Freedom has a new Flag.

When War Ceases to be Fought Against Armies.

2010-06-03T11:53:00.000-07:00

Jennifer III has an excellent article about the growing shift in international defense systems in a world that becomes increasingly interdependent and increasingly unstable. Once the only fear the nations of the world had was that they might be invaded by another nation, but today the major concern playing out on the geopolitical stage is that nations themselves might simply cease to be viable, lose legitimacy, obedience, respect, and the support they require to exist. Around the world, the boogieman of historical national rivalries, for which every nation must be militarily prepared to defend themselves against, are being replaced with a new boogieman, a new target, the real threat. The people.

The wars of the future will not be fought against armies of different flags, they will be fought, desperately, against people, ideas, and systems. We have seen it before, from reconstruction to the civil rights movement through the 70's to the two concurrent wars currently being waged by the US Commander in (Nobel) Peace, but we can only expect such a trend to continue, and expand. As Tomas Ries pointed out in a 2009 ISS paper on the future ambitions of an EU military, the number one threat to EU stability is growing intrasocietal tensions between the global wealthy and the problems of the poor.

"Technology is shrinking the world into a global village, but it is a global village on the verge of revolution"

I applaud Jennifer III for the clarity with which she explains whats going on, today, and what you should know about it.

Read it here:

http://www.itakeliberty.com/2010/05/attention-shifts-to-4gw/

Ending the Debate on Due Process at the Point of a Missile.

2010-03-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

Nat Hentoff wrote an article for CATO on Targeted Killings, a worrying trend in the ultimate extralegal power of government to decide who lives and dies, giving a much needed update on the potential situations arising that I warned about about in April of last year in an article called Targeted For Termination - Assassination in the 21st Century.

During a Feb. 3 hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified that the U.S. intelligence community, when dealing with direct terrorist threats to the United States, does "take direct action against terrorists" (Washington Post, Feb. 4).

And "if we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that."

Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer turned news analyst, avoids euphemisms. "Special permissions" without judicial authorization, says Greenwald, amounts to "basically giving the president the power to impose death sentences on his own citizens without any charges or trial" (Salon.com, Feb. 4)

Read the rest here: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11259

H/T Renae

Tempus Fugit

Malcolm X: Remembering the Last 10 Months

2010-02-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

Today is the 45th anniversary of the assassination of the man they call Malcolm X, a man we are often told was a racist, or a radical religionist, or an exploitative communist, but that millions of other men, women and children called an inspiration, a leader, a great man, and some, even called a friend.

At his funeral, Actor and Activist Ossie Davis delivered his eulogy, which he reread, and you can hear at the end of spike Lee's Movie if you are so inclined, and had this to say:

There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times. Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain—and we will smile. Many will say turn away—away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man—and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate—a fanatic, a racist—who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him

Whatever you think of Malcolm X's political or religious beleifs, i ask, simply that you not immediately discount those millions of good, honorable people who know they must honor him. Too often divisive terms or matters of political idealogues are used to divide and conquor those who seek common ground, goals, and solutions to the burdens that most of, not the country but, the world have suffered under for too long. We have common ground, and while it may not always be easy to work together, it is a great deal easier, and more intelligent, not to work against eachother fighting over How to solve a problem.

To quote Mike Vanderboegh, "If we don't understand where we came from -- all of us, together and separately, of all races, creeds, colors and religions -- then we cannot understand where we are or where we're going."

See the problem, work towards it, accept the help available to solve it.

Simple, isnt it?

And we do see a problem, dont we?

Reprinted below are the remarks by Steve Clark, one such man, at a February 21
forum, 2009, on the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. Clark
is the editor of several collections of speeches by Malcolm X published
by Pathfinder Press and a member of the Socialist Workers Party
National Committee.

The forum was held at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and
Educational Center, at the site of the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem
where Malcolm X was fatally shot at the podium on Feb. 21, 1965. A
report on the meeting appeared in the March 16 issue of the Militant.

I’m glad to be here with all of you this evening to help keep alive
the legacy of one of the 20th century world’s most outstanding
revolutionary leaders of working people, and of the struggle for Black
freedom—Malcolm X. And not just a legacy, but above all a course of
conduct to emulate.

There is much we may never know about Malcolm’s assassination in this
very hall 44 years ago, since there are so many forces—the FBI and
other federal police agencies, the New York cops, and those in and
around what was then the leadership of the Nation of Islam—who have a
stake in covering up the truth.

What I want to focus on, however, is the political course Malcolm was
on during the final year of his life that made him so dangerous to—and
so hated by—all those who unsuccessfully sought to prevent his example
from becoming better known.

Evolution didn’t end in Mecca
In his book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,
Barack Obama—the newly inaugurated president and commander-in-chief of
the world’s final empire—has this to say: “If Malcolm’s discovery
toward the end of his life, that some whites might live beside him as
brothers in Islam, seemed to offer some hope of eventual
reconciliation, that hope appeared in a distant future, in a far-off
land.”

But Barack Obama gives us only the Malcolm of the Autobiography. Like
many who seek to deny Malcolm’s revolutionary political course during
the final months of his life, Obama freezes Malcolm’s political
evolution in April 1964, with the pilgrimage to Mecca. It’s as if
Malcolm had been assassinated 10 months before he actually was. Spike
Lee’s movie does the same thing.

This is standard for those who would turn Malcolm into a moral or
religious reformer, instead of a political leader who acted on the
reality that the concessions working people win under capitalism are
always a by-product of revolutionary struggle.

It’s standard for those who hold onto Malcolm X as a nationalist,
rather than an internationalist champion of struggles by the oppressed
and exploited the world over.

And we even hear it these days from some who try to twist and
disfigure Malcolm X into a beacon of the growing minority among
African Americans in the professional and middle classes who distance
themselves more and more—socially and politically—from the great mass
of working people, whose living and job conditions continue to get
worse, and in whose interests Malcolm fought and died.

Yes, of course, if all Malcolm’s legacy amounted to was the hope that
“some whites might eventually live beside him as brothers in Islam”—
then, certainly, that’s quite a reach for the transformation of the
United States and most of the rest of the world! It is a hope for “a
distant future”—at the very best.

Malcolm’s political legacy
But Mecca was not the culmination of Malcolm’s evolution. He lived,
learned, spoke, and fought for another 10 months!

And dozens of Malcolm’s speeches, interviews, and letters from those
months are available in books kept in print primarily by Pathfinder
Press. All of us can study—and work to emulate—what Malcolm actually
said and set out to achieve.

In them we discover the Malcolm who—when asked by a Village Voice
interviewer, just a few weeks before he was killed, whether his aim
was to awaken Blacks to their exploitation—immediately shot back: “No,
to their humanity, to their own worth.”

There we find the Malcolm who spoke out against those who don’t give
women “incentive by allowing her maximum participation in whatever
area of the society where she’s qualified.” Whatever country you
visit, Malcolm said, “the degree of progress can never be separated
from the woman.”

We find the Malcolm who rejected the Nation of Islam’s opposition to
intermarriage, saying: “I believe in recognizing every human being as
a human being—neither white, black, brown, or red… . It’s just one
human being marrying another human being, or one human being living
around and with another human being.”

It’s during those 10 months that we find the Malcolm who sought to
unify the broadest layers—irrespective of religious beliefs, or
absence of religious beliefs—in militant political action against
every manifestation of racist bigotry, of capitalism’s economic and
social exploitation, and of murderous imperialist wars—from the Congo,
to Vietnam, to Cuba at the time, and today we can add Iraq, Gaza,
Afghanistan, and Pakistan (where missile strikes by the Obama
administration in recent weeks have killed at least 30 people).

In order to join in these struggles effectively, Malcolm said, you
have to keep “your religion at home, in the closet”—because whether
you are “a Methodist or a Baptist or an atheist or an agnostic,” or a
Muslim, the oppressed catch the same hell.

Internationalist revolutionary
It’s during those 10 months that we find the Malcolm who told the
Young Socialist magazine that his recent visits to Africa and the
Middle East—meeting fellow fighters of all hues of complexion—had
convinced him to stop referring to the course he advocated as “Black
nationalism,” because, as Malcolm put it: “I was alienating people who
were true revolutionaries dedicated to overturning the system of
exploitation that exists on this earth by any means necessary.”

And that system has a name: capitalism. “You can’t operate a
capitalistic system unless you are vulturistic,” Malcolm told a Harlem
rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity—in this very ballroom—
in December 1964. And three days prior to his assassination he told a
meeting at Columbia University, just a few blocks from here, “We are
today seeing a global rebellion of the oppressed against the
oppressor, the exploited against the exploiter.”

Malcolm X recognized it was necessary for African Americans and other
oppressed and exploited working people and youth to together make a
revolution in the United States, to take power out of the hands of the
racist and war-making capitalist rulers. He was an internationalist
revolutionary, part of a political convergence of revolutionary
leaderships of the toilers from North America, to Cuba, Algeria, and
elsewhere in Africa and the Americas.

Malcolm argued that this is a worldwide struggle, against a worldwide
social system that not only expropriates the wealth that working
people create with our labor. But above all, a system that denies us
the human solidarity and civilization that social labor makes possible—
that denies us, in Malcolm’s words, “our humanity, our own worth.”

Let me close with a few words about what we can and must learn from
Malcolm’s assassination itself. We know that the U.S. rulers—and their
massive political police apparatus at federal, state, and local levels—
carry out systematic spying, harassment. And, when they need to,
murderous violence against opponents of their policies.

Pathfinder publishes many titles detailing these cop operations
against unions, fighters for Black liberation, communists and
socialists, the movement against the Vietnam War, women’s rights
activists, and others: Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on Political
Freedom and FBI on Trial: The Victory in the Socialist Workers Party
Suit against Government Spying, among the many.

In the course of a 15-year-long campaign against the FBI and other
federal cop agencies conducted by the political party I am a member
of, the Socialist Workers Party—which ended in 1986 in a victorious
federal court ruling against the U.S. government—the judge’s decision
documented 204 burglaries of party offices between 1945 and 1966—
that’s 204!; the use of 1,300 paid informers against the SWP between
1960 and 1976, including 300 planted as members; as well as firings,
evictions, and so on.

We know the Chicago cops brutally assassinated Black Panther Party
leader Fred Hampton while he was sleeping in his bed in 1969. And
since the 1959 revolution in Cuba, Washington has organized more than
600 failed assassination attempts against Fidel Castro. And there are
many, many other examples.

We have the right and the duty to demand that the government release
all the files on their disruption operations against those involved in
popular struggles here and around the world.

But those of us engaged on various fronts of the fight against
exploitation and oppression need to look at and draw lessons from an
even more fundamental political question. Because as Malcolm and other
revolutionary leaders have taught us, it is how we act, what we say
and do, how we organize to resist—in face of inevitable spying,
provocations, and violence by the exploiters, which will continue so
long as they hold state power—that ultimately settles defeat or
victory. How we do it—not how someone does it for us.

The U.S. rulers wanted to get rid of Malcolm X. However much is still
hidden from us, it’s clear nonetheless that Malcolm was assassinated
by individuals in or around the organization he had been a leader of
as recently as 18 months earlier: the Nation of Islam.

The U.S. rulers hated and feared the Grenada Revolution. But Maurice
Bishop, its outstanding leader, was assassinated by a Stalinist gang
within the governing New Jewel Movement, which in the process—as Fidel
Castro so accurately explained—not only destroyed the revolution but
handed the island over to U.S. imperialism on a silver platter.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Washington sent U.S. Special Forces to
help the government in El Salvador defeat worker and peasant struggles
led by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, the FMLN. But
world-class FMLN leaders such as Roque Dalton and Commander Ana María
were brutally assassinated not by these U.S. or Salvadoran rightist
squads, but by others within their own organization.

The U.S. government salted the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and
early 1970s with scores of paid snitches. But why were these cop
provocateurs able to get away with murderous internal violence and
thuggery on such a scale in the Panthers that the organization was
literally torn apart?

Intolerable methods
These are intolerable methods that the Stalinist movement in the 1930s
picked up from the dog-eat-dog social relations of capitalism and
injected into the unions and organizations of the oppressed.

Malcolm X hated these methods. He came to detest demagogy and
thuggery. He knew what the cops and racist bigots were capable of. He
knew the brutality he had been trained in as a leader of the Nation of
Islam and its paramilitary Fruit of Islam. As he said of the Nation
the day before his death, “I know what they can do, and what they
can’t, and they can’t do some of the stuff recently going on.”

Beatings of Malcolm’s supporters and attempts on his own life
escalated in early 1965, including the fire-bombing of his house that
could have killed his daughters and his wife Betty.

Malcolm’s greatest concern was the blows being struck to the fight for
liberation by the systematic violence being carried out by an
organization claiming to speak on behalf of the oppressed—the Nation
of Islam. “As we fight one another, they continue to rule,” Malcolm
said.

There’s another, related lesson we must internalize, as a habit. The
U.S. ruling families don’t operate primarily on the basis of plots and
conspiracies. They don’t need to. They hold state power—the armed
forces, the cops, courts, and prisons. They control the schools, the
major newspapers, TV and radio stations.

Above all, their economic system exploits workers and farmers here and
around the world, wrings unimaginable wealth from our labor, and
reproduces those oppressive social relations every day, every week,
every month, every year.

However great our justified distrust of the rulers and their
government, focusing our attention on alleged conspiracies takes our
eyes off these fundamental realities—that the source of society’s ills
is the capitalist system, and we must organize a mass revolutionary
movement of working people to take political power from the hands of
the exploiting class.

What’s more, by diverting attention from our class enemy—for us in the
United States, the capitalist rulers in this country, first and
foremost—the endless pursuit of conspiracies too often ends up in
scapegoating and baiting: Cui bono? Who benefits? Like the widely
circulated anti-Semitic libel that Jews employed at the World Trade
Center were warned beforehand not to come work on September 11.

Or the scapegoats can be the communists. Or anarchists. Or immigrants
who are supposedly taking “our” jobs. Or the Blacks who are taking
“our” spots in college and in graduate schools. Or feminists. Or
greedy unions.

It’s all grist for the mill of the ultraright.

Capitalist crisis, civil debate
Capitalism is being shaken worldwide by the deepest contraction of
production and trade since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And it
has just begun.

Millions are being thrown onto the streets, with the hammer blows
falling heaviest on workers who are African American or foreign-born.
The capitalists are fanning reactionary trade protectionism, America
Firstism, and assaults on immigrant workers. Jew-baiting is again on
the march, as during the crisis of the 1920s and 1930s.

As the crisis of the capitalist system accelerates, there will be
mounting resistance by working people in the United States and around
the world.

As we organize to combat the wealthy families who own and control
industry, the banks, land, and trade—as well as the Democratic and
Republican parties that represent their class interests on the
political level—it is essential that within the organizations of the
working class and oppressed, we stand guard in defense of our ability
to exchange experiences and opinions above all in a civil manner, to
put opposing views to the test and draw a balance sheet—as we fight
shoulder to shoulder for goals we share in common.

If we are able to do that, then we will truly be drawing on the
enduring political contribution of the man who we are here to remember
this evening—to remember accurately, and completely.

There is no better moment than in tumultuous times we’ve entered to
recall the words Malcolm X spoke at Oxford University in the UK a
little more than 44 years ago, when he said that “the young generation
of whites, Blacks, browns, whatever else there is,” you’re living in
“a time of revolution.” And “I for one will join in with anyone, I
don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this
miserable condition that exists on this earth.”

Soylent Corp is People!

2010-01-23T11:21:00.000-08:00

The Supreme Court rules corporations, as people, have the same right to free speech as you do, and overturns the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act.

Reaction?

Well, if you ask me, It is a conflicting issue, morally, but oddly enough, the supreme court is spot on this one, legally. Corporations are people, as odd as that sounds to the voting populous, and they have the rights of men. The work "Incorporated", literally means "To make flesh." I can't say the [insert group of people renown for X interest] can't donate money to a candidate, because they will only support candidates that support their own interests, after all. Well, Duh, those are the only candidates anyone supports, really. That would be an abridgement of their first amendment rights.

Morally, however, it is quite troubling that corporations (more than they already do) will be able to continue shape the electoral process, and essentially nullify the amount of influence any given individual, or great number of individuals, can have. A government for the people by the people, where any man can make a difference or shape the destiny of his home, land, and country, but the fact is, money talks. The question is, if corporations are going to replace our own influence over our world, are their interests the same as ours, or do we concede that as people, with the rights of individuals, do we concede that they have the right to overrule our own interests? The argument is made that as a crucial part of the free market, that these corporation must be allowed to shape that market, in a way that ensures their continued success, as otherwise, like any disenfranchised minority, they might be oppressed by an active majority, who could legislate them into virtual slavery. But, if given a majority of influence do they have the ability to do the same to the individual? In short, the problem is, we know they act in their own interests, and will those interests bring great evil, to the individuals who's interests they supplant?

Corporations aren't inherently evil, no, but they aren't actually related to the free market either, they are government protectionism extended to a fictional entity so as to distance that fiction from legal and civil obligations that other members of the free market must endure daily. They would not exist in any real form, without government intervention in the market, and while they provide jobs and an aggregation of investment into a single large goal, which is useful for establishing a stable cohesive economy, (a large influence working to progress in a single direction, instead of potentially several small interests working against each-other, unable to pool the resources to bring real technological or economic progress) they generally aren't sustainable models, which then mandates growth as the primary goal of a corporation. They must return investment, or they fail. This "growth at all costs" model leads to lower and lower ethical standards, and the government protectionism granted by government incorporation (which has always been to give it the rights of people, going back to 1819) makes it all but impossible to be held to any real level of responsibility.

A corporation cannot be put in prison. If you stole millions of dollars from the pentagon, and gave that money to a foreign military, you would go to prison. GE did it, and will not. People die, in incidents like Union Carbide killing an entire city, and that corporation can be held civilly liable, but never criminally. There is no one responsible if a corporation does the wrong thing, and further, no one cares if you royally fuck up, as long as it continues to return investments, the corporation's self interest is never threatened by contradicting the rights or rules of society at large. The free market would use Partnerships, and Single Owner Businesses, naturally, as these are entities which operate with the motivations of individual actors, who, can then be held responsible for their actions.

So no, not evil, but saying the actions of Corporations are troubling is not exactly the same as railing against business, or claiming that the Free Market brings evil, as many people today do (mistakenly, i think.) The fact is, the creation of these legal protections are undermining the ability of the free market to self regulate and adapt. You can not go out today and start an insurance company, you cannot go out and start a bank, more and more of the economy, is being moved into a corporate only playing ground, regulated by government, and influenced by only a handful of big businesses. As these businesses continue to act without the self regulation of a free market, you can see greater and great moral hazard, and more and more economic falsities, things that wouldn't happen in a true free market. Expect more failure, like the banking collapse of last year, and with more influence given over the state (an agent of force) expect more bailouts to be taken from you, to correct it. Expect more mandatory product purchases, as are being discussed in the senate, today. And that's only one aspect of the evil that can be done, as corporations continue to exert influence.

You took a monster of monetary influence, you told it to grow at all cost, no matter what, you removed any personal loyalties it might have had, or even nationality in some cases, and then you said, oh, by the way, you can never be held criminally responsible for your actions, have fun. There can be some bad things in there, and monopolies are a problem, as in most cases, individual actors, or partnerships, can rarely compete with that monetary influence, or even try to hold them responsible civilly. And, with all the moral hazard that entails, you have to let it continue to exercise its rights, as granted by the constitution.

Ive often said that "There is no 'left', there is no 'right', there is only the corporate fascist state." Corporations have been exerting influence for years, again, which is probably their right, and the overturning of a relatively new finance law, really doesn't change much, but maybe, will highlight some of the hazards of granting government protection to a new aspect of democracy that does not have the same personal responsibility that the individual does. Democracy has always been a troubling cesspool of "vote your own interest, at the expense of others" which is precisely why this country was created knowing that was an unsustainable model, and instituted the legal balance of a Republic, preventing one group of "people" from oppressing another. If that model was more closely guarded today, many of these issues would never have been allowed to spawn. And if we continue to shift, philosophically, towards a democracy, we can expect nothing more than the oppression of the weak, by the strong; the minority, by the majority, as that is how it has always been, throughout history.

Hopefully the late George Carlin was wrong, as he said "When fascism comes to America, it won't be wearing arm bands and black boots marching. It will be wearing Nikes and Ipod's and we won't even fight it, we'll demand it!"

The Odds

2010-01-02T11:35:00.001-08:00

More Accurate

2009-10-23T21:52:00.000-07:00

From XKCD, who's author writes: "We live in a world where there are actual fleets of robot assassins patrolling the skies. At some point there, we left the present and entered the future."

See:
Targeted for Termination...
http://cryptome.org/eyeball/predator-pk/predator-pk.htm
http://cryptome.org/eyeball/cia-hq-history/cia-hq-history.htm
http://www.nellis.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123083752

Farmers Arrested Planting Hemp On DEA Headquarters Lawn

2009-10-15T00:43:00.000-07:00

A group of civilly-disobedient hemp farmers and business leaders were arrested Tuesday morning while digging up the lawn to plant industrial hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

David Bronner, the president of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a more than 60-year-old company that does tens of millions of dollars of business annually, was among those arrested.

Bronner buys the hemp used in his soaps from Canadian farmers. He was arrested outside the DEA museum, which shares space with the headquarters.

"Our kids are going to come to this museum and say, 'My God. Your generation was crazy. What the hell is wrong with you people?'" he said as Arlington County Police handcuffed him and walked him to a waiting car.

The group was arrested for trespassing.

Read more at HufPo, and please let me know if you have a better source of info, preferably from the organizers. Video on the bottom of that page. You know, when they get out of jail for protesting the unconstitutional ban of a plant that is legal to own, and has no psychoactive propertiesl. Ever wonder why pot was illegal? its because of the interests of competive technology to Hemp, and Racism. Legal propriety be damned.

Sonnet: England in 1819

2009-10-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, -mud from a muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, -
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless -a book sealed;
A Senate, -Time's worst statute unrepealed, -
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

-- Percy Shelley

Declaration of a National State of Terrorny

2009-10-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

The Difference between this President and the Last?

Well, the old one wasn't eligible for re-election...

"Hmm, unprecedented executive power seized in secrecy and fear, you say?"

As I said in Standing With Your Back to the Front:

"What kind of government did we get," they asked Franklin as he walked out of those great halls, and I'm sorry to say, he did not answer "I'm sorry, thats classified."

Don't know if this one is supposed to be a secret, as it is definitely, not classified, but I only found the following in the Federal Register, buried, after it left the desk of the same President who stated at the beginning of his term that (paraphrase) "Every Executive Order I sign, will be posted on the WhiteHouse web page, for public review, within hours of my receiving signature"

Well, let me know if you see what I found on an obscure government page, between thousands of pages of bureaucratic notices and assorted federal minutia, on the White House page, where it was promised. Ill even give you the link. http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/PresidentialActions/

No? then I'll paste it here for you, at the bottom of this post, from the President who promised you transparency, and a "radical departure from the policies of the previous administration."

And as I wrote last October:

[...I]f he was willing, he would have drug these skeletons out in to the open and painted himself as a hero setting off to slay an abusive totalitarian state. But he hasn't, and he continually dismisses any mention of it. And why? Because that leviathan state is what he voted for, It's secrecy and shadows are what he needs, and its abusive totalitarian power is what he craves.

He entered this campaign with a smoking gun, and all he could think of is how many bullets might be left in the magazine.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Sometimes I hate it when I'm right...
Tempus Fugit.

-------------------------------------------    
Notice of September 10, 2009-- 

Continuation of the National Emergency  
With Respect to Certain Terrorist Attacks                           

Presidential Documents      
_____________________________________ 
Title 3-- The President  [[Page 46883]]                  

Notice of September 10, 2009                    

Continuation of the National Emergency With                  
Respect to Certain Terrorist Attacks 
                 
Consistent with section 202(d) of the National                 
Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1622(d), I am continuing for                  
1 year the national emergency declared on September 14,                  
2001, in Proclamation 7463, with respect to the                  
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the                  
continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on                  
the United States.                  

Because the terrorist threat continues, the national                  
emergency declared on September 14, 2001, and the                  
powers and authorities adopted to deal with that                  
emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 14,                  
2009. Therefore, I am continuing in effect for an                  
additional year the national emergency the former                  
President declared on September 14, 2001, with respect                  
to the terrorist threat.                  

This notice shall be published in the Federal Register                  
and transmitted to the Congress.  
                                                     
(Presidential Sig.)                  
THE WHITE HOUSE,                     
September 10, 2009.  

[FR Doc. E9-22119 Filed 9-10-09; 11:15 am]  
Billing code 3195-W9-P

Warsaw Uprising Hero Dies

2009-10-03T17:13:00.001-07:00

"When you cannot defend freedom through peaceful means, you have to use arms to fight Nazism, dictatorship, chauvinism"...

From AP:

WARSAW, Poland – Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the ill-fated 1943 Warsaw ghetto revolt against the Nazis, died Friday at the age of 90.

Edelman died of old age at the family home of his friend Paula Sawicka, where he had lived for the past two years.

"He died at home, among friends, among his close people," Sawicka told The Associated Press.

Most of Edelman's adult life was dedicated to the defense of human life, dignity and freedom. He fought the Nazis in the doomed Warsaw ghetto revolt and later in the Warsaw city Uprising. And then for decades he fought communism in Poland.

His heroism earned him the French Legion of Honor and Poland's highest civilian distinction, the Order of the White Eagle.

Read More from AP

For more Information on the Uprising itself, and what brave men and women like Edelman put on the line so many years ago, see Mike V's Strippers, subtitled: 'Juden haben waffen!':

"I, myself, remained on the balcony and fired at the confused and embarrassed Germans with my Mauser. From my balcony, I could see them in all their helplessness and their loss of control. The air was full of wails and shouts. Many of them tried to run to the walls of the houses for cover but everything was barred and beyond that, death was pursuing them. In the noise, the fluster, and the cries of the wounded, we heard the astonished outcry of one of the Germans: 'Juden haben waffen! Juden haben waffen!' ('The Jews have arms!') . . .

The battle lasted for about a half an hour. The Germans withdrew and there were many corpses and wounded in the street."

Then repeat after me:

"Never Again."

R.I.P.

Fighting men and women will always be missed, but never forgotten.

Ron Paul on the Daily Show, 9/28/09

2009-10-03T16:48:00.000-07:00

End The Fed.

Listen.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Ron Paul

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Ron Paul Interview

Whoring Off the Future

2009-09-22T02:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Arizona, a state I am normally quite proud of. But after a recently disappointing legislature session, I am not feeling quite so boastful.

Now, keep in mind this is another reason I don't bother watching the news, after what has been now months of scanning for reasonable news stories on what I saw happen live in our state legislature's first emergency budget session, the most accurate report I've seen, and the only one that asked the obvious question, "Uh, and what about next year?" comes from the Daily Show.

The National Media is a Joke.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Arizona State Capitol Building for Sale

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Healthcare Protests

Now, the state capital building is the attention getter, certainly, but not by far the extent of this whore of a trading common sense away for cash idea. Also to go are all of the state's correctional facilities, and several other large state owned - free and clear - properties, which will then be leased back from their new owners for the state's use at the price tag of many millions of dollars per year, over the next 20 years, as a source of constant debt. I know the first thing I do when I am having trouble coming up with cash for my monthly bills is not to say cut the amount of money I'm spending every month, it is to purposely go out and create more bills so i can use items I already own, that don't cost me anything to use now.

There is a phrase used for this level of economic misunderstanding and blunder, It's called "you fucktards". This particular malady is endemic to the political process on all levels, from other states in similar budget crisis-es to the current national debate on socializing healthcare. This sort of "Get what you can today, don't worry about tomorrow," is exactly why the economy was shot out a 1% fed lending rate bubble and into the toilet, as well as a slew of other future obligation/entitlement snafus accross the board.

Now, all this in a time when a graph of the economic projection for next year looks an awful lot like tipping off the backside of a half-pipe, and state revenue (derived mostly from percentage based theft) is dropping at near terminal velocity, you might understand why I am expecting to see corporate sponsorship for state properties, services, and legislation, any day now.

Oh, that is right, we already have corporate sponsored license plates, which our noble and gullible public is able to pay an additional yearly tax, (on top of yearly arbitrary and capricious fees and an asinine percentage of value registration tax) to proudly display their consumer addiction on the rear of their alternative fuel SUV's and drive around while they look for a job...

Nothing like paying the government for the right to display advertising for a corporation that payed the government for the right to advertise to show how oblivious you are to the concept of corporate fascism.

Did I mention the unemployment rate is well over 10%, and climbing? (9.5% deflated and official, based on several month old statistics)

Great. We will have to see how the next few years handle a blow like this one, but I am quite sure this state will have to do so without this particular set of whores in its legislature.

Vote them out, then ask them to move.

I hear the ~~fire~~ weather in California is nice. I am sure they will fit right in.

Civil War in Jericho.

2009-09-07T20:05:00.000-07:00

No, no, not that Jericho, but here is, a much more real, and definate sign of the times. As the economic depression deepens, people start to realize that just because their livelyhoods and communities are dwindling and shrinking, does not mean that the government, and its armed enforcers, have any intention of following suit. The pressures of stealing for your livelyhood from those who have nothing can always be a bit stressful, and my sympathies go out to the following officer of the law, who evidently couldnt handle the pressure any more, and snapped.

"It was just too much, having to return to court twice on the same day to
contest yet another traffic ticket, and Fire Chief Don Payne didn’t hesitate to
tell the judge what he thought of the police and their speed traps.

The response from cops? They shot him. Right there in court."

In this AP story about the troubles of a small town in Arkansas sounds a little bit like a parable for what is happening all over the country, first in small towns, and then, gradually, in larger and larger cities.

[The town] saw its last business close its doors a few weeks ago.

"You can't even buy a loaf of bread, but we've got seven police officers," said former resident Larry Harris, who left town because he said the police harassment became unbearable.

"You can't even get them to answer a call because normally they're writing tickets," said Thomas Martin, chief investigator for the Crittenden County Sheriff's Department. "They're not providing a service to the citizens."

Theres more to the story, so I do suggest you follow the link, though I warn you, you might be suprised how quich things can turn ugly, police cruisers having to be parked out of town because of repeated vandalism, an officer shoots a man in anger in open court, and no one will identify him, and another government official states that no charges will be filed, unless they are fired against the victim, while everyone is wondering where all the money the police department and courts stole at gunpoint went, exactly. The mayor didnt have a comment, but the reporter did note the government purchased car parked in her driveway. Seems this small town has all the elements needed for a classic tale of grift and corruption.

Well... Almost everything. On second thought, it sounds like they could use their very own Jake Green, and a little bit of luck. Remember, things do change fast, and when it rains, it pours.

~Tempus Fugit

What Kind of Statement?

2009-08-20T23:19:00.000-07:00

"In America, at least for now, at least in America, the people have a way to say NO."

-- Chris B. at recent Phoenix Presidential Event, when asked what kind of statement he was trying to make.

Forget the Whole Text, Read the First Three Words

2009-07-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

In letters so big you could practically read them from across the room.

We the People...

Hopefully we all know what that is from, and understand why it was there to begin with, so emphasized.

Jay commented on my previous post to express his concern that the strength of the Individual States to fight federal overrule is greatly impaired by the Supremacy Clause, and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and that the Individual States may find themselves without a leg to stand on as they begin to assert their rights to self rule.

I understand his concern there, and thought I would reply with my own thoughts, though I don't know if I have too many ideas on the subject that are not already known to most of you.

These are the two snips in question, which some people think have lent credence to the idea that the Federal Government may overrule the will, and law, of the individual states of its union, and in some cases, have allowed it to do so.

"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." -- The Supremacy Clause.

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." -- Privileges and Immunities Clause, 14th Amendment.

Personally, I don't think that they do in fact, override, legally, the rights of the states to make their own governments, as such is clearly protected by the 10th Amendment, and I'll try to explain my reasoning, though wont get into individual case citations, and leave it as just a broad overview.

The 14th amendment is clearly of less concern, out of the two of them, as it is written to protect the privileges and rights of the Citizens and not of the Federal Government, and I don't think it offers any real resistance to a state blocking federal law enforcement activities. Being raided and arrested by UncleBATFEcker is hardly a privilege, now is it? This clause was really only intended to limit state governments and extend the first 8 Constitutional amendments, constituting the bill of rights, which limited congress, to limiting state legislatures. (though this was actually done, instead, through the Due Process Clause, to all but the second and third amendments and as such, the Privileges and Immunities clause, though very strongly worded, had little legal effect)

The Supremacy Clause, on the other hand, is indeed a bag of worms, and one which both theory and the Supreme Court's actions based upon it have been swinging back and forth for years. John Marshall, named chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1801, was the first person to take the viewpoint that no state law could conflict with federal law, and stated "the government of the Union, though limited in its power, is supreme within its sphere of action." This would be very much of concern if this was still the viewpoint the courts would take, as it leaves little room for questioning any Federal Authority, in an age where much of the limited power Marshal spoke of has long been expanded.

However, by the time the War Between the States was over, the court changed its position thoroughly, and consistently upheld state laws in contradiction to federal, by invoking the 10th amendment. Powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or to the people.

Then came the Great Depression, and back to broad national overreaching powers we went, some say by necessity, and some say by design.

Where we are today, in the court's oppinion, is hard to say, but if the number of states who have passed resolutions affirming their 10th amendment rights is any indication, our own state of Arizona included, and most recently, Alaska, (I should have a link here to the full list, but i couldn't find one) I would say at least popular support is heading the direction of States Rights. No matter which side you would choose to support, there is plenty of case law to support either viewpoint, and case law offers some guidance in setting conditions to decide if the Supremacy Clause is sufficient for the courts to decide to override the laws of an individual state, on a case by case basis.

Two issues arise when state action is in apparent conflict with federal law. The first is whether the congressional action falls within the powers granted to Congress by the constitution. If Congress exceeded its authority, the congressional act is invalid and, despite the Supremacy Clause, has no priority over state action. This, for once, is a very consistent viewpoint of the courts, even if they vary on their opinion of what exact powers the constitution does grant to Congress. The second issue we have to consider is whether Congress intended its policy to supersede state policy. Congress often acts without intent to preempt state policy making or with an intent to preempt state policy on a limited set of issues. Congress may intend state and federal policies to coexist, and if no intention of preemtion was present, there no reason that they cannot be made to coexist.

What we have here is a law potentially supported by one constitutional phrase, and forbidden by another. If given the choice between the two conflicting laws, and indeed, two conflicting clauses of the constitution, I would assume any reasonable man would support the more qualified of the two, irregardless of the supremacy clause, who's effect, doubtlessly, is nullified by a violation of the 10th amendment, the support of which both states have already stated was their sole motivation in drafting these particular laws. The states do in fact have a right to regulate intra-state commerce, without any question, and the federal government has no power to do so, over the states, at least not granted through the Constitution.

Sounds open and shut to me.

As I said, I am uncertain, today, if the current Supreme Court would see it that way, but the fundamental point of my last post was that it shouldn't matter what the Supreme Court thinks, in the end, as the states have just as much right to review and interpret the constitution, if not more, than the Supreme Court does, and they need to start doing so, not just on this matter, but several others. As I quoted in that last post, "[I]f the Constitution is over the [Supreme] Court, who or what finally is over the Constitution? It can only be the States, who under Article V alone have the power to amend or rewrite it. How, then, may it be urged that the States ‘unequivocally surrendered’ the control of their most fundamental rights, in the last resort, to a Court they themselves created?” There is no escaping this fundamental fact, the states are sovereign entities of and to themselves, with political power granted directly by their citizens, tasked with serving and protecting the interests of those citizens, and they must act accordingly.

More important than these conversations about what legal avenues lie before us, or what constraints generations and generations of legislators and judges have placed upon us, is the fundamental question: what should government be allowed to do, to best ensure Justice and Liberty? That is, quite simply, what our government should be limited to.

Unfortunately, since 1788, "Is" and "Should Be" have often found themselves at odds, both in this country, and its individual states, partially because we have continually allowed the Federal Government to be the sole interpreter of the agreement imposed upon it by the states that formed it, leading to a dramatic imbalance of power nationally, and partially because of a lack of interest on the part of the people, to take action and involve themselves in these issues. It is important that we look to the constitution as a great document and example of what great minds once set down, as guidance, but, and I can not assert this more firmly, the Constitution of the United States is neither immutable, nor is it the final word, in any matter. Common Sense, (and not just this kind, though it is a start) in the present era, though often difficult to locate, should always be the final word and the supreme guidance set before our actions. Though I mean it with the utmost respect, the Constitution of the United States is just a piece of paper, and if it is used to justify tyranny or injustice over the people or the states, it should be torn asunder as quickly as the tyrants that use it as a shield. The Individual States have the sole power to revise or abandon it (and as a logical extension, to question and check its advances), and the people have the sole power over the states. Two Hundred and Twenty + Years of bickering and erosion and bill-drafting can never be expected to bind the people or their representatives and stop the righting of wrongs, when the obligations and force of Liberty, being more powerful than any words, can so easily can free them to continue in their just campaign

As Jefferson stated in the HBO series John Adams, ”[the constitution] could prove a breach in the integrity of our revolutionary ideals through which would pour the forces of reaction” and, in the end, re-institute the very tyrannies they had fought to protect themselves from.

"I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to its laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another"

Much more important than the words contained in the constitution, is the intent behind its creation, that men shall, for the first time in history, since the beginning of civilization, rule solely over themselves, as equals, in balanced and just form, protected by the rule of law. The constitution serves to protect those ideas, and it must never be allowed to be used to protect the will of those who do otherwise, and seek to rule over men as vassals.

Today we suffer not only by the mistakes of our legislatures and courts, but of all the legislatures and courts there have ever been in this country. This can be easily be interpreted as Generational Tyranny, no matter how great the original intentions were in the laying its foundation.

(for a more accurate and [imho] less quotable and theatrical version of Jefferson's opinions, and radical solutions, see the original words here)

I hope that the individual states will do the right thing, but it remains to be seen, what, exactly, their commitments on the subject may be, and in our delicate balance of power, if the states fail to act to correct an injustice, once identified by the people, the responsibility to do so falls solely upon the source of all legitimate political power, the people themselves, who operate neither with the balance, nor the legal delicacy of the State. If there is a federal injustice, that injustice, in all good reasoning, must be removed, and the Courts, The Legislatures, and the States are by far the best, but by no means the last, force with which to do so.

After all, as John Kennedy pointed out in 1962:

"those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable"

Godspeed, Citizens.

"What Matters is the Badge, Not the Law"

2009-07-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

It seems that The ATF has issued two public letters declaring that the state laws of both Montana and Tennessee are considered null and void before them, without court ruling or public reflection, and that following those states' recent laws, which are intended to assert the sovereign protections afforded to the individual states by the 10th amendment to the Constitution of The United States, will result in legal persecution by the Agents of America's most feared (and dangerous) Federal Agency. You can read the two letters, here, and here.

Many people are stating that such a conflict can only be resolved in court, most likely the Supreme Court of The United States, for resolution under the terms of the Constitution as the Court interprets them, and after the court issues a resolution that will be binding to both parties. Until then, of course, we have only the ATF's word that they intend to ignore the law entirely, and pretend it simply doesnt exist. And, well, the people in those states, that do know that it does exist, and intend to simply comply with it, they risk facing the wrath of the full force of the ATF, and the Federal Court System, a wrath we have only seen too well, over the years.

Though taking it to federal court is exactly what Montana is intending to do, I am not sure it is the proper step to take. As some people are suggesting, what should be done instead, is the states, under the very Governors that have just signed these acts into law, commiting to absolute enforcement of the law of the state, as it stands, in Montana and Tennessee. The ATF or any other Feral, er, Federal Agency wishing to infringe the rights of citizens under the protection of State Law, acting within its limits, should be prevented from doing so by local, county and state law enforcement, principally the County Sheriffs, which several schools of thought hold to be the highest ranking law enforcement officer in any given jurisdiction, and any Agent violating that law in arresting those citizens protected by state law, should be arrested by the County Sheriff and charged as criminals in state court.

Asking a federal court to over-ride the interest of federal authority is both risky in outcome and dangerous in submission, and is alot like asking a group of people appointed by horse theives, if stealing horses should be illegal, and agreeing to be bound by their decision. The interests of loyalty and self preservation do not lend themself well to impartial or fair decisions.

The best course of action, and the most relevant example in history, is Thomas Jefferson's chosen plan of attack in opposing the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, which among other things criminalized libel or slander against the mostly Federalist government, and the members thereof. This law was not only in violation of the 1st amendment, but fundimentally violated the 10th amendment, which clearly states that the federal government had no authority to pass laws over the states concerning freedom of speech or the press. Recognizing that the laws were unconstitutional, and knowing that as the law was being enforced arbitrarily, and being used to punish opposition to the Federalist party, while rarely applied to slander upon the Republican Party, the clear accepted constitutional course of action would have been to ask the Supreme Court to strike down unconstitutional laws. However, the arguments both for an against the acts, publicly, were divided deeply along party lines, and almost all, if not all, of the Supreme Court justices were either appointed by, or were themselves strict Federalists, and were more than a little likely to side solely with their own party. Jefferson, not trusting the courts, of which he was a frequent critic, decided to take a much different approach.

Jefferson suggested that it was in the very nature of compacts, such as the Constitution that created the Federal Government, that no one side could have the exclusive right of interpreting its terms, and allowing only the Federal Government, through its own agent the Supreme Court, to decide how it was applied, or what it was limited to, was contrary to the both the interests of the states, and the intentions of the compact. The obvious long-term consequence of allowing this one sided judgement would be the eventual concentration of power as the Federal Government, and its courts, would consistently hand down rulings in favor of itself. Instead, he insisted that states have their own rights to review the terms of the Constitution, as they were the original parties to it, before there even was a Federal Government. His proposal for doing so came in the form of State Nullification. Esentialy, that enough states, one by one, and of there own sovereign powers, could cease to comply with an unconstitutional law, and effectively, and totally, nullify it from the entire union.

The only way, as Jefferson saw it, short of secession and revolt, for a state to retain its liberties in the face of an unconstitutional act by the federal government was for that state to declare the federal action null and void and refuse to enforce it, not to ask the federal government, who was in fact not a party to the original compact, to interpret it as they saw fit, and hope that they reconsider their own actions. In this vein, he, (who was Vice President of the United States at the time,) wrote what is now called the Kentucky Resolution of 1798, for that state's legislature.

RESOLVED, That this commonwealth considers the federal union, upon the terms and for the purposes specified in the late compact, as conducive to the liberty and happiness of the several states: That it does now unequivocally declare its attachment to the Union, and to that compact, agreeable to its obvious and real intention, and will be among the last to seek its dissolution: That if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, annihilation of the state governments, and the erection upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence: That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the state legislatures, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several states who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction; and that a nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy: That this commonwealth does upon the most deliberate reconsideration declare, that the said alien and sedition laws, are in their opinion, palpable violations of the said constitution; and however cheerfully it may be disposed to surrender its opinion to a majority of its sister states in matters of ordinary or doubtful policy; yet, in momentous regulations like the present, which so vitally wound the best rights of the citizen, it would consider a silent acquiesecence as highly criminal: That although this commonwealth as a party to the federal compact; will bow to the laws of the Union, yet it does at the same time declare, that it will not now, nor ever hereafter, cease to oppose in a constitutional manner, every attempt from what quarter soever offered, to violate that compact:

AND FINALLY, in order that no pretexts or arguments may be drawn from a supposed acquiescence on the part of this commonwealth in the constitutionality of those laws, and be thereby used as precedents for similar future violations of federal compact; this commonwealth does now enter against them, its SOLEMN PROTEST.

The Alien and Sedition Laws were never effectively Nullified, as they expired with the end of aggressions and intrigue with France, but a clear course of action had still been set upon, and an example made. No one had any intention of asking a federal court to rule on the matter, and this principle still stands as an excellent guide today, when again, we are faced with federal law that oversteps, clearly, the boundaries of the 10th amendment, and seeks to undermine the sovereign authority of the individual states. It is more difficult today to defend citizens from federal overstep than it once was, as in Jefferson's time the federal government had no law enforcement goons with which to enforce its own will, but if anything, that makes the necessity of that protection all the more clear and above all, essential, for a free and balanced society to continue to exist.

Throughout political history this was heralded time and time again as the correct course of action. John C Calhoun made a very clear case for it in in many of his writings, and his Fort Hill Address in 1831, having greatly built upon the earlier writings of Jefferson and Madison. You can read that here, http://pages.prodigy.net/krtq73aa/calhoun.htm if you need any further reflection on the subject.

As James Kilpatrick, an American journalist, wrote in the 1960's (I believe):

“If power-hungry federal judges may impose one unconstitutional mandate, they may impose a thousand, each more oppressive than the one before. But if the Constitution is over the [Supreme] Court, who or what finally is over the Constitution? It can only be the States, who under Article V alone have the power to amend or rewrite it. How, then, may it be urged that the States ‘unequivocally surrendered’ the control of their most fundamental rights, in the last resort, to a Court they themselves created?”

The logic there is insurmountable.

I think asking the court to review the two laws that are in contradiction, is both foolish and dangerous, as by submitting to them, you are conceding to their final ruling, and are effectively surrendering the very 10th amendment rights you are seeking to uphold.

We cannot afford to allow a federal agency, that has only proven its abusive nature too well, to be the only one allowed to Nullify and Ignore laws as it chooses.

The result of that, looks something like this:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Hopefully, The People.

You Cant Save a Free Society by Closing It

2009-07-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

Labeling alternative viewpoints as "terrorism" or otherwise controlling speech that is undesirable, in order to prevent "extremists" from building a movement to attack "western values" and destroy an open society is is a bit like shooting your horse so it cant be stolen. No matter if you are talking about Racist National Socialists or Fundimental Islamic Militants, in all cases, it is essential that they are free to speak whatever they think, both so that they can be publicly opposed, and because to do otherwise would be the same as allowing them to win. Otherwise, at some point, you have to wonder what you are trying so hard to keep, if you are willing to give it away.

In 1977, the ACLU filed suit against the Village of Skokie, Illinois, seeking an injunction against the enforcement of three town ordinances outlawing Neo-Nazi parades and demonstrations. Skokie, Illinois at the time had a majority population of Jews, totaling 40,000 of 70,000 citizens. A federal district court struck down the ordinances in a decision eventually affirmed by the Supreme Court. The ACLU's action in this case led to a rift between the Jewish Defense League and the ACLU. According to David Hamlin, executive director of the Illinois ACLU, "...the Chicago office which chose to provide legal counsel to neo-Nazis who have been planning to march in Skokie, has lost about 25% of its membership and nearly one-third of its budget." 30,000 ACLU members resigned in protest. The financial strain from the controversy lead to layoffs at local chapters. In his February 23, 1978 decision overturning the town ordinances, US District Court Judge Bernard M. Decker described the principle involved in the case as follows: "It is better to allow those who preach racial hatred to expend their venom in rhetoric rather than to be panicked into embarking on the dangerous course of permitting the government to decide what its citizens may say and hear ... The ability of American society to tolerate the advocacy of even hateful doctrines ... is perhaps the best protection we have against the establishment of any Nazi-type regime in this country."

And yes, the NeoNazi's legal counsel was Jewish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union#1960.E2.80.932000

Just a snippet I thought I should share, as I now have a new computer, and can now access this project.

So what have we learned in 2,063 years ?

2009-06-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

From Jerry Pournelle:

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance." - Cicero - 55 BC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero

Everytime history is forced to repeat itself, the price goes up.

Current Conditions or Just a Bad Dream?

2009-06-07T22:16:00.000-07:00

From the House Record comes the following, I dont know how I missed it, guess I've been busy. If anyone has the video, be sure to send it my way, once again, the gentleman from Texas nails it:

CURRENT CONDITIONS OR JUST A BAD DREAM -- (House of Representatives - May 19, 2009) Page: H5771]

Chair: Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Rep. Ronald Paul [R-TX14]:

Could it all be a bad dream, or a nightmare? Is it my imagination, or have we lost our minds? It's surreal; it's just not believable. A grand absurdity; a great deception, a delusion of momentous proportions; based on preposterous notions; and on ideas whose time should never have come; simplicity grossly distorted and complicated; insanity passed off as logic; grandiose schemes built on falsehoods with the morality of Ponzi and Madoff; evil described as virtue; ignorance pawned off as wisdom; destruction and impoverishment in the name of humanitarianism; violence, the tool of change; preventive wars used as the road to peace; tolerance delivered by government guns; reactionary views in the guise of progress; an empire replacing the Republic; slavery sold as liberty;

We have broken from reality--a psychotic Nation. Ignorance with a pretense of knowledge replacing wisdom. Money does not grow on trees, nor does prosperity come from a government printing press or escalating deficits.

We're now in the midst of unlimited spending of the people's money, exorbitant taxation, deficits of trillions of dollars--spent on a failed welfare/warfare state; an epidemic of cronyism; unlimited supplies of paper money equated with wealth.

A central bank that deliberately destroys the value of the currency in secrecy, without restraint, without nary a whimper. Yet, cheered on by the pseudo-capitalists of Wall Street, the military industrial complex, and Detroit.

We police our world empire with troops on 700 bases and in 130 countries around the world. A dangerous war now spreads throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Thousands of innocent people being killed, as we become known as the torturers of the 21st century.

We assume that by keeping the already-known torture pictures from the public's eye, we will be remembered only as a generous and good people. If our enemies want to attack us only because we are free and rich, proof of torture would be irrelevant.

The sad part of all this is that we have forgotten what made America great, good, and prosperous. We need to quickly refresh our memories and once again reinvigorate our love, understanding, and confidence in liberty. The status quo cannot be maintained, considering the current conditions. Violence and lost liberty will result without some revolutionary thinking.

We must escape from the madness of crowds now gathering. The good news is the reversal is achievable through peaceful and intellectual means and, fortunately, the number of those who care are growing exponentially.

Of course, it could all be a bad dream, a nightmare, and that I'm seriously mistaken, overreacting, and that my worries are unfounded. I hope so. But just in case, we ought to prepare ourselves for revolutionary changes in the not-too-distant future.

Preparations are afoot, I assure you, Mr Paul, on both sides of this chasm of reality. Those in the middle, I'm sure, are well overdue for a rude awakening.

-Viene la tormenta!

-What did he just say?

-He said there's a storm coming in.

-[sigh] I know.

All The Gear and Preparation in the World

2009-05-22T17:02:00.000-07:00

Will never be able to replace the will to fight, or to defend yourself.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday praised an Army soldier in eastern Afghanistan who drew media attention this month after rushing to defend his post from attack while wearing pink boxer shorts and
flip-flops.
In fact, Gates said he wants to meet the soldier and shake his hand the next time he visits Afghanistan.

"Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage," Gates said in remarks prepared for a speech in New York.

"I can only wonder about the impact on the Taliban. Just imagine seeing that: a guy
in pink boxers and flip-flops has you in his cross-hairs. What an incredible innovation in psychological warfare," he said.

Army Specialist Zachary Boyd, 19, of Fort Worth, Texas, rushed from his sleeping quarters on May 11 to join fellow platoon members at a base in Afghanistan's Kunar Province after the unit came under fire from Taliban positions. A news photographer was on hand to record the image of Boyd standing at a makeshift rampart in helmet, body armor, red T-shirt and boxers emblazoned with the message: "I love NY."

When the image wound up on the front page of the New York Times, Boyd
told his parents he might lose his job if President Barack Obama saw him out of
uniform.

"I can assure you that Specialist Boyd's job is very safe indeed," Gates said in the speech.

The U.S. defense chief was scheduled to deliver the speech at New York's annual Salute to Freedom dinner in Manhattan.

Heh...

2009-05-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who laughed when they saw today's headline?

"House sends credit card bill to Obama"

Heh, its too bad he just going to, in turn, forward the bill to John Q. Taxpayer.

Public Safety?

2009-05-20T18:33:00.001-07:00

Lyle, at Joe Huffman's blog (which you, as well as I, should read more often) has some great comments on the fallacy of "Public Safety"

We in the pro-freedom camp (Americans) spend too much time arguing about safety. Or rather, we argue safety far too often in the terms laid down by our enemies-- the enemies of liberty. Though the statistics are often on our side, we're granting the basis for the argument (that government exists to promote the physical safety of the individual) to the enemy.

Wrong premise

You should read the rest here.

UPDATE: Danny Hauser, Fugitive from Poison.

2009-05-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

It appears the state's test of faith Failed. Danny Hauser, pictured with his mother Colleen, above, is now the subject of a national manhunt after the two did not show up for a court hearing on Tuesday. (follow the link for the original story)

This is, of course, immediately following another hearing in which Brown County, Minnesota District Judge John Rodenberg found that the state has demonstrated "a compelling interest in the life and welfare of Daniel sufficient to override fundimental constitutional rights of both the parents and Daniel"

In response to the mother and child failing to appear before the same judge who has already ordered Danny to be subjected to chemotherapy against his and his parents will, the judge issued an arrest warrant for Colleen, and ordered Danny to be remanded to the custody of child welfare services, citing that "It is imperative that Daniel receive the attention of an oncologist as soon as possible." His father, Anthony, (mistakenly identified as David in the media) did appear for the hearing, but after his claim of marital privledge, the right that no person can be forced to testify against their spouse, was overruled by the judge, he testified that he does not know where his wife and son are and that they left the family's farm on Monday afternoon, after his wife told him that they had to leave "for a while." The father also testified that Danny was not there at that time.

State and national crime alerts went out Tuesday afternoon, along with a copy of the arrest and detainment warrants for both Colleen and Danny, but at this time, their location is unknown.

Danny, as well as his mother believe that the Chemotherapy will do great harm to his body, as well as cause great pain to the 13 year old boy. They also beleive, as a matter of principle, that it is immoral to willingly and knowingly cause harm to another human being without that persons consent. In this sense, i agree with them 100%, and a short list of Chemotherapy side effects is all that it really takes to prove that it is in fact harmful.

Hair Loss
Nausea
Immune System Suppression
Brain Damage
Sores
Vascular Problems
Heart Damage
Liver and Kidney Damage
Lung Damage
Eye Damage
Mouth Sores
Anemia
Weight Loss
Weakness
Excessive Pain
Infertility
Sensitivity to Light
Wart and other skin problems
Increased Risk of Certain Types of Cancer

and Yes, Death. To include just a few.

In fact, a study released in January of this year by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Deaths in Britain, looked at the cases of 600 cancer sufferers in the country who had passed on within 30 days of treatment. The study found that about 1 in every 4 of such deaths had either been sped up or was probably caused by chemotherapy. The study's findings also included the discovery that 2 out of every 5 of the patients had suffered significant poisoning from the treatment. Danny Hauser stated in court that he beleived another round of Chemotherapy would kill him, and he might be right. In most, if not all cases of chemotherapy, even if they survive the treatment, the patient is likely to still die of Cancer

And so the Hausers feel, that irregardless of the potential (and no one has ever claimed it is a sure thing) benefit of chemo, it would still be immoral to subject little Danny Hauser to the known side effects of the most toxic drug set in the world, at the very least, without his consent.

Many Cancer patients feel the same way, chosing not to undergo chemo, every day, in increasing numbers, as more and more of them have previously seen the effects of chemo firsthand.

The state, on the other hand, has no such compunction, and feels, as it does in almost all matters it takes into its hands, that no sacrifice, be it lives, propriety, or constitutional rights, is too great, as long as there is potential benefit for itself.

Godspeed Danny and Colleen Hauser, forced to flee from the reach of government intervention or to subject Danny to a test of faith in the immutible power of The State, who, of course, always knows whats best for you, or your children.

"When they Outlaw freedom, only Outlaws will be Free"

Correcting Home-schooling Misconceptions

2009-05-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

At risk of sounding like I think that Parents should be free to raise their children as they see fit, be it in deciding how much poison should be pumped into a childs body, or how they decide to educate them, I have to touch on the subject, again, today, though not from the perspective objecting to government interference (yet.)

You see, a friend of mine ran into some particularly unfriendly professionals when they took their daughter to the dentist this morning, apparently the staff was offended that they would dare to educate their own child. This sort of reaction is all too familiar to many home-school parents when they encounter people who would never question "the way it is supposed to be" and can be even more complicated when the uneducated dolts they have to deal with work with the government or its school system, and can be difficult to overcome. I drafted the following letter to the owner of the practice in response, and thought I would also share it here.

To Whom it may concern:

It has come to my attention that members of your staff have some very strong misconceptions about home-schooled children and their parents, and have gone so far as to make derogatory and offensive comments to the parents of a home-schooled child that was in your office today. While I doubt that these parents will ever return to your practice with their wonderful daughter, I hope I can fix some of those misconceptions and prevent your employees from so offending other parents, in the future, with their ignorance and inappropriate comments. This is an issue that should be considered in all seriousness, as today in the United States somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million children's parents choose to educate those children at home, to become more involved in the process of raising a well educated and responsible child.

I encourage you to share the following facts with your staff:

1. Home-schooled children are not neglected or disadvantaged educationally.

In 1997, a study of 5,402 home-school students from 1,657 families was released. It was entitled, "Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America." The study demonstrated that home-schoolers, on the average, out-performed their counterparts in the public schools by 30 to 37 percentile points in all subjects. These scores were all compiled from the educational industry standard Stanford Achievement Test, the same test that is used to benchmark the educational progress of children in public school.

These 5,124 home-schoolers' composite scores on the basic battery of tests in reading, math, and language arts ranked 18 to 28 percentile points above public school averages. For instance, 692 home-schooled 4th graders averaged in the 77th percentile in reading, the 63rd percentile in math, and the 70th percentile in language arts. Sixth-grade home-schoolers, of 505 tested, scored in the 76th percentile in reading, the 65th percentile in math, and the 72nd percentile in language arts.

The home-schooled high schoolers did even better, which goes against the trend in public schools where studies show the longer a child is in the public schools, the lower he scores on standardized tests. One hundred and eighteen tenth-grade home-school students, as a group, made an average score of the 82nd percentile in reading, the 70th percentile in math, and the 81st percentile in language arts.

The fact is, on average, Home-schooled children are better educated than their Public School Peers, as evidenced by numerous studies on the subject, both from home-school advocacy groups, and by the various State Departments of Education. This academic aptitude results in a very high rate of acceptance into college and university programs, even, sometimes, at an accelerated age.

2. Home-schooled children are not neglected or disadvantaged socially.

Most families who choose to home-school their children are very active outside the home and make opportunities to practice social skills. Home-school parents have more natural opportunities to coach their children on social skills, and home-schooled children have more opportunities to relate to people of all ages, rather than only being isolated with twenty-five people their age in a classroom, and simply told to sit still. Many children, for example, may find a small home-schooled physical education class easier to adapt to than a public school class with all of its social distractions and disturbances.

There are numerous sport or other social activities that are available to home-school children, even in most school districts, the ability to join sports teams or gym classes

Organizing social activities takes time, and some families, in some places, do struggle to avoid isolation, but even in these cases, enrolling a student in public school does not guarantee good social skills, a good social life, or good friends, either. As one mother said of her children's experiences in public school, "They don't really get social skills at school, and what they do get, I find to be negative." Examples of this abound, from grade school drug epidemics, to gang activity starting at ever younger ages, or as simple as social reinforcement of behavior that would be addressed as rude or inappropriate if addressed by a responsible adult. With their parents so often at their side, home-schooled children were able to see what good manners and self-confidence looked like, rather than be forced to adopt the jungle code of the average high school corridor.

By and large, it has been my observation and experience that home-schooled children grow up to be very polite and sociable, with the added benefit of being able to relate and interact with people outside of their own peer-group. They have fulfilling friendships, and have no social problems in day to day life, and have more experience in interacting in "the real world."

3. Parents do not only home-school "problem children" or children with learning disabilities.

Families will choose to undertake home-schooling their children for a variety of reasons, often something as simple as wanting to provide the best educational experience available. Many parents, in fact, come up against the opposite problem, that their child is learning faster than the classroom environment can provide new material. Many parents find it difficult or impossible to get the public education system to skip their child ahead a grade, or to skip subject levels they have already mastered, and don't want their child held back, or dumbed-down, just to keep up with an arbitrary age based curriculum system.

Other Parents simply want to be more involved with their children, and spend more time with them, something that can hardly be put in the realm of "neglect." One parent I know works long hours, and only has time off during the week, he says that if he didn't home-school, he would never see his own children. Instead, they do schoolwork the hours that he works, at home, and they take their days off together as a family.

It is true that some parents can become frustrated by the public schools inability to address specific difficulties their child may experience, in a group setting, and choose to address those issues at home, in a one on one setting, but the majority of home-schooled children have no educational or behavioral problems, and shouldn't be treated any different than an average child coming from public school.

4. The Parents of home-schoolers are not all "Religious Zealots" or members of some "Lunatic Fringe."

Homeschooling families come from all walks of life, and can fit nearly as many descriptions as could be applied to parents of children in public schools, with, perhaps one exception. None of them can be called "uninvolved."

There is no leader, and no reigning ideology that home-school parents must follow. For example, the Home School Legal Defense Association, despite its energetic lawyers and many admirers, is not the leader of home schooling in this country. Instead there a number of children whose families want them to learn at home for many different reasons, often having little to do with religion or politics.

The stereotypical image of home-schoolers as lockstep religious conservatives quickly falls apart when you discover that some of these parents have been shunned by their fundamentalist churches for teaching their kids at home rather than sending them to the church's school, and for many many parents, religious concerns play little to no part in their choice to become more involved in their children's educational process. As I have already mentioned, there are many reasons a parent would choose to home-school their children and those parents come from many different perspectives and backgrounds.

Perhaps the most telling example I can think of is the sheer number of Public School Teachers who chose to home-school their own children. As one teacher, Maureen, volunteered apologetically: "I didn't want my children to be treated the way I treated some kids," She has a B.A. in psychology and a B.Ed. qualifying her as a teacher and has 13 years experience teaching in a public elementary school in Vancouver. She doesn't say this to claim that she was mean or uncaring, but says that in order to run a class with so many children, she had no choice but to engage in some form of manipulation, however subtle and well-intentioned it was. A desire to provide a better environment for her children why she now home-schools her two daughters. And its not just teachers, as there are several Public and Private school Principles who also chose to home-school their children, in addition to the scores of parents from every conceivable public and private background.

To assume someone is a religious fundamentalist or a member of some anti government political fringe, just because they chose to home-school their children is simply ignorant and is not borne out at all by the facts.

As a long time advocate of Home-school, and having been home-schooled myself, I hope this information helps you in understanding the reality of the present state of homeschooling in the United States, and contributes to your office's sensitivity in the future.

The basic idea to be considered can be boiled down to who cares more about a child's learning, than their own parents? Regardless of the situation or your staff's understanding of the issues at hand, no one has the right to insult a parent for doubtlessly doing what they feel is best for their children.

Thank you for addressing this,

R. Franz.

Hippocratic Oafs

2009-05-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

Poison your child or we will take your child from you.

Submit to the taking of your child, or we will imprison you.

Submit to imprisonment, or we will kill you.

In the Police State, the penalty is always death, and the choice is never yours.

Submit, or die.

In what seems mostly oddly comparable to the biblical story of Abraham and Issac, a Judge in Minnesota has ordered a 13 year old boy's parents to resume submitting him to chemotherapy treatment for Hodgkin's Lymphoma, despite the fact that neither the boy, nor his parents feel that is best for him, or his health. If Anthony and Colleen Hauser refuse to sacrifice little Danny Hauser to illustrate their obedience to the all-knowing State, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg states that the boy will be taken from his parents custody, and will consider charging them with Medical Neglect. Of course, unlike the biblical fable, the government is unlikely to say "just kidding" at the last minute. These tests of faith are for keep.

The boy, Danny, had completed one course of chemo, which the parents felt they were coerced into accepting, and decided after seeing the side effects of chemo treatment firsthand, that they would explore other treatments available to them. They stated through their court appointed lawyer that they felt that "the injection of chemotherapy into Danny Hauser amounts to an assault upon his body, and torture when it occurs over a long period of time,"

Danny himself is vehemently opposed to the treatment, stating in his court testimony that he believes the chemo will kill him, and said: "I'd fight it. I'd punch them and I'd kick them."

After that initial treatment, the Hausers decided they wouldn't subject Danny to any more chemo without his consent, and began to explore other treatment options, include homeopathic and native American methods. The doctor who administered the Chemo was concerned by this, and contacted the County Prosecutor's office, who asked a judge to intervene. He did.

A large segment of the alternative cancer treatment crowd feels that Hodgkin's lymphoma has a very high success rate with non-chemo treatments, but medical experts offered their opinion that without Chemotherapy treatment Danny has a 95% chance of dying. (I didnt even go to med school, but im fairly confident that the actual chance of mortality is somewhat closer to 100%, in all cases.) But they made no mention of the fact that when Danny orriginaly went to the doctor, he could barely breath, and now (despite suffering from a Deep Vein Thrombosis that appeared in his arm immediately following the initiation of chemo) he claims to feel just fine, much better than he did immediately after the treatment.

A court-appointed attorney for Daniel, Philip Elbert, called the judge's decision unfortunate.

"I feel it's a blow to families," he said Friday. "It marginalizes the decisions that parents face every day in regard to their children's medical care. It really affirms the role that big government is better at making our decisions for us."

Which, of course is the legal precedence that is set forth here, that the government and its approved sources of information are better qualified that you to make personal decisions involving your health, or that of your child. The money quote from the judgement was that the state has demonstrated "a compelling interest in the life and welfare of Daniel sufficient to override fundimental constitutional rights of both the parents and Daniel"

While many people claim that the chemotherapy in question might help Danny overcome his illness, none are willing to state that the chemotherapy will not hurt him, and this is where the Hauser family comes to odds with contemporary popular opinion, as they don't believe it is ever acceptable to cause harm to another human being, without that beings explicit permission. In essence, they have their own, voluntary, Hippocratic Oath, and they meant to keep it. The government, of course, borne out of the concept of "the greater good," has no such compunction, feeling that no sacrifice is too great, as long as it receives benefit from it in the end. Perhaps the profit seeking medical industry has adopted the same outlook, in search of profits.

A commenter on one story I read has accepted this judgement with blind faith in science, without ever having looked at it himself. Not very scientific of him, I don't think, but i think this is how the majority of public opinion swings, today. Accepting the opinion of "Great Authority" without qualification, or their own understanding of the moral issues at hand. This great vox populi stated:

Jonathan May 17
The only choice is between Scientifically proven methods or Voodoo. Of course it is child abuse when parent such as this and the last commentator continue to try and cure their children with voodoo. Ignorance is not an excuse.

I think scientifically proven is a bit of an unfounded statement there, isn't it Johnathan? It is proven, I mean there were studies right? they must have proved them, after all. Yes, of course. But proven to do what?

It is proven to Kill cellular tissue, as most poisons of that type will, and in certain types of tumor, it is proven to reduce tumor size by a statistically significant amount in a statistically significant segment of a test group.

That is it. It does not say it will cure cancer, no one has ever claimed it will, and most people who undergo chemotherapy eventualy die of cancer. (I'd venture that the majority of those who dont, die in auto-accidents and by suicide, if not complications from the immune system crushing that is chemo.) There is no guarantee that it will even extend the life of the patient, and in some cases it will drastically reduce it.

And that is to say nothing of what is "proven" in the way of the worst side effects of any drug still allowed on the market.

In essence, all that is proven 100% of the time, is that the outcome will be a crap shoot, and the experience painful and miserable. In the case of something that benefits a percentage of individual patients, but harms 100% of patients, human judgement must be used to figure out if that particular case would be better served by the application of treatment or not.

A child is not a statistic, and neither is any other patient. It might be proven to statistically improve a percentage of patients, but those statistics are only designed to guide the judgement of applicability to the INDIVIDUAL case. This is why, in the US, which is one of the heaviest pro-chemo medical industries in the world, still does not prescribe chemo in 100% of cancer cases.

It is only after the consideration of the type and stage of the cancer, as well as the general health and age of the patient that many sufferers of cancer are told by their doctors, that chemo treatment is not advisable, and that they should go home.

In the case of an individual, these choices are recommended by the doctor and the final decision is made by the patient. In the case of a child, who is better able to make these judgements than the parent who knows the child, and is responsible for looking for their well being?

The choice presented isnt as was stated, between "proven science and voodoo" it is between something that may help, with blind luck, but is guaranteed to simultaneously create great suffering, and something that may also help, but also, and more importantly to at least these parents, will not hurt the child.

This decision is to be made as a judgement call, and not by statistical analysis, or it would have to treat every case of gran mal seizures with a hemispherectomy, no matter that the treatment could be as simple as a mild anti convulsant. It is a parent's right to do what they think is best for their child, especially when the alternative can be nothing but suffering, and a painful, hairless, vomiting death.

Well, Johnathan, if ignorance is not an excuse, what is yours?

And what is the state's excuse, and you, Doctor, what is yours?

Perhaps you forgot this portion of your precious oath:

"Above all, I must not play at God."

How quickly we forget.

If you would like to read more about Danny Hauser's case, and the judge that ruled neither he nor his parents have say over what is done with his body, you can, here

Revive or Expire.

2009-05-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

From my reading today, which has made me tired, and I fear, none the more optimistic:

"They have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws. It is true, we are as yet secured against them by the spirit of the times. [...] But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion." -- Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782.

Also, on an almost unrelated note, is it just me, or does the new Star Trek Film make it seem like there will be little to zero improvement in the quality of life in the US in the year 2258, despite huge improvements in energy and construction technology, along with the opening of the interstellar raw material locker? Outside of Starfleet, (and possibly the police force) all I saw was some flashing lights to distract the kiddies while they were away from their studies and labors. Hell, the only nice things I saw on earth, that wasnt owned by the government, were antiques. Good lot that says for the fate of liberating technology. Now mind you, Im not taking the scenery in some Hollywood flick as prophesy of the future, but Star Trek itself was born out of the idea of showing the full potential of humanity, and as anyone who has ever watched "How William Shatner Changed the World" knows, it inspired a good number of great minds to reach for that envisioned potential. This... This is mindless distractions and college barfights and dirty dockworkers paying god knows what in taxes to build the most expensive versions of the USS Ronald Reagan ever conceived.

As Yeats said: "How far away the stars seem."

Im going to bed.

Your Cereals are on Drugs!!

2009-05-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Uhh oh... Here we go again. The Food and Drug Administration has sent a threatening letter to General Mills warning them that Cheerios are a new unapproved new drug.

You didnt misread that, no, the FDA is now stating that a breakfast cereal invented in 1941 is an Unapproved New Drug.

Heres an excerpt:

Unapproved New Drug
Based on claims made on your product's label, we have determined that your Cheerios® Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. Specifically, your Cheerios® product bears the following claims ort its label:
• "you can Lower Your Cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks" "
• "Did you know that in just 6 weeks Cheerios can reduce bad cholesterol by an average of 4 percent? Cheerios is ... clinically proven to lower cholesterol. A clinical study showed that eating two 1 1/2 cup servings daily of Cheerios cereal reduced bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol."
These claims indicate that Cheerios® is intended for use in lowering cholesterol, and therefore in preventing, mitigating, and treating the disease hypercholesterolemia. Additionally, the claims indicate that Cheerios® is intended for use in the treatment, mitigation, and prevention of coronary heart disease through, lowering total and "bad" (LDL) cholesterol. Elevated levels of total and LDL cholesterol are a risk factor for coronary heart disease and can be a sign of coronary heart disease. Because of these intended uses, the product is a drug within the meaning of section 201(g)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321 (g)P)(B)]. The product is also a new drug under section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(p)] because it is not generally recognized as safe and effective for use in preventing or treating hypercholesterolemia or coronary heart disease.

Followed shortly by the allegation that the box is mislabeled because it makes the inappropriate, untested and unproved claim that eating healthy is good for you.

Your Cheerios ® product is misbranded within the meaning of section 403(r)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 343(r)(1)(B)] because it bears unauthorized health claims in its labeling. We have determined that your website www.wholegrainnation.com is labeling for your Cheerios® product under section 201(m) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321 (m)] because the website address appears on the product label. This website bears the following unauthorized health claims:
"Heart-healthy diets rich in whole grain foods, can reduce the risk of heart disease."

Jebus. is there anyone out there (other than my dear friend Bilgeman) who still thinks the FDA is a regulatory agency tasked with guarding public health, and not a part of a huge Pharmaceutical Cartel Protection Racket tasked with dismantling and destroying anything that might threaten Drug Company profits by so much as hinting that you dont need to take handfulls of patented pills to be healthy? Red Yeast, Vitamins, Fish, and now Cheerios?

The FDA has grown in size 1,000% since 1955, and in the same time period, the time to bring a new life saving drug to market has tripled. The FY 2008 budget was 2,300 million dollars, and is set to expand this year, not to provide more regulation to protect the public health, but to more effectively provide the protectionism that the american medical industry requires to maintain profits in such an unbalanced market.

As i said in Confronting the Cost of Addiction:

The FDA is the reason most of the people i know travel out of their home country to buy the medicine they need to ensure their health, when the other countries have similar regulations, but the drugs are cheaper, because their parasitic regulator cartels haven't yet grown as fat, and without such massive parasitism and protectionism, the general cost of health care would be a fraction of what it is today, as evidenced by the market of "medical tourism", a sad state of affairs if ever Ive seen one.

This rising cost is felt across the board, and now, might even effect your breakfast.

Economics in Two Paragraphs

2009-05-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

This short passage was written by Turgot as a summary of the thought of Vincent de Gournay (who coined the phrase "laissez faire et laissez passer"), Together, the two, in a fact that makes obvious the absurdly false dicotomy of US one party politics, made up a significant intellectual force of the "Left Wing" or "Liberals" of early revolutionary France. In the following excerpt, Turgot makes a few things abundantly clear:

"The general freedom of buying and selling is therefore the only means of assuring, on the one hand, the seller of a price sufficient to encourage production, and on the other hand, the consumer, of the best merchandise at the lowest price. This is not to say that in particular instances we may not find a cheating merchant and a duped consumer; but the cheated consumer will learn by experience and will cease to frequent the cheating merchant, who will fall into discredit and thus will be punished for his fraudulence; and this will never happen very often, because generally men will be enlightened upon their evident self-interest.
To expect the government to prevent such fraud from ever occurring would be like wanting it to provide cushions for all the children who might fall. To assume it to be possible to prevent successfully, by regulation, all possible malpractices of this kind, is to sacrifice to a chimerical perfection the whole progress of industry; it is to restrict the imagination of artificers to the narrow limits of the familiar; it is to forbid them all new experiments; it is to renounce even the hope of competing with the foreigners in the making of the new products which they invent daily, since, as they do not conform to our regulations, our workmen cannot imitate these articles without first having obtained permission from the government, that is to say, often after the foreign factories, having profited by the first eagerness of the consumer for this novelty, have already replaced it with something else. It means forgetting that the execution of these regulations is always entrusted to men who may have all the more interest in fraud or in conniving at fraud since the fraud which they might commit would be covered in some way by the seal of public authority and by the confidence which this seal inspires, in the consumers. It is also to forget that these regulations, these inspectors, these offices for inspection and marking, always involve expenses, and that these expenses are always a tax on the merchandise, and as a result overcharge the domestic consumer and discourage the foreign buyer. Thus, with obvious injustice, commerce, and consequently the nation, are charged with a heavy burden to save a few idle people the trouble of instructing themselves or of making enquiries to avoid being cheated. To suppose all consumers to be dupes, and all merchants and manufacturers to be cheats, has the effect of authorizing them to be so, and of degrading all the working members of the community."
– Turgot, "Éloge de Gournay" (1759), translated by P.D. Groenewegen

When you subsidize failure, you create incentives to fail, and when you penalize the successful to create those subsidies, you remove the incentive to succeed. If you protect people from the ability to commit failure, you remove the ability and necessity for them to learn, and penalize those who do, creating an entire culture of fail.

Sound familiar?

Credit-card-bill-will-cause-harm

thats-what-we-need-more-debt

in-case-you-wondered-where-your-money-is-going

Standing-with-your-back-to-the-front

Word-on-the-street-is

Welcome to Generation Y Try.

Tempus Fugit

Peter Schiff, Uninterrupted.

2009-05-11T18:02:00.000-07:00

For once.

I know most of you are familiar with Peter Schiff, the unofficial king of financial doomdom, and i know all his videos are all over the net. I did think this one was noteworthy, though, as most of the others are clips of him making one or two points and being interrupted by television pundits who weren't really listening and then being summarily dismissed. It was nice to hear him make the entirety of the case, uninterrupted, and very clearly.

Give it watch, and see the stark difference between what passes as media and government, versus what the rest of us call logic.

Also worth mention is the fact that Peter Schiff is rumored to be considering running for the U.S. Senate in 2010

check it out here

Sunday's Dilbert.

2009-05-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

I'm a moderate fan of Dilbert, good strip, nice dry humor, and often very on target topically. I read the paper a little late, so most of you probably saw this before i did, but i thought it about nailed it.

I would like to note though, just as the fraud of Financiers, Regulators, and Rating Agencies have made things this terrible for all of us, they have only tied their own hands when it comes to moving forward, not ours. The fact is, we have been here before, as we were lied to by overlords in the past, who made guarantees of social security (no pun intended), and failed to carry through, we were able to stop listening to them, and move on. This is the way many a European monarchy ceased to be of great import, and many a former "regulator" was chopped up by fishwives.

The fact is, we know we cant trust them, they know they cant trust each other, and so there is very little business that can get done, with them. I think where my opinion differs from Mr Adams' though, is that i don't see that as the death of capitalism, but rather a new birth of it. The fact is, there are people you can trust out there, good people, friends, family, people with like values and viewpoints, members of your own communities, etc, and you should be doing your business with them, and they with you, and we can all prosper as we watch the fates of the plundering fools in their giant "too big to fail" spiral down the porcelain bowl of history.

Moderately Amusing.

2009-05-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

"From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this, though: despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Osama bin Laden, there's a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice... and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death," Feherty wrote in an a D Magazine piece welcoming former President George W. Bush back to Dallas.

Heh, his comment didn't sit too well with a few reactionaries, offended as they were that such jokes about challenging the sacrosanct will of democratic process (independent of the rule of law) could be made in... public speech. (gasp) People who as David Codrea pointed out, don't understand what exactly the purpose of our military is (no, not to assassinate boobs on the hill). Read his reply here.

New Deal, Raw Deal, Same Deal

2009-05-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

From a 1934 issue of the Chicago Tribune, about the same time as the beginning of what historians now refer to as "the second New Deal"

Im sure alot of people about that time were thinking "Watch out, here it comes again"

I found this cartoon today, just after reading a news article about how the presidential administration is leaning towards empowering the Federal Reserve as the super-regulators of the financial industry, overseeing any financial or business transaction that they feel might pose a risk to systemic stability. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that he thinks that one executive agency or individual needs to be put in charge, because "Committees don't make decisions," He also said such a regulator should be given oversight into all institutions that pose a risk to the financial system, regardless of what business they are in.

I read this immediately after seeing several articles about how the proposed federal budget is going to save us metric shitloads of money, and reducing the federal deficit (money we will owe China) by... Are you ready for this? 3/5 of 1%! Well crikey, if that doesnt make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, i dont know what would. Of course, when i looked a little closer, the articles made no mention of the Trillions of dollars that have already been spent this year, outside of any official "budgets" to push on the nationalization of our financial and automotive industries, it completely passed over the 9% increase in war spending, and didnt so much as touch upon the fact that not only is the 1,750,000 million dollar spending deficit enclosed in this budget, what normal people refer to as running your business into the ground, it is not a drastic reduction in overspending from even last year, nor did it mention that the amount that is to overspent in this budget is nearly equal to the entire federal budget of FY 2000. Thats right, we are going to overspend and borrow as much money this year, as we spent in total, just 9 years ago.

It also doesn't make clear if the revenue estimates enclosed in calculating that deficit include the tapering off in revenue collection that is only to be expected in the ongoing depression, as all I hear on the radio (and im sure the TV is parroting the message) is that "the recession is coming to an end" and that "the regulatory steps that have been taken so far have finally made room for the economy to start showing real growth again." Somehow im not sure it does. Back in the real world, the city i live in, a major employer is exporting all but one of its facilities to Malaysia, effecting at least 10,000 direct jobs, and an untold number of vendors, suppliers, and contractors. and this is only one employer. Man, can't you just feel that stimulus at work there? We can only hope they arent believing their own lies, or we may well end up with a deficit far in excess of their own estimate of 1.75 Trillion Dollars (thats a couple thousand dollars in debt for every man woman and child in the US) and in fact, far in excess of any previous administration, since... well, the end of World War II, and the demise of the first two "New Deals."

Watch out, here it comes again.

The Ashton Lundeby Case

2009-05-07T14:46:00.000-07:00

William Grigg has a very thorough rundown of both sides of the Ashton Lundeby case, in which federal agents have been holding a 16 year old child without bail (flight risk? haha!) on a (as all federal juvenile cases are) sealed docket, evidently stemming from a bomb threat that was phoned in via VOIP, in another state. Initially it was reported that the case was being processed under provisions of the USA S.U.B.J., er P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act, but in fact, this is unlikely, as there are plenty of old overreaching federal laws with which to denigrate children and other "threats."

You should read it here.

Securing your Right to Free Speech

2009-05-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

Summary and Fundimental Assertions:

Free Speech is a protected Natural Right, recognized in many places.
Alienated or marginalized individuals are able to coalesce into a cohesive movement through a common language of resistance
An open free speech area that promotes ideas on their own merit will aid in the development of a Manyspeak democracy
Free Speech frightens the State because it threatens the illusion and control of a unified Onespeak Democracy.
The state identifies, regulates and infringes free speech.
The state is very likely to continue to infringe further and further.
You can take measures now to protect yourself and your right to free speech.
Further measures of protection should be developed and more regularly employed.
We are afforded, currently, a tremendous opportunity to unshackle our society from an engineered Onespeak Democracy
The challenges presented by a Manyspeak Democracy can be overcome by the restoration of Freedom and the Rule of Law.

The Right To Free Speech:

The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution reads as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"

But congress has made laws, haven't they? From the Biden-Feinstein Act to bills that speak of "Homegrown Domestic Terrorists", they write bills, and vote, and appoint watchers and listeners, and our rights are continually infringed and eroded.

The Nineteenth article of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

But all around the world governments, from China to California, tell their people what information may and may not be imparted or received, dont they? And then they watch and listen to what is said, seeking out violations of their oh so important regulations, for "the good of the state."

Eric Holder, the Attorney General apointee of President Obama, the highest law enforcement office in the land, has stated that he does in fact support "Reasonable Restrictions on Free Speech" especially concerning that all too scary boogieman "Internet."

The Internet, as you will no doubt hear more and more in the coming months, is a danger to the status quo, the stability of systems, because it is essentially unregulated. What they wont say is that it is essentially equal, and it is this equality that poses the real risk. All forms of expression that can be used to impart information are to be feared by those who prefer safety and stability to freedom, and are in danger, but the Internet is a special case. While people like Chuck Schumer wont come out and say it, the reason he says that the Internet "should be regulated like pornography" is that the Internet has very little in the way of class or caste controls. As many members of blog sites, such as this one, show, Anyone Can Have a Voice. This is a scary idea for the controlling oligarchy, and if you contrast this with the historical emphasis on freedom of the press, which was intended to be in fact free; but only at a price, you will notice a stark difference, a difference with a huge and beneficial impact on democracy.

In 1791, at the adoption of the first amendment, "Freedom of the Press" only applied to a handful of pressowners, all well-to-do members of their communities, often businessmen with a variety of other investments. The ordinary citizen could not afford a printing press. In short, these were all men who were part of the system, and who, if they strayed from the system, had something the system could hold over them to bring them back into the fold.

Its true, people who weren't connected, or well-to-do, were still able to speak their minds and could often still hand letter handbills or letters and make their viewpoints know, but to who? a handful of bills or letters at most, and in this way, this freedom of speech, and of the press was protected, but always slanted through the screened voices of class separation. The mass influence of the modern press was unrivaled, even up into the technological age, where its class tradition was preserved in the new worlds of Radio and Television. As these new technologies developed, there arose private newsletters and shortwave radio stations, even small mail order video distributors, with alternative viewpoints, but still, the influence of the status quo, the system of the affluent, far exceeded the influential impact of a few people here and there who might receive such mailings, or such broadcasts, and so, while the movement of information was free, it was always essentially controlled, at least enough for a democratic society to maintain its equilibrium through majority influence and preserve the status quo. This is the essential point of maintaining mob rule, with the viewpoint that unbridled democracy is inherently instable, tumultuous and undesirable. In effect, the idea that The Masses can't be trusted.

The accessibility of the Internet, however, is quite different from the mass media concept of tiered information, as not only can anyone, at almost no charge, post their opinion, anyone can reach, and read it, and with exactly the same investment, is able to repost it, or forward it, if they so desire. In this way information is uncontrolled, and in fact viral. It is true that no one web journal article or independent web page is read by as many people as say the front page of CNN, so in a way that tiered propagation of viewpoints is maintained, even on new technology, but at the same time, one article, or idea can be spread from person to person, from web journal to web journal in a matter of minutes, often traveling further than a single article from a big news site ever could. This propagation of information, spreading like the branches on a tree, is what has made the Internet a powerful tool for the conveyance of ideas.

For the first time in history, information has the potential to be vetted entirely on its merits, and not on the merits of the person or agency providing the information.

If you would, consider the following:

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts
of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to
trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by
traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of
men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of
strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant
places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an
intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those
who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new
community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and
aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a
short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many American
colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The
Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence,
Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

As information and opinion spreads, it can be latched upon by unhappy portions of the masses, who, then, are no longer isolated from the rest of society, and inevitably, through either isolation or re-assimilation, neutralized as mere interruptions of the status quo. Instead, unhappy portions can gather and form their own shadow societies, people with like values or beliefs can gather virtually or physically and reinforce those beliefs and values together, as they communicate and interact separately from the masses that share the beliefs and values pushed down by the tiered and controlled media, society at large. This shared political imagination can spontaneously, organically bloom into a societal revolution of sorts, with a definite impact upon democracy. Just in recent times, i can think of one such "revolution" that did, in fact, have a definite impact on the last presidential campaign, though that movement was only in its infancy.

This sort of organic democracy, is, and always has been a challenge to the authority of the status quo state. As society evolves, an autocratic or unresponsive government will always lag behind the will of the people, which it tries to combat by controlling that evolution. A society that can evolve in many different directions simultaneously is a logistical nightmare for any controlling statist, and therefor, a threat.

And so, these status quo statists, believe that they must fight this unstable and dangerous force. They pass laws outlawing certain types of speech, they first illegally, and then under protection of law, set up processes and agencies to monitor 100% of the available information, building databases and launching investigations into those that originated it. Examples, or signals of this impending choke hold already abound, both to frighten people into "watching what they say" and to punish those who might originate such language of resistance; ideologically, or through action.

In 1996 the Communications Decency Act was signed into law, severely restricting online speech that could potentially be seen by a minor – which, of course was argued, is almost all of online speech. (Crying "its for the children!")

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes the discussion and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms, and makes it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement on the Internet.

The Biden/Fienstein Act made it illegal to instruct anyone how to build explosives or other dangerous weapons on the Internet (older pages say to boil bleach outside and add salt to supersaturation)

Jim Bell has of this year served over 10 years in a federal prison for writing a single article he posted to the net. The original article, entitled "Assassination Politics" was pulled from the internet, and for many years the government forced other servers to remove copies of the article, but soon realized they were fighting a losing battle, and instead creating much more interest, through its big brother censorship tactics, in what was originally an obscure thought exercises in free market impacts on government corruption. Today a simple google search will bring up hundreds of copies.

Sherman Austin, an 18 year old kid in L.A. was arrested and convicted, not for writing anything, but for merely hosting content on his server, "raisethefist.com" content that the government didn't agree with, and he was convicted of "cyberterrorism" the first such case tried under the S.U.B.J.errr... P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act.

And its not just Political activists that have been targeted or silenced.

A January 4, 2007 restraining order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein forbade a large number of activists in the psychiatric survivors movement from posting links on their websites to leaked documents which purportedly show that Eli Lilly and Company intentionally withheld information as to the lethal side-effects of Zyprexa. The Electronic Frontier Foundation appealed this as prior restraint on the right to link to and post documents, saying that citizen-journalists should have the same First Amendment rights as major media outlets. The First Amendment Concerns in this case were dismissed by the appeal court.

The authors of PGP (pretty good privacy) a secure encryption scheme for email, were involved in a multi-year court battle over their work, which the government argued could thwart their attempts to secure evidence or perform proper surveillance, under the assertion that encryption was a weapon, and subject to the same controls they hold over missile guidance systems.

This tendency toward increased regulation of content and accessibility to the Internet shows no signs of slowing, nor is it likely that it will, as it is not in the state's interest, the US congress has proposed legislation to ban access of all social networking sites from schools and public libraries, the Deleting Online Predators Act, and numerous bills have been proposed to introduce FCC style regulation of the Internet as a whole, under the misnamed "Net Neutrality" movement, and more recently there has been a number of vocal proponents, like Chuck Shumer, for regulating political speech under the guise of "Fairness Doctrines" As the state marches on with these limits, it becomes ever more clear that, if we wish to retain this right to free speech, not just in private conversations, but in the public forum of the world wide web, we must guard both against laws that would give watchers more power, and that we must guard the ability to defeat the detection of the watchers entirely.

As the measures taken against free speech on the Internet become more totalitarian in nature, those who wish to preserve those rights must become more defiant of those infringements, while protecting themselves from being targeted or eliminated for what they say, believe, or read online. While no measure of security is invulnerable, there are many common techniques any advocate or supporter of real change must familiarize themselves with, and depending on their personal circumstances and content, begin using even now, as a small measure of protection, and more importantly, to raise awareness of what really is going on behind the scene with big brother.

It is in this vein that i have introduced a series of articles on "Some Semblance of Privacy." The first article, on creating a portable thumbdrive with a browser that disables some tracking scripting as well as anonymize the orgin of browser traffic, is already up. This double layer of protection, in both the drive being usable from anywhere, as well as the traffic being rerouted to various secure proxies around the world, is a good start, but we will need to know more than just how to view a webpage securely. We might need an encrypted Chat, or Anonymous Email, or... and the list goes on. As time permits, I will add to it, but it is a good starting point, from a practical application standpoint, and something you can do today.

Some Semblance of Privacy (in browsing)

In the future it is possible that we will need something like public decentralized servers to host dissident content or discussions, and i hope that someone is working now on a simple user friendly solution to that now. The Freenet Project is an excellent example of uncensorable internet, but it isnt particularly user friendly, and doesn't work for static reference materials, as all content expires and is eventually purged from the network. It is still, however, important that we continue to work to protect the opportunity provided to us by continued development of the electronic networks, as it is the last great hope we have, and the best chance an ordinary person has to help save the world, so to speak.

It was thought at one point that the technology of mass media would put an end to ideological factionalism, or Manyspeak, by influencing the very thoughts of the Masses through the uniformity of information and presentation of values, or Onespeak. Aldous Huxley's speech at Berkley in 1962 is the penultimate illustration of this concept, which he called "The Ultimate Revolution" (listen to it, if you have never heard of it, and the same goes for Brave New World)

"It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this, that we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy, who have always existed and presumably always will exist, to get people actually to love their servitude. This seems to me the ultimate malevolent revolution... This is a problem which has interested me for many years and about which I wrote, 30 years ago, a fable Brave New World which is essentially the account of a society making use of all the devices at that time available and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible, making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron out inconvenient human differences, to create, so to say, mass produced models of human beings arranged in some kind of a scientific caste system. Since then I have continued to be extremely interested in this problem and I have noticed with increasing dismay that a number of the predictions which were purely fantastic when I made them 30 years ago have come true or seem in process of coming true. A number of techniques about which I talked seem to be here already, and that there seems to be a general movement in the direction of this kind of ultimate revolution, this method of control by which people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs which by any decent standard they ought not to enjoy. I mean the enjoyment of servitude." -- Aldous Huxley

But people can only be made to love an identical servitude if they are given identical "facts" about reality, and identical experiences to back them up. Alternatively, they can be given different forms of servitude if they divided into castes and kept seperate, as they were in Brave New World, and given seperate "facts" for each caste, with seperate experience to reinforce each of the respective facts about what constitutes reality and propriety.

Once individuals are free to discover their own facts, and share "facts" and experiences between classes or castes, the illusion begins to waver, the un-uniform nature of reality becomes evident and this type of control is nearly impossible. Instead of adhering to one of the roles set forth for them by society at large, individuals again begin to form their own roles, and reach out to strangers for support, discovering that common language of resistance, outside of the structures set up by society at large. This creates friction in the well oiled machine of public relations democracy, and does in fact result in a democracy that is inherently instable, tumultuous and undesirable.

That is why, as a society, as we continue to develop, we must not only rely on the ideals of democracy, as the more free we become with information and comunication, ideals, experience, and growing understanding of the nature of reality, the harder uniform stable democracy can be. This is exactly why these statis quo statists are afraid of these developments. As Nigel Lawson, former UK finance minister, recently wrote:

"Democracy is nowadays a greatly over-hyped blessing, particularly by Americans, who have no pre-democratic history to provide a perspective. It is clearly less important than freedom, the rule of law and constitutional government, which ideally it should entrench, but may well not do so."

It is exactly with the understanding of the dangers and instabilities of democracy, that documents such as the Bill of Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were drafted, so that democracy could flourish, but be kept from destroying itself. It is through the rule of law, and the aportionment of power among people that mob rule and the resultant chaos of factionalism must be kept in check, as democracy itself can be transformed from a fight between factions over what beliefs or ideals can be forced upon others, into a discussion of what beliefs or ideals we all hold in common. It is most likely that this discussion, far from the partisan bickering we see today, will show that we do, in fact, hold the common ideals of Freedom, the Rule of Law, and a constitutionaly protective structure of government. Any challenges to order presented by factionalism or seperate beleifs will be overcome by embracing those beleifs we hold in common.

This great discussion can only be begun in a public and equalitive venue, and it is up to us to guard the one we have now, even as we begin to develop new ones, as this may be the most important discussion in the future of our society.

Libertas Quae Sera Tamen

Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday

2009-05-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

What are your kids going to learn in school tomorrow?

Even Judges are Confused

2009-05-02T00:39:00.000-07:00

As to how exactly the Rule of Law gave way to the Rule of Men.

Passages like this one:

'An enactment in which section 31 (6) and (7) of the Criminal Law Act (1977) (pre-1949) enactments produced the same fine of maximum fine for different convictions shall be treated for the purposes of this section as if there were omitted from it so much of it as before 29th July, 1977, had the effect that a person guilty of an offence under it was liable on summary conviction to a fine or maximum fine less than the highest fine or maximum fine to which he would have been liable if his conviction had satisfied the conditions required for the imposition of the highest fine or maximum fine.' (Criminal Justice Act, section 38, sub-section 4)

...have British Judges wondering:

So, yet again, the courts are faced with a sample of the deeply confusing provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and the satellite Statutory Instruments to which it is giving stuttering birth. The most inviting course for this Court to follow, would be for its members, having shaken their heads in despair to hold up their hands and say: "the Holy Grail of rational interpretation is impossible to find". But it is not for us to desert our judicial duty, however lamentably others have legislated. But, we find little comfort or assistance in the historic canons of construction for determining the will of Parliament which were fashioned in a more leisurely age and at a time when elegance and clarity of thought and language were to be found in legislation as a matter of course rather than exception.

...what exactly they are supposed to make of the reams upon reams of rubbish legislators spew forth every year, when what they really would like to do is rule cases fairly, while relying on the order of law.

Read the rest here, being sure not to miss some of the very thoughtful comments, like this one:

[...]One day you are innocently reading your Bible and staying out everybody else's way. The next, Janet Reno's goons are using a tank to break into your property with guns blazing and burn down your home with your children inside. And then, to make sure you get the message, you end up on trial -- not Janet Reno.
The end result of that kind of behavior is a spreading contempt for the Rule of Law -- which leaves us with a non-sustainable society. The current insanity will end. Unfortunately, it will end in tears.

In today's legal world, Ignorance of the law is not a defence, it is a presupposed fact, for all parties involved.

Targeted For Termination - Political Assasination in the Twenty-First Century

2009-04-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

Joint Force Quarterly has recently published an article by Colonel Peter M. Cullen, the Staff Judge Advocate, 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, on the legality and suitibility of military and covert use of "Targeted Killing" against non-state actors. Targeted Killing is a euphemism for Assasination used in a military context, though the term "Extrajudicial Punishment" is also used, mostly by critics. The process of targeted killing was pioneered in modern warfare by Israel, (of which much has been written) but has been adopted to some measure by the united states since 2001, primarily outside of the realm of public scruitiny.

In the article Col. Cullen states:

This article examines the legality, morality, and potential efficacy of a U.S. policy of targeted killing...
The conclusion is that, in spite of the genuine controversy surrounding this subject, a carefully circumscribed policy of targeted killing can be a legal, moral, and effective tool in a counterterror campaign. (emphasis mine)
While the United States has not explicitly acknowledged pursuing a policy of targeted killing, insights can be gleaned from published national security documents and official statements that shed light on U.S. willingness to employ targeted killing as a tactic in the campaign against terror.
This was most recently demonstrated in January 2007 by the use of an Air Force AC–130 Spectre gunship to target suspected al Qaeda terrorists in Somalia. Based on publicly available information, if the capture of designated terrorists is not deemed feasible, the United States is prepared to use Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or U.S. military assets to target them in lethal operations.8 In addition to the recent operations in Somalia, targeted killings attributed to the United States since 2001 have included attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan and in Yemen.These actions resulted in the deaths of numerous civilians,
The campaign against transnational terrorism represents a new paradigm with which international law has yet to come to terms. Public international law, accustomed to regulating actions by states, is in uncharted territory when dealing with nonstate actors and their involvement in the changing face of war.
The case for targeted killing must demonstrate that the United States is authorized to use force against terrorists in compliance with the law of conflict management, or jus ad bellum, and that the manner in which targeted killings are executed complies with the law on the conduct of war, or jus in bello.
Article 2 of the United Nations (UN) Charter outlaws the use of aggressive force by a state in its international relations. One recognized exception is a state’s inherent right of self-defense as found in Article 51 of the UN Charter. This authorizes a state to use military force to defend itself against an armed attack and the continuing threat of such an attack.13 The limitations on this right of self-defense are that the force used to defend against the attack must be both “necessary” and “proportionate.”
Clearly, al Qaeda’s actions on 9/11 constituted an armed attack on America, and its subsequent actions and statements confirm that it represents a continuing and serious threat to the United States against which America is entitled to defend itself through the use of force, specifically the targeting of key al Qaeda personnel. It has been argued that the right of selfdefense only applies to interstate conflicts and not to a conflict with a transnational terrorist organization such as al Qaeda and its associated movements (AQAM).
This textual interpretation of the UN Charter, however, is overcome by customary international law, which recognizes a state’s inherent right of self defense. This permits the United States to use force against nonstate actors such as transnational terrorists. It is a right that has not been challenged by the UN Security Council. Since AQAM are a continuing threat, the targeted killing of their key personnel is a military necessity to prevent future attacks. It is not designed to be punitive in nature or serve as a reprisal. This tactic is also a proportionate, or reasonable, response given the serious threat that AQAM pose to America. Article 2 of the UN Charter also requires the United States to respect the sovereignty of other nations. If America wishes to conduct a targeted killing on the sovereign territory of another nation, it must obtain the permission of that government.
Legality of the Tactic of Targeted Killing (Jus in Bello). Although the United States is authorized to use force in self-defense against AQAM for as long as they remain a threat, each specific use of force, such as a targeted killing, must comply with the law on the conduct of war. The primary sources of jus in bello are found in the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their two Additional Protocols of 1977.
Application of the law of war is triggered if a state of “armed conflict” exists between America and AQAM. Treaties do not define this term. It is broader than “war,” which is limited to interstate conflict. Commentators recommend looking to the nature, intensity, and duration of the violence to make this determination.
Even if U.S. targeted killing of terrorists is legal under international law, it is also necessary to determine its legality under U.S. domestic law. Some commentators have pointed to Executive Order 12333 and its prohibition on assassination. Although this executive order regulating intelligence activities does have legal effect, it does not apply to actions in time of war or to the Armed Forces. Accordingly, it does not impact military operations that target terrorist operatives outside the United States.
While Executive Order 12333 presents no legal impediment to targeted killings executed by the Armed Forces, it could impact such operations conducted by CIA personnel, who are considered noncombatants under the law of war.
In the context of the armed conflict between the United States and AQAM, this means that active members of AQAM are combatants and may be lawfully targeted at will. Given the status of AQAM operatives as combatants, the United States is under no obligation to attempt to arrest individuals before targeting them. This combatant status remains in effect for the duration of the armed conflict unless the individual takes some action to renounce this status. This analysis raises the question of how active members of a terrorist organization are properly identified.
Unlike combatants in international armed conflicts, they are not required to display “a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance.” Nor should their combatant status be limited to the time that they have a weapon in their hands. The answer lies in designating as combatants those members of the terrorist organization who have taken an active part in hostilities.
Proponents of this position argue that this status is established if the individual takes a direct part in hostilities by planning, directing, or executing attacks or “if there is other evidence of his or her combatant role.” Such evidence will be primarily derived from intelligence information, often supplemented by the statements and admissions of the individuals themselves.
A difficult issue is whether an individual who provides purely financial support for terrorist activities can be targeted as a combatant. Given the critical enabling role of financing in terrorist activities, such individuals should be viewed as having an active role in hostilities

According to the magazine: Joint Force Quarterlyis published for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, by the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, to promote understanding of the integrated employment of land, sea, air, space, and special operations forces. The journal focuses on joint doctrine, integrated operations, coalition warfare, contingency planning, military operations conducted across the spectrum of conflict, and joint force development.

The article, (which no longer seems to availiable online) has much more to say, and I'd recomend it as a frightening bed time story to any of you, if you can find it. Email me and ill send it to you, or call up the chairman himself, im sure he has lots of copies. (dont you wish you had a magazine published just for you? and its a pretty, full colour magazine, no newsletter here...)

There is plenty of room for concern here, even if you dont include the moral implications of robot armies, starting with the intended targets. While the article itself is very specific in using the term al Qaeda and its Associated Movements (AQAM), none of the "decentralized" network structure of "al Qaeda" is easily identifiable (hence the use of the word decentralized) and none of the "Associated Movements" are defined at all. What he really means to say (in the context of US Military policy) is "Terrorist!", that infamous and vague term that is so loved by totalitarian statists worldwide.

Noted comentarian Kenneth Anderson states that "...terrorist groups can be strategically understood as a guerrilla organization engaged in a strategy of logistical raiding – in which civilian morale and resulting manipulation of political will is the logistical target" "Manipulation of political will", of course, being the goal of any political movement worldwide, period, and any organization that either arises organically, or outside of state influence, will qualify as a "guerrilla" in nature. Anything between the two is simply a matter of, well, "logistics." Definitions such as these are designed to actually point to any one person, rather, by design, they are inclusionary terms, drawn up so as to provide a label that can be used to justify an action against any opposing force. Now consider that they added to this inclusionary term, which essentially says "any member of a non-state political movement" and turned it into "any financial or material supporter of a member of a non-state political movement." So basicly, Either you sit in front of the TV and do nothing, hold no political goals, and dont get involved with anyone who does have political goals, or Whammo! Its a hellfire missile for you.

Of course, in the past (the fairly recent past, i might add) it has been consistently held that no further protections are granted to members of these vast qualifying terms, even if only suspected, based on their nationality or citizenship, including one particularily american in nature. As of yet, no legal ruling, or even official position from the white house, has reversed this, and in a sobering essay published by Foreign Policy, former Bush administration National Security Council member Philip Zelikow points out that there simply is no legal firewall protecting U.S. citizens from the torture methods used against foreign terrorist suspects.

None. At all.

As such, advocating the legality of mass assassination, outside of the rules of either law, or war, in such a perversion of intention to justify the means is a dangerous possition to take, as if it can be applied so liberally over there, it can be applied just as easily here. But even if it was only intended for targets in Iraqi and Afghanistani militia's, and not against the American variety; Whats the difference?

An excelent, if older, article tackled the subject of the propiety of full utilization of technology against an organic militia movement such as what we see in Iraq and afghanistan. You can, and should, read it here, but here is an excerpt:

The US military has been fighting a war against the people of Iraq. The Iraqi “militias” are directly equivalent to the well regulated militia that the Founding Fathers discussed as the last line of defense against government oppression - US government oppression. The fact that this oppression is occurring in Iraq rather than on US soil does not change the role of guns as tools of self-determination. The Second Amendment is guarantee of a right, but that right is based in observable reality. It is operating in Iraq today, and the streets run with blood as people exercise their right to die and kill for what they believe, however misguided it may be.

The Iraqi people are demonstrating the Second Amendment.

The US must not develop the ability to win in future wars against populations like we see in Iraq if it wishes to remain a good nation.
The focus of the article is very different, focusing on technology rather than tactics, but the end conclusion is the same:

If it can happen over there, it can happen here.

And further; I'd say that any country that can reasonably justify the targeted annihilation of an organic idealogical political movement, at will, outside of these guidlines of law or active combat, within its enterpretation of propriety, legality, and morality, will be incapable of supporting any organic political movement of its own.

A good nation will always require the ability to adapt beyond its established systemic doctrines in order to cope with its generational and situational challenges, past examples, of course, ranging from secession to the civil rights movement. The key phrase to consider here is proportionality. While any system, of any sort, will always, naturally, suppress any challenges or adaptations to it structure, an unjust system will act ill proportionally to any challenges, oversuppressing the direct challenges, without alleviating the underlying situational or generational changes that were precursive of those direct challenges, in effect creating a powderkeg that will, at some further point explode in some other, much more violent way, instead of resisting proportionaly and assimilating those changes neccisary to establish ballance.

According to the Wall Street Journal, President Obama is currently reviewing a potential escalation of exactly the type of "Targeted Killing" we are talking about here, in the tribal lands of pakistan, with concerns that it will further destablize the already tumultuous pakistani government, and justly so, as years of US puppetry in the region have left it with little trust in its own non representative state, which is now divided upon invisible lines into two countries within one land. Attacking the rural of the two will only create more outrage against the official government and create further challenges to its authority, or even its desirability. Most of these missions will be flown from the pilots complex that was built in the center green of CIA headquarters, again, the legality of which is not a position that even the bold and hawkish article presented here supports, but seems unchalleneged by the White House.

As this month was the deadliest month in Iraq in over a year, you would think this sort of pressure = escalation might be better understood, but this article clearly shows that at least some of the people involved, are absolutely unconcerned, and would seek to drive us right to the edge of a terrible and tumultuous robot war against any and all dissenting voices, no matter the price to our liberty or freedoms.

Compare this to the much more logical warnings against secret wartime assassination and covert war outside the legal protections of war in J. Kinsella's Rise of the Shadow Warriors.

And then, consider if you have ever belonged to, listened to, or supported in any way, a grassroots, or non state sanctioned, movement, that sought to challenge or influence the existing political will?

Tempus Fugit

Some Semblence of Privacy (in Browsing.)

2009-04-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

In a more technical than political vein, I'd like to document how i have created a semi private browsing experience i can take with me, use from nearly anywhere, and then have little fear of finding my name on some new-fangled Homegrown Terrorist list, or some other governmental nonsense, for something google pre-cached, or that came up in a pop up window. This also has the very much wanted side effect of blocking most ads, and seems all around like a handy thing to have.

This solution uses Google Chrome, the newest browser on the scene, but you can in fact use any browser that you can run as a standalone, ie; without having installed directly on the computer.

Before we get started, go ahead and visit whatismyip.com and make a note of what it shows as your ip.

I started with an ordinary USB Thumb Drive, which these days you can pick up for nearly nothing at any electronics store.

I then reassigned the drive letter, so that no matter what computer we end up plugging our drive into, that letter will not be in use, and our later references to it can remain static. If you want to skip this, it doesn't effect the functionality at all.

Reassigning the drive letter:
This is done (at least in XP) by

1)going to Start>Settings>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management.

2)Then double click on Disc Management under the Storage heading in the Left Pane.

3)Locate the USB Drive

4)Rightclick on it and select 'Change Drive Letter and Path' This will allow you to set the drive letter to something specific, Y: in this example.

Install Chrome Portable:
Opening the drive, I installed Chrome Portable, which you can download from HERE. You can download the initial file to anywhere, it doesn't extract anything until you run it. When prompted, ask it to extract all files to root of your Y: drive (again, if that's the drive letter you chose) This will extract all your needed files into a folder named "Y:/Chrome-Portable-blah-blah-blahXXX" Go ahead and rename this folder to just "Chrome", for ease in remembering later.

Running Chrome:

Thats all you need to go ahead and start using the internet's newest and most formidable browser, with its own built in 'Incognito Mode' (just right click on any link and ask it to "Open in Incognito Window" and it will then not keep any privacy info like cookies or history entries when that window closes) from any windows pc with a usb port, just by going into your "Chrome" folder and running ChromeLoader.exe.

But we want to go a step further and anonymize it. There are many software solutions out there but i went ahead and chose Privoxy (which blocks certain types of content, including ads, and if properly configured, tracking scripts embedded into some webpages) in combination with Tor (which makes it very difficult to tell exactly where a particular electronic packet of data came from, or is going, let alone, who is responsible for originating it.) These two, excellent pieces of software which you can obtain, and learn much about at http://www.privoxy.org/and http://www.torproject.org/will do us quite nicely, in our quest for some semblance of privacy, on the internet.

Since both of these are designed really to run on only one machine after they are installed, we are going to cheat a little to get it to run smoothly hand in hand with our thumbdrive portable version of Chrome. That is where PortableTor comes in, fantastically.

The application, which will fit nicely on our thumbdrive, is a tweaked bundle of the TorVidalia package and the proxy-server Privoxy. Once you extract PortableTor and fire it up, it automatically launches the two apps and connects to the Tor network. From there out all you have to do is make sure that your web browser is configured to use a proxy (we will get to that in a bit) and all your traffic will be sent on a privacy-producing trip through the many layers of the Tor network. You can download it here or by navigating through the PortableTor Homepage to make sure you have the most recent version.

The file you download is just a self extracting archive, so just extract its contents onto the thumbdrive. It extracts its own folder, so the root of the drive is fine.

If you like, just go into that folder, "PortableTor" and run PortableTor.exe, it should pop up with a window that shows itself connecting to the Tor network, and finally, that it successfully connected. Pretty easy, right?

Well, not so fast, as by default, Chrome will still just connect directly to Internet content, and give us all away, instead of connecting to the Tor Network and anonymizing us. We need to configure Chrome to use the proxy we have just set up and started.

Configure Chrome to Use a Proxy*:

1) open the Chrome browser from Y:/Chrome/ChromeLoader.exe
2) Click on the Wrench icon in Chrome in the upper right corner
3) Choose "options"
4) Open the tab titled "Under the Hood"
3.) Underneath the Network title, select "Change proxy settings"
4.) A windows box pops up, click the box that says "LAN settings"
5.) Check off “Proxy settings” or "Use a proxy server for your lan" depending on if you are running XP or Vista and in the address setting add "127.0.0.1" and in the port "8118" (without the quotes.
6.) If you have the option, you can also check off “Bypass proxy for local settings”
7.) Click “Ok”, close chrome and restart it.

Now that is the slightly disappointing part, as you may not be able to do this on every computer, depending on permissions, and it has to be done on every computer you want to comandere anonymously, be it the local library, work, or any number of other public accesses that one would use for completely secure or sensitive browsing.

Fortunately, we only have to do it once for a personal computer, as theres no harm in using a proxy (Privoxy) all the time, even if we dont want to use our anonymizer (Tor.) Why wouldnt we want to use our anonymizer, you ask? well, secure practices are never without their downsides, and in this case, its speed. While the Tor network isnt tortoise slow, you will probably notice the difference, and as it relies entirely on private volunteer servers, we really cant complain.

Besides, as my friend Vistonie says, you have to slow down, if you want to be sneaky.

With that done, you can now test your new found security by visiting either one of these two sites: Whatismyip.com and https://check.torproject.org/

the first one should display something other than your actual IP, and the second should congratulate you on using Tor.

Now you can take your drive anywhere, and browse securely:

1)Plug drive into USB

2)Open the drive in My Computer

3)Go to the TorPortable folder and run TorPortable.exe

4)Go to the Chrome folder and run ChromeLoader.exe

5)Follow the proxy configuration above (you may want to keep it in a text file on the drive)

Welcome to the privacy elite of the internet.

If it didnt work, go back to the proxy configuration in Chrome, and make sure you configured it properly, or read any error messages you find.

Tor has alot of options, which are well covered on the Tor page, but works pretty well right out of the box. I will mention one option, that is of some interest, is the setting up of your own Tor relay, not only is plain nice to give back to the people who are helping you, its a good practice, as a particular packet of information, if ever traced back to your computer, network traffic will show little to no forensic evidence that it was requested by your computer. Plausible Deniability is the word of the day.

The main Tor window, after showing a successful connection, can be closed, which doesn't really close it, but instead sends it to the system tray, in the form of a small green onion icon. right next to it is a blue P icon, that is Privoxy.

If this is your first introduction to Tor, here are a couple links with a decent overview: how to browse the internet anonymously with Tor or this guide to anonymous web browsing for a great overview of how Tor protects your privacy.

There are also a lot of individual settings you can look at, and customize at will. Browse away anonymously anywhere you like, any computer running windows that you have access to.

When you are done, you will need to remove the proxy settings you added, essentially a reversal of what you did earlier.

1) Chrome should already be open, if not open it as before.
2) Click on the Wrench icon in Chrome in the upper right corner
3) Choose "options"
4) Open the tab titled "Under the Hood"
5) Underneath the Network title, select "Change proxy settings"
6) A windows box pops up, click the box that says "LAN settings"
7) uncheck “Proxy settings” or "Use a proxy server for your lan" depending on if you are running XP or Vista.
8) Exit Chrome
9) Rightclick on the Green Onion in the systray and select "Exit"

10)Rightclick on the Blue P in the systray and select "Exit"

11) Remove your thumbdrive, and make a stealthy exit, knowing you have just pulled one over on big brother...

Remember, we only have rights as long as we exercise them, and we must, frequently, if we wish to keep them.

Ill add an update when i can make this a little faster.

Nordyke and The Nunchukas

2009-04-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

I stated in my discussion of the 9th circuit's Nordyke ruling, the incorporation language held there may be extended to other states of the plaintiff files an appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States, and if the court decided to hear it, but it appears that we may not have to wait that long.

From SCOTUSblog:

Somewhat surprisingly, the case now most likely to reach the Court first on that issue will not be about guns, but about “chuka sticks.” Still, those are treated, at least by New York state, as a personal weapon, and the legislature there has banned even their possession in the home. Formally named a “nunchaku,” a chuka is two pieces of rigid material joined by a thong or rope. The legislature found they could be used to injure — or even kill — someone by striking them or choking them with one of the sticks while holding the other. But martial artists also use them in training exercises.
A Port Washington, N.Y., lawyer, James M. Maloney, was arrested for having a chuka stick in his home nearly nine years ago. His case has become a significant test of whether he had a Second Amendment right to have that weapon for personal use.
Maloney’s petition, his lawyer wrote, will argue “that the individual right conferred by the Second Amendment should be held incorporated against the states,” through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Second Circuit, in a decision Jan. 28 (Circuit docket 07-581), dismissed Maloney’s challenge to the New York law.
That conclusion, however, conflicts directly with the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision last Monday in Nordyke, et al., v. King, et al. (Circuit docket 07-15763). That is the sort of conflict that can lead the Supreme Court to step in to resolve the dispute. If the lawyers in the Nordyke case pursue an early appeal to the Court (a decision not yet made), both cases could be up for consideration together by the Justices.
[...]
The Maloney case on “chukas” — and perhaps the Nordyke case on guns, as well — could be ready for the Justices’ action early in the new Term starting in October.

This is particularily interesting, as not only did i bring up Nunchukas in my original discussion of Heller, but because i happen to know that in Arizona, which is in the 9th circuit, there is an outright ban on these particular weapons of ninja self defense.

So, AZ, do we move now for the restoration of rights involved here, as the 9th circuits holding of incorporation in this district already primes the ground for the dismissal of that unjust law rooted in racist anti-turtle history, do we wait to see if a Nordyke appeal tosses out the incorporation talk or reinforces it, or if the supreme court hears Maloney and makes it abundantly clear that not only do such radical awesome tiny pieces of wood connected with a little chain not only qualify as "arms" but that the second amendment is in fact held to be incorporated against the states and their status, in all cases, should be legal?

What to do?

Untill y'all figure it out, ill be at the dojo, getting ready to take on the Foot Clan in the open again, its been rough having to hide my quest all these years...

Confronting The Cost of Addiction

2009-04-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

In the comments section of The Smallest Minority, on this link to a post written at WRSA, about Americas destructive and clinical addiction to Big Government, some Pro-LeviathanStatist (but Anti-Obama, of course, ~eyeroll) by the name of Bilgeman, took issue with the idea that we even need to, or would find it desirable to, recover from that addiction, stating, at the end of a fairly long supposed justification:

"We can survive quite nicely with a Federal prison system, Food and Drug safety regulations and enforcement, (if they'd actually...like...enforce the regs they have), a strong military and naval establishment, and border enforcement."

To which i replied, and will repost here:

And we could not just survive, but excel, without the unjust burden of supporting them.

We run the federal prison system (which didnt exist until about 1900) like a business, a business that wants to, and does expand daily. Incarceration has become a growth industry, and today honest americans are forced to support the largest prison population in the world, at immense cost, because there is money to be be allocated there, instead left for the building a more civil or free society.

the FDA is the reason most of the people i know travel out of their home country to buy the medicine they need to ensure their health, when the other countries have similar regulations, but the drugs are cheaper, because their parasitic regulator cartels haven't yet grown as fat, and without such massive parasitism and protectionism, the general cost of health care would be a fraction of what it is today, as evidenced by the market of "medical tourism", a sad state of affairs if ever ive seen one.

As to the notion of Federal Armies providing for our national security, that is nothing but the abdication of personal responsibility, and i think the following quote should be familiar to everyone.

"There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army." --Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789.

Im not sure exactly what you mean by border security, (movement of people, or goods) but both of the land borders of the US were basically completely open until 1929, and there was essentially no problem with illegal immigration in this country until 1965 saw the passage of The Immigration and Naturalization Act, which set quotas for immigration arbitrarily, drastically undercutting the demand for migrant, non permanent, workers, while at the same time tremendously changing the ethnic and political makeup of the United States by doubling the annual immigration rate. Many older folks who lived in the southwest, near the border, remembered working with Mexicans who would actually drive home to Mexico at night, and to work in the US, something that became practically unheard of as the regulatory chokehold set in on free trade and market demand.*

Forgive me if i not only fundamentally disagree with your assertion, but don't beleive our country's history, traditions, or the evidence support those assertions in any way.

There is not only very little the government does so well that i think they should do more of it, there are even fewer things i think it does so well as come anywhere close to justifying the cost of paying it to do so.

*Not to mention the real cause of the increase in demand for cheap labor, which exceeds those arbitrary quotas, which can be directly linked to the inflationary monetary policy of the fed.

I guess Bilgeman's response boils down to "My addiction isn't that bad, besides, it helps me deal with my problems", a classic case, if ever I've seen one, the only difference is that he applies it to some theory of "Society at Large" If nothing else, go read the Original Post by Pete, which one commenter stated made him realize "I am only a recovering socialist, not yet the Libertarian that I strive to be!"

Its a long road to recovery.

Curing Corruption in Government

2009-04-25T22:25:00.000-07:00

requires identifying the cause of that corruption

Here, in the following video, the Cato Institute's Dan Mitchell does a fairly good job of doing so.

Unfortunately I think the introduction of a flat tax (which usually is proposed as a neutral revenue gain system) would do little to effect any of the wanton over-expansion of federal influence, with the exception of simplifying the convoluted tax code, and is a bit like putting a bandaid on a vesuvian zit, when in fact it must be popped like the balloon at the end of the video. It should be pretty clear, though, that federal expansion must be not only curbed, but reversed, if we want to return to anything resembling representative government.

Revenue-neutral tax reform, while palatable, is no solution, unfortunately, to a government that is spending us, and our progeny, into the poorhouses of tomorrow, and seems too stupid to realize it.

Taxation is theft, doubly so when the spoils go only to fools and leeches.

TANSTAAFL

You Can't Teach Stupid...

2009-04-25T00:43:00.000-07:00

... It looks like you have to elect it.

From AP:

Senate wants $5M to study financial crisis

The Senate has agreed to spend $5 million to investigate the cause of the economic crisis as it moves toward passing a $245 million bill that would substantially increase the number of FBI agents and prosecutors working mortgage fraud.

Keeping in mind that the FBI has long had a "white collar crime" division, but that many of the agents involved there were reassigned to fight the War on Indiviualism (the misnamed War on Terror) but instead of reasigning them back to their original, and probably much more effective, less invasive, directive, we are going to replace them, at great taxpayer expense, to further expand federal policing powers. So, in the end, the FBI can have its tanks and eat it too. But for a second lets go beyond that nonsensical expansion of tax-fueled MIBery in the midst of an unprecidented recession, and go back and read that AP headline again.

"Senate wants $5M to study financial crisis"

The mind reels.

Spending money to find out why you are broke. Seriously? An eleven year old couldn't be talked into that. "Hey kid, don't you wish you had enough money to buy that game you want? Well, I'll tell you what, why don't you give me what money you do have, and I'll put together a research group to find out why you don't have enough." Give me a break. Its stupidity like this, that makes me think I've already have the problem figured out, and a quick scan of some other recent AP headlines seems to bear out my hypothesis.

Taxpayers invested another $2 billion in General Motors Corp

6 companies to get $9.9B under mortgage program

Congress gears up for $500 billion transportation bill

US to spend $6 billion on Cold War weapons cleanup

Stimulus money includes $55 million spruce-up of National Mall

And those are all from the last week or so. You got that? Demand for production has dropped, so we need to spend more money to make stuf no one wants, money that, by the way, we will get from taxing the people who still do make stuf that people did want, at least until it became so taxed no one could afford it, and mortgages aren't worth the paper they are written on, so we need to buy some, and the fuel tax revenue used to expand and improve the highway system has dropped because no one is driving on them, so we need to increase the burden elsewhere so we can have the most impressive whiz bang empty highways in the world. and we spent too much on weapons we never needed, so in order to have less of them, we have to create a new fund to pay to get rid of them (garage sales wont work i guess) and the real reason this whole economy is in the shitter is the brown grass in front of the statue of that great federal expansionist Abraham "lets kill 600,000 Americans to ~~preserve~~ expand the tax base" Lincoln.

So, I think I've found the problem. Its what happens when you mix Taxation and Regulation with Stupidity. We live in a country where there has never been a successful "Temporary Government Program", where everything from cheese to housing to charity to childrens toys to balloons is subject to the increased cost of government regulation, inspection and taxation.

If i have to make it any clearer, maybe an illustration or two will help.

No? How about this one:

Starting to get the picture?

Now explain to me how this is sustainable when not only does the government not produce jobs with all this wanton spending, its own sole source of income is the coerced tribute paid by those members of society that do have jobs, a number that, by the way, is rapidly shrinking, and by any historical account will continue to shrink for some time, well after all these checks are written out in their names. And so, i guess they will just have to increase those taxes again, to protect all these venerable federal programs, penalizing whatever sector or individuals are still able to make ends meet... And the cycle continues, to what end? This is just the tip of the iceburg.

Yeah, thats what I thought. At least one person in all this government-sponsored-mess (GSM) figured out who to blame.

So, now that I have answered the 5 million dollar question, Ill just have to sit and wait for my check to show up, which is good, because today, I became one of those countless unemployed in America. I wont be looking for federal handouts of taxpayer money, but i also wont be paying much of a tribute, for a while.

Ill be looking for a job. I hope these people will do the same, very soon, or at the least, consider David Kellerman's solution.

Faber est suae quisque fortunae

Nudged into the Herd.

2009-04-24T13:12:00.001-07:00

Mike V. thinks that we are being led by the noses.

I might agree. Go read what he has to say.

Rights-Shmights, and Unwarranted Fights

2009-04-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

The Day After the Aniversary

It seems that over 200 years later, Poor General Gage has been vindicated by the 9th circuit court. It turns out that our "Fundamental Natural Rights" are, in fact, subject to the whims of ruling governments and their minions, and that, this whole event was just a simple misunderstanding.

It turns out, that when Colonists resisted the call to disperse and lay down their arms, at Concord and Lexington, as they felt they had a fair and natural right to self defense, and to in fact defend themselves, they were grossly mistaken.

No, not because they weren't allowed to assert that natural and god given right, but instead, because of where they tried to assert it.

You see, our poor misguided colonial heros, when confronted by a confiscatory and aggressive imperial army, assembled on the Town Green, a central square used by the community for events, gatherings, festivals, and faires... In fact, Public Government Property.

Uh oh. Well, now, we learn from the 9th circuit court of Appeals, thats a big no no.

The decision that was handed down of course, has little to do with the troubles with the redcoats, but does have a whole lot to do with natural rights, the abrogation of the rights by uppity "officials" in a position of power, and the nature of Public Government Property, and when it comes down to it, i'd say the parallels are noticable.

The case in question, is Nordyke v. King. On April 20, 2009 The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in deciding that case, held that the Second Amendment was in fact incorporated.

The defendants in this case claimed that the Alemeda County's decision to ban firearms from county property (and therefor from the county fairgrounds, and therefor outlawing the county fairground's hosting of the local gunshow from which they obtain their lively-hood) was an abrogation of their rights as enumerated by the second amendment of the United States Constitution.

This is stupendously noteworthy, as, previous to last years Heller ruling, in the eyes of the court system, even exactly what right was protected by the second amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, was in question, and no court has ever held the second amendment to be incorporated, or binding to the laws of each state.

As strange as it may seem, the Bill of Rights, as the pinnacle of human rights protection and legal development and a beacon for freedom around the world, in fact, like most of the constitution, was never intended for limiting anything other than Federal Powers, and until the introduction of the 14th amendment, none of these rights were protected from usurpation by State Powers (an equally insidious bunch at times.) After the adoption of the 14th Amendment, that, however, fundimentally changed, but of course, it would take a long time to sort out exactly how it had changed. The Supreme Court, instead of just applying the Bill of Rights en mass, decided to incorporate them on a case by case, right by right basis. It was decided the federal courts should only apply those sections of the Bill of Rights to the states whose abridgment or abrogation would "shock the conscience," This was a slow process, but eventually, every right in the Bill of Rights was in fact incorporated, with five exceptions that remain unincorporated by the Supreme Court as it interprets the 14th amendment.

Amendment II
Right to keep and bear arms

Amendment
III
Freedom from quartering of soldiers

Amendment V
Right to
indictment by a grand jury

Amendment VII's
Right to jury trial
in civil cases

Amendment VIII
Protections against "excessive"
bail and "excessive" fines
(in a very complicated way, as this is still
protected in all 50 state constitutions)

As i wrote in my initial sumary of the Heller ruling, last year:

As D.C. is a federal district, nothing in this case specifically applies to state laws, like Illinois which may forbid or control the ability to bear arms. Luckily more than a dozen states (Mine included) specifically, and clearly affirm a right for the individual to bear arms in defense of self or state. Does yours? The Court did not explicitly incorporate the Second Amendment against the states, but it did cite several state cases in its decision supporting the idea that the second amendment protects an individual right, as well as stating, as i mentioned above, that the right does not originate in the second amendment. This leads many to speculate that the Court would be open to incorporation in a future case where a state law is challenged.

Well, this is that law, and this is that case, and the Ninth Circut Court of Appeals has in fact held that the second amendment is incorporated to the states, as a binding ruling. This of course, not being SCOTUS, is only binding to courts and states in the 9th Circuit, which includes, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, and Arizona.

In the courts ruling, which you can read here, if you want, it very clearly states that the Second Amendment is incorporated, and that its protections are extended to the citizens of the seperate states. This ruling was made in direct influence of the Heller ruling, even overruling its own pre-heller ruling in Hickman, which was a case it heard on California's discriminatory and often abused "may-issue" concealed carry laws (As I predicted; opening the path for appeal in those cases.)

So, victory! One more section of the bill of rights, and its legal defense of Natural Fundimental Rights, now applies to people who live in at least some of the western states, right?

Well, not exactly, as thats not where the ruling ended.

The court says that since Heller realy didnt provide an acid test for what qualifies as infringement of the second amendment, they sorta just had to feel it out. The way they see it, the infringement in Heller, which was D.C.'s outright gun ban, would not have withstood any level of scrutiny, as it was an out and out ban on a fundimental natural right, and really, no one can get behind that. (Brady Bunchers and other American'ts Need Not Apply) But then, it distinguished the infringement here from the one in Heller. The ordinance here, it says, "does not directly impede the efficacy of self-defense or limit self defense in the home. Rather, it regulates gun possession in public places that are County property."

Because the infringement is less, the standard of review might not be a stringent. "not every law which makes a right more difficult to exercise is, ipso facto, an infringement of that right."

"If we apply these principles here, we conclude that although the Second Amendment, applied through the Due Process Clause, protects a right to keep and bear arms for individual self-defense, it does not contain an entitlement to bring guns onto government property."

So the court finds, although yes, The Second Amendment can be incorporated against the state and protect your right to have guns in your home for self-defense, that doesn't mean you also have the right to take a gun to a county-owned fairground.

"the Ordinance does not meaningfully impede the ability of individuals to defend themselves in their homes with usable firearms, the core of the right as Heller analyzed it. The Ordinance falls on the lawful side of the division, familiar from other areas of substantive due process doctrine, between unconstitutional interference with individual rights and permissible government nonfacilitation of their exercise."

The fairground, you see, is, fundamentally, a central square used by the community for events, gatherings, festivals, and faires. Public Government Property (sound familiar?) And according to the esteemed opinion of the 9th Circuit Court, that is an area where Fundamental Natural Rights are not necessary, and do not deserve either respect, or protection under the law.

Alot of people are citing the Incorporation language in this ruling as a victory for the realization of full civil rights for gun owners, but in the end, the fact is, the defendants lost their appeal, and are still denied both their Second Amendment Right, (now, only in certain officially defined areas, and in certain "reasonable" ways) and their lively-hood.

If you would like to know more about the 14th Amendment, and Incorporation of the Bill of rights, this very thorough article may be of use to you. http://federalistblog.us/mt/articles/14th_dummy_guide.htm

I expect, if this case does proceed to the Supreme Court, (the defendants can appeal further) and that court finds the same way, that the official apology to the late General Gage, and the eventual reconciliation of the colonies to its rightful ruling crown, will be forthcoming, and as swiftly as possible. This terrible misunderstanding about us measly Americans having Natural Unalienable rights has caused so much difficulty and division over these many years, but i am confident the wounds can be healed, now that we know the truth, and I give my thanks to the 9th for being so kind as to have cleared it up.

As Commenter Bodicea at Arms and the Law made the point, in a more thorough illustration than i think i could muster, laws passed under the guise of "reasonable regulation" that is here used to justify the denial of a basic right, is nothing more than the ghost of a soon to be dead right. His comment, from this page, was as follows:

In every case, whatever gun restriction is being challenged will be upheld as "reasonable."

Soon enough there will be no lawful (that is "reasonably restricted") way to have a gun unless you inherit it from someone who bought it before 1968. That's assuming you can even get a personal-firearms-possession-license-- the license fee will be 10% of your Form 1040 Line 38 Adjusted Gross Income, and your license may be refused or revoked anytime without notice on the "reasonable" whim of any sheriff, police chief, or deputy State attorney. You'll have to store your gun at all times, other than your reasonably-allowed (single) annual trip to the (only) State-licensed shooting range, disassembled in a government approved floor safe (which you must remove if you ever sell or vacate your home), subject to warrantless surprise inspections four times yearly (inspection fee $350 per inspection). Also you will have to pay a $200 fee to re-register each gun annually (with confiscation and possible prosecution for unlicensed possession the punishment for late renewal).

Your credit card, supermarket affinity card, and bank records will be provided to the Brady Campaign and if you ever purchase beer, liquor, cigarettes, red meat, Kraft cheese, or Hostess Twinkies (or attend a boxing match) the Brady bunch will report you to the State Attorney's office which will revoke your personal firearms possession license, then immediately indict you for unlawful possession.

Reasonable restrictions on ammunition will limit you to buying or reloading one box of 50 or fewer cartridges in any 13-month period. Of course you'll have to order cartridges or components 3 months in advance since both bullets and cases must be individually engraved with your Social Security Number plus a unique serial number and the propellant must contain 1% taggants marked with your personal firearms possession license number. Anyway, you won't need much ammo because you will be reasonably restricted to firing it at the state's (only) licensed shooting range, where range staff must count and log by serial number all of the ammo in your bag on the way in, and again on the way out, so the State has a reasonable record of which cartridges you fired lawfully.

During warrantless surprise inspections of your licensed gun safe you will have to produce all unfired cartridges which State records indicate you ought to possess. If any are missing you will be presumed (rebuttably, of course) to have fired them unlawfully. You will be tried on one count for each missing component (case, bullet, propellant charge, primer) of a cartridge, for each day it was missing (that is, since it was last logged by personnel at the (only) State-licensed shooting range, unless you confess to unlawfully firing it or leaving it where a child could take it on a specific date prior to the date the inspectors discovered you could not produce it) but the maximum penalty for each count will be just 360 days, so you will not be entitled to a jury trial-- none of the "missing ammo" charges against you will be "felonies," even though the penalty upon conviction on all counts will be decades in prison.

There is no end to the parade of "reasonable" restrictions antigun fanatics will dream up and write into law. As soon as an appeals court lets any restriction pass as "reasonable" the underlying Constitutional right has been thrown down the cloaca maxima.

If none of this seems terribly important to you, I would venture that you are probably not a gun owner, and while a certain level of disinterest is understandable, I, of course, think that all Civil Rights, the Natural Fundamental sort especially, are equally as important, and should be evenly applied, protected and honoured, for all people, everywhere. PERIOD. If you will humor me, imagine that the right that is being regulated to increasing nonexistence is something like Free Speach, or the Right to Assemble, or to practice the religion of your choosing, and you might begin to see why i find this all very troubling.

After all, it was the doctrine of "permissible government nonfacilitation of the exercise of a right." which led us to these:

Havent seen one? Look for them, they are often behind chain link fences.

I think they have one at your local county fairgrounds...

Aniversary pt. 2

2009-04-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled;
Here once the embattled farmers stood;
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream that seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deeds redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

O Thou who made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free, --
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raised to them and Thee.

RW Emmerson

April 19th is an important day in american history, arguably the most American day of all of them. Commonly called Patriot's Day, all but now forgotten, and only an official holiday in Mass and Maine. I just thought id give a reminder to you of those who have gone before you, in this great country, that you might remember them, and learn from them.

I think John Parker, leader and Captain of the Lexington Irregular Militia can do a better job than I of explaining what happened the morning and afternoon of that April 19, 1775, so ill let him speak first, before i try and explain what those happenings meant, and mean, to you.

"I, John Parker, of lawful Age, and Commander of the Militia in Lexington, do testify and declare, that on the 19th Instant in the Morning, about one of the Clock, being informed that there were a Number of Regular Officers, riding up and down the Road, stopping and insulting People as they passed the Road; and also was informed that a Number of Regular Troops were on their March from Boston in order to take the Province Stores at Concord, ordered our Militia to meet on the Common in said Lexington to consult what to do, and concluded not to be discovered, nor meddle or make with said Regular Troops (if they should approach) unless they should insult or molest us; and, upon their sudden Approach, I immediately ordered our Militia to disperse, and not to fire:—Immediately said Troops made their appearance and rushed furiously, fired upon, and killed eight of our Party without receiving any Provocation therefor from us."

So, there you have it, thats the gist of it. But what were soldiers doing in Lexington, and why were they worried about irregular militiamen, plainclothes farmers who carried rifles once or twice a week, drilling in the town squares and in fallow fields?

Well, you see, by the mid-1700s the New England colonies had already begun a long legacy of self reliance and self government. Due to the great distance to the old country and its own government, they had been accustomed for generations to managing their own affairs, with little oversight from England. Because England had incurred a great deal of debt from its frequent wars with France, the British Parliament decided in the 1760s and early 1770s, to try to raise some revenue by taxing the colonies directly, something it had not done before. These taxes were not terribly burdensome, but a great many people were disturbed by the principle: the colonies had always governed and taxed themselves, and they resisted the idea of having to contribute to what they saw as an "external" government. When ordered by the Royal Governor not to hold a town meeting, the Boston representatives held it anyway. A local crowd harassing a group of young British soldiers was fired upon in what came to be called the Boston Massacre. For several years these tensions built and built, until they came to a head in the first few months of 1775.

Parliament had ordered the Port of Boston closed, a heavy economic burden for a major trading cente, and had ordered the towns to cease holding local meetings. Massachusetts was effectively put under military rule, but since there was only one major garrison, in the city of Boston itself, most of the people in the countryside ignored the orders and continued to act as they always had. They did, however, begin to collect arms and ammunition, and to reactivate their militia system that had fallen into disuse since the end of the French and Indian War a decade earlier.

The collecting of muskets, gunpowder, cannon, and other arms for use of the town militia was a violation of the orders of the military governor, General Thomas Gage. Gage was aware that these stores were being collected, and his garrison had carried out several missions to confiscate them in the months prior to April 1775. On one occasion, troops had successfully marched from Boston and captured a large supply of colonial gunpowder that was being stored in the nearby town of Somerville. This maneuver enraged the local population, as much because they had been caught off guard as because they had lost their powder. Determined never to let that happen again, the towns refined their elaborate system of alarm riders who were responsible for spreading word of troop movements throughout the countryside. The system was mobilized in February when another military force was sent by ship to the coastal town of Salem to seize a store of powder and arms. Advance warning to the local population allowed them to raise an intervening drawbridge and move the munitions away, and the troops arrived late, and left empty handed.

As the spring came, General Gage received orders from Parliment instructing him to take decisive action to put down the rebellious town governments and to capture those inciting the rebellion. In response to these orders, Gage decided to make another move into the countryside to capture the largest colonial munitions supply, the one at Concord in Middlesex County, about eighteen miles west of Boston. The plan was to move quickly soon after dark with complete secrecy, be at Concord by dawn to seize the supplies, and then return to the garrison in Boston by midday before the colonists could even spread word of what had happened. But the colonists were watching too carefully, and in the small space of Boston secrecy turned out to be impossible.

With advance warning of the government raid, the systems put in place after the Somerville raid sprung into action, from flags to rowboats to gunfire signals through the woods, by the time soldiers reached lexington, no sign of the majority of the muskets, balls and powder they were sent to seize was found. The town's civilian militia, numbering 38, expecting the british before dawn had gathered on the square, in formation, in the middle of the night. When the government soldiers arrived, shortly after dawn they drew a battle line across the green from them and they ordered the militia members to lay down arms and disperse. Some began to disperse at once, being outnumbered by nearly 130 men, but some hesitated, and none layed down their arms, simply walking off towards the town halls. The situation of course was very tense, and there was much yelling to disperse, lay down arms at once... etc, When, suddenly, without warning, and of unknown origin, a shot rang out. Whatever its origin, that first shot started the soldiers firing, without orders, into the dispersing militia. They were immediately ordered to cease fire, but it was too late. When the smoke cleared from those very few minutes of confusion, eight Lexington militiamen had been killed and nine wounded, some bleeding on the steps to their homes facing the green.

The soldiers, who werent quite sure what they were doing at this point, or what their main objective now was, having never been briefed before marching, grew increasingly nervous as they were now told they had to march another several miles to concord, reaching concord about 7am, even as millitia members and citizens gathered on the other side of the bridge having heard, no doubt, that something was afoot at lexington. Again the government soldiers found nothing of the majority of the muskets, balls and powder they were sent to seize. The larger and mostly immobile artillery pieces they were particulary eager to sieze at concord, and expected to find in the usual place, on or near the central green, had been whisked into predug holes in nearby fields and plowed over. As the numbers of those gathering near the bridge broke 100 armed men and women, the safety in numbers the military men had previously held began quickly to errode, as tensions built.

In the center of the town the government search parties set fire to some smaller gun stores they found, and the militiamen assembling near the North Bridge saw the plume of smoke and believed the troops were beginning to burn the town. They marched forward to the bridge positions held by the soldiers, and the troops again opened fire. The Militiamen returned fire, and several more were killed on both sides.

The government soldiers were driven back to the center of the town, and soon the entire force began to march back the way it had come, down the long road to Boston. Even as the regular army fled these citizen soldiers, word of the attack spread through the system of alarms and ready systems now in place. By the hour, more and more militia companies and citizens were arriving from the surrounding countryside, and the troop's retreat turned into a brutal route, a battle three hundred yards wide and eighteen miles long. At every turn of the road a militia company was waiting and fired into the soldier's ranks. The soldiers ordered out by General Gage were fired upon from many houses along the road, and in response their advance parties began burning nearly every building they came to. In the village of Menotomy, between Lexington and Cambridge, the fighting was especially fierce, and the exhausted and terrified British soldiers forced almost every house along the road and killed all the inhabitants.

About eight o'clock on the evening of the nineteenth, the column finally reached the safety of its own lines across the river from Boston. They had been marching for almost twenty-four hours, through the night, the last six hours under heavy fire, They had suffered more than 272 casualties, including sixty-five killed. The fighting civilians had suffered ninety-four casualties, including fifty killed. Twenty-three seperate towns had at least one member of their militia killed or wounded.

No one had called it, and even, perhaps, no one had known it at the time, but the American Revolution had begun. It began in these few new england towns, but soon, it would spread across what would soon be a new nation.

Within two days, 15,000 men from across New England had assembled and surrounded Boston, and the soldiers of the crown were never able to move more than a short distance off that small peninsula again. Three months later, at the request of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, a Virginian rode north to take command of that citizen army that had laid siege to the city. His name was George Washington, and the 15,000 New England militiamen became the American Army. Eleven months later, the garrison at Boston was evacuated by sea and was never seen in New England again.

In a day where news often took weeks to to travel even a few hundred miles, news of this battle spread at almost supernatural speed. By the evening of the nineteenth—the same day—the news of Lexington had reached New Hampshire to the north and Rhode Island to the south. Within four days it had reached New York City, two hundred miles away. By April 26th the news of Lexington had arrived in Baltimore, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia. New Bern, North Carolina, heard the Lexington alarm by May 3rd, carried via ship from Newport, Rhode Island. Wilmington, North Carolina, heard by May 8th, and Charleston, South Carolina, by May 9th, also from the sea. The Shenandoah Valley on what was then the western frontier received the news overland about the same time. And when it reached a far western hunting camp on another part of the frontier, the hunters decided to name their camp "Lexington." That camp today is the city of Lexington, Kentucky.

A forty-year-old Massachusetts lawyer named John Adams, who had been arguing for some time for a political separation from Britain, heard the news on his farm in Braintree that afternoon, and immediately went to see for himself what had happened. He rode that evening along the battle road for many miles, and saw burned out houses, groups of people burying the dead, and refugee families trying to escape farther into the countryside. Adams remembered that day's ride as a turning point in his life; it convinced him that "the Die was cast, the Rubicon crossed." Within a year he would be working with Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence, and would go on to become the second President of the United States. Thomas Paine in Philadelphia had previously thought of the argument between the colonies and the Home Country as "a kind of law-suit", but after news of the battle reached him, he "rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England forever." George Washington received the news at Mount Vernon and wrote to a friend, "…the once-happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched in blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?"

One of the men in Concord on the nineteenth was the town's minister, the Reverend William Emerson. His house that day became a sanctuary for frightened women and children trying to escape the fighting. More than sixty years later his grandson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, would write one of the defining pieces of American literature for a ceremony commemorating the battle at the North Bridge, that poem with which began this history.

"The fight had been the hinge," said the novelist Henry James, many years later, "on which the large revolving future was to turn."

As JAMES M. NICHOLS wrote in his own remembrance of those who fought at Lexington and Concord, in his history of the revolutionary war, in 1886:

It was one of those great days, one of those elemental occasions in the world's affairs, when the people rise, and act for themselves. Some organization and preparation had been made; but, from the nature of the case, with scarce any effect on the events of that dav. It may be doubted whether there was an efficient order given the whole day, to any body of men as large as a regiment. It was the people, in their first capacity, as citizens and as freemen, starting from their beds at midnight, from their firesided, and from their fields, to take their own cause into their own hands.

Such a spectacle is the height of the moral sublime; when the want of everything is fully made up by the spirit of the cause, and the soul within stands in place of discipline, organization, resources. In the prodigious efforts of a veteran army, beneath the dazzling splendour of their array, there is something revolting to the reflective mind. The ranks are filled with the desperate, the mercenary, the depraved; an iron slavery, by the name of subordination, merges the free will of one hundred thousand men in the unqualified despotism of one; the humanity, mercy, and remorse, which scarce ever deserts the individual bosom, are sounds without a meaning to that fearful, ravenous, irrational monster of prey, a mercenary army. It is hard to say who are most to be commiserated, the wretched people on whom it is let loose, or the still more wretched people whose substance has been sucked out to nourish it into strength and fury.

But, in the efforts of the people -- of the people struggling for their rights, moving not in organIzed, disciplined masses, but in their spontaneous action, man for man, and heart for heart, though I like not war nor any of its works, there is something glorious. They can then move forward without orders, act together without combination, and brave the flaming lines of battle without intrenchments to cover, or walls to shield them.

No dissolute camp has worn off from the feelings of the youthful soldier the freshness of that home where his mother and his sisters sit waiting, with tearful eyes and aching hearts, to hear good news from the wars; no long service in the ranks of a conqueror has turned the veteran's heart into marble; their valour springs not from recklessness, from habit, from indifference to the preservation of a life knit by pledges to the life of others. But in the strength and spirit of the cause alone they act, they contend, they bleed. In this, they conquer.

The people always conquer. They must always conquer. Armies may be defeated; kings may be over thrown, and new dynasties imposed by foreign arms on an ignorant and slavish race, that care not in what language the covenant of their subjection runs, nor in whose name the deed of their barter and sale is made out. But the people never invade; and, when they rise against the invader, are never subdued.

If they are driven from the plains, they fly to the mountains. Steep rocks and everlasting hills are their castles; the tangled, pathless thicket, their palisado; and Nature-God, is their ally. Now he overwhelms the hosts of their enemies, beneath his drifting mountains of sand; now he buries them beneath a falling atmosphere of polar snows; he lets loose his tempests on their fleets; he puts a folly into theIr counsels, a madness into the hearts of their leaders; and never gave, and never will give, a full and final triumph over a virtuous, gallant people, resolved to be free.

So, remember, this patriots day, lest these actions, and the lessons they beget, be forgot.

Set Bad Phoenix Cops on Fire*

2009-04-06T18:35:00.000-07:00

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn wrote in 1967 that "You can have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power."

Solzhenitsyn, of course is the Russian born, Nobel prize winning author who was arrested in 1945 for comments he made, critical of Stalin, in a letter to a friend, and was sent to the Gulags. He claimed the comments originally were "only jokes" but Solzhenitsyn, after his ten year experience of incarceration, was rarely joking in his writing as he became the worlds foremost critic of communist totalitarianism in the world, a feared and greatly respected man who's very words effected soviet policy for decades. A fire was lit in a young Aleksandr when he was arrested on unjust censorship charges, and in the end, that fire burned Aleksandr far less than his conviction burned the state which sought to punish him, and which he eventually outlived.

This is the principle of blowback, which has gained prominence in recent years after a book of the same name was published. The basic idea, both from a personal and intelligence perspective, is that meddling unjustly in other people's affairs, to help your own interests, is gonna come back to bite you on the ass. Not only is it usually quasi-illegal, it is so, because, quite frankly, its a bad idea.

But still, some people haven't learned yet, so id like to ask you to help teach them a very important lesson.

As JD Tuccille writes in his Examiner column here:

Perhaps the best publicity a critic of the powers-that-be can ever get
for his cause is to be the target of over-the-top official retaliation. That
automatically validates what the critic is saying while at the same time
massively expanding the audience for his message. So, in an odd way, Jeff Pataky
owes a "thank you" to the Phoenix Police Department for raiding his home and
hauling away computers and other material related to a Website and blog he maintains that focus attention on misdeeds involving the Phoenix PD.

Read the first link for the full story, and when you are done, especially if you live in the Valley of the Sun (as I do) spread the word about both the web page and the blog, and why you dont think that criticisms of public officials (especially crooked ones) is justification for deprivation of property, liberty, or any other sort of harassment. The more traffic that can be sent to both the website, and the blog, the more apparent that retaliatory violation of the constitutional rights of those critical of a public official is not just illegal, immoral, reprehensible, and generally wrong, but that its going to directly result in a complete backfire of the intended suppression, and a large updraft of public awareness.

Again, the links to the blog, and the webpage.

badphoenixcops.com
badphoenixcops.blogspot.com

I expect to see your posts linking to them shortly.

*I am in no way advocating the the torching of police officers, but rather, supporting the publics interest in promoting and visiting a site that explains why others sometimes do.

Taxpayer Clearing House.

2009-03-29T13:42:00.000-07:00

*wipes tear away.

Sirs, i salute you.

Think Green Limousine -- Update

2009-03-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

According to Reuters, they declined my sugestion of Hipocraton, and instead have dubbed the series of luxurious security vehicles "The Beast" at least one of which can now be seen daily in presidential service. (well, when he isnt taking the old family SUV which was still seen in service as recently as Feb, 28)

Id make some comments about the Book of Revelations here, but id just be labeled as some religious conservative nutjob, and besides, im really just waiting to see if it actually gets its power from a dragon, and can talk.

My, we do live in some interesting times, dont we?

All in all, not a bad name for an earth-eater, and im sure GM appreciates the business, I hear The state of Maryland recently paid $5.26 million for almost 15 acres of additional car storage space near this bridge, painted with a General Motors logo, near the Dundalk Marine Terminal at the port of Baltimore, to make more room for the 57,000 unsold new cars now parked there as GM lobbies the Canadian Govt for a $6,000,000,000.00 handout, and various European Govts for a measly $4,200,000,000.00 in "Operating Aid"

Meanwhile, somewhat closer to detroit:

Force Multipliers coming between Us and Them

2009-03-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the age age old question of "Cant we all just get along?" something always seems to get in the way, often our prejudices or ignorance, sometimes it is the avarice of evil men, or the duplicitous natures of nationalism, egalitarianism and democratization, whatever it is, somewhere, there is created in the minds of men an artificial construct called "Us and Them."

Here it is again:

(Click for full view)

From a here unnamed public forum comes this screenshot, which i think speaks for itself. (H/T to David Codrea for the image)

If you you wonder about the context, this was in response to this video, which i wont comment on here, but to say:

We have fallen a long way.

Some people seem to wish to drag us further into a land that is ruled by men, such as our friends above, men with hyperactive linguas and dormant cerebrums filled with boiled cereals and less than latent fantasies of violence, rather than a respectful world that is ruled by (honorable) law and natural rights.

Of course we must not let them, and if need be, we must destroy them, before they destroy us.

And that, my friends, is how we got "The Us," and "The Them," yesterday, today, and into the future.

God save us all from ourselves.

The Definition of "Working Hard" in Government

2009-03-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

From New York Times:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in greeting Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, presented him with a red plastic button emblazoned with the English word “reset” and the Russian word “peregruzka.”

The gift was a play on Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call in Munich last month for the two countries to “press the reset button” on their relationship.

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word,” Mrs. Clinton said, handing the button to Mr. Lavrov. “Do you think we got it?”

“You got it wrong,” he replied, explaining that the Americans had come up with the Russian word for overcharged.

“We won’t let you do that to us,” she said quickly, with a full-throated laugh

Jebus, and just think, these are the people in charge of our Diplomatic Relations with the second largest Nuclear arsenal on Earth, in the greatest period of global instability the world has seen since WWII.

As for "Working hard", thirty five seconds on google translate got me this:

And i dont have an $11,455,559,000.00 a year budget with which to, i dont know, hire one of the nearly 500,000 Russian Immigrants admitted to the United States legally since 1970.

Proving once again, that what the federal government spends Billions to do, could be done better by a 12year old with a laptop.

Now, im not exactly fluent in Russian myself, but i do know that Delo mastera boitsya. (work is afraid of a skilled worker)

Well, fear not, job at hand, these are the ones we put in charge.

Thats What We Need: More Debt.

2009-03-05T12:06:00.000-08:00

(Portrait of what some bankers hope is the American Dream)

The shortsighted and inherently self serving government cartels this week launched a program to spur lending for autos, education, credit cards and other nonsensical consumer loans by providing up to $200 billion in financing to investors for the purpose of extending and expanding the withering credit markets.

The program, dubbed the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, (TABS) was created by the Fed in conjunction with The Treasury Department. First announced last year, and existing separately from the huge "stimulus and bailout" packages passed in recent months by congress, (which incur huge amounts of Public Debt) the program has the potential to generate up to $1 trillion of lending for businesses and households (to encourage the accumulation of Private Debt) (if you have trouble understanding how a 200 billion dollar loan can equal 1 trillion dollars in lending liquidity, please watch Money as Debt, and you will quickly see that that is only the beginning, and that the actual amount will be much greater as those initial loans are deposited in other financial institutions)

Participants, consisting of companies and investors who will pledge eligible collateral to back the loan, most likely consisting of poorly rated securities that would otherwise be unviable in the free market, must request the new government loans by March 17. The Fed will then provide three-year loans on March 25.

While most of the financial witches den is a-twitter at the prospect of new funny money with which to expand credit and eventually (with interest) their own pocketbooks (at the cost of personal and business indebitude), some analysts fear that the program will be detrimental even for the financial industry's fleecing goals. Anil Kashyap, a professor at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, in a recent Breitbart Report, said "the program should make it easier for consumers to get loans, but cautioned that the Fed's involvement in this area could have unintended consequences elsewhere by making other debt securities not backed by the government less attractive to investors."

"We'd really rather the credit markets just work properly," Kashyap said.

Some more enlightened fellow replied that the credit markets haven't worked correctly in some number of years, and that he just wished the madness would end, and people would start taking some personal responsibility for their own expenses. "Working properly" would be working in a world where the amount of materials, plus the amount of labor going into a given good, would come near to equaling the value of the good, something that cannot exist in unsustainable and inherently unstable debt based consumption economy.

The Fed plans to keep the program running through December, but said it could be extended, which i have no doubt it will, along with many other programs and schemes The Fed has started or become involved with since aug 2007.

Total Fed lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time Nov. 6 2008 after rising by 138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since Sept. 14, when central bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren’t rated AAA (and therefore werent worth accepting as any real value.)

Fed lending as of Feb. 25 was $1.92 billion.

On Feb. 23, the Fed disclosed a breakdown by broad categories for $1.81 trillion of collateral pledged by banks and bond dealers (as of Dec. 17) after Congress demanded more transparency from the secretive banking cartel, which had been entrusted to oversee and dole out the last two Bailout measures approved by congress, (AIG and TARP) and then refused to disclose even the names of the people or entities receiving the congressional funds.

The largest portions of collateral being held by the Fed at that time were $456 billion in commercial loans, $203 billion in consumer loans and $159 billion in residential mortgages, according to the central bank’s Web site. It didn’t identify any loans or provide their credit ratings and said it will update the figures about every two months, hardly the transparency or accountability the congress asked for.

Government loans, spending or guarantees to rescue the country’s financial system total more than $11.7 trillion since the international war on non cartel ownership began in August 2007.

Much talk has been made, as of late, concerning the fraud that seems to have riddled the financial markets, and perhaps underpinned the current financial crisis, from the infamous Madhoff Scandal to allegations of corruption at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. While it is true that fraud does exist (on more levels than most care to admit) it is hardly the root of the problem today. (Nor is it the justification for the Mother of all Bailouts)

The people involved willfully misrepresented the facts for monetary gain, and are therefore guilty of fraud, but no one seems to be asking, "Did they have any choice?"

To have been honest in such a financial market would have been to commit financial suicide.

The fact is that the federal reserve system itself is inherently fraudulent, and provided, (in the form of Greenspan's infamous 1% interest rate, et al) the various incentives to commit that fraud, designed to balloon the economy back to life through increasingly thinly stretched derivatives of derivatives, to pay off an unsustainable and inherently unstable debt based consumption economy.

As i commented a few weeks ago on a story posted by WRS on financial fraud:

Its fine to point out that its just a shell game, and that these assets
were leveraged so far that they were essentially worthless, but you must
realize that you aren't the only one that could see that, including the
bankers that were buying those leveraged assets. The fact is, those assets
would not have sold on an open or deregulated market. The only reason they were
sold and resold (to such moral peril!) was that the incentive to do so was
dutifully provided by the Federal Reserve/Federal Regulatory Agencies with the
additional, bankable, implied backing of the full faith and value of the
American government.

The same thing has been done for years by the foreign branch of the Fed,
the IMF, and when those loans cant be paid back, (they weren't viable) what do
they do? they go to congress, and ask Americans to pay them off. Whats the
difference here?

That's where the value came from, and why those banks kept selling (and
buying)

American Government Interference, in addition to the inherently fraudulent
way that money is created, in the Federal Reserve System, is what gave those
leveraged assets continued value beyond what the market could honestly bear, and
is the source of ALL of the fraud we are seeing today.

As for Madoff, how is what he did any worse than what Bernake does every
day?

The same story continues here, this week, as The Fed, a secretive and private bankers cartel, uses more authority swindled from the American Legislative to prop up unviable and commercially worthless securities, that would be untradable at these values, with the FULL FAITH of the American People.

And what do the American people get out this arrangement? More crushing debt, grossly inflated prices, lower pay for the same amount of labor, and the sustainment of a doomed bubble that will only worsen the longer it is is prevented from correcting.

Good Job, im glad The Fed was able to solve that problem.

Its time for the American people to stop believing in The Fed, and start moving into a responsible future where history, and time is owned by those who make it.

Abolish the Fed.

Own Yourselves.

The Evil That Men Do: Willful Submission To Illegitimate Authority

2009-03-05T11:52:00.000-08:00

"Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery they may indeed wait for ever."
~ Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)

We live in tumultuous times that demand close attention to the yokes being placed on us. The US government is seemingly in the throes of a coup that is exponentially creeping and expanding into what was formerly a fairly autonomous province. Every sector and branch of human transactions that are palpable in this mortal coil is now being subject to regulation, taxation or both. With no authority whatsoever, entire swaths of American society are being subsumed under Leviathan State...

So writes William Buppert on the subject of compliance to illegitimate authority this week at LewRockwell. Its not a new problem, but one we dont always think of.

Read the rest here

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.*

2009-03-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

From John Robb over at Global Guerrillas we have this:

Resilient Communities JOURNAL:

Wall Street Icon Jim Rogers calls for Resilient Communities?

The legendary investor Jim Rogers (via CNBC), known for sniffing out global trends worthy of investment, lets loose: "I think it's astonishing, they're [the big bankrupt banks and their government enablers] ruining the US economy, they're ruining the US government, they're ruining the US central bank and they're ruining the US dollar...

You are watching something in front of our eyes, very historically, which is basically the destruction of New York as a financial center and the destruction of America as the world's most powerful country. The idea that you have too much debt, too much borrowing and too much consumption and you're going to solve that problem with more debt, more consumption and more borrowing?

These people are nuts.

Power is shifting now from the money shifters, the guys who trade paper and money, to people who produce real goods. What you should do is become a farmer, or start a farming network."

Posted by John Robb on Tuesday, 03 March 2009 at 06:06 PM

*- This advice comes from the less contemporary William Blake, i think it still holds value
H/T MVB

Your Fish are on Drugs!!!

2009-02-19T18:11:00.000-08:00

Or is it your government that is playing a bit too much with pharmaceuticals these days?

A few weeks ago I mentioned the FDA pulling from the market the most popular treatment for asthma, a serious condition that can effect one in four children in urban environments. Not specifically to sacrifice impoverished asthmatics, but to comply with a federal treaty signed in the late 80's

Now, the FDA has effectively banned a naturally-occurring form of vitamin B6 called pyridoxamine by declaring it to be a drug, reports the American Association for Health Freedom.
Responding to a petition filed by a drug company, the FDA declared pyridoxamine to be "a new drug."Now, any nutritional supplements containing pyridoxamine can be considered adulterated and illegal by the FDA, which may raid vitamin companies and seize such products. See the history of FDA raids on vitamin companies here:

http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html

Pyridoxamine occurs naturally in fish, chicken and other foods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B6), putting the FDA in the strange position of banning a substance from dietary supplements even though it is already present in the food supply.

Now it is obvious that banning vitamin b isnt the goal of the FDA, but just another great example of the great unmitable law of unintended consequences, and what happens when you give increasingly larger amounts of power to a giant bureaucracy that can so easily be tricked into only supporting the industry it was originally designed to keep in check.

From Natural News:

The FDA's war on Mother Nature
It's not the first time the FDA has declared a natural molecule to be a
"drug" while attacking nutritional
supplements that contain the same molecule. A similar story unfolded with red yeast rice and the lovastatin molecules it contains that lower high cholesterol. The drug companies engaged in biopiracy, ripping off the molecule from red yeast rice to make their now-famous "statin drugs." Once the statin drugs were patented, Big Pharma and the FDA went after red yeast rice, claiming the supplement was "adulterated with pharmaceuticals."

It wasn't really adulterated, of course. It just contained a natural statin-drug-like molecule that the drug companies copied and patented.

It would be like Big Pharma patenting vitamin C, then the FDA claiming that all oranges and lemons were adulterated with drugs because they naturally contain their own vitamin C.This is the insanity of the FDA as it operates today.
You can read more about the FDA on our channel website http://www.fdareform.org/ which is updated every few days.So will this ruling on pyridoxamine affect nutritional supplements? Yes, any supplements containing this form of vitamin B6 can now be declared "adulterated" by the FDA. Manufacturers of such supplements can be arrested and shut down for engaging in "illegal drug trafficking." Such is the nature of the FDA's agenda to criminalize nutritional
supplement companies and limit consumers' access to Mother Nature's
remedies. The pyridoxamine "drug," by the way (which is just pyridoxamine), is
designed to prevent the progression of diabetic nephrothapy (kidney disease).
Most likely, the FDA will eventually approve the "drug" for that condition, even
while claiming vitamin B6 supplements containing the very same chemical are
useless and insert.

This is another classic oppression tactic of the FDA: Ban the herb, but
promote the drug using the same chemicals. The same thing happened with ephedra,
a Traditional Chinese Medicine herb known as ma huang. The FDA banned the herb,
saying it was "dangerous at any dose," but pharmaceuticals containing the very
same molecules (ephedrine) are still being sold over-the-counter as cold
medicines, meaning they're available to any child without a prescription.The
bottom line is this: FDA approvals and bans have nothing to do with science and
everything to do with protecting drug companies profits. If a drug company can
make money selling a vitamin as a drug, the FDA will gladly ban the vitamin and
protect the drug. If a drug company can rip off molecules from Mother Nature and
patent them, the FDA will ban those same molecules found in nature.

All of this points to the urgent need to reform the FDA.

Sources for this story include:

AHAF:
http://aahf.nonprofitsoapbox.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=677&Itemid=
NewsFood.com:
http://www.newsfood.com/?location=English&item=55070
NaturalProductsInsider.com:
http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/hotnews/fda-nixes-pyridoxamine-in-supplements.html

Nearly 5 million Americans drawing jobless benefits

2009-02-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

From Reuters:

Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:43pm EST
By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers drawing unemployment aid jumped to a record high of nearly 5 million, the government said on Thursday, as a worsening economy made it increasingly hard to find jobs.

The data from early February suggested the 13-month-old U.S. recession was deepening, a conclusion supported by a report that showed factory activity in the country's Mid-Atlantic region contracted sharply in February.

"The data indicates an accelerated deterioration ... jobs are being lost and the pool of unemployed is growing faster," said Kevin Logan, senior U.S. economist at Dresdner Kleinwort in New York. "People cannot find jobs."

Read the rest here

And then read between the lines.

I dont know about you, but ive never collected Unemployment, even having been out of work for months, and im sure im not the only one, either the principled, proud, or foolish, many Americans can just not see themselves asking for a handout, when they just need a hand up.

Certain classes of contractors, in addition, and just as an example, are never eligible for unemployment benefits, and people who quit, for almost any reason, are unable to collect benefits, even if they are still eligible, or may not know if they are eligible. Add to this, the growing number of unemployment cases that are disputed (for whatever reason) by employers, many of which wont be pursued by the employees after the initial battle, even if they are eligible for the welfare program, and you will probably notice that 5 million isnt even the tip of the unemployment iceberg, no, dear sirs and maams, thats just the cost of the federal entitlement program, at an average of $292 a week, per person. (source: CNN)

Thats over 600 billion dollars a month, with no sign of slowing down soon.

Stimulie (Descriptive, not Plural)

2009-02-18T10:41:00.001-08:00

"See, when the Government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of Taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs." -- Dave Berry

Excuse me, Im looking for the Accountability?

2009-02-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/02/07/america/NA-US-Obama.php

What they say:

Key elements of the plan, which cover a vast range of federal spending, include:
$116 billion in infrastructure improvements; $88 billion in new funding for
education; $40 billion for the development of clean energy; $23 billion for
programs to help those most hurt by the economic downturn; and $14 billion for
healthcare, including $3 billion to jump-start a plan to computerize health
records.

What they mean:

Key elements of the plan, which cover a vast range of federal spending, include:
$116 billion in "Government Works Projects" which will not be held to any sort
of standard concerning real world cost/benefit; $88 billion to expand public
schooling's overbudgeted failures; $40 billion in R&D grants to major
corporations, with no guarantee of delivered products; $23 billion for the
expansion and creation of government welfare bureaucracies; and $14 billion to
nationalize and support the most expensive healthcare system in the world,
without attempting to raise its downward sliding standards.

Also included is a nice $15,000 taxfunded credit to anyone who will buy a house now, at the inflated prices, rather than wait for the prices to normalize.

This is a one trillion dollar (this year) package, when factoring in interest. That is, already, equivalent to all the discretionary spending in a typical federal budget year, (keeping in mind that the houses have been in session less than 25 days!) with no real sign of anyone pulling in the reigns, and even more frightening, very little evidence that it will do much of anything to undo the nearly 600,000 jobs lost in January alone.

With no accountability, the endless public projects and agendas march endlessly forward on endlessly increasing taxation while everyday people just try to make ends meet.

All for the ends.

Some people would sell their country, for the ends.

Breathless.

2009-01-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

Have i ever mentioned how much i hate federal legislation, or more specifically, non-representative bureaucratic regulatory rulings? (No Regulation Without Representation!)

This month there are a nice set of them, i havent had a chance to look at all of them, but the particularily nice ones involve "sacrificing impoverished asthmatics" and keeping kids from having toys from small manufacturers. Also, Bush signed in a Duty and Tariff Free extension for Israeli goods and products on dec 31,08. (eye roll)

Im serious, and hardly exaggerating.

In 1987 the Federal Government signed the Montreal Agreement, to limit certain types of propellants, particularily Chloroflorocarbons, from use to stop the growth of the Ozone Hole (remember that one? havent heard much about it in a while). they went after cars first, requiring a new (and patentedly expensive) refrigerant alternative, though they ignored the chemical fire extinguishers for quite some time, despite the fact that they actually vent directly into the air, instead of leaking slowly. Well, in the interest of further complying with this agreement, the Federal Food and Drug administration issued a short press release that read fairly simply: "Your Metered-Dose Inhaler is Changing to Help Improve the Environment,"

You see, the most common type of asthma treatment is an Albuteral Sulfate inhaler, with various drug companies selling an average of $190million dollars of them in the last few years, just in the US. As of January 1st, 2009, however, there are to be no new ones manufactured or sold, as the large drug companies are offering a CFC alternative inhaler (under patent, of course) and the old prevalent generics are no longer considered medically nescisary. Despite studies that show that many daily users will drop the use of their inhaler by 40%, sales of the new improved competition proof, higher priced inhalers are expected to jump to a staggering $450-500million dollars. The new inhalers are also harder to use, clog more frequently and dont last as long, which is a real concern for asthmatics like myself, that dont dose daily, but keep an inhaler on hand in case of emergency. Despite ardent presure to delay the ruling until a generic might be availiable, the FDA put its pen to the line, and in the words of Vin Suprynowicz, "Sacrificed impoverished asthmatics everywhere."

The second ruling of note is what resulted when americans so wisely asked their government to protect them from chinese toys laced with lead. (a real worry, im sure)
Never one to turn down an opportunity to expand its power, act it did. Here are some snippets from the article i read:

Lead paint spurred the recall of 45 million toys last year, mostly made in China
for larger manufacturers. Parents flocked to stores like The Playstore in the
recall's aftermath searching for safer alternatives.

Lawmakers also responded. In August, President Bush imposed the world's
strictest lead ban in products for children 12 or younger by signing the
Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

However...

Small toy makers strongly back the restrictions in the bill, which they say
reflect voluntary standards they have long observed to keep harmful substances
out of toys. But they never thought their products would also be considered a
threat....

And now...

Toy makers are required to pay a third-party lab for the testing and to put
tracking labels on all toys to show when and where they were made....

As a result...

Without changes to strict new safety rules, they say, mom-and-pop toy makers and
retailers could be forced to conduct testing and labeling they can't afford,
even if they use materials as benign as unfinished wood, organic cotton and
beeswax....

Although the law exempts products that do not threaten the public health, it is up to the Consumer Product Safety Commission to decide what those products are.

One European toy maker has already announced it will stop its exports to the
U.S. because of the law's costs and uncertainties. Selecta Spielzeug, a German
company, said earlier this month that it will stop shipping its wooden push
toys, games and other products to 1,200 U.S. stores after Dec. 31....

I don't want harmful levels of lead in children's toys as much as the next guy, but one has to keep in mind the dangers of running to the federal government to solve the problem. Now many of these small companies, who make products that do not contain any lead whatsoever, could be driven entirely out of business, or at the very least have to make drastic cuts to staff and product lines.

Meanwhile, the big companies causing the problem will continue to roll along - albeit with less competition in the marketplace. So, a law intended to tighten the screws on them has instead made them stronger. Once again, long-term effects of a policy and its consequences on those it wasn't meant for reap their ugly harvest.

Corruptissima republica plurimae leges

"There is nothing left here, not even our pride."

2008-12-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

The esteemed and incomparably valuable FerFAL would like to share the following story written about the Argentinian state in 2002, or, mayhaps, his intention is not to teach history, but to to warn us exactly what is at stake, in the United States as we enter 2009.

Please read it here.

Dangerous Instruments and the Gages of History

2008-12-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

"There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army."

--Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789.

We first talked about the decision to stray from hundreds of years of prudence and tradition, namely the stationing of active combat troops in the United States, back in September, before the battle-tested 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, (formerly in charge of running the Iraqi province of Faluja) was transfered to the command of NORCOM, The North American Unified Command, which itself is a fairly recent creation. Some time has passed now since the death of Posse Comititatus on October 1st, 2008, and the Washington Post has recently offered a hodpodge cut and paste of government press releases it is choosing to pass off as an article on the subject, that may illuminate what other steps lay in the future of a further militarized america.

You can read the whole article here, and id recomend it, but what really stuck me, and I mean struck me, laugh out loud hit me between the eyes, was right in the first lines.

The U.S. Military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United
States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a
nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to
Pentagon officials.

If you dont really understand what I found amusing about that, in a very sad, but unstiflable laughter, maybe i should explain myself as i know not everyone enjoys history as much as myself.

Consider the following:

In November of 1774, General Gage, the acting military governor of boston since his disbanding and outlawing of the provincial democratic government of that city, wrote a letter to the British Ministry stating that if he were to be able to subdue the rebellion and retain control of the colony, he would require, at the least, 20,000 troops.

Are you still with me? Hah. History does have a tendency to repeat itself, doesnt it... General Gage did not receive his 20,000 troops, and infact, nearly the same number of colonial militiamen, farmers and other free citizens, took the city of Boston, restoring its provincial government, after laying seige to it. We can only hope those who wish to "retain control" today will find themselves with like luck.

Of course, the numbers of free militiamen who might respond to a call such as that one that went out after april, 19th, 1775, if it went out today, is not known to me. i can only hope, that if any of them are reading this article, they might take a page out of the pentagon's playbook, and look to over trippling their numbers in the next 3 years.

As Jefferson also said: "Our duty is to act upon things as they are and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be."

III

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges

America's Defense Meltdown

2008-12-01T17:52:00.000-08:00

America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress

The Overburden of America’s Outdated Defenses

Lt. Col. John Sayen (U.S. Marine Corps, ret.)

Most of America’s military problems are not new. The most important problems can briefly be summarized as follows:

• Our military has broken its constitutional controls. Our Founding Fathers wanted no more than a very limited size and role for a federal military. They feared standing armies not only because they might be used against the American public, i.e. to establish military rule, but also for their potential to involve us in costly foreign wars that would drain our treasury, erode our freedoms and involve us in the “entangling alliances” that George Washington warned of in his farewell address. At that time our armies were composed mainly of state militias that the president needed the cooperation of Congress and the state governors in order to use. Today, we have one large all-volunteer federal Army, which for all practical purposes responds only to the president and the executive branch. It has engaged in numerous foreign wars, involved us in many entangling alliances, drained our treasury and eroded our liberties just as our Founding Fathers foresaw. It has enabled the president to take the nation to war on little more than his own authority. The recent repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 allows him to unilaterally use the military not only against foreigners, but against the American people as well.

• Our military is inwardly focused. This is to say that it focuses on itself and its internal concerns, rather than looking outward at the world and reacting to what occurs there. This is partly a consequence of domestic politics, which determine the military budget, and partly due to a climate of intellectual laziness and complacency that prefers the glories of the past over the unpleasant realities of the present and future. This has made it very difficult for us either to produce or implement a realistic grand strategy or to adjust to changing realities, particularly the emergence of Fourth Generation War (4GW).

• Our military is very expensive. The “official” budget will soon hit $600 billion per year. This approximates the military budgets of all other nations of the world combined. Some have argued that this amounts to only a few percent of our gross national product (GNP) and that it should be increased. One might reply, however, that the military budget might instead be determined by the military needs of the nation (the determination of which requires looking outward at potential threats) more than an arbitrarily determined portion of its economy. Also, the real budget is much higher than the official one. The official budget does not include the Department of Homeland Security or Veterans Affairs, both of which are really military expenses. The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are paid for by offline “supplemental” budgets so they are not included either. If one adds these costs the budget climbs to about a trillion dollars. It absorbs much of the government’s discretionary spending and has contributed significantly to the depreciation of the dollar.

• As our military gets more expensive it gets smaller and less capable. Although the current military budget, even adjusting for inflation, is the highest since World War II it buys us only modest forces. At the height of the Reagan military buildup in the 1980s the U.S. Army had 18 active divisions. Yet today, with a higher budget, it has only 10. At the height of the Vietnam War the U.S. military maintained over 500,000 men in Vietnam besides a substantial force in Germany under NATO. It fought an enemy with more than half a million men under arms that had armor, heavy artillery, and even small naval and air forces. The North Vietnamese were also receiving assistance from both the Soviet Union and Communist China. Today, it is all the U.S. military can do to maintain 140,000 to 150,000 troops in Iraq and 30,000 in Afghanistan, where they fight enemies whose combined strength (after Saddam’s fall) seldom if ever exceeded 30,000. Unlike in Vietnam these enemies have no air or naval forces, no modern heavy weapons, little or no formal military training, and no outside support. This dramatic decrease in U.S. capabilities should be no less astonishing than the simultaneous increases in the budget. Worse, the strength of the forces we have is eroded by the skyrocketing costs of new weapons. It has resulted in a shrinking inventory of aging weapon systems only a fraction of which can be replaced because their replacements are too costly.

• Our military is not professional. That is to say its officers, especially the senior ones, are poorly educated in the military profession. U.S. Army training in mechanical skills such as flying an airplane or repairing a truck compares very well to similar training in foreign militaries. However, true comprehension of why things are done as opposed to how to do them, is usually deficient. This makes it much harder to deal with the unfamiliar and unexpected. This in turn relates to the military’s inward focus already referred to. It is easier to focus inwardly on the familiar than outwardly on the unfamiliar. This follows a long American tradition of commissioning officers at the last-minute (usually when a war is just beginning) based largely on civil education and social status, and then giving them training not unlike that of enlisted recruits. Subsequent promotion depends more on politics, social skills and personal ambition than on military and leadership skills. This has left us with a military that has a leadership that has never really learned to “think” in its own profession. Such leaders find it difficult to devise sound strategy or offer advice to their political superiors that they can clearly explain and justify.

__________

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/a_little_thanksgiving_holiday.php

End The Fed

2008-11-22T08:28:00.000-08:00

I am not affiliated with or involved in the following, but I thought I should share it with those who are interested in ending the money as debt cycle which invariably results in the total confiscation of all wealth, and the pillaging of an entire planet and resources, including the human ones. The Creature from Jekyll Island is an insidious beast, and it looks as if someone intends once more to try and put a stop to it. I, for one, wish them luck.

On the night of November 22, 1910, a group of bankers met at an elite resort at Jekyll Island, Georgia.

So began the dark conception of the Federal Reserve System, which many economists argue is responsible for devouring the political and financial wealth of America. The U.S. Dollar has seen a better than 98% decline in its purchasing power since that time.

G. Edward Griffin summarizes here: "The purpose of this meeting on Jekyll Island was...to come to an agreement on the structure and operation of a banking cartel. The goal of the cartel, as is true with all of them, was to maximize profits by minimizing competition between members, to make it difficult for new competitors to enter the field, and to utilize the police power of government to enforce the cartel agreement. In more specific terms, the purpose and, indeed, the actual outcome of this meeting was to create the blueprint for the Federal Reserve System." From "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin

On November 22, 2008, ninety-eight years later, End the Fed! will announce the initiation of a grassroots, unfunded, transpartisan citizens movement for Sound Money with rallies at every Federal Reserve Bank and office in the country. Activists will demand an end to private banker control over the nation's money supply and the return to a hard, commodity backed monetary system. Their slogan is simple and direct: "End the Fed! Sound Money for America!"

End the Fed! activists believe that the Federal Reserve Bank, through its inflation of the money supply and the distortion of free markets resulting from its intervention, is responsible for the current financial and economic crisis. They also hold that the current round of "bailouts" and federal government nationalization of large segments of the financial sector further inflates the US dollar and disrupts the proper functioning of the markets and will ultimately serve to plunge the nation into an even more severe crisis, quite possibly even into a serious depression.

End the Fed! supports the passage of Representative Ron Paul's legislation which would repeal the Federal Reserve Act, H.R. 2755.

Rallies will be held in the following 39 cities:

Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Baltimore, Charlotte, Atlanta, Birmingham, Jacksonville, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Little Rock, Louisville, Memphis, Minneapolis, Helena, Kansas City, Denver, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, San Antonio, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Washington, D.C.

The End Begins November 22nd

To sign up for End the Fed go here:
http://www.EndTheFed.US
To find your local ETF group and November 22^nd Rally:
http://www.endthefed.us/organize.php
http://www.RestoreTheRepublic.net
http://endthefedusa.ning.com

Its A Hybrid

2008-11-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

In addition to the funds the Fed Gov is giving Detroit for the development of new Hipocritons, the 25 or so billion dollars of taxpayer money the automotive industry already received, Congress will consider monday handing out another nice fat chunk of "Change".

H/T Chris Horton

Think Green - Limousine

2008-11-13T08:24:00.000-08:00

While riding along the campaign trails in his happy hybrids, Candidate Barack Obama had alot to say about the worlds need for a universal CO2 tax, stating that such taxes (which will raise consumer prices, and allow the rich to purchase indulgences to continue on their jet-setting ways and further the developmental poverty divide) "are essential to reverse runaway climate change and avert resulting severe weather events, inundation of coastal areas, spread of diseases, failure of agriculture and water supply, infrastructure destruction, forced migrations, political upheavals and international conflict."

But now it looks like the next President will be rolling in a much dirtier limousine, and a much less green version than either our current president or any of his predecessors. the New York Times reported last week, rumored Obama-mobile is a brand new souped-up, up-armored limo that looks like a Cadillac DTS but is actually based on GM's line of heavy-duty 2500 trucks, which received the lowest rating possible on the EPA's federal scale of "green", getting single digit gas mileage, and emitting a staggeringly high 16 tons of Carbon Monoxide per year.

Of course, those figures don't take into account the significant (and unknown) additions in weight from all the security and safety measures that have also been tacked on to what is most likely at least 6 Presidential Caddies and Decoy Caddies for codename "Renegade". These (and we are speculating here, based on presidential presidence, as details of defenses are not revealed) include 5 or more inches of bulletproof glass over each of the windows, ceramic/metal armor plates in all body panels, steel overlaps on the doors, reinforced chassis, aircraft tie downs, a large battery bank, radio and communication system, cell-phone-jamming equipment, a very impressive Public Announcement system, a bank of fluorescent lighting, and a steel run-flat system.

I might have missed something there, not to mention any performance upgrades they might have ordered to augment the 2500's stock near 400 horsepower. (there is also speculation that it might be a diesel, but even the use of bio-diesel wouldn't reduce the CO2 Emissions.)

While I think the President's safety is important, I would like to point out that arbitrary fuel mileage regulations are precisely why the stellar highway safety ratings of the 60's sedans declined to the crushed can ratings of your typical tin roller skate today. Rather than let the market develop modern, more technically efficient, cars, the federal government mandated more economical cars, now!, forcing manufacturers to cut weight to use existing technology to achieve goals that were in most cases not set by automotive engineers. Where is the easiest place to cut weight, for an automotive manufacturer? Support Structure. with half the weight, the Governments goals were met, but you, the consumer, were left with little to no choices on how safely you wanted your family to travel.

Legislation is rarely the answer to such problems, and it rarely solves them, instead imbalancing the natural development of improvement and inovation.

Also of note, the GM 2500 series was the platform upon which the Autobot Ironhide from the Transformers movie was built, while I doubt this particular limo will "Change" into anything but the beastly monstrosity it is, if it did, id guess this transformer might be a Decepticon, or the here-to unknown Hipocraton. (unless you count Al Gore's limos in the same catagory.) At least, you know, the taxpayers will pay for his carbon offsets, so they can afford less of their own for silly things like getting food to market, or getting to work.

When asked for Comment on his new Presidential Wheels, a cheerful Presidential-Elect replied:

Well, when I'm the president:

You know what I'm gonna do?
I'm gonna get myself a ~~1967~~ New Cadillac ~~El Dorado Convertable~~ DTS
~~Hot pink!~~ Black!
With whale skin hub caps,
An all leather cow interior,
And big brown baby seal eyes for headlights
YEAH!

And I'm gonna drive around in that baby
At 115 miles per hour Getting one mile per gallon
Sucking down Quarter Pounder cheeseburgers from McDonalds in the old-fashioned non-biodegradable Styrofoam containers
And when I'm done sucking down those grease-ball burgers
I'm gonna wipe my mouth with the American flag
And then I'm gonna toss the Styrofoam containers right out the side
And there ain't a Goddamn thing anybody can do about it You know why?

'Cause I got the bombs, that's why!
Two words:

Nuclear Fuckin' Weapons
Okay!?

Ohweohweeohbama

Election Results Are In

2008-11-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

And the winners are...

Not you.

Election Day, 2008

2008-11-04T07:13:00.000-08:00

100th post, and i hope everyone has a safe and fruitful election day.

I hope everyone out there is able to vote with principle, without constraint of ideology, and makes it home safe, knowing that they picked the right things to support, not the most popular.

Ill leave you today with a post from WRSA and hope everyone remembers that their work here is not done the minute after they walk out of the polls. There's something important at stake here, today, and every day hereafter.

Commenter Phelps in reply to Knox the ~~Younger's~~ Lesser's bleat:
"What I want to know is, where are the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Adamses and Hancocks? Who do these Bozos think is going to lead the new America out of the ashes and back to its Constitutional glory, and why aren't these giants running for public office and leading the political revolution?"

Phelps:
The new Washington is doing the same thing the old Washington was doing -- running his business after an honorable but otherwise undistinguished military stint.

The new Jefferson is doing the same as the old Jefferson -- running a business, and taking up an epistolary hobby, only writing a blog this time.

The new Adams is doing the same as the old Adams -- pursuing a law career, with some part of it dealing with issues of state and freedom.

The new Hancock is doing the same thing as the old Hancock -- smuggling contraband (then, molasses for drugs, now probably the drugs themselves) and evading taxes and laundering money.

The new Franklin is blogging and publishing columns, the new Sam Adams is getting pressured by the local authorities about how to run his bar, and the new Paul Revere is reading this comment, and reminding himself to buy some more ammunition this weekend, just in case.

Let's roll.