Monday, November 21, 2011

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Michelle Bachmann pledges to ban all forms of pornography.

SOCIALISM:

Graphic shows that non-union manufacturing jobs have lost little over the last couple of decades, unionized manufacturing jobs have declined dramatically. This shows how unions harm workers.

TAX AND SPEND:

Petitioners calling to make net access an inalienable right don't know the difference between a service and a right.

Astronomy picture of the day has shown videos of the earth from the ISS three times in the last couple of weeks. I wonder why NASA is promoting the ISS so hard. Something is going on that we're not hearing about. The government is spending $2.5 billion to send another rover to Mars. I'd rather have my share of that in my pocket.

Remember when Republicans claimed they were cutting spending in return for raising the debt ceiling? I hope you didn't fall for that charade. The pass-the-buck committee was designed to fail, and both parties always planned Congress would reverse the automatic spending cuts. None of those automatic cuts will survive. This was all political theater designed to steal more of our money by raising the debt ceiling while creating the illusion Republicans wanted to cut spending.

Small government fraud Paul Ryan votes against balanced budget amendment which fails in the House. This is another political charade. The government doesn't obey the Constitution. What's another amendment that government will ignore going to do? I agree that the two big government parties would use that amendment to raise taxes to match their runaway spending, not vice-versa, but it sounds like Ryan wants us to believe he's a supporter of the discredited starve the beast philosophy. I guess that keeping taxes disconnected from spending does provide a minor obstacle to spending increases when the people get angry about the debt and taxes.

Naturally the failure of central planners that is leading to the breakup of the eurozone is prompting central planners to demand more power.

REGULATION:

Frustrated consumer wants to know if there is any option for a smartphone that respects privacy. Not that I know of, and that's because government regulations, in this case patents, severely restrict competition. Absent patent restrictions, there would be multiple companies competing in the privacy smartphone market. Here's an interesting comment.
"In spite of that, email communication and web communication is encrypted/decrypted on the BlackBerry smartphone itself, so RIM (the company that does BlackBerry) can't snoop into your data contents even if they wanted to. That's why some authoritarian countries around the world couldn't quite understand - they demanded RIM hand over the secret keys to let them read any message contents, which they just assumed RIM must have, even though they don't. Similarly, with the riots in Britain earlier this year, the authorities complained that the rioters were co-ordinating using BlackBerry phones, and they couldn't intercept those communications. To me, that's a strong recommendation for a BlackBerry if you want security and privacy."
If this is true, it is a good recommendation.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Report that China has allowed gold to be used as money gets 404 error. If true, this is great news for the Chinese.

Speculation that the MF Global bankruptcy was a hit by the Federal Reserve to take down commodity speculators who are exposing Bernanke's inflation. More evidence of corruption making this happen. Isn't it funny how the eight largest bankruptcy in history is making no news? A broker closed her firm and explained the significance of this bankruptcy:
"I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets, because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse."
Do you think that's a worthy news story?
"Ms. Barnhardt further explains that markets are completely fractured… that the rule of law in the United States no longer exists. She decries Jon Corzine of MF Global for having outright stolen customer funds, and various exchanges and government regulators for having frozen out customer accounts as a result."
The press wouldn't want people to know that now, would they? I've been saying the rule of law no longer exists for quite a while. It's nice to see that establishment folks see that too.
"A real economy cannot function under such circumstances. With Europe on the precipice and roughly $600 TRILLION in global derivative notional value lurking in the system, can a real collapse be that far off?Famed hedge fund manager Mark Mobius recently said, “There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis.”
Not only have the major issues not been resolved, but governments continue making things worse. More bailouts, more printing, more deficits take an enormous problem and make it unfathomable."
We're cruising to a far bigger crash.

The official list of the 29 too big to fail banks. They can do anything they want, take any risk they want and lose however much money they want because they are guaranteed to be bailed out.

HEALTH CARE:

Because government's medical establishment has created so many superbugs that render antibiotics obsolete, DARPA is looking to replace antibiotics.

The FDA bans a drug that might save the lives of people with breast cancer.

Obamacare is already killing jobs.
"While the White House continues its rhetoric on job creation, the job-killing effects of Obamacare are already taking effect. One provision of the law, its tax on medical device manufacturers, is already having a detrimental impact on a Michigan-based manufacturer.Stryker Corporation has announced that it will cut approximately 5 percent of its workforce by 2013 due to the tax. As Heritage has shown, this isn’t the first device manufacturer to voice concerns about job loss in the U.S. resulting from the tax, and it is sure not to be the last."
Thanks, Obama.

What's the leading cause of death in the US?
"In this video, Internationally renowned natural health physician and Mercola.com founder Dr. Joseph Mercola documents how American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. Further, it is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. His antidote is to make simple diet and lifestyle changes to live a long and healthy life."
Good idea.

POLICE STATE:

Former TSA agent tells the truth:
"honestly the worst most embarrassing job I have ever had… it is theater folks! They protect no one. Its [sic] an illusion. Want proof? Next time you travel bring with you two glass bottles. One broken and one intact. The broken one will be taken away. It is after all a weapon! You can break the other bottle AFTER they let you in with it."
It's good to know some people have the character to resign from government jobs.

Probe finds prosecutorial misconduct in Ted Stevens case. You could find the same in pretty much every case.

The FBI refused to help New York Police capture the pipe-bomb making wannabe terrorist because they didn't think he had the disposition or the ability to become a terrorist.
"Pimentel "didn't have the predisposition or the ability to do anything on his own," one official said the FBI concluded."
Except build pipe bombs in his home. This is the same agency that hasn't caught a real terrorist in years. They keep setting up patsies, pushing them into claiming they want to attack the US, supplying the money, weapons and expertise, then arresting them and pretending they saved us. They're incompetent at capturing real terrorists, but they're experts at turning people into terrorists. How is this good for us?

There's no doubt that the police state versus the Occupy movement will end badly for everybody.

On the rapid militarization of police in America.
"The government is sending a clear message: “We are in charge.”It’s no wonder that, according to a recent Gallup poll, a record-high 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being run. On a proportional basis, this is 25% higher than during the Watergate scandal.
What’s even more stark is that, according to the same poll, roughly HALF of Americans believe the federal government has become so large and powerful that it POSES AN IMMEDIATE THREAT to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.This certainly explains why the government is increasing its offensive capabilities."
There's no doubt that the police state versus the people will end badly for everybody too.

WAR:

The US government has long resisted claims that US troops are occupiers in the Middle East, so this Occupy Bagram sign is probably not a good idea no matter how well intentioned.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The news recently trumpeted a new IAEA report claiming Iran was trying to make a nuclear weapon, but the reality is there's little new in the report.
"A new element in the UN is the claim that a Russian scientist who supposedly worked on Iranian nuclear weapons explosive technology has defected and revealed all to western intelligence.But investigative journalists now assert that the scientist may actually have worked in Russia on explosive technology to produce industrial diamonds, not nuclear weapons. This would be very embarrassing for Washington’s war party and for media agitating for war against Iran.Remember "Curveball," the key Iraqi defector whose phony claims were the basis for the US invasion of Iraq? Well, could this Russian scientist turn out to be "Curveballski? ""
"In 1992, Natanyahu claimed Iran would have nuclear weapons in 3-5 years. Shimon Peres, now Israel’s president, insisted Iran would have nukes by 1999.In 1995, the New York Times claimed Iran was only 5 years from nuclear weapons. US Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld claimed Iran was fielding a nuclear-armed ICBM that could hit the United States.And so it has gone, a steady drumbeat of false claims."
How much money do we waste on the CIA every year? This is why we badly need competing private sector intelligence agencies. This is a really good exposition.

Pat Buchanan fears, after the Republican foreign policy debate, that a vote for a Republican is a vote for war with Iran. The candidates, other than Ron Paul, were very scary.
"But if Iran represents, as Bibi Netanyahu is forever reminding us, an "existential threat," why does not Israel itself, with hundreds of nuclear weapons, deal with it?Bibi's inaction speaks louder than Bibi's words.
He wants the Americans to do it."
This is what I keep saying: the US has no security conflict with Iran. If Israel really thought they did, they would do something about it. The Israel government is trying to bait the US government into toppling the Mullahs for them, and the American people should not allow that to happen.
"And there is no conclusive evidence in that media-hyped report last week from the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is for certain building nuclear weapons. Indeed, that report was exposed as the work of incompetents within hours."
Buchanan thinks the Iranians don't want a bomb because it would make them more of a target.
"How would an Iranian bomb secure Iran, when Israel's nuclear arsenal would be put on a hair trigger, and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt would then rush to get their own bombs?"
I don't know about this. I'm sure the Iranians have watched the situation with North Korea carefully. Nothing bad happened to North Korea when they developed a bomb. It didn't start a nuclear arms race with Japan and South Korea. Obviously southeastern Asia is not the Middle East, but you can never predict what people, especially the terrible people who gain control of governments, are thinking. This is another really good article on the subject.

POLITICS:

Nobody has noticed the NBA isn't playing games. The league is really hurting itself by making itself irrelevant. But to make matters worse, now NBA players are playing an exhibition to raise money for Obama's re-election. Those guys are amazingly out of touch.

Occupy Oakland calls to for Occupiers to shut down all ports on the west coast.

A member of the Occupy San Diego movement shoots at the White House, but a journalist blames the Tea Party.
"Well, here's what we do know about Ortega-Hernandez. Police searched for him at the Occupy DC encampment after they received reports that he had spent time there.Occupy San Diego protesters decided that such reports were sufficient to claim the White House shooter as one of their own, and so they held "a moment of silence" to demonstrate their "solidarity" behind the man charged with attempting to assassinatePresident Obama."
Another example of the violence inherent in leftist ideology.

The easy path from scion of a Democrat to media fame and fortune.

Video of Barack Obama from 1991 shows the establishment has been grooming him for decades. This jives with the revelation that Obama's mother worked for Geithner's father in Asia, most likely as CIA agents, when both were children.

Rick Perry pledges to lead by example by following Ron Paul's pledge to take only half salary.

MEDIA:

Breakdown of all the media outlets owned by six  major corporations shows they own it all. And you wonder why it's all the same.

One member of the Casey Anthony lynch mob whipped up by the media tried to assassinate her. Or maybe Obama put her on his hit list.

MISC:

Ten recurring economic fallacies.

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