Brace for a Double Dip Depression

Brace for a Double Dip Depression

by Mark Luedtke

Day after day for nearly a year, President Obama has trotted out Treasury Secretary and tax cheat Tim Geithner, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and an army of Obama-economists to claim the economy is recovering, and Obama's mainstream media cheerleaders dutifully parrot all the president's men. It's a powerful propaganda campaign. Unfortunately these are the same guys who told us the economy was strong in 2007. These are the same guys who didn't see a housing bubble until it collapsed. They didn't see a financial crisis until Lehmen Brothers collapsed. These economists have three things in common - they were wrong then and they are wrong now.

Leftists pay lip service to diversity, but they hate diversity of ideas. The third thing these economists have in common is they're all brainwashed in Ivy League Keynesian economics. Only a government employee - including academics - can be wrong over and over, wrong every time, and keep his or her job. The professional politicians tell us these people are experts, but they have a different definition of expert than the rest of us. Outside of Washington, expert means a person who has an extensive track record of success in his field. Captain Sully is an expert pilot. James Cameron is an expert movie maker. Government economists - including academics who are almost exclusively funded by government - are political hacks posing as experts. They get paid to tell the politicians and the people what they want to hear, not what's true. And this doesn't apply just to Democrats. George Bush's economic advisers were all brainwashed Ivy League Keynesians too, and that's why they also failed to foresee the economic collapse.

In 1936, John Maynard Keynes published The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money which basically said that during recessions, governments can return the economy to full employment by borrowing and printing money then spending it. Keynes claimed the government could fix the economy by burying money in mines, filling them up, then allowing people to dig it up. When asked what happens in the long run when the debt can no longer be sustained, he famously replied, "In the long run we are all dead." Most economists at the time considered Keynes a kook, but the political class hailed him as a genius because his book provided pseudo-intellectual cover for their favorite activity, borrowing and printing money, looting the people, amassing debt, then spending it to expand their power.

Keynesianism didn't take off right away because Hoover and Roosevelt had been following Keynes's prescription since the crash of 1929, borrowing, printing, then spending money on public works projects, and that approach created the second then the third dip of what became the Great Depression. Keynesianism was tried again in the 1970s and resulted in 20 percent interest rates and 10 percent unemployment. It's been tried in Japan since the 1990s, called the lost decade in Japan, and Japan's economy still hasn't recovered. Keynesianism has failed every time it's been tried since the dawn of civilization, and it's doomed to fail this time because it flies in the face of the laws of economics. Because government spending diverts resources from solving the problems of the people to empowering and enriching politicians and their cronies, it invariably harms our economy and makes us poorer. But by controlling funding for academia, politicians made Keynesianism the dominant economic theory in academia, virtually every introductory economics textbook teaches it, and subsequently the world.

Keynesianism is the theory behind all the Bush-Obama stimulus boondoggles and bailouts. Fortunately Obama hasn't seized control of the internet yet, so we can learn alternative economic theories. The real experts from the Austrian school of economics at mises.org who predicted the current economic crisis, the dot.com bust, stagflation and the Great Depression are predicting we're racing toward a bigger crash than the crash of 2008, and some predict it will happen this year, possibly this summer. Ludwig von Mises developed the theory that artificially increasing the money supply drives the boom-bust cycle. With the exception of wars and natural disasters, all of America's economic downturns since 1913 were caused by the inflationary monetary policy of the Federal Reserve. Now Bernanke and central banks around the world are creating the biggest bubble ever, a sovereign debt bubble, enabling governments to spend like never before by printing money and buying government debt.

When the Greek sovereign debt problem became well known in April, their government asked for a $54 billion bailout. By the end of April, it was $145 billion. Sovereign debt chaos in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland caused central planners to expand the bailout to $900 billion in May. Amassing more debt and printing funny-money can't solve a debt problem, and savvy investors know it. The Dow dropped over 1,000 points from 11,151 on May 3rd to just over 10,136 on May 28. Europe faces a bigger debt hurdle in July when Spain will have to raise money, but Spanish banks are failing. Additionally, US real estate hasn't hit bottom yet. Private investment is below pre-9/11 levels. Unemployment jumped to 9.9 percent in April. And China's real estate bubble is collapsing.

Economic freedom universally leads to increased prosperity, and increased government control of the economy invariably makes people poorer. There are no exceptions. Obama, Geithner and Bernanke, a student of the Great Depression, all know this, yet they're doing everything wrong. Every policy they pursue damages our economy further. They're repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression on an unprecedented scale, and they know it. We're following Greece, but nobody can bail us out. We're racing toward a bigger crash, and the only conclusion that makes sense is Obama and his allies are doing it to us on purpose.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The Supreme Court previously slapped down Kagan's argument about a cost-benefit trade off to speech in an 8-1 decision, so Obama wants to put her on the Supreme Court so that won't happen again.

SOCIALISM:

Both Republicans and Democrats are fed up with public employee unions. Of course they waited until those unions bankrupted governments to get fed up. Too little. Too late.

ECONOMY:

In a reminder of how predictable our current circumstances were, Mises student predicted riots in Greece back in February. The US is headed down the same path.

REGULATION:

Turkey bans Google?

GLOBAL WARMING:

The senate is voting on a plan to reclaim some of the power grabbed from it by the EPA when it declared CO2 a pollutant.

Statistical analysis comparing Earth's natural climate cycles to temperature changes in the first half of the 20th century enables scientist to retroactively predict the rising temperatures in the second have of the 20th century. This is strong evidence that the warming we've experienced over the last 40 years is driven by natural climate cycles, not man-made greenhouse gases.

WAR:

Wistleblowing soldier arrested for leaking videos of soldiers killing civilians.

"Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.

He said he also leaked three other items to Wikileaks: a separate video showing the notorious 2009 Garani air strike in Afghanistan that Wikileaks has previously acknowledged is in its possession; a classified Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat, which the site posted in March; and a previously unreported breach consisting of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables that Manning described as exposing “almost criminal political back dealings.”"

The cover-up will not be televised.

10 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan.

FOREIGN POLICY:


Israelis kill three Palestinian divers and wound fourth engaged in apparent terrorist attack. It seems odd they would try to swim a couple of kilometers carrying a bunch of weapons to carry out their attack.

POLITICS:

Obama to "quickly" in shallow waters. Let's hope so, but I'll believe it when I see it. This is how Obama thinks of things:

"President Barack Obama bluntly defended his administration's response to the undersea gusher fouling the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, telling an interviewer he has met with experts to learn "whose ass to kick.""

He isn't trying to help. He isn't trying to get out of the way so the actors in the private sector can fix this problem faster. He's trying to do more harm, and he's losing it by exposing that. And he can't stop lying:

"I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf," Obama told NBC's "Today" show in an interview scheduled to air Tuesday. "A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be."

Nobody was covering it? That's just a bald faced lie.

MEDIA:

Helen Thomas finally stuck her foot in her mouth so deeply, she had to resign. Good riddance. She was the epitome of a commentator grinding axes while pretending to be a reporter.

MISC:

Use of weed-killer has >made weeds harder to kill. Duh. That's how evolution works.
Tar balls wash up on Florida coast. This model shows most of the oil will be dispersed into the Atlantic where it will do little damage before it breaks down.

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ECONOMY:

New British PM Cameron says the economy is "even worse than we thought". Who you calling we, Kimosabi? If he didn't know how bad it was, what's he doing heading the government? Surely somebody in Britain knew how bad it was, and he or she would seem to be a better candidate for PM. At least Cameron says the government must make bigger cuts than previously thought. I doubt he'll make any significant cuts.

This article makes a powerful case that this depression, Depression II, is worse than the Great Depression, Depression I.

"From jobs to food to the roofs over our heads, the current period of economic turmoil is at least as bad as the First Great Depression, whether or not the financial media wishes to acknowledge it. The main difference is that unlike in the '30s, the US dollar is now the world's fiat reserve currency, so we are able to push our problems overseas for awhile. The plight of the rural Chinese is really our plight - we are living lavishly on the wealth they create. Were they to quit this dastardly arrangement, the full effects of Great Depression II would be felt in America."

Another reason we don't feel this depression as acutely is our economy was much bigger when this depression hit. We may have fallen farther percentage-wise, but because we started so much higher, we're still higher in absolute terms.

TAX AND SPEND:

Federal debt, not counting the much bigger entitlement debt, is surpassing GDP.

EDUCATION:

Teachers in New York gave students credit on tests even though they had blatantly wrong answers. Government welcomes and rewards failure. This is what we get for surrendering our responsibility to educate our children to the government.

HEALTH CARE:

Britain's NHS, in order to save $20 billion, will not perform millions of operations. Just for the record, that's bureaucrats rationing care.

POLICE STATE:

Government arrests two people for talking about becoming terrorists, but who never did anything except try to board a plane to leave the country. This is nuts. They weren't planning an attack. They were just talking about joining others.

MISC:

The king of handguns.

Japanese clapping wing robot in not inspired by a hummingbird. University of Buffalo studying vortexes generated by flying insects. Delfly micro. Boeing's big, stealthy unmanned helicopter has nothing to do with a hummingbird. Hummingbird inspired robot from California.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The FTC backtracks from proposals to tax electronic devices in order to subsidize newspapers. It looks like the government closely follows LewRockwell.com and mises.org.

TAX AND SPEND:

There is no money.

"On May 17, David Laws, the new British government's Chief Secretary to the Treasury, walked into his office. There on the desk was a note from the previous holder of this high office, Liam Byrne, who had departed along with Gordon Brown's Labour Party cabinet. The note was brief.

"Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards – and good luck! Liam."

Mr. Laws was a bit miffed. He informed the media that it is traditional for an outgoing senior office holder to leave some guidelines for the incoming office holder. This note, Laws said, was not helpful.

On the contrary, it may have been the most helpful note left by an outgoing politician in modern history. It told the truth."

Honesty, too little, too late. We have the same problem here. The American people finally want to put out the fire, but the house has already burned down.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Info on Gaza blockade. More info.

"In the wake of the Hamas takeover, Israel said it would allow only basic humanitarian supplies into the Strip. It has a list of dual-use items such as steel pipes and fertiliser which it says could be used to manufacture weapons.

These are not allowed in, with the exception of "special humanitarian cases". Other than that, no specific list of what is and is not allowed in has been published, and items gaining entry vary over time.

The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees Unrwa's list of household items that have been refused entry at various times includes light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons, clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee, chocolate, nuts, shampoo and conditioner.

Many other items - ranging from cars to fridges to computers - are generally refused entry.

Building materials such as cement, concrete and wood were nearly always refused entry until early 2010, when some glass, wood, cement and aluminium were allowed in.

During the six month truce between Israel and Hamas, which began in June 2008, and in early 2010, the volume and range of goods increased with trucks of shoes and clothes entering Gaza."

So Israel blocks whatever it wants and claims that Hamas might use it against Israelis. Convenient.

Israel seizes another aid ship on the way to Gaza and takes it to an Israeli port. A blockade blocks ships; it doesn't seize them. I don't see how this can be considered anything but an act of piracy.

MISC:

Does this stink of corruption or what?

BP's oil cap capturing a significant fraction of leaking oil, but plenty is still flowing into the Gulf.

Commenting on the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson points out how easily the American people are duped by aristocrats and shows his fears of Adams's ambition:

"…I consider those laws as merely an experiment on the American mind, to see how far it will bear an avowed violation of the Constitution.  If this goes down, we shall immediately see attempted another act of Congress, declaring that the President shall continue in office during life, reserving to another occasion the transfer of the succession to his heirs, and the establishment of the Senate for life… (Emphasis mine) That these things are in contemplation, I have no doubt; nor can I be confident of their failure, after the dupery of which our countrymen have shown themselves susceptible..."

I think the problem is most Americans just want to be left alone. That independent nature is one of our tremendous strengths, but when it comes to government, it's a terrible weakness because in the absence of resistance at the polls, aristocrats flagrantly amass power to themselves. But pushed to the wall, the people tend to do the right thing. They replaced Adams with Jefferson. I sure hope the people are wise enough to elect a Jeffersonian in 2012, but Ron Paul is the only candidate who fits the bill. If he doesn't run, we're screwed. I believe the first half of this next paragraph is equally valid today.

"The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful maneuvers, & made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves. But time & truth have dissipated the delusion, & opened their eyes. …Pennsylvania, Jersey & New York are coming majestically round to the true principles. In Pennsylvania, 13 out of 22 counties had already petitioned on the alien & sedition laws. Jersey & N Y had begun the same movement, and tho' the rising of Congress stops that channel for the expression of their sentiment, the sentiment is going on rapidly, & before their next meeting those three States will be solidly embodied in sentiment with the six Southern & Western ones."

The people are waking up. But I'm afraid in our case, it's too little, too late. I'll be surprised if the US as we know it lasts until 2020. I won't be surprised if the breakup starts in the next couple of years. This makes it sound like Adams almost started the first civil war.

"The troops that Adams was sending to subdue those opposed to him were not "federal troops" in the sense we think of them. They were the most virulent members of street gangs calling themselves the militias, and being accepted as such by Adams because of their fervent deadly support. These militias were described by William Duane of the Aurora, this way:

"Their rise was at a season of alarm and political ferment... [M]en of sound republican principles but weak minds were seen enrolling themselves in ranks under the apprehension of their growing power and the consequent danger; and men...were seen disgracing the memories of their fathers and the independence of their country by the elevation of the black British cockade!... This corps, sanctioned by the President... gave a species of law to the public of this city. Weak men feared them... The theatre, the public streets and even the domestic sanctuary was infested with their folly or their violence..."

It wasn’t long before America's Democrats and anti-Federalists were also arming themselves then forming their own private militias to protect against Federalist violence. As early as May 9, 1798, Adams' militias had clashed with Democratic-Republican militias in Philadelphia. As one would guess none of Adams’ militia members were arrested.

This is the "militia" that Adams released into the Pennsylvania countryside with a "do whatever is necessary" order. Twelve hundred violent "friends of the President" were on the loose to "subdue" one hundred "subversives" and as might be expected the results where horrific. Reports of the "troop’s" activities returning to Pennsylvania recounted acts of extreme violence, crudeness, private homes being invaded; men, women, and children terrorized, private property destroyed, and political symbols ("liberty poles") torn down."

This sounds like the kind of "domestic security force" Obama is trying to assemble. There's nothing new under the sun.

"Vice-President Jefferson recounts what occurred next.

"[T]hese friends of order, these enemies of disorganization, assemble a second time to pull down the printing office of the young and amiable widow of the grandson of Benjamin Franklin. On the other hand, a body of real republicans, of men who are real friends of order, assemble in arms, and… mounted guard to protect the office of this widow, the person of the Editor, of his journeymen, his apprentices and his son. "

The presses further reported that during the next two weeks, "the streets of Philadelphia were filled with crowds of people who wanted nothing but the firing of the first musket to precipitate Pennsylvania, and perhaps the continent, into the horrors of civil war.""

That's pretty close to civil war, and it sounds frighteningly similar to the path we're headed down.

"The Federalists lost the election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson, but Federalism wasn’t defeated; it simply morphed into another form, raising it ugly head most notably in 1861, 1913, 1933, and 2009. Federalism, by any title, is never far from the surface and always working even when not openly visible.

How can I be sure that this nation will be faced with either a civil war or be broken into independent parts?

The answer resides in the fact that the nature of government is so damnably predicable. What can’t be quantified is when. That depends on how long and how many economic, social and physical beatings those who are productive are willing to take from a chimerical, desultory, and deceptive central government."

They won't take it for much longer.

A statue of Stalin is included in the National D-Day Memorial dedicated in Bedford, Virginia. That's an abomination, and you can our tax dollars are helping pay for it. What role did Stalin play in D-Day? They should have put up a plague explaining why they didn't put up a bust.

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ECONOMY:

The US government added nearly half a million jobs because of the census, temporarily lifting unemployment to 9.7 percent, but the private sector did nothing. When these census workers quit working, unemployment is going to spike again. We should subtract government jobs in employment figures and subtract government spending from private sector output to really understand the state of our economy. This is good news for Obama and bad news for Americans because every one of these jobs increases the burden of government on Americans and makes us all poorer.

The wold economic problems explained in less than three minutes. This is fabulous.

The Dow closed below 10,000. More people are recognizing the emperor has no clothes.

TAX AND SPEND:

Federal debt surpasses $13 trillion, but it's only that low if you don't count Social Security and Medicare.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Democrats were slow to jump on this bandwagon, but they finally realized they didn't want to let the Gulf oil spill crisis to go to waste. They're using that spill to push their cap and trade bill by calling it a comprehensive energy bill that will prevent spills in the future. They lie without conscience. They have more in common with serial killers than with normal people.

Study shows climate cycles tend to follow astronomical cycles. Imagine that. It's like we live in a universe that's much bigger than us or something.

WAR:

We now have special forces operating in 73 countries. Wow. Frankly, this article makes them sound similar to al Qaeda cells, which isn't very promising.

"Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.

Commanders are developing plans for increasing the use of such forces in Somalia, where a Special Operations raid last year killed the alleged head of al-Qaeda in East Africa. Plans exist for preemptive or retaliatory strikes in numerous places around the world, meant to be put into action when a plot has been identified, or after an attack linked to a specific group."

Retaliatory strikes? Retaliation shouldn't be our policy. That's what the terrorists claim to do. Stopping plots to kill Americans and taking out people who have launched attacks on America should be our policy. I've said for a while the war on terror should be fought as an intelligence war, not a hot war, so I don't have a problem with this aspect of it, but I have no doubt government is screwing it up. It can't help it. This strategy should only be a stop-gap measure as we implement our long-term strategy: bring all our troops home and engage mainstream Muslims in mutually beneficial voluntary exchange, enabling the most powerful force in the world - the American people - to earn their trust and respect so they will side with us against the terrorists.

George Bush has no regrets about waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. I wouldn't either.

80 percent of al Qaeda leaders in Iraq 'removed'.

"About 80% of al-Qaeda's leaders in Iraq have been captured or killed during the past three months, says the country's top US commander.

Only eight of the group's 42 chiefs in Iraq remained at large, Gen Ray Odierno told a Pentagon news conference.

But he cautioned against complacency, saying that, even with the setbacks, al-Qaeda was trying to regroup and would remain a problem for years.

"I will never take my eyes off of al-Qaeda," said the general.

He added that the number of attacks and casualty figures suffered by US troops had fallen to their lowest level since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.

"All of those statistics for the first five months of 2010 are the lowest we've had on record.""

That's great. Let's get our troops home and allow the Iraqis to determine their own fate, and General Odierno can focus on protecting Americans from al Qaeda.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Obama's partner Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorhn helped organize the Gaza flotilla. You got to be kidding me. Pat Buchanan calls to end lift the siege of Gaza.

"That bloody debacle in the Eastern Mediterranean last Sunday was an inevitable result of Israel doing what it always seems to do: going beyond what is essential to her security, to impose collective punishment upon any and all it regards as hostile to Israel."

I'm glad I'm not the only one who recognizes Israel's need to defend itself against Hamas but who saw that Israel went beyond that when it boarded the Gaza flotilla and killed those people.

"But that 2 a.m. boarding of an unarmed ship with an unarmed crew, carrying no munitions or weapons, 65 miles at sea, was an act of piracy. What the Israeli commandos got is what any armed hijacker should expect who tries to steal a car from a driver who keeps a tire iron under the front seat."

Good for Pat Buchanan for saying this.

"But we have a blockade of Gaza, say the Israelis, and this flotilla was a provocation. Indeed, it was. And Selma was a provocation. The marchers at Edmund Pettus Bridge were disobeying orders of the governor of Alabama and state police not to march.

Yet, today, liberal Democrats who regard Martin Luther King as a moral hero for championing nonviolent civil disobedience to protest injustice are cheering not the unarmed passengers trying to break the Gaza blockade, but the Israelis enforcing the blockade."

Interesting parallel.

"Israel has a right to secure Gaza to deny Hamas access to weapons, especially rockets that could reach Israel. But that does not justify denying 1.5 million people what they need to live in decency."

But this doesn't jive with reports that Israel allows in all aid that comes to Gaza. It just stops weapons from coming in. The Israeli government says it, and the press parrots it, but is it true? It makes sense to me that it would be true. Israel has nothing to gain by blocking supplies other than weapons from Gaza, but it has plenty to lose by doing so. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure government aristocrats loot those supplies, but not so much that it would create an international outcry.

"According to The Washington Post, "80 percent of the population (of Gaza) depends on charity. Hospitals, schools, electricity systems and sewage treatment facilities are all in deep disrepair.""

How is this Israel's fault? The Israelis have no responsibility to keep Palestinian facilities working. That's the responsibility of the Palestinians. They have no working economy because Hamas loots the people to wage war on Israel, and the people support Hamas. I'm under the impression this is a self-inflicted problem.

"Obama should tell the Israelis that Joe got it wrong. There is space between us. The Gaza siege must end. And America will herself be sending aid, but will also support Israel's right to inspect trucks and ships to see to it no weapons get through to Gaza."

I agree, but the government shouldn't send aid. The American people can send it or not as they choose.

I asked Pat Buchanan how the Israeli's are responsible for broken Gaza infrastructure and how they keep out the necessities for life. He was kind enough to reply with a short note saying that Israel doesn't allow cement into Gaza so the Gazans can't rebuild their broken infrastructure. Assuming that's true, that's an incredibly damning policy. Why isn't this well known? This article says Israel just started allowing clothes and shoes for the first time.

"Israel prohibits shipments of cement and steel to Gaza on the grounds that Hamas could use them for military purposes.

Its long list of controlled goods also includes items that critics say have no apparent military value, such as children's crayons and books."

OK, this is stupid. No wonder people are so mad at Israel. It has nothing to gain by rejecting such things, and it has everything to lose by blocking them. Naturally, the aristocrats and the press weren't telling the truth.

A few days ago I heard Sean Hannity hyperventilating that Iran had enriched enough uranium for two nuclear weapons. You would have thought the world was going to end, but Hannity I didn't believe it because Hannity is supreme propagandist. I was so skeptical, I forgot all about it and didn't even look it up. Today I remembered to look it up. The bold in this quote is mine:

"In their last report before the United Nations Security Council votes on sanctions against Iran, international nuclear inspectors declared Monday that Iran has now produced a stockpile of nuclear fuel that experts say would be enough, with further enrichment, to make two nuclear weapons."

Hannity forgot to mention that part, at least in the 30 seconds I listened to. I'm sure plenty of non-nuclear countries have enough enriched uranium to make bombs, with further enrichment. Call me when they start enriching it to weapons grade. Right now the best approach is lift the embargoes that harm the Iranian people and keep them from being able to overthrow the mullahs.

POLITICS:

The Chicago way plunders the private sector. I guess he means plunders it more than normal government actions.

Hold on to your wallets. Obama has empaneled yet another bipartisan panel ostensibly to investigate the Gulf oil spill.

The Messiah who set such high expectations has only himself to blame because he can't possibly (and doesn't want to) meet them.

Jimmy Carter + Rod Blagojevich = Barack Obama. It's funny because it's accurate.

Wall Street employs 73 former members of Congress as lobbyists. Our power is valuable and aristocrats sell it, so corporations buy it.

MISC:

I must have missed the power to spread happiness in my copy of the Constitution. Do you think happiness can be spread at the point of a gun?

A poll shows baseball fans want MLB to overturn the blown call that prevented a perfect game and they want instant replay implemented for such calls. This highlight a symptom of what's wrong with America - people want central authority to solve problems and right wrongs. They don't understand the consequences are worse than the original problems. If MLB overturned that call, it would open up a can of worms that would harm baseball which has become boring enough. If they implement instant replay, baseball will become even more boring an lose fans. These ideas are silly, but these busybodies, my guess is they watch very few baseball games if any every year, want to use a central authority to impose their will on others over issues that don't matter to them. Yuck.

Two chemical processes identified on Saturn's moon Titan could be associated with life. If life was discovered on Titan, it would be the biggest discovery in history.

I bet 200 years ago every person in the world knew the health benefits of natural foods like honey.

"It contains vitamins B1, B2, C, B6, B5 and B3 all of which change according to the qualities of the nectar and pollen. Besides the above, copper, iodine, and zinc exist in it in small quantities. Several kinds of hormones are also present in it. Approximately one half of the human diet is derived directly or indirectly from crops pollinated by bees. Today honeybees are an essential part of a healthy agriculture economy.

If you have allergies, honey can be beneficial. If you eat honey that is local to your area, it may prevent your seasonal allergies. Bees use the pollen from local plants and eventually it ends up in your honey."

According to this article, honey treats skin conditions, sore throat, cuts, ulcers and diarrhea. Honey is an antioxidant, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, supports blood formation, has healthy enzymes and is easy to digest. I bet almost nobody knows this stuff any more. This wasn't taught in my health class. We're losing our wisdom, and we're worse off for it.

Lord of the Rings online embraces free business model. I'll try it once it becomes free. Funny how that works.

It's about time bandwidth services started using data pricing. Those of us who use little bandwidth will be rewarded. ISPs should do the same.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Joe Lieberman introduces bill to give government the power to seize control of the internet to protect it against cyber-attacks. Joe Lieberman has turned into the Senate's lead tyrant. This is like giving Obama the power to seize control of an oil well to stop a leak. The government is not nearly as capable of securing the internet as the private sector, and it should never be capable of doing so. I'm sure Joe Lieberman knows that. This is just an excuse to shut down the internet to control speech.

Some want the FCC to monitor hate speech on the radio. I want to abolish the FCC.

The FTC considers a tax consumer electronics to fund newspaper subsidies.

"Additionally, they suggest making facts 'proprietary' and allowing news organizations to copyright them."

Making facts proprietary? Like the temperature? Bizarro world appears normal compared to our world. We're experiencing the death spiral of central planning. Every market intervention harms people, makes them poorer and creates worse problems than it was intended to solve. Central planners then implement a more intrusive market intervention to fix the new problems, and that intervention harms more people, makes them even more poor and creates even worse problems than it was intended to solve. And so on. And so on. And so on until Bizarro world appears more normal than ours. This also shows how government is the enemy of progress. Instead of allowing dinosaurs to die, it wants to use violence to loot the people, slow social advancement and keep them alive as zombie companies.

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Elderly Chicago man heroically stands up to government and obtains an illegal (according to the city of Chicago) handgun, then uses it to defend himself, his wife and his great grandson from an armed burglar. Make that doubly heroic.

"The old man moves slowly, with the aid of a cane. He reportedly acquired the illicit gun only after a previous incident, when the couple were robbed at gunpoint in their home by three intruders. Lastly, an ironic political detail, courtesy of the Sun-Times: "When he returned home, the man...wore a T-shirt emblazoned with President Obama's face and name." Talk about audacity."

I love it.

Remember that devastating flood you didn't hear about in Nashville because it didn't affect a bunch of welfare cases? This is why there was no looting.

ECONOMY:

The census (and government hiring in general) is producing a false job spike. Productive, private sector jobs are still lacking.

EDUCATION:

Boortz reports "New Jersey Governor Chris Christie won't relent on the teachers unions. Good for him! He says that students are trapped by "selfish, greedy and disgraceful" teachers unions." Christie is kicking some butt.

GLOBAL WARMING:

The global warming fraud would be better off attacking human development for producing heat, from heating, air conditioning, cooking, refrigeration, running car engines and any other technology, than attacking CO2 production.

The frauds will not give up the lie that arctic ice is less than it "should be" despite all the evidence showing that arctic ice is expanding.

The real story behind the alarmist predictions that 2010 will be the warmest year on record.

"Today’s Times says, “Nasa analysis showing record global warming undermines the skeptics.” However, a closer look at the information which the Times bases its headline on shows that a combination of selective memory and scientific spin play a large role in arriving at it.

The conclusion is based on a new paper written by James Hansen and submitted toReviews of Geophysics. The paper released by Hansen has not been peer reviewed, and he admits that some of the newsworthy comments it contains may not make it past the referees.

Hansen claims that, according to his Gisstemp database, the year from April 2009 to April 2010 has a temperature anomaly of 0.65 deg C (based on a 1951 – 1980 average) making it the warmest year since modern records began. It is a fractionally warmer than 2005 he says, although an important point to be made is that statistically speaking, taking into account the error of measurement and the scatter of previous datapoints, it is not a significant increase."

The first part of this year was market by el Nino, which makes the planet warmer naturally, like it did in 1998. But el Nino is gone now, so the rest of the year shouldn't be so hot.

There's a rare solar cycle 24 sunspot sighting today.

POLICE STATE:

Ohio Supreme Court rules that all that's needed for a speeding conviction is a police estimate that the victim was speeding.

"The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an officer's visual estimation of speed is enough to support a conviction if the officer is trained, certified by a training academy, and experienced in watching for speeders. The court's 5-1 decision says independent verification of a driver's speed is not necessary."

Forget radar guns. Who needs that pesky evidence stuff any more? On the surface, this may not sound like much, but this is really scary. This means a police officer can stop any car for no reason at any time, check for DUI, find an excuse to search the car and the driver. This is frightening. I'm telling you, we're the stupidest people in the world for doing this to ourselves.

In case you weren't convinced that the police, prosecutors, judges, legislatures and governors are in the police state together, states are making it illegal to record arrests at the request of police who don't want to be held accountable for their actions.

"In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists."

We're the stupidest people on the planet.

"A few weeks ago, an Illinois judge rejected a motion to dismiss an eavesdropping charge against Christopher Drew, who recorded his own arrest for selling one-dollar artwork on the streets of Chicago. Although the misdemeanor charges of not having a peddler's license and peddling in a prohibited area were dropped, Drew is being prosecuted for illegal recording, a Class I felony punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison."

Big-time penalties. This is censorship of the actions of government agents. Hiding information is always harmful.

"Carlos Miller at the Photography Is Not A Crime website offers an explanation: "For the second time in less than a month, a police officer was convicted from evidence obtained from a videotape. The first officer to be convicted was New York City Police Officer Patrick Pogan, who would never have stood trial had it not been for a video posted on Youtube showing him body slamming a bicyclist before charging him with assault on an officer. The second officer to be convicted was Ottawa Hills (Ohio) Police Officer Thomas White, who shot a motorcyclist in the back after a traffic stop, permanently paralyzing the 24-year-old man.""

Can't have the criminals in uniform being hoisted on their own petard, now can we?

POLITICS:

Obama whines about Republicans and lies about his record. What's new?

Fewer than one third of Americans can name a Supreme Court justice, and only one percent can name all nine (I got eight- I couldn't come up with Stevens even though he's recently been in the news because he's retiring). I have mixed feeling about this. The federal government is supposed to be unimportant in our lives. We should only have to know the people we vote for - the president, vice-president, two senators and a representative. But the reality is that way of thinking enabled the aristocrats to create the leviathan government that is crushing our lives today. We have nobody to blame but ourselves. If from the time of the ratification of the Constitution, all Americans had demanded that all five people they vote for subordinated themselves to the plain language of the Constitution, we'd be light years further advanced than we are today. We'd have colonies on the moon and Mars and space science stations around every planet. We'd have sent spaceships to the nearest stars. We'd be able to travel to any place in the world in an hour almost as conveniently as I can drive to Cincinnati. We'd have underwater cities and farms. We'd have cured cancer. Communism would never have happened. Barring a few tyrannies - there will always be violent, power hungry men who manage to control others - the entire world would be free. Only a handful of people outside of those tyrannies would live in poverty or hunger, and it would be because they chose not to work. But instead we empowered government to loot us and to slow the advancement of civilization to the point where government is about to collapse it.

Corruption in the Florida Republican party? This isn't news. Lack of corruption would be news. It's impossible. Politics is corruption.

Another case in point: Haliburton lines the pockets of senior aristocrats investigating Haliburton's role in the Gulf oil spill.

Another case in point: Obama tries to trade a job with Colorado congressional candidate to get him out of the race. That's how they do it in Chicago (and everywhere else).

Another case in point: Congressional Black Caucus moves to restrict the powers of congressional ethics investigator because it's investigated eight CBC members.

How political corruption works on the local level.

If government tries to control the handling of the Gulf oil spill, it will be like a war - destructive.

Boortz reports "The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors has officially voted to boycott Arizona." Stupid. Arizona will retaliate.

Obama calls the presidency the best job on earth. Of course he would think that. He loves having everybody in the world at his mercy. People who covet the power of the presidency should be disqualified from office.

MISC:

Ump blows call on last out of the game, costing pitcher a perfect game. Wow. No replay, please.

Walter Williams acknowledges the right to discriminate.

"Should people have the right to discriminate by race, sex, religion and other attributes? In a free society, I say yes. Let’s look at it. When I was selecting a marriage partner, I systematically discriminated against white women, Asian women and women of other ethnicities that I found less preferable. The Nation of Islam discriminates against white members. The Aryan Brotherhood discriminates against having black members. The Ku Klux Klan discriminates against having Catholic and Jewish members. The NFL discriminates against hiring female quarterbacks. The NAACP National Board of Directors, at least according to the photo on their Web page, has no white members."

The Constitution doesn't give the government the power to override the natural right of free association. In fact, free association is doubly protected because it's covered by the Ninth Amendment. This abuse of power by government has institutionalized discrimination which was being wiped out by natural social forces before the Civil Rights Act.

"We live in antiliberal times, when individual choice is highly suspect. The driving legislative ethos is toward making all actions required or forbidden, with less and less room for human volition. Simply put, we no longer trust the idea of freedom. We can't even imagine how it would work. What a distance we have traveled from the Age of Reason to our own times."

Isn't that the truth. It's frightening that people are frightened of freedom but not frightened of government. That's like being frightened of a kitten but not a lion.

"What about the claim that government should regulate the grounds of exclusion? Let's say, for example, that we do not deny the general right of free association, but narrow its range to address a particular injustice. Is that plausible? Well, freedom is a bit like life, something that is or is not. Slicing and dicing it according to political priorities is exceedingly dangerous. It perpetrates social division, leads to arbitrary power, mandates a form of slavery, and turns the tables on who precisely is in charge in society."

Rockwell's on a roll. John Stossel attacked for wanting to fight bigotry without government intervention. Remember when Obama was going to take the country past racial issues? How's that working out for us? As much as I abhor Jim Crow laws, I don't support the federal government striking them down. In that one instance, centralized authority led to increased freedom, but that instance is the very rare exception and sets a precedent for oppression - it's done just that because liberals use it as an example of good centralization of power. Decentralizing power is the best way to combat tyranny. Another view.

"National Review's Rich Lowry, for example, wrote: "[T]he Civil Rights Act was the last spasm of the Civil War. The South had frustrated the imposition of black civil rights during Reconstruction in a low-grade insurgency that successfully rumbled on into the 1960s. Black civil rights weren't going to be vindicated any time soon, absent the application of federal power again ... I'm sympathetic to libertarianism, but it sometimes has a weakness for theoretical exercises removed from reality.""

Rich Lowry is wrong about this. The people were overcoming the Jim Crow laws. They were overcoming institutionalized discrimination. The Civil Rights Act aborted that process. State, statism, static, status quo. They all have the same roots. Because the federal interfered in the social evolution that was overcoming discrimination, it institutionalized the status quo nationwide, and the entire country suffers from institutionalized discrimination today. You cannot solve social problems with government violence.

"This sounds like a white, guilt-ridden rationalization to justify an abandonment of principle. And it has real world, not merely "theoretical," consequences. For one thing, it encourages grievance-driven race-based identity politics — and invites special-interest legislation to protect all manner of niche groups perceived as having been "held down by The Man." It is in these waters that professional victim seekers and exploiters like the Rev. Al Sharpton, race and gender "advocacy groups," and the Democratic Party do their fishing."

And that's just the political aspects.

"Rand's critics also unintentionally expose the condescending way "compassionate conservatives" deem that blacks — still standing after slavery and Jim Crow — are in need of protection by rare "noble" whites from the bigot-infested world through which blacks are obviously incapable of navigating. Why else throw overboard the just and basic principle that private actors, short of engaging in force or fraud, should behave as they wish?"

I couldn't agree with this more. Blacks were heroically overcoming discrimination through their own efforts. Rosa Parks didn't need the federal government to keep her seat. Martin Luther King didn't need the federal government to lead his boycotts. They didn't need whites patronizing them to accomplish the task, and by doing so, the whites ended the process, which was undoubtedly the goal of many all along. How could Democrats use blacks as political pawns if they overcame discrimination on their own? As with all government actions, the Civil Rights Act was about seizing power from the people, in this case heroic blacks and their allies, for the aristocrats. And it worked to near perfection.

"If National Review's Lowry owned a restaurant, would he discriminate against blacks? Does he intimately know anyone who would do so? How would he treat friends who patronized restaurants that refused blacks? Of course he wouldn't exclude. Nor would his friends or associates. Obviously none of those "noble" souls in his immediate circle would consort with racists. So why assume that some unacceptable percentage of the "unwashed masses" will act as merchant-racists — either without harmful consequences or the willingness to accept those consequences? Why do we further assume that, whatever the number of bigots, they will be capable of meaningfully affecting the day-to-day lives of blacks? If anything, these racists would have publicly outed themselves as part of the bad and the ugly.

The consequences of government coercion are more harmful than the certainty that some will use their freedom in ways that offend. Bad behavior tends to get punished in the social and business "marketplace." The Boston Red Sox, one of the last teams to hire black ballplayers, discovered fans valued winning much more than team racial homogeneity."

This is a great essay.

If you win a soccer game in Canada by more than five goals, you lose. Mediocrity enforced by fiat. I hope the parents of the good kids start a competition league.

Activists use the government's gun to force restaurant to remove kiss urinals instead of just eating elsewhere.

Embedding transistors in human cells. To do anything worthwhile, they would make you very hungry.

Seawater naturally breaks down oil.

Essay lampooning the argument that governments rule with consent of the governed includes excellent example of the so-called social contract:

"I, the party of the first part (“the ruler”), promise:

(1) To stipulate how much of your money you will hand over to me, as well as how, when, and where the transfer will be made. You will have no effective say in the matter, aside from pleading for my mercy, and if you should fail to comply, my agents will punish you with fines, imprisonment, and (in the event of your persistent resistance) death.

(2) To make thousands upon thousands of rules for you to obey without question, again on pain of punishment by my agents. You will have no effective say in determining the content of these rules, which will be so numerous, complex, and in many cases beyond comprehension that no human being could conceivably know about more than a handful of them, much less their specific character, yet if you should fail to comply with any of them, I will feel free to punish you to the extent of a law made my me and my confederates.

(3) To provide for your use, on terms stipulated by me and my agents, so-called public goods and services. Although you may actually place some value on a few of these goods and services, most will have little or no value to you, and some you will find utterly abhorrent, and in no event will you as an individual have any effective say over the goods and services I provide, notwithstanding any economist’s cock-and-bull story to the effect that you “demand” all this stuff and value it at whatever amount of money I choose to expend for its provision.

(4) In the event of a dispute between us, judges beholden to me for their appointment and salaries will decide how to settle the dispute. You can expect to lose in these settlements, if your case is heard at all.

 In exchange for the foregoing government “benefits,” you, the party of the second part (“the subject”), promise:

(5) To shut up, make no waves, obey all orders issued by the ruler and his agents, kowtow to them as if they were important, honorable people, and when they say “jump,” ask only “how high?”"

This is why voting has nothing to do with freedom - no matter which ruler-wannabe you vote for you, you are still being ruled.

Tiny flying robots. Tiny flying robots at Wright-Patterson.

Free kibbles

STATES RIGHTS:

The federal government battles Hawaii over census worker charged with trespassing. Go Hawaii!

SOCIALISM:

Leftists trying to capitalize in the BP oil spill to nationalize the oil industry.

Another giveaway to the unions:

"The Wall Street Journal reports that the National Mediation Board, which is the federal agency that oversees airline labor relations, ruled last month that “unions can be formed if a majority of unionization votes are cast in their favor,” reversing a 70 year industry practice of counting non-votes as no votes."

Obama was worth every dime and more unions paid for him.

TAX AND SPEND:

Cities in the US are in worse fiscal shape than Greece.

This is scary:

Who are America's fastest-growing class of millionaires? They are police officers, firefighters, teachers and federal bureaucrats who, unless things change drastically, will be paid something near their full salaries every year--until death--after retiring in their mid-50s.

We're the stupidest people in the world.

EDUCATION:

Washington D.C., home of some of the worst schools in America, is giving unionized teachers a 21.6 percent raise. Have I mentioned we're the stupidest people in the world?

A bunch of stupid aristocrats in main are forcing schools to have co-ed bathrooms, sports teams and whatnot. Acknowledging differences between boys and girls is not discrimination. They should be celebrated, not forcibly ignored. Stop the insanity.

Thomas Sowell refutes the liberal mantra for grad - don't go into government work and be burden on your fellow men. Do them a service and work in the private sector.

HEALTH CARE:

Seeing the doctor online. My doctor doesn't do much. He listens to me. Checks my blood pressure and listens to my chest. A USB stethoscope and blood pressure meter is all that would be needed.

"Using an electronic stethoscope that a paramedic on the rig held in place, Dr. Oscar W. Boultinghouse, an emergency medicine physician in Houston, listened to Mr. Martin’s heart.

“The extreme pain strongly suggested a kidney stone,” Dr. Boultinghouse said later. A urinalysis on the rig confirmed the diagnosis, and Mr. Martin flew to his home in Mississippi for treatment."

They could even make take-home urinalysis and blood testing from finger prick kits.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Sea level is not rising. Many islands are experiencing local sea level reductions.

WAR:

The al Qaeda leader recently reported killed has been reported killed twice before. I don't know what to believe. It also seems that there's lots of al Qaeda number threes. Since we don't know their names, they might as well call all of them number threes. We know bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, so they can't claim they killed one or two, but they get a lot of mileage out of claiming they killed number three.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

16 Mexicans suing American rancher who stopped them at gunpoint for trespassing. We're our own worst enemies. Trespassing is not a civil right. The court should stand up for private property rights and throw this case you, but that's unlikely to happen. The rest of world is pointing at laughing at us for being so stupid.

"The immigrants are represented at trial by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), which also charged that Sheriff Dever did nothing to prevent Mr. Barnett from holding their clients at "gunpoint, yelling obscenities at them and kicking one of the women.""

How much you want to bet that MALDEF is at least partially funded by taxpayers?

"The lawsuit said he then called his wife and two Border Patrol agents arrived at the site. It also said Mr. Barnett acknowledged that he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.

In March, U.S. District Judge John Roll rejected a motion by Mr. Barnett to have the charges dropped, ruling there was sufficient evidence to allow the matter to be presented to a jury. Mr. Barnett's attorney, David Hardy, had argued that illegal immigrants did not have the same rights as U.S. citizens."

Heroic property owner abused by government.

Pictures from illegal immigrant rallies you didn't see in the news. The media makes stuff up about the tea parties but it hides stuff about leftist rallies.

FOREIGN POLICY:

I'm struck by the Orwellian nature of the claims that the Israeli commandos were just defending themselves. Sailing an aid ship into a harbor, or a ship with weapons for that matter, is a peaceful act. Forcibly boarding a ship is an act of aggression. The Israelis are indisputably the aggressors here, and aggressors can't claim they were just defending themselves. I'm not condemning the blockade. Hamas is waging war on Israel, and until that ends, the blockade makes sense. It would have been fine if the Israelis had turned the ships away as part of the blockade. Boarding the ship is not part of the blockade; it's an act of aggression. It doesn't matter that the flotilla was intended to create an incident. The Israelis initiated the aggression. Obama should condemn both sides.

Getting US troops out of Japan is in our interests, not just in Japanese interests.

LOCAL:

Local black leaders want to change Dayton's hiring practices from hiring the top candidates to selection from among more candidates in order to favor blacks. No. Hire the top candidates.

MISC:

Contrast by Apollo astronaut between the handling of the Apollo 13 crisis and the handling of the Gulf oil spill highlights what I've been saying, but haven't said very well.

"With no single, competent, courageous and knowledgeable leader in charge of a comparably competent, courageous and knowledgeable team as we had with Apollo 13, the Administration has been doomed to failure from the start."

You can't have multiple leaders when trying to solve a critical engineering problem. You have to have one leader who has all the power necessary to solve the problem. He uses that power to impanel a team of the top experts from all over the world to brainstorm on all available options, thinking inside and outside the box without fear of repercussions from anything they consider, and come up with a prioritized series of options.

"Absolutely no reason exists to assume that any part of the Federal Government has engineering expertise comparable to the petroleum industry that can be applied to this or any future energy-related crisis. Certainly, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu have no more experience in these matters than does the President.

Salazar’s empty threat to “push BP out of the way” has no basis as a realistic option and best illustrates the floundering of the Obama Administration. Indeed, from “day one,” the expertise of the entire U.S. and British drilling and production industry should have been mobilized to combat this spill, with a single experienced engineering manager in charge. It still is not too late to start doing it right."

That's exactly right. The Obama administration is keeping this from happening. Instead, Obama is keeping the government's boot on BP's neck. It's trying to be in charge when it has no capability of being in charge. It's investigating to bring civil and criminal charges, distracting the experts from solving this problem and warping their priorities. To solve this problem, government must get out of the way. It should make government experts (if there are any, which I strongly doubt there are) available to the team. It should make resources available to the team. It should help persuade people requested by the team leader to join the team if they're reluctant and to get resources from other governments if necessary. But other than that, get out of the way.

"The lessons from the 204 fire were applied and we moved on. In contrast, President Obama’s and his Administration’s otherwise rambling response to the Deepwater Horizon explosion has been to stop offshore oil exploration by the United States. How misguided and, indeed, how either ignorant or devious can our President be!?"

No kidding.

I think bringing in James Cameron to help think outside the box about stopping the oil link is a fine idea, but I'd prefer the real underwater expert who found the Titanic - Ballard. This effort should be run by BP, not the government.

Healy makes another great point in The Cult of the Presidency:

"Today, one often hears the argument that the president needs broad war powers because the survival of the nation is at stake. But is our survival as a nation really more tenuous today than it was in the late 18th century, when the United States was small frontier republic on the edge of a continent occupied by periodically hostile great powers and Indian marauders? In that dangerous environment, the Framers drafted, and the country ratified, a Constitution that sharply limited emergency powers and rejected the idea that the president was above the law."

Any claim that we face a greater threat today than then is laughable. The Constitution means what it says in good times and bad.

FDR's motive for wanting war with Japan - staying in power.

In praise of sea salt.

We're finally to the point where BP may not survive the liability from this spill. If government stays out of the way, the market will extract the correct punishment, and the oil drilling will become safer for it.

Happy 80th birthday to Clint Eastwood.

I strongly disagree that to be libertarian, you have to be anti-nuke. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent and without being used have saved countless millions of lives that would otherwise have been lost in all-out wars like WWI and WWII. The breadth and death tolls from wars had been consistently growing for centuries until the development of the nuclear bomb put a stop to them. I don't think our nuclear capability or anything else should be funded by theft - taxes - but I would certainly volunteer funds to make sure the US had a strong nuclear deterrent and I hope enough others would as well. I also don't think Heinlein was a libertarian. I haven't read much Heinlein because I was never a fan, but I guess I should read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Neal's Nuze provides great information every day, and it's one of my favorite news sources. But every now and then Boortz makes it even better by blasting some idiot who sorely deserves it. This is one of those times. Some aristocrat wants to license news reporters, saying:

"Legitimate media sources are critically important to our government."

Boortz responds:

"The media isn't supposed to be important to the government, you ignoranus Democrat; it's supposed to be important to THE PEOPLE."

'Nuff said.

Obama's FTC is seizing control over the press.

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

A treaty is lower law than the Constitution and cannot legally be used to enact gun control in the US.

TAX AND SPEND:

How the fantasy that we were rich enough to be stupid backfired on us.

REGULATION:

Florida Democrat Congressman Greyson wants to the federal government to mandate employers give employees a paid week of vacation. Stay the hell out of our economy.

EDUCATION:

Kindergartner suspended for thinking about bringing knife to school. This is literally a thought crime.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama nominates socialized medicine advocate to head the $800 billion federal health care bureaucracy.

"President Obama's nomination of Donald Berwick M.D. to head HHS's Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) eliminates any lingering doubt he seeks to impose state-run medicine and a European style health care system on America. But before Dr Berwick gets an official nod of approval for the federal government's most important health care appointment -- the CMS covers over 100 million Americans, has an annual $800 billion budget that is larger than the defense department's and is the 2nd largest insurance company in the world, the US Senate may want to consider the nominee's remarkable and quite literal attachment to the socialist health-care model.

"I am romantic about the NHS. I love it." Dr Berwick says about probably the best-known case of socialized medicine -- Britain's National Health Service (NHS). "All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at healthcare in my own country," he says about a US health care system that is "bloated," runs in "the darkness of private enterprise," and has "tremendous excess capacity.""

Only government would employ somebody this stupid. Or is it evil? You know this guy knows how bad the NHS is.

GLOBAL WARMING:

The difference between an environmentalist and a conservationist.

Federal court dismisses lawsuit alleging company polluted by producing CO2.

WAR ON DRUGS:

Oakland, Ca. is considering legalizing and taxing marijuana. We keep hearing that people are thinking about it. Crap or get off the pot.

POLICE STATE:

A person should be able to invoke his right to remain silent by remaining silent. The onus should not be on the person being interrogated to claim the right, it should be on the government to recognize it.

WAR:

US drone attacks kills al Qaeda's number three leader in wilds of Pakistan.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

College in California offers scholarship for illegal aliens. They should be busted the same as an employer who hires illegal aliens.

POLITICS:

Apparently the Czechs have been reading my blog.

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."

Like I keep saying, we have nobody to blame but ourselves. The politicians are the symptom. We're the problem. We asked for this. We're reaping what we sowed over generations.

I agree with this:

"The Obama administration and its congressional collaborators almost resemble a foreign occupying force, a coterie of politically and culturally non-indigenous leaders whose rule contravenes local values rooted in our national tradition."

That's because Obama works for Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, ACORN and not America at large, but Republicans didn't govern in the interests of Americans at large either. We can't forget that Republicans governed almost as badly as Democrats when they were in power. Government is the problem, not just Democrats. There's no such thing as good government.

Liberal think tank advocates forcing people to vote. These people never get enough violence.

MEDIA:

Boortz wonders where the phony outrage is over the swastikas and KKK signs at the pro-illegal immigration rally in Arizona.

MISC:

This is a good reminder from Boortz: why did the Deepwater Horizon have to be drilling in deep water? Because the environmental movement managed to get government to ban any more drilling in shallow water.

Every time Obama speaks about the oil spill it just reinforces how useless the federal government is. But naturally Republicans are calling for more government to solve this problem. No. In a free society, BP would have empaneled a brainstorming session of experts, paid them to attend, and got this problem solved. But the government's boot on BP's neck and Obama threatening criminal prosecution, the priorities are all screwed up.

This might be the most damning piece of info we've heard about Kagan so far.

"Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court, is best known for moving Harvard Law School away from the 100-year old “case-law method” of legal study.

 But in the process, critics say, she moved the nation’s premier law school away from requiring the study of U.S. constitutional law towards the study of the laws of foreign nations and international law. 

 As dean, Kagan won approval from the faculty in 2006 to make major changes to the Harvard Law's curriculum.

“My understanding is that she instituted three new courses to the required curriculum and, in so doing, got rid of a requirement to take constitutional law,” Robert Alt, senior legal fellow and deputy director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told CNSNews.com.

“Currently, at Harvard, constitutional law is not required for first-year law students, or even for graduation,” Alt added."

Yikes. Any person to whom the Constitution means this little should be disqualified from government entirely, let alone the Supreme Court.

Study showing that in general, as children grow up, they believe more and more that people should be rewarded based on their achievements, not some weird vision of equality suggests that liberals may suffer from arrested moral development. I've always said that the desire to take property from others by force and give it to those who did not earn it is a mental problem. Only a mentally defective person could rationalize that robbery is moral.