MAGNIFICENT. Last time, New Hampshire was such a bitter defeat, this time, an incredible vindication;
Watch Ron Pauls Speech After New Hampshire Primary – YouTube.
Archive for the 'reference' Category
“…capitalism has been hijacked, and I’m infuriated. For capitalism to work, people who assume risk should reap the rewards of success, but they also must suffer when losses occur.” ~Leland H. Faust
In the 2008 implosion, the banks that were bailed out should have been left to go under – their assets stripped and sold, their officers indicted for fraud or driven out into the street, their profits disgorged, they and their children made outcasts, leaving them in the outer darkness,wailing and gnashing their teeth.
This, after all, is the basic moral logic of capitalism – success is rewarded, failure mercilessly punished. And this is EXACTLY what the politicians prevented from happening – all of them, except Ron Paul, who warned about it, and tried to stop it.
He was strong. He was himself. As Leaonard Read used to say, he didn’t “leak”. And ABC re-ran his best lines coming out of the breaks! MAGNIFICENT;
19
Nov
No Pornoscan, No Way
Michael Chertoff Can Kiss My Fat, Pale, Hairy Ass
In Atlanta yesterday, I “opted out” of the pornotron. An unhappy-looking middle-aged gentleman was summoned to give me my Federally mandated physical. Visibly uncomfortable, he did his ‘job’ such as it was, all the while being coached by a group of apparently low-intelligence, but senior “workers”. I felt sorry for the man.
A guy named Lloyd J. Hart proposes a list of DEMANDS the Occupy Wall St. protestors might make, assuming they succeed at, well, I’m not exactly sure what they are trying to accomplish, though I sympathize with the impulse. The demands are listed here. Iam going to take the bait and critique each demand;
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.
This is actually two or three demands, as far as I can tell. The first demand, a high, protectionist tarriff, has an easy answer – Mr. Smoot, meet Mr. Hawley ( from the US State Department website); “U.S. exports to Europe fell from $2,341 million in 1929 to $784 million in 1932. Overall, world trade declined by some 66% between 1929 and 1934.” Also a $20 minimum wage, which will have the immediate effect of rendering everyone whose marginal revenue product is less than $20 unemployed and unemployable forever, or at least as long as it takes for the stupidity of said law to become grotesquely apparent.
Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.
Actually, the only effect medical insurance would have in a completely free market for medical care is that people who have uncertainty about the likelihood of future major medical medical expenses purchase inexpensive catastrophic coverage, and the provider of said coverage makes a profit. Otherwise, everyone else enjoys cheap, freely-available healthcare, unburdened by the awful AMA and FDA.
Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.
Extends demand 1A to people who cannot or will not produce a marginal revenue product at all. As if subsidizing unemployment has ever done anything but create more of it.
Demand four: Free college education.
Already done. You can get the very best college education imaginable completely free ,well, almost. You have to have a computer and an internet connection to access MIT’s entire curriculum for free, on line. Beats the hell out of spending $250,000, and six years at a shitty state school, drinking beer and hooking up, doesn’t it?
Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.
Already well underway. The rise in price of fossil fuels (when you tease out Fed inflation) is moving slowly and steadily upward. Or, at least it would be without massive government subsidies to fossil fuel industries such as pollution permits, tax policy, and direct military intervention. Nuclear power has an even worse government subsidy regime. And as for current alternative energy policies, they only serve to subsidize old tech, are economically dubious at best, or, as in the case of Solyndra, ethanol, and other boondoggles cross the line into criminality and fraud.
Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.
Again, mostly done. the Obama Stimulus spent, what, $750 billion on exactly that. And as you can see, all of our pressing infrastructure needs are completely resolved.
Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.
7a) Give all federal lands back to nature and allow anyone to homestead them. 7b) End the TVA and BPA, here and all other monstrous Federal Dam authorities. 7c) End Price-Anderson, The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and all state Public Utility Commissions, and make the contractors who built them and the companies that run them fully liable for any damage to persons or property.
Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.
8a) Done, see the 13th amendment. 8b) Tried that, almost passed until women realized what a raw deal it was for them.
Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.
Easy enough. End the Drug War and the Welfare state, or at least put a time threshold on collecting benefits, say 5 years. Then an open border would be welfare-neutral. Small side-effect though – immigrants will work you out of a job, kinda neutralizes Demand 1A.
Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.
Not sure how this helps, when there is no real choice in US elections, but OK, I’ll give you that one.
Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.
11a) Forgiveness of sovereign debt – Well, finally a demand we wholeheartedly agree with! I didn’t consent to any politician running up a debt, I damn sure don’t want me, my children, or my great-great-great-great grandchildren held responsible to pay for Bush’s and Obama’s wars; 11b)Commercial loans already have a forgivenness provision, it’s called BANKRUPTCY; 11c) Ditto for individuals; 11d) I told you you can get a college education for free, why the hell did you take out crushing loans?; 11e) See 11a); 11f) Are you sh!tting me? Letting the BANKS out of their obligations? They have already been bailed out tho the tune of $TRILLIONS. You sound like a corporatist! I assume this was an oversight.
Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.
Tough to do, we do have a thing called the First Amendment.
Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.
DONE. Any worker can sign any paper at any time now. Oh, you mean then that an employer has to recognize said paper as a legal binding obligation on him under penalty of law! Um, that’s going to be difficult to do. There are a lot of unemployed people already who will not likely favor this idea once it becomes apparent that this will make unemployment worse.
These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.
A complete non-sequitur, but OK, let’s see how it pans out.
But come on, people, where is the radicalism? Where are the demands to End the Wars, End the Drug War, and End the Federal Reserve? Too busy grabbing socialist loot I guess.
That’s OK – Ron Paul has got you covered.
Is it, really?
Then let them try it, with no subsidies.
No monopoly distribution model.
No State PUC, NRC, or Department of Energy protection from competition.
No Price-Anderson Indemnification.
No carbon taxes.
No disposal subsidy.
No lawsuit protection or “tort reform”.
No EPA pollution “permits”.
No favorable tax treatment.
Build it on the market, or not at all.
Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly. – Forbes.
19
Aug
When I Was Seven…
…I would have traded my left eye for a bike this cool;
LOOK at the friggin’ MAG WHEELS, for one thing. HOLY SH!T!
But if you go by the idiots that post reviews of stuff online, it’s a cheap piece of crap;
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20250806100208AAUILrE
Is a 20″ Mongoose Rebel Freestyle Bike a good bmx bike?
“I was just wondering is this was a good bike because i have this bike and I want to start bmx. So yeah. And what are good brakes for this bike?
Please answer. Thanks “
Member since:
July 09, 2025
Total points:
856 (Level 2)
Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
“noo not good they suck if its from walmart or any other dept store so no it sucks its to heavy. a goodBMX bike costs like 900 and up get a haro only buy the bike at bike shops no where else”
Apparently, according to these geniuses, you have to spend $300 – $800 (and definitely NOT $130 at Wal*Mart) to get an acceptable bike for a SEVEN YEAR OLD.
SIGH.
I read this article on lewrockwell.com today, and was prompted to share my heartburn and reflux experiences;
I suffered from terrible reflux, and, eventually, ulcers. Here is what I discovered were my triggers, and why I think they affected me;
1) Colas and other sodas with phosphoric acid. I noticed that the large amounts of coke and pepsi I drank were associated with heartburn and reflux, but other sodas without phosphoric acid were not.
2) Cured pork products. I LOVE the taste of all the cured pork products, such as pork roll, bacon, scrapple, et al. All of them caused or exacerbated my symptoms. Convenience-store hot dogs are almost invariably pork, and would invariably cause reflux.
3) Lard in baked goods. I noticed that packaged baked goods containing lard (and probably trans fats too) gave me terrible hearburn.
4) Highly fatty meats. Philly cheese steaks and pork sandwiches were the next to go :o(
5) Coffee from a coffee truck. This one was a real mystery – I could not figure out why this gave me so much trouble, when coffee from home or a convenience store usually didn’t. I deduced that while the coffee makers in the convenience stores were likely cleaned frequently, the urns on the coffee trucks are difficult to clean, and so likely harbor heliobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes ulcers. (I still have yet to prove this theory, luckily I work in a laboratory that can help me).
6) Eating right before (or in) bed. Allowing time to digest the food and allowing acid production to subside decreased my symptoms tremendously.
7) Sleeping on my back. By switching to sleeping on my right side, my symptoms abated significantly.
8) Untreated ulcer symptoms. All of the above, plus a significant amount of personal and work stress eventually put me in the hospital.
9) Misdiagnosed ulcer symptoms. Major university hospital totally misdiagnosed my severe gut pain as appendicitis.One perfectly-pink appendix and 2 weeks later the symptoms returned.
10) After they returned, a visit to an old-school D.O. resulted in a prescription for prilosec, which along with avoiding all of my known triggers (and changing my work and personal situations) allowed my ulcer to heal.
And by mostly avoiding the triggers, I can even on occasion enjoy some of the forbidden foods (yum, scrapple!)
8 Foods that Cause Acid Reflux | Natural Health & Organic Living Blog.
The (insurgent) Campaign for Liberty (2008)
The term ‘insurgent’ has been used (and misused) a whole lot since about ten minutes after the officially announced ‘end’ of the Iraq War.
Lucky for us, the US Army Special Forces Counterinsurgency Field Manual
(the book that ‘Surgin’ General’ Petraeus is said to have ‘written’ on the subject)
contains, along with tips on how to win friends, subvert democracy and destroy due process in an occupied country, a handy field guide to three main types of insurgency.
One of these, in light of the end of Ron Paul’s Republican presidential bid, and the beginning of his new vehicle for change, The Campaign For Liberty, is pretty interesting;
“Foco Insurgency.
A foco (Spanish word meaning focus or focal point) is a single, armed cell that emerges from hidden strongholds in an atmosphere of disintegrating legitimacy. In theory, this cell is the nucleus around which mass popular support rallies. The insurgents build new institutions and establish control on the basis of that support.”
Except for the “armed” part (The Revolution has always been explicitly peaceful and anti-war) and the “establish control” bit, this essentially describes the new strategy – to establish a core group of liberty-loving people and to have them (democratically) infiltrate the current system so that they will be ready to liberate the masses when the corrupt, incompetent Empire falls flat on its face.
“The insurgents build new institutions and establish control on the basis of that support. For a foco insurgency to succeed, government legitimacy must be near total collapse. Timing is critical. The foco must mature at the same time the government loses legitimacy and before any alternative appears. The most famous foco insurgencies were those led by Castro and Che Guevara.”
Bad role models from a philosophical perspective, for sure, but in terms of strategy pretty relevant.
“The distinguishing characteristics of a foco insurgency are The deliberate avoidance of preparatory organizational work. The rationale is based on the premise that most peasants are intimidated by the authorities and will betray any group that cannot defend itself. ”
This part doesn’t apply, because this revolution is peaceful, democratic, and overt, the ‘counter-insurgency’ strategies to this will be completely ineffective. Unfortunately, many other CI strategies are already in place and are well-advanced;
“Restrictions. Rights on the legality of detention or imprisonment of personnel (for example, habeas corpus) may be temporarily suspended. This measure must be taken as a last resort, since it may provide the insurgents with an effective propaganda theme. PRC [Population & Resources Control] measures can also include curfews or blackouts, travel restrictions, and restricted residential areas such as protected villages or resettlement areas. Registration and pass systems and control of … critical supplies such as weapons, food, and fuel are other PRC measures. Checkpoints, searches, roadblocks; surveillance, censorship, and press control…”
You get the picture.
Apparently ‘Counter-Insurgency’ has become ‘Pre-emptive Counter-Insurgency’.
We have our work cut out for us.