Texans Against Senator John Cornyn

Anyone else think it's time to see senator Cornyn removed as Texas representative? His recent support for the "fiscal cliff" compromise shows me that he enjoys spending other people's money and would rather see taxes increase so that he can continues to do without regard to that unsustainable path. Cornyn would rather ignore the realistic idea that cutting spending creases deficits, while raising taxes only increases the national debt. How can anyone so ignorant of economic principles be allowed to make fiscal choices on behalf of anyone else? There is nothing bipartisan about what politicians are doing today in regards to responsibility in government, and voting them out is one effective way to make a change in the state.

More:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Texans-Against-John-Cornyn

At least, with Cornyn and Pelosi holding hands-on this "compromise," we don't have to pass the billet see what's in it...

Flu Shots, Lack of Consent, and Freedom of Choice

Despite nominal scientific support for all vaccinations (some specific remedies are effective), how aggressive is a culture than can not tolerate dissenters? When some vaccines are hardly even occasionally effective, why then do so cling to the perception of success rather than on actual success?

The flu shot is a crapshoot… it may or may not work, even when the vaccine matches with the predominant virus.

"A northern Indiana hospital has fired eight employees who refused to get flu shots the hospital says are needed to protect patients from the potentially deadly illness." [Associated Press]

The problem I find is a lack of a high success rate in regards to a potential health threat. If chances were nearly 100% that one would contract and fall victim to a particular illness or virus, and there were a precautionary measure which were equally effective at combating that threat, then the market would support that solution. Only when we have a government which intervenes in markets and individual choice do we see situations such as the influenza shot forced upon a population  people will seek solutions proven effective when given the freedom to do so. We also need the freedom to make bad choices so that we can learn from them...

From the CDC:

    How well do inactivated influenza vaccines work in randomized control trials?

    As vaccine efficacy from a randomized clinical trial is the gold standard for how well a vaccine actually works, vaccine effectiveness estimates obtained from observational studies can equal, but not exceed, estimates of efficacy. Many factors that can result in substantial bias in effectiveness studies tend to bias the vaccine effect downwards.

    How well do influenza vaccines work during seasons in which the vaccine strains are not well matched to circulating influenza viruses?

    When vaccine strains are not well matched with circulating influenza viruses, the benefits of vaccination may be reduced. It is not possible to predict how well the vaccine and circulating strains will be matched in advance of the influenza season, and how this match may affect vaccine effectiveness.

Full article: 

http://junkscience.com/2013/01/01/ind-hospital-fires-8-workers-who-refused-flu-shot/

Parents, the State, and Collectivism

Something that has bothered me about involuntary societies since fully understanding the idea has been the inherent lack of choice, and the subsequent lack of learning from the act of making individual choices, be they positive or negative.

Life is an opportunity, not a guarantee, with the opportunity to fail also delivering the potential for cognitive growth. What life gives us in these opportunities is the chance to excell in a higher capacitive reasoning potential. By learning from failure today, we have the chance to succeed tomorrow. As parents, we are charged with raising our children to be the keepers of tomorrow's world, and without our knowledge, experience, and guidance, how can we expect to hold a legitimately optimistic view of what tomorrow's world will hold? 

I say this not only as a parent, but as inequality who teaches his children to respect others by respecting ourselves, but by trying to pass that understanding on to other parents. As George Carlin said, "don't just teach your children, teach themto question everything." How else can we make the future better than the present? 

One of the most malignant features of modernity since the French Revolution has been the attempt by the State—left or right, fascist, nationalist, socialist, or communist—to take over control of children's education from parents and local agencies—such as churches and municipalities—and direct that education in the interest of grandiose, intellectually neat, or more efficient plans and aims. The Philosophes and Jacobins of "Enlightenment" and Revolutionary France were the chief originators and evangelists of this program, but its subsequent development has had left-wing, right-wing, and even innocuous-seeming democratic or patriotic forms.

With the rise of the state in opposition to individuality, along with the learning experience facilitated by the consequences of bad choices, we see an erosion of natural rights, whereby individuals are discouraged from recognizing the failures of collectivism. There is hardly anything democrat about a society without an opt-out policy. Modern governments are more than willing to use violence against the peasants to show that the oligarchy shall not be questioned. By withdrawing consent to be governed, we effectively relegate laws against victims of victimless-crimes to the history books, a distant reminder of a world when common sense was anything but. I may disagree with the faithful on the origin of the effort, but the goals are not entirely dissimilar; an end to violence.

In the aftermath of World War II, after a century and a half of ultimately tragic and destructive attempts by left-wing, right-wing, or simply radically-secular states to wean children from their parents and local and religious loyalties and influences in the interest of state-directed education, many Western European nations and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (1948) clearly asserted that "parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children," in the words of the Declaration. With the fall of Communism, after 1990 new national constitutions in eastern Europe affirmed the provision their Western neighbors had made in the preceding decades, a noble story told well by Charles L. Glenn in Educational Freedom in Eastern Europe (1995). This provision included forms of tax relief or support that would enable parents to make such choices.

More: 

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2012/parents-vs-the-state

I believe that to best serve our children, we need to foster in them a critical view of the world, every aspect, and hope that they can find the best in everything. 

By removing the ability to learn from our experiences (even failure), we are truly being teachers for our children. What happens in a society in which repercussions are suppressed (in both social and economic realms) is that we dontnlearn from our experiences. 

With problems like drug addiction, where historically abuse of a substance is statistically insignificant until the state see fit to enact regulatory prohibition of some sort, is that we see a spike in instances of such issue. As with a child, telling them not to do something and teaching them about the consequences of the same action have quite varying outcomes. When we tell our children not to smok or drink alcohol, where teaching about the negative consequences of the same action result in caution and consideration. Historically, issues like drug usage and firearm violence rise with prohibition. 

If we expect our children to succeed, shouldn't we prepare rather than hindering them?

Obama Orders Political Class Pay Raise

With the fiscal cliff looming, rather than ask the oligarchy to share in the burdennof higher taxes on their salaries (that they don't pay) or reductions in pay, we instead see that they see themselves as greater than the peasants, deserving more despite the problems they create.

http://thenavigatoronline.com/2012/12/29/obama-orders-political-class-pay-raise/

An End to Nationalism - A Time for Each State to Secede From the Union

A 79 minute discussion about secession. Just some things to think about, but not for those with a conditioned attention span of 3 minutes or those who are good for a 15 second commercial and then their mind is exhausted and they have to rest. This is a video that you play when jogging. I think everyone should consider my ideas laid out here and think about how life would change if the United States of America was a collection of states, united, without the federal government to drain the wealth of individuals, take us into costly wars and make demands on us, as if we are under the dictatorial rule of an oppressive federal government. Those in government do not understand the Constitution and they prove it, every day. We don't need leaders any more, if they act like this. The first document they should get familiar with is the Constitution and by the time they take their oath, they understand the true meaning of that oath, the reason it is significant and what would happen to our nation, if people rose to power, without adequate respect for this sacred document! The Tenth Amendment provides us with the means to change America for the better.

more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LindseyWilliams/~3/5Apetk1owDc/an-end-to-nationalism-time-for-each.html

KEEP CALM AND KEEP ON LOOTING…

Q: What does it mean when the chief financial regulator who presided over England's financial train wreck gets knighted by the Queen? A: Keep Calm and Keep On Lubing

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Maxkeisercom/~3/jPOvkSP_E9A

Government condoned violence: Congress debates guns and taxes

It's like trying to teach children not to hit by spanking them. It just doesn't make sense, and it propagates violence into subsequent generations. What is dangerous is the institutionalization of this failure. 

Every law is a threat of violence, yet Americans seek to solve every problem with one:

The new U.S. Congress will convene on January 3rd with two high profile issues to consider. There is zero chance that they will get either one of them right. The debates on both are already framed into a lose-lose proposition for the American people, as are virtually all "debates" on Capitol Hill.

One issue is "How should the right to keep and bear arms be further infringed?" The other is "How much less of their own money should Americans be allowed to keep?"

With a more enlightened populace, there is always some chance that pressure on the legislators could produce a more positive result. However, the gullible American public has already taken the bait that "something must be done" on both issues. "Something" means Congress passing a law, which means the perceived problem will be solved with violence.

---

Source

Japanese security firm to rent surveillance drones for use in private homes

Just when you thought the rapid advance of drone technology couldn't get any more unbelievable, a Japanese security firm has announced that they will offer surveillance drones on a rental basis for a meager $58 per month starting some time after April, 2014.

Offering rental drones for private use is quite novel, although it seems to be part of a larger trend towards using or planning to use drones in non-military applications ranging from broadcast television news-gathering to traffic monitoring and police use (also see below video):

More

225,000 Flee California Annually

Still think socialism has overwhelming support in America? Think again:

Ever since the gold rush in 1848, Americans have gone to California for economic opportunity. But now, after decades of Democratic and liberal Republican leadership, California has the 2nd highest tax burden in the country, and people are fleeing in droves. For the past 10 years, 225,000 Californians have left the state annually.

225,000 Flee California Annually | The Austrian School

Do the Rich Deserve to be Taxed? : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education

Not everyone hates the rich. But as the so-called "fiscal cliff" approaches, expressions of distaste for "them" occur frequently enough that the solution seems simple: Tax the rich!  But who are the rich?

For some, "the rich" includes anyone making a lot more than they are. "A lot" doesn't exactly add much precision to the discussion. In Washington, the debate centers on the top 2 percent of income earners.

 

Part of the impulse to tax the very richest households comes from the belief that "they" can afford it. What's a few thousand dollars more in taxes to someone making millions a year? But another part comes from the belief that the rich are not paying their "fair share." And that's what I would like to address. What might be behind the deeply felt suspicion that the rich got that way unfairly?

 

First, who is the 1 percent? It's easy enough to find that the average household income of the top 1 percent of income earners in the United States in 2008 was $1.2 million. But to break into the top 1 percent today you need much less: about $380,000. (The top 2 percent begins at around $200,000.)  So everyone from a moderately successful lawyer (or two not-so-successful lawyers living under one roof) to Bill Gates is considered one of "the rich."

 

Second, how much income does the 1 percent make, and what do they pay in taxes? According to The Christian Science Monitor, in recent years the top 1 percent earned about 20.3 percent of all income in the United States and paid about 21.5 percent of all state and federal income taxes. They also pay about 30 percent of their income in taxes. 

 

So the numbers indicate that the top 1 percent annually pay a little more of the combined federal and state taxes than they make in income. The kerfuffle in Washington these days is about federal income tax alone. Well, the National Taxpayers Union tells us that the top 1 percent paid 36.7 percent of all federal income taxes in 2009.

 

I've never heard anyone who's been calling for higher taxes on the rich say exactly how much more than 36.7 percent of all federal income tax those who are earning 20.3 percent of the income should be paying. To many, the answer is simple: more!

 

The key to all this is the concept of "earning" income. What does it mean to "earn"?

 

There are only two ways to acquire great wealth: trade or plunder. Private property and markets did not flourish over most of human experience, and so for the most part people got very rich by taking from others by using or threatening physical violence. Under such circumstances—which again dominated our history—it was natural and reasonable to suspect the rich of wrongdoing. They had privileges denied to everyone else.

 

Privilege is a loaded term, of course. Some speak of privilege whenever one person simply has more than another. I use the term in the sense of Frédéric Bastiat, as a favor granted by the government to a select few at the expense of others. A free market is a market free of privilege.

 

Legal privilege has never completely disappeared even in the freest markets. But where it has been constrained the most, gradually throughout much of the world over the past 200 years or so, markets and trade have indeed flourished, to the benefit of all—especially the least well-off in society. People became rich and super-rich in unimagined numbers through trade rather than plunder. Plunder, after all, at best redistributes wealth; it never creates it. The rich earned their wealth. 

 

The economic historian Deirdre McCloskey argues that when the merchant class were granted dignity and respect, material well-being started an upward climb (beginning about the year 1800) that we experience to this day. But ancient habits of thought are hard to shake.

 

In the past 60 or 70 years legal privilege has again intruded into relatively free markets with a vengeance. In the form of "special interests" and "rent seeking" it has thrived in the presence of so much wealth to be plundered by protectionism, subsidies, and taxation. What we today call "crony capitalism" reinforces popular suspicion against great wealth.

This is the institutionalization of Bastiat's concept of legal plunder; the state enabling the involuntary plunder by one group for another. But it's not enough to simply call for a redistribution of perceived ill-gotten gains, we need to address the system which facilitates this exploitation. 

In the crony-capitalist system we live in it may not be altogether wrong, from a libertarian view, to be suspicious (though not envious) of the rich and of how they got that way. Great wealth made by Wall Street bankers, agri-businesses, the healthcare industry, defense contractors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, sports franchises, billionaire developers—all partnering in some way with political power—mix trade and plunder together in ways that may be impossible to untangle.

 

Crony capitalism, and the "monstrous hybrids" it creates, makes criticizing simplistic calls for taxing the rich much more of a challenge. How much of the income of the 1 percent is earned from trade and how much comes from plunder? As government intervention grows it will get harder and harder to say.

The Freeman: Foundation for Economic Education

U.S. Taxpayers Likely to Lose Billions of Dollars on GM Bailout

The Obama administration said Wednesday it will sell 200 million shares — or 40 percent of its remaining stake in General Motors Co. — back to the automaker and announced plans to completely exit the Detroit automaker by March 2014. The Detroit automaker said it will purchase 200 million shares of GM [...]

---

cryptogon

The trouble is that GM has reportedly declined to by back shares sold to the US government. 

The Economic Return of Iceland Has Proved That the Joke Was on Ireland

WAY back in the autumn of 2008, the joke in financial circles was that the only difference between Ireland and Iceland was a letter and six months. Now, with the Icelandic banks preparing to issue foreign currency bonds once again, it turns out that the joke was on us. [...]

---

Cryptogon

Donald Trump and the Collapse of the Dollar

My sentiments exactly:

This economy needs to totally collapse already....let's just get it over with. I feel like i'm dying a slow painful death in slow motion. Our Country has been dancing with the Devil for many years now, and flirting with disaster. The time has come...the time is now. We need an all out collapse, so we can push the reset button & start over.

Arkansas Police Chief Claims Crime Stats are Probable Cause to Shakedown All Pedestrians for ID

Overreaction?

Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall of Paragould, Arkansas announced plans to patrol the streets with AR-15 rifles and stop pedestrians randomly for IDs and questioning.

According to the Paragould Daily Press:

'[Police are] going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck,' [Police Chief Todd] Stovall said. 'If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID.' 

Stovall said while some people may be offended by the actions of his department, they should not be. 

'We're going to do it to everybody,' he said. 'Criminals don't like being talked to.'

Is anyone else a bit creeped out by the increase in the police state? Everyone should be highly vocal and offended by this warrantless act. 

Does this sound like a violation of your 4th Amendment right to privacy without probable cause? Well, they claim that rising crime statistics provide all of the probable cause they need to stop any and every person who may be walking in the street.

More: Activist Post

Dec 21 2012 and Conspiracy Theories

Why is the seed vault so away of the reach of regular people supposed "Survivors"? Question is kinda obvious. its not meant for us only for elites . Don't think world will end... literally... For some people it will because they are soo dependent on the system that when it collapses it will be the end of the world to them. Its all a matter of perception what you call the end of the world. The supreme "intellect" is hard at work.Got to keep that non-existent image in the mind of their people. Ain't worked so far,not for the strong Kemetic mind. Oh we know events are coming,but man's data can't track it.I think that your media/government is blocking out what is really going on here in the USA. Alot of people are starting to exodus.

More: finance armageddon

Sandy Hook Massacre

“They had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own,” intoned the murderer of 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki as he began the liturgy of official mourning for the victims of the Newtown massacre. 

Every time children die in an outbreak of violence, “I react not as a president, but as anybody else would as a parent,” continued the head of a regime that will not explain to Nasser al-Awlaki why his son Anwar and grandson Abdulrahman – both of the U.S. citizens – were murdered by presidential decree. 

“We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years,” insisted the official who has presided over dozens of lethal drone attacks in Pakistan and other countries with whom the U.S. is not formally at war.

More: Sandy Hook Massacre: Sympathy from the Devil

Conversation Between Two Drone Pilots

How sad:

Spiegel's Nicola Abé wrote a very interesting story on The Woes of an American Drone Operator. It includes the conversation between two drone pilots, right after they fired a Hellfire missile only to see a kid appear on their screens a second before impact. 

Yet there are still individuals willing to aggress against others and call it defense. Quite sad indeed. 

Bill of Rights: The Founders’ Vision is Dead and Gone

Mourning the Death of individuality;

Bill of Rights Day is December 15th. But as Kevin Gutzman points out in this article, originally published December 14, 2009, it's not a day of celebration. Instead, it should be a day of mourning for the death of decentralized self-government.

America is Going to Crash Big Time

With the end of the world upon us in a little more than a week, it's time to start entertaining some collapsitarian views:

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Treasury Secretary in the Reagan Administration, and he warns, "America is going to crash big time." Dr. Roberts says, "The real problem is not the fiscal cliff." The dollar is on very thin ice. Dr. Roberts says, "They can't stop hemorrhaging the debt [...]

Will the ‘regulatory cliff’ cause another economic collapse in the U.S.?

I think that the analogy of the impending financial troubles ahead as revenues decline and spending increases is somewhat inaccurate. The "financial cliff" that so many have been referencing as of late doesn't really put the current situation into perspective in a way that normal, economically-ignorant people can fully appreciate, but partisan views like this do more to encourage that divisive disregard for a need to address the underlying issues:

It seems the entire talk is over the fiscal cliff, but some Republicans in Washington and several business groups are discussing the upcoming "regulatory cliff" that many say could be just as damaging to the United States economy. 

The level of intervention into voluntary exchanges by both Republicans and Democrats is beyond unacceptable, with both doing immense damage to local and global economies that would function efficiently when left in their unencumbered states. One side focuses on economic liberties, the other on civil, but neither understands that both are necessary in a free society. I suppose it's more likely that the back and forth between the Left and Right will continue, along with the distractive methods used to maintain a centralization of power in the hands of the ruling class, rather than a move toward an agoristic society. But I can dream...

BofA Seeks to Knock Out MBIA Claims Tied to Countrywide

An $8.5 billion settlement with investors over Countrywide mortgage bonds is tied up in court. In October, the U.S. sued Bank of America over loans sold by Countrywide to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that the government estimates led to more than $1 billion in losses for the companies.

In the MBIA case, Bank of America's strategy is to delay the litigation and push the insurer "to the brink of insolvency," said Isaac Gradman, an attorney at Perry, Johnson, Anderson, Miller & Moskowitz LLP in Santa Rosa, California, who isn't involved in the case.

---

More

75 Percent of Obama’s Proposed Tax Hikes to Go Toward New Spending

The Swash calls it for what it is; 

Seventy-five percent of the new revenue pulled in by President Barack Obama's "fiscal cliff" plan would go toward new spending, not toward deficit reduction, the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee contends. Here's a chart, detailing how money from the new tax hikes would be distributed:

According to the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee, $1.2 trillion of the proposed $1.6 trillion in tax hikes would go toward new spending, while only $400 billion would go toward deficit reduction.

"The [president's] plan called for $1.6 trillion in new taxes, twice what the president asked for in the campaign. He asked for $800 billion during the campaign. Now he wants $1.6 trillion in new taxes," said Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, last week on the floor.

"Spending under that plan would increase $1 trillion above the levels agreed to in the Budget Control Act, as signed into law. We agreed to the Budget Control Act 16 months ago, in August 2011, and we raised the debt ceiling and agreed to reduce spending. We raised the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion and agreed to reduce spending $2.1 trillion. The President's plan would take out over $1.1 trillion of those spending limitations that are in current law. I repeat, spending will increase more than $1 trillion above the already projected growth in spending," Sessions added.

"Our spending is growing. It is not decreasing. It is already projected to grow, but the President's proposal is to have it grow even faster than the law currently calls for."

I'm not keen to side with one party over the other, but this is just ridiculous. Budgetary debates within government tend to focus on decreases in future spending rate increases, which is hardly cutting back. It's like saying you are not going to spend $100 in the future, only $97. Adjusting future projected spending rates are not the same as cutting spending when we need immediate cuts to keep things from grinding to a halt as a result of career politicians and their partisan politics, not that anything has or will change while either party has their hands around the necks of taxpayers...

The Fiscal Cliff

For years the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has been warning that the federal government's fiscal course is "unsustainable." And for just as long, Congress has refused to do anything about it, preferring to defer and delay whenever possible. 

Unsustainable spending of the money involuntarily extracted from taxpayers does little to promote any sort of responsibility by career politicians who are simply replaced by others just like them on a regular basis. Where is the incentive to do anything productive?

The consequences of congressional irresponsibility have been mounting all the while: four years of $1 trillion deficits, a $16 trillion federal debt [and always rising], and a slew of temporary tax policies. Even routine fiscal decisions have been neglected: For more than three years the Senate has declined to pass a budget, perhaps fearing what an honest assessment of the government's fiscal situation might show. 

It is easy to see why Congress is so keen to ignore these issues. The biggest single driver of the federal debt is Medicare, which faces $38 trillion in unfunded liabilities and is expected to become insolvent by 2024 under even the most accommodating estimates. Social Security, a program that has been running annual operating losses since 2010, faces $20 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Federal spending on Medicaid is scheduled to double by 2022 under Obama-Care, and defense outlays are set to grow by more than $100 billion during the same period even if proposed "cuts" take effect. The long term gap between spending and revenue is a problem that affects nearly every piece of the federal government, and as CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said in 2010, it "cannot be solved through minor tinkering."

It's amazing that everything hasn't already come tumbling down.

This fiscal Jenga tower starts to come crashing down on January 2, when inaction-as-usual will suddenly become a major policy decision. Starting on that day, several of Congress' kick-the-can games are scheduled to end: A temporary payroll tax cut expires, raising taxes by $95 billion if it is not extended; an estate tax cap disappears, multiplying the number of Americans hit by the tax tenfold; and the income tax rates that were reduced under President George W. Bush return to their 2000 levels. According to an October study by the Tax Policy Center, that last change would affect 90 percent of American households, with average marginal tax rates jumping by five percentage points on labor earnings, seven percentage points on capital gains, and 20 percentage points on dividends. 

[...] 

---

More from Reason

Worried about the apocalypse? Don't be. Here are some real dangers to worry about instead.

December 21st grows nigh. Are you worried about the Maya apocaplyse? Don't be. As we already told you, the Maya didn't give a shit about your dumb apocalypse. But you already knew that, right? Good. That means you've freed up a bunch of time and energy that you can now devote to panicking about other stuff. There are plenty of things that are way more worthy of your worried hand-wringing. Here are a few of them.

More

Uncle Sam's Financial Suicide

The Federal Reserve's decision last month announcing "infinite" quantitative easing has now put the United States on the path of infinite money creation.

With up to $85 billion in monthly money creation — including $40 billion a month in purchases of mortgage-backed securities — the Fed is now wholly committed to the creation of money out of thin air to cover old debts.

Mathematically, this financial death spiral can only end in sheer catastrophe.

This massive money creation tactic is the Fed's last-ditch plan to desperately try to save the economy.

"I think the country should have panicked over what the Fed is saying that we have lost control," said Ron Paul, "and the only thing we have left is massively creating new money out of thin air, which has not worked before, and is not going to work this time."

Peter Schiff added, "This is a disastrous monetary policy; it's kamikaze monetary policy."

Schiff is right. This is financial suicide.

It's also highly offensive to anyone who can actually do math (which, sadly, isn't that many people these days).

Where is the well-placed outrage from the media or the people when it is actually justified and sorely needed?

Bernanke's announcement that the Federal Reserve will embark on an open-ended scheme to purchase $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities each month has been touted by the establishment media as the beginning of "QE3.″

Just call it QE to infinity!

---

More

The Reaper Presidency: Obama’s 300th Drone Strike in Pakistan

A US drone strike in Shin Warsak, South Waziristan on December 1 2012 marked the 300th drone strike in Pakistan of Barack Obama's presidency, according to Bureau research. The attack was the second since President Obama's re-election on November 6. It reportedly killed Abdul Rehman [...]

Link

War will never end as long as the monopoly on force by a violent gang in costume is put to an end. 

Newly Released Drone Records Reveal Extensive Military Flights in US

Home is where the drones is (Courtesy the EFF):

View EFF's new Map of Domestic Drone Authorizations in a larger window

Today EFF posted several thousand pages of new drone license records and a new map that tracks the location of drone flights across the United States.

These records, received as a result of EFF's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), come from state and local law enforcement agencies, universities and—for the first time—three branches of the U.S. military: the Air Force, Marine Corps, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

Military Drone Flights in the United States

While the U.S. military doesn't need an FAA license to fly drones over its own military bases (these are considered "restricted airspace"), it does need a license to fly in the national airspace (which is almost everywhere else in the US). And, as we've learned from these records, the Air Force and Marine Corps regularly fly both large and small drones in the national airspace all around the country. This is problematic, given a recent New York Timesreport that the Air Force's drone operators sometimes practice surveillance missions by tracking civilian cars along the highway adjacent to the base.

The records show that the Air Force has been testing out a bunch of different drone types, from the smaller, hand-launched Raven, Puma and Wasp drones designed by Aerovironment in Southern California, to the much larger Predator and Reaper drones responsible for civilian and foreign military deaths abroad. The Marine Corps is also testing drones, though it chose to redact so much of the text from its records that we still don't know much about its programs.

The capabilities of these drones can be astounding. According to a recent Gizmodo article, the Puma AE ("All Environment") drone can land anywhere, "either in tight city streets or onto a water surface if the mission dictates, even after a near-vertical 'deep stall' final approach." Another drone, Insitu's ScanEagle, which the Air Force has flown near Virginia Beach, sports an "inertial-stabilized camera turret, [that] allows for the tracking of a target of interest for extended periods of time, even when the target is moving and the aircraft nose is seldom pointed at the target." Boeing's A160 Hummingbird (see photo above), which the Air Force has flown near Victorville, California, is capable of staying in the air for 16-24 hours at a time and carries a gigapixel camera and a "Forester foliage-penetration radar" system designed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). (Apparently, the Army has had a bunch of problems with the Hummingbird crashing and may not continue the program.)

---

More

Bombshell: Deutsche Bank Hid $12 Billion In Losses To Avoid A Government Bail-Out

Courtesy Zero Hedge:

Forget the perfectly anticipated Greek (selective) default. This is the real deal. The FT just released a blockbuster that Europe's most important and significant bank, Deutsche Bank, hid $12 billion in losses during the financial crisis, helping the bank avoid a government bail-out, according to three former bank employees who filed complaints to US regulators. US regulators, whose chief of enforcement currently was none other than the General Counsel of Deutsche Bank at the time!

From the FT:

The three complaints, made to regulators including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, claim that Deutsche misvalued a giant position in derivatives structures known as leveraged super senior trades, according to people familiar with the complaints.

All three allege that if Deutsche had accounted properly for its positions – worth $130bn on a notional level – its capital would have fallen to dangerous levels during the financial crisis and it might have required a government bail-out to survive.

Instead, they allege, the bank's traders – with the knowledge of senior executives – avoided recording "mark-to-market", or paper, losses during the unprecedented turmoil in credit markets in 2007-2009.

Two of the former employees allege that Deutsche mismarked the value of insurance provided in 2009 by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway on some of the positions. The existence of these arrangements has not been previously disclosed.

Bloomberg's 'Fab Five' Spending Signals Suggest Slump Soon

From Zerohedge:

With the foundation of our economy now one of gluttony and excess (at all costs), the significance of the slowdown in consumer spending in the latest GDP data cannot be underestimated. As Bloomberg Briefs notes, real consumer spending fell 0.3% in October, and is only 1.3% above year-ago levels - the US economy has a propensity to slip into recession any time the 12-month pace of real consumer spending falls below 2.0%. Their so-called 'Fab Five' indicators of discretionary spending took a notable turn for the worse in October. Dining out fell 0.4% MoM in October and is only +1.5% YoY – its slowest pace since April 2010. Spending on cosmetics and perfumes fell 0.04% in October, continuing the negative trend from its peak registered in the summer of 2011. Spending on women's and girls' clothing slumped 1.8% in October, following a 0.1% decline in September. Casino gambling fell 1.6% in October, while spending on jewelry and watches fell 0.1% in the same month. All-in-all, the consumer's balance-sheet-recession continues...

Charts: Bloomberg Briefs

The Military-Industrial Complex's Waning Political Influence

In a recent paper, economists Christopher Coyne and Thomas Duncan paint a dire picture of the harmful effects of the permanent war economy. Most studies focus on total military spending (measured in either real or nominal dollars) to show the enormous growth in such outlays over the past 15 years. A few studies focus on the size of the Pentagon's budget relative to total federal spending, or to the economy as a whole, and claim that such costs are, in fact, quite modest.

I love to see the idea of cost analysis considers in regards to the warfare state. No one else seems to be...

But Coyne and Duncan, who are both affiliated with George Mason University's outstanding economics department, take a different approach. The true costs of the military-industrial complex, they explain, "have so far been understated, as they do not take into account the full forgone opportunities of the resources drawn into the war economy." A dollar spent on planes and ships cannot also be spent on roads and bridges. What's more, the existence of a permanent war economy, the specific condition which President Dwight Eisenhower warned of in his famous farewell address, has shifted some entrepreneurial behavior away from private enterprise, and toward the necessarily less efficient public sector. "The result," Coyne and Duncan declaim, "is a bloated corporate state and a less dynamic private economy, the vibrancy of which is at the heart of increased standards of living."

The process perpetuates itself. As more and more resources are diverted into the war economy, that may stifle—or at least impede—a healthy political debate over the proper size and scope of the entire national security infrastructure, another fact that Eisenhower anticipated. Simply put, people don't like to bite the hand that feeds them.

[...]

---

More

Is Any Taxation Sustainable in the Long Term

Now the AMT. This latest story from CNBC: "One of the key questions lurking in the 'fiscal cliff' talks – though well below the public's radar." In fact, again, I asked Senator McConnell about it on the phone today…

More

Eat, er, I mean tax the rich. Because taxing the top 1% income earners will run the US budget for at least a few weeks worth of unfunded liabilities, outside of the regular education, healthcare, and warfare state budgets. Yeah, that's the trick...

The Fiscal Cliff Buzz

What a surprise:

As the Democrats and Republicans in government race toward an alleged "fiscal cliff," each hoping the other will leap from his vehicle first...

The Fiscal Cliff

True News: The Fiscal Cliff? - YouTube

The US will have to raise taxes by almost 90% to pay for entitlement programs, and other fun signs of the economic apocalypse.

Sources: http://board.freedomainradio.com/forums/t/37470.aspx

Freedomain Radio is the largest and most popular philosophy show on the web - http://www.freedomainradio.com

Voluntary Association

If my statist, law-enforcement neighbor can raise a teenager in a major metropolitan city-state, I think that he will become a friend to the liberty movement in terms of reluctance to enforce bad laws. In his system, this is a constitutional imperative. I have no reservations assuming this teenager I have watched grow for a few years has experienced marijuana, and that the father is quite aware of the situation, even when he wonders if that familiar smell coming from somewhere close might be from his child or his comrade. Maybe this is the seed we are meant to plant for the future, an investment, driving society forward without violence or coercion, but collectively and above all, voluntarily. That investment will pay returns sufficient in both monetary and morality realms. If ending prohibition is not at least a step in nullification in a collective manner, then why bother, for if we can make this work in a mutually beneficial way, should we not at least try?

deGrasse Tyson on Collapsitarians

I'm all for having a last supper at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but the skeptic in me also makes me question an unknown future. I need hard evidence, not speculation. Give me something substantiated.

Crowd of 300 sexually assaults three girls in Tahrir Square

A crowd of 300 young people on Sunday sexually harassed three girls near Tahrir Square, according to a report on the website of Egypt's flagship paper Al-Ahram.

Come on. I know society hardly deserves to survive with everything going on lately, but do we really need such stark reminders? Can't the system be allowed to collapse quietly in the background?

After the assault, which took place near the Qasr al-Dobara Church that is used as a field hospital in the current protests, the girls ran to the nearby Mugamma administrative building in Tahrir Square, the Al-Ahram journalist present wrote about the incident. Their harassers followed them there, but the employees of the building closed the doors to block them out. Dozens of other demonstrators, who had been holding a sit-in in the square, then beat the harassers with sticks and rocks to disperse them, and took the girls to their tents in the center of the square.

The report said the Al-Ahram photographer could not take pictures of the girls being harassed, as the sexual harassers threatened to destroy his camera.

Incidents of sexual harassment have been increasingly reported during protests in and around Tahrir Square during the transitional period.

More: http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/crowd-300-sexually-assaults-three-girls-tahrir-square-0

Against Protectionism for Intellectual Property

If anyone was on the fence or in doubt about IP law, this case should help bring some logic an reason back into the discussions:

This week, at the behest of an anti-piracy group, police executed a search warrant against an alleged file-sharer. Not only did the police feel it was measured and appropriate to take action against an individual who downloaded a single album worth a few euros, but even carried on once they knew their target was a 9-year-old child. Of course there has been outcry, but let's look at this from a different angle for a moment. Isn't this some of the best news all year?

The news this week that Finnish police had seen fit to raid the home of a 9-year-old file-sharer has turned into one of the biggest stories of the year so far.

I'm not condoning an act if "theft," but this gross, disproportionate display of ignorance and force is just one more reason I believe the existence of the state is the greatest call for its prohibition. 

Ok, the event was hardly comparable to the military-style raid at the Dotcom mansion, but it was still an example of a disproportionate show of force by the police at the behest of copyright holders.

Of course, while Dotcom's children were undoubtedly affected by the action at their home in January, they weren't the prime targets. In contrast and quite unbelievably, in this week's debacle the unlucky daughter of Finland's Aki Nylund was. But despite being a common-sense disaster, this week's screw-up could be some of the best news we've had all year. And here's why.

If the police targeted the admins of one of the biggest torrent sites in the world this week or rounded up some heavy pre-releasers or similar, people might complain but it would hardly come as a surprise. The writing has been on the wall for a long time in that respect and the backlash from the public would be almost non-existent.

But in what kind of parallel universe does a professional, western police force think it's appropriate, proportionate and a good use of tax-payers' money to send officers to a citizen's home for a petty file-sharing issue, one involving the downloading of a single music album?

And worse still, Finland's police were only called in to deal with the issue when the father of the child refused to pay a cash demand of 600 euros sent by anti-piracy outfit CIAPC on behalf of Warner Music for what amounts to, at most, a civil offense. Rightsholders should be able to protect their interests, but using the police – and the public purse – to enforce an unofficial 'debt'? This just gets better.

When private parties are allowed to wield the force of the state in disputes, WTF?! That pretty much lays the idea of justice six feet under. 

But before we go any further, we should acknowledge the correct assumption by those attempting to protect the police that when the officers arrived at the house they had no idea that they would be targeting a child. Agreed, they had absolutely no clue. What they did have was 'evidence' collected by an anti-piracy group based on a simple IP address.

And the burden of proof is not even expected in a civil case this meager? Wait, Houston, we have a problem. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfect example of just how useful this 'evidence' is.

If the evidence could actually identify an infringer it would seem likely that CIAPC would've seen the face of a 9-year-old child and thrown their 600 euro claim in the trash. Yes, anti-piracy groups do rely on a certain amount of public fear to make their strategies work, but we've spoken to CIAPC a number of times and they don't seem evil. This is the kind of publicity they can do without.

And they're not on their own.

Chisu, the artist cast into the middle of the scandal, has been forced to defend herself after she faced accusations that she was somehow involved in targeting the child. She wasn't – and this has been confirmed by her label Warner Music – but she herself said that she doesn't need this kind of attention and felt compelled to offer an apology to her young fans.

As public opinion shifts radically away from protectionist efforts for groups that heavily lobby the state for privilege, producers will likely shift away from large organizations such as big recording industry players. Hello self-publishing in all media fields. Goodbye monopolization, naturally, without (and actually despite of) intervention by government. 

Of course, groups like CIAPC and others like them are trying to positively influence the younger generation. With their taste for popular music they are the customers of tomorrow, but scaring them into submission isn't going to work.

More good news: https://torrentfreak.com/raided-pirate-bay-kid-came-to-save-us-all-121125/

Cuba: In it for the Long Haul

"A Cuban woman told us,  "You cannot understate how hard life was in the Special Period – people died; it left scars." Cubans keep going, keep resisting, in part because surrender is not in their vocabulary, and in part because they have no other choice. They are a reluctant global model for powerdown economics."

We have recently returned from the annual Local Future conference in Michigan, where we gave a talk on our recent travel to Cuba.

Attending conferences on peak oil, resilience and sustainability and speaking about the decline and fall of the former Soviet Union and its client states, one must necessarily acknowledge trailblazers Dmitry Orlov, Faith Morgan and Megan Quinn Bachman. We are neither as brilliant nor as witty as they are, but we need to underscore a point.

We began our Michigan talk by relating the sordid history of the Admiral of the Ocean Seas, Cristobal Colon. Owing to both his navigation and administration skills the indigenous population of the Caribbean was decimated in 20 years, then decimated again. Cuba became a center of the African slave trade, a sugar and cotton monoculture that lost both its peoples and its soils. Colon so unwisely slaughtered the natives who fed his troops, that large numbers of his troops died of malnutrition. He himself died of intestinal parasites.

Source

Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November

Guy Fawkes Night originates from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a failed conspiracy by a group of provincial English Catholics to assassinate the Protestant King James I of England and replace him with a Catholic head of state. In the immediate aftermath of the arrest of Guy Fawkes, caught guarding a cache of explosives placed beneath the House of Lords, James's Council allowed the public to celebrate the king's survival with bonfires, so long as they were "without any danger or disorder".^[1] This made 1605 the first year the plot's failure was celebrated.^[2] Days before the surviving conspirators were executed, in January 1606 Parliament passed the Observance of 5th November Act 1605, commonly known as the "Thanksgiving Act". It was proposed by a Puritan Member of Parliament, Edward Montagu, who suggested that the king's apparent deliverance by divine intervention deserved some measure of official recognition, and kept 5 November free as a day of thanksgiving while in theory making attendance at Church mandatory.^[3] A new form of service was also added to the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer, for use on 5 November.^[4]

The social effects of that return to slumber on Guy Fawkes Night reminds me that we are, as a species, not quite ready for the next intellectual evolutionary stage. 

Little is known about the earliest celebrations. In settlements such as Carlisle, Norwich and Nottingham, corporations provided music and artillery salutes. Canterbury celebrated 5 November 1607 with 106 pounds of gunpowder and 14 pounds of match, and three years later food and drink was provided for local dignitaries, as well as music, explosions and a parade by the local militia. Even less is known of how the occasion was first commemorated by the general public, although records indicate that in Protestant Dorchester a sermon was read, the church bells rung, and bonfires and fireworks lit.^[5]

Weed and Whiskey, Nearing the End of the World

I'd never imagined that liberals would fight against legalization on the fringes for fear of losing the battle. Who better to provide for a consenting market would there be than the black market, the closest thing to a capitalistic free market where supply meets demand as directly as possible? Opposition to a natural act of the majority of a population is hardly sensible, especially when those acts have not created any victimization, a prerequisite for the definition of "crime." Ending prohibition sends the message of enlightenment to the ruling class, a reminder that consent is required for any authority. Individuals are granted natural rights upon birth, not before through faith, nor after through fiat, but at first breath. As the pendulum swings with force back toward the rise of voluntary societies as a subsequent stage in intellectual evolution of the species. We've been stronger, now lets try being smarter, shall we homo Homo Economicus (Rational Man), our future not-bald-and-scary future selves? As usual, I will drag you kicking and screaming, and you will thank me for it. 

No State: Israel and Palestine

There is a sick irony in that the Israeli government has become an aggressor against another culture after the historical persecution against the Jewish people (though not all Israeli and Palestinian people are violently opposed to each other). Somehow, I don't see sympathy for Israel during this campaign of violence toward another culture:

Israel's interior minister has publicly vowed to "send Gaza back to the Middle Ages" as the aerial and naval bombardment of the besieged enclave, as well as the Palestinian rocket barrage against Israel, continued into Sunday.

There was no calm in Gaza as 'Operation Pillar of Defense,' Israel's air and sea bombardment of the densely populated enclave, entered its fifth straight day on Sunday. Israel has carried out 950 air strikes targeting Palestinian militants who have launched more than 500 rockets into Israel during the course of hostilities.

Reuters reports that the Palestinian death toll stood at 47 going into Sunday morning. Around half of those deaths were civilians, including 12 children. Gaza health officials said that 385 Palestinians have been wounded.

And end to the governments of Israel and Palestine would put and end to the violence. These acts of war are not by the people themselves, but the warmongers that have come to power. There is no explicit consent by either culture to the aggressive ruling class of either nation which are so violently opposed to each other, just as many Americans do not support the acts of the American military abroad. To put and end to the violence, the people must recognize and oppose the violence inherent in the system, and take steps to dismantle the state itself, replacing it with a voluntary society. 

Petraeus testifies that CIA blamed terrorists for Benghazi attack

Holy crap! it takes charges laid by the state on one of it's own before they'll tell the "truth." It's always about the power struggle between the US intelligence agencies, not sex. 

Ex-CIA Director David Petraeus explained Friday that references to terrorist groups suspected of carrying out the violence were removed from the public explanation so as not to alert them that U.S. intelligence was on their trail.

They're not really even saying anything about why the attack occurred. Why focus on the US intervention into another sovereign nation until a generation passes (Vietnam, Nixon, Cambodia, Pol Pot, in that order) and we can criticize the previous version of the state, not ready to question it while we live today. 

Lew Rockwell Roundup

There are a handful of good articles posted over at Lew Rockwell's site today, including a Ron Paul Farewell to Congress (finally coming out of the closet as a Voluntaryist), Lincoln's Greatest Failure (there are so many to choose from), the Petraeus Scandal (I'll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with sex), and more. Enjoy your liberty? Thank the folks contributing to Rockwell' site for fighting for it on an intellectual level, because your vote means nothing to anyone but yourself. 

The Evils of the State, a Scorecard

The most evil and harmful state laws, institutions, and policies are, I believe:

• war;
• the Fed/central banking/fiat money;
• government schools;
• taxation;
• the drug war;
• intellectual property (patent and copyright). Read:Protectionism

Where these efforts thrive, there is April vacuum absent liberty and individual rights. 

You could also mention the regulatory state and the entitlement state, but the above makes a pretty good listing of the top things we libertarians would get rid of if we could.

In a voluntary society, the absence of an all-powerful state would preclude the monopolization through aggression of any of these examples of moral deficiencies. There are only wars on people, not things (drugs) or concepts (terrorism, which is merely government without a budget). Without a victim, how can a crime be said to exist?

Linky