Friday, April 30, 2010

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Architect Talks About Collapse of WTC

Dr. Laurence Vance on Drugs (he's not on drugs, he's just talking about them)

Arizona Turning Fascist

A Speech By A War Veteran

I DO NOT CARE ABOUT RAHIM JAFFAR OR HELENA GUERGIS

Every day I hear or read something about these two. I do not want to anymore. I do not care about them. Even if they did something illegal, let the RCMP take care of it. Leave it out of the news. There is no need for there to be a headline every day involving these two; there is no need for their names to be brought up on the radio. I spent my 15 minute drive into work this morning listening to a political talk show on CBC talk about whether it was right or not for Jaffar to be lobbying when he's not a registered lobbyist...I DO NOT CARE.

There are more important events occurring in the world right now on which our esteemed media should be taking time to discuss. Perhaps they could discuss the Conservatives attempt to pass the fascist Combatting Terrorism Act, in which suspects can be arrested without charge and have testimony "compelled" from them by a judge. Don't worry though, the liberals will defend our civil liberties...except Ignatieff has a bundle of academic work behind him at Harvard supporting such policies. He goes further to support "aggressive interrogations".

When you can't call it torture anymore, you know we're living in an animal farm....

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Friday, April 23, 2010

Obama's Private Army

Family Guy must have a Ron Paul supporter writing for it

Extremist Blames Man-Made Climate Change (or Global Warming depending on the propagandist you ask) For Eyjafjallajokull

I admit it. It is fully possible that the climate is changing due to the actions of man. Whether it is having a net negative or positive affect, whether it is a crisis or not a crisis, is hard to tell. Why? Because ass-holes like Alan Weisman are given space on mainstream news websites to write the following completely unsupported nonsense:
As they flow off the land, we are warned, seas rise. Yet something else is lately worrying geologists: the likelihood that the Earth's crust, relieved of so much formidable weight of ice borne for many thousands of years, has begun to stretch and rebound.

As it does, a volcano awakens in Iceland (with another, larger and adjacent to still-erupting Eyjafjallajokull, threatening to detonate next). The Earth shudders in Haiti. Then Chile. Then western China. Mexicali-Calexico. The Solomon Islands. Spain. New Guinea. And those are just the big ones, 6+ on the Richter scale, and just in 2010. And it's only April.
People like this, who have no data and only their own imagination to support their statements, give climate science in general a bad name to any individual who would like see real conclusions from real data. He clouds reality with his bullshit and anyone who believes climate change is a crisis should write this moron off, and if possible, tell him to shut the fuck up.

The Story Of Your Enslavement

Ron Paul on HardBall

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Saturday, April 17, 2010

High-Fructose Corn Syrup

Gluten-Free Labeling

Kathryn Muratore from LewRockwell.com:
I was pleasantly surprised when some of my students chose to investigate chemical basis for the claims of gluten-free foods for their class project. Despite my fascination with food labeling, I had absolutely no influence on these students’ choice of a research topic. Among the things that they learned was that the FDA gluten-related regulations appear to be worded so that any company with a good legal team can get around the laws. This has allegedly led to serious illness and death for celiacs. They also found that a consumer advocacy group has more stringent rules for getting their seal of approval on gluten-free foods than does the FDA.

This was a chemistry project, not a policy project, so we didn’t delve into these revelations further. But I hope it underscored for these students that the government is incapable of putting the safety of the consumer first. At the very least, it was another example for me to warn LRC readers about: if you are a celiac, please, please, please do your own research and look for private certification on your foods.

UPDATE: Readers are requesting more information. The Gluten-Free Certification Organization is the private advocacy group that my students researched. Also, Whole Foods – that libertarian enterprise that provides excellent products and customer service – has their own gluten-free line which they test in-house.

BJ Lawson @ Raleigh Tea Party

Interesting Conversation Today

I write this simply to share a bit of a conversation I had with a customer today, and so that I'll have a piece of it documented. I found the customer to be an extremely interesting individual.

Today at work I spoke with an individual, I'll call him Dave, who works very close to a high-level US government offical. He was actually calling for support from a department in the US government in regard to an issue that was affecting a Secretary of something. Once I discovered this, and we had a bit of time, I had to ask the question, "So Dave, doing the work that you do, are you very political?"...Dave is VERY MUCH into politics.

We talked for over two hours while waiting for certain tasks on his server to complete while troubleshooting his issue. Political conversations with my customers are very rare. Most individuals are very focused on the purpose of their call and I dare not attempt to stray onto something as divisive as politics without a very large opening. When I do, because of the underlying reason for the call (business), I always censor my approach to a topic and position my questions and statements very diplomatically. This always leads to a more pleasurable and informative conversation than when I enter these types of debates outside of work with individual I am more comfortable with.

During my conversation with Dave, this is what I learned about him:

Dave enjoys talking about politics almost as much I do; maybe more. Dave has met two presidents in his life-time: President Reagan and President Obama. Dave served in the marine corps during the 1980s. Dave worked for the DEA. Dave has worked for President Obama's transition team after the 2008 election. Dave is extremely involved with the Democratic National Committee. Dave is assisting the Democratic National Committee in regard to strategy for the 2010 House and Senate elections. Dave keeps three books next to his bed: the bible, the US constitution and a guide regarding the Marine Corps. Dave can recite the Constitution word by word. Dave has read all 2000 pages of the health care reform bill, twice. Dave generally disagrees with the insurance mandate and doesn't believe it will be enforceable. Dave does believe an individual has the right to health care, though Dave seemed to understand an individual doesn't have the right to the labour of another (once I brought this up). Dave likes Ron Paul and thinks Ron Paul represents the intellectual right in the United States. Dave also thinks that if Ron Paul had won the nomination of the Republican Party in 2008, and had Mitt Romney as his running mate, that Ron Paul would have beat Obama in the general election. Dave generally agrees with everything Obama has done so far and seems to have an unwavering support for the majority of Obama's policies, domestic and foreign (under the rationalization that Obama is doing the best that he can). Dave earns more working in IT for a government department than the average doctor (Dave's wife is an OB/GYN) earns. Dave lives in Washington, D.C. Dave is African-American.

Dave and I had a very interesting 2 hour political conversation.

Dave is part of the political class.

Conspiracy Watching For the Weekend

Copying is not theft

Jack Cafferty: Do You Hate The U.S. Government?

Friday, April 16, 2010

Justin Raimondo writes on Paul Sr's recent polling success

You can find the entire commentary here:
As I said in a recent issue of The American Conservative, however, I don’t think the prospects for a left-right alliance on the issue of war and peace are all that bright, to begin with because what used to be the left has essentially been absorbed into the Obama cult, and co-opted by power. In the end, all liberals really care about is getting their "fair share" of the spoils, for themselves and their supposed constituencies. So what if the price they have to pay is going along with mass murder in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan? We all have to die sometime.

I harp on Ron Paul for all sorts of reasons, but the one of most interest to my readers is the fact that he is by far the most successful antiwar politician in recent American history. Derided as being one of those dreaded "isolationists," and attacked even by some alleged "libertarians" precisely for that – and because he appeals to the common man – he not only insists on raising this issue, for him it is central to his analysis of what he calls the "Welfare-Warfare State," a phrase coined by the late Murray Rothbard. Dr. Paul’s diagnosis of a nation fast exhausting itself in an orgy of spending and militaristic adventurism has the stark ring of truth about it – an alarm bell ringing in the night.

When Paul and others first sounded that alarm, back in the early formative years of the libertarian movement, very few were heeding the call. We were looked on as eccentrics, and, for example, the libertarian enthusiasm for gold was viewed as indicative of our archaic perspective, put down as an ideological curiosity and nothing more than a "crackpot" notion and a bad investment. Today, of course, those libertarian doomsayers who said the crisis was coming have been vindicated – and all that gold they bought way back in the 1970s, and kept buying in spite of the disdain of more worldly investors, today adds up to quite a bundle. Which is one way to get around to saying that a great deal of Paul’s newfound political authority and credibility comes out of his having predicted the current economic downturn. Virtually every speech made in Congress, and wherever he appeared, was dotted with references to the coming collapse if we didn’t mend our ways. Well, we didn’t, and it’s here.

That’s one factor the learned Ben Smith, and the rest of the "experts" and media know-it-alls fail to take into consideration. What fuels the tea party phenomenon and the vast anger animating the American public at the moment is the series of bailouts: the banks, the auto industry, the government workers, the Afghan government of our erstwhile ally, Hamid Karzai, not to mention the Israelis, the nation of Iceland, and maybe even the Greeks, for all we know.

As ordinary people see their homes foreclosed, their jobs evaporate, and their savings disappear, the rich get richer – not because of capitalism, or even "socialism," as the tea partiers describe the Obama administration’s philosophy, but due to corporatism, as Ron Paul recently explained. Corporatism is, in essence, socialism for the rich, that is, for the benefit of certain big corporations over other big corporations, and a raft of would-be smaller competitors. That would seem to be a precise definition of what’s going on in the country today, one that fits nicely in with the left-right synthesis the Paul movement represents, and for which the country yearns. Paul sweeps the independents in the Rasmussen poll, with an astonishing 47-28. Add to this Paul’s appeal to what a recent Pew poll characterized as rising "isolationist" sentiment, and what you have is a new American majority based on the proposition that the US government should start minding its own business, both at home and abroad.

Rand Paul @ Tea Party on Tax Day



Thursday, April 15, 2010

Why We Fight Wars

Warning: Violence.

Gore Vidal on the US Empire



I don't agree with him on a few of the issues, but overall I enjoy listening to this man.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Rasmussen Releases 2012 Poll: Paul vs. Obama

I've highlighted to parts I find most telling. From here:
Pit maverick Republican Congressman Ron Paul against President Obama in a hypothetical 2012 election match-up, and the race is – virtually dead even.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters finds Obama with 42% support and Paul with 41% of the vote. Eleven percent (11%) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

Ask the Political Class, though, and it’s a blowout. While 58% of Mainstream voters favor Paul, 95% of the Political Class vote for Obama.

But Republican voters also have decidedly mixed feelings about Paul, who has been an outspoken critic of the party establishment.

Obama earns 79% support from Democrats, but Paul gets just 66% of GOP votes. Voters not affiliated with either major party give Paul a 47% to 28% edge over the president.

Paul, a anti-big government libertarian who engenders unusually strong feelings among his supporters, was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. But he continues to have a solid following, especially in the growing Tea Party movement.

Twenty-four percent (24%) of voters now consider themselves a part of the Tea Party movement, an eight-point increase from a month ago. Another 10% say they are not a part of the movement but have close friends or family members who are.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of all voters have a favorable opinion of Paul, while 30% view him unfavorably. This includes 10% with a very favorable opinion and 12% with a very unfavorable one. But nearly one-out-of-three voters (32%) are not sure what they think of Paul.

Perhaps tellingly, just 42% of Republican voters have a favorable view of him, including eight percent (8%) with a very favorable opinion. By comparison, 42% of unaffiliated voters regard him favorably, with 15% very favorable toward him.

Twenty-six percent (26%) of GOP voters think Paul shares the values of most Republican voters throughout the nation, but 25% disagree. Forty-nine percent (49%) are not sure.

Similarly, 27% of Republicans see Paul as a divisive force in the party, while 30% view him as a new direction for the GOP. Forty-two percent (42%) aren’t sure.

Among all voters, 19% say Paul shares the values of most Republican voters, and 27% disagree. Fifty-four percent (54%) are undecided.

Twenty-one percent (21%) of voters nationwide regard Paul as a divisive force in the GOP. Thirty-four percent (34%) say he is representative of a new direction for the party. Forty-five percent (45%) are not sure.

But it’s important to note than 75% of Republicans voters believe Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters throughout the nation over the past several years.

Police Brutality as UMD Students Celebrate Basketball Win



The attack starts around the 8:15 mark. The Washington Post's description of what occurred:
The video shows McKenna on the sidewalk as he skips and throws his arms in the air. He stops about five feet from an officer on horseback, the video shows. In the video, McKenna’s arms appear to be in front of him, but he does not appear to touch the officer or the horse. His hands, the video shows, are empty.

Two county police riot officers move toward McKenna, who backs up, the video shows. The officers rush in and strike McKenna with their batons, the video shows; McKenna is slammed against a wall and he crumples to the ground.

As McKenna is falling, a third county police riot officer strikes his legs and torso with his baton. The video shows the officers striking an unresisting McKenna about the head, torso, and legs.

US Massacre of Afghan Civilians

The video below is graphic. It is a video which displays the murder of Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh and several other Afghan civilians by the fire of a US Apache helicopter in Afghanistan.

As a Canadian, I continue to be astonished in regard to the un-wavering support my government provides the US as it continues to display complete disregard for human life.

Please not the nonchalant attitude of the soldiers. Very disturbing.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Top U.S. Catholic Church Leader: “Social Justice” Is Marxism

From Christopher Manion @ LewRockwell.com:
On Wednesday night, Cardinal Francis George, the Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, bestowed a “racial justice” award on a Chicago priest who celebrates Louis Farrakhan and foments hate against white business owners.

Cardinal George is the President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which lobbied strenuously for Obamacare (sans abortion funding) and is now heading a massive drive for amnesty for illegal aliens and reunion in the U.S. for their extended families. All this has been done in the name of “Social Justice,” until now a useful but elusive term, hijacked by the Catholic Left to confer a Christian character upon its political agenda . But Wednesday night Cardinal George — who is an avid advocate of “Social Justice” — admitted that it is Marxist:

“The temptation can be to work for justice apart from love, but then justice becomes itself a formula for oppression. Justice without love is destructive, as Marxist societies, founded on equality and social justice alone, teach the world.”

Cardinal George has a doctorate in philosophy. He realizes that envy and hate are the engines of Marxism, hence his emphasis on love. What he does not admit is that a government cannot love. As Saint Augustine explained on the first page of The City Of God, it is the city of man that is “ruled by the lust of rule” — the libido dominandi the lust for power at the center of the glorification of the state.. By definition, the city of man rejects love.

So finally, by the authority of the senior Catholic bishop in the United States, we know that the kind of government and programs sought by the Catholic Left in the name of “Social Justice” are by the Cardinal’s authoritative definition Marxist. We should be grateful for his candor.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

With a Republican president we might...

From Justin Raimondo's article Ron Paul vs. the Naysayers on AntiWar.com:
Youth naturally looks for a way to explain the way the world works, and the best of them seek ways to make it work better. To any young person looking for a comprehensive worldview these days, the intellectual landscape is nearly completely barren.

On the right we have the desiccated ideologues of neoconservatism, whose concerns are so far removed from those of any ordinary youth that their leading spokesman has no trouble writing off nearly everyone on the right under thirty, aside from those directly in Rupert Murdoch’s employ or somehow or other on the neocon payroll.

On the left – well, there isn’t really a "left" anymore, at least not one I find recognizable. Gone are the New Lefties who used to "solidarize" with the struggles of the Third World against colonialism: likewise, the Old Lefties who used to quote Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky are nearly vanished. In their place we have a "progressive" movement determined to force poor people to pay for health insurance they can’t afford. As Fafblog put it:

"As disappointed as we might be in Barack Obama – in his little failings, in his petty slights, in his odd betrayals, in his unseemly habit of dancing naked through the streets of Oslo smeared with the blood and entrails of Afghan children – we also know that the alternative would be far worse. Why, with a Republican president, we might be at war with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and possibly Iran, or facing some hideously draconian corporatist scheme to compel poor people to buy private insurance they can’t afford, with a government that not only excuses the torture regimes of the past but dramatically expands them while giving itself license to murder anyone it likes anywhere on the planet. With Barack Obama, on the other hand, we have all that plus a man who can sparkle wittily on late night television. Now, I think that has to be worth at least a couple thousand dead Muslims, don’t you?"

Friday, April 2, 2010

Authoritarian Unions

I'm constantly hearing France being referred to as having a rich history of unionization. You know what's not rich? When unions threaten violence to get their way. From rawstory.com:
"Workers at a French car accessories plant north of Paris threatened Friday to blow up their factory unless they were given better layoff compensation.

Employees at the Sodimatex plant placed petrol bombs near a large gas tank and were threatening to set them on fire."
Yea, pay me for not working or else! Of course this the home of people who try to get their way by kidnapping executives.

Why aren't these people being arrested for terrorism?

Gee. Wish I lived in France.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Marijuana Controversy In Nova Scotia

Yesterday afternoon, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court ordered the Community Services Department to pay for Sally Campbell’s medical marijuana. Sally Campbell suffers a number of ailments and had a certificate from Health Canada permitting her to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. Being on welfare though, Ms. Campbell cannot afford to purchase marijuana.

Ms. Campbell's case began in 2005 when the Community Services Department denied her initial request that it designate her pot as a special need and increase her monthly allowance to cover the cost of it. Despite recommendations from her family practitioner and a specialist, Ms. Campbell was forced to take her case to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

Headlines in Canada speak nothing to the headache caused to this woman over the past few years fighting this struggle, but only to the headache that will be suffered by Premier Dexter and the provincial government by the precedent this ruling may set. CBC.ca wrote "Medical pot decision worries N.S. premier", and the GlobeandMail wrote "N.S. medicinal pot ruling called a prescription for health care headache". The only neutral headline I could find was in the Halifax Chronicle Herald, "Court says N.S. must pay for patient’s marijuana".

There are several problems in this situation, but I'm going to begin with what's right in this situation, only because for some, I doubt its obvious.

The comments sections of the above mentioned articles are full of people deriding Ms. Campbell for being what one might consider a "welfare queen". There apparently seems to be a lot of people who feel Ms. Campbell is in the wrong and are appalled she is receiving medicinal marijuana for free.

Ms. Campbell is in the right. Anyone else in her situation would no doubt do the same thing. We're all entitled to take advantage of the opportunities put forward. She's in the right to expect that in a country that boasts health care for everyone, she need not be left out, no matter the cost that must be assumed by the province, no matter the headache caused to our esteemed NDP Premier.

Now, the wrong in this situation.

Medicine should be left between the patient and the doctor. If our government wishes to tax us and then provide health care, fine, but do not get involved with treatment. Treatment is not business of government bureaucrats. An individual's doctor has full responsibility in regard to recommending treatment, and in our system, the government has full responsibility in regard to providing the recommended treatment.

If the government doesn't feel it can trust the doctors, get out of the health care business.

At no time should Ms. Campbell have been subjected to a hearing of ignorant government bureaucrats when, as per CBC.ca, "The board said it didn't believe the benefits of medical marijuana have been scientifically proven." It is further disturbing that after this ruling, as per the Chronicle Herald, each applicant for medicinal marijuana coverage will be required to "appear before a special-needs hearing and prove that the marijuana improves their quality of life, works better than other medications and is essential to their health and well-being." That's right, if you're suffering from a painful disease and your doctor feels you require marijuana, you have to be submitted to the embarrassment of sitting in front of a group of bureaucratic leeches to justify the payment of your medicine. This is socialized health care at its finest.

And that brings us to whats really wrong with this situation. Socialized health care is rationed health care. Who rations it? The people that worry about paying the bills with the tax dollars they've taken from you. You see, our government and premier is more concerned about the cost this ruling will inflict on the government to perform its job than it is about the fact that its health care system didn't function well enough in the first place to provide Ms. Campbell her appropriate treatment 5 years ago. Ms. Campbell shouldn't be asking for an increase in her welfare checks to pay for pot, it should be covered by the Department of Health.

The following excerpt from the Globe and Mail puts on display our Premier's lack of concern for the well being of his sick constituents:
"An order to cover one may extend to other drugs as well," Dexter said Thursday. "The potential for the province to become liable for all manners of therapies, treatments outside of what coverage is normally provided is potentially there in this decision."

Dexter said the province must be protected from having to pay big bills as a result of the court decision, but he has no objections regarding the specific case.

"I'm concerned with the public policy question of how we fund the drugs that we have," he said.
Yes. God forbid the province be subject to paying big bills for providing the health care its promised to provide.

This could be much more simple. End socialized medicine and legalize pot. The government wouldn't have its troublesome health care bills to bitch about, and there would be such a high supply of marijuana around it'd be as cheap as water. If Ms. Campbell didn't have friends and family that would help her access her needed medicinal marijuana, I'd grow a plant just for her.

Revolution Tattoo