Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Obama will veto bill that attempts to overrule the FCC's net neutrality rules. Our government is upside down. Congress is supposed to write laws and the executive branch is supposed to enact them. Instead, the executive branch writes laws and Congress is left with little power to overturn them.

The FCC is ordering ISPs to provide broadband internet to families with children on school lunch programs at $9.95 a month. That means the rest of the cable company's customers must pay for the program. In addition, price fixing always creates shortages, so you can expect your broadband to slow down.

SOCIALISM:

Unions are good for teachers but bad for students. More generally, unions are good for bad employees but bad for good employees, consumers and businesses.

ECONOMY:

Ron Paul explains that many millionaires and billionaires got that rich by working with the government to loot us. And he doesn't have to do anything to figure out who did that versus who got rich by providing products and services at a price people liked. All he has to do is end the bailouts and dramatically cut government spending.

TAX AND SPEND:

The government plans to tax Christmas trees ostensibly to increase sales. You can't make this stuff up. Christmas tree makers asked for this tax instead of funding their own marketing campaign. That's stupid and wasteful, and they're going to regret that decision.

The market effect of taxes: consumers end up paying much of them.

"Employers will hire fewer high-income employees, and will try to pass their increased labor costs onto their customers. This now depends on the relative bargaining power of the seller and his customers. To the extent that business owners can raise prices without comparatively large losses in sales volume, they can pass off most of their increased tax costs to consumers. Consumers who still buy at a higher price end up paying for part of the tax that was supposed to affect only "the rich." The political Right is wrong in its contention that the bottom do not pay for income taxes. Everyone pays sales taxes directly, but middle- and lower-income Americans end up paying for part of the taxes that were targeted at higher-income Americans. The political Left is also wrong. The actual burdens of higher taxes cannot be isolated to "the rich." Poor and middle-income Americans are already paying hidden taxes through higher prices. Additional increases in explicit taxes on the top 1 or 5 percent would increase the hidden tax burdens that everyone else already bears."

So if you really want to help the poor, abolish all taxes.

Yields on Italian bonds surpass 7 percent, which is considered unsustainable, and rates go up on France's debt.

"Italian 10-years were yielding 7.25% by noon in New York, a 552 basis point spread over German bunds. The yield on French bonds also spiked, with their spread against German bunds widening to almost 150 basis points.The situation is all the more shocking given massive ECB intervention in bond markets to support European banks.  Italy might be beyond the “point of no return,” according to Barclays, with its debt servicing needs exceeding output growth."

I like how this article calls the people demanding high rates vigilantes, as if they were doing something sinister by demanding high rates to offset their risk. The sinister people are the people who were stealing the money of others at the point of the government's gun or by printing money. Government prolificacy is taking down European governments and the euro. Unless we dramatically reduce our spending now, our government and the dollar are next.

"The risk of contagion is fast becoming a reality with Italy.  Rosenberg notes that “ratings downgrades could come next. And after Italy, the bond vigilantes could come after France and if that happens, we may all kiss the EFSF goodbye unless the Germans opt to Finance a continent-wide bailout on its own.”"

The talking heads want us to believe this is some kind of contagion. They're trying to deflect blame from the politicians and the banking cartel that enables them. This isn't about contagion. It's about governments spending more than their private sectors can support. It's about the burden of government collapsing the economies of these counties. Economies have been looted by government spending, debt and money printing to the point of collapse.

"If Italy were to default, the fallout would be devastating for Europe and the global economy."

If isn't a question of if but of when. The sooner all these governments default, the better. The more debt they amass, the more painful the inevitable collapse will be.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Global warming frauds turn on Al Gore. It couldn't happen to a more deserving crook.

Biden's staff "about had an orgasm" because of their excitement at lending Solyndra taxpayer money. These freaks get off on corruption.

POLICE STATE:

I'm seriously disgusted by this rush to judgment at Penn State. The Penn State powers-that-be have forced Paterno to retire even though he did nothing wrong. These people second guessing him nine years after the fact are just looking to boost their own careers at his expense. As of right now, we don't even know any children were harmed. Accusations aren't proof. False accusations of sexual assault are commonplace. Prosecution of innocent people is commonplace. If it turns out these accusations are true, they should punish the guilty after the crimes are proved. But punishing Paterno given what we know today is a disgrace. It's this kind of bloodthirsty rush to judgment that has corrupted our justice system into a conviction system.

Penn State fired Paterno. Assuming these accusations are true, Penn State would have been largely unaffected by them. The individuals responsible would be punished and the institution would have been undamaged. But this knee-jerk attack on Paterno though he did nothing wrong and the allegations have yet to be proven will damage Penn State for years or decades to come. Penn State has no credibility now. Who would want to coach or play from it after this? Penn State is hurting itself far more than any criminal misconduct by a few individuals could ever have hurt it.

These reports keep saying nobody at Penn State called the police, but when you look into the details, they did tell the campus police. McQueary saw the assault and informed. Paterno informed AD Curley. Curley subsequently met with McQueary and Gary Schultz. Gary Schultz was the vice president of finance and business, and as part of his job, he oversees campus police. Obviously Paterno could have done more, but he did what he had to do, and as a result, the overseer of the campus police was informed of the assault. It's despicable that Penn State punished Paterno like this.

FOREIGN POLICY:

China and Russia trade with Iran, and they have no problems with Iran. There's a lesson to be learned there.

POLITICS:

Responsibility for all the problems created by big government ultimately rests with the voters.

The good news is the Occupiers are exposing the leftists for who they are. The bad news is the protests are petering out.

Obama's bogus measure of poverty in his 2010 census.

Legalize freedom is a good slogan for Ron Paul.

MISC:

Blizzard with hurricane force winds to batter Alaska. Yikes.

American Pumpkin Chuckers

American Pumpkin Chuckers
by Mark Luedtke

Shows about Medieval knights and battles are popular shows on the History Channel. Renaissance festivals have become a modern American tradition. Americans love the romance of the Medieval period. Many dream of donning armor, riding a fine stallion, defeating the dark knight and saving the damsel in distress.

But engineers are a little different. They prefer to build and smash things. When they watch the History Channel, they wonder about the great siege engines of the period. That wonder motivated a local band of engineers to compete in the trebuchet division of the World Punkin Chunkin Championship.

The Trebuchet

The trebuchet is the most devastating catapult of the Medieval age. A trebuchet is basically a gigantic staff sling attached by an axle to a frame. The original models built in fifth century China were powered by humans pulling the short end of the staff to rotate the arm and throw a 250 lb weight a couple hundred feet. By the twelfth century, engineers had created much larger machines powered by counterweights that could hurl a 200 lb weight 1,000 feet. But after the invention of cannon, trebuchets were reduced to historic curiosity.

Then in 1986 John Ellsworth, Trey Melson, Bill Thompson and Donald Pepper challenged each other. The World Championship Punkin Chunkin website recalls the history, “‘It all started back in 1986,’ said Ellsworth. ‘We were playing around one day and somebody started talking about throwing pumpkins. There had been an article in a newspaper or on television about some people throwing pumpkins at Salisbury State. A physics class or something. One of us said that they could throw farther than someone else, and I threw my hat on the ground.’” The rest took up the challenge, and an event was launched.

To illustrate how far it’s come since, Melson’s winning chunk that year was 126 feet. The contest now has 13 categories, and the record toss excluding air guns was set in 2008 in the adult torsion category at 3091.78 feet. That’s well over half a mile. Air cannons fire pumpkins over a mile. The event includes a pageant, a chili cook-off and a pumpkin cooking contest. The World Punkin Chunkin Championship is simulcast on the Science and Discovery channels on Thanksgiving Day. Last year’s episode is the highest rated show in the history of the Science Channel.

The event has become so popular that engineers have developed modern designs and employed modern materials to throw pumpkins farther. One major design improvement, called a floating arm trebuchet, replaced the trebuchet axle with an arm that floats on wheels and allows the counterweight to fall perfectly vertically, imparting maximum energy to the pumpkin.

American Chucker

In 2004 Patrick Imlay, Don Poe, Ken Nairn and Eric Puschmann entered the inaugural CFC Pumpkin Chuck. Their website tells the story, “The first machine we built back in 2004 was made of used deck boards from a team member’s back yard. 'Chucky' threw 252 feet in a charity event in Dayton Ohio that was sponsored by the engineering department at Wright Patterson AFB. It was a very limited version of Yankee Siege design that broke on about the second throw, but we were hooked.” Hooked is an understatement.

In 2005 the team switched to a floating arm design made from wood, steel, aluminum and PVC. Rumors that it included a paper clip and gum wrapper cannot be confirmed. Each year they improved that design, replacing wood with steel to improve their performance.

By 2009 they were confident they could compete in the world championships. “We really beefed up for the 2009 WCPCA event. Our machine came off the ground and up on the trailer. Our arm was extended from 13 feet to 16 feet. The vertical supports went from 16 feet to 24 feet above the ground, although the drop is only 12 feet down to the wheel rails. The pivot between the arm and weight bar was strengthened so we could handle 2000 pounds. We launched our November 8 pumpkin with about 2250 pounds, and to be honest, we all paid homage to the Great Pumpkin, had our fingers crossed and hoped we wouldn’t break the machine.”

Once they decided to go to the world championships, they had to overcome a new hurdle: finding a new name. “We went to a series of ‘Chucky’ names, ‘Son of Chucky’, ‘Chucky Two’, etc, but when we started looking at the WCPCA, we found out that name was already taken, so in a serious team meeting at Hooters, over several pitchers of beer and a lot of painfully hot wings, we came up with American Chucker. In retrospect, I guess we're all happy with the name now.” Happy or not, it stuck. They earned second place out of 18 other trebuchets with a throw of 1885.99 feet.

Brimming with confidence, the engineers made some changes to American Chucker hoping for a win in 2010, but it was not to be. “We tried to beat our best throw from last year (1886 feet) by adding more weight and height, but ultimately failed. First we threw a 'safe' shot of 1783 feet Friday afternoon. Then during a Saturday morning open range test shot, the tip of our throwing arm struck the left upright. With help from other teams, we fixed the damage we could see before our afternoon shot.” But a spectacular failure proved the damage was worse than they realized. “The arm had internal damage which caused it to break and launch down range that afternoon. That shot made all the highlight reels, and we started gathering materials and tools for a major repair before the last shot Sunday afternoon.”

Other team members and local residents scrambled to assist. A local machine shop, closed on Sunday, opened to help them machine a brace to repair the broken arm. A participant welded the pieces back together so they could mount the arm and get off the final shot on Sunday. Even though the final throw wasn’t competitive. All the team members point to that project as an example of the camaraderie of the participants. Despite the setback, American Chucker still earned third place because of its first throw of 1780.75 feet.

2011

Team American Chucker includes four more team members now: James Connell, Steve Beyer, Tim Slifcak and Pete Hendricks. They converted Mr. Slifcak’s gigantic barn into a machine shop and began upgrading the trebuchet for 2011. The red metal barn with acres of farmland behind it provides a perfect work and test environment. The major upgrade this year was replacing the heavy steel arm with a significantly lighter aluminum arm. According to team captain, Patrick Imlay, they were expecting a 10 to 15 percent increase in distance because of the arm.

The American Chucker trebuchet is an impressive site on the field. At the 8th Annual CFC Pumpkin Chuck at Wright Patterson AFB National Museum, a charity event for the Combined Federal Campaign, held October 14th, American Chucker towered over the other five entries. When the machine throws, it’s even more impressive.

Pumpkin throwing contests require contestants use pumpkins weighing between 8 and 10 pounds. Because powerful machines like American Chucker exert so much force on the pumpkin, only special breeds are used so the acceleration doesn’t smash them in the sling. The team wouldn’t reveal the breed of pumpkin it uses. It’s a trade secret. For the first throw at the CFC event, the team hoisted 2,050 pounds for a drop of nearly twenty feet - that’s like dropping a small car off a two story building - to throw a 10 pound pumpkin. It launched the pumpkin with such speed it was nearly impossible to see and with a crack that sounded like a jet breaking the sound barrier. The throw went so far that the pumpkin nearly landed in the road almost half a mile away. The organizers should consider moving the machines farther back next year.

But for all the fun these guys have, there’s also frustration. The force of that first throw snapped their new aluminum arm into pieces. They lost about 15 man hours putting it on and another six replacing it. Mr. Nairn describes the frustration, “Aluminum is easier to cut and drill than steel, but welding it alters the internal structure of the aluminum near the weld points more than we expected, so that arm cracked near the welds when we dropped 2000 pounds of counterweights. It was frustrating watching a month of work and $300 dollars worth of aluminum in the new arm become scrap in 5 seconds. The next day we made a Frankenstein arm from pieces of our old steel throwing arms that we will use at the Young's Dairy exhibition tomorrow and the championships in Delaware in November.”

But Mr. Imlay reports expectations are still high, “Our goal this year? To set the world record!” The current world record for trebuchet is 2034.21 feet. But while winning and setting records is the goal, Mr. Nairn explains there’s more to throwing pumpkins than that. “I like the challenge of designing and building a simple machine to toss pumpkins over 2000 feet with my teammates, while drinking Yuengling beer.”

Scholarship

While also enjoying the social aspects, Mr. Imlay champions another goal, “This is the second year in a row that Rudolph Foods has sponsored our team. Rudolph Foods is a family company based in Lima, Ohio, and this year, they’re helping us provide a scholarship through the Midwest Pumpkin Chuck event for aspiring student chuckers. Our goal is to help students who are pursuing degrees in math, science and engineering. With the help of Rudolph Foods, we plan to give a $1,000 science scholarship to a student in 2012.”

Richard Rudolph, President of Rudolph Foods, describes the scholarship, “Rudolph Foods worked with Team American Chucker to set up a scholarship in conjunction with Punkin Chunkin. The sport of pumpkin chucking revolves around both math and science disciplines, and the scholarship is intended to encourage aspiring chuckers to pursue degrees in math, science and engineering. The hope is that this scholarship is the beginning of a long-lasting contribution to the Ohio community in the field of education. Student teams will compete at the First Annual Midwest Pumpkin Chuck, and the $1,000 scholarship will be awarded to a student on the winning team. Each team will be awarded various prizes as well.” For more information visit AmericanChucker.com.

Mr. Imlay invites everybody to watch the American Chucker team compete this year, “Watch the Science Channel’s Punkin Chunkin on Thursday, November 24th at 8:00 p.m. to see our team compete in the World Championships. We plan to compete again at Wright-Patterson base next year, and because the event is open to the public, it’s a great opportunity to bring the kids, watch some chucking and take part in the festivities. Pumpkin chucking is a great way to get our kids interested in science and engineering, and that’s our biggest goal.”

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying to fine Chicago residents into oblivion. He's masterfully using the divide and conquer strategy to gain support.

Italian PM loses confidence vote as government debt yields rise.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Remember when payday loans were a bad thing and governments had to regulate payday loan businesses out of business? The local paper accidentally explains what was really going on:

"Banks in Ohio have been filling the gap left by payday loan shops, which were nearly driven out of the state in 2008 when lawmakers capped the interest rates they charged."

This legislation was pushed by bankers because the payday loan places were taking business they wanted, but they didn't want to have to charge a fair market price to compete. And these banks are charging more than the payday loan companies did. We know that because if banks were charging less, they would have taken the business without legislation.

"Fifth Third charges a dollar for every $10 borrowed or the equivalent of a 120 percent annualized interest rate on a one-month loan, Stevenson said.That’s similar to the terms of most other banks in the area that offer short-term loans."

That's way more than the payday loan companies charged. They charged flat fees. It was robbery when the payday loan companies did it. Now it's a valuable service. I have a feeling somebody is going to get in trouble over this article.

HEALTH CARE:

Appeals court cites previous tyrannical government rulings in support of Obamacare's individual mandate.

""It certainly is an encroachment on individual liberty, but it is no more so than a command that restaurants or hotels are obliged to serve all customers regardless of race ... or that a farmer cannot grow enough wheat to support his own family," wrote Judge Laurence Silberman in the majority opinion, citing past federal mandates that inspired legal fights."

In other words, the Constitution doesn't matter. All that matters is what the men in robes say matters. This is why the American people will regret giving Obama the power to assassinate Americans on his own authority. You can't put the cat back in the bag.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Sometimes government creates such incredibly stupid situations, that the resulting incredibly stupid action is just hilarious. In this case, the Chinese government is threatening to release a large amount of HFC's, gases incorrectly blamed for creating hole in the ozone, into the atmosphere if negotiators get rid of the bogus HFC trading scheme.

POLITICS:

One way to look at the left's anti-capitalism is they don't want to work. They want to take money from other people by force. Then again, that's how the bankers, CEOs and the super-rich do it too. Government exists for the sole purpose of taking money from others so the rulers and their cronies don't have to do the hard work of producing wealth in a system of voluntary exchange.

Ron Paul possibly a kingmaker.

Penn State is using this recent child molestation scandal to oust Joe Paterno even though Paterno had nothing to do with it and did nothing wrong. It's pretty obvious the bigwigs at Penn State have wanted Paterno gone for a while, but he wouldn't retire. Now they're going to force him out.

Bill O'Reilly gives Ron Paul a pretty fair interview.

Bill Clinton wants to run for a third term. I want to see him run a ditch digging business and see if he can succeed.

LOCAL:

There's a lot of local levies and a couple of major state-wide votes going on today. Here's a snapshot of the Dayton Daily News via Google:

"Little Miami levy passing by slim margin"
"Voters narrowly approve Lebanon school levy"
"Incumbents holding their own against challengers in Lebanon board race"

You notice a common thread? Lebanon isn't even a suburb of Dayton. It has its own newspaper. Unfortunately it looks like the people overturned the legislation limiting government unions from stealing more from us. On the plus side, they passed a constitutional amendment blocking Obamacare. This is an interesting mixed bag. These two issues were linked: the people supporting one supported both, and the people against one were against both. Yet one passed by pretty much the same margin as the other failed. That hints to me the confusing language of issue two confused enough people to make it pass. Anybody looking for insight into which way Ohio will go in 2012 learned nothing.

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Bill Gates supports the proposed financial transaction tax. This is a good reminder that nobody became a billionaire without climbing in bed with the government.

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Internet privacy.

TAX AND SPEND:

While everybody was distracted by the debacle in little Greece, Italian debt yields approached 7 percent. The house of cards is collapsing in slow motion, but it won't remain in slow motion for long. The Italian debt crisis may lead not only to the end of the euro and the breakup of the EU, it may even cause Italy to break up. The US is looking at a similar breakup in the near future.

REGULATION:

Motorola gets court to ban iPhones and iPads in Germany. This IP stuff is out of control.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

The pretense that Fed officials are independent, not politicians, continues to be exposed with a former Fed economist projected to become the new Greek PM.

EDUCATION:

Government control of education is producing a modern dark ages.

HEALTH CARE:

Eating more salt reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. But it's got to be healthy, natural salt.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Global warming frauds busted for lying again. This is a particularly insidious case since these guys are posing as skeptics.

The world's CO2 output has grown faster than IPCC worst case scenario. But the planet refuses to warm.

POLICE STATE:

Local police profit over $300 grand from undercover operation. I guess making restitution is out of the question.

Obama seizing control of all TV and radio stations to incite three minutes of fear. Isn't it amazing our country managed to survive hundreds of years without government doing this in the past?

The surveillance state is more advanced and scary than you probably thought. Government plans for putting tracking chips into people.

In a good reminder of how corrupt our justice system is, the prosecutor and judge packed the jury in the case of Michael Jackson's doctor with fans of Jackson.

"A few said they were fans and one, the video animation specialist, said he had some interaction with Jackson when the singer was making the video, Captain EO."

Not only that:

"Nine of them have prior jury experience and one woman, a native of Spain, has served on five juries, all of which reached verdicts. She was once a jury forewoman.

A woman who has worked as a paralegal for 30 years is serving on her first jury and appeared enthralled."

I've never heard of a jury like that. They made sure the system wouldn't suffer another embarrassing failure to convict in a high profile case as happened with Casey Anthony, and the jury complied.

WAR:

The goal of all wars of aggression is to enrich the ruling class of the aggressor, but that's more obvious in zombie wars.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The folly of the US government getting us involved in African disputes.

"The US will send 100 special hunter-killer Special Forces troops to Uganda, an undemocratic US ally and American protectorate. This new US force will also reportedly operate in Congo (ex-Zaire), the Central African Republic, Kenya, and South Sudan.That latter new nation is interesting because its secession from Sudan was recently engineered by Washington. Coincidentally, South Sudan has substantial oil deposits. Washington is working on a plan to build a pipeline from South Sudan’s oil fields through Uganda to the Kenyan coast, thus shutting down the current export route through Sudan, which is on America’s doo-doo list."

Here we go again.

POLITICS:

Obama rejects subpoena for documents relating to Solynda loan. It's good to be the king.

Occupy protesters drag a police officer off his motorcycle. More of the ubiquitous violence that inevitably results from leftism:

"Zuccotti Park, the home of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters, is so overrun by sexual predators attacking women in the night that organizers felt compelled to set up a female-only sleeping tent to keep the attackers away."

Like I predicted, these protests are dooming the leftist movement that gained so much traction during the Bush years even though Bush was leftist in the mold of LBJ.

Leftists are lynching Herman Cain for having the temerity not to bow down to them.

"In just the last week, CNN has done at least 94 stories on Herman Cain and the sexual harassment allegations.  Meanwhile, from the time that Barack Obama threw his hat in the presidential ring (February 2007) until the day he was elected, CNN only did a total of 77 stories on Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, convicted real estate developer Tony Rezko, and Rev. Jeremiah Wright."

This is a perfect illustration of the ubiquitous racism on the left. It isn't simple bigotry. It's real, virulent racism.

Claim that all libertarians are racist.

China experimenting with democracy. No system of government has ever been as successful at looting the people. The people resist looting by others, but when they labor under the illusion that they control the government, it enables unprecedented looting.

MISC:

A vision of how law would work in a totally free society. It sounds like we'd have to sign contracts everywhere we went. Nobody would put up with that nuisance. I don't think you need a contract to spell out the non-aggression principle in every house or business you visit. Maybe I'm overestimating the concern. You'd only have to sign a contract once every so often. I still think there's no need to sign a contract constraining yourself to the non-aggression principle. The non-aggression principle could be the basis for all law.

Creme claims to enlarge breasts by changing fat cells. What could go wrong?

Remember that report that Muslims were complaining about Christian symbols at Catholic University? Not so much.

"...it seems that not a single Muslim student at CUA had gone to the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights to file a complaint."

Somebody was trying to cause trouble.

Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Cuban government allows citizens to buy and sell real estate. Funny how Cuba is going in the right direction - away from socialism - and the US is going in the wrong direction.

ECONOMY:

Imagine if you had to know the quality and quantity of every food harvest in America at every farm every week, and you had to allocate resources in response. That would be an impossible job. Fortunately, we still have a relatively free market in produce trading, so the bad harvest in peanuts is built into the price so nobody has to take on the impossible job of managing it.

The USA Today tries to make the case that Obama's policies have made the US economy stronger than Europe's. That's like claiming that Stalin was a great guy because he killed fewer people than Mao.

TAX AND SPEND:

The Greek PM resigns in attempt to save Greek profligacy and the euro. Both those things can't happen. He's just running away to escape the noose that's likely to follow. Greeks are going to get far more violent and their government will be forced to abandon the euro. Every deal that has been made to save the Greek government has failed and any new deals will fail. The euro is doomed.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Google is reportedly downgrading websites that are skeptical of great global warming fraud.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Pakistani government promotes trade with India. Trade is the harbinger of peace.

MISC:

Great advice for Android marketers and designers. Android commercials are stupid.

New evidence that dogs and men have been partners for tens of thousands of years.

Why government jobs are not productive. They don't create wealth, but Murphy never uses the word wealth in this article.

Free kibbles

FEDERAL RESERVE:

This is one of the worst policy prescriptions I've heard lately: permanent inflation:

"What the economy needs now, contrary to the right, is a permanent monetary expansion."

In other words, what the economy needs is exactly what Greenspan delivered the last 25 years. How's that worked out for you?

"For the 25 years leading up to our current mess—the period economists have come to call “the great moderation”—the Fed did a pretty good job of stabilizing the economy."

Apparently it's worked out great for the authors. How about for the rest of you? You can't make this stuff up.

The local paper has noticed that food prices have risen in grocery stores and restaurants.

WAR:

Our perpetual wars have left 90,000 soldiers unfit for combat. We're the stupidest people in the world.

Heartbreaking statistics about suicide in the military.

"You risk your mental well-being and enhance your chances of committing suicide when you become a combat soldier in the U.S. armed forces. Every 36 hours, a member of the U.S. armed forces commits suicide. The rate of suicide is 20 times that of civilians. How much mental disturbance is created among those who do not commit suicide? How much is created among family members and friends?"

Why do we empower our government to destroy young men and women like this? I wouldn't be surprised to find out that more people have committed suicide in the military than terrorists have killed in the US.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

Who would have thought that Arizona's tough new illegal immigration law would reduce illegal immigration? Oh wait. Pretty much everybody. The people against the law want more illegal immigration.

POLITICS:

Herman Cain come out unequivocally in favor of the status quo.

"Herman will “pull the right levers to turn around the fundamentals of this economy,” while “listening  to our military commanders on the ground in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.” He will "maintain our superpower status," stand by Israel, and unite with Canada and Mexico in a “strategic region.”"

Are you happy to hear that nothing of substance will change if we elect Herman Cain? Except maybe he can replace the dollar with the amero. Cain is an political inside pushing a statist agenda. What a waste.

While the press is focusing on the non-story of an anonymous, alleged sexual harassment complaint, it's ignoring Herman Cain's new, real campaign finance scandal. It's almost Clintonesque how Cain seems to be mired in corruption from every direction, but he seems to be gaining support with each new exposure. This illustrates how badly our society has been so sickened by government , and that's why our country is collapsing. It's like everybody knows that their candidate is beating his wife, but because the opposing candidate is beating his wife too, they vote tor him anyway. Then then pretend to wonder why our government is so corrupt and destructive.

Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner, two peas in a pod, busted for trading stocks which are targets of legislation before them. Remember, you and I are banned by law from insider trading, but Congressmen and their staff are not. This is an important reminder there's not a dime's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats. They are partners in looting us.

Straw poll voters in Illinois are so fed up with their government, they overwhelmingly supported Ron Paul.

MISC:

In a stark reminder of the ineptness of government, one week after the New England snow storm, government utilities have failed to restore power to over 200,000 residents. This extreme level of incompetence could never exist in a free market. Consumers would not allow it. Consumers would force such inept companies into bankruptcy. Only government can create and protect such poor services.


Great white smile my behind. This looks like the bite from hell.


Woman claims she took a picture of two ghosts having sex. Maybe being dead isn't as bad as we might think.


Jesse Ventura is moving to Mexico because it's a far more free country than the US. He's right.

Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

After being bullied by bigger criminals, most likely Obama, Geithner and Bernanke, Greece's rulers cancel the referendum. As a result, the Dow is already up over 100 points. This shows that anybody who thinks the people control the government is deluding themselves and anybody who thinks big business likes democracy is doing the same. Rulers rule. The rest of us are serfs. Apparently the Greek PM is going to resign over this debacle. If only our politicians had that much principle.

The Illinois government, launching pad of President Obama, may be worse than California's.

Freddie Mac asks for another $6 billion bailout. No. Let it go bankrupt.

Here's another reason why government is so inefficient at accomplishing anything other than looting and oppressing us.

"With "public works" viewed primarily as a means of "providing employment," explained Hazlitt, an endless array of projects will be "invented" by the government. The "usefulness" of the final product or the likeliness of success of a project, whether it's a bridge to nowhere or a bankrupt solar-panel company, "inevitably becomes a subordinate consideration."In fact, once creating jobs is viewed as the chief purpose of government spending, said Hazlitt, a project with more waste and more inefficiency in its implementation, and less labor productivity, will be viewed as superior to a less wasteful project. The "more wasteful the work, the more costly in manpower," he explained, "the better it becomes for the purpose of providing more employment.""

All of government is a jobs program. For politicians, bureaucrats and government agents. Oh my gosh, the bridge to nowhere is back.

"Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), for instance, likes the idea of the rest of us paying $315 million to build a useless and costly bridge in rural Alaska to an island with only 50 residents, an island that's already sufficiently accessible via a seven-minute ferry ride.Giving a free $2 million yacht to every man, woman, and child on the island would have been $215 million cheaper than the bridge, but Rep. Young was chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, not the owner of a yacht company.Economically nuts as it was, the US Department of Transportation approved the useless-bridge-in-Alaska project in 2004. Funding was later cancelled, but the bridge, like the irrepressible Jason in Friday the 13th, received funding again in the 2011 federal transportation bill. Rep. Young is currently the senior Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee."

And you thought Republicans would cut spending.

REGULATION:

The original, self-serving intent of four policies are very different from what we've been taught.

HEALTH CARE:

The CBO estimates Obamacare will destroy 800,000 jobs. That means it will destroy far more.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

New report exposes collusion between the IPCC and green lobbyists. Duh.

POLICE STATE:

Tenth TSA agent so far this year busted for pedophilia. This is a good reminder that government attracts the worst people in the country to work for it.

The British government is building a secret special forces base inside the Olympic venue in London.

WAR:

The British military is planning to join the US in an attack on Iran.

POLITICS:

More Occupy Wall Street violence in Oakland.

"Riot police arrested more than 80 protesters in the city's downtown, where bands of demonstrators threw chunks of concrete and metal pipes as well as lit roman candles and firebombs, police said. Five protesters and several officers were injured."

Because leftist ideology is based on violence, the absolute subjugation of the people by violence, leftists tend to be extremely violent. Apparently unions are at the heart of the Occupy Oakland protests.

I'm not surprised that many of the Occupiers come from rich families.

The poor Occupiers continue to suffer from their own socialist policies.

"They’re railing against freeloaders and ex-cons for stealing their stuff and spoiling their utopia. They’re squabbling with each other over money and power. The weather is turning frightful and a cumbersome bureaucracy of their own making is strangling their spontaneity."

And they're being directed by an organization that is making a profit of donations to the protesters. Ironic is a good description.

Bill Clinton and Harry Truman won re-election by running against do-nothing Republican Congresses. Both had pretty good economies, unlike Obama.

MISC:

Apple sues Luxembourg bistro because its name is AppleADay.

Ohio Attorney General Blows Smoke, but You Can’t

Ohio Attorney General Blows Smoke, but You Can’t
by Mark Luedtke

Most Americans are under the misconception that elections mean something to them. Most think if you vote out one party and replace it with the other, the government will go in a new direction. It never happens. No matter which party voters empower, government always continues in the same direction: bigger, more powerful and more oppressive.

Case in point: Ohio’s smoking ban. The smoking ban took a big chunk out of the property rights of Ohioans starting in 2007. It took an even bigger chunk of change out of the wallets of bar owners. You might think that since voters overwhelmingly threw the Democrats out in 2010, Republicans, who claim to support freedom, property rights, puppies and other catchy buzzwords they use to fool voters, would put an end to this infringement on freedom and property rights. Not when there are votes to be bought.

Last week the Ohio Supreme Court heard the case of Zeno’s Victorian Village, a Columbus tavern that had originally been sued by the Democrat Attorney General for failing to pay its fines under the smoking ban. Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine is continuing that suit.

Zeno’s makes two major arguments in its counter-suit. First, the law is unconstitutional on its face. Zeno’s points to the Ohio constitution and case law and claims the government can only interfere with property rights if there is an “essential public need”. Clearly, since customers voluntarily enter a bar and either smoke or inhale second-hand smoke, there is no essential public need to ban smoking in bars. In a sane society, this ban would never have happened. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a sane society. Our rulers claim they must use the threat of violence backed by violence to ban smoking to save people from second-hand smoke. The fact that customers are voluntarily inhaling the second-hand smoke seems lost on them.

Zeno’s second argument is more complex. They claim that the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) is not enforcing the law as written and therefore has violated the separation of powers doctrine in the Ohio constitution. One subsection of the smoking ban law states, “[n]o person shall refuse to immediately discontinue smoking in a public place, place of employment, or establishment * * * declared nonsmoking *** when requested to do so by the proprietor or any employee of an employer of the *** place***.” In other words, the liability for smoking falls on the smoker, not the bar owner, if a customer chooses to smoke after being informed it’s illegal by the bar owner. To comply with the law, Zeno’s removed all ash trays, put up no smoking signs and informs its customers who smoke that they are breaking the law and they are liable for any fines.

But the ODH refuses to enforce that provision of the law. It holds bar owners liable instead of smoking customers. Zeno’s reports ODH has never ticketed a smoker. It only tickets bar owners. It fined Zeno’s over $30,000. Zeno’s claims by failing to obey the law, ODH has effectively rewritten the law, which violates the separation of powers provision because only the legislative branch has the power to write laws. The Attorney General claims that Zeno’s employees provide cups to customers to use as ash trays so Zeno’s is winking at the law instead of enforcing it. But enforcing the law is not the job of bar owners. That’s the job of the ODH.

One thing I realized while researching this article is that this smoking ban is not only about prohibiting smoking. It’s also about alcohol prohibition. The prohibitionists can’t go after alcohol directly, it’s too popular, so they used smoking as a tool to harm bar owners and drinkers. It worked. Zeno’s claims that bar employment in Franklin County alone decreased by 869 employees after the first two years of the ban.

You might think this case is open and shut: the ban should be overturned because the government obviously overstepped its bounds. I doubt it. Laws are always written so bureaucrats, attorneys general, prosecutors and judges can expand the power of government. For example the Ohio constitution states, “Private property shall ever be held inviolate, but subservient to the public welfare.” That’s a non sequitur. Private property can’t be both inviolate and subservient to the public welfare. That’s how politicians pretend to support property rights while in fact rendering them meaningless. That’s how politicians pretend we are ruled by laws when in fact we are ruled by the self-serving decisions of our rulers.

This case will be decided by what’s in the best personal, economic interest of the justices. Since this smoking ban was created by voters in a referendum, it’s likely in the justices’ best interest to uphold the ban. That will buy them the most votes.

This illustrates the folly of our system of government. We’ve allowed a handful of voters, a tiny minority of Ohioans, to use the violence of government to force their prohibitionist values on every other person in Ohio. Nobody, not even an overwhelming majority, should be allowed to use violence to force their will on others except when defending themselves or others from aggression.

Free kibbles

FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

Wikileaks shuts down because banking blockade cut off funding. This is another reason we should not allow government to control banking.

ECONOMY:

Obama gets the diagnosis right but the prescription wrong.

"These are problems that built up over a decade or more; they won’t be solved overnight."

Built up over a century. But Obama is piling on at an unprecedented rate.

TAX AND SPEND:

It's funny to see the top gangsters in the EU call one of the lesser gangsters to heal for allowing democracy to work in Greece. This shows how much rulers fear real democracy. How much you want to bet Lord Geithner is either there in person or on the phone to dress Papandreou down? Regardless of what they say, this bailout won't fix anything. It will just delay the inevitable and make the correction more painful when it comes. As expected, Obama isn't happy.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Bank of America has scrapped its $5 debit card fee. We're supposed to think that government pressure saved consumers from this new fee. Baloney. Bank of America isn't giving up those profits. It has a new plan to make up that money more invisibly. We'll hear about it soon.

EDUCATION:

Tax payers in Seattle are about to be forced to pay for classes in how to create Marxist protest signs. Obama will probably send the program stimulus boondoggle money so we'll all be forced to fund it.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Leftists hate Columbus so much, they're blaming him for creating the Little Ice Age.

"Because there is no limit to the credulity of left-liberals we now have this — within a few years of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World all of the following happened:

1. a plague killed 90 million indigenous people of the United States,

1. which in turn led to the reforestation of North America,

1. which in turn sucked a lot of CO₂ from the atmosphere,

1. which in turn started the Little Ice Age.

Yep, it was Columbus's fault."

You can't make this stuff up.

"Of course, the irony of the ridiculous idea that Columbus caused the Little Ice Age is that, until it became utterly crazy for anybody to deny natural variation and to continue to insist upon thehockey-stick theory of climate change (that global temperature had been constant for more than a thousand years but, with the start of the Industrial Revolution, has been trending up), the AGWers were claiming there was no Little Ice Age, that the fall in temperature that was recorded by Europeans at that time was merely a local phenomenon."

But no movement is homogeneous. Frauds like this will throw any theory at the public in hopes one will stick.

More Obama green energy corruption. It's also true that Republicans, lying sacks of excrement that they are, are rooting for economic failure. But they don't have to root. It's going to happen. Economics isn't voodoo. Government spending, regulations and printing money always produce economic collapse when they get too high. Just as Bush destroyed our economy and ushered in the even worse Obama policies, Obama's more aggressive destruction of our economy will usher in an even worse Republican.

POLICE STATE:

Do we really need a national test of the emergency alert system? It's hard to imagine a threat to everybody in the nation at the same time. This is just more fearmongering so the feds can gain power.

POLITICS:

I always enjoy a good laugh at the duplicity of politicians. Here's Mitt Romney, the Republican Slick Willie, as an example:

"I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.""

You can't make this stuff up. Who in the real world would have guessed that cabinet positions were gifted based on the percentage of people in the country with the same religion. Or sex. Or something. In the real world, people get jobs because they can produce better than their competitors. This article is trying to make another worthless, divisive point, but this is the more fundamental point.

I thought from the beginning that the sexual harassment attack on Cain came from Romney. I'm not the only one. Romney is every bit as dirty, phony and self-serving as Clinton. But this attack is good news for Republicans. It's better stuff like this gets flushed out in the primary than in the general election. Too bad for all of us Hillary Clinton didn't expose Obama for the Marxist monster we subsequently learned he is.

Leftists are accusing Herman Cain of being an uncle Tom. Already. He hasn't even been nominated yet. Leftists are that scared of him. I have a completely different fear. When Obama was elected, I predicted that because of his damaging, socialist policies, he would violently divide the country and inspire the greatest racial division we've seen since the 60s. I was right. Obama's devastating policies have ruined the opportunities for black Democrats for decades. He's burned the bridges and salted the ground. If Herman Cain get's elected, he won't change a thing worth caring about. He's another status quo candidate who will nothing more than changing the window dressings if he does that. If he does as I predict, Americans won't give a black Republican a chance for decades afterwards. If either Obama or Cain gets another term, because both promote such punishing policies, racial division in this country will likely explode. This sucks. Boortz is exactly right about this: leftists are ramping up to destroy Herman Cain.

"GM is Alive and Bin Laden is Dead" isn't a bad slogan, but I doubt people in food lines will hear it.

I'm skeptical of this graph showing the countries in which companies are more likely to bribe government officials to get their way. I think it's way more prominent in the US than this graph says because the US government makes the bribe legal in the form of campaign donations. It's interesting that Russia is the lowest even though it's demonized throughout the west for its corruption. I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that was a big lie. I'd like to see this graph compared to a graph of the size and scope of government for the same countries. I bet they would be nearly identical.

Americans distrust government more than ever. What took so long?

Real Clear Politics summarizes the economic plans of the Republican presidential candidates.

This is one of the best political cartoons I've seen in a long time:


MISC:

Siri definitely threatens Google, but Google will catch up. I spent 15 years railing against the way Microsoft used monopoly power (granted through other patents) to buy up all the voice recognition patents starting in the early 90s so it could bury the technology in order to save Windows. Imagine if your computer responded to your voice; Windows would be dead and Microsoft knew this. Now that the earliest of those patents are expiring, Apple is kicking everybody's ass with the technology. Voice recognition technology is going to explode so fast, it'll boggle the mind. This is an investment opportunity.

Here's another in the tremendous number of cases where government money corrupted science. In this case, it's a psychologist. This also supports the claim of many libertarians that psychology is a pseudo-science invented to bolster the state.