion?

WAR:

Why does the US government have to transform an ancient ship about to be dry-docked into a floating base for SEALs? Why don't the SEALs have a modern ship designed for this purpose to work from? This just shows the poor performance of government bureaucracy.

Government uses the new NDAA provisions allowing the military to detain anybody in the world including Americans in America to justify holding a prisoner in Guantanamo. There but for the grace of Obama go us all.

POLITICS:

Paul might defeat Romney in the head to head match-up in Virginia. He also might win Maine.

On Obama's mentor Saul Alinsky and Rules for Radicals:

"“Rules for Radicals” is dedicated to Lucifer, who is praised by Alinsky, both for being “the first radical” and for winning himself a kingdom. In it, Alinsky condemns the state of the modern world, blames capitalism, boasts about his past rabble-rousing successes, then explains in detail several ways to turn citizens against each other to achieve political goals. The substance is mostly amoral, often immoral, advice on how to change public sentiment. It is essentially an instruction guide on how to foment strife, turning neighbor against neighbor until the innately civilized desire to compromise forces a political opponent to acquiesce."

At Obama has been tremendously successful at following that model as president. Here's a good reminder why the worst always rise to the top of government:

"Reading “Rules for Radicals” will depress you. Alinsky took an extremely dim view of his fellow man. He had little use for individuality. He had no compunction in using a political target’s virtue to subvert his or her values. And he actively promoted dishonesty. Understanding that his tactics might be difficult for anyone with a conscience to stomach, Alinsky offered this helpful tidbit: “Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.”"

Government is an inherently violent and coercive institution. It's immoral. Only the most depraved individuals, those most eager to do violence to their fellow men, can rise to the top.

Ron Paul's highlights from last night's debate. He was very good again. I guess that's why Limbaugh was attacking him earlier.

Breakdown of how many times the Republican candidates and Obama use certain words.

The Nevada establishment moves the caucuses to accommodate Newt's billionaire benefactor.

"Bunce said in an email to the Chronicle that it appears Gingrich, lacking organization and campaign efforts in the Silver State, is “going to have his billionaire buddy try and buy an election for him.”"

Don't orthodox Jews have this problem every other election year? Do you think they'd do that for you? Sometimes the corruption is so obvious, and legal, it makes me laugh out loud.

Gingrich is fading for a second time. If Santorum drops out, I think Paul can beat Romney. Right now, Gingrich and Santorum are insuring Romney wins the nomination.

Something is going on behind the scenes. Newt Gingrich is an establishment politician. He supports every big-government, establishment position there is. He always has. He always will. You'd be hard pressed to identify any substantial policy difference between Gingrich and Romney. Yet the Republican establishment is crushing Gingrich. Maybe they know he can't be elected. Maybe that's all there is to it. But I don't believe it. I think something more has gone on behind the scenes than we know about and Gingrich is challenging them to go public with it.

One of my clients contracts a firm to produce newsletters for him. I don't know whether he checks them with a fine toothed comb or not, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't because he makes him money doing other things. He pays somebody to write the newsletters so he can spend his time doing the things that make him money. This is just standard business procedure. I'm sure Ron Paul was in the same position, so I believe him when he says he didn't personally oversee the newsletters that many have accused him of being racist.

"Ed Crane, the longtime president of the libertarian Cato Institute, told the Post that he and Paul discussed direct-mail solicitations at the time and that they agreed that "people who have extreme views" are more likely than others to respond."

Oh my goodness, this sounds like the Cato-Mises feud has attacked the Paul campaign. The Koch brothers, government supported oligarchs, fund the Cato Institute. They've banned Mises and Rothbard. They opposed the creation of the Mises Institute. Since Ron Paul is Misean, a friend and to an extent a student of Rothbard, it seems the Kochs are attacking him. But that makes sense. Paul threatens their government protected influence.

The media seems to realize that the claims that Paul knew about the supposedly racist comments in his newsletter won't work. Only the right-wing accomplice press is promoting that argument, and they'll probably lose more listeners over it. The left is taking the tact of:

"Paul pursued strategy of publishing controversial newsletters, associates say"

Shame on Dr. Paul for being controversial. When I started writing political opinions at DCP four years ago, my chosen strategy was to be controversial. You can't persuade people with facts alone. I learned that from decades of debating. People don't listen to rational arguments until you overcome their emotional barriers. In order to persuade somebody on politics, you must first engage them, and that means you must penetrate their shields. Once you do that, facts, reason, and rational arguments work. So I have no problems with Ron Paul's strategy of being controversial. That's the only way to persuade. I believe this story will quickly fade away until Paul wins a primary or the nomination, whichever comes first. But Paul will have to handle it with class once that happens.

I only hope liberals and conservatives figure this out before the next time they vote.

Please. Our political system is a scam.

LOCAL:

Butler County government is stealing money from small businesses and individuals, depressing the local economy, in order to provide corporate welfare to big retail giants.

"Approximately 3,000 construction jobs and roughly 4,500 permanent jobs would be created and it’s estimated the development would generate $1 million to $1.5 million a year in sales tax collections, according to Steiner."

No mention of how many jobs are killed or will never be created by stealing the money in the first place. This is an example of the seen versus the unseen effects of government intervention in the economy.

Guess what happens when government thinks it should engage in venture capitalism.

"A publicly funded center meant to help new businesses working with wireless technology has not generated expected revenues, resulting in its chief executive working for free for 20 months and public officials searching for a new business model.In 2007, Dayton City Commission approved a $1.4 million investment in the Dayton RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Convergence Center as an incubator for companies creating new uses for RFID. The technology lets objects or people be ID’d and tracked wirelessly via radio waves.
The center was supposed to become self-sustaining through royalties paid by companies that were based there. On Friday, public officials said that hasn’t happened."

This is Dayton's Solyndra. And it's creepy.

"Dayton City Commissioner Nan Whaley believes the center and its member businesses can still be made viable. “We just have to be thoughtful about it, and realize we’re doing this with taxpayer dollars” Whaley said."

And you have been since 2005. How's that seven years of stolen money working out for us? Not so well. How's it working out for you Nan? Wonderfully. Funny how that works.

MISC:

Facebook to go public.

Mars rover Opportunity turns eight. That's amazing, but it would be so much more impressive had it been funded voluntarily.

The third major coronal ejection in a week.

The north star is shrinking, but don't expect it to disappear in your lifetime.

I'm not in the least bit surprised that people lie more when texting. Most of personal communication is done through expressions and gestures. Without those, people can get away with lies more.

On the face of it, calling inanimate objects alive seems stupid. But at the same time, I defy you to define life. My definition is an entity with free will. Do we have free will? Do other objects have free will? Nobody knows.

Do we really need a taxpayer funded study to tell us early humans formed social networks?

""The astonishing thing is that ancient human social networks so very much resemble what we see today," said Nicholas Christakis, professor of medical sociology and medicine at Harvard Medical School and professor of sociology in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and senior author on the study. "From the time we were around campfires and had words floating through the air, to today when we have digital packets floating through the ether, we've made networks of basically the same kind.""

No, there's nothing astonishing about this. Why would anybody expect it to be any other way? I guess when you're a tax feeder trolling for more tax dollars, you have to say stuff like to impress the bureaucrats who feed you.

Free kibbles

2012-01-26T18:57:00.000-05:00

ECONOMY:

How private equity firms like Bain Capital boost the economy by making resources work to create wealth instead of squander it. Unfortunately, private equity funding is drying up, meaning there's not as much wealth to rescue poorly allocated resources and put them to more productive use.

Criticism of the liquidity trap explanation for the recession.

The unfortunate truth about our economy.

"You can’t hide a flood but you can hide a financial implosion. The financial day of Armageddon occurred some time in the recent past and it is government’s job to keep the suicide rate down and to calm the masses and act like everything is normal. The goal is to keep the women shopping. The Super Bowl serves as an excellent distraction. It’s just a temporary recession, right? No, it’s the financial collapse of modern civilization and it is being papered over. If you blinked your eyes, you probably missed it. But then you probably sleep better than I do."

The collapse has already happened. Most people just haven't realized it yet.

TAX AND SPEND:

Japanese debt passes out of the trillions into the quadrillions. 16 digits. Stop the insanity.

The Tax Foundation analyzes President Obama's proposed alternative minimum tax for millionaires.

"On a very static basis, we roughly estimate that this policy would raise $40 billion, assuming that taxpayers don't change their behavior. Compared to a $1.1 trillion deficit next year this is a drop in the bucket."

This would make Americans suffer the highest tax rate on dividend income in the western world, which means savings would be punished more here than anywhere in the world. Savings drives economic growth. Obama's plan isn't about raising revenue or balancing the budget. It's about class warfare and collapsing our economy under the burden of government.

Cato busts Obama for lying about corporate taxes in his State of the Union speech.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Global temperatures plummeting. Yikes. I've been saying this winter was going to become bad. It hasn't yet, but it might be coming soon.

Strong hurricanes have been less frequent in the last 150 years than in the previous 600. Another claim by the frauds refuted.

This is a great title for an article: Obama's Green Robber Barons. It's a very accurate analogy except for one thing: the railroads were useful. Green energy is a boondoggle.

Obama's EPA likely to regulate mud puddles in forestry operations.

POLICE STATE:

Why do we need a law to make jailbreaking electronics legal? Shouldn't it be legal by default?

Video proves police lied when they claimed Rand Paul was irate during his detention by the TSA.

POLITICS:

Obama's destructive vision for America.

"Two words hardly mentioned in Barack Obama’s 65-minute State of the Union address to Congress: freedom and liberty. President Obama’s fourth and possibly last State of the Union speech was long on big government proposals, but short on the principles that have made America the world’s greatest power. His lecturing tone exuded arrogance, and he failed to present a coherent vision for getting the United States back on its feet after three years of economic decline. It was heavy on class-war rhetoric, punitive taxation, and frequent references to the Left-wing mantra of “fairness”, hardly likely to instil confidence in a battered business community that is the lifeblood of the American economy.

...
This should have been a serious speech addressing the economic problems facing the United States. Instead it was a laundry list of half-baked proposals designed to appease the Left. The president should have been talking about reining in spending, lowering taxes, and fostering greater economic freedom, but he opted for policies that will speed America’s decline, not reverse it."

This from a Brit.

MEDIA:

Press freedom in the US, already low, plummets.

Free kibbles

2012-01-25T11:47:00.001-05:00

SOCIALISM:

Wisconsin's minor labor reforms are saving taxpayers money. Just think what major reforms would do.

ECONOMY:

Analysis shows the folly of claims that the world is running out of resources.

TAX AND SPEND:

Lord Geithner doesn't expect to continue for a second term. Let's hope he doesn't get the opportunity, but if Obama wins, and Republicans are working hard to re-elect him, let's hope he ain't lying.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The Fed inflates, gold rises.

"Gold jumped to its strongest in more than a month on Thursday after a promise by the U.S. Federal Reserve to keep rock-bottom rates for at least two more years helped burnish the metal's safe-haven appeal."

Like day follows night.

Banks beginning to question those who withdraw money. Bank runs will be coming soon. FDIC will have no hope of covering them.

HEALTH CARE:

Mark Sisson's top 6 anti-inflammatory foods.

The number of uninsured continues to rise.

Obama's henchwoman says that Obama won't let a little thing like the Supreme Court overturning the Obamacare mandate stop him from coercing people into buying health insurance whether they want to or not.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Taxpayer funded government workers and scientists rush to defend global warming frauds using our tax dollars.

Government is inherently divisive. Every action government takes divides people into winners and losers. Obama is the biggest government president in modern times, to he's the most divisive president in modern times. He's ripping not America apart, but his supporters as well. That's why he was unable to pass much of agenda despite having large majorities in both chambers for two years. Another example is his blocking of the Keystone pipeline have split unions.

I've written a lot about how solar cycle 24 is an historically low amplitude solar cycle. I've also written about how badly the vast majority of scientists, the establishment scientists, mis-predicted solar cycle 24. Now we have a new prediction about solar cycle 25:

"First Estimate of Solar Cycle 25 Amplitude – may be the smallest in over 300 years"

I hate to beat a dead drum, but I'm skeptical. Surprise. For those of you who've been reading my warnings of a Dalton or even Maunder-like minimum, you might be surprised to read I'm skeptical. But skepticism is a natural, rational, human approach to new science. I'm as skeptical of this claim as I am of the man-made global warming claims. I say prove it. The global warming frauds have no only failed, they've been proven wrong for a decade. I hope and hope and hope these predictions about solar cycle 25 are wrong, because if they're right, many people will die of cold, and civilization will suffer.

POLICE STATE:

Did you think you were smart for staying off the internet, thinking nobody would track you? Police in California are creating a database base on license plate observations. Maybe you should stay home. Maybe that will protect you. Or not. Sticking you head in the sand just makes easier for the government to do you from behind.

WAR:

Corruption at the VA. Who would have guessed?

SEALs rescue American and Dane in Somalia. This is a wonderful, feel good story. I'm happy the American and the Dane are safe. It's also a powerful political tool for the president. But this is terrible policy. The US military should not subsidize risky behavior overseas. Our military should insure other states don't molest Americans en mass, but individuals should be responsible for the consequences of their actions. The market would do a much better job of dealing with these risks. People who travel overseas could buy rescue insurance. Insurance companies would do an excellent job determining risk based on the itinerary and other factors and charging an appropriate price based on that risk. This would enable people to make rational decisions, the cost of rescues would be significantly reduced and taxpayers wouldn't have to pay for it. Apparently the American woman was from the Dayton area. But the policy is still bad. But how do you tell a parent, sibling or child this?

Call me cynical, but I bet Obama chose SEAL Team 6 for this operation just so he could bring the alleged assassination of Osama bin Laden back into the limelight. I hate having to type some of these words. But we have no evidence that OBL was killed other than Obama's word. And it would have been stupid to assassinate him instead of capturing him and interrogating him. For all I know, OBL is in Guantanamo, answering questions, as he should be. But this is the government voters have created: one that lies to them every day, and occasionally tells the truth, just enough to convince voters to continue supporting the greatest criminal organization in human history.

Doesn't it such that goons like Obama, Bush and Clinton have turned heroes like SEAL Team 6 into political pawns?

Record year for IEDs in Afghanistan.

"Attacks with makeshift bombs hit a record high of more than 16,000 in Afghanistan in the past year, and the increasing harm they cause to Afghan civilians indicates insurgents may lack strong leadership, military officials say."

Who do you think the victims are blaming? Their neighbors or Americans? Who do you think their children are going to attack in ten years? Policies matter. Blowback kills.

Call me naive, but I don't believe Americans, even those most corrupt, evil people in government, will kill other Americans to start a war. As psychotic, sociopathic and just plain evil as politicians are, and top bureaucrats are almost as bad, most government workers are not. The rank and file tend to be good people who want to help their fellows and the American people, not harm them even though they are trapped in an system that can only do evil. The worst of the worst above them won't risk their lives or careers by trying to sabotage the USS Enterprise. Self interest will win out. The USS Maine wasn't destroyed by Cuban Spaniards. It wasn't destroyed by an American false flag operation. It was destroyed by a design flaw. I do not believe for one second that US agents will harm the USS Enterprise or her crew in a false flag attack in order to start a war with Iran. God forbid I'm wrong.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul has a great response to Obama's State of the Union speech.

Romney paid 46 percent of his income in taxes and charity. Wow. That's a lot of charity. And that's a lot of wealth created for his fellow men.

The Congressional Black Caucus claims that the new crop of voter ID laws are designed to make it harder for Obama to win re-election. Is that an admission that Obama only won because of voter fraud?

I know why the media didn't ask Ron Paul about the TSA after TSA agents detained his son. They didn't want Americans to hear Paul's answer. This is a stupid question. The question everybody should be asking is why didn't Ron Paul bring it up? The media isn't his boss. Why didn't he find a way to make this an issue in the last debate? This was the opportunity he's been waiting for his entire political career, and he failed to make it happen. I was stunned he didn't make it an issue and challenge the worms on stage with him to comment. Had he done so, he could have won the nomination right there. Instead, Gingrich is allowed to pretend he's anti-establishment. It's almost like Paul didn't want to crush his competition.

MEDIA:

It is sickening how the media focus on Giffords while completely ignoring the other people wounded and killed. The press would have us believe only the lives of the ruling class matter. The rest of us are cattle for them to slaughter as they choose.

CNN not only ignores but dismisses Obama's ties to Alinsky but tries to tie Alinsky to the tea party. You can't make this stuff up.

Daily Mail surpasses New York Times. That may seem about as important as the tortuous surpassing the snail, but the snailmail world of print, that's a big deal.

LOCAL:

Who would have thought the local police were corrupt? Me.

Free kibbles

2012-01-24T11:17:00.001-05:00

SOCIALISM:

One of Obama's appointments to the NLRB will continuing receiving payments from unions while on the board. I'm sure happens all the time, under the table, but Obama's lawlessness is more blatant. He doesn't even care.

The world's power-elite are meeting to plan how to stamp out the last remnants of capitalism. Note all the big corporations in support. They want government to stamp out the last of their competition. Note Bain & Company is on that list.

ECONOMY:

Movie based on Austrian Economics, Margin Call, is nominated for an Academy Award.

TAX AND SPEND:

Obama's economists consulted only like-minded economists before launching their stimulus boondoggle. But what else would you expect?

While Boehner pretends he wants to cut spending, he and Republicans have increased debt by $1 trillion.

"But as CNSNews.com previously reported, federal spending bills approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have increased the national debt by more than $1 trillion dollars in just 10 months."

Don't you love those fiscally responsible Republicans?

REGULATION:

Apple has spent more than $100 million suing Android manufacturers. That's $100 million that wasn't used to create new products or anything else in the productive private economy but was instead squandered in the parasitic political economy.

The environmentalists are butting heads with the safety nazis when it comes to car regulations.

EDUCATION:

Apple claims sole rights to distribute electronic ebooks published on iBooks. Competitors will appear soon.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

A list and explanation of the many falsehoods in Obama's green energy political ad.

Out of 22 issues, Americans concern for global warming is last.

Remember when Obama was trying to spend our tax dollars drilling for oil in Brazil? The Brazilian government chose the Chinese.

POLICE STATE:

New Jersey police to remotely shine lights on pre-criminals. How can they tell? You know this will be abused.

Drones over New York and join police-military exercises in Los Angeles.

Great comment on TSA:

"When someone is empowered by the Government to look at you naked and feel you up at will, it's clear who is in control in that relationship. Why do people think they will get any ‘respect?’"

No kidding.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Western rulers have embargoed Iranian oil and are waging war on Iran's central bank. India responds by buying Iranian oil with real money.

"India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar, DEBKAfile's intelligence and Iranian sources report exclusively. Those sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran's total exports of 2.5 million bpd. Both are superpowers in terms of gold assets.By trading in gold, New Delhi and Beijing enable Tehran to bypass the upcoming freeze on its central bank's assets and the oil embargo which the European Union's foreign ministers agreed to impose Monday, Jan. 23. The EU currently buys around 20 percent of Iran's oil exports."

This might end the dollars reign as the world's reserve currency and bring back an international gold standard.

POLITICS:

Gingrich exposes his campaign strategy - throw popular sound bites at debate crowds - by threatening to pull out of debates if crowds can't cheer. That's how absurd our nomination process has become.

"“I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”"

He's right about that, but we'd be better off having no debates instead of choosing candidates and the president based on these shallow events that are designed to subordinate candidates to the media. American Idol has more substance.

Paul may not be spending campaign money in Florida, but a new super PAC will spend $1.4 million on his behalf in Florida.

Editor of Atlanta Jewish magazine suggests Israeli agents should consider assassinating President Obama. Calling this guy a fool is an understatement. What this shows is, as oppressive as the US government has become, there aren't too many countries where a person could get away with this. His employer should fire him now.

David Stockman on crony capitalism.

MEDIA:

The post election coverage in SC from Ron Paul's super PAC draws over 20,000 viewers. Paul is finding his way around the media and hastening the death of the mainstream media. The mainstream media would be smart to embrace Paul in order to keep viewers.

Rush Limbaugh says Ron Paul sounds almost like an Islamic terrorist for his comments in response to the detainment of his son, Senator Rand Paul, by the TSA. Rush sided with Obama and Janet Napolitano on this and will probably lose more listeners over it. Paul's comments were consistent with his positions, but they were also the comments of a father concerned about his son. Sure, Rand's a big boy and a senator, but I don't think parents ever see things that way. Paul's response was as much the healthy response of a concerned father as a champion of liberty, and any person who claims to support family values should respect that.

You might be a big government conservative

2012-01-23T16:29:00.001-05:00

If your Republican candidate supports government control of property through regulation, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports the income tax, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports the death tax, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports confiscating property of emigrants, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports the Federal Reserve, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports regulation of telecom companies, the internet and mass transit, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports regulation of industry and farms, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports unions and government work programs, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports economic central planning, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports the income tax, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports government control of education, you might be a big government conservative

If your Republican candidate supports the health insurance mandate, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports government run health care, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports Medicare Part D, you might be a big government conservative.
If your Republican candidate supports the global warming fraud, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports welfare for corporate farmers, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports welfare in general, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate supports perpetual war, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate is funded by Goldman Sachs, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate is funded by the Israel lobby, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate wants to use the police power of the state to force his values on all Americans, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate talks about spending cuts but offers no clear list of programs he will cut, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate has ever voted to increase spending or the debt limit, you might be a big government conservative.

If your Republican candidate wants to cut $1 trillion in spending in his first year, abolish the Fed, abolish the income tax and end the government's wars and bring the troops home, congratulations. You're not a conservative hypocrite.

Free kibbles

2012-01-23T14:13:00.003-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The Canadian and Irish governments want to implement SOPA.

TAX AND SPEND:

The Feds might need another debt ceiling increase before the Nov. election.

EDUCATION:

People are downloading textbooks like crazy off of Apple's new service. The textbook industry was such a scam, it's great to see Apple taking it on. Ebooks will wipe the textbook as we know it out and enable real competition in textbooks.

WAR ON DRUGS:

The DEA now has death squads all over the western hemisphere.

"Late on a moonless night last March, a plane smuggling nearly half a ton of cocaine touched down at a remote airstrip in Honduras. A heavily armed ground crew was waiting for it — as were Honduran security forces. After a 20-minute firefight, a Honduran officer was wounded and twodrug traffickers lay dead.Several news outlets briefly reported the episode, mentioning that a Honduran official said the United States Drug Enforcement Administration had provided support. But none of the reports included a striking detail: that support consisted of an elite detachment of military-trained D.E.A. special agents who joined in the shootout, according to a person familiar with the episode."

Government never gets enough death and destruction.

POLICE STATE:

Rand Paul detained by TSA for refusing a full body search. This might work in Ron Paul's favor. Paul takes on the TSA.

"“The police state in this country is growing out of control,” Paul wrote in a statement provided to The Daily Caller. “One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our kids and our seniors and does nothing to keep us safe.”"

Pharaoh Obama stands with the TSA. This is great for Paul. I hope he works this into the debate tonight, and I expect he will. Issues like this is why Paul would beat Obama handily in the general election. Only he can differentiate himself from Obama.

Another TSA agent busted for stealing.

Supreme Court rules police must obtain warrant before tracking people with GPS. Every now and then they get one right.

Judge orders defendant to de-crypt hard drive.

WAR:

Feds send 12,000 US troops to seize oil wells in Libya. Where's the declaration of war? Where's the treaty?

Great graphic puts military spending in perspective. Another great graphic documents the hundreds of US military bases in the US and out.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The EU bans import of Iranian oil, harming Europeans.

"The Islamic Republic, which denies trying to build an atom bomb, scoffed at efforts to choke its oil exports, as Asia lines up to buy what Europe scorns."

This is a big boost to Asian countries and the Iranian government. I sincerely doubt the Iranian government will shut down the Straits of Hormuz as long as it can sell oil in Asia. That would be self-destructive.

The oil embargo and sanctions on Iranian banks push Iran's currency to record lows. This harms the Iranian people and forces them to turn to their government for support. This makes the government more powerful.

After the Arab spring, we might see a European winter has hundreds of thousands of Hungarians protest EU rule.

POLITICS:

Romney is the Goldman Sachs candidate.

Sheldon Adelson's money has transformed Gingrich from a middle east moderate into a hawk. Adelson's wife gives Gingrich another $5 million.

I'm skeptical of claims that Gingrich and Santorum can't win. This argument shows it will be harder for them because they failed to sign up delegates in some states, but that's a long way from "can't".

Gallop reports Romney 29, Gingrich 28, Paul 13, Santorum 11 nationally. Hopefully Santorum will drop out soon.

Newt leads in Florida: Gingrich 34, Romney 26, Paul 13, Santorum 11. Hopefully Santorum will drop out after Florida. Here's another reason Ron Paul is best candidate to run against Obama: a strong plurality of Hispanics support him.

Oliver Stone endorses Ron Paul.

Ron Paul representative documents voter fraud in South Carolina. This another good reminder that Republicans are just like Democrats.

Obama to rephrase communist slogan in State of the Union speech. Obama adopts "change is..." as his campaign slogan.

MISC:

Crowd-sourced version of Star Wars Episode IV, or as most of us know it, Star Wars.

Entrepreneur creates competing Android ap market.

Free kibbles

2012-01-22T10:31:00.001-05:00

REGULATION:

Advertising yourself as a ninja is an oxymoron, so I'm surprised this guy was convicted.

HEALTH CARE:

The government uses Star Wars characters in creepy ad to promote vaccines.

Scientists claim to have stimulated the congregation of individual-celled organisms into multi-celled organisms. As usual, I'm skeptcal.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

As the global warming frauds die on the vine because of lack of warming, leading frauds Gore, Hansen and Trenberth commit to traveling to Antarctica to promote their fraud. The only problem is Antarctica ice, by all accounts, is increasing. I wonder if US taxpayers are paying for Hansen's trip.

WAR:

US military dropped chemicals on US cities in the 1950s and 1960s, using US citizens as unwitting guinea pigs. This is the government people believe is so benevolent and trust so much. The government is bigger, more powerful and therefore more evil today than it was then.

POLITICS:

After getting spanked in South Carolina, Romney decides to release his taxes forthwith. I wonder how much money Romney paid to pollsters and consultants to be so ignorant.

The people want to investigate corrupt Chris Dodd for corruption. The ruling class resists because any of them could be next.

MEDIA:

I said from the beginning John King handed the South Carolina primary to Newt Gingrich on a silver platter by opening the last debate with the softball. I usually do my best to distance myself from Karl Rove, but in this case, he and I are correct. For whatever reason, the establishment decided to sink Mitt Romney, and they used Newt Gingrich's ex-wife and that goofy-ass question to do it.

MISC:

After the press and Penn State regents scapegoated Joe Paterno and maliciously dumped him for the actions of an alleged sexual predator, Joe Paterno has died of cancer. It's a shame he never had the opportunity to fight back. Hopefully this galvanizes support for Paterno so supporters can oust those rotten regents.

Free kibbles

2012-01-21T12:54:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

SOPA and PIPA have prompted techies to try and make Hollywood obsolete. It's about time. Overcoming the power of copyright protection will be hard, but I like the ideas.

This article tells the story of how the internet defeated the establishment over SOPA and PIPA. This is a really telling quote from the RIAA:

""The problem for the content industry is they just don't know how to mobilize people," said John P. Feehery, a former House Republican leadership aide who previously worked at the motion picture association. "They have a small group of content makers, a few unions, whereas the Internet world, the social media world especially, can reach people in ways we never dreamed of before.""

This is a description of how consumers overcame mercantilism. What he's talking about is how the internet connects consumers. Millions and millions of consumers instantaneously. The RIAA and MPAA serve producers. A small number of producers. This was a case where the producers were trying to use the government to exploit the consumers - a classic case of mercantilism - but the internet enabled the consumers to rise up en mass and stop it. But North shows naivete here:

"The Web, the social media, YouTube: they cannot be stopped. Ask Chris Dodd."

They can be controlled by the establishment, and that's exactly what the government is going to do. Governments are slow compared to technology advance, but they always end up controlling any worthwhile new technology. I imagine somebody as naively proclaimed that radio and TV couldn't be stopped. How'd that work out? The internet is a communication medium. The government will control it.

The 25 representatives who received the most money from the entertainment industry to support SOPA and PIPA.

Chris Dodd hints at how Congress will take revenge on internet companies for killing SOPA and PIPA:

""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.""

Take away the freedoms. This time the establishment was surprised. Next time they won't be. It's coming, and next time Congress won't be stopped. This is a power struggle, and government has all the power. Expect to see these companies called before congressional hearings and demonized very soon.

REGULATION:

Nobody would open a global business in the US if he could do it somewhere else.

"I'll bet you don't know that I may be the first person in recorded history to move voluntarily from the warm beach and golf resort of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina to cold and snowy Toronto, Canada. But Steve Wynn and many other entrepreneurs forced to deal with the multitude of regulatory agencies at the federal, state and local level would likely agree. America’s growing number of bureaucrats – all with their hand out to exchange fees for paperwork – can make it impossible to compete in the global economy from the US."

How sad is it that Canada is more free than the US? Same with China.

HEALTH CARE:

Doctor calls police on mother because she refused to vaccinate son. This is another good reminder that your children are the property of the state and doctors are agents of the state.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Green politicians killed the natural gas car.

POLICE STATE:

Lew Rockwell is right: this arrest of a mother because she allowed her ten year old to get a tattoo shows that government owns all children. It just allows parents to keep them as long as the parents property promote the state. This is true of all property.

WAR:

Pat Buchanan makes the case against war with Iran. I wonder about these oil price predictions. We heard those same predictions before the government invaded Iraq, but they never happened.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Thanks to years of US government aggression in Egypt - support for a tyrant - and the Fed's inflationary monetary policy, Islamists won over 70 percent of the seats in the new Egyptian Parliament.

This guy thinks that since the US has toppled so many governments and killed their leaders lately, the Iranian leaders will bow to the will of the US. That's the way normal people think. Heads of state are not normal.
"Many people, for example, wrote to me with doubts that the Iranian government would ever be willing to "lose face" with their own people by dismantling its nuclear program. What these people fail to consider, however, is that the Iranian government has to consider not only the disposition of its citizens, but also what is likely to happen if they allow a war to develop with the U.S. Losing face with one’s own citizens is usually a bad thing for a politician, but when the alternative is getting overthrown by a powerful foreign military and being executed like a dog in the street, losing face doesn’t look nearly such a bad alternative."
These are not the only two options. I think it's more likely the Iranian rulers will continue slowly developing nuclear technology without any overt weaponization, doing the little things necessary to avoid war until Europe and the US collapse under the burden of government. This is why they keep holding out olive branches when the US turns up the heat, bringing the temperature back down, then they reject any conditions put on them and continue on. They're using delay tactics against our rulers, and they'll probably do so successfully until western government collapse like dominoes.

Terrorists kill over 150 in Nigeria. Obama is getting US troops mixed up in this civil war too.

POLITICS:

Copying Obama, Romney sings happy birthday to SC governor. How phony is this? It just shows that Romney is the Republican Obama.

It looks like voters in South Carolina were more interested in a couple of Newt Gingrich sound bites than his record or policies.

Because the Republican establishment corrupted the vote count in Iowa, they were forced to admit it can never be certified.

Ron Paul action figures.

MEDIA:

Newt gets points for taking on the press, but the real crime of the media is here:

"In the post-debate CNN analysis, Romney was mentioned 87 times, Gangrich 84, Rancorum 76, and Ron 1 time."

Yet Paul continues to grow his support. That shows how powerful the message of freedom is. The Ron Paul super PAC is hosting its own South Carolina primary coverage in protest.

MISC:

Colts close to hiring Jim Tressel as head coach. If that happens, talk about landing on his feet. I never thought of Tressel as NFL material because he never seemed a great quarterbacks coach. But maybe he can hire one.

Free kibbles

2012-01-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Here's a good reminder that government will force something like SOPA on us.

"SOPA action delayed in House until ‘wider consensus’"

Our rulers will seize control of the internet for their own benefit whether we like it or not.

This crusade against copyright has nothing to do with copyright. That's just the excuse. The real reason government wants control of the internet is to silence speech critical of it. Case in point:

"For a couple of years now, Sunstein has been advocating that the “notice and take down” model from copyright law should be used against rumors and conspiracy theories, “to achieve the optimal chilling effect.”"

Sunstein isn't alone. This is what all members of the ruling class want.

TAX AND SPEND:

It's been over 1,000 days since Democrats passed a budget.

How the income tax soaks the poor.

"This is all in line with the ability-to-pay doctrine. The poor, simply because there are more of them, have more ability to pay than the rich. The national pay envelope contains more money than the combined treasuries of all the corporations of the country. The government could not for long overlook this rich mine. Political considerations however, made the tapping of the pay envelope difficult. The wage earners have votes, many votes, and in order not to alienate these votes, it was necessary to devise some means for making the taxation of their incomes palatable. They had to be lulled into acceptance of "soak the poor.""

"The drug that was concocted for this purpose was "social security." The worker was told that he was not paying an income tax when his pay envelope was opened and robbed; he was simply making a "contribution" to "insurance" against the inevitable disabilities of old age. He would get it all back, when he could no longer work, and with a profit."

The Root of All Evil. Here's how the Ponzi scheme works.

"To give some plausibility to the "insurance" advertisement, the government sets up a so-called reserve fund. In place of the money it collects, it piles up its own bonds, or IOUs, in an amount equal to the collections. The interest on these bonds, it says, will be adequate to meet the old-age obligations when due. But the interest on these bonds is paid out of what it collects in taxes; where else can the government get money? Since the so-called premiums are only taxes, and since the benefit payments are also taxes, the operation is the same as if an insurance company used up its premium collections in salaries and cocktail parties and then paid out benefits from new premiums. For doing that, the directors of the company can be sent to jail. However, the laws made for ordinary citizens are somewhat different from the laws made for public officials."

Like Madoff. How inflation also robs Social Security "contributors".

"The more we look into this offspring of the Sixteenth Amendment the more we are astounded by its fraudulent character. Take the matter of the bonds in the reserve fund. The government can issue money against them — that is, it can "buy" them with printed money when it needs money to pay old-age benefits; that is part of the law. Or, if the government sells the bonds to private persons, or to the banks, the buyers can borrow against them. In either case, new money comes into the market, lowering the volume of all the money in existence. That is inflation. Now, the money taken from the worker's pay envelope is worth more, will buy more goods, than the money he will get when he is old, simply because these bonds are in existence. This social-security scheme was started in 1937. One does not have to be an economist to know that in 1937 the dollar bought more bread and shoes than it does in 1954. The man who in 1954 begins drawing old-age benefits gets dollars that will fetch him less of the things he needs than the dollars he was compelled to "contribute" in 1937 and during the years that followed."

It's a racket all the way around.

HEALTH CARE:

As soon as Obamacare passed, I predicted Republicans wouldn't repeal it because they don't want to repeal it. They want to modify it share in the looting. Now leading Republicans except Ron Paul are proving me right.

Government regulations harm medical patients. It can't be any other way.

The FDA supports the widespread use of antibiotics infecting our food supply.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Climategate II email shows that a global warming fraud knows that global warming has nothing to do with Kilimanjaro's shrinking glacier, but he makes the claim publicly anyway. That's fraud.

Dennis Kucinich wants to create a "reasonable profits board" to make sure oil companies don't earn too much profits. This is a re-branding of the windfall profits tax. Do you see where the Constitution gives the government that power?

Obama's big-time crony Warren Buffet will profit from Obama's decision to block the Keystone pipeline.

NASA fraud James Hansen claims 2011 was the ninth hottest year on record. If he's right - I'm skeptical - that means the planet is cooling.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Prediction that the Chinese government will collapse this year. The collapse will be both economic and political.

The simple reality regarding Iran's nuclear program that we rarely hear because all the media presents is state propaganda.

"Embarrassingly for Washington’s hawks, two recent US national intelligence estimates so far support the ayatollah’s assertions that Iran’s nuclear program is strictly for power generation.
However, US allies on the UN’s Atomic Energy Agency continue to raise questions as to the intent of the Iranian program, without producing any hard proof of warlike intent."

For this US rulers want to start a war that would dwarf the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.

"Israel is straining every muscle to push the US into war against Iran, as it did in 2002-2003 with Iraq, thus sparing itself the difficult task. The recent string of murders of Iranian scientists appears designed to provoke Iran into a retaliation that would set in motion a full-scale war. So far, Iran has refrained from any retaliation."

Not to mention the existing sanctions and the threatened sanctions against Iranian oil and the Iranian central bank.

"Candidate Newt Gingrich got $5 million of indirect support from an American casino mogul who is a major financial backer of Israel’s West Bank settlers and expansionist Likud Party."

The accomplice press failed to report that also.

Mossad agents in Iran posing as CIA agents recruit terrrorists. Israel is our supposed ally.

POLITICS:

Obama lied so blatantly in his first campaign ad, even the USA Today felt the need to expose it.

More than half of Americans think a third party is needed. Do you think they really don't know that third parties exist?

Isn't it ironic that Democrats have received more funds from Bain Capital than Republicans? This is a good reminder that Romney is effectively a Democrat.

That the Republican campaign is dominated by phony conservatives says a lot about conservatives. Much like their candidates, their actions - votes - are very from their words.

How the ruling elite manufactures consent.

MISC:

Will states as we know them cease to exist? I doubt it. The state has proven to be far and away the most successful system of theft the world has ever known. Great quote:

"The modern Welfare/Warfare state was born in the in late nineteenth-century Imperial Germany under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck – his intention was clear from the outset:
“My idea was to bribe the working classes, or shall I say, to win them over, to regard the state as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in their welfare”
Bet you never saw that quote in your government run schoolbooks. Frideric Howe, an admirer of the german systeml wrote that under that system, “The individual exists for the state, not the state for the individual.”
We are now witnessing the end result of the institutions of bribery and theft that swept the rest of the world in the first half of the 20th century."

The current states might disappear, but others will replace them.

"War has now gone financial and the US is trying to protect its dollar imperialism that supports the Federal Reserve Note at the expense of the world.

A rare hero does sometimes emerge from the financial megamonstrosity that dares to call itself “capitalism”. Devan Sharma, former head of S&P stood up to the beast this summer and downgraded the US Government’s credit rating. He was axed days later amongst little fanfare."

I don't remember reading that either.

Free kibbles

2012-01-19T08:59:00.000-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

PIPA and SOPA protests shut down websites of senators. Protesters in New York pack city blocks.

Feds shut down another file sharing site.

ECONOMY:

I challenge any central planner to make a cheeseburger, from start to finish.

TAX AND SPEND:

Somtimes I read articles that give me a double-take even though I've known all along this was coming. The sheer, blatant evil is hard to accept. In this case,

"The Treasury on Tuesday started dipping into federal pension funds in order to give the Obama administration more credit to pay government bills."

Pharaoh Obama and Lord Geithner have discovered innumerable, innovative ways to steal money from the American people, and I've been warning they will steal pensions for years, but when I see it in print, it still shocks me.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

This is a easy to understand, concise analysis of the deflationary forces working today and why inflation is likely to overcome them.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Canadian officials are correct in their assessment that eventually the Keystone pipeline will get built. It's too valuable to the Canadian and American people for government to overcome for long. This incident shows how stupid it is for people to surrender their power to government because government always turns around and uses that power against them.

POLICE STATE:

NYPD developing massive irradiation machines for use on streets. They'll be coming your town soon after.

WAR:

Army suicide rates decline from outrageously high level to slightly lower outrageously high level.

Top US military officials fear the US might quit waging war on the Taliban. I don't fear that in the least.

POLITICS:

Poll shows Gingrich surging and Paul faltering in South Carolina. Let's hope that isn't true. If it is true, it shows that voters are responding to meaningless Republican slogans instead of records and policies. It sounds like my fears are justified.

"Gingrich spoke in front of a Model T Ford – a car only a little more ancient than a great many members of the audience. Clever lines that fell flat when Gingrich delivered them at the tea party convention Tuesday got big laughs with this much-less-grim crowd -- like his somewhat-stale knee-slapper about letting Barack Obama use a teleprompter when the two debate.They loved the parts of his stump speech that are well worn – our rights come from God and cannot be taken away by government – and a new attack on Obama spun off the day’s news – the president’s refusal to approve the Keystone oil pipeline is stupidly driving Canada into the arms of China. And they loved Callista, Newt’s exquisitely coiffed wife."

Why do people fall for this meaningless crap? Is it only old people? I doubt it.

Two polls show Gingrich leading Romney and Paul around 15 percent in South Carolina. Gingrich will be the media's big story out of South Carolina, but if Paul beats the polls again, that'll be the real biggest story.

Perry drops out and endorses Gingrich.

In another sign of Ron Paul's leadership, Gingrich calls for a commission to study the gold standard. It would be rigged against it just like Reagan's did. This is an attempt to fool libertarians and steal some votes from Paul. This is so blatantly transparent. Did Gingrich call for a commission to study establishing a moon colony? No. He just said he'd do it. Gingrich never calls for commissions except to fool people.

Article examines Paul's predictions and discovers he was right about pretty much everything. Some predictions are still coming true. No other candidate can say the same. Don't we want a president smart enough to recognize what's going on and do something to stop it?

First Ron Paul had to take down Rick Perry because the media refused to report on his record. Then he had to take down Santorum for the same reason. Now he's taking down Gingrich for the same reason. I never understand why people fall for rhetoric instead of investigating records. Maybe it's laziness, but I think it's more likely that familial instinct. I think most people instinctively look at politicians, at least the ones in the party they favor, like our ancestors looked at tribal chiefs thousands of years ago: like respected extended family members. Most haven't overcome that instinct yet to see them for the selfish, lying crooks they all are.

I have great confidence in this video recommending Ron Paul since Walter Block recommends it so highly.

Ron Paul states a clear, consistent position on states rights and the right to life that slams Santorum on abortion. This is how the abortion issue should be handled. Republicans would be smart to learn from Paul on this, but they're not.

The official Iowa vote count shows Santorum narrowly defeating Romney.

Romney pushes more hawkish foreign policy to keep up with Santorum and Gingrich. Hopefully this will work in Paul's favor.

MEDIA:

I don't think this conspiracy theory is crazy at all. This is what happens when the establishment candidates in the race are so terrible.

Free kibbles

2012-01-18T12:05:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The internet protest causes Republican senators to withdraw support for PIPA. Why did they have to wait for this protest? Are they clueless about how unpopular these bills are? How Hollywood lost the PR battle.

"Hollywood had Chris Dodd and a press release. Silicon Valley had Facebook."

No contest.

"It seems that Hollywood still does not realize that it is in the information age. Knowledge moves in real time, and events move accordingly. The medium is the message in a fight like this. Five days ago, almost nobody knew or cared about SOPA. But with lightning speed, the leviathans of the Internet, including Google and Facebook and Wikipedia, managed to brand this battle as Bad and mobilize millions of followers."

This is a temporary victory for the new and innovative over the old and static, but it won't last. The government wants to control the internet. The government is a natural ally of Hollywood and record companies in this. Here's a good explanation of why internet censorship laws will become reality.

"What it boils down to is that 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)."

This internet protest just scared the crap out of the politicians by showing that the internet empowers people and businesses. This is what they've feared all along. They will push harder than ever to seize control of the internet after this. Geeks may feel powerful now, but the empire will strike back.

TAX AND SPEND:

Chart and analysis showing the US government is bankrupt.

REGULATION:

How regulators, in concert with the Fed, caused the 2008 meltdown.

"The Basel banking regulations provided the incentive for bankers to load up on mortgage securities, which up to that point history had shown were very safe. Thus, the capital that regulators required to be held against these assets was tiny. Bankers acted logically by investing in what they thought (and importantly what regulators told them) were safe assets that they could grow their businesses with the least amount of capital required."
"Messrs. Friedman and Kraus find no evidence for the popular theory that bankers acted recklessly because of Too Big to Fail incentives or because compensation packages induced them to be careless about long-run returns."

Regulations distort the price signals in the economy, leading to crises like this, the gulf oil spill and the mine collapse.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

If you adjust for inflation, gasoline costs the same today as it did in 1980.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Obama kills Keystone pipeline. This shows once again that Obama's agenda is the total collapse of the US economy under the burden of government. He doesn't want to create jobs. He intentionally destroying wealth and jobs. Obama blames Republicans even though clearly his default position is to kill jobs.

Cars used to be more fuel efficient. Government regulations have made them less so.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The best way for the Iranian government to gain power over the middle east is to abandon its nuclear program. It seems unlikely the Iranian government would do that. This part of the argument is very perceptive:

"Bearing all this in mind, the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear power or nuclear weapons. Instead, the pointless conflict is all about cold, hard political power in the Middle East, with the Israelis hoping to secure a vice-like grip on the region."

The US has been at war with Iran since the CIA toppled its government in 1953. This current covert war has nothing to do with nuclear power or weapons. That's just the current excuse. One that works well on Americans. Here's another perceptive observation:

"The Americans and their European underlings would have little reason to continue their unjust and bellicose sanctions if the Iranians did precisely what was demanded of them. Continuation of the sanctions would only appear to be unjust and Iraq-like meddling in the Islamic world in the arrogant hope of "regime change" for Washington and Tel Aviv’s benefit. The reversal of sanctions, on the other hand, would almost instantaneously revive Iran’s economy, as petrodollars once again flooded the economy."

If Iran gave up its nuclear program, there would be no popular reason for western aggression. If western governments continued, they would expose the charade and weaken themselves, so this would end the aggression, at least temporarily. Here's the weak part of the argument:

"The Iranian government will not lose face with the rest of the Islamic world if it decides to terminate its nuclear program completely, as Israel and Washington demand, and diffuse the entire situation."

I don't see this at all. It would look like the Iranian government caved to western powers. This would cause them to lose face. I don't see how it could be otherwise.In fact, we can turn this argument around. The US government could win by engaging the Iranian government and endorsing its peaceful nuclear program. This would boost the status of the US in the region and around the world. But the establishment would lose face, so they won't do it. It would mean ending 60+ years of covert war against Iran. Ron Paul would have to be elected to do that.

POLITICS:

Palin promotes Gingrich in South Carolina.

Washington Times poll shows likely Republican primary voters split on policing the world. Ron Paul is the only candidate that supports that position.

Paul campaign says it is focused on winning.

I got a lot of criticism for exposing the Marxist ideology behind the Occupy movement.

"The US’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America is moving to infiltrate and direct the Occupy Wall Street Movement into a more organized and socialist focused protest movement. DSA is working hard to sustain ‘Occupy’ over the winter in readiness for a major “spring offensive” largely directed at Republican controlled state capitols as they struggle to address massive budget problems."

Stalin was right when he called these people useful idiots.

I think we knew that if Paul ran third party, it would help Obama just like Perot's run gave Clinton a second term. But Paul won't run third party because he isn't going to ruin Rand's future chance.

As rich as Romney is, if he isn't protecting his wealth from taxes in a tax haven, he's stupid and should be disqualified from being president.

Before Obama became the food stamp president, Bush the Younger was the food stamp president.

"The number of people who went on food stamps was slightly larger during the tenure of President George W. Bush: 14.7 million people during Bush's two terms — a 63% increase — compared with 14.2 million people since Obama took office, according to Agriculture Departmentdata obtained by FactCheck.org."

This highlights once again that Obama is the third Bush term.

LOCAL:

I'm not usually surprised by government, but this honest appraisal by ODOT surprised me.

"Some of Ohio’s largest road and bridge construction projects wouldn’t have to wait decades if state leaders considered using private companies to build and operate transportation venues normally controlled by government, Ohio Department of Transportation officials said Wednesday."

You don't say. The only thing wrong with these public-private partnerships is the public part. The government should fully privatize them.

Free kibbles

2012-01-17T19:15:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Many sites are going again with tomorrow's internet blackout protesting censorship bills.

SOCIALISM:

Mises describes how socialism, starting with Lenin, unleashed the pure evil of the state.

"This was the true meaning of the Lenin revolution. All the traditional ideas of right and legality were overthrown. The rule of unrestrained violence and usurpation was substituted for the rule of law. The "narrow horizon of bourgeois legality," as Marx had dubbed it, was abandoned. Henceforth no laws could any longer limit the power of the elect. They were free to kill ad libitum. Man's innate impulses toward violent extermination of all whom he dislikes, repressed by a long and wearisome evolution, burst forth. The demons were unfettered. A new age, the age of the usurpers, dawned. The gangsters were called to action, and they listened to the Voice.Of course, Lenin did not mean this. He did not want to concede to other people the prerogatives which he claimed for himself. He did not want to assign to other men the privilege of liquidating their adversaries. Him alone had history elected and entrusted with the dictatorial power. He was the only "legitimate" dictator because — an inner voice had told him so. Lenin was not bright enough to anticipate that other people, imbued with other creeds, could be bold enough to pretend that they also were called by an inner voice. Yet, within a few years too such men, Mussolini and Hitler, became quite conspicuous.
It is important to realize that Fascism and Nazism were socialist dictatorships. The communists, both the registered members of the communist parties and the fellow-travelers, stigmatize Fascism and Nazism as the highest and last and most depraved stage of capitalism. This is in perfect agreement with their habit of calling every party which does not unconditionally surrender to the dictates of Moscow — even the German Social Democrats, the classical party of Marxism — hirelings of capitalism."

Mises goes on to explain how communists purposely re-wrote history make fascism a product of capitalism, not socialism. Socialists do the same still.

TAX AND SPEND:

Obama to set a record for debt accumulation.

"President Barack Obama has been increasing the national debt during his presidency by an average of $4.24 billion per day ($4,240,506,004.34) putting him on a pace to increase the national debt by $6.2 trillion ($6,195,379,272,340.74) by the end of his term on Jan. 20, 2013, according to the debt figurespublished by the U.S. Treasury.That $6.2 trillion is more debt than was accumulated by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined."

But people who don't agree with him are stupid.

Cato exposes the myth that Obama wants to cut government.

"Contrary to what various news outlets are reporting, President Obama is NOT proposing to cut government. The administration is proposing to take four independent federal agencies that specialize in corporate welfare – along with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative – and combine them with corporate welfare programs at the Department of Commerce to form what I would argue should be called the Department of Corporate Welfare.According to reports, this rearranging of the deck chairs would save $300 million a year. That’s peanuts. Worse, those alleged savings will be of no consequence to taxpayers as there is nothing to suggest that the president intends to cut overall spending for the agencies comprising the new bureaucracy. That portendsbigger government, not smaller. The president is trying to sell the American taxpayer a false bill of goods."

This is an attempt by Obama to seize power from Congress and lord more control over business while stealing more money from taxpayers.

Even Californians don't want Obama's high speed train boondoggle.

REGULATION:

Thanks to copyright, you have to pay $10 to see MLK's famous I have a dream speech.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

In order to boost Obama's election chances, the Fed is preparing for QEIII. Apparently all the insiders are prepared as well.

EDUCATION:

Four important factors in favor of home schools: academics, socialization, cost and values.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Climategate 2 emails exposing the fraud behind the hockey stick.

Obama didn't just steal our money and waste on Solyndra. There were others.

"It turns out that there may be as many as 11 other green energy companies that received $6.5 billion collectively in loans from the federal government. These companies have since declared bankruptcy or are facing some serious financial issues."

Obama's cronies get richer while we get poorer.

POLICE STATE:

How the government turns justice upside down and uses courts to persecute the innocent and protect real criminals.

Now the police state plans to bombard people crossing the border with cancer-causing radiation.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Great video shows the sequence of events that resulted from US aggression toppling the Iranian government and continued through 9/11 and continues to this day.

MEDIA:

The media is putting Obama on all kinds of magazine covers to boost his chances at reelection too.

LOCAL:

A couple of days ago the DDN triumphantly reported the final phase of I-75 construction was about to begin. I claimed it would never end because it would be delayed then more construction would be added. It sure didn't take long to delay it a year. Once you understand that true purpose of government is to steal from the people, predicting this stuff becomes easy.

MISC:

Hackers steal $6.7 million from South African post office.

Free kibbles

2012-01-16T14:11:00.002-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

House kills SOPA. This is great news. Let's hope the Senate does the same. I imagine the planned web blackout protest scheduled for Wednesday will be called off.

POLITICS:

Facebook to share private comments about presidential candidates with Politico.

I'm not the only one who fears the US will break up, starting with California.

Free kibbles

2012-01-15T12:55:00.000-05:00

EDUCATION:

First the government makes kids fat and sick, then they use the excuse kids are fat and sick to put tracking devices on them.

POLICE STATE:

IBM developing biometric ID system for US government. No thank you.

Just in case the police state wasn't oppressive enough for you, DHS is now x-raying vehicles and people crossing borders.

"CNET has a story on DHS' whole car X-ray scanners and their potential cancer risks. The story focuses on the Z Portal scanner, which appears to be a stationary version of the older Z Backscatter Vans. The story provides interesting pictures of the device and the images it produces, but it also raises important questions about the devices' cancer risks. "

Is cancer your friend? The government doesn't give a sh**.

POLITICS:

Leftist icon Paul Krugman who masquerades as an economist laments that capitalism is too productive. God knows no normal people want to increase their standard of living.

Do you remember when that goofy Jon Huntsman decided to ignore Iowa then came in a distant third in New Hampshire? Then he proclaimed that "Third place was a ticket to ride?" He's dropping out.

"Huntsman will endorse Mitt Romney at an event in South Carolina, the officials said. Huntsman believes Romney is the best candidate to beat President Obama in November, they said."

I wonder how much the establishment paid him to tow the party line.

LOCAL:

The vast majority of Americans upgrade their computers regularly. Only government could fail a computer upgrade so badly that the project is likely to be cancelled.

MISC:

What I wouldn't give to see Kate Bush and Florence perform together, if you know what I mean.

Free kibbles

2012-01-14T12:31:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Indian court OKs banning popular social websites that won't agree to self-censorship.

ECONOMY:

Russian tanker teams with US Coast Guard ice-breaker to deliver fuel to iced-in Nome Alaska.

"There has been a lot of anxious waiting since the ship left Russia in mid-December. It picked up diesel fuel in South Korea before traveling to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, where it took on unleaded gasoline."

But everybody complains about globalism.

EDUCATION:

This article on criminalizing truancy is a good reminder that the government forces children to attend government schools at the point of a gun. Yet some people consider this a good thing.

HEALTH CARE:

Home Medicare program rife with fraud.

"The lack of oversight that allegedly led to the death of a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy is common in the multimillion-dollar Medicaid program designed to care for tens of thousands of disabled Ohioans in their homes, according to a Dayton Daily News investigation."

Who would have ever thought?

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Apparently this winter is ultra-harsh in Alaska. It's been mild here so far. The weather's unpredictable like that. I'm afraid we're going to some seriously harsh weather later this winter.

WAR:

The way the US government is crippling Iran and goading it into war is reminiscent of how FDR goaded Japan into war. Another depression. Another big war.

MISC:

Microsoft requires ARM systems bar running Linux. Microsoft must be really scared of Linux.

Free kibbles

2012-01-13T11:56:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

US government seeking extradition of UK student because he hosted a site with links to files of copyrighted data. He did not host any data himself.

ECONOMICS:

The seasonal temps are back in the unemployment line causing a big spike in unemployment claims.

Peter Schiff doesn't trust the current dollar strength because it's driven by fear of the euro, not economic fundamentals in the US.

TAX AND SPEND:

S&P cuts credit ratings for French, Italian and Spanish debt. Italy and Spain are part of the PIIGS. We've been talking about them for a year or more. France is a relatively new addition to this problem. It's the second biggest economy in the Eurozone. But it gets worse.

"In all, S&P, which took away the United States' AAA rating last summer, lowered the ratings of nine countries, complicating Europe's efforts to find a way out of a debt crisis that still threatens to cause worldwide economic harm.
Austria also lost its AAA status, Italy and Spain fell by two notches, and S&P also cut ratings on Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia and Slovenia."

The euro is hosed.

WAR ON DRUGS:

What a scam. The government imprisons people for peacefully putting stuff in their bodies, then forces them to work as slave labor.

POLICE STATE:

Indian government forces biometric IDs on its subjects.

WAR:

It seems absolutely stupid that the government sends marines to kill people, but it wants to charge them for urinating on their corpses. Which to you think bothered the victims most: being killed or having their bodies urinated on after they were dead? This is how war turns morals upside down and ruins those who fight it and the society that wages it.

Now the US wants to shut down the Iranian central bank which would collapse its economy. This is an act of war, and the only possible motivation for it is to start a war.

"I have to think that this may cause blowback in the form of many countries developing a gold-backed currency to use and trade in. Will all these countries dump their dollars for gold? If I'm the central banker in Russia, China, Syria, Iran and many South American countries, I'm thinking completely in terms of how to be less vulnerable to the U.S. empire gone mad. Gold is one answer."

Let's hope.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Ron Paul gives a great criticism of the US foreign policy toward Iran and shows why his is superior.

POLITICS:

Obama makes a smart move by trying to combine bureaucracies. Liberals and conservatives alike always fall for plans to make the government more efficient, as if more efficient coercion is a good thing. In this case Obama wants to eliminate the Commerce Department, which Republicans always claim they want to eliminate, but never do. If Republicans block this plan, they will lose the PR battle. If they agree to it, Obama will get the credit. Another skeptic calls this a powergrab.

"In fact, like the Bushite Department of Homeland Security, merging all the special-interest trade and business agencies is intended to increase federal power and reward the big corporations allied with it."

Typical. The San Jose Mercury News, an ultra-liberal rag, admits this is a power grab.

Every now and then a judge gets it right:

"A federal judge has ruled that Rick Perry and three other Republican presidential candidates will not be added to Virginia's primary ballot. District Court Judge John Gibney Jr. rejected their requests, arguing that they filed their challenges to Virginia's stringent ballot requirements too late. "They played the game, they lost, and then they complained about the rules," he said."

This is good news for Romney and Paul since they made it on the ballot.

Judge imprisons company owner for failing to meet schedule for building a bridge. Sometimes the petty brutality of the state boggles the mind.

Pat Buchanan agrees with me that Ron Paul will not make a third party run. I makes no sense for him to do so because he couldn't win that way. All he could do was insure Obama's re-election and harm Rand Paul's future chances. This isn't hard to figure out, but Buchanan lays it out nicely.

MEDIA:

I'm skeptical that Stephanopoulos's stupid question about contraceptives was really about a bet. This sounds like a misguided effort to deflect criticism.

LOCAL:

Public invited to discuss school funding. Well isn't that nice since the public is paying for it. That's very benevolent of our rulers.

MISC:

Government corrupts everything it touches including science, but did it have to be the healthy wine study?

"An extensive misconduct investigation that took three years to complete and produced a 60,000-page report, concludes that a researcher who has come to prominence in recent years for his investigations into the beneficial properties of resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, “is guilty of 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data”."

I guess it's back to beer for me.

"According to a report from the Associated Press (AP), Dr Nir Barzilai, whose team conducts resveratrol research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, says Das is not a major player in the field.Barzilai told AP lots of labs around the world are conducting extensive research into resveratrol, with encouraging results, and the new allegation will not make a material difference."

Oh, thank goodness.

Astronomers release enormous database... Why wasn't it public already? What was the point of ever keeping it hidden? I understand scientists want to review their data before they publish it, but when an ongoing project, why wait so long? Collect, verify, release.

Free kibbles

2012-01-12T11:38:00.000-05:00

SOCIALISM:

Unions have driven another beloved company, Hostess, into bankruptcy. This is another good reminder that unions harm workers and consumers as well as capitalists.

TAX AND SPEND:

Are you one of the people who voted Republican in 2010 to stop the growth in government spending and the debt? If so, this is how it's working out for you.

"Federal spending bills approved by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have increased the national debt by more than $1 trillion dollars in just 10 months."

When are you going to wake up and realize that Republicans are partners in looting us with the Democrats? Ron Paul is the only Republican who wants to stop that. If you can't vote for Ron Paul, the only other option for reducing the size and scope of government is voting Libertarian.

HEALTH CARE:

Greece's government debt problem hinders pharmacists from getting drugs.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Great global warming fraud James Hansen, paid by US taxpayers, scares children by saying global warming will make the oceans boil.

Ben Stein claims he was blacklisted in Hollywood for failing to believe the global warming fraud.

WAR:

The Pentagon believes the video of marines urinating on dead Afghans is real. This shows how badly perpetual war warps our troops.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul surges from 9 percent to 13 percent on South Carolina.

Paul wins second in the New Hampshire Democrat primary as a write-in. This lends support to the claim that Paul would win Democrat votes much as Reagan did.

This comparison is not accurate.

"America has come back, at least politically, to where it was in the far-off 1950’s when Communist-scares and the American fascism of Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy kept the republic in a state of anxiety and deep fear."Reds under our beds" was the slogan in those days of paranoia and witch-hunting. Today, the new scare mantra is: "Muslims under our mattresses," and "Iran threatens the world.""

The federal government really was infested with Soviet spies then. It is not infested with al Qaeda spies today. Also, the Soviets were an immeasurably greater threat then than Muslim terrorists now.

MEDIA:

Yesterday I predicted Limbaugh and Hannity would change their tunes regarding Ron Paul. It looks like Boortz already has:

"Jim DeMint nails it when he says the GOP candidates need to listen to Ron Paul and would benefit from integrating some of his libertarian ideas into their platform."

I'm sure all of them will claim they've always supported Ron Paul's small government domestic agenda. Forget about all those times they called him a kook.

This is a good point. I watched Special Report the other night and saw this comment from Krauthammer.

"There are two stories coming out of New Hampshire. The big story is Mitt Romney. The bigger one is Ron Paul."

He was respectful. I though Boortz's comment today was the first indication the establishment had determined they better start courting Paul and his supporters. Maybe Krauthammer's was the first. I still say, given the ratings drop by Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin, the Republican establishment is going to be tripping all over themselves to see who can embrace Ron Paul the fastest.

It turns out that Bain Capital merged with Clear Channel in 2006, so Romney literally owns talk radio. Talk about the establishment.

LOCAL:

Wright Pat to lose a net 234 jobs this year. That may not sound like much, but that will impact the local economy.

Dayton City government steals $250,000 from citizens and gives it to the Crown Plaza hotel. If this was a good investment, the people of Dayton could have invested voluntarily.

Centerville wants to annex some land. Why?

"“This positions the city to potentially forge an annexation pathway to (Ohio) 48 to capture future income tax dollars,” said Lightle, noting its proximity to the Austin Pike interchange."

To steal more money, of course.

What does this mean? Since when do courts decide who can be in the legislative branch? And I'm not talking about 2000. Clearly somebody as to adjudicate when people challenge election counts and recounts, and that means the Supreme Court can be involved. Corruption begets more corruption begets more corruption. Still, I think that 2000 case opened floodgates.

MISC:

Russian suggests the US government is causing its space missions to fail.

Ubuntu to enter tablet market with a true open environment.

Company claims it can waterproof any device with a new nano-coating. I'm a little bit skeptical.

Free kibbles

2012-01-11T20:24:00.003-05:00

ECONOMY:

The rash of skyscrapers being built signals a major economic downturn worldwide.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

All three of Obama's Chiefs of Staff have a history with big financial firms, this newest one at Citibank.

WAR:

Somebody assassinated another Iranian nuclear scientist. If somebody did the same to a western scientist, we would call it terrorism. That's what it is.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Study confirms that 90 percent of atmospheric acidity is from nature.

Another study confirms plants and animals evolve and adapt to climate change. Imagine that.

Debunking the rush to judgment blaming fracking for the recent swarm of minor earthquakes in Ohio. While fracking might have been the cause, that area is known for such earthquakes throughout history.

POLITICS:

The potential for voter fraud in New Hampshire caught on video as poll workers hand out ballots to people claiming to be dead people because New Hampshire doesn't require ID in a sting operation.

Jim DeMint stands up for Ron Paul.

""One of the things that's hurt the so-called conservative alternative is saying negative things about Ron Paul," DeMint told conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. "I'd like to see a Republican Party that embraces a lot of the libertarian ideas.""

I bet you see Limbaugh and Hannity suddenly change their tune regarding Paul.

Paul surges into second place in national poll.

"The results of the Reuters/Ipsos poll are a major victory for Mr. Paul, as the Texas congressman has jumped 5 percentage points since Ipsos Public Affairs last conducted a GOP poll between December 8th and December 12th."

This is awesome news.

MEDIA:

Rush, Hannity and Levin lose a significant portion of their audiences. Maybe listeners are seeing through their establishment baloney.

Free kibbles

2012-01-10T11:04:00.002-05:00

TAX AND SPEND:

Indiana government forces Amazon to collect sales tax in 2013.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

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

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

This is another example of how government drags civilization backwards.

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

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

WAR:

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

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

POLICE STATE:

How bad laws attract bad cops to enforce them.

POLITICS:

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

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

Obama's Alice in Wonderland themed Halloween party.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul's speeches keep getting better and better.

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

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

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

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

As all the precincts report, Romney

MISC:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Losers, Losers and More Losers

2012-01-09T16:51:00.002-05:00

Losers, Losers and More Losers
by Mark Luedtke

Biggest Loser: Barack Obama

It’s hard to imagine a bigger loser this year than President Obama. He came into office promoting a message of hope and change, but anybody who took the time to investigate his record knew the change he intended was destructive, not hopeful. Unfortunately, few took the time to discover that Obama was a lifelong disciple of Marxists like Saul Alinsky. Obama has done an excellent job following Alinsky’s plan to implement Marxism in the US. Obama talks about creating jobs, but every policy he pushes makes it harder to do business in the US, which bankrupts companies and forces others to cut workers.

Also, Obama’s organization to spark a Marxist revolution, the Occupy camps, quickly degenerated into cesspools of disease and violence. Despite glowing coverage by Obama’s allies in the press, mainstream Americans quickly became disgusted with the Occupy camps. This forced Obama to shut them down en mass.

Obama also underestimated the resiliency of the American people working together to solve each others’ problems in the marketplace. Despite increasing the burden of government via unprecedented increases in spending and new regulations, American entrepreneurs have prevented Obama from driving unemployment much over 9%. And the American people have responded by giving Obama an equally unprecedented low approval rating, lower even than Jimmy Carter’s at this time.

But all is not lost for Obama supporters. While there are only a handful of Americans so bad they might not trounce Obama in 2012, all of those people are running for the Republican nomination. Obama’s 2012 political strategy of class warfare is designed to further divide an already bitterly divided country and drag his opponent down with him. If one of the pygmies in the Republican field wins the nomination, Obama’s strategy could work.

Loser: Paul Ryan

Congressman Paul Ryan is a typical Republican. He voted for every big government Republican program during the Bush years from Medicare Part D to No Child Left Behind to welfare for corporate farmers to TARP. Yet the Republican establishment promoted Ryan as a budget cutter. Only in Washington. Ryan proposed monstrous budget increases that only imperceptibly slowed the growth of government compared to Obama’s even more monstrous budget increases. Republicans hailed Ryan as a budget cutting messiah. Democrats attacked him like the anti-Christ. Americans grabbed pitchforks and torches. The phony religious pandering on both sides makes me want to puke, but fortunately the phony budget cutter is virtually invisible because the American people saw through the charade.

Loser: Michele Bachmann

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann barely won the much ballyhooed Ames straw poll over Texas Congressman Ron Paul this summer in her home state of Iowa. Since then pretty much every person on her staff has quit, claiming she’s impossible to work with. Now she’s at the bottom of the heap in the race for the Republican nomination.

Loser: Rick Perry

Texas Governor Rick Perry was the next flavor of the week to lead the pack, but after revelations that he used to be a Democrat, supported Al Gore, and tried to force Gardasil on teenage girls, he quickly fell to the bottom of the pack.

Loser: Herman Cain

Herman Cain launched his campaign as a political outsider despite years as a Federal Reserve bank governor and head of the National Restaurant Association lobbying group. After Perry fell, Cain vaulted to the top only to suffer Clarence Thomas-like smears. Democrats and their media allies will do anything to stop a black Republican from gaining power because that could break their stranglehold on black voters. After a woman claimed a 13 year affair with Cain, he dropped out of the race and admitted to giving her money and keeping it secret from his wife. Like all politicians caught in a honey trap, Cain pretended his family came first.

Winner: Newt Gingrich

Americans gave former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich up for dead years ago, but like a silver-tongued zombie, Gingrich entered the presidential race anyway. Now, despite earning $100 million in the parasitic political economy since he left office - crony capitalism without the capitalism - and supporting the global warming fraud, the health insurance mandate, welfare, FDR, WWIII, Obama’s partner in crime SEIU chief Andy Stern and too many other leftist policies and leaders to recount here including sponsoring over 400 bills with Nancy Pelosi, he leads the polls for the Republican nomination.

Winner: Ron Paul

Libertarian champion Lew Rockwell called the Republican race “Ron Paul versus the pygmies”. Foxnews commentator Juan Williams claimed this is the year of Ron Paul because the Republican presidential candidates are paying lip service to issues Paul has been championing his entire career such as auditing the Federal Reserve, cutting government spending and ending foreign wars. Only Paul predicted our current economic crisis. Only Paul champions cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget in one year: a good start. But more importantly, like the proverbial tortoise, Paul has steadily gained mainstream support in the Republican race. He has the best organization in Iowa and polls near the top. Paul may be about to shock the Republican establishment and the country. No offense meant to actual Pygmies.

Dayton Construction

2012-01-09T16:49:00.001-05:00

Here's the last Dayton construction update. Basically, no construction has occurred for at least two months despite unusually great weather.

Looking south, you can see the ramp still isn't done. On the right hand side you can see the trunk of a tree they had left standing. Today, they cut off all its branches, but left it there.

Looking to the north, nothing has changed either. Past the cross street, you can see some construction vehicles. Maybe that section is far behind this section, but I've noticed much if any work going on up there either.

A month or so ago they did put in a new cul-de-sac on my street so we can turn around down there again. And it also means people won't be exiting the highway then turning down our street, so that's a good thing.

Free kibbles

2012-01-09T11:35:00.002-05:00

ECONOMY:

I hadn't read this anywhere else:

"The U.S. labor force is at its lowest level in 30 years. In other words, people have simply given up trying to find work. If you’re not even looking for work, you’re not counted as unemployed."

Thirty years.

REGULATION:

Obama bans new uranium mines on a million acres of government land near the Grand Canyon. This is why government should not own property.

"Uranium claims on public land near the national park have risen in line with soaring prices for this mineral, from fewer than 1,000 a year in 2005 to more than 8,000 in 2009, though annual claims have declined slightly since then, according to figures from the Bureau of Land Management."

The people clearly feel that uranium is valuable, but Obama doesn't care about the people.

POLICE STATE:

The FBI found another patsy to bust in a sting with a phony bomb. This also shows the failure of our immigration naturalization system. Why is a person like this allowed to become a US citizen? How hard is it to investigate the character of these people before we give them citizenship?

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iranians enriching uranium to 20 percent to produce isotopes for medical equipment. Needless to say, many consider this cause for starting a war. They're not even trying to keep this secret. The let the IAEA examine the facility.

"In an interview broadcast Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb. "

This makes sense to me. It makes sense they would develop all the technologies necessary to make a bomb, but not make one because making one would make them a target and would set up a chain reaction of bomb making in the region.

POLITICS:

Paul cutting into Romney's lead in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Secretary of State says counting votes in public could harm the integrity of the election. No. It could harm the establishment's efforts to rig the election.

National poll shows Romney and Paul tied with Obama.

MEDIA:

An unruly mob of reporters forces Ron Paul and his family from a campaign event in a New Hampshire diner. Ignoring him didn't work. Smearing him didn't work. So now they're chasing him away from voters.

"“I think he lost some votes.”"

I'm sure that was the goal.

MISC:

George Will understands the nature of government, but his blaming of liberals is baloney. Conservatives and Republicans have done nearly as much to enrich the ruling class at our expense as liberals and Democrats.

"Liberals have a rendezvous with regret. Their largest achievement is today’s redistributionist government. But such government is inherently regressive: It tends to distribute power and money to the strong, including itself.Government becomes big by having big ambitions for supplanting markets as society’s primary allocator of wealth and opportunity. Therefore it becomes a magnet for factions muscular enough, in money or numbers or both, to bend government to their advantage."

True, but when is he going to blame his conservative and Republican cronies for their roles?

Free kibbles

2012-01-08T11:15:00.001-05:00

TAX AND SPEND:

Tony Blair used complicated web of companies to shelter money from taxes. This is a good reminder that laws and taxes are for serfs, not the ruling class.

GLOBAL WARMING:

According to the geological record, a new ice age could begin any time. Now some guy claims that AGW could keep it from starting.

Solar cycle 24 still signals a significant global cooling trend.

POLICE STATE:

Leaked memos show tech companies gave Indian government backdoor access to their devices. You can bet they've done the same for the US government.

Like a cancer, the police state is rapidly metasticizing.

POLITICS:

Here's an important example of why our political system is the way it is.

"A week or so after Newt Gingrich said that the Palestinians are an invented people, his Super PAC has received $5 million from Sheldon Adelson, whose central cause is Israel."

Politicians work to improve their standard of living like everybody else. The difference is they get to use government's power of coercion to advance their own interests at everybody else's expense, and they do.

Ron Paul pulls within 15 percent of Romney in New Hampshire.

I've heard Ron Paul called many things, but never a master of rhetoric. I've often criticized him for his lack of clarity when he speaks.

"I hear the criticism that Ron Paul is not a polished speaker. This criticism is correct. But he is a nevertheless a master of rhetoric.How can both positions be true? Because rhetoric is all about persuasion. Great oratory is not necessary."

Both positions can certainly be true, but that's not the issue. Paul fails for lack of clarity, not lack of speech writers. For example, I have never heard him explain how cutting government spending will stimulate the economy. In another example, he failed to explain why he wouldn't immediately put an end to taxpayer funded student loans. These are failures of communication, and therefore he cannot be called a master of rhetoric. Paul has his moments, but that doesn't make him a master of rhetoric either.

"The mark of mastery of rhetoric is this: the speaker persuades a crowd to accept something that it had previously opposed. A supreme master is a person who has not only changes their minds but persuades the listeners to take action. This is so rare as to be unheard of."

By North's own standard, Paul fails. I doubt he's convinced any libertarian to support taxpayer funded student loans. I certainly am not aware of any. But North's premise is flawed to begin with. Reagan persuaded people because he spoke about libertarian principles. Paul also speaks about libertarian principles. Those principles persuade. Paul understands this just as he understand's he's no master of rhetoric like Reagan.

Pat Buchanan inadvertently makes the case for supporting Obama in 2012.

"As of today, Obama is running even with Mitt Romney. He has lost much of the enthusiasm of the young and the minorities that he had in 2008. College-educated whites who had hopes for him seem disillusioned.
Assuredly, he may still win. But should Obama win, how, after a campaign like the one he intends to conduct, does he unite the country?How does he work with a Republican Party that will likely still hold the House and will have made gains in the Senate, after he has spent a year castigating that party?"

We could hope for that legendary gridlock that has never before happened in Washington despite what we've been told. Even Buchanan recognizes this.

"And what happen to the nation if we have five more years of political gridlock?"

It means government will grow at a far slower rate than usual. If somebody other than Ron Paul is elected president, that's the best we can hope for. If Republicans control the presidency with somebody other than Ron Paul along with both houses of Congress, they will expand government nearly as fast as Obama did. There will be no cuts.

The critical factor in whether or not the US as we know it survives is if our economy can grow faster than government. Since our economy cannot grow, that means we must stop the growth of government if not reduce it. If a Republican other than Ron Paul wins the presidency, and Republicans win both houses of Congress, there's no way this will happen. If the Republicans nominate somebody other than Ron Paul, the only way to limit the damage from the collapse of the US economy under the burden of government is to insure divided government. On a personal note, I will never support Obama nor any Republican other than Ron Paul. Anybody who thinks this election is about anybody but Obama is helping to destroy our country. I will vote only for reducing government, never expanding it.

Newt Gingrich reminds Americans that he hates capitalism as much as President Obama.

Because Santorum is another big government, New England establishment candidate, he'll collapse just like all the pretenders before him. In the end, it will be Ron Paul versus Romney.

Apparently New Hampshire polls are all over the place with at least one placing Santorum second and another placing Huntsman second.

LOCAL:

We get more lane closures on the never-ending I-75 death trap construction project.

Only government would starve people on charity to death. Private charities would never allow this.

MISC:

Airbus says cracks in Airbus wings are harmless. Note to self: don't fly Airbus.

Visio to introduce all in one PCs at significantly lower prices. Let's hope this is true.

Free kibbles

2012-01-07T22:21:00.000-05:00

POLITICS:

Proving that policies and leadership matter, Rick Santorum copies Ron Paul's audit the Fed policy. Whether or not Paul wins the nomination, this is his year because he has forced Republicans to adopt policies he's been advocating his entire career. Still, Santorum doesn't really want to take on the Fed. That's why he pretends the Fed fights inflation.

John Huntsman's staff creates a hit piece on Huntsman, then posts it to YouTube and blames Ron Paul.

Free kibbles

2012-01-06T09:17:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

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

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

ECONOMY:

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

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

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

POLICY:

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

FOREIGN POLICY:

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

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

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

POLITICS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free kibbles

2012-01-05T12:40:00.000-05:00

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Disarmed students are easy, frequent targets for predators.

REGULATION:

The nanny state has gone nuts in California, driving businesses and wealth out of the state.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

American taxpayers pay 50 percent of the bill for the UN's global warming propaganda machine.

POLITICS:

Billionaires support Romney first and Obama second. None support Ron Paul.

Obama appoints officials without Senate confirmation, claiming they are recess appointments, even though Senate is still in session. This is a great reminder that the law only applies to us peasants, not our rulers.

Santorum is another typical politician.

"Bloomberg reports that former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum , has come a long way from from being one of the poorer members of the U.S. Senate to earning $1.3 million between January 2010 and August 2011. How did he do it? Mostly by providing access, after he lost his Senate seat."

This is the parasitic political economy at its worst.

Santorum gets a small bounce in New Hampshire, up to eleven percent, but Paul shoots up to 24 percent.

MEDIA:

Here we go again. After hounding Herman Cain out of the race, the leftist media says the Republican party is too white.

The Wall Street Journal runs another article slamming Ron Paul for his investment portfolio even though Paul made a huge amount of money betting on gold and gold mining stocks. The establishment hates gold because it frees people from government money.

Free kibbles

2012-01-04T11:45:00.003-05:00

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

December gun sales set record.

It's a sad, sad commentary on our government that a widow suffering a home invasion had to call 911 to ask permission to shoot the home invaders.

""Well, you have to do whatever you can do to protect yourself," dispatcher Diane Graham responded. "I can't tell you that you can do that, but you do what you have to do to protect your baby.""

And the state sanctioned stooge wouldn't even give her the state's permission.

"In the end, McKinley fired a 12-gauge shotgun and killed Justin Shane Martin after he entered her residence, according to a Blanchard Police Department affidavit filed in court Wednesday. Martin was armed with a knife, authorities said."

That's a hero. The state had refused to offer permission, but she acted to save herself and her child anyway. It doesn't get more heroic than that.

"First Assistant District Attorney James Walters told CNN that McKinley will not be charged because she acted in self-defense."

Let's all bow down to the beneficent prosecutor for acknowledging this woman's natural right to defend herself and her baby. How many others have been prosecuted for doing the same?

TAX AND SPEND:

The Forbes 400 richest Americans have a combined net worth of $1.5 trillion. This year's federal deficit will be $1.2 trillion. Federal debt is over $15 trillion. So much for fixing our debt problem by taxing the rich.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama likes to pretend he hasn't raised taxes on the middle class. Therefore he's hidden his tax on tongue depressors from you.

Bolivians reject McDonalds. Maybe that's the place for ex-pats to move.

I have to take the alternative side on this story.

"Texas police have shot dead a 15-year-old boy carrying an air-powered pellet gun, saying he refused to lower the weapon in the wake of a classroom fight."

How were they to know the difference? This seems to me to be a reaction to aggression even though the weapon of aggression was fake. The respondents couldn't know.

POLITICS:

Big win for the establishment as Romney noses out Santorum in a virtual tie with Ron Paul coming in a close third. Bachmann withdraws, finally, and Perry might too.

Here's one reason Santorum might fade away:

"Nearly 60% of those who voted for Santorum said that their number ONE issue .. now we’re talking NUMBER ONE here … was abortion."

Single issue abortion voters won't win him the nomination.

Perry's establishment supporters call a meeting in Texas to form a consensus since Ron Paul did so well and Perry did poorly. This is a good example of how the establishment manipulates primaries to insure both parties nominate establishment candidates. The establishment would love to see this be a race between Romney and Santorum. They could pretend they were offering a real choice. But what choice is there? Both are very liberal, northeastern Republicans. Both have liberal, big government voting records that contradict their phony rhetoric.The establishment fears that win Paul doing so well, Romney and Santorum will split the establishment vote, enabling Ron Paul to be a king-maker, forcing the winner to make concessions to him. So they're trying to be king makers now.

Accusations of literal vote-buying, bribes, in Iowa. More suspicions of voter fraud in Iowa.

More insight into how the establishment manipulated the caucuses:

"Youth=change; elderly=status quo. The caucus last night was about nothing more than saving Iowa's first in the nation status. It is pretty bad when the registrars wear Romney or Santorum buttons. Sad."

I think Iowans made a mistake. If they rejected that manipulation, they could have been the vanguard that ushered in a new era in liberty.

All that vote-buying may be for naught. Apparently the Iowa caucuses are non-binding, and Ron Paul supporters stayed around and were voted as county delegates, which means Paul will end up with more delegates from Iowa at the Republican convention. It looks like Paul will end up with a majority of delegates. It pays to know the rules. This is a sign that Paul knows how to run an organization.It also shows the advantage of having truly committed supporters.

Paul polling strong second in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire has long been considered one of the most libertarian states in the union, though you couldn't tell it from past presidential primaries, but in the wake of Ron Paul's strong showing in Iowa, three New Hampshire newspapers have endorsed him.

Al Gore calls Ron Paul a silly candidate. This should give Paul a boost.

The top ten viral political videos of the year contains nothing from Ron Paul. I'm skeptical.

Thanks to Obama and his radical leftist allies, the number of people identifying as Democrats has fallen to an all time low.

On why the worst rise to the top.

Contrary to this article, the left doesn't fear conservatives. They welcome them as allies. Progressives know that all they have to do is pass some soul-sucking, government-expanding piece of legislation, and in a couple of years, conservatives will embrace it. Think income tax. Think the New Deal. Think Department of Education. At the time, conservatives railed against all. Today they defend all. This is why I predicted Republicans will not repeal Obamacare until the federal government collapses.

Conservatives are the greatest allies the leftists have ever enjoyed. Only in America has the so-called opposition party been so accommodating. We can thank the conservative media for much of that, but mostly we can thank conservatives themselves for living up to their self-absorbed name. Conservatives talk about smaller government in the same way club members exchange slogans. It doesn't mean anything because they always vote for big government Republicans. Conservatives are the champions of the status quo no matter how Marxist that status quo is. If you don't believe me, look at Marx's ten tenants to produce Marxism in a society, and you'll notice Republicans, and therefore the conservatives who vote for them, support them all.

If you myopically blame Obama for our problems, this is a great ad from his Republican partners in crime.

The same leftist media that destroyed Herman Cain with unsubstantiated attacks now attacks Iowa for being too white. Can you smell the hypocrisy?

MEDIA:

Murdoch appoints ex-News of the World editor as editor-in-chief of the New York Daily News. The News of the World went bankrupt over an eavesdropping scandal in Britain.

The USA Today calls the Republican race a two-way race in apparent ignorance of the delegate count and the New Hampshire polls. They wish.

MISC:

I'm skeptical about this claim that some new fly is killing off bees. Bees are already bouncing back. This isn't some biological weapon against bees.

What the hell is Nginx?

"Nginx over the past month has gained market share among all websites, whereas competitors Apache, Microsoft, and Google each lost share"

Why have I never heard of this before?

Free kibbles

2012-01-03T10:01:00.002-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

So you ever wonder why politicians are so desperate to control the internet?

"In 2008, voters told the Pew Poll that they got more election information from the Internet than from daily newspapers. Next year, that advantage will grow as the Internet closes in on television as America's principal source of campaign news."

It's that simple.

REGULATION:

Forty-thousand new state laws went into effect on Jan. 1. It's not just the federal government that is crushing us.

EDUCATION:

Because government schools are failing so many students, now the government wants to ban employers from requiring high school diplomas.

POLITICS:

Latest smear against Ron Paul claims he wants to weaken the federal government in order to implement a decentralized theocratic society. I didn't see that one coming.

Party insider admits that the Republican establishment plans to influence local Iowa party leaders to direct the caucuses away from Ron Paul so he can't win. This sounds like the same political horsetrading that got Blago convicted, but is pervasive.

Gallop says this is the most volatile Republican primary since polling began.

MEDIA:

CNN conveniently suffers technical difficulties during an interview with a soldier who is also a Ron Paul supporter.

Free kibbles

2012-01-02T12:24:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Amazon, Facebook and Google are considering blacking out their pages with anti-censorship messages to protest SOPA. I hope they do it, but if they do, the politicians will attack them mercilessly. I bet right now politicians are on the phone to the CEOs of those companies threatening them if they do this.

Belarus government bans foreign websites. Wow. Talk about censorship and protectionism all rolled into one.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Fracking blamed for minor earthquakes in eastern Ohio.

POLICE STATE:

Techies have become aware of the police state. This doesn't bode well for the police state.

POLITICS:

Santorum has the momentum in Iowa as he polls a close third behind Paul and Romney. He would be another flash in the pan like Bachmann, Perry, Cain and Gingrich - somebody who would quickly fade under scrutiny - but he's flashing at the right time. There will be no scrutiny before the caucuses. A good showing in Iowa could make him the top establishment alternative to Romney.

Response to Politico claim that Paul operates a slow schedule in Iowa because of his age: baloney.

Why would Ron Paul say this this way?

"When asked Monday during an ABC News interview in Des Moines whether he sees himself in the Oval Office, Paul replied: "Not really, but I think it's a possibility.""

That may be an honest answer, but he could have given a more positive, honest answer.

Free kibbles

2012-01-01T15:13:00.000-05:00

HEALTH CARE:

Google shuts down Google Health. That sucks.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Under fire for his leftist views on global warming Newt Gingrich drops chapter from new book written with global warming fraud.

POLICE STATE:

Military man tries to carry explosives past airport security and fails.

WAR:

Videos of US troops killing a sheep and a dog. This is what perpetual war is doing to American soldiers.

POLITICS:

In another great example that laws only apply to you and me, not government officials, the Virginia Attorney General is attempting to put Republicans on the ballot even though they failed to meet the legal requirements for getting on the ballot.

The Iowa Republican expects Ron Paul to do very well Tuesday.

Report that Iowa caucus votes will be counted in Obama country: Springfield, Illinois. This is more evidence the establishment plans to fix the results. How blatant. The only more blatant place would be Chicago. Or DC.

Pat Buchanan says America is paying the price for hubris.

Free kibbles

2011-12-31T11:43:00.001-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Companies are feeling the heat and are pulling support for SOPA.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

More evidence that the Medieval Warming Period was warmer than today.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iran once again offers to negotiate on its nuclear program. It has offered that many times, but they always fail because western governments never acknowledge the Iranian people have a right to nuclear power.

POLITICS:

This headline shows what we've done to ourselves.

"In 2012, Obama to press on without Congress"

Over the decades, voters have created an imperial presidency, and Obama is taking advantage of it.

Somebody's poll, I don't know whose, says that Santorum has surpassed Ron Paul in Iowa to put him second behind Romney. I hope this is wrong. We've suffered many flavors of the week during the preliminary contests. From Bachmann to Perry to Cain to Gingrich, voters have flipped from one to the other until they realized who they were supporting. During all this protest drama, Ron Paul has been slowly and steadily gaining supporters. I hope Iowa caucus goers won't fall for the next flavor of the week by supporting Santorum, but they might. Ron Paul, for all his polling and internet victories, has never shown he can win an election outside his district. Prove it to me. I root for Ron Paul every election. I've disappointed every election. Prove to me you win. Win Iowa.

LOCAL:

What kind of weirdos would publish an article that pretended there was a beach along I-70. Hello. Indianapolis to Dayton to Columbus is landlocked. Not to denigrate anybody's death, but this charade is outrageous.

Free kibbles

2011-12-30T17:04:00.002-05:00

FASCISM:

How socialism, in the form of fascism, created Norway's butter shortage.

REGULATION:

If demand for butter is rising in Sweden, but production is dropping, the only reason can be government intervention in the market. Otherwise production would increase to supply the increase in demand.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Comparing the dollar to the Roman denarius.

The Chinese government bans gold exchanges for commoners because the Chinese were buying gold to protect themselves from high inflation. Don't be surprised if the US follows suit shortly.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Arab observers find little evidence for the Syrian violence being reported in western papers.

POLICE STATE:

Oath Takers organizing recall elections for every member of Congress who voted for the indefinite detention of American. How political economy insiders pushed for indefinite detention of Americans. The people of Montana organize recalls of both senators for voting for this law.

POLITICS:

Side by side comparison of the top donors for Romney and Ron Paul.

The bankers love Romney, while the Air Force, Army and Navy love Ron Paul.

MEDIA:

Media busted for claiming evangelicals have rejected Ron Paul when in fact he's polling second among evangelicals in Iowa.

MEDIA:

The ruling class has benefited tremendously from 9/11.

Free kibbles

2011-12-29T11:46:00.001-05:00

TAX AND SPEND:

Do you think our environment influences the decisions we make? Thanks to your tax dollars, scientists have discovered that's true. Sometime's it's impossible to illustrate the stupidity of tax dollars spent on so-called science.

REGULATION:

Ebert offers some insight into why the movie industry is declining:

""According to Ebert movie piracy isn't the problem. He contends that the industry needs to lower prices on tickets and popcorn, keep people off their cell phones, show a wider variety of films, and understand that movie streaming is here to stay. From the article: 'The message I get is that Americans love the movies as much as ever. It's the theaters that are losing their charm. Proof: theaters thrive that police their audiences, show a variety of titles and emphasize value-added features. The rest of the industry can't depend forever on blockbusters to bail it out.'""

In other words: end copyright, and the movie industry will boom.

Every now and then the news just gives you gift you couldn't imagine. In this case, LA city government is considering requiring male porn stars to wear condoms.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The euro problems are affecting oil prices. This probably explains the volatility we've seen in gas prices since before Thanksgiving.

HEALTH CARE:

I'm skeptical that the Swiss health care system works because of socialism.

"Politics is the art of the possible [thorught force]"

What behavior modification isn't possible through force? I kind of threw up in my mouth reading this article. Must research more.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Let's see if the global warming frauds who always correctly say, "Weather is not climate" when it's unseasonably cold make a big deal out of this record high temperature at the south pole. Weather is not climate whether it's unseasonably hot or cold.

POLICE STATE:

I don't remember for how many years, or more accurately decades, I've explained to people that cops are uniformed tax collectors, but I'm always happy when somebody else realizes it.

"Many of us have come to view traffic cops as little better than armed tax collectors deployed to fleece motorists for the benefit of state/local government."

Welcome to the bandwagon.

POLITICS:

No national politician other than Ron Paul talks about such powerful principles of freedom, and none other than Ron Paul back up that talk with their actions. Apparently the Ron Paul PAC put out an add focusing on a black guy whose wife was having problems birthing a baby in the 1970s. At that time, because his wife was white, he couldn't get anybody to help him. As the story goes, Ron Paul came and aided his wife. His child was stillborn, and Dr. Paul picked up the bill. How many times have we heard that we should be skeptical of anything that sounds too good to be true. Ron Paul reacts. I'm skeptical. I hope with all my brain that this story is true and Ron Paul had nothing to do with it. But I'm skeptical.

I don't believe that Ron Paul's breakfast of champions is in the least bit lonely. There's nothing more important than alone time. I love this line:

"Asked if he's concerned that if he doesn't win his followers will not rally behind the GOP nominee, he looks up from his plate of cantaloupe, honeydew, eggs, sausage and biscuit and says brusquely, "Right now, the only thing that bothers me is people who don't respect my privacy enough to leave me alone for five minutes when I'm eating breakfast." And then he goes back to reading his USA Today.
Charming. (By the way, if this were to happen to Romney, which it wouldn't, a SWAT team would immediately surround the reporter to oversee damage control.)"

I'm always amazed that conservatives even consider somebody other than Paul for the nomination. I must have a different definition of conservative than most conservatives have for themselves.

Gary Johnson endorses Ron Paul. That might win him a handful of votes, and handful of votes in Iowa might matter.

Iowa Republican bigwigs to move the caucus counting operation to an "undisclosed location" to hide the vote totaling from the people. Ostensibly they're afraid somebody (Paul supporters) will corrupt the vote count. In fact, this must be done to enable them to corrupt the vote count in favor of the establishment. Come on. How could anybody corrupt an individual caucus vote count when every participant can see the count? The only way to corrupt it is to hide the totaling of the counts. Paul supporters can't do that. Only the establishment can. This is a plan by the Republican establishment to steal the Iowa caucuses from Ron Paul.

Every now and then I stumble across the most simple yet poignant things on the internet. Like this:

MISC:

This Calvin and Hobbes cartoon shows so much of what is wrong with modern journalism and academia, it isn't funny.

Rethinking the Articles of Confederation by Mises scholar.

Free kibbles

2011-12-28T15:24:00.001-05:00

ECONOMY:

China surpasses US in IPOs. That's because China is more economically free than the US.

TAX AND SPEND:

FEMA is suing Katrina victims to recover money it spent improperly. Only the government could mess up a hurricane.

Thanks to Republicans, Obama will raise the debt ceiling again. And again. And again, forever and ever until we're all reduced to hunting and gathering for a living.

"Under the agreement struck in August during the showdown over the government's debt limit, the cap is automatically raised unless Congress votes to block the debt-ceiling extension. Lawmakers have 15 days within receiving the request to vote, which is largely symbolic because the president can veto it and Congress would be unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority to override it. Moreover, the U.S. House of Representatives also is in recess until January 17."

Remember when Republicans, after being voted into power in 2010 in unprecedented numbers to stop spending its tracks, gave Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling on his own authority? Could there be any more obvious a sign that Republicans are partners with Democrats in looting the American people? How many times are Republicans going to stab taxpayers in the back before voters quit voting for them?

REGULATION:

Bad regulations is redundant.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

I'm skeptical that Congress really ended the corn ethanol subsidy.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Great comparison of cannabis and Coca-Cola.

WAR:

The US government warns the Iranian government that it's not allowed to respond to US aggression. The US is orchestrating this to start a war with Iran.

POLITICS:

Santorum rising to challenge Romney and Paul in Iowa.

Gingrich says he would vote for Obama before Ron Paul. Gingrich is admitting he's more closely aligned ideologically to Obama than conservatives which is exactly what his record shows. Apparently Newt didn't get the memo that conservatives want anybody but Obama. It looks Gingrich is already collapsing. That statement will likely end his chance to win.

Tea partiers unhappy with freshmen they elected were fooling themselves.

Free kibbles

2011-12-27T13:45:00.002-05:00

ECONOMY:

Sears is shutting down over 100 Sears and K-Mart stores. Here's an interesting comment:

"Sears Holdings said the declining sales, ongoing pressure on profit margins and rising expenses pulled its adjusted earnings lower. The company predicts fourth-quarter adjusted earnings will be less than half the $933m it reported for the same quarter last year.Sears Holdings also anticipates a non-cash charge of $1.6bn to $1.8bn in the quarter to write off the value of carried-over tax deductions it now doesn't expect to be profitable enough to use."

Corporations get tax deductions for greater profit? The article hints that this is a sign of America's disappearing middle class.

"The company has seen rival department stores like Macy's Inc and discounters like Target Corp continue to steal customers. It's also contending with a stronger Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, which has hammered hard its low-price message and brought back services like layaway, which allows financially stressed shoppers to finance their holiday purchases by paying a little at a time.The tough economy hasn't helped, either. Middle-income shoppers, the company's core customers, have seen their wages fail to keep up with higher costs for household basics like food."

The rich have their stores. The poor go to cheaper stores. The middle is getting squeezed out by government looting.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Obama keeps the revolving door between the Treasury, the Fed and the Ivy League going by appointing former Treasury official and Harvard professor to the Fed.

Pretty decent explanation of how inflation steals money from savers.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Study discovers that animals adapt to climate change. You can bet taxpayers funded this study.

In a climategate 2 email, BBC journalists ask climate fraud what the BBC should be doing in its programming to promote the fraud. This shows how closely the leftist press is tied to the pseudo-scientists.

POLICE STATE:

Congress expanding TSA VIPR teams to stop traffic on highways and wherever else they choose. We should abolish this abominable organization ASAP.

WAR:

Now western countries are threatening sanctions against Iran's oil exports. You know how the talking heads are always telling us that we have to control the Middle East in order to make sure we get our oil? That's a load of crap. Middle Eastern countries get all their money from oil. They won't stop exporting because they would go broke and suffer a revolution pretty much immediately. The real threat to Middle Eastern oil exports is western governments. Western government always like to force the other guy to shoot first. That's been true since Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shot of the Civil War. This move can only be designed to provoke Iran into a shooting war.

POLITICS:

Gingrich agents blast liberal Republican establishment. That's a hoot coming from a man who co-sponsored over 400 bills with Nancy Pelosi and worked with her to promote the global warming fraud.

LOCAL:

Corruption by local section 8 administrators. That's SOP for government officials.

MISC:

Why the Soviet Union collapsed.

"Contrary to western myth, the Soviet Union was not brought down by President Ronald Reagan’s arms buildup, though Moscow’s ruinous military overspending played an important role.The principal reason was economic: failure to modernize industry and farming. In 1975, Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov had warned the Kremlin the economy faced collapse in 15 years unless modernized. His prediction was amazingly accurate."

If Americans had kept our government small, it would have collapsed much sooner. This article praises Gorbachev for not using force.

Free kibbles

2011-12-26T09:14:00.002-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The Chinese government is creating a parallel virtual world in which the participants of social media seem to be interacting in the usual facebook and twitter world, but in fact they are operating in a replica that prevents criticism of the government.

THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Neither natural rights nor the second amendment requires Microsoft to allow users of its services to access virtual weapons. That's a matter of property rights. But let's turn this around. Do natural rights and the second amendment protect the right of the people to virtual, i.e. hacking, weapons? This is an interesting question because hacking tools are more like tools for breaking and entering. But there's also a roll for using those tools in self-defense.

REGULATION:

Regulations make it more profitable for both employers and workers to work on a contract basis instead of employers hiring workers as employees. A new business would be foolish to hire employees.

POLICE STATE:

Police coerce false confessions. Duh. The crazy thing exposed in this article is that the ex-cop seems surprised.

"Trainum says he and his fellow investigators repeatedly ignored evidence that pointed away from the suspect who confessed."It's like you're on this speeding train going down the track and it's extremely difficult to get that train to stop," Trainum says. "While you're on that train, you might be getting other leads coming in, other clues about the killer, but because we're so fixated on the suspect, often times those clues go undocumented.""

I love this rationalization of the standard mentality of cops.

""When the police officer enters the interrogation room, they've already presumed that the suspect is guilty based on evidence that has been gathered in the course of the investigation. Often times, it's based on little more than a hunch," Drizin says. "

Imagine that. It's like they're overly aggressive human beings amped up on steroids or something.

WAR:

The Iraqi government is under duress and might fall. A couple of years ago I would looked at this as proof that US troops should have stayed in Iraq. Now I see it as proof that the US government was controlling a proxy government in Iraq through force. That means that no matter how long the US troops stayed there and promoted that government through violence, it was doomed to collapse when our troops left and that Iraqis will hate us more because our government used violence against them than if we had left well enough along.

POLITICS:

I agree that Ron Paul's support has reached a point where slanderous attacks on him work in his favor.

Gingrich calls out Romney for being a moderate and calling himself a progressive. Which is it? Is he moderate or progressive? I believe Romney when he says he's a progressive because that's what his record proves. This is good for Ron Paul.

MISC:

Anti-whaling group tracks whaling ship with drone.

Criticism of George Washington for transforming the liberty-minded American army into the European model.

The difference between society and the state.

Entrepreneurship in Vegas.

Free kibbles

2011-12-25T15:44:00.002-05:00

REGULATION:

Godaddy loses control of 21,000 domains most like over its support for SOPA.

HEALTH CARE:

I'm happy to see that understanding of the importance of vitamin D is going mainstream, but I don't want to see government force vitamin D into food. You know they will screw it up and make us more unhealthy.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

A group of scientists have exposed another impressive global warming fraud. When the frauds calculate the carbon savings of biofuels, the compare it to nothing. They don't compare it to other crops. They don't compare it to grassland or forest. They pretend the land would otherwise be barren.

"The European Environment Agency Scientific Committee writes that the role of energy from crops like biofuels in curbing warming gases should be measured by how much additional carbon dioxide such crops absorb beyond what would have been absorbed anyway by existing fields, forests and grasslands.Instead, the European Union has been “double counting” some of the savings, according to the draft opinion, which was prepared by the committee in May and viewed this week by The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times."

Another fraud exposed.

POLICE STATE:

TSA agent seizes cupcake. You can't make this stuff up.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul slandered as a tin man with no heart.This is the goto attack of government-lovers. If somebody is against stealing the money of others to support leftist caused, they have no heart. This is upside down.

MISC:

Scientists make a robot scientist. This is another step toward the singularity.

Free kibbles

2011-12-24T13:28:00.002-05:00

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Bloomberg puts up spreadsheets of Fed lending during the financial crisis.

WAR:

More US soldiers died of suicide than in combat. I don't mean to sound insensitive, but that's because so few died in combat. The number of casualties in our current wars is remarkably low compared to previous wars. Not that that matters to the dead and their families.

POLITICS:

Gingrich and Perry also fail to make it on the Virginia ballot. That means only Romney and Paul will be on the ballot. Gingrich calls Virginia's system a failed system. Third parties know every system is a failed system. But Gingrich knew what the system was when he started his campaign. Despite being a bigwig Republican, his campaign failed. This shows a lack of leadership and support for the candidates who failed to make the ballot.

More than 100,000 protest against Putin's corruption in Moscow. It would be nice to see that here.

MISC:

Here's another example of how government is costing the US its tech edge: Russians and Europeans plan to compete for the next generation supercomputer.

Free kibbles

2011-12-23T15:16:00.004-05:00

STATES RIGHTS:

I hope the government of South Carolina tells the Justice Department to go spit over its proclamation that its voter ID law is discriminatory. It's discriminatory against frauds. This is a state's rights issue. Democrats won't be happy until every Democrat voter can vote in dozens of elections with no checks on them.

ECONOMICS:

If your investments have done better than Ron Paul's, good for you.

REGULATION:

Man tries to cook and deliver Christmas dinner to elderly shutiins, but the government shuts him down. Isn't it nice how government cares so much for the needy?

HEALTH CARE:

Dr. reverses her own MS in nine months by converting to paleo diet.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

So what's up with gas prices? I've never been much of a gas price conspiracy theorist, though I've wondered from time to time, but what about this year? A week before Thanksgiving, gas prices around here were over $3.20. In a world where supply and demand determine gas prices, one would expect they would rise over Thanksgiving because travel demand would rise. But they didn't. I bought gas on black Friday for $2.99 a gallon. That tells me the supply had been boosted to overcome the increase in demand. A week later, prices were over $3.20 again. I figured Obama had released oil out of the strategic reserve at a specific time to increase supply over Thanksgiving to generate goodwill. I bet the delay between that and gas appearing at the pump is pretty well understood. Fast forward to a couple of days ago. Gas had been over $3.20 all month. Then a couple of days ago gas prices plummeted. I bought gas at $3.03. The next day I saw gas at $2.98. I thought the same thing was happening. Yet today the station that priced gas at $2.98 on Monday, was selling at $3.34. That seems natural because demand is rising, but such wild swings around the holidays make me suspect prices are being manipulated. My theory now is Obama released oil from the strategic reserve on a schedule that fit lowering prices at Thanksgiving, then tried to do the same thing for Christmas, but because the structure of production had shifted because of the Thanksgiving release, it took much less time for that oil to get to the pump. Thus the premature decline in prices for Christmas.

How sad is it that governments allowed (I hate that word) Branson to fly straight from Britain to Fiji over the north pole. Why was it disallowed before? Money. It forced planes to land in another country.

POLICE STATE:

Vanity Fair criticizes the TSA. That means criticism of the TSA is going mainstream.

Many people believe that the police have the right to kill, but recognize the corollary that that means the rest of us have duty to die when they try to kill us.

WAR:

The Taliban seizes cell phones and computers in Waziristan, the lawless region in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, and burns them to stamp out porn. American troops are fighting, dying and killing innocents over this. There are no words to describe how stupid ordering Americans to kill and die over this is.

FOREIGN POLICY:

With the CIA agitating in Syria, you have wonder if the suicide bombers in Damascus were CIA recruits.

The CIA absolved itself of any wrongdoing because of it's association with the NYPD. That's like the fox absolving itself of any wrongdoing for it's association with the hen house. If you thought the CIA was only operating outside the US, the CIA drone pilots looking through your roof happy you're so ignorant, and they're high-fiving their FBI partners.

POLITICS:

Lew Rockwell's bloggers are up in arms about the Republicans bringing up the supposedly racist Ron Paul newsletters. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Let's imagine if Paul wins the nomination. What do you think the mainstream media will push as the lead headline every day of the general campaign? It certainly won't be Obama's record on the economy or Paul's plan to revive it. It won't be Obama's record on government spending and debt or Paul's plan to fix it. It'll be that Paul is a racist. This is an issue that must be vetted in the primary and Paul must provide a good answer for it. His explanation that he had no idea somebody was doing that in his name is lame. If that's true, and I believe it's true, he has to own that mistake and make people believe he learned a valuable lesson about delegating authority that he will never make again. Come on, Dr. Paul. Stand up, own it and move the voters past it. This is a presidential moment for you. You had a great one the other night when the Foxnews guys tried to gotcha on earmarks. Do it again.

LOCAL:

While I'm happy that Dayton city government and Ohio state government have cut their budgets by tiny amounts, those tiny cuts can't account for this increase in business. This increase is a result of more federal money flowing through Wright-Pat into police state businesses. That money won't last. It can't last. The US government is overly bankrupt. When reality hits, and that money goes away, Dayton will be devastated to an extent nobody here has ever seen before.

MISC:

I hope this doesn't become a regular feature, but look at the headline assault on my homepage:

It's interesting that photo bolds the subjects of my email even though they're not bold on my home page. It's like the bolding is intended to intimidate people not to snapshot the google homepage.

Dell has teamed up with a Chinese company. That doesn't surprise me in the least.

How to protect your assets by expatriation.

Free kibbles

2011-12-22T15:56:00.000-05:00

TAX AND SPEND:

The House passes the Senate version of the payroll tax cut, making this a non-issue. Here's the real story:

"The short-term deal extends the current payroll tax rate at 4.2% from 6.2% and continues to provide unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. It also includes a Medicare "doc fix" that will prevent a drop in payments to doctors who treat seniors, and it extends and funds the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program that provides welfare benefits to 4.6 million Americans."

Republicans passed a bunch of big welfare spending. Surprise, surprise.

REGULATION:

IP infecting the fashion industry.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

China warns EU it will retaliate if the EU charges carbon fees for airlines. Trade wars are looming everywhere.

WAR:

NATO finally takes some responsibility for killing Pakistani troops Nov. 26, four weeks after the fact.

"It however stopped short of the apology that would help repair the severely damaged relations with its ally."

"But the Pentagon defended the actions of its troops and blamed Pakistan for failing to share co-ordinates of its border posts during the night time incident on Nov 26, and said they had acted in self-defence and responded with "appropriate force"."

Being in government means never having to say you're sorry no matter how many people you kill.

POLITICS:

While the media is attacking Ron Paul over racist comments somebody else made in his newsletter well over a decade ago, Paul is leading the field with non-whites.

Voters are so fed up with the two parties, they're leaving them.

"A USA TODAY analysis of state voter registration statistics shows registered Democrats declined in 25 of the 28 states that register voters by party. Republicans dipped in 21 states, while independents increased in 18 states.The trend is acute in states that are key to next year's presidential race. In the eight swing states that register voters by party, Democrats' registration is down by 800,000 and Republicans' by 350,000. Independents have gained 325,000."

It's about time.

Bachmann, Huntsman and Santorum fail to gather enough signatures to make the Virginia ballot.

MEDIA:

The Wall Street Journal attack Ron Paul's investment portfolio because it's designed to defend against inflation. In other words, Ron Paul puts him money where his mouth is, and we're supposed to believe that's a bad thing.

Free kibbles

2011-12-21T11:21:00.003-05:00

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Note to Occupiers: freedom of speech is not freedom to steal property as I explained here.

TAX AND SPEND:

This article claims House Republicans are taking a beating for not caving to the Senate's temporary extension of the payroll tax cut, but it offers no proof such as a poll to back it up. I'm no so sure that's true. I think the temporary tax cut will be extended, and I think it will be a non-issue in 2012.

REGULATION:

Senators advise the FTC to investigate Google as a monopoly. This is a just a shakedown for more money.

Developers are already creating workarounds for SOPA censorship.

Now government wants to regulation sperm donation. It's a little scary to think how they might regulate this, if you know what I mean.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

In a shocking turnabout for the corrupt political economy, BP exits the solar energy boondoggle. It's hard to underestimate the significance of this. This means that major corporations, all tied so closely to government they might as well be government agencies, have realized that their political masters will no longer push the green agenda.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Lew Rockwell makes an important point about libertarianism, humanity and politics: what is more radical, engaging people (Iranians) in negotiations or bombing them to death? The answer is left as an exercise for the reader.

POLITICS:

Many of us learned about the problems Ron Paul had with his newsletter in 2008. The problems sprang from his mistake empowering somebody to write a newsletter in his name in the 1980s and 1990s. He addressed this many times during the 2008 campaign. But now that he's on the verge of winning in Iowa, the Republican establishment has released the dogs to attack him on this issue again. This is a legitimate issue, and Paul has handled it as well as possible. It's Paul's mistake, and he has to deal with it. So far, he's doing a good job dealing with it. But the establishment will use it to attack Paul unrelentingly because they can't attack him on policy.

LOCAL:

Here's a little tidbit to remind us that road projects are one of government's bread and butter looting programs: I-75 construction through Dayton to continue for six more years. But this baloney. It will never end. That six years will stretch to nine years, and before the nine years is up, they'll start new projects. It's been going on since the 1990s, and it'll never end. At least not until the government runs out of money.

Apparenlty Menards hasn't paid enough tribute to local politicians to get a new, extravagant store built. You would think that most big-time national businesses would know how to suck up to local politicians, but egos always clash. I bet Menards pays enough tribute to obtain permission to sell products to us. The politicians will win. Menard's will win. Menard's competition will lose and that mean consumers will lose. That's how government coercion works.

MISC:

I guess I'm young enough that it's hard for me to believe that somebody could so denigrate and desensitize "teen spirit" to this extent, yet Miley manages. She was such a talented and cute teen. Now she's a disaster. At least she's not Lindsay Lohan. Yet. Give a month.

Free kibbles

2011-12-20T12:41:00.000-05:00

ECONOMY:

Republicans have made minor cuts to the Ohio state budget and the Dayton city budget, and those minor cuts have resulted in job increases in the private sector. Unemployment has dropped in 85 of 88 Ohio counties.

"For the city of Dayton, the November unemployment rate was 9.6 percent, the lowest since a 9 percent rate in November 2008. The new monthly rate also was down from 10.7 percent in October and from 11.7 percent in November 2010.In Montgomery County, the November rate was 8.6 percent, lowest since the same rate in December 2008.
The county rate for November also was down from 9.6 percent in October and from 10.3 percent in November 2010.
The news was the same for the Dayton metro area, which includes Montgomery, Greene and Preble counties.
The metro area rate for November was 8.3 percent, lowest since the same rate in December 2008.
The metro area rate also was down from 9.3 percent in October and from 9.9 percent in November 2010."

Economics isn't rocket science. The fewer resources, including labor, government wastes in the parasitic political economy, the more resources are available to create wealth and improve the lives of the people at large.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The Fed orders too big too fail banks to hold more capital. That means money will have to come from somewhere to meet the new capital requirements. The stock market? I doubt the Fed would let the stock market fall. I bet the Fed will just print enough money and give it to the banks to meet the requirements, meaning this is just another charade.

POLICE STATE:

The other side of the drone debate: people can use them to monitor police.

Sheriff's deputy kills two, then police arrest and prosecute their families for being upset.

"Daniel Hiler ran out of gas during an evening motorcycle ride in Oildale, California on December 16. While walking his bike to a gas station, the twenty-year-old father of two ran into a family friend named Chrystal Jolley. The pair was crossing a street at a widely-recognized intersection when they were fatally blindsided by a vehicle traveling at a speed well in excess of the posted speed limit. Despite the fact that darkness had descended, the driver hadn’t turned on his headlights. The victims were killed instantly.Within minutes, police swarmed the scene, and arrests were made — none of which involved the driver, Deputy John Swearengin of the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. The four people arrested were relatives of the victims, who got into what the Sheriff’s Office described as an “altercation” with California Highway Patrol officers when they attempted to identify the victims."

Too common.

WAR:

To some people, WWI never ended in the Middle East because of the continual occupation and interference since.

You know how the US government always claims it wants to stop nuclear proliferation? Not so much.

"North Korea has long offered to junk its nuclear program – which is solely intended for self-defense – if the US would sign a non-aggression pact with Pyongyang and lift crushing trade sanctions."

Margolis is hopeful though.

"What frightens South Korean strategists the most is not North Korea’s small nuclear program, but rather what they call, "unexpected reunification:" the total collapse of the North Korean state, sending millions of starving refugees south across the Demilitarized Zone. South Korea is in no financial position to feed million or, more onerous, build a viable North Korea. In any event, many South Koreans do not want reunification.
Japan also fears waves of Korean boat people heading for its shores. Tokyo prefers a divided to a united Korea, which would be a serious economic rival.This writer, who has covered Korea for 35 years, has a sense that the most likely scenario will be a combined military-party leadership taking power and slowly moving North Korea away from the Kim dynasty’s megalomaniac leadership towards more cooperation with South Korea and better relations with the west."

Let's hope that's true. The US should pull troops out of Korea to reduce tensions and enable the two Koreas to resolve their own issues. The government should also allow free trade with North Korea.

FOREIGN POLICY:

I used to think China and Russia were waging a new Cold War against the US, but after recognizing that the US government is nearly always the aggressor, I now realize that the US government is waging another Cold War against them.

Walter Williams reports that our trade with China is grossly exaggerated.

"Hale and Hobijn find that the vast majority of goods and services sold in the United States are produced here. In 2010, total imports were about 16 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, and of that, 2.5 percent came from China."

Further:

"Much of what China sells us has considerable "local content." Hale and Hobijn give the example of sneakers that might sell for $70. They point out that most of that price goes for transportation in the U.S., rent for the store where they are sold, profits for shareholders of the U.S. retailer, and marketing costs, which include the salaries, wages and benefits paid to the U.S. workers and managers responsible for getting sneakers to consumers. On average, 55 cents of every dollar spent on goods made in China goes for marketing services produced in the U.S."

So trade is just being used as an excuse to demagogue China. Why? The US government is competing with China for oil and other natural resources all over world. Thus our many wars. It sounds like this trade demagoguery is designed to boost support from imperial actions.

POLITICS:

Americans disillusioned with political process. It's about time. Our system has always been designed to make sure the worst of the worst rise to the top. Mitt Romney tries to capitalize on the sentiment by blaming the the Super PACs. Romney has tremendously more money than any other candidate, so of course he would like to get rid Super PACs because they help even the field.

Apparently Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck prefer Ron Paul to Newt Gingrich. Good for them.

Another article trying to de-legitimize Iowa because Ron Paul might win.

"What especially worries Iowa Republican regulars is the possibility that Paul could win here on January 3rd with the help of Democrats and independents who change their registration to support the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman but then don’t support the GOP nominee next November."

In other words, only dedicated party members should be allowed to pick the nominee. The establishment wants to freeze out any outside influences because outside influences might upset the gravy train of government looting the establishment of both parties profits from.

Here's a wonderful example of the ubiquitous, legal corruption of government.

"When Senate Democrats finally brokered a compromise over the proposed health-care law, a group of hedge funds were let in on the deal, learning details hours before a public announcement on Dec. 8, 2009.The news was potentially worth millions of dollars to the investors, though none would publicly divulge how they used the information. They belong to a select group who pay for early, firsthand reports on Capitol Hill.
Seeking advance word of government decisions is part of a growing, lucrative—and legal— practice in Washington that employs a network of brokers, lobbyists and political insiders who arrange private meetings ..."

This is one of myriad ways the ruling class uses the power of government to loot us.

Here's an accusation of very specific and illegal corruption against Gingrich.

"On October 5, Sarkis Soghanalian, once the world’s largest private arms dealer, died at 82. He had sold weapons to scores of dictators including Saddam Hussein, and he took many secrets with him to his grave. But one secret he did not take involves Newt Gingrich when he was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. DCBureau has learned that Gingrich was at the center of a U.S. Justice Department criminal investigation in the late 1990s for a scheme to shake down the arms dealer for a $10 million bribe in exchange for Gingrich using his influence as Speaker to get the Iraq arms embargo lifted so Soghanalian could collect $54 million from Saddam Hussein’s regime for weapons he had delivered during the Iran-Iraq War."

It's certainly believable, but the word bribe is charged. This is just standard political horse-trading between members of the ruling class. And yeah, this arms dealer was a member of the ruling class. The ruling class consists of people with access to the levers of government power.

MEDIA:

WXIX in Cincinnati does another reality check on Ron Paul, this one about his policy toward Israel.

Even though Ron Paul is currently leading polls in Iowa as this USA Today article points out, the headline says he's still not in the lead.

"Paul received 21.7% of potential caucusgoers, according to an average of three recent polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney trails him slightly with 20.3% and former speaker Newt Gingrich comes in third with 15.7%."

You can't make this stuff up.

MISC:

Even the NFL game last night in San Francisco illustrated how the US, especially California, is turning into a third world country.

Free kibbles

2011-12-19T13:50:00.001-05:00

SOCIALISM:

The lunacy of Soviet communism central planning.

FASCISM:

A definition of fascism that shows the US is a fascist government.

TAX AND SPEND:

Pat Buchanan points to David Cameron's rejection of the German sponsored Eurozone treaty as the first step in the breakup of the Eurozone.

The PIIGS are manipulating the people into buying bonds that the governments will default on. This is another way to steal the people's money and impoverish them.

REGULATION:

The government has officially killed the AT&T-T-Mobile merger.

""AT&T has officially announced that it no longer plans to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom. In a press release, the company said, 'The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.'""

Well said.

Apple, heralded as a paragon of the free market by many libertarians, teams up with the government to ban the import of HTC phones.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Obama's CAFE standards have effectively banned small pickups in America.

WAR ON DRUGS:

The violence caused by the war on drugs in Mexico is spreading south and scaring off American ex-patriots.

"Mexico is being wrecked in what amounts to an out-sourced American civil war. Huge numbers of Americans use drugs, most assuredly including people on Capitol Hill. Moralists and the Feds don't want them to use drugs. Putting many millions of white users in Leavenworth would be politically awkward. So: Export the war to Mexico, which never had a drug problem. This solution is acceptable for white users, who continue to have ample supplies at high convenience and low cost. It is acceptable to the anti-drug industry, the cops and prison guards and so on, who get fat salaries, and to the narcos. It is a splendid situation all around, except for poor blacks and Mexico. About neither of which anyone gives a damn."

I'm always impressed by the holier than thou attitude of the prohibitionists who are destroying so many lives.

"Now, it must be obvious to a mentally retarded marmoset that nothing can stop the flow of drugs to the United States. Any drug anyone might want is available at reasonable cost to anyone who wants it. When peasants in the Sierra Madre Occidental can suddenly have high-end pickup trucks and cable television by selling drugs, they are going to sell drugs. And why not? After all, if the gringos don't want drugs, they don't have to buy them, do they? When the cartels make $40 billion a year (a common figure, however arrived at) there will always be those wanting to work in the trade. The money is sufficient to buy military-grade weapons from the US, including from the US government, and it is enough to bribe officials in both countries."

I seriously wonder about people who don't understand this.

POLICE STATE:

I love that businesses are now crowd-sourcing charter flights so people can avoid the TSA. The government will quickly stop this. It can't let anybody escape from its totalitarian policies.

If only we were as free as Mexicans. Ron Paul is right about the border fence being used to keep Americans in.

Story of the first publicized use of a drone on US soil. It's another story of awesome government overreaction - a paramilitary assault employing a drone - to a minor dispute over a half dozen stray cows.

I've long argued the US was on the verge of becoming the Soviet Union. This author argues that, with the new law allowing US troops to capture Americans on US soil and imprison them indefinitely, the transformation is complete.

It's long been rumored that FEMA has been setting up camps like concentration camps around the country. Now it looks like FEMA is finally doing that.

WAR:

Pat Buchanan on the disastrous consequences of the Iraq War.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Rand Paul stopped Marco Rubio and the Senate from forcing Obama to fast-track Georgia into NATO. Nice job.

Analysis of the situation in Egypt.

POLITICS:

Remember when the Tea Party pretended to support small government? Tea Party Patriots endorse Newt Gingrich in straw poll. It was all baloney. Gingrich has dropped back into a tie with Romney.

Claim that Republicans leaders are afraid the Iowa caucuses will be hacked. This sounds like they're laying the groundwork to delegitimize a victory by Ron Paul. Gingrich falls back in Iowa as Ron Paul surges into the lead. Paul number two in New Hampshire. The tea party people claim they want small government. There's only one small government candidate in the race. The primary will be a test of the honesty of the Tea Party.

Mark Steyn is in top form taking on Newt Gingrich.

"A year ago, we were still talking about Palin and Daniels and Christie and Jindal and Ryan, an embarrassment of riches. Barely a month ago, Cain and 9-9-9 were riding high, an embarrassment of a different kind, and Gingrich was still a single-digit asterisk. But, like Gussie Fink-Nottle, we are all Newt-fanciers now. On the eve of Iowa it seems the Republican base’s dream candidate is a Clinton-era retread who proclaims himself a third Roosevelt, with Taft’s waistline and twice as many ex-wives as the first 44 presidents combined; a lead zeppelin with more baggage than the Hindenburg; a self-help guru crossed with a K Street lobbyist, which means he’s helped himself on a scale few of us could dream of. For this the Tea Party spent three years organizing and agitating?"

When Steyn is on, he's great. Here's another great line:

"Newt, says former New Hampshire governor John H. Sununu, is “inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy, and unprincipled.” But, up against an untrustworthy, unprincipled opponent of consistently non-erratic soporific caution, that’s more than enough. Mitt Romney flutters no hearts."

That sums up the pygmies at the top of the race. Where have we heard this before?

"Both leading conservative candidates have supported government mandates on health care. Both leading conservative candidates have supported massive expansion of entitlements. But they differ on the critical issue of whether we should use large numbers of welfare claimants to mine unpasteurized green cheese from the dark side of the moon."

Oh. It was on this blog.

"Newt is said to be “unpredictable.” This is true in the narrow sense that one would not have predicted that a social faux pas in placement on state transportation to the Yitzhak Rabin funeral would lead him to shut down the federal government. But, aside from such offenses to his amour-propre, Newt is actually extremely predictable. The surest way to bet is that the big-government stuff will happen and the rest won’t. It was Newt who gave us S-CHIP, the biggest expansion of Medicaid since the program was created. On the other hand, when it came to holding the line on “tax credits” for people who don’t pay any taxes, Gingrich looked into Clinton’s eyes and melted."

Oh my goodness. This is great.

"I’d prefer to formulate it this way: Gingrich is a pushover for progressivism who’s succeeded in passing himself off as a hard-line right-wing bastard"

That's a fact.

Condoleezza Rice would be a great VP pick for one of the establishment candidates.

A great graphic showing the overlap of personnel between government and seven giant corporations or corporate sectors.

MISC:

I'm equally disgusted by the electronics in cars. I hope to never buy a new car again.

The ultimate hangover cure.

Video of unbelievable model train setup.

Recently released Herbert Hoover book shows how FDR maneuvered Japan into attacking the US.

Free kibbles

2011-12-18T11:35:00.000-05:00

TAX AND SPEND:

Maybe no matter how cynical I become, I know I still hope for the best because I can't help but laugh at the concept that John Boehner, who a couple of weeks ago didn't give a damn about extending the payroll tax reduction, suddenly rejects the two month extension agreed upon by the Senate as "just kicking the can down the road." As if John Boehner has never voted to increase spending knowing full well that it couldn't be paid for. Do I need to enumerate the outrageous, unsustainable spending programs Boehner supported while Bush was president? I hope not. No matter how evil I believe the leaders of both parties to be, they always impress me by being more evil.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Thanks to the Fed's low interest rates, the price of farmland has surged while crop prices are falling. Here's another bubble created by the Fed.

HEALTH CARE:

Over half of medical techs report they routinely text during surgery.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The goofy-ass North Korean dictator who supposedly shot 18 or 27 or some stupid score on the front nine of a golf course died at age 69. It's sad that the best doctors and health care in North Korea could only keep this fruitcake alive until 69. What's worse is the US health care system doesn't perform much better. The problem is that his successor will probably wrench up tensions to prove himself to his competitors.

POLITICS:

I warned that if Ron Paul won Iowa, the Republican establishment would mount an unprecedented smear campaign against him. I didn't need any evidence to figure this out. Logic is all I needed. Apparently others have evidence.

"Tim Carney, an honest anti-corporatist conservative and a friend, has sounded the warning in the otherwise Paul-wary Examiner that should Dr. Paul happen to win Iowa, the long knives will be out for him and blood may well flow."

I hate the violent allusions applied to politics. I often challenged Lew Rockwell for calling Ron Paul heroic. I don't think he appreciated it. There's nothing heroic about standing on principle when the only thing you have to lose is votes. No blood will be shed. That's just raw meat to draw in more readers. I bet the attacks will be unprecedented and unseemly, but they will only be verbal and media-oriented: i.e. they might try to cut Paul out of a debate. There will be no blood and no heroics. But I appreciate that Ron Paul stands up to the powerful, political establishment that controls both parties. Also, I appreciate that politics as we know it replaced the civil wars that came before.

The last poll I saw put Ron Paul within one point of Gingrich in Iowa. Karl Rove - yeah, that Karl Rove - says Ron Paul will do better than his poll numbers because of his organization. He might as well have said Paul will win Iowa. No offense to the Telegraph, and I'm glad to read it highlights the possibility (probability?) of a Ron Paul victory, but I'll trust Rove because he's the premier Republican pollster right now.

MISC:

I'm sick and tired of the mediocrity of the NFL. The NFL has hidden its mediocrity behind pretensions of parity for years now, but I'm getting disgusted with it. The most egregious example is the receiver scandal. It's unbelievable how many receivers, making millions of dollars per year, drop open passes. It's a scandal. the NFL should open investigations into this scandal.

A Victorian Renaissance in Downtown Dayton

2011-12-17T14:58:00.001-05:00

A Victorian Renaissance in Downtown Dayton
by Mark Luedtke

Most Daytonians know the story of the reclamation of the Oregon District, but St. Anne’s Hill is a lesser known, historic Victorian neighborhood being restored by motivated residents. Just a mile east of the Oregon District, St. Anne’s Hill is bounded by Keowee and Dutoit Streets on the west, Fourth Street on the north, McClure Street and Tower Lane on the east, and Josie Street on the south with Fifth Street passing through the heart of the neighborhood.

Susan Gray bought a house in St. Anne’s Hill in 1995, and after renovating it, she and her husband moved in in 2000. She’s been active in promoting the neighborhood since 1996, and she’s currently president of the St. Anne’s Hill Historic Society. Mrs Gray recounts the history of the neighborhood, “St. Anne's Hill was part of the original platted out-lots of the city of Dayton. Originally the land comprised the farm of the Bomberger family and the orchard and farm owned by Eugene Dutoit. The original Dutoit farmhouse, built in 1833, still stands and is occupied by a wonderful family on Dutoit St. Most of the homes in St. Anne's Hill were built in the 1870's and 1880's, but building continued until the 1920's.”

The residents of St. Anne’s Hill provided valuable service to their fellow Daytonians during the 1913 flood. “During the 1913 flood St. Anne's became ‘waterfront property’. On land too high to flood, many boats delivered refugees from downtown to our ‘shores’ along what is now 5th and Keowee and residents opened their homes to people needing a place to stay until their homes could be repaired or rebuilt.” After the 1920s, St. Anne’s Hill was largely forgotten. Then, “In the late 1960's the beautiful homes here were rediscovered. Restorations began and the area was saved from the kind of Urban Renewal popular at the time, razing existing properties and building high rise apartment buildings. St. Anne's Hill was designated a historic district in 1974 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.”

Today Stivers School for the Arts and Bomberger Park serve as gates from downtown. Banners identify the neighborhood, and planters decorate Fifth Street in front of small businesses with an emphasis on the arts like St. Anne’s Hill Violins and G Strickland Guitar Maker. Mrs. Gray emphasizes the neighborhood’s art businesses, “St. Anne’s Hill has been home to The Dayton Society of Painters and Sculptors (in their High St. Gallery) and the Liederkranz-Turner German Club for many years. Joining those creative outlets, Missing Peace Art Space moved into a renovated carriage house next to the home of its director in 2009.”

Improving Fifth Street is a priority for the St. Anne’s Hill Historical Society. “A lot of effort has been placed on improving the appearance of 5th St. Even in a neighborhood with a real can-do attitude like St. Anne's Hill, we know we can't do it all ourselves. Volunteers tire out, and funding is always an issue, too. But we believe that by improving the appearance of 5th St. and making it as inviting as possible, we can attract small businesses and residents back to the area.”

Big, beautifully restored old houses, many with a distinctive German character, including three churches that have been converted into residences, dominate the residential area. Ladders and workers can be seen on every block as owners renovate additional historic homes. A number of homes still need an owner to renovate them.

Every odd year, volunteers organize “A Dickens of a Christmas in St. Anne's Hill” to showcase their neighborhood. St. Anne’s Hill Historical Society trustee Keith Klein explains the name, “We call it a ‘Dickens of A Christmas’ to help paint a picture of a beautiful Victorian neighborhood filled with interesting characters.” But this isn’t a Charles Dickens dress-up event. The characters Mr. Klein refers to are the modern day residents of St. Anne’s Hill.

Mrs. Gray provides details for the upcoming event, “‘A Dickens of a Christmas in St. Anne's Hill’, our biennial holiday home tour, will be held December 9, 10 and 11 this year. This tour regularly draws close to 1,000 people to our community. It is an important fundraising event for us, as well as an opportunity to show off our community and market it to potential new neighbors. The tour, through nine homes, ends at the Bossler Mansion, where guests are served dessert and given an opportunity to shop in our tour gift shop, which features handmade gifts created by neighbors and friends of St. Anne's Hill. We limit the size of each tour to insure the enjoyment of all our guests, and therefore we ask guests to make reservations. For more information or to order tickets you can go to our website www.stanneshill.org or call 937-224-HILL (4455).”

Mrs. Gray describes why visitors might enjoy more than the Victorian architecture, “The architecture of the homes, and the romance of the Victorian era, draw us to the area, but it’s the people that make us want to stay. One thing about St. Anne’s Hill: we use the words ‘neighbor’ and ‘friend’ interchangeably. We hold monthly socials to foster a sense of community. When you know your neighbors you tend to look out for them, and they for you.” This is a great opportunity for Daytonians to experience part of the revival of downtown Dayton.

Originally published in the Dayton City Paper - Saint Anne's Hill

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2011-12-17T12:06:00.002-05:00

TAX AND SPEND:

Feds tax home buyers to pay for payroll tax cut extension. No matter what you do, they find ways to steal your money. This also puts downward pressure on home prices while they claim they want to prop them up.

Capital gains taxes are scheduled to rise at the end of 2012. Just what we need, another drain on private sector investment.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

When I first read about this MF Global bankruptcy, I recognized the name Jon Corzine, but I never did place it. Here's a reminder who Jon Corzine is:

"Jon Corzine told the House Agriculture Committee, "I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date." The public is outraged that the former CEO of bankrupt global financial-derivatives broker and prime dealer in US Treasury securities MF Global doesn't know where the missing $1.2 billion in client funds went.Corzine is the member a few exclusive clubs: he is a Goldman Sachs alum, former US senator, and former New Jersey governor. After the incumbent Corzine was beat by Chris Christie in the 2009 New Jersey gubernatorial race, the MF board probably rejoiced, believing the guy to fix their problems was suddenly available. Now he's in the club of taking a mere 20 months to create the eighth largest bankruptcy in history."

This is probably the most under-reported story of the year.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Forget what scientists tell you about endangered polar bears. The real story is growing polar bear populations are becoming problems for small towns.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Egypt's military attacks protesters.

"Troops pulled women across the pavement by their hair, knocking off their Muslim headscarves, and slapped a middle-aged woman in the face repeatedly Saturday. Young activists were kicked in the head until they lay motionless in Cairo's Tahrir Square."

Remember when Egyptians considered the military to be on their side? I wonder what they think now. Things were fine as long as the protesters just wanted Mubarak to surrender power. Now that the people want the military to surrender power, things are very different. People in power always want more. They never want to give it up. They'll use every bit of their power to protect their power.

Kazakhstan government disables the internet because of protesters much the way US governments have shut down cell phones and blocked Twitter during protests.

POLITICS:

Leno gives Ron Paul 20 minutes. Three segments. This is a great interview.

Now the establishment claims that if Ron Paul wins Iowa, then Iowa no longer matters.

Occupy Wall Street crooks break into Episcopal church parking lot because they hate property rights.

MEDIA:

Liberal commentator makes case for Ron Paul over Obama. This is why Ron Paul would trounce Obama in the general election. He will draw a significant number of votes from the left. The Republican establishment always claims Republicans should nominate a moderate to win centrists, and that's baloney. They should nominate a supporter of the Constitution to really draw votes from the left.

LOCAL:

In a wonderful example of how Americans help each other, local visitors to Kmart are paying off delinquent layaways to help families have a good Christmas. I wonder if it's Kmart managers. Not to be cynical because it's generous no matter who does it, but this is a great plug for the store.

Freedom is always the right answer

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You might be a big government conservative

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Losers, Losers and More Losers

Top Ten News Stories of 2011

1. Unemployment

2. Sovereign Debt Crisis

3. Arab Spring

4. Navy SEALs Kill Osama bin Laden

5. Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

6. Perpetual War

7. The Occupy Movement

8. Casey Anthony Trial

9. Institutionalization of Child Sex Abuse

10. A Tale of Two Weddings

Honorable mention

Dayton Construction

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A Victorian Renaissance in Downtown Dayton

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