Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Greek government has already failed to keep up with its bailout obligations. Greek government debt yields jumped ten points in April, and default seems certain. This is the next step in the collapse of the euro-zone.

If a debt ceiling is always going to be raised, then it's not a debt ceiling.

REGULATION:

Government's attack on the washing machine and clean clothes.

"Demographic researcher Hans Rosling has called the washing machine the greatest invention in the history of the Industrial Revolution. It liberated homemakers from boiling water and washing clothes. For women around the world, it makes the difference between poverty and prosperity.Only two generations ago, nearly every mother in the world slaved at washing clothes. Today, no one in the developed world does this. Instead, they can read, do professional work, teach children, hold parties, and generally apply their time to building civilization. As Rosling says, "even the hard core of the green movement use the washing machine.""

This is also a health care issue.

"In 1996, Consumer Reports tested 18 models of washing machines. It rated 13 models as excellent and 5 models as very good. They found that with enough hot water and any decent laundry detergent, any machine would get your clothes clean.In 2007, Consumer Reports tested 21 models and rated none of them as excellent and 7 models as poor; the rest of the models were rated mediocre. The old top-loading machines were mediocre or worse."

Government is the enemy of civilization.

"The invisible hand of the marketplace is the foundation of a free society and the source of prosperity. The invisible fist of government is the foundation of plunder and the source of social problems."

Nice, pithy statement.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

It's nice of Thomas Sowell to finally criticize the Fed.

"When people in Washington start creating fancy new phrases, instead of using plain English, you know they are doing something they don't want us to understand.It was an act of war when we started bombing Libya. But the administration chose to call it "kinetic military action." When the Federal Reserve System started creating hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air, they called it "quantitative easing" of the money supply."

That's a good observation. They think we're stupid.

HEALTH CARE:

The CDC is trying to scare old people against eating cold cuts and hot dogs.

Low salt recommendations are dangerous. Government doesn't care.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Australians oppose carbon tax by large margin. Good for them.

Walter Williams praises speculators.

"Here's a non-rocket science question: If you expect a reduced harvest of wheat, corn, rice or any other commodity some time in the future, what would be the wise thing to do about your consumption today? I bet that the average person would answer: Consume less now so that more will be available in the future.But how in the world can people be encouraged to consume less now? Enter the futures market, which consists of a worldwide group of millions upon millions of traders, often called speculators. Speculators, betting on a future shortage, buy up wheat, corn and rice today in the hopes of making money selling it for a higher price when the bad harvest hits. As speculators buy more and more wheat, corn and rice, they drive up today's prices. As today's price gets higher, people consume less, but more importantly, people do the intelligent thing without bureaucratic edicts. The vital role of the futures trader, or speculator, is to allocate goods over different time periods. And, it's not just wheat, corn and rice that must be allocated over time but all commodities including oil."

Great description of the role of speculators. It's important to note that the higher prices of commodities will prompt more producers to produce them to meet future demand. Speculators perform a crucial regulating service for the economy.

WAR ON DRUGS:

The drug cartel controlling Nuevo Laredo has set itself up as a defacto government.

"The omnipresent cartel spotters are one aspect of what experts describe as the emergence of virtual parallel governments in places like Nuevo Laredo and Ciudad Juarez - criminal groups that levy taxes, gather intelligence, muzzle the media, run businesses and impose a version of order that serves their criminal goals"

That's exactly the same as every government in the world.

POLICE STATE:

This is my kind of airline security.

Reasons why the US government will not confiscate gold like Roosevelt did in the 1930s.

The justice system protects corrupt prosecutors and judges.

Already there's plans to put TSA checkpoints at malls and other soft targets. Come on, America. Draw the line.

WAR:

Theory that the SEALs captured bin Laden then executed him. I think we're splitting hairs here. We'll never know if they laid hands on him before executing him, but it's obvious they're orders were to execute him, not capture him alive, which they could have done. White House admits bin Laden was unarmed and did not use a human shield. In other words, the SEALs could have easily captured him, but they instead carried out Obama's order to execute him. Since we're not legally at war, that's an illegal order, but the executive branch doesn't admit we're not at war. Still, military personnel take an oath to the Constitution, not the president.

"The CIA director, Leon Panetta, said they had been only “60 to 80 per cent sure” that bin Laden was living at the compound."

More fuel for skepticism.

"He then read out a new account of the assault, in which he said bin Laden was found on the top floor of a three-storey building, and as a US Navy Seal team entered: “His wife rushed the US assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.”"

It's interesting the SEAL sharpshooters shot the unarmed woman in the leg and the unarmed bin Laden in the head. That's an execution. They could have shot bin Laden in the leg too if necessary.

"The Taliban issued a statement in which it said the US “lacks strong evidence to prove its claim” that bin Laden was dead."

That's a fact. Obama is creating doubt at home an in the Muslim world.

"In Islamabad, the authorities said they had co-operated with the US and had kept the building under surveillance since 2009, contradicting Mr Obama’s account of a four-year CIA operation to identify bin Laden’s hiding place. They also suggested that their soldiers had raided the building in 2003 — two years before the building was even built, according to the US — looking for another senior al-Qaeda operative."

This thing gets murkier and murkier every day.

"As well as amending the condition of Bin Laden's wife, US officials have also changed the name of which of his sons was killed during the raid. The dead son was initially named in press reports as Hamza, described in one article as Bin Laden's "presumed heir" to the leadership of al-Qaida, apparently based on the official White House transcript of a Brennan briefing. However, Brennan said during the briefing that it was another son, Khalid, who was killed."

I'm reminded that the government can screw up a train wreck. I'll tell you who didn't screw up: the SEALs. They did exactly what they were ordered to do: execute the man they thought was bin Laden. Obama refuses to release bin Laden death photos.

"White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday the president decided there is no purpose in releasing any of the photographs.  He said the graphic images would create a national security risk and could incite violence."

No purpose? How about proving you killed the right guy? Who made this guy king? It's like he forgot he works for us. This is the same arrogance that kept him from releasing his birth certificate for over two years and got him trouble. This will get him in trouble too. He's going to squander his bin Laden bounce on arrogance. From another article:

""We discussed this internally," he said. "Keep in mind, we are absolutely certain that this was him. We've done DNA sampling and testing. And so there is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden.""

Note to Great Pharaoh: I have doubt. Many others have doubt. You work for us. Prove it. Release the photos. The arrogance that drips from his comments is disgusting. Like we're not worthy of seeing the same evidence he saw.

Reports from Pakistan are quite different.

"Osama Bin Laden's daughter has claimed he was captured alive in his Pakistani hideout and then shot by U.S. special forces, it was reported today.
Arabic news network Al-Arabiya quoted 'senior Pakistani security officials' who said the 12-year-old saw her father executed and his body dragged to a helicopter.A Pakistani official rejected U.S. accounts of a bloody firefight, saying: 'Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the U.S. forces and their choppers. Their chopper developed some technical fault and crashed and the wreckage was left on the spot.'"

Everybody has reason to lie about what happened. The only thing we know for sure is that the SEAL team was ordered to execute bin Laden, not capture him.

"Security officials said they did not recover any arms and explosives during their detailed search of the compound and the 13-roomed house, during which they removed two buffalos, a cow and around 150 chickens."

No weapons and no explosives. In other words, no reason to execute him except for orders.

"He added: ‘Bin Laden’s wife rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.
'The U.S. personnel on the ground handled themselves with the utmost professionalism. He was killed in an operation because of the resistance that they met.’"

Then how come his wife was not killed for resisting? The sharpshooters shot her in the leg, and they could have done the same to bin Laden if necessary. More US government incompetence:

"Bin Laden had sent [his youngest wife] home to Yemen for her own safety but somehow she returned despite being under surveillance."

So they had her under surveillance, but she came back to bin Laden's house, and the CIA missed it. Only a socialist organization could be that incompetent.

"The wife is now said to be at the centre of a diplomatic custody battle because the US wants to interrogate her but has been rejected by Pakistan."

We were told that bin Laden didn't have any intelligence value. That's why they didn't bother trying to take him alive. But now they want to question his wife as if she has more intelligence value than him. I don't buy it.

"Pentagon sources confirmed the Navy Seals had planned to take Bin Laden’s family with them as they left, but were forced to abandon the plan when one of the helicopters crash-landed.
It had apparently clipped a tail rotor on the wall of the compound and the pilot was forced to set down. No one was injured."

There's another change of story. At first we were told the helicopter crashed because of mechanical failure. Now we discover it was really pilot error. Assuming they really got bin Laden, the government would have been so much better off just telling the truth up front, showing the body to independent observers, then burying it at sea. This shows you that the aristocrats are not like us. Given an opportunity to tell the truth and do the right thing and benefit from it, they instinctively lie and cover-up instead and damage themselves in the process. The sickos who run the government couldn't tell the truth to the public if they tried. These are not normal human beings like the rest of us.

"They were apparently helped in identifying their target when Miss Al-Sadah unwittingly screamed out his name in the melee."

If true, that supports the case they got the right guy.

"White House officials insist the Navy Seals were given orders to capture Bin Laden if he offered no resistance.
The commandos had been schooled in Arabic phrases which were to be shouted out in an attempt to get the terror leader to surrender.
But officials admitted they never expected him to do so, and it was unclear whether he was really been given the chance."

From what we know, it's obvious he wasn't given the chance. It's obvious the SEALs were ordered to execute him. All this talk of allowing him to surrender if he chose to is a smoke-screen to cover the politicians' butts.

"Secret photos of the dead bin Laden seen by U.S. officials show a precision kill shot above his left eye, according to new claims.
They came as a British bishop described bin Laden's death as an 'act of vengeance' and warned or reprisals.Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester, said: 'The more I consider it the more concerning I find it. The thing that troubles me most is the way some are speaking of justice being done.'What has actually happened, only too sadly understandably, is, I think, much more reasonably viewed as an act of vengence or revenge."

I wouldn't call it an act of vengeance. Nobody in Obama's family died. I'd call it a politically motivated assassination. It certainly wasn't justice. If he got the right guy, Obama stole the opportunity for justice from the families of the victims.

"He added: 'It is too early to know whether the man resisted, whether he could have been captured and possibly brought to trial."

Not true. We have plenty of information that tells us he could have been captured. The SEALs aren't a bunch of redneck home invaders. They're the best trained fighters, the most accurate shots in the world. They shot his wife in the leg, and she survived to be captured. Bin Laden was unarmed, and they could have done the same to him. And they would have done it if ordered. They would have captured him without firing if ordered. These guys don't disobey orders. They did exactly what they were ordered to do: execute him.

"Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone also attacked the killing, claiming it made Mr Obama look like a 'mobster'.
Mr Livingstone told the Evening Standard: 'We should have captured him and put him on trial. It's a simple point - are we gangsters ora Western democracy based on the rule of law?'"

That question answers itself.

"According to the U.S. account, the assault team on the compound in Abbottabad came away with hard drives, DVDs, documents and more that might tip U.S. intelligence to Al Qaeda's operational details and perhaps lead the manhunt to the presumed next-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri."

Interrogating bin Laden would have helped.

"Giving further details, Mr Brennan said the aim now was to use the information from the raid to thwart possible ongoing terrorist plots. He added: 'He seemed to be very active inside the compound. We know that he was in contact with some senior Al Qaeda officials."

So much for him being retired. Interrogating him would have helped. Executing him was politically motivated. It had nothing to do with our safety. Now we hear there are no bullet holes so there was no firefight. That's consistent with the report there were no weapons or explosives. And that house was shabby. I don't know how it was by Pakistani standards, but it was no million dollar mansion. This goes back to what I wrote earlier: these Washington weirdos couldn't tell the truth to the public if their lives depended on it. This article supports the story that the house was built in 2005. Some government stooge on Foxnews just said that the US doesn't release trophy pictures. That's not who we are. Then Foxnews put up pictures of three men killed in the raid. Apparently the irony was lost on them. The only picture they won't release is the one that would prove they killed, or didn't kill, bin Laden. They'll eventually be forced to produce that picture, but by the time they do, no skeptic will believe it. Once again the government is its own worst enemy. Apparently those other three photos were released by the Pakistani government, not the US. Here's more on Obama's kill order:

"The SEALs’ decision to fatally shoot bin Laden -- even though he didn’t have a weapon – wasn’t an accident.  The administration had made clear to the military’s clandestine Joint Special Operations Command that it wanted bin Laden dead, according to a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions.  A high-ranking military officer briefed on the assault said the SEALs knew their mission was not to take him alive."

There you have it. The president ordered his assassination. The SEALs carried out that order.

"The decision to kill bin Laden outright was the clearest illustration to date of a little-noticed aspect of the Obama administration’s counterterror policy. The Bush administration captured thousands of suspected militants and sent them to detention camps in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay.  The Obama administration, by contrast, has focused on eliminating individual terrorists rather than attempting to take them alive."

It's more convenient for Obama to murder them than capture and try them. We all live at the pleasure of Great Pharaoh. He claims the power to snuff every one of us out at any time he choses.

"In the fall of 2009, for instance, JSOC and the CIA located one of the administration’s most-wanted men, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the leader of the al-Qaida affiliate in East Africa, as he drove though Somalia.  Nabhan was suspected of orchestrating a string of deadly attacks in Kenya in 2002 as well as being involved in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks that left 250 dead. Military commanders told Obama administration officials that commandos could try to take Nabhan alive or kill him from the air.  The White House told JSOC they wanted Nabhan dead. A short time later, U.S. helicopters carrying SEAL commandos fired missiles into Nabhan’s car, killing him instantly."

This sounds like what the Israeli government does to Hamas, not what we think the US government is supposed to do.

"Bill Roggio of Long War Journal, a Web site that tracks the attacks, estimates that missiles fired by American drones have killed nearly 1,500 people inside Pakistan, mostly in the two years that Obama has overseen the undeclared war there. Few, if any, senior militants have been arrested by CIA operatives or U.S. commandos over that same time period."

That's a lot of people. When facts like this come out, I'm always surprised at how tolerant Muslim nations are of US government aggression. The warmongers want us to believe they're violent, but our government is the violent aggressor.

"More recently, the Obama administration secretly authorized the CIA and its partners from the military’s Special Operations community to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an influential radical cleric – and American citizen – thought to be living somewhere in Yemen.  Working with the American Civil Liberties Union, Awlaki’s parents sued the administration, challenging the legality of the U.S. government marking a citizen for death without trial. However, a federal judge dismissed the suit late last year, and the kill order remains in effect. Awlaki is still at large."

You or I could be next. Imagine what liberals would be saying if Bush had ordered somebody's assassination instead of capture.  The CIA denies the daughter's story that the SEALs first captured bin Laden then executed him. Release the video. Let's see for ourselves. I find it hard to believe the SEALs would have bothered to capture him then execute him with a shot to the chest and head. Assuming the report of the shot to the chest and head was accurate, that's a double-tap, that's how they're trained to take down targets, but it makes no sense after a person is captured. But all Obama has to do is release the video so the entire world can see what happened to refute inaccurate, conflicting statements. They also deny taking the body of bin Laden's son. Why did it take ten years to find Osama bin Laden? Socialism.

"Given the popularity of this outcome, is it possible that the contradiction of liberal empire has been resolved, and that there is no longer any tension between maintaining an open society and maintaining a permanent military wing to assassinate and suppress challengers?"

Smack! Liberals must be smarting from that blow.

Attorney General Holder pronounces from on high that the execution of bin Laden was legal.

"The killing of Osama bin Laden was legally justified, and would have been even if the al-Qaida leader had made some sign that he wished to surrender, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday."The operation in which Osama bin Laden was killed was lawful," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "He was the head of al-Qaida, an organization that had conducted the attacks of September 11th. He admitted his involvement and he indicated that he would not be taken alive. The operation against bin Laden was justified as an act of national self defense.""

An act of self-defense? Would have been legal even if he had tried to surrender, as if the SEALs gave him that chance? It's hard to surrender with a bullet in your brain. Since Holder says so, we're supposed to believe it. We're supposed to bow down to authority. But without evidence he was in the process of attacking Americans, the self-defense argument is ridiculous. Even if bin Laden was planning a new attack, that doesn't justify invading another country without a declaration of war from Congress. This whole statement is a joke. It claims that any president can assassinate anybody he wants at any time as long as he declares it was in national self-defense. Hogwash. Obama is one dangerous pharaoh.

"Holder said bin Laden was a legitimate military target and he had made no attempt to surrender to the U.S. forces that stormed his fortified compound near Islamabad on Monday. He was shot in the chest and head."

How was he a legitimate military target since Congress has not declared war? Did somebody tell him the burden of surrender was on him? I'm already getting tired of that part of the cover-up, that the SEALs killed him because he didn't try and surrender. They were ordered to execute him and they did. Surrender was never an option.

"It was lawful to target an enemy commander in the field and the mission was conducted in the way that was consistent with U.S. laws and values, Holder testified, adding that it was a "kill or capture mission.""

Baloney. They're trying to make it sound that way after the fact because they're already taking heat for assassinating him. Here's why they've changed that story:

"U.S. acknowledgment on Tuesday that bin Laden was unarmed when killed had raised accusations Washington had violated international law. Exact circumstances of his death remained unclear."

So now they're lying about the kill or capture part, but they're covering their butts by claiming that executing him "would have been" legal even if he had tried to surrender.

Apparently bin Laden released a tape shortly before the SEALs got him.

Whatever I think of bin Laden's killing, the US government should tell the UN to pound sand. That hypocrite Nancy Pelosi can go pound sand too.

Israel Defense Minister uses bin Laden execution as justification for Israel's execution policy. Liberals are going to hate this.

I'm not the only one who expects the government to set up another stooge and bust him as a terrorist.

Osama bin Laden the prophet.

""I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed," bin Laden gloated shortly after 9-11. "The U.S. government will lead the American people, and the West in general, into an unbearable hell and a choking life."Osama's fondest wish was to see a civilizational conflict between the West and the Islamic world. A subsidiary desire was to see the United States spend itself into oblivion by carrying out that demented crusade. He doubtless was delighted to see the United States become mired in an intractable war in Afghanistan, and to see Washington expand the compass of its conflict with the Muslim world to include Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia.
Bin Laden was almost certainly gleeful to witness the collapse of the most recent Fed-engineered financial bubble in 2008, and probably emitted a chuckle or two over the dollar's rapid disintegration. Assuming that CNN or Fox is available in hell, bin Laden will probably be permitted a fleeting moment of satisfaction when the United States descends into a hyperinflationary crisis worthy of Weimar Germany or contemporary Zimbabwe – something that could occur before the end of this year."

He understands the nature of government better than Americans do.

"Assuming that the official narrative of bin Laden's death as a recent event is reliable, this development fulfills a promise made about a year ago by Attorney General Eric Holder, who told a congressional committee that bin Laden "will never appear in an American courtroom." Bin Laden was indicted for mass murder and other terrorism-related offenses (although, intriguingly, not the 9-11 atrocities), which means that it would have been entirely proper for him to be arraigned before a criminal court in an appropriate jurisdiction."

For some reason, not the reasons they state, they didn't want bin Laden to have a trial. Not even a military tribunal.

"...much of the American public will be praising the government ruling us for sending Osama to hell, oblivious to the hell that the same government has stored up for the rest of us."

No kidding. How Osama bin Laden won. Look around.

On the many reported deaths of Osama bin Laden. Let's hope one of them was accurate.

"He went to Afghanistan and from a cave full of the latest technology he launched an attack on America. But he denied he had anything to do with the attack. The Taliban offered to turn him over if the Bush Administration could prove his involvement. The Bush administration declined and then invaded. To this day the FBI does not list bin Laden as "most wanted" for the 9/11 attacks. Now presumably they will delist him entirely."

The government should release the evidence bin Laden was behind 9/11. I still want to know why the FBI's most wanted statement doesn't include 9/11. I won't hold my breath.

The US government didn't make al Qaeda irrelevant. The youth movements toppling governments in the Middle East did.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

Ron Paul on illegal immigration. Doesn't sound so bad to me. I think we should hold employers accountable to check IDs. Bartenders do it. Every employer I've ever had did it. It's not that hard. We shouldn't blame them for falling for fake IDs though.

MEDIA:

White House bullying newspapers that print something unflattering about Michelle Obama.

LOCAL:

The trademark police hit local flee market. This should be handled by civil court.

"The seized items will be destroyed once the case is closed, he said."

The government destroys wealth.

MISC:

I've long explained altruistic behavior as the product of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. genes. Our parents genes want to be passed on, so they program us to be altruistic with our siblings. Same with our grandparents' genes and our cousins, aunts and uncles. Same with our great-grandparents genes and so on up the line of ancestry. This effectively confers a general altruism on everybody. Researchers have finally caught up.

"From Charles Darwin on, evolutionary biologists have struggled to explain self-sacrificing behavior. If evolution is all about the survival of the fittest, then why do animals from bees to people help others when it can hurt them or their chances to reproduce? Simulations of miniature robots that "evolve" helping behaviors have now provided a possible answer, confirming a 47-year-old theory that recently has come under attack: We help those who are most related to us because they are able to pass some of our genes to the next generation."

Good job, guys.

Praise for Philip K. Dick.

WikiLeaks documents confirm a conspiracy to try and unite the US, Canada and Mexico.

"In North America, integration has been proceeding rapidly for years. The New American magazine was among the first to report on the efforts to erect what critics have called a “North American Union,” encompassing Canada, the United States, and Mexico. But more recently, the topic has received more attention.
After the creation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)  — similar in many ways to the European Common Market that preceded the political union in Europe — the integration scheme has only accelerated. And the bipartisan efforts have been going on for years.
Under President George W. Bush, integration occurred through the little-known “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.” And with the Obama administration, the process,  now virtually out in the open, is only accelerating."

I haven't heard much about this since 2008.

Kasich Counting on Partisan Judges

Kasich Counting on Partisan Judges
by Mark Luedtke

I always smile when Supreme Court decisions break along party lines as they do for nearly every significant decision. An observer from Mars might think we have two different US Constitutions, one for Republicans and another for Democrats. The reality is justices don’t care what the Constitution says.

Judges don’t make it to the pinnacle of their profession without carrying water for their party and its special interests. As with all government professions, the most corrupt judges rise to the top. As soon as the Constitution was ratified, justices created tortured arguments to break the law. Those decisions became launching pads for future judges to disobey the law ever more excessively. Constitutional law today has virtually no relationship to the actual Constitution. Constitutional law is a fiction created by power-hungry men and women over the centuries so they wouldn’t have their ambitions or the ambitions of their cronies restricted by ink on a page.

The same is true at the state level, and Governor Kasich is counting on it. ProgressOhio claims seven violations of the Ohio constitution by JobsOhio. Several look spurious, but since they’re filing suit anyway, it’s in their interest to make multiple claims. The more they make, the more likely they are to win one.

The first two claims challenge the law’s requirement that any challenge be filed directly with the Supreme Court within 60 days. But the constitution is clear, “[Suits against the state.] Suits may be brought against the state, in such courts and in such manner, as may be provided by law.” Elsewhere the constitution allows law to set jurisdiction for courts. The JobsOhio law does that. Even ProgressOhio must believe these provisions are constitutional because it filed directly with the Ohio Supreme Court within 60 days as required by the law.

While these requirements appear to be constitutional, they are unusual. It’s pretty easy to figure out why Kasich wanted them. First, six of the seven Ohio Supreme Court Justices are Republicans. This gives Kasich a powerful, partisan advantage at the Supreme Court he doesn’t enjoy in lower courts. Second, because the case had to be filed so quickly and bypassed the usual, months long appeals process, the governor guarantees the Supreme Court will hear this case during his honeymoon period, magnifying his partisan advantage.

And he’s going to need it because the rest of the claims appear to have merit. The constitution forbids the governor from holding any other position in the government, but the law makes him the head of JobsOhio. JobsOhio is set up as a private entity, but it’s hard to make the case it’s truly private when it’s created by legislation and funded by the government.

This setup creates more problems for Kasich. The constitution reads, “The General Assembly shall pass no special act conferring corporate powers.” Another section of the constitution forbids the government from investing in or co-mingling money with a private entity. ProgressOhio has challenged JobsOhio on both. Kasich has trapped himself in a catch-22. If JobsOhio is a private company, it violates these provisions. If it’s a government agency, it violates the previous one.

ProgressOhio has also challenged JobsOhio for its debt liabilities and appropriation longer than two years. Both of these challenges stem from the independence of JobsOhio so are related to the last two challenges.

Kasich’s response to the challenge was a partisan attack, not constitutional arguments. Partisan control of the Supreme Court is no guarantee Kasich will win this battle because judges rule in their personal interest first and foremost even when at odds with the interests of their party. The language of JobsOhio is convoluted to give the judges cover as described by co-plaintiff Democrat Representative Dennis Murray, “Through its tortured language, this bill makes a mockery of public records laws through its Alice-In-Wonderland assertions that a government function is not really a government function and that a government agency exercising the powers of government is not really a government agency.” Regardless of language, it’s hard to imagine any judge profiting by ignoring Kasich’s catch-22. One possible way to remove that catch-22 is for Republicans to change the provision making the governor the head of JobsOhio.

But the bigger question here is whether it makes sense for the government to do any so-called
economic development at all. Cleveland.com describes Kasich’s vision in a nutshell, “Kasich has said JobsOhio is intended, in part, to help put the state in the business of being a venture capitalist. Instead of just offering tax breaks to lure companies to Ohio, JobsOhio could lend funds in return for the state gaining equity in the companies it helps.” Both JobsOhio and the Department of Development suffer from the fatal conceit of central planning: that a handful of central planners have more knowledge about the talents, skills, strengths, weaknesses and desires of millions of individuals than the individuals themselves. To fix Ohio’s economic problems, we should abolish both the Department of Development and JobsOhio and allow the people to keep their own money and use it to improve their lives as they see fit. If we reduce the burden of government, existing Ohio business will thrive and new businesses will flow into the state.

NASA’s Decision Is All About Looting

NASA’s Decision Is All About Looting
by Mark Luedtke

According to the Dayton Daily News, “Ohio politicians were smarting from NASA’s announcement Tuesday that it decided not to award an orbiter to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.” No doubt. If NASA had sent a shuttle to Dayton, it would have been a real coup for Senators Brown and Portman and Congressman Turner. It would have meant more money in their campaign coffers, less likelihood they would face a primary challenge in their next election and most likely a weaker opponent in the general election. Instead, this decision makes them look weak which will translate into less campaign money raised, a greater likelihood of a primary challenge and facing a stronger opponent in their next general election. This is especially true for Democrat Brown who looks vulnerable in 2012.

As disappointing as NASA’s decision was to the people of Dayton, Brown understands the situation. The Dayton Daily News reports, “A congressional investigation of how NASA made its decision to allocate space orbiters for permanent display could shed light on the process, but is unlikely to change the outcome, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said Wednesday.” So even though it won’t change anything, Brown wants to waste our tax dollars, money stolen from the people at the point of the government’s gun, on an investigation anyway.

But Brown already knows why NASA made the decision it made. Like all government agencies, NASA’s primary mission is to loot the American people. The shuttle program is probably the most spectacular example of government looting Americans other than war fighters have ever witnessed. The shuttle was designed to impress the American people by placing the white elephant on top of the most gigantic column of flame NASA could produce. Advancing American interests in space was a distant secondary priority that could have been accomplished more effectively much cheaper. The space shuttle was shock and awe for Americans.

And it worked. Every spectacular launch of the space shuttle engendered feelings of patriotism in Americans which government exploited to steal more money from the people. Even the shuttle catastrophes that killed 14 astronauts boosted those patriotic feelings government uses to manipulate us. The shuttle program was so successful that NASA stole about $450 million from us for each mission on top of the cost of developing, building the shuttles and maintaining a full time staff of thousands to service the fleet. By comparison, an Ariane 4 rocket costs $65 - $115 million to launch. According to Wikipedia, “The total cost of the shuttle program has been $145 billion as of early 2005, and is estimated to be $174 billion when the shuttle retires in early 2011.” That’s some serious looting.

So when NASA bureaucrats retired the shuttles, they used them to maximize the money they could loot from the American people in the future. First, they satisfied the overlords in Washington by sending one to the federal government’s museum dedicated to making the federal government look good: the Smithsonian. This guarantees Washington aristocrats won’t overrule or fire NASA’s bureaucrats. Second, since Kennedy Space Center was the site of all those spectacular shuttle launches and it’s the most visible branch of NASA, they sent one there to keep people looking at NASA. Finally they sent the last two to the two biggest cities in America where they are likely to impress the maximum number of people into allowing the government to steal ever more of our money.

NASA had nothing to gain by sending a shuttle to Dayton. The people of Dayton are already big supporters of aerospace because of Wright Patterson and Dayton’s history. That wouldn’t change either way.

Senator Brown knows this and so does everybody else in Washington. The people have nothing to gain by an investigation into NASA’s decision, but they have money to lose. But Brown and other elected officials in Ohio and Texas, who were weakened by the decision also, have something to gain by wasting our tax dollars on this investigation: power. If they force an investigation, they will have “done something”, and even though that something is worse than useless because it wastes our tax dollars, constituents always want their representatives to “do something”. If they force an investigation, it will advance their power at our expense, and that’s what government is all about.

But what have we lost? Who would have thought when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969 that Americans would not have a permanent base on the moon by now? Who would have thought Americans would not have landed on Mars by now? But we’ve achieved neither of those things because they couldn’t be used to loot us as effectively as recurring shuttle launches. Plus the shuttles served the military. What a waste.

Ending the shuttle program won’t end the looting. NASA will loot us with other programs and continue to hinder Americans in the private sector from rocketing past it and exposing it as the enemy of human advancement it’s become. We should auction off all of NASA to free American inventors and entrepreneurs to revolutionize space travel, explore space and exploit its unlimited resources.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Obama administration attacks Boeing for planning a facility in a right-to-work state.

ECONOMY:

Professionals are being hit hard.

TAX AND SPEND:

Mark Steyn on federal debt.

US taxpayers pay subsidies to Brazilian cotton farmers.

REGULATION:

Regulations prohibit lemonade stands.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The political impact of inflation.

Inflation driving up gas prices.

HEALTH CARE:

Obama administration bullying drug companies.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Gas prices set to top $4.00 nationally. Most places around here are already $4.15.

Al Gore stuck his head up long enough to compare global warming skeptics to birthers.

Listing lizard as endangered could shut down oil and gas production in west Texas and New Mexico.

POLICE STATE:

Increasing security after bin Laden's death. Apparently killing him made us less safe, so it was counter-productive. Heads they win. Tails we lose.

WAR:

Judge Napolitano says the execution of Osama bin Laden is against the law. The president has no power to summarily execute anybody. Napolitano is also skeptical. The woman killed during the raid was not bin Laden's wife and he did not use her as a human shield. That original story was just propaganda to make executing him seem legitimate. Details of the DNA test are still murky. White House offers weak excuse for the execution of bin Laden, saying they didn't give an explicit kill order in contradiction to yesterday's Reuter's report. I don't believe them. Here's why:

"Capturing bin Laden alive would have presented numerous uncomfortable challenges, CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports. Where would he be held? Who would do the interrogation? Would the U.S. have to read him his rights?
Most counterterrorism experts did not view bin Laden as an exploitable source for intelligence, Orr reports. There was little chance he could substantively add to what the government knows about his organization. Beyond that, bin Laden, alive in captivity, would have added to his mythological standing among radical jihadis and would have presented an ongoing tool for radical recruitment."

They executed him because it was convenient, and they're just trying to cover their butts after the fact. Here's the story of the intelligence operation that located bin Laden.

"Intelligence officials had known about the house for years, but they always suspected that bin Laden would be surrounded by heavily armed security guards. Nobody patrolled the compound in Abbottabad."

So they didn't bother checking who lived there? You have to be kidding me.

"Officially, it was a kill-or-capture mission, since the U.S. doesn't kill unarmed people trying to surrender. But it was clear from the beginning that whoever was behind those walls had no intention of surrendering, two U.S. officials said."

They're trying to transfer the blame for the execution from Obama to bin Laden. Like these SEALs couldn't capture this old man. These sharpshooters could have wounded him instead of shooting him in the head. They probably could have saved him if they had only shot him in the body. The head shot was an execution.

"Bin Laden's body was immediately identifiable, but the U.S. also conducted DNA testing that identified him with near 100 percent certainty, senior administration officials said. Photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation on site by a woman believed to be bin Laden's wife, who was wounded, and matching physical features such as bin Laden's height all helped confirm the identification. At the White House, there was no doubt."

Good for the White House. What about the rest of us? As I suspected, the shots that killed bin Laden were a double-tap. All the shooter had to do was not double-tap, and they could have captured bin Laden instead of killing him. Here's an article on SEAL team six.

"Several dozen JSOC operatives have died in Pakistan over the past several years. Their names are released by the Defense Department in the usual manner, but with a cover story -- generally, they were killed in training accidents in eastern Afghanistan. That's the code."

I didn't know that. We hear about training accidents all the time.

"But Sunday's operation provides strong evidence that the CIA and JSOC work well together. Sometimes intelligence needs to be developed rapidly, to get inside the enemy's operational loop. And sometimes it needs to be cultivated, grown as if it were delicate bacteria in a petri dish.In an interview at CIA headquarters two weeks ago, a senior intelligence official said the two proud groups of American secret warriors had been "deconflicted and basically integrated" -- finally -- 10 years after 9/11. "

This is not a good thing. The CIA should not be military.

"Under a variety of standing orders, JSOC is involved in more than 50 current operations spanning a dozen countries, and its units, supported by so-called "white," or acknowledged, special operations entities like Rangers, Special Forces battalions, SEAL teams, and Air Force special ops units from the larger Special Operations Command, are responsible for most of the "kinetic" action in Afghanistan."

So the US military is waging war in a dozen countries. That's nuts. Another version of the story. My conclusion yesterday was correct.

"Knowing there would be disbelievers, the U.S. says it used convincing means to confirm Osama bin Laden's identity during and after the firefight that killed him."

They knew there would be skeptics, but they chose not to capture him or even allow independent witnesses to see him, then they buried at sea so nobody could ever verify it was him. They intentionally kept us from being able to verify his identity knowing full well we'd want to. This makes me skeptical it was really bin Laden.

""We are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama bin Laden," John Brennan, President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser, said Monday. He said the U.S. will "share what we can because we want to make sure that not only the American people but the world understand exactly what happened.""

What a load of crap. If they wanted to convince us, they could have captured him like they did Saddam instead of assassinating him. If they wanted to convince us, they could have shown the body to the press like they did Saddam's sons before burying it at sea. If they wanted to convince us they could have already released pictures and video of the raid. This the most blatant cover-up ever- a cover-up in plane sight - and this guy acting like they're being transparent is a joke.

"The helicopter-borne raiding squad that swarmed the luxury compound identified bin Laden by appearance. A woman in the compound who was identified as his wife was said to have called out bin Laden's name in the melee.Officials produced a quick DNA match from his remains that they said established bin Laden's identity, even absent the other techniques, with 99.9 percent certainty. U.S. officials also said bin Laden was identified through photo comparisons and other methods."

That kind of certainty can only come if you're comparing his DNA to another sample of his DNA. You can't get that kind of certainty from comparing siblings or children.

"Tellingly, an al-Qaida spokesman, in vowing vengeance against America, called him a martyr, offering no challenge to the U.S. account of his death."

Assuming that's true, that might be the best evidence I've heard yet.

""I'm not ready to buy bin Laden was here," said Haris Rasheed, 22, who works in a fast food restaurant. "How come no one knew he was here and why did they bury him so quickly? This is all fake — a drama, and a crude one.""

I like the way that guy thinks.

"The act denied al-Qaida any sort of burial shrine for their slain leader. Once again, bin Laden had vanished, but this time at the hands of the United States and in a way that ensures he is gone forever."

I appreciate this argument, but it's a red-herring. They could have still shown his body to reporters to verify it was him and still buried him at sea. They could have captured him and tried him at an admiral's mast then executed him on board ship and buried him at sea. They had many options to prove they got the right guy while still keeping al Qaeda from turning his grave into a shrine. Instead they chose to hide his identity from everybody.

"Pakistan, for one, is a land of conspiracy theorists, and far-fetched rumors abound on the streets and in blogs throughout the Arab world. But that's not just a characteristic of the Islamic pipeline. Many ordinary Americans — and one billionaire — persistently questioned whether Obama was born in the U.S. despite lacking any evidence that he wasn't."

Wow. The press has drawn the link to Obama birth certificate and this event too. It's seems very odd that Obama releases his birth certificate after years just before he tells us to trust him, he really did get bin Laden. It's like he timed the release of the birth certificate to boost the people's trust in him to get us to trust him on bin Laden's assassination too.

"To be sure, even photos and video, subject to digital manipulation, may not provide the final word to everyone. "

And the government is taking its sweet time releasing them, isn't it? They could do a lot of editing in the time its taken to release them. Some guy on Foxnews just said that they got a treasure trove of info from the bin Laden raid, and they might be able to break the back of al Qaeda. That means bin Laden had valuable intelligence. This is more evidence that executing him instead of capturing and interrogating him was stupid. The decision to bury him at sea was made in advance, so it was definitely an assassination mission. Some government guy just said that bin Laden was not armed when he was shot. A woman who wasn't bin Laden's wife charged the SEALs, and they shot her in the leg. Then they executed bin Laden with a double-tap to the chest and head. Wounding him or capturing him without wounding him was an option, but that was clearly not their orders.

WikiLeaks had leaked a document naming the courier and the town in which bin Laden lived. That may have driven the timing of the raid. It also suggests they may have killed the right man.

POLITICS:

Claim that the natural born citizen clause of the Constitution demands that not only must the president be born in the US, his parents must be US citizens also. Obama's are not.

Three articles explain why Obama will not get re-elected. Obama surely knew these things too before he launched his plan to kill bin Laden and get rid of his body.

PBS journalist preemptively plays the race card for the 2012 election.

MEDIA:

The number of households with TVs dropped for the first time in history.

Free kibbles

POLICE STATE:

Since the government can't have Americans stop being scared of terrorists, should we expect a terrorist attack soon? I'm sure the Feds have some poor patsy lined up ready to take a fall in the next few days or weeks.

WAR:

US forces kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

"Bin Laden met his end 10 years after the 9/11 attacks in a firefight with a small team of U.S. forces that launched a daring raid on the compound where he was holed up with some trusted advisers. He was hiding only 35 miles from Pakistan's capital Islamabad."

So he was living just outside Islamabad. So much for the theory he was in the lawless region.

"Intelligence officials secured a major intelligence breakthrough about four years ago when they learned the name of a trusted courier believed to be living with Osama, according to senior administration officials who asked not to be named.Two years ago intelligence officials learned the courier was living in an elaborate compound somewhere. In August they pinpointed its location outside Pakistan's capital.
It was a massive compound that overshadowed other homes in the community, an affluent neighborhood popular among retired military officers."

He was hanging out in a prominent compound - it's always a compound - surrounded by retired Pakistani military.

"The secret operation was conducted by U.S. forces without the knowledge of any other country. The U.S. government has always maintained the right to unilaterally go after bin Laden if he was located."

Could this story make it any more obvious the US thought the Pakistanis were hiding him without specifically saying so? Apparently they used DNA testing to prove it was bin Laden. Apparently a picture of his corpse exists.

"The U.S. is believed to have collected DNA samples from bin Laden family members in the years since the 9/11 attacks that triggered the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the U.S. also had fingerprints or some other means to identify the body on site."
And...
"U.S. officials also said bin Laden was identified through "facial recognition," a reference to technology for mapping unique facial characteristics, but it was not clear exactly how the Navy SEAL troops performed the comparison."

Are they carrying portable facial scanning tools now?

"The body was later taken to an American warship, but the senior Pentagon official declined to say which one and where the ship was situated."

Maybe ships carry facial scanning tools. Maybe that's why they took the body to a ship.

"The body was photographed before being buried at sea, although no images have been released by the Obama administration."

Buried at sea? Why? He was killed in northern Pakistan, far from any sea. Maybe they wanted to keep terrorists from treating is grave as the grave of a martyr? But it seems very suspicious they would bury him at sea without allowing any independent verification that it was him.

"The U.S. official who disclosed the burial at sea said it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial."

That's convenient.

"Long believed to be hiding in caves, bin Laden was tracked down in a costly, custom-built hideout not far from a Pakistani military academy."

And...

""Intelligence analysis concluded that this compound was custom built in 2005 to hide someone of significance," with walls as high as 18 feet and topped by barbed wire, according to one official. Despite the compound's estimated $1 million cost and two security gates, it had no phone or Internet running into the house."

More evidence that implicates the Pakistani government.

""Justice has been done," President Barack Obama said late Sunday from the White House in an announcement that seemed sure to lift his own political standing."

And...

"The development seems certain to give Obama a political lift as the nation swelled in pride. Even Republican critics lauded him."

Conveniently timed to boost Obama's poll numbers before the 2012 election, but I would think if he had a choice, he would have preferred later to now. A year from now killing bin Laden will be tiny compared to our economic woes. But it will provide him a temporary boost that he might be able to capitalize on somehow. On the other hand, maybe they thought if they did this next year, it would be too late to save Obama's re-election campaign. Maybe they thought they had to stop the slide now given the economic problems they know are coming.

"Panetta was directly in charge of the military team during the operation, according to one official, and when he and his aides received word at agency headquarters that bin Laden had been killed, cheers broke out around the conference room table."

Why was the CIA Director in charge of a military team? Granted, Obama has proposed he become the next Secretary of War, but that hasn't happened yet. This is another sign that our intelligence groups are now subsidiaries of the military. This article almost accuses the Pakistani government of hiding him:

"In his announcement, Obama said he had called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari after the raid, and said it was "important to note that our counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding."One senior administration told reporters, though, "we were very concerned ... that he was inside Pakistan, but this is something we're going to continue to work with the Pakistani government on."
The compound is about a half-mile from a Pakistani military academy, in a city that is home to three army regiments and thousands of military personnel. Abbottabad is surrounded by hills and with mountains in the distance.
Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied it, and in a statement the foreign ministry said his death showed the country's resolve in the battle against terrorism.
Still, bin Laden's location raised pointed questions of whether Pakistani authorities knew the whereabouts of the world's most wanted man."

That's as close to an accusation as you can get without it being one. Muslim clerics are unhappy he was buried at sea. So am I. I don't want to be too jaded here, but that makes me skeptical. I can believe the US government is so brain-dead, it doesn't realize that Americans are skeptical of it, but that's a lot of work to hide a body so nobody else can ever examine it.

"Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship.
"The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration," said Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon."

Radical clerics will use any excuse to incite violence against the US, so I don't put much stock in this. I'm more concerned about the possibility they buried the body at sea to hide a fake.

"A U.S. official said that the burial decision was made after concluding that it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. There also was speculation about worry that a grave site could have become a rallying point for militants"

I get that. But they could have had independent analysts identify the body before burying it at sea. I also get that it might not cross their minds they should so because of arrogance. The same arrogance that kept Obama from releasing his birth certificate until he got wiped out in an election and his poll numbers tanked would make it impossible for him to think of using independent analysts to verify bin Laden's identity. Then again, it's also convenient that the military got bin Laden right after Democrats were wiped out in an election and Obama's poll numbers had tanked.

"The Islamic tradition of a quick burial was the subject of intense debate in Iraq in 2003 when U.S. forces embalmed the bodies of Saddam Hussein's two sons after they were killed in a firefight. Their bodies were later shown to media."

Exactly. As was Saddam Hussein's. All were buried in the ground. Only bin Laden's was kept secret and buried at sea. Then again, Obama is president now.

"Prominent Egyptian Islamic analyst and lawyer Montasser el-Zayat said bin Laden's sea burial was designed to prevent his grave from becoming a shrine. But an option was an unmarked grave."

Exactly. They could have easily buried him someplace secret. It's interesting Obama did this right after he had his great "trust me" moment with his birth certificate. Maybe that's the real reason he released it. Here's a good point: now that bin Laden is dead, we get even higher security, not less. Reminder that in 2001 the news reported bin Laden died of lung problems. What would be the motive to lie about this?

"As Americans become increasingly disenchanted with governmental performance, President Obama prefaced his Sunday night remarks with these words: “Let’s bring back the sense of unity that existed on 9/11.” The next morning, CNN’s Carol Costello chirped her lines: “Americans are united again.” How about that! Wouldn’t it be nice if we just had bin Laden’s body to offer to the public as evidence supporting Obama’s claim. But, darn, someone immediately disposed of his remains, and at sea, no less, where recovery would be impossible!Perhaps Obama can find a modern equivalent of the Coroner in The Wizard of Oz who, following the death of the Wicked Witch of the East, intoned: “As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly examined her, and she’s not only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead.” There must be someone at the CIA or NSA who could play the part!"

Fantastic comparison to the Wizard of Oz. Comparison to the way the government destroyed the Oklahoma City evidence so the defense couldn't examine it. Fake pictures of bin Laden dead are already surfacing. Forget what I said about government arrogance. The US government had to know this kind of stuff would happen. They purposely buried the body at sea so nobody could examine it. And it's not just Obama who gets to look good. Every politician gets to bask in the glory. This doesn't just raise Obama's stock. It raises the entire government's stock at a time with trust in the US government is at the lowest point in nearly a century. And the government knows it, so again, they dumped that body at sea to keep anybody else from examining it. Maybe now that bin Laden has been supposedly killed, we can calculate how much money was spent by our socialist government hunting him down and killing him and compare that to estimates of how much it would have taken market actors to do the same. Reuters reports that US forces were ordered to kill bin Laden, not capture him.

"The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him, a U.S. national security official told Reuters."This was a kill operation," the official said, making clear there was no desire to try to capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan."

That's very convenient too. That way nobody could examine him dead or alive. The more I read about this, the more it stinks to high heaven. Reuters editorial supports the kill order, carrying water for the government. Not only that...

"Saturday night, Obama was yukking it up at the White House Correspondents Dinner — knowing the raid was about to happen, and the situation for America was about to get either a lot better or a lot worse. The president smiled his way through the dinner (arguably the single most ridiculous aspect of contemporary Washington politics), giving no hint. That’s Academy Award acting."

That's what psychopaths do, not normal people. But it's not just Obama.

"Nobody in the White House, the Department of Defense or the intelligence community leaked anything. State Department personnel were evacuated from Peshawar in the hours before the raid, and not one of them texted or tweeted the slightest hint. America really can do something properly!"

Who says the government can't conspire to keep secrets?

"At this time, no one should think of politics. But President Obama can be forgiven for knowing that his reelection odds just skyrocketed."

Nobody should think of politics except the president's advocates in the press, apparently. And the politicians themselves of course. This guy is nearly giddy with excitement over the prospect Obama might get re-elected thanks to this. Eric Margolis might be overestimating the importance of this compared to our economic problems next November.

"The assassination of Osama bin Laden by US Special Forces in Abbotabad, Pakistan will likely assure Barack Obama’s victory in the 2012 presidential race. Republican hawks will have a hard time pressing their claims that Obama is "soft on terrorism.""

I think the Republican mantra come November will be a repeat of Bill Clinton's: It's the economy, stupid. It's going to be a lot worse. As for the story:

"Details about the killing of bin Laden remain obscure. The mission, a joint operation between CIA and Special Forces, appeared to have been mounted from a US-controlled air base in Pakistan – without the advance knowledge of Pakistan’s government. US sources say Osama was shot twice in the head; his son was also killed.Bin Laden’s body was photographed and then apparently dumped into the sea from a US aircraft. Washington claims this was done to observe Muslim funeral rites calling for almost immediate burial. This sounds preposterous."

Preposterous is a good word.

"It is most unfortunate that bin Laden was literally rubbed out. If he could have been taken alive, the co-founder of al-Qaida should have been brought to the United States to stand trial in New York City, or, failing that, on a military base – but with lawyers and a civilian jury under full US law."

Unfortunate is not a good word. This wasn't allowed to happen by design.

"A big question now is what justification will Washington come up with to keep 150,000 Western troops in Afghanistan?Hunting down bin Laden was, remember, the primary reason for sending US troops to that remote nation. No doubt Taliban and its leader Mullah Omar will be morphed by the US media machine into a bin Laden stand-ins.
What of al-Qaida? This extremist group, as I have been writing since 1999, was tiny. Never more than 300 men in 2001. Today, the core al-Qaida in Pakistan consists of a handful of hunted men. CIA chief Leon Panetta asserted that there were something less than 50 al-Qaida members in Afghanistan. There may be a hundred in Pakistan – all on the run."

Supposedly over this we destroyed two countries and are bombing and radicalizing several more. Here's the real motives:

"The specter of al-Qaida provided a handy pretext to invade Afghanistan to secure strategic territory next to Central Asian oil, keep China out of that region, and double spending on arms. The invasion of oil-rich Iraq was also justified by patently false White House claims Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden over 9/11."

I never saw the White House claim Saddam was in cahoots with bin Laden. I wish somebody would reference the quotes to back this claim up because I never read it or heard it.

"Al-Qaida "affiliates" in North Africa, Arabia, and south Asia are simply small groups of local militants who have taken the al-Qaida brand name without having any organic or communications links to the remnants of the core al-Qaida in Pakistan. They are more a dangerous nuisance than a deadly threat."

The politicians and the mainstream media never report that. But here's the legacy we suffer:

"The Saudi revolutionary leaves another legacy. He repeatedly stated that the only way to drive the US from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing the United States into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt it. The United States under President George W. Bush and then Barack Obama rushed right into bin Laden’s carefully laid trap.Today, the nearly bankrupt United States is spending hundreds of billions annually waging small wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and the Sahara. Grotesquely overblown military spending and debt addiction are crippling United States. That is why the ghost of bin Laden may be smiling."

Bin Laden was a godsend to the US ruling class, enabling them to loot and oppress us ever more extravagantly so they could get richer faster then escape with their loot before the country collapsed. We've almost reached that endgame. Here's another important point of skepticism: how did they do DNA tests so fast? Did they have a DNA lab set up in Pakistan specifically for this? Did they commandeer one? Did they send the sample to Quantico? Some other lab? I'm sure they can do such a high priority test fast, but you can't get around the logistics. Here's another interesting theory:

"Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogeyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex."

Wishful thinking. Every politician joined hands to tell us that the danger from al Qaeda increased with bin Laden's death, not decreased. FBI wanted poster for bin Laden revised in November 2001 fails to mention 9/11. That seems odd. Isn't it funny how our intelligence obsessed government would chose not to question bin Laden? They didn't want to ask him about what other plots were being planned. They didn't want to get the names and locations of al Qaeda cells. They didn't want to learn how he funded and funneled his funds between his sources and projects. Nope. They weren't interested in any of that. They suddenly weren't interested in saving lives, just killing him. Comparison to a gangland execution. You can't help but wonder if George Bush had given the same execution order instead of trying to capture, interrogate then prosecute bin Laden, if liberals Democrats wouldn't have gone nuts. Also you have to wonder at the lawlessness of it. Obama considers us at war with al Qaeda, but liberals certainly didn't while Bush was in office and the legal aspects haven't changed. Probably the scariest thing about the stories I'm reading is the lack of skepticism. Adding to my skepticism is the belief that Obama would have benefited by keeping bin Laden alive and in the news until the next election. I find it hard to believe Obama would have failed to take advantage of that if he really found bin Laden.

Man unknowingly tweets the bin Laden raid while it happened.

Watch for this girl - Victoria Marshman - to burst upon the scene, if you know what I mean.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Will the US invade Pakistan after making it the evil supporter of bin Laden and more?

Does killing Qaddafi's son and grandchildren make Americans more safe or less safe?

NATO killed Qaddafi's son and three grandchildren, missing Qaddafi himself, in an attack on the son's home. Imagine if a foreign power had killed Obama's children. Pretty much every American would demand an invasion in retaliation. So my question is simple,

Does killing Qaddafi's son and grandchildren make Americans more safe or less safe?

Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Doug Casey explains what I was saying the other day:

"There really aren't investments anymore. With trillions of newly created currency units floating around the world, things will become very chaotic and unpredictable shortly. It's very hard to invest using any kind of Graham-and-Dodd methodology when things are that chaotic. Whether you like it or not, you're going to be forced to be a speculator in the years to come. A speculator is somebody who tries to capitalize on politically caused distortions in the marketplace. There wouldn't be many speculators, or many of those distortions in the marketplace, if we lived in a free-market society. But we don't."

Investing today is about guessing what government's going to do, not what investigating what companies are undervalued. That's ridiculous, but we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

"Well, investing is best defined as allocating capital in a way that it reliably produces more capital. The government is going to make that quite hard in the years to come with much higher taxes, much higher inflation and draconian regulations. You will actually be forced to speculate. That's a pity, from the point of view of the economy as a whole. But I kind of like it, in a way. Few people know how to be speculators, so I should be able to make a huge amount of money in the next few years. Unfortunately, it'll be at a time when most people are losing their shirts. But I don't make the rules. I just play the game."

As always, the big guys profit from government intervention while the rest of us lose.

TAX AND SPEND:

Many people blame big business for our problems, but big business can't rob us because it can't force us to do anything against our will. Only government can rob us, and it does more every day, and that's why our country is going down the tubes.

REGULATION:

Here's another example of how the plethora of laws in the US has destroyed the rule of law and replaced it with the rule of bureaucratic fiat.

"For instance, I’d note that the current FTC chairman’s term of office expired eight months ago. Yes, he’s been nominated for a second term, but the Senate has yet to act on that. Yet “the law” somehow permits the chairman to continue exercising his power indefinitely beyond the deadline prescribed by statute. But we can’t make an exception for Bill Isely, a non-lawyer who merely got confused by conflicting statutes and advice.More relevant to Isely’s case, FTC Secretary Donald Clark directly violated a federal statute when his office published Isely’s personal financial records on the Internet. There was no ambiguity here. Clark violated the law as written; he didn’t even try to deny it when I spoke with him about it. But the FTC took no action against Clark or anyone else. Again, the laws are applied to government officers quite liberally, yet they apply strictly and without mercy to those who lack state privilege."

Heads they win. Tails we lose.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

We're suffering the grandaddy of all bubble economies. Bubbles usually form in one or a few sectors of the economy. But today...

"Peter Coy and Roben Farzad write that the prices of everything from U.S. farmland to cemetery sites in China have blown far beyond economic fundamentals.   The S & P is trading at 23 times earnings and the historical average is 16.   Doug Noland, who runs the Federated Prudent Bear Fund fears “this is the granddaddy of them all, an almost-encompassing bubble right at the heart of monetary systems.”"

When these bubble pop, it's really going to hurt.

"However the authors point out that Ben Bernanke isn’t concerned and Janet Yellen hasn’t said a thing about bubbles, and by the way She said the Fed has nothing to do with commodity price run ups.   “She’s right,” Coy and Farzad contend: “Commodities aren’t being hoarded, as they would be if investors were speculating on them. Inventories have fallen since last summer.”"

In other words, those high prices commodities are entering the marketplace, driving up prices.

HEALTH CARE:

Great interactive infographic shows the breakdown of calories eaten by Americans since 1970. Notice the big jumps in grains, added sugars and added fat? Pretty easy to tell where our obesity problem comes from. I'll bet that's all from government-corporate processed food.

POLICE STATE:

Here's another example of how the plethora of laws in the US has destroyed the rule of law and replaced it with the rule of bureaucratic fiat.

"Graves has filed a lawsuit against the [Texas] AG’s office demanding that it acknowledge his actual innocence. The AG’s office, which insists that it would be illegal to offer formal recognition of that irrefutable fact, also maintains that it has the sad duty to continue stealing from Graves, because it is “obligated to collect the money that the court has ordered be paid.” Their scrupulosity over such matters is quite selective: When ordered to release an innocent man, the AG’s office can contrive sufficient wiggle room to justify keeping him imprisoned another four years — but when ordered to mulct the pittance that innocent man makes after being wrongly imprisoned, the AG is hyper-fastidious in applying the strict letter of the “law.”"

Every day abominations like this occur under our oppressive regimes.

WAR:

Remember when NATO wasn't trying to kill Qaddafi? Did you believe that lie? They tried to kill him and failed, but they managed to kill his son and three young grandchildren.

"Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli on Saturday, but his youngest son and three grandchildren under the age of 12 were killed, a government spokesman said."

Don't you love that humanitarian aid? Remember, if the US and western countries hadn't intervened, this war would have been over a month ago, but because they intervened and kept the war going, the casualties keep piling up, and many Muslims are blaming us. Some will commit terrorist acts against us in response. How does this make us safer? Imagine if a terrorist had killed Bush's or Obama's daughters and you can realize how this makes us much less safe. You don't have to be a fan or Bush, Obama or Qaddafi to want revenge. Libyans plunder embassies of US, Britain, France and others in retaliation. That won't be enough. Remember Qaddafi has billions hidden away that he can use to fund terrorist attacks against the west. Qaddafi's forces also increased attacked in Misrata seeking revenge, leading to more casualties.

Here's a great reminder that the psychotic criminals in Washington are not normal people.

"U.S. legislators of both parties are affirming support for NATO airstrikes that reportedly killed Libyan leader Colonel Moammar Gadhafi’s youngest son and three grandchildren."

It's OK to murder parents and children as long at's done to advance the interests of the western ruling class.

FOREIGN POLICY:

WikiLeaks dump reveals that the US is funding the police state in New Zealand as well.

"Wikileaks has just posted hundreds of cables from US personnel in New Zealand that reveal regular government lobbying on copyright, offers to draft New Zealand three-strikes-and-you're-out legislation, and a recommendation to spend over NZ$500,000 to fund a recording industry-backed IP enforcement initiative. The funding raises the question of whether New Zealand is aware that local enforcement initiatives, including raids and court cases, have been funded by the US government."

Talk about a client state.

POLITICS:

Pat Buchanan on Trump's laudable campaign to force Obama to produce his records:

"If a White House correspondent stood up at a press conference and said: "Mr. President, Donald Trump is asking for your college and law school test scores. Do you believe you benefited from affirmative action in your academic career?" would that be racist?Perhaps Obama might begin his answer as he did, two decades before, in a Nov. 16, 1990, letter as president of Harvard Law Review:"As someone who has undoubtedly benefited from affirmative action programs during my career, and as someone who may have benefited from the Law Review's affirmative action program when I was selected to join the Review last year, I have not personally felt stigmatized.""

How about rephrasing the question:

"Mr. President, you told the Harvard Law Review you benefited from affirmative action. Please tell the American people details of the specific instances in which you benefited."

I'm not holding my breath. I hope Trump runs. He doesn't play by the ruling class' rules, and that's good for the people. If Obama and his media lapdogs think making fun of him at the correspondents dinner is going to keep him from flirting with running for president and attacking Obama, they're delusional. This might chase off another Washington insider, but not anybody who's lived in the real world.

MEDIA:

In a good reminder that the press is literally in bed with politicians, Greta Van Susteren attends event with Sarah Palin.

"The hubbub was enough to cause one reporter to quip: "Look at all these reporters who typically rip her a new one mosey on up to her, desperate to get a photograph.""

I'm shocked. Isn't if funny how all the phony animosity disappears when they get together?

MISC:

How market actors deal with pirates.

"In the eyes of insurers, however, there is no equal to the threat of lethal force. Says Clive Stoddart, global head for kidnap and ransom for Aon Risk Solutions insurance brokerage: "There really is no substitute for having a weapon: live ammunition carried by people who have the right training." Marsh's Gustafson states the case simply: "Not one ship has been taken that has an armed security team on board." For a tanker transiting high-risk waters, an armed, four-person security detail costs about $30,000. That's expensive, but insurers are willing to discount premiums by as much as $20,000 for ships that use them, says Catlin underwriter Stuart Allen. Catlin's Dobbs relays the report of one security firm: In 1,000 transits through treacherous waters there were 90 encounters with pirates. Seventy-two were resolved simply by showing arms. Of the remaining 18, three were deterred by warning shots fired into the air, and 15 by single shots fired near the pirate vessel."

How hard was that to figure out? Instead spending billion on navy patrols and socializing that fantastic cost, the firms who profit from sailing those seas came up with an inexpensive, effective solution. This is why we should privatize everything. Naturally the Bloomberg article puts a negative spin on this, as if private security forces repelling pirates before they seize a ships and prisoners is somehow a bad thing compared to Navy Seals killing pirates after they've seized ships and prisoners.

The NSA advises Americans to upgrade to Windows 7. I wonder how much Microsoft paid for that.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Why unions oppose pay incentives.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

It's nice to see the British media reporting that high gas prices are the result of Bernanke's printing press.