The Folly of the Baiae Bridge

I have seen this scene play out before, countless times, under different names and different skies. They call it hubris—the overweening pride that blinds a man to the reality of his own constraints. The tale I shall tell you is of Emperor Gaius, whom history remembers as Caligula, and his grand, pointless gesture.

In 39 AD, Caligula ordered the construction of a massive, temporary pontoon bridge across the Bay of Baiae, a distance of over three miles. He didn't do it to improve commerce, or to expedite a military campaign, but, as the historian Suetonius recorded, to prove a local astrologer named Thrasyllus wrong. Thrasyllus had once declared that Gaius had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse dry-shod across the Gulf of Baiae."

Caligula, now emperor, had the entire regional merchant fleet commandeered, linking the ships in a double line, planking them over and covering them with earth. This colossal, unnecessary display of absolute power drew so many vessels that it caused a severe famine in Rome, crippling the very supply lines that fed his people.

When the bridge was complete, the Emperor—dressed in a gold-cloth cloak, sword, and shield—spent two days riding his horse triumphantly back and forth across his self-made land bridge, celebrating a "victory" over the sea itself. He proved his point, but at the cost of his empire's stability.

The American Echo

Now, look at the American landscape. You see the same heedless command of vast resources, not for the people's common good, but for a leader's symbolic victory or personal vanity.

Consider the recent years: the relentless focus on building a massive, symbolic wall along the southern border. This was not a policy debated and designed by experts for maximum efficacy, but a monumental promise fueled by a political leader's insistence, a totem of personal will. The cost in material, manpower, and political capital diverted from actual crises—failing infrastructure, crippling debt, a fragmented society—parallels Caligula's draining of the merchant fleet. The wall became the project, not the purpose.

We have leaders who demand a spectacle, a triumph to be paraded before the masses, regardless of the real-world consequence. Just as Caligula drained the food supply for a vanity bridge, the American state can become consumed by projects of pure political theater, satisfying a leader's psychological need to dominate the narrative while the practical machinery of the Republic grinds to a halt. The absurdity of Caligula's "victory" over the sea finds its modern parallel in the spectacle that political humorists like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert dissect nightly—the endless performance that distracts from the tangible decay.

We are watching the precious, finite resources of a colossal empire—be it its wealth, its attention, or its political will—being sacrificed to the whims of its supreme leader's ego. The bridge at Baiae was dismantled; the famine was real. This is the tragic cycle of an empire more concerned with its leader's glory than its citizens' bread.

Source: Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Life of Caligula, Chapter 19.

The Tale of Diocletian’s Deadly Edict

The later Empire, reeling from the "Crisis of the Third Century," stood on the precipice. This was an age defined by economic madness—a frantic scramble by the state to pay for an impossibly large army and endless public works while its currency was literally melting in its hands. The tale is of Emperor Diocletian and his disastrous attempt to impose control on chaos.

The root rot was National Debt and Fiscal Decay. For decades, emperors had desperately financed wars and bribed the legions by engaging in severe currency debasement. They reduced the intrinsic value of the silver denarius and the antoninianus to near nothing, flooding the market with coins that were barely more than copper with a silver wash.

The inevitable consequence followed: Hyperinflation. Prices skyrocketed as citizens—from soldiers to merchants—demanded more and more of the worthless coins to equal the value of the goods they were selling. In some parts of the Empire, the price of goods increased by 15,000%. The government's bills could only be paid by minting more worthless money, spiraling the state into insolvency.

The Tyranny of the Price Tag

In A.D. 301, Diocletian—a man of rigid order who could not tolerate disorder—issued one of history's most famously failed economic policies: the Edict on Maximum Prices (Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium).

This was a colossal act of state-sponsored delusion. The Edict fixed the maximum price for over a thousand goods, services, and wages, from a bushel of wheat to the fee paid to a lawyer. The penalty for charging more than the official, maximum price was execution. Diocletian effectively substituted the Tyranny of the Narrative for the Law of Supply and Demand. He declared that prices were rising not because the money was worthless, but because the merchants were greedy.

The result was textbook economic collapse:

 * Shortages and Hoarding: Merchants and farmers, unable to sell their goods at a profit—or often, at a price that even covered their costs—simply withdrew from the official market. They either stopped producing or sold their goods on a vast, flourishing black market.

 * Market Shutdown: The official economy seized up. Goods vanished from the storefronts of Rome's major cities. In effect, the state had successfully eliminated inflation by eliminating trade itself.

 * Labor Crisis: Wages were also capped, leading skilled laborers and artisans to abandon their trades, making shortages of finished goods even worse.

Diocletian's brutal edict confirmed a painful truth: a government cannot legislate value into a debased currency. It failed to stop the inflation, caused widespread famine, and was eventually and quietly ignored, proving that the free market, however imperfect, is more powerful than a tyrant’s decree.

The Parallel: Ignoring the Inevitable

The American Republic today faces its own version of a structural, runaway fiscal crisis, exhibiting the core Roman decay:

 * The Debased Dollar and the Debt Pile: Where Rome debased the metal in the denarius, America debases the confidence in its currency by expanding the money supply and accepting levels of national debt that are mathematically unpayable under current policy. This constant deficit spending is our modern currency debasement—it is the financial equivalent of continually reducing the silver content of the coin to pay the legions (e.g., funding trillion-dollar budget deficits).

 * The Tyranny of the Narrative (Economic Edition): Just as Diocletian blamed "greed" instead of money supply, modern political leaders (across the political spectrum) employ the Tyranny of the Narrative to misdirect blame. They demonize corporations, speculators, or foreign trade when the true cause is the fundamental, structural mismatch between what the state spends and what the state collects. Any attempt to enforce price controls (or wage controls) in a modern economy, whether on insulin, energy, or labor, is the ghostly echo of Diocletian's disastrous attempt to substitute political will for economic law.

 * The Inevitable Outcome: The Roman experience teaches that when a state sacrifices fiscal prudence to sustain an imperial lifestyle and placate special interests, the end result is a collapse of the currency and the economy. The crisis will not be solved by threats of execution but by the painful restoration of monetary discipline and a severe downsizing of the imperial scope—a lesson the American political class seems determined to ignore.

The Tale of the Historian and the Burning Scrolls

The old walls of the Senate House still hold the echoes of suppressed truth. This tale reminds us that when a state slides from republic to tyranny, the Tyranny of the Narrative begins not with the jailing of men, but with the burning of books.

The Tale of the Historian and the Burning Scrolls

The event takes place in the year A.D. 25, during the suffocating, paranoid reign of Emperor Tiberius. The Roman state had officially transitioned from a system where deeds were prosecuted to one where words were lethal.

The man was Aulus Cremutius Cordus, an esteemed historian. He was not a revolutionary, but a man clinging to the ghost of the old Republic. In his historical chronicles, he committed what became, under the Empire, the ultimate crime: he praised Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius—the assassins of Julius Caesar—calling them the “last of the Romans.”

This was not a call to violence; it was merely a statement of historical admiration for men who had violently sought to preserve the Republic. But in a system where the Emperor’s word was the measure of all things, praising the Republic’s heroes was treason against the Principate.

The Charge and the Eradication

Cremutius was brought before the Senate, accused under the terrifying Lex Majestatis (the law of treason), which Tiberius had weaponized to crush any verbal dissent. The real mover behind the prosecution was Sejanus, the ruthless Praetorian Prefect and Tiberius's power broker, who sought to silence any voice that might suggest an alternative to the current authoritarian structure.

Facing certain condemnation and a brutal execution, Cremutius made his final, heroic defense, as recorded by the later historian Tacitus. He pointed out the absurdity: if the great Roman historian Livy could praise Brutus and Cassius, why could he not? He argued that history itself would judge the regime, stating:

> "Conscript Fathers, my words are brought to judgement—so guiltless am I of deeds! You may sentence me to death, but then not only Brutus and Cassius will be remembered. I, too, shall not be forgotten."

> 

Cremutius then walked out of the Senate chamber and committed suicide by starvation, preempting the Emperor’s verdict and denying the state the spectacle of his execution.

But the Tyranny of the Narrative was not satisfied with his death. The Senate, by decree, ordered the Aediles (magistrates) to search Rome and gather every copy of Cremutius’s work. His historical accounts were publicly burned in the Forum—a violent act of historical revisionism and a stark example of Damnatio Memoriae applied to the written word.

The Parallel: The War on History and Expertise

The destruction of Cremutius’s scrolls finds its echo in the modern American regime’s systematic campaign against expertise, facts, and institutional memory—a war fought not with fire, but with digital erasure and high-volume denial.

 * The Attack on Institutions: Cremutius’s crime was placing the Republic above the person of the Emperor. The modern equivalent is the pervasive attack on any institution—science, journalism, intelligence agencies, or even the electoral process—that produces verifiable data contradicting the leader’s narrative. The institutions themselves are declared "corrupt" or "fake," just as the Emperor declared Cremutius’s history "seditious."

 * The Scrutiny of Thought: The modern political regime, particularly in the orbit of Donald Trump, demands not just loyalty, but credulity. Anyone who retains the capacity for critical historical analysis or who points out the constitutional heroes (the "Brutus and Cassius") of a more virtuous past is exiled or subjected to a digital Damnatio Memoriae. They become RINOs or traitors—their words immediately dismissed as lies, their memory purged from the loyalist dialogue.

 * The Ultimate Lesson: As Tacitus observed, the effort ultimately failed: “The persecution of genius fosters its influence; foreign tyrants, and all who have imitated their oppression, have merely procured infamy for themselves and glory for their victims.” Though officially burned, Cremutius’s books were secretly saved by his daughter Marcia and others, eventually republished when the regime relaxed its grip. This is the weary hope—that despite the loudest voices in the modern media circus (the digital Aediles), the truth is often squirreled away, saved in digital archives and private accounts, waiting for a less tyrannical age to be read again.

The history of the Republic, whether Roman or American, is not defined by the strongman, but by those few who refuse to let the truth perish in the flames.

Source:

Tacitus, The Annals, Book IV, Chapters 34-35.

A discussion and translation of this historical event can be found via the following source: Brill: Historiography and Freedom of Speech: The Case of Cremutius Cordus

The Water Revolution Is Here

California is leading the West into the big drought;

"In the United States, our population has doubled since 1950 while our water use has tripled. Today, over 50 percent of our country is grappling with drought. Pressure is particularly mounting on arid western states, with California on the frontlines."

"According to Jay Famiglietti, NASA's senior water scientist, California is, in no uncertain terms, running out of water. "Right now the state has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs, and our strategic backup supply, groundwater, is rapidly disappearing," said Famiglietti. "We're not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we're losing the creek too.""

Without sustainable use and acknowledgement of the limits on our water supplies, California may be the canary in the coal mine, an example of what not to do.

More:
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2015/03/31/the-water-revolution-is-here/

A Paradigm Shift in Education

Today's school system is less and less one focused on aiding the learner to reach full potential than one of industry and politics, of taxes and conformity. Today's learner is more capable than those of previous generations, and the one-size-fits-all Prussian model that was the template for what would become the system of today's education standards has become quite antiquated and inappropriate given the rise of learning technologies. Criticism of this rigid system abound, and for good reason, as innovators and entrepreneurs are showing us what the future holds for learners, bringing access to education to more students and at lower cost than ever before. This is an unfortunate flaw on the traditional state-education model, and will likely lead to a arabica shift. No longer will schooling be "free" and compulsory, it will be available and affordable, effective and competitive.

"Arguments about education are contentious enough without bringing partisan politics into them, but it is interesting to note in passing that in recent years our Prussian-based public school model has come under virulent attack from both the right and the left. Conservative complaints tend to center on the alleged usurpation by government of choices and prerogatives more properly left to parents; as it was put by author Sheldon Richman in his book Separating School and State: How to Liberate American Families, “the state’s apparently benevolent goal of universal education has actually been an insidious effort to capture all children in its net.”"

"Attacks from the left have tended to be surprisingly similar in tone, though the villain is not the government but the corporations that have the most to gain from a well-behaved and conformist population. Writing in the September 2003 issue of Harper’s, John Taylor Gatto urged that we “wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands…. School trains children to be employees and consumers.”"

From Sal Khan's book The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined.

You had me at Florida

"Florida grandfather who murdered seven family members, including six children, had previously killed his eight year old son."
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2014/09/florida-grandfather-who-murdered-seven.html

Damascus Goes up in Smoke

Pro-war Americans: this is what an aggressive foreign policy gets you; more violence and bloodshed. Stop trying to choose winners and loosers in foreign conflicts. It has nothing to do with America and we have no legitimate business there. Supporting militants known for unabashed violence will only make a bad situation worse, further destabilizing a nation in turmoil. 

Hydro Growth Limited by Economics not Resources

Hydroelectric capacity is limited by the availability of flowing water. There are only so many rivers that can be dammed to produce energy. 

"A recent study conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for the U.S. Department of Energy, the New Stream-reach Development Resource Assessment, finds that 61 gigawatts (GW) of hydroelectric power potential exists at waterways without existing dams or diversion facilities. This value excludes Alaska, Hawaii, and federally protected lands. ORNL's hydropower resource estimates contrast with the 2 GW of additional hydropower capacity projected to be added through 2040 in EIA's latest Annual Energy Outlook (AEO2014) Reference case. The difference in the two sets of numbers represents the significant gap between technical potential on the one hand and economic and operational potential on the other hand."

More: http://peakoil.com/alternative-energy/eia-projections-show-hydro-growth-limited-by-economics-not-resources

Rising global oil demand driven by US

"Global demand for oil will pick up next year as U.S. consumption reverses a four-year decline, and the United States will produce an increasing share of the world's supply, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said Thursday."

More: http://peakoil.com/consumption/rising-global-oil-demand-driven-by-us

Obamacare: Still Failing | Making Healthcare Costs Rise as Expected

Of all of the problems and scandals plaguing the Affordable Care Act, the worst might just have been something that anyone could have seen coming.

"Perhaps the worst news is coming from states where next year’s insurance premiums have already been announced. This will undoubtedly come as a big shock to anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, but the premiums are going up. A handful of small and niche insurers are requesting smaller increases, and a few have lowered rates, news eagerly seized upon by Obamacare supporters. But, in reality, most of the major insurers are calling for double-digit increases next year."

The conspiracy theorist in me has been saying that this has been designed to be a controlled demolition of the private healthcare insurance market from the beginning, forcing private firms out of the market, then seeing the state step in to solve the problem it created through interventionist policy and bad laws.

"In Maryland, for example, CareFirst, the state’s dominant insurer, is proposing premium hikes of 23 to 30 percent for consumers buying individual plans next year. In Vermont, MVP Health Care has requested an average rate increase of 15.4 percent, while the only other insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, requested average hikes of 9.8 percent. The Ohio Department of Insurance reports that average premiums will increase by 13 percent for individual plans and 11 percent for small-business plans next year. In Virginia, insurers are seeking rate increases ranging from 3.3 percent to 14.9 percent in the individual market, while in Arizona, Cigna asked for average premium hikes of 14.4 percent and Humana requested a 25.5 percent increase. Some insurers in Washington State are seeking hikes as high as 26 percent."

"Apparently we will have to wait a little longer for that $2,500 premium reduction that the president once promised."

These increases in cost have been known effects of this sort of law, that increased regulation and compliance naturally drives up operating costs,  which result in higher costs for consumers, and a decline in quality of goods and services.

More:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/obamacare-still-failing?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=544f6ab777-Cato_Today&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-544f6ab777-142654397&mc_cid=544f6ab777&mc_eid=2033c8b5bc

So the result is the opposite of the intention of the law, not that it should be a surprise. Rockwell's Law...

2014 GDP May Reveal Another Recession

"We are on the verge of another recession. So says Shadow Stats economist John Williams, who warns that by the end of July it will become apparent to all Americans. That’s when the government will release its latest GDP economic figures and according to Williams those numbers, combined with revisions for the first quarter of 2014, will show negative economic growth for a second quarter in a row, the official definition for recession."

More:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-recession-is-coming-economist-warns-its-beyond-control-i-dont-see-what-will-save-it-at-this-point_05222014

TEPCO reveals record cesium level in Fukushima No. 1 well

TEPCO reveals that cesium levels are at record highs under the Fukushima plant in Japan.

"A record high level of radioactive cesium has been found in groundwater beneath the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, it operator TEPCO revealed."

More:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheEuropeanUnionTimes/~3/ZGFMYEeKGB0

The problem with these tragedies is that the diesel generators which serve as backups for the cooling are not designed to effectively meet cooling needs. TEPCO has avoided addressing this question in any of its facilities, including those built in the United States under other names.

The Problem with Public Spending and Debt

Public debt has been a growing problem for decades, but the gap between funded (+$17 trillion and predicted to rise to $20 by 2018) and unfunded (most estimates are well over $100 trillion) liabilities should draw more attention than it does. Revenues are simply not keeping up with the increases in public liabilities, though federal spending far outstrips state and local levels. The debt to GDP ratio is rising to unsustainable levels. The efforts to close that gap will be through such avenues as you as you mention, but those austerity-like measures will hit the public sector hardest. Many public sector jobs are just not as economically-productive as the private sector. Regulation hinders profits more than it encourages them. 

Whether anyone agrees with the pension schemes of states and municipalities, the worry should be recognized. In the short term (the only way politicians seem to think), we are getting by, but it just takes a critical view to recognize what happens when those liabilities overload a system like Detroit when a recession hits hard, a trend that also seems to be slowly becoming more common. Some go down for obvious reasons, others seem unsinkable until they start to show signs of weakness. The rate of increase of the public debt unfortunately has increased, making tough economic times even moreso on the average taxpayer. Naturally, the rate of municipal bankruptcy filings has increased as well since 2008, to 8 cities or counties and 38 total municipalities by December 2013.

The positive side of all of this gloom is that we have numerous examples of the results of poor public policy that enables such out of control public spending and debt levels, which should encourage most municipalities to refrain from irresponsible levels of spending and debt. I try to be optimistic, but what I see in the news doesn't seem to be as encouraging. Perhaps it is time to consider something different, like Repudiating the National Debt?

Defending Cannabis by Blaming Racism

"Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells Remnick that in 2007, Obama explained, “I have no desire to be one of those presidents who are just on the list—you see their pictures lined up on the wall. … I really want to be a President who makes a difference.” But Obama’s approval ratings are mired in the low 40s, a reality he partially—and unconvincingly—attributes to racism: “There’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president.” As HotAir’s Ed Morrissey notes, the existence of rump racists completely fail to explain Obama’s two electoral victories and his 60 percent-plus approval ratings at the start of his presidency. A far better explanation is simply that he’s failed to accomplish much of anything the public likes."

More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/21/ending-the-war-on-pot-is-obama-s-last-chance-for-a-legacy.html

What a poor excuse from a lame duck president, that racism, when a large portion of minorities now disapprove of Obama, could be the problem, and ending another example of the inherent failure of prohibition by legalizing cannabis could be nothing more than a token (tokin?) gesture to appease those who have been most harmed by his partisan policies. Given the progress of the legalization movement, which effectively nullifies federal law under the Tenth Amendment and has been used since the northern war of aggression to end slavery on a state level without violence, institutionalized or otherwise. The president would do better to simply recognize reality instead of resisting it. Good ideas do not require force, nor do they need defending. But they do require indefatigable recognition. And is on us as individuals to promote the conscious solutions to predative, collectivist problems that a free society so greatly requires.

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.