Elizabeth Warren 2016 ~ Wall Street's Worst Nightmare

"There are three words that strike terror in the hearts of Wall Street bankers and corporate executives across the land: President Elizabeth Warren. Anxiety over Warren grew Monday after a magazine report suggested the bank-bashing Democratic senator from Massachusetts could mount a presidential bid in 2016 and not necessarily defer to Hillary Clinton — who is viewed as far more business friendly — for the party's nomination." Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks discusses a Presidential bid by Senator Elizabeth Warren.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/CRkw/~3/0PcJ1vVOrKY/elizabeth-warren-2016-wall-streets.html

Considering the economic ignorance of Warren, I would think that it would take quite a campaign to garner much public support. Then again, we did end up with Bush and then Obama, which is why I have little faith in the political process.

The Government They Deserve

The Socialist government of Venezuela has seized and is occupying a Best Buy-type of retail chain, claiming the high prices are causing economic woes in the country, despite no empirical evidence. Chavez' successor is up for reelection soon, and it is more likely that dismal support ratings are the reason for the attack on firms, just as Chavez had done for many years before. Blaming capitalism tends to be too common, though capitalism is not allowed to function in these sorts of markets, so the effort is fallacious.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheWarOnGuns/~3/WYVGYdugQHI/the-government-they-deserve.html

Ohio State Gets Armored Fighting Vehicle: “Specifically Designed for Asymmetric Warfare”

If we're not living in a militarized police state, then please explain what Ohio State University could possibly need with one of these:

The Ohio State University Department of Public Safety has acquired an armored military vehicle that looks like it belongs in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Gary Lewis, a senior director of media relations at OSU, told The Daily Caller via email that the "unique, special-purpose vehicle is a replacement" for the "police fleet." He called the armored jalopy "an all-hazard, all-purpose, public safety-response vehicle" with "obviously enhanced capabilities."

http://sgtreport.com/2013/09/ohio-state-gets-armored-fighting-vehicle-specifically-designed-for-asymmetric-warfare/

Public Waste and Collapse

No wonder municipalities across the country are going bankrupt at a faster rate than ever, during a time in which politicians are telling us we are in a recovery. Dropping off trash a a monthly neighborhood collection, the county employs three sheriff deputies to open a gate and check residents' papers. This is the sort of waste that is overloading the public governments around the world.

Fukushima cleanup workers’ radiation feared 20% higher

Japan's government may have underestimated by 20 percent the internal radiation doses Fukushima cleanup workers received after the plant's nuclear disaster, a panel of leading UN scientists says in its preliminary findings.

More: http://rt.com/news/fukushima-nuclear-radiation-higher-119

It seems that many contractors working on the doomed nuclear plant have long ago failed to report testing results, and many waited far too long to test many workers. 

Shutdown shows the Civil War never ended

Alternet sometimes get it right. Here, they posit that the latest government "shutdown" is simply a continuation of the division that led to the US Civil War. I won't argue against the idea, but will argue that the government never gets shut down, only a handful of services that it shouldn't be running do. If they are considered non-essential, why should the government run them at all? Why not let the private sector take over, since public debt and out of control spending is what causes these supposed shutdowns every few years?

http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/47699083/0/alternet_breaking_news~Shutdown-shows-the-Civil-War-never-ended

The Law, by Frederic Bastiat

With the government shutdown, and the theatrics surrounding it, now would be a good time to explore Bastiat's essay The Law, and his concept of legal plunder. As specific government services are shut down, seemingly to draw the greatest public outcry, it is worth understanding the nature of the state, and of those with vested interest in keeping it going. Those receiving benefits from the state support its entrance into all aspects or private lives and the market.

But the state has no wealth itself, it can only give to one party by first taking from another. That forced redistribution of wealth is what Bastiat warned would be a nation's downfall, and the sentiment remains constant through the centuries. Even Margaret Thatcher believed that redistribution only worked until we run out of other people's money. The irony is that in fighting communism, the US embraced socialism fully.

http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html

Democide: Death By Government

"Armed with this understanding, the authors of The Black Book present the following statistics regarding how various communist governments killed their own citizens by the millions (p. 4):"

U.S.S.R.: 20 million deaths

China: 65 million deaths

Vietnam: 1 million deaths

North Korea: 2 million deaths

Cambodia: 2 million deaths

Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths

Latin America: 150,000 deaths

Africa: 1.7 million deaths

Afghanistan: 1.5 million deaths

"Rummel has studied more than just the former communist regimes, and includes Nazi Germany's 21 million civilian murders, among others."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2006/11/thomas-dilorenzo/death-by-government

If murder is immoral, and rightly outlawed, and governments are statistically far more likely to be responsible for murder than any other group of people, does it follow that the state should also be outlawed? I think democide is a significant enough reason to consider it.

Everyone Wins When The Government Shuts Down

"Democrats and Republicans are united in the belief that fiscal drama in Congress that's transfixed both Wall Street and Main Street over the past few days is crazy."

"The government is on the verge of its first shutdown in 17 years because some Republican members in the House are insisting that President Obama either delay or repeal parts of Obamacare, his signature legislative achievement. Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress have vowed to quash any efforts to gut the law, technically called the Affordable Care Act."

The political theatrics between both parties are nothing more than theatrics. All of the issues coming up now with the threat of a shutdown have been there for months or years, and are simply being used to scare the public into accepting more inflation, regulation, and big government.

"If the federal government shuts down, CNN estimates that about 783,000 government workers will be furloughed as will thousands of contract employees that support them. People who need everything from a passport to a gun permit to a federal loan would have to wait as would paychecks to members of the Armed Forces. National parks would be shuttered as would the Smithsonian Museums, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Washington. Processing of oil and gas permits on federal lands would grind to a halt."

Most services offered by the government should be allowed to shutter, shifting to the private sector. With more and more public employees, and fewer taxpayers in the private sector, this game of legal plunder only has one end, and its not pretty. The government won't shut down, but it wouldn't be such a bad thing if it did.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/093013/nobody-wins-if-government-shuts-down.asp?utm_source=newstouse&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=NTU-10/2/2013

Subgenius Conspiracy

I never would have thought that a Cato event would ever reference the Church of the Subgenius, but the introductory speaker brings up a wide variety of conspiracy theories and their origins. Good stuff, as always. 

http://feeds.cato.org/~r/CatoEventPodcasts/~5/qqmW0P-Puc0/cbfa-09-11-13.mp3

Rising Sea Level Over Time

From the Coaches Hot Seat Blog 2013:

As everyone knows by now, because the Chicken Little “the world is coming to and end environmental” crowd could get the mainstream media to cover them if they were taking a piss, the theory behind global warming is that because of the amount of CO2 that the US and other countries have been putting into the atmosphere in the past 100 years or so, that the CO2 along with other “greenhouse gases” is warming the air and the oceans at a constant pace and thus the sea level is rising.  What the Chicken Little crowd conveniently forgets to tell people is that the sea level around the globe has been rising at a fairly constant rate for the last 6,000 years (between 4 inches and foot a century) and in fact has been rising at an almost constant rate for the last 18,000 years.  Take a look at this map from the U.S. Geological Survey of Sea Level Rise Since the Last Glaciation (18,000 years ago) in the San Francisco Bay area:   As you can see, the “beach” in San Francisco 18,000 years ago was about 50 miles out to sea and all of this sea level rise happened at a very constant rate, in fact the same rate the sea level is rising right now, well before Man even considered putting CO2 into the air.  How can that possibly be?  How can Man be responsible for sea level rise today by all of the CO2 we are putting into the air that the Chicken Little crowd claims is warming the oceans and thus is causing the sea level to rise, when the sea level has been rising at a constant rate for 18,000 years?  Confused at how the Chicken Little crowd gets around to blaming all of us for sea level rise?  We are too, but when there is $$$ involved, and that is really what this is “global warming” is really about ($$$), taking money out of our pockets and putting into other people’s pockets, nothing really surprises us in this debate.

Empire Building, Fiat Currencies and the Future

The first step to recovery...

Every great empire collapse eventually, there is no escaping this eventuality. Rome is probably the greatest example of this type of collapse.

The first stage of this collapse (though not necessarily sequential) is monetary debasement. Rome diluted it Dinarius to the point that it would no longer accept the government currency as payment for its own taxes.

The second stage of collapse is empire building. When combined with the debasement of currency, the act of spreading thin the resources of society guarantee the collapse from which no society can escape, but there is another way.

Agorism is the effort to return to a market system in which people engage in voluntary exchanges for mutual benefit without the encumberance of the state. By returning to an economic system in which few regard the state as legitimate or necessary, we can return to a thriving, productive society in which everyone benefits, but none benefit at the expense of others.

Exposing War Crimes is not a Crime

"Military prosecutors claimed that PFC Bradley Manning was guilty of "aiding the enemy." A federal judge dismissed that charge—the most serious of the lot—but the army intelligence analyst still faces many other counts, which could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life. The key ethical question, one that may be debated for decades to come, is this: Was Manning's unauthorized distribution of war videos, diplomatic cables, and top-secret documents to the WikiLeaks organization treasonous—or was it legitimate whistleblowing? According to Independent Institute Research Fellow Anthony Gregory, the author of The Power of Habeas Corpus in America, the latter label applies: Manning did Americans a favor by exposing war crimes—such as the execution of ten innocent civilians in Ishaqui, Iraq, in 2006, and the use of air strikes to cover up any evidence."

"War criminality ranks among the most important types of government wrongdoing warranting transparency," Gregory writes in the Daily Caller. "The American people need to understand what U.S. occupations are like."

"As Gregory notes, Barack Obama might have agreed with that assessment way back in 2008: During his first presidential campaign Sen. Obama called for greater transparency and protection for government whistleblowers. But you can't find statements to that effect on the Oval Office website—they've recently been removed. Perhaps that's because the White House is embarrassed by the dramatic difference between Obama's original promises and the current reality—that the Obama administration is prosecuting twice as many people for leaking classified information under the Espionage Act as all previous administrations combined. Gregory continues: "This is the administration: Nearly unparalleled secrecy, daily scandals, a surveillance state unbound by law, unilateral presidential wars, indefinite detention, the power to kill any terrorist suspect anywhere without a hint of due process, a politicized regulatory state collecting limitless data and harassing political opponents at home, and the persecution of whistleblowers using an anachronistic law from the darkest days of American civil liberty."

http://www.independent.org/publications/the_lighthouse/detail.asp?id=1508#3540

It is quite unfortunate that the Obama we have today is nearly the polar opposite of the one that captured the hope of so many, while bringing more of the same politics as his predecessors. The more things change...

Obama Promise To 'Protect Whistleblowers' Just Disappeared From Change.gov

The folks from the Sunlight Foundation have noticed that the Change.gov website, which was set up by the Obama transition team after the election in 2008 has suddenly been scrubbed of all of its original content. They noted that the front page had pointed to the White House website for a while, but you could still access a variety of old material and agendas. They were wondering why the administration would suddenly pull all that interesting archival information... and hit upon a clue. A little bit from the "ethics agenda": (another unfulfilled promise from candidate Obama)

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

Yet we end up with the exact opposite, not really the change we were hoping for...

Yeah. That statement seems a bit embarrassing at the very same time Obama's administration is threatening trade sanctions against anyone who grants asylum to Ed Snowden. Also... at the same time that we get to see how whistleblower Bradley Manning's "full access to courts and due process" will turn out. So far, it's been anything but reasonable, considering that the UN has already condemned Manning's treatment as "cruel and inhuman." And people wonder why Snowden left the country...

Source: 

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130726/01200123954/obama-promise-to-protect-whistleblowers-just-disappeared-changegov.shtml

When Will The Economy Collapse?

Its a bleak picture, but it is also difficult to dismiss the folks at Storm Clouds Gathering. 

http://stormcloudsgathering.com/when-will-the-economy-collapse-0

Fear and Schooling

From Seth Godin's Stop Stealing Dreams:

To efficiently run a school, amplify fear (and destroy passion)
School's industrial, scaled-up, measurable structure means that fear must be used to keep the masses in line. There's no other way to get hundreds or thousands of kids to comply, to process that many bodies, en masse, without simultaneous coordination.
And the flip side of this fear and conformity must be that passion will be destroyed. There's no room for someone who wants to go faster, or someone who wants to do something else, or someone who cares about a particular issue. Move on. Write it in your notes; there will be a test later. A multiple-choice test.
Do we need more fear?
Less passion?

Its no coincidence that the Prussian paramilitary school system was the model on which the US education system was built, and it has long since served the purpose for which it was designed. Its time for something truly different. 

Boom! Democrat-run city of Detroit officially files for bankruptcy

One down, hundreds to go. Even better, it happened under the reign of the far Left, showing us that high government spending, regulation and taxation of an economy and workers only ends one way; bad. 

http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2013/07/boom-democrat-run-city-of-detroit.html

Initial unemployment compensation claims return to lower level

It is hardly a sign of economic recovery, or improved employment rates, when we see charts that appear to show a decline in the unemployment rate. The numbers don't tell the full story. 

First, we know that more part-time jobs have replaced full-time jobs, a way for employers to cut costs as government regulations put pressure on firms. The Obama administration take credit for this creation of jobs, but burdensome regulations have created lower-paying jobs and underemployment, definitely not a net gain. 

Next, we consider that unemployment regulations make it more difficult to qualify for benefits, also not a positive shift. It also excludes the growing number of workers who's benefits have expired. These realities are definitely not positive gains in employment, but show the continue decline of the overall economy. 

http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/Psd8s-SNEfw/-Initial-unemployment-compensation-claim-returns-to-lower-level

This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit

The language of budget cuts, austerity, and sequestration seem to dominate the media's landscape these days, instilling fear into Americans of vital government services being cut and chaos ensuing if governments aren't allowed to spend and borrow infinitely. Conservatives decry supposed cuts to the military-industrial-complex, and liberals bemoan that without government welfare transfer programs, there would be social Darwinism. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) even blamed the Benghazi scandal on — wait for it — budget cuts and the sequester. 

Leaving aside the details on whether the U.S. budget is actually shrinking, one needs to look no further than the city of Detroit to find the spontaneous order, civic cooperation, and peaceful market forces that take over when government simply isn't around. 

Detroit is absolutely bankrupt. The city faces a cash shortfall of more than $100 million by June 30. Long-term liabilities, including pensions, exceed $14 billion. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder wants to bail out Detroit's city government even further. Thanks to the financial situation of Detroit, emergency services like police and fire departments are being severely cut short. 911 is only taking calls during business hours. Homes have been abandoned making parts of the city look like a ghost town. 

If our public servants are right and wouldn't dare lie and try to scare us, then chaos, anarchy and lawlessness should reign in Detroit now, right? Well, not exactly.

More: This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit ... And It's Freaking Awesome

Frederic Bastiat: The Primacy of Property: Redistribution of Wealth

When government goes beyond the limits of universal justice and uses the law for plunder, rent-seeking will replace profit-seeking. The doors of government will then be open for endless interventions and redistributions to benefit some individuals or groups at the expense of others. Civil society will diminish as the rule of law erodes, and wealth creation will slow as the free market is suppressed. 

Sound familiar yet?

In the redistributive state, self-sacrifice for the common good is regarded as a public virtue, and self-interest is frowned upon. The law is perverted and transformed from its legitimate function of protecting persons and property to forcing the transfer of income and wealth through market interventions, outright takings, and heavy taxes. Artificial rights (welfare rights) replace natural rights (property rights), and justice is turned on its head. 

Now that hits closer to home.

Bastiat clearly recognized that when the government oversteps its legitimate boundary, there is no end to the demand for further interventions and redistributions to benefit some individuals or groups at the expense of others. Instead of a positive-sum game, as occurs under limited government and voluntary exchange, there will be a zero-sum or negative-sum game under the redistributive state and its instrument of “legal plunder.”

More: Frederic Bastiat: The Primacy of Property : The Freeman : Foundation for Economic Education

Goodbye economic prosperity and individual liberty. Hello collapse.

The Five Stages Of Collapse, By Dmitry Orlov

Many of us who have been researching collapse for a decade or more repeatedly use the word in writing, speaking, and daily conversation, but few of us have the opportunity to define it with such precision or personal experience as one finds in Dmitry Orlov’sforthcoming book Five Stages of Collapse: ASurvivor’s Toolkit (New Society Publishers, 281 pages). I first heard of Dmitry when I was writing for From The Wilderness in 2005 after FTW published “Post-Soviet Lessons For A Post-American Century,” one of Orlov’s first articles in the United States naming our predicament and likely outcome.
Since then I have been a huge fan of Dmitry’s work, and I must concur with Richard Heinberg who says, “Even if I believed collapse were impossible I’d still read everything Dmitry Orlov writes: he’s that entertaining.” Incisive articulation of reality tempered with irrepressible humor and sarcasm define his writing style and not only compel us to stay with what some describe as a “dark Russian perspective,” but reveal a man who has found a way to live with what is so and navigate it with buoyant humanity.
The Five Stages of Collapse is nothing less than a definitive textbook for a hypothetical course entitled “The Collapse Of Industrial Civilization 101” or perhaps a bible of sorts for an imaginary “Institute of Collapse Studies.” While to my knowledge no such courses or organizations presently exist, this book would be an essential aspect of any such entity’s credibility.

More: The Five Stages Of Collapse, By Dmitry Orlov, Reviewed By Carolyn Baker « Speaking Truth to Power

Cengage Files Chapter 11, Blames a Changing Publishing Market

Cengage Learning filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week as part of a "restructuring support agreement" to help reduce its $5.8 billion debt.

 

"The decisive actions we are taking today will reduce our debt and reduce our capital structure to support our long-term business strategy of transitioning from traditional print models to digital educational and research materials," Michael Hansen, Cengage Learning CEO, said in a statement.

In the past, the Company and its peers in the educational materials market produced only traditional print products.

From kindergarten to higher education to career training, students, instructors, and institutions depended on printed goods, typically as an accompaniment to live classroom teaching. The publishers in this market provided textbooks, workbooks, and other instructional materials and relied heavily on their profits from selling new print products.

Now, the educational publishing market has entered the early stages of a major transition from print business models to a greater focus on digital products, with digital market share growing as quickly as 20 percent annually over recent years. The move to digital began with the simple substitution of electronic versions of textbooks for the printed forms. Over time, digital products such as homework programs and interactive learning software have increasingly been paired and integrated with print materials.

And in some cases, digital products are becoming a favored medium for learning materials in the classroom. As much as 15 percent of learning materials sold today are sold in digital format, including course materials, homework programs, and interactive and online learning platforms. All indications are that digital will continue to grow in importance in this market.

More: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/723898-dk000015-0000.html#document/p4/a108470

By failing to adapt to a changing market, Cengage essentially signed its own death certificate. I don't think that print is dead, but the publishing industry is changing, and fast. Those companies that didn't see the changes coming years ago don't have time to react now, and those that did and had the foresight to adapt to that coming change have and will survive. Blaming a changing market instead of adapting to it is hardly productive. That sort of debt-to-revenue imbalance can not be sustained. Only the government can maintain long-term losses and get away with it (taxpayer bailouts). Companies must maintain profits to compete and survive by serving their customers.

Lincoln: The Birth of Electronic Evesdropping

Think that PRISM and NSA/CIA/FBI/government spying on Americans and everyone else in the world is a recent development? Think again. President Obama seems to enjoy being compared to the "great emancipator," and there are more disturbing similarities between the two than left-statists would like to admit. 

In 1862, Lincoln authorized sweeping control over the American telegraph infrastructure for Edwin Stanton, his secretary of war. Telegraphs were re-routed through his office, and Stanton used his power to spy on Americans, arrest journalists, and even control what was or wasn't sent. It was a critical tool in wartime, but a massive invasion of privacy that surely angered citizens.

Mindich argues that despite the huge differences in scope and technology, the Lincoln-era example is a neat comparison to the current war on terror. For those that take issue with the current NSA procedures, he says, the only real solution is to end the war — that's the only way Stanton's grasp of the telegraphs was loosed. "As the war ended, the emergency measures were rolled back. Information — telegraph and otherwise — began to flow freely again." Until this war is over, Mindich cautions, invasive governmental overreaching is a fact of life; whether it's Western Union or Microsoft, Lincoln or Obama, that's how it's always been.

Via: theverge

See more at: http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/lincoln-the-birth-of-electronic-evesdropping/#sthash.XjHTvzKs.dpuf

Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics

If everyone took the time to learn about economics from a sociological perspective, society might achieve much more than ever before, in a voluntary manner. Unless, that is, people relegate social decision-making to a small group of sad sociopaths. That worked well for Germany, the USSR, Great Britain, and many other prior empires. Now its America's turn, I'm sure the central planners get it right this time... 

Those who fail to learn from the History Channel are doomed to watch it on repeats. 

Hazlitt's gift to us both clears any misconceptions about the science of economics and reinforces it with the moral arguments against violence and coercion by the state. Statists come in all flavor. We must each take up intellectual arms against tyranny to conquer the ruling ignorance that seeks to guide society, it would rather watch us stagnate and suffer. If you think you know anything about economics, let Henry school you. 

Reviews at:

Economics in One Lesson: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3028.Economics_in_One_Lesson

Also available for free courtesy the Mises Institute's publishing efforts to bring prosperity to society.

http://mises.org/document/6785/Economics-in-One-Lesson

If You Like The Surveillance State, You’ll Love E-Verify

From massive NSA spying, to IRS targeting of the administration's political opponents, to collection and sharing of our health care information as part of Obamacare, it seems every day we learn of another assault on our privacy. Sadly, this week the Senate took another significant, if little-noticed, step toward creating an authoritarian surveillance state. Buried in the immigration bill is a national identification system called mandatory E-Verify.

I find it odd that left-statists protest voter registration but not this...

The Senate did not spend much time discussing E-Verify, and what little discussion took place was mostly bipartisan praise for its effectiveness as a tool for preventing illegal immigrants from obtaining employment. It is a tragedy that mandatory E-Verify is not receiving more attention, as it will impact nearly every American's privacy and liberty.

The mandatory E-Verify system requires Americans to carry a "tamper-proof" social security card. Before they can legally begin a job, American citizens will have to show the card to their prospective employer, who will then have to verify their identity and eligibility to hold a job in the US by running the information through the newly-created federal E-Verify database. The database will contain photographs taken from passport files and state driver's licenses. The law gives federal bureaucrats broad discretion in adding other "biometric" identifiers to the database. It also gives the bureaucracy broad authority to determine what features the "tamper proof" card should contain.

Hello, 1984, are you just visiting or here to stay?

More:

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Intelwar/~3/0SAw14IzXRg/if-you-like-the-surveillance-state-youll-love-e-verify_062013

Multiple Government Agencies Are Keeping Records Of Your Credit Card Transactions

Were you under the impression that your credit card transactions are private?  If so, I am sorry to burst your bubble.  As you will see below, there are actually multiple government agencies that are gathering and storing records of your credit card transactions.  And in turn, those government agencies share that information with other government agencies that want it.  So if you are making a purchase that you don't want anyone to know about, don't use a credit card.  This is one of the reasons why the government hates cash so much.  It is just so hard to track.

Any trades in cash thwart the government's efforts to track private exchanes. Rightly so, as no external party has any right to the details of those exchanges. 

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Intelwar/~3/lkVMCcTd_LE/

Obama’s Soft Totalitarianism

Should anyone be surprised that most foreign nations have become less trusting of the increasingly-totalitarian US, with its aggressive foreign policy? 

People around the world were shocked to learn of the extent of US snooping. This anti-Obama poster comes from Hong Kong. Is Barack Obama a friend? Revelations about his government's vast spying program call that assumption into doubt. 

More:

http://attackthesystem.com/2013/06/30/obamas-soft-totalitarianism-europe-must-protect-itself-from-america

17 Signs That Most Americans Will Be Wiped Out By The Coming Economic Collapse

The vast majority of Americans are going to be absolutely blindsided by what is coming. They don't understand how our financial system works, they don't understand how vulnerable it is, and most of them blindly trust that our leaders know exactly what they are doing and that they will be able to fix our problems.  As a result, most Americans are simply not prepared for the massive storm that is heading our way.  Most American families are living paycheck to paycheck, most of them are not storing up emergency food and supplies, and only a very small percentage of them are buying gold and silver for investment purposes. They seem to have forgotten what happened back in 2008.

Anyone with a bit of sense should have long since put themselves in a more independent position in their investments, creating a buffer in economically uncertain times. 

More: 

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/unhfc_U9sV8/story01.htm

The NSA is intercepting 1.7 billion American electronic communications, daily

That's a lot of data to be stored, though legitimate reasons to collect and store that data have yet to surface. 

http://thinksquad.tumblr.com/post/53858666427

Cop "Euthanizes" Box of Kittens with Gun

An animal control officer shootsa box of kittens in front of a family with children, rather than taking them to be euthanized, if that were even necessary. 

An Ohio policeman shot to death a litter of kittens on Wednesday, telling a group of screaming children that the animals would be going to "kitty heaven". But instead of firing the officer, the local police department cleared him of any wrongdoing.

In a free market, psychopaths like this guy would never be able to hold a job like this. 

Cop cleared of wrongdoing after shooting kittens in front of screaming kids — RT USA: http://rt.com/usa/cop-accorti-kittens-shooting-669/

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories

This article reads like it was written by the KGB or some other state media outlet promoting propaganda in a state in which those ruling are fearful of losing their control. The NYT is trying to imply that when one is skeptical of the "official story" that they are somehow mentally unstable or incapable of believing the truth when the government presents it. Its only odd that the author seems to try to promote the idea that those who most believe in democracy are most likely to be conspiracy theorists. I'd venture to say that they are more likely realists, simply recognizing the corruption of information surrounding conspiracies by government, business, or whatever group they see as the source of the manipulation. When conspiracies eventually become revealed through truth, and we have generations of these conspiracies, it is easy to understand how this worldview can be more realistic than simply believing the official story. 

Psychologists aren’t sure whether powerlessness causes conspiracy theories or vice versa. Either way, the current scientific thinking suggests these beliefs are nothing more than an extreme form of cynicism, a turning away from politics and traditional media — which only perpetuates the problem.

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories - NYTimes.com

As a result, the article's attempts to generalize about conspiracy believers fall flat. When Koerth-Baker quotes the psychologist Viren Swami, who says "The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories," Swami isn't really talking about conspiracy theories in general; he means a particular sort of conspiracy theory that stresses that "the official story" is wrong and that powerful people are covering up the truth. There have been plenty of conspiracy theories through the years that are not especially interested in debunking "the official story" (sometimes they are the official story) and that aim their suspicions at people who are not particularly powerful. Koerth-Baker cites a review-essay that Swami co-wrote for The Psychologist, reporting that it reveals "a set of traits that correlate well with conspiracy belief." But thePsychologist piece brushes too quickly past an important sociological question: What gets defined as a "conspiracy theory" in the first place? 

The answer has more to do with who is promoting a theory than with what it contains. If you announced in the 1970s that a network of underground Satanic sects was kidnapping kids and sacrificing them to the devil, you may well have gotten tagged as a fringy conspiracist. In the 1980s, on the other hand, allegations that once were confined to Jack Chick comics were broadcast on mainstream TV shows, from Oprah to 20/20. (Several of those programs featured "expert" commentary by a guy with a history of claiming he was a former high priest of the Illuminati.) Officials took those stories seriously too: People across the country went to jail for allegedly engaging in ritual Satanic child abuse. And then, gradually, the hysteria faded, and the sorts of conspiracy claims that had been uncritically endorsed on 20/20 in 1985 went back to being framed as fringy "conspiracy theories."

What The New York Times Missed When It Tried to Explain Conspiracy Theories

When we rely on our individual ability to reason, we often find ourselves being critical of whatever we are being told. This natural ability is the opposite of naive, collectivist groupthink, in which individuals simply believe whatever story they are being fed from an "official" source, despite the validity of the details.

EPA Reverses Itself on Fluoride

Skeptics have been warning about this for years, but we're summarily dismissed as conspiracy theorists...

In a surprising reversal, last month EPA’s announced that it intends to lower the maximum amount of fluoride in drinking water because of growing evidence supporting the chemical’s possible deleterious effects to children’s health. 

In 2006, the National Academy of Sciences report that found dental fluorosis – caused by too much fluoride – capable of putting children at risk of developing other dental problems including the breakdown of tooth enamel, discoloration and pitting.

More: EPA Reverses Itself on Fluoride

Use These Secret NSA Google Search Tips to Become Your Own Spy Agency | Threat Level | Wired.com

There's so much data available on the internet that even government cyberspies need a little help now and then to sift through it all. So to assist them, the National Security Agency produced a book to help its spies uncover intelligence hiding on the web.

The 643-page tome, called Untangling the Web: A Guide to Internet Research (.pdf), was just released by the NSA following a FOIA request filed in April by MuckRock, a site that charges fees to process public records for activists and others.

The book was published by the Center for Digital Content of the National Security Agency, and is filled with advice for using search engines, the Internet Archive and other online tools. But the most interesting is the chapter titled "Google Hacking."

Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/nsa-manual-on-hacking-internet

Nuclear Power and Human Nature

From Omni Magazine, October 1978;

If the world is to step back from the nuclear brink, the United States, which led the way there, must lead the way back; its President must reassert leadership.

The radioactive particle is too dangerous and implacable for fallible humans to fool with.

"Despite the best efforts and intentions of the people of the United Nations," said Jacques-Yves Cousteau, addressing the U.N. in 1976, "human society is too diverse, national passion too strong, human aggressiveness too deep-seated for the peaceful and the warlike atom to stay divorced for long. We cannot embrace one while abhorring the other; we must learn, if we want to live at all, to live without both."

The strange thing is, we all know that and we always have. From time out of mind, our mythology has prepared us. The tales of Prometheus and Pandora, and of Faust, and the notion of hubris in Greek tragedy, are as apt now as when invented. More apt. How, in the Ages of Bronze or Iron, could those lessons have been so perfecty applicable, and so desperately important? It is almost as if the old storytellers had blinked, millenia in advance, at the white thermonuclear flash, and had begun preparing their admonitions.

Pandora opened her box, of course, and Prometheus stole the fire, Perhaps these things are inevitable, given the nature of man and matter.

Pentagon mum on Syria chemical weapons use

I find it quite interesting that people continue to vote for representatives, despite the fact that one after another refuses to speak publicly about issues of public safety. Is this contrary to the idea of democracy?

http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/40214709/0/alternet_breaking_news~Pentagon-mum-on-Syria-chemical-weapons-use

Boston Marathon Tragedy and Conspiracy Theories

It is sometimes difficult not to be a conspiracy theorist, and a message from a company today regarding their employees and the impact of the city's reaction gives me pause:

"We're in the process of connecting with our Boston staff, but this is a difficult process given the city's shutdown of cell service."

What legitimate justification does the state have to infringe upon the public's ability to stay connected during a time in which more than ever we need to be able to tell our family whether or not we are safe and well? In addition, Boston police have also been confiscating smart phones and cameras in the vicinity of the explosions, as evidence to be sure.

Then there is the fact that National Guard troops also happened to be stationed at the marathon, despite no publicly-known threats. As much as the attention needs to be focused on those that have been harmed by this tragedy, it is difficult not to notice these odd details that the mainstream state media seem to be ignoring.

At a time in which an ever-increasing portion of the population is becoming more critical of the actions of the state, I find these details far too conspicuous to dismiss. Calling this terrorism simply deflects the attention from those who harm others to the harm done to the state.

Ron Paul Calls on UN to Confiscate Website of His Supporters

I generally do not read much from this source due to a twisted bias that I see in much of their work. My contention comes in that the Web site he wants to own is intellectual property, and I do not believe that an idea can be trademarked or patented. Many of the authors in Ron Paul's circles also believe this, so I am quite surprised that he supports government intervention in this regard, or any given his voting record.

Earlier today, Ron Paul filed an international UDRP complaint against RonPaul.com and RonPaul.org with WIPO, a global governing body that is an agency of the United Nations. The complaint calls on the agency to expropriate the two domain names from his supporters without compensation and hand them over to Ron Paul.

Paul himself is an advocate of free market economics, which promotes the idea of voluntary exchanges. If one party values their property more than similar property held by others, they will demand higher prices. This is not an unreasonable premise, and it happens every day. The owners of these sites value their property at a level which demands significantly higher costs than many others. This is a function of the free market, and Ron Paul of all people should understand, and further respect that.

More: http://patriotupdate.com/2013/02/ron-paul-calls-on-un-to-confiscate-website-of-his-supporters

Eight O’Clock in the Morning

He had to kill several more before he got into the studio itself, including all the engineers on duty. There were a lot of police sirens outside, excited shouts, and running footsteps on the stairs. The alien was sitting before the the TV camera saying, "We are your friends. We are your friends," and didn't see George come in. When George shot him with the needle gun he simply stopped in mid-sentence and sat there, dead. George stood near him and said, imitating the alien croak, "Wake up. Wake up. See us as we are and kill us!"

It was George's voice the city heard that morning, but it was the Fascinator's image, and the city did awake for the very first time and the war began.

George did not live to see the victory that finally came. He died of a heart attack at exactly eight o'clock.

From Eight O'clock in the Morning, the inspiration for the film They Live.

Alex Jones a PSYOP?

I have always wondered if Alex Jones was a PSYOP player...

The Other Sequestration That No One Is Talking About

The second sequester has the potential to increase overall fiscal austerity this year. The exact magnitude of the additional spending cuts depends on the extent the Department of Defense (DoD) exceeds the BCA baseline. As a reminder, cutting budget authority does not necessarily translate into one-for-one spending cuts. At the very extreme, if the DoD has already used all $11bn of this additional budget authority, we will see an annualized hit of $19bn, or 0.1% of GDP. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if the Department of Defense did not use any of the extra $11bn, the second sequester would result in no additional austerity.

Putting an exact figure on the actual spending cuts resulting from the second sequester is very difficult. The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) finds that defense spending is currently running above its baseline pre-sequester budget cap. They estimate that the second sequester will result in additional austerity of $6bn in FY2013. On an annualized basis, that is a $10bn, or 0.06% of GDP, shock.

More: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/-36Y7dcmI2k/story01.htm

Claim: Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than anyone thought

The September 2012 record low in Arctic sea-ice extent was big news, but a missing piece of the puzzle was lurking below the ocean's surface. What volume of ice floats on Arctic waters? And how does that compare to previous summers? These are difficult but important questions, because how much ice actually remains suggests how vulnerable the ice pack will be to more warming.

New satellite observations confirm a University of Washington analysis that for the past three years has produced widely quoted estimates of Arctic sea-ice volume. Findings based on observations from a European Space Agency satellite, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, show that the Arctic has lost more than a third of summer sea-ice volume since a decade ago, when a U.S. satellite collected similar data.

More: http://junkscience.com/2013/02/24/claim-arctic-sea-ice-is-disappearing-faster-than-anyone-thought

Welcome to reality...

New Violence Against Women Act Includes Historic Protections for Native American and LGBT Survivors

I am at a loss to understand how any segment of society is more deserving than another for protection. This sort of protection is in itself "discriminatory" in nature, which is the in conflict with the idea that all people have equal rights. 

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/8/new_violence_against_women_act_includes

Lies and Drones

Criticism abound of Rand Paul and his attempt to prevent the nomination of a new CIA head, the WSJ simply lies about prior use of drones by the Obama regime. When the truth does not support the political machine, state media simply churns out the propaganda.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RonPaulNews/~3/YidOPtwmsGA/more-news_8.html

Can a Revolving Door Benefit the Public?

There are benefits in a regulatory revolving door between public regulatory agencies and private industry, but those benefits tend to lean toward those regulating and profiting from lax regulations and exemptions, rather than society overall.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/at-the-s-e-c-a-revolving-door-that-helps-the-public

Obama's Rules for Assassinating American Citizens

This reminds me of the South Park bit, where hunting was prohibited except for self defense, and hunters would yell out "it's coming right at me" before striking out against an innocent victim:

"[t]he 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration's most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the  September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes."

More:

http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/04/someone-just-leaked-obamas-rules-for-ass

Any violation of the nonaggression principle is a moral deficiency, something the Obama regime displays regularly. 

Rapper Lupe Fiasco Kicked Off Inauguration Stage for Playing Anti-War Song

It's not acceptable to say the emperor has no clothes, even when everyone knows it:

"Several journalists who attended an inaugural party last night to celebrate President Obama's second term reported that rapper Lupe Fiasco was kicked off stage for playing an "anti-war song for 30 min" and going on an "anti-Obama diatribe mid set.""

"My fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. I'm trying to fight the terrorism that's actually causing the other forms of terrorism. You know, the root cause of terrorism is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists."

More: http://sgtreport.com/2013/01/rapper-lupe-fiasco-kicked-off-inauguration-stage-for-playing-anti-war-song

I am only surprised Fiasco was allowed to hold the stage for so long.

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission reveals plans to possibly use streetlights for surveillance

Surveillance cameras disguised as street lights? How Orwellian:

"The RFP, dated June 8, 2012 and released by Public Intelligence on January 21, 2013, reveals that the "integrated wireless communication monitoring and control system" designed at first to remotely manage the city's future network of LED streetlights, could have many more troubling applications."

"While the RFP itself at first glance makes it seem as though the wireless network will be used to transmit street surveillance and other information captured by devices other than the LED streetlights, a report by Rebecca Browe of the San Francisco Bay Guardian makes it clear that the streetlights themselves will do the surveillance."

More: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/EndTheLie/~3/lz1nvhIlBxU

A World Without Fish

Scientists predict that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.

Oceans without fish. Imagine your meals without seafood. Imagine the global consequences. This is the future if we do not stop, think and act.

The End of the Line chronicles how demand for cod off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1990s led to the decimation of the most abundant cod population in the world, how hi-tech fishing vessels leave no escape routes for fish populations and how farmed fish as a solution is a myth.

The film lays the responsibility squarely on consumers who innocently buy endangered fish, politicians who ignore the advice and pleas of scientists, fishermen who break quotas and fish illegally, and the global fishing industry that is slow to react to an impending disaster.

The End of the Line - A World Without Fish | Watch Documentary Free Online

The film effectively recognizes the ways in which the fish population has been driven into decline, but doesn't acknowledge that privatization of the oceans will spur conservation through market reactions to scarcity (namely increases in market costs for fish). Policymakers can at best regulate and prohibit fishing, which simply creates a black market immune to regulation and law. 

Owens Dry Lake Result from Los Angeles Thirst

I suppose that it should be of no surprise that in the effort to reduce pollution, the government itself ends up being the worst polluter. The dry lake in Owens Valley is a result of the city of Los Angeles diverting water from the region to fuel the expansion of the city into the San Fernando valley. Like those that walk away from Omelas, this desecration needs to be addressed and resolved in a way that restores the natural ecology of the Owens region.

If You See Something...

"If you see something, say something."

This is propaganda, nothing more, nothing less.

Violence Begets Violence

Last month, as the FBI was closing in on his affair with Paula Broadwell and the political fight over Benghazi was heating up, David Petraeus made an undisclosed trip to Tripoli, Libya. The purpose of the trip, according to congressional and U.S. officials, was to examine what remained of the CIA's presence in the country after the United States abandoned the agency's base and nearby U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi after the Sept. 11 assassination of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/13/david-petraeus-s-secret-trip-to-libya-after-the-benghazi-attack.html

With the coming "unilateral" coalition of allied nations working together to help restore security and order to Libya, I am left thinking on the meaning and implications of words. Unilateral to me signifies unity, with nations coming together to exercise collectivist violence in order to show a violent despot that other violent despots will not tolerate violence. It carries the same weight at "bipartisan," which tells the peasants that the divided ruling class is coming together to make life more miserable for them. 

You Have To Quit Your Job

I'm sure there are more than a few of us in this position, wondering how to fix the world by fixing our own worlds.

This was going to end badly. I would play chess all day in my office with the door locked. My boss would knock on the door and I would put my headphones on and ignore him. People would complain that the software I wrote didn't work. My boss would say, "where were you yesterday" and I would say, "it was a Jewish holiday" even though there was none and he would say, "well…tell us next time if you leave." It was bad behavior. I was a slave trying to escape but I didn't know how. I wanted to start a business but I didn't know what. I wanted to create something but I would play games all day, burning up the fuel in my brain.

More: http://lewrockwell.com/altucher/altucher103.html

Flu

There, I said it:

"If you are thinking about tweeting about clouds, pork, exercise or even Mexico, think again. Doing so may result in a closer look by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In a story appearing earlier today on the U.K's Daily Mail website, it was reported that the DHS has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor various social networking sites. The list provides a glimpse into what DHS describes as "signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S.""

More: www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/05/26/department-of-homeland-security-forced-to-release-list-of-keywords-used-to-monitor-social-networking-sites/

Influenza Vaccine and Adverse Reactions

Always the skeptic, I will often begin with a predisposed notion, question it's validity, and then research to either support or refute a theory. With vaccines, and influenza in particular, I color my views based on my experiences. In the case of the flu, my own adverse reaction to the vaccine prompted my opposing position to it's widespread application. Lately, I'm questioning that position and looking for statistical information to either support or refute my beliefs.

I'll start out by focusing on the raw numbers from a neutral source:

To determine the vaccination rate and its adverse reactions after influenza vaccination, we administered an anonymous questionnaire survey during the last three influenza seasons from 2005-2006 to 2007-2008. In total, the rate of Influenza vaccination was 82.3% in health-care personnel. Dividing the subjects into four groups by work category, the vaccine coverage rates were as follows: physicians 67.9%; nurses and nursing assistants 91.2%; technicians, pharmacists, therapists, and administrative personnel 80.2%; and other personnel not directly involved in patient care but having the potential of being exposed to infectious agents 89%. The most frequent adverse reaction after vaccination was soreness at the injection site in 33.4%, followed by skin redness in 18.1%, myalgia in 17.7%, fatigue in 17%, and febrile sensation in 15.2%. After vaccination, such adverse reactions began within 24 h in 70.6% of subjects. Eighty-nine percent of those adverse reactions persisted for 1-3 days, but 11% persisted more than 4 days. Serious adverse reactions were not noted; the reported adverse reactions were relatively minor and transient. Surprisingly, among those who were vaccinated, the physicians' participation was the lowest. We believe that influenza vaccination is safe and that physicians should be more concerned with influenza vaccination and its impact on the health-care community.

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19050354

That prompts me to think about the implications of such data.

What will receiving lifelong flu shots every year do to your immune system?

With all of those vaccinations, will you be more susceptible to influenza-related complications and death?

We really don't know.

Health officials have leapt ahead with recommendations of "flu shots for all" without safety studies—so by getting a flu shot, you are effectively offering yourself up as a laboratory rat.

It isn't just an ordinary flu vaccine they are promoting this year—it's the new trivalent vaccine, which may be even more reactive than the monovalent. This vaccine is a three-in-one, containing influenza A, influenza B, and 2009 pandemic swine flu (H1N1) strains.

Administering this highly suspect formulation to 300 million people has potentially disastrous implications. Red flags were already popping up last year, and this flu season has raised many more.

More: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/01/flu-vaccine-and-its-side-effects.aspx

Make your own conclusions from that information, just as i have.

The Second Amendment, Militias, and the State

Does the Second Amendment apply to individuals or collectively society? Consider that the Bill of Rights does not grant any rights, but protects natural rights from infringement by government. Is the defense of society best left in the hands of society itself, or a subset which has little incentive to provide effective and efficient defense? Let's start with the gun rights issue first:

Anti-gun lobbyists consider the Second Amendment antiquated, asking what militias could protect us from today. The pro-gun side answers: "Tyrants", citing King George III, Hitler's Germany, or another event so seemingly distant that the argument seems academic. Even some who want stricter controls might concede the home-defense argument. But they would never want Joe Public armed with the sorts of guns carried by soldiers and police. Are militias relevant today?

Do you think it strange that citizens might be called to grab their gun, and rush to the defense of their community or region against some threat? Why is it strange? Small towns do the same thing with volunteer fire departments. Bankers, plumbers, or gym teachers, all become firemen when there's a fire raging. You can't wait for experts to put out the fire, everybody gets involved. That same principle describes a militia.

More: http://patriotupdate.com/2013/01/second-amendment-do-militias-matter-today/

Another thing to consider was the inherent threat which the founders recognized in a standing army as opposed to volunteer militias. Compounding that issue is the application of Bastiat's "legal plunder" principle, through which the state gains favor from those joining the standing army, and who benefit and enable the state to extract resources from society as a whole:

"Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder..."

More: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2096680/posts

Absent the "benefits" of legal plunder, it is unlikely that a standing army could exist, promoting volunteer militias which would either support or oppose a particular effort of defense of communities by members of that community. Without coercion, militarization of local police could also be negated by the move to a voluntary defense, with protecting localities entrusted to those either volunteering for the positions, or by voluntary participation (funding) of private defense forces held accountable by the communities they are charged to defend.

Robert P. Murphy explains why services such as defense are best left to the private sector, absent intervention by the state:

"...even though the TSA had been in place for eight years at that point, it took a vigilant member of the private sector, i.e., the Dutch tourist, to avert catastrophe."

More: mises.org/daily/4873

As is typical, it is the general public which invariably does a better job of protecting society than the state. The corruption inherent in the application of legal plunder inevitably leads to a perversion of "defense," leaving society unable to defend itself, and at greater risk from those charged with defending the rest of us.

The Trillion Dollar Coin – This is How Money Dies

Since the trillion dollar coin solution to the nation’s fast-approaching debt ceiling crisis has been drowning out just about everything else in the financial media in recent days, weighing in on the subject seemed like a good idea since, well, everyone else seems to be doing it as shown below via Google Trends.

Coming from more of a hard money background, the whole idea is, at first, easy to just chuckle loudly about and then move on. But, when you realize how serious some people are about this and how many of them are in a position to potentially influence policy, then it becomes a different matter.

It becomes something quite scary, with the idea of a trillion-dollar coin being a possibility, and the negative effects of such an effort could be long-lasting.

For anyone who has, somehow, managed to avoid reading about this, a Huffington Post story by Mark Gongloff does a pretty good job of filling in the details in a light-hearted way. In short, to avoid a showdown with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling, the White House could legally instruct the Treasury Department to create one or more platinum coins with a face value of $1 trillion and give this to the Federal Reserve. The Fed would then credit the Treasury’s account with a cool trillion dollars that could then be spent, thus eliminating the need to issue new debt that would violate the debt ceiling laws.

More: The Trillion Dollar Coin – This is How Money Dies | Iacono Research

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, you are mentally ill if you:
Are addicted to coffee —Caffeine-Related Disorders, page 212,
Have trouble speaking in public —Expressive Language Disorder, page 55
Can’t handle math problems —Mathematics Disorders, page 50
Can’t write a good essay —Disorder of Written Expression, page 51
Don’t think you're crazy? Then you’re suffering from Noncompliance With Treatment , page 683.
"To read about the evolution of the DSM is to know this: It is an entirely political document. What it includes, what it does not include, are the result of intensive campaigning, lengthy negotiating, infighting, and power plays."
—Louise Armstrong, And They Call It Help: The Psychiatric Policing of America’s Children, 1993 (Addison-Wesley)

More: In Their Own Words

In Their Own Words

"Schools will become clinics whose purposes is to provide individualized, psycho-social treatment for the student, and teachers must become psycho-social therapists. This will include bio-chemical and psychological mediation of learning, as drugs are introduced experimentally to improve in the learner such qualities as personality, concentration and memory… Children are to become the objects of experimentation." (Emphasis added)
—A U. S. National Education Association report, titled: Education in the 70s.

In Their Own Words

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

This video is just a brief introduction to a very serious subject. There are six books listed at the end which will go much further into the subject.

The soundtrack is now available at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/exposed-the-soundtrack-ep/id444615015 and https://market.android.com/details?id=artist-Add5o4qqbmxyhwr7qwdawbyvcmu

To see/hear more of Neal's work go to http://www.TheRealNealFox.com and http://www.TheArtOffensive.com

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

Grading the Fiscal Cliff Deal

The faux drama in Washington is finally over. The misfits in Washington reached a deal on the fiscal cliff.
Republicans and Democrats managed to come together and decide that they should get a bigger slice of what the American people earn. Gee, what a surprise.
First, the good news:
…
…
Oh, wait, there isn’t any.
Now for the bad news:

Grading the Fiscal Cliff Deal: Terrible, but Could Be Worse | Cato @ Liberty

Free Market Healthcare and Mutual Insurance

The economic results of government intervention are quite well observed and documented. When the government steps into a market through regulation, it's public "intentions" may be to help increase access to a service, or to drive down costs to make certain goods and services available at costs more affordable to a wider section of the consumers, but those goals often have unintended consequences for which those who study economics can see all too well. The deadweight loss created by intervening in the functions of natural market forces is blatant, difficult to refute or ignore, but when the problems are created by intervention by the state, how can further or expanded intervention reverse that course?

The Cato Institute asked and answered that very question a few years ago, back when the public was thinking that it would be better to plunder our fellow citizens to fund our own health care. Somehow, the idea that theft is bad was shelved for a while, and we were fed that line from the government. Plunder is still immoral, even when we allow someone with guns to do so with our consent. We are still accepting spoils of violence. 

It is increasingly obvious that government solutions to health care are not effective. People often find market outcomes appealing. Proponents of free markets in health care should work to make the most persuasive case for real reform and to achieve incremental reforms where possible. 

http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/cato-journal/2011/1/cj31n1-2.pdf

What we need is a true free market in health care and mutual fund insurance, which has historically shown a tendency to drive costs down and accessibility up, something that socialized services fail miserably to do on all counts. 

Or we could just stick our heads in the sand and believe that the state will come to our rescue and save us from the big bad capitalists. 

Today, we are constantly being told, the United States faces a health care crisis. Medical costs are too high, and health insurance is out of reach of the poor. The cause of this crisis is never made very clear, but the cure is obvious to nearly everybody: government must step in to solve the problem.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one of the primary sources of health care and health insurance for the working poor in Britain, Australia, and the United States was the fraternal society. Fraternal societies (called "friendly societies" in Britain and Australia) were voluntary mutual-aid associations. Their descendants survive among us today in the form of the Shriners, Elks, Masons, and similar organizations, but these no longer play the central role in American life they formerly did. As recently as 1920, over one-quarter of all adult Americans were members of fraternal societies. (The figure was still higher in Britain and Australia.) Fraternal societies were particularly popular among blacks and immigrants. (Indeed, Teddy Roosevelt's famous attack on "hyphenated Americans" was motivated in part by hostility to the immigrants' fraternal societies; he and other Progressives sought to "Americanize" immigrants by making them dependent for support on the democratic state, rather than on their own independent ethnic communities.)

http://www.freenation.org/a/f12l3.html

Or maybe government didn't help after all...