'Climategate': Cooking Data in UK Since 1990?

Keynesian Predictions vs. American History

The EU Says Jump, Sweden Says No. . .well, okay, I guess.

The fascist European Union issued a "directive" entitled the "Data Retention Directive" in 2006 requiring telecoms to store information about their customers' emails and telephone calls. Apparently the United States government isn't the only government in the west with a complete disrespect for an individual right to privacy.

The Swedish government has yet to pass legislation to enforce the EU's directive (I really hate that word).

Now this is where it gets really funny. In April of 2009, the EU decided to file suit against Sweden IN ITS OWN COURT (the European Court of Justice) for not passing legislation supporting the "directive". I wonder how the EU would punish a government that attempts to pass this type of legislation and fails (which is possible, because most of these countries are still kind of democracies even though they have essentially handed their sovereignty over to the EU).

The assumption of impartiality in the courts was funny enough, but there's a bit of a kicker. The obvious outcome of such a suit filed by the EU in its own court is that the court will demand Sweden's democratic government to pass legislation supporting the directive. It took the court a complete 9 MONTHS to publish their obvious decision.

Even when attempting to execute their fascist agenda, governments can't even do that effectively and efficiently.

The sad and depressing part is Sweden's response to the EU. The Swedish government conceded they would pass legislation supporting this "directive" on April 1st. I guess the Swedish people don't have a choice per a court in Luxembourg.

You can read about this in The Local: Sweden's News In English.

Prepare For The Worst

This is a 1 hour video of Ron Paul speaking at a Mises Institute conference The Failure of the Keynesian State in Houston, Texas last month. I've watched speeches from various Mises conferences like this over the past few years; the crowd in this one has to be the largest yet.

Southern Avenger - Denmark Vesey Was a Terrorist

The Student Movement to End the War On Drugs

India Nuts-Up and Defies IPCC. BRAVO!

The following is from the Telegraph.co.uk:

The Indian government's move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.

The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.
In India the false claims have heightened tensions between Dr Pachauri and the government, which had earlier questioned his glacial melting claims. In Autumn, its environment minister Mr Jairam Ramesh said while glacial melting in the Himalayas was a real concern, there was evidence that some were actually advancing in the face of global warming.

Dr Pachauri had dismissed challenges like these as based on “voodoo science”, but last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalised the IPC chairman even further.

He announced the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s ‘third ice cap’, and an ‘Indian IPCC’ to use ‘climate science’ to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.

“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. I am for climate science. I think people misused [the] IPCC report, [the] IPCC doesn’t do the original research which is one of the weaknesses … they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks.

My favourite line is definitely when the Indian environment minister Mr Jairam Ramesh said, "There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism."

Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration

The Sovereign Debt Crisis

Quote - Jay Leno

"Here is a historical fact. It was on this day in 1690, the first paper money was printed up in the colony of Massachusetts. The pilgrims realized that when they ran out of money, they could just print more. Thus, the federal government was born."

Jay Leno, February 3rd, 2010.

Of course, he forgot to mention the reason Massachusetts decided to print their own currency. Was it for "liquidity"? No. Was it to allow the money supply increase as the economy grew? No...somehow before central banking, economies grew without paper money.

It was for war. It was the first time in western civilization a government dropped a commodity standard and moved to paper currency and it was done to fund war. Just like it was done during the war of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, and then for good during the 1930s, after which the West has been in a perpetual war with the brown people of the world (Japan, North Korea, Vietnam, Iran, activities in Central and South America, Cuba, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan), all financed by paper money. After the 1930s, the US dollar was still linked to gold for the purpose of major transactions between central banks, but even this link was destroyed in 1971 by President Nixon. Why? War. The United States was unable to pay its debts for Vietnam in gold, flipped the bird to the world (specifically the French) and has continued on till now printing dollars as if they're gold.

Massachusetts used the paper money to pay off militias to come up to the Maritimes and rob us.

If you're pro-paper currency, you're pro-war. The easiest way to abolish needless war is to abolish the printing press and fiat currency.

Who are the terrorists?

Hamas, or the majority of Israeli's next door seething for Palestinian blood?

Why You've Never Heard of The Depression of 1920

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine Is A Tool

Glenn Greenwald tears her apart for saying the Constitution of the United States only applies to American citizens:

Over the weekend, Sen. Susan Collins released a five-minute video in which she sounded as though she were possessed by the angriest, most unhinged version of Dick Cheney. Collins recklessly accused the Obama administration of putting us all in serious danger by failing to wage War against the Terrorists. Most of what she said was just standard right-wing boilerplate, but there was one claim in particular that deserves serious attention, as it has become one of the most pervasive myths in our political discourse: namely, that the U.S. Constitution protects only American citizens, and not any dreaded foreigners. Focusing on the DOJ's decision to charge the alleged attempted Christmas Day bomber with crimes, Mirandize him and provide him with counsel, Collins railed: "Once afforded the protection our Constitution guarantees American citizens, this foreign terrorist 'lawyered up' and stopped talking" (h/t). This notion that the protections of the Bill of Rights specifically and the Constitution generally apply only to the Government's treatment of American citizens is blatantly, undeniably false -- for multiple reasons -- yet this myth is growing, as a result of being centrally featured in "War on Terror" propaganda.

If Man-Made Global Warming Were A True Threat, Why All Of The Lies?

Here are the latest lies from the IPCC, as reported in the London Times. Apparently the IPCC reported in 2007 that even a slight change in rainfall would wipe out "swathes" of rain forests. This claim was of course backed by...nothing. Oh, and three weeks ago the IPCC claimed that man-made climate change would cause the Himalayan glaciers to melt by 2035, which was again, backed by...nothing. Finally, the IPCC recently also claimed man-made climate change was causing an increase in natural disasters, and this was backed by...absolutely nothing. At what point does the IPCC become irrelevant?

Here's a snippet of the story from the London Times:

A STARTLING report by the United Nations climate watchdog that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its 2007 benchmark report that even a slight change in rainfall could see swathes of the rainforest rapidly replaced by savanna grassland.

The source for its claim was a report from WWF, an environmental pressure group, which was authored by two green activists. They had based their “research” on a study published in Nature, the science journal, which did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning. This weekend WWF said it was launching an internal inquiry into the study.

Danny Williams Flys to US for Heart Surgery

One can only imagine the reasons Mr. Williams did not obtain his heart surgery in a health care system ranked far higher than that of the US, his own.

From The Globe and Mail:

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams is scheduled for heart surgery in the United States, a move that throws into question his province's and his nation's health-care system.

A source confirmed to The Globe and Mail late Monday that Mr. Williams has left St. John's for an undisclosed destination in the U.S. to have heart surgery later in the week.

The 59-year-old Conservative left Monday morning, spokeswoman Elizabeth Matthews said, without disclosing his location. While some of his critics were tight-lipped Monday night, the online public questioned his exodus – why the care he needed was not available in Canada, or whether he preferred treatment in the U.S.

His departure for a U.S. hospital is being met with both sympathy and anger as few details have emerged.

Gov. Johnson addresses Republican Liberty Caucus in New Hampshire.

The Japanese Want the US Out

Read about it here in the DailyMail.co.uk. Here's a excerpt:

Thousands of protesters from across Japan marched today in Tokyo to protest against U.S. military presence on Okinawa, while a Cabinet minister said she would fight to get rid of a marine base Washington considers crucial.

Some 47,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, with more than half on the southern island of Okinawa.

Residents have complained for years about noise, pollution and crime around the bases.

A Tale Of Two Speeches

Southern Avenger: Welfare Is A Distraction

Despite Rejecting Government Help, Ford Pulls In $2.7 Billion In Profit Last Year

Read about it here.

DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford, the only U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy court, clawed its way to a $2.7 billion profit in 2009 and expects to stay in the black in 2010. It was the automaker's first annual profit in four years.

Ford's full-year revenue of $118.3 billion fell nearly 20 percent from 2008, but the Dearborn-based automaker benefited from cost-cutting, a $696 million profit in its credit arm and popular cars and trucks like the Ford Fusion midsize sedan and Ford Escape small SUV. It gained market share in North and South America and Europe, despite the worst U.S. sales climate in 30 years.

Me Want iPad

Medina on State Sovereignty

Debra Medina was Ron Paul's Texas field director during the 2008 presidential campaign and is currently running for governor in Texas. After the last debate, her poll numbers among republican primary voters jumped from 4% to 12%. She's running against incumbent Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Employer In UK Told She Cannot Discriminate Against Unreliable Workers

From the article at the DailyMail.co.uk:

So recruitment agency boss Nicole Mamo was especially careful to ensure her advert for hospital workers did not offend on grounds of race, age or sexual orientation.

However, she hadn't reckoned on discriminating against a wholly different section of the community - the completely useless.

When she ran the ad past a job centre, she was told she couldn't ask for 'reliable' and 'hard-working' applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable people.

Is this where we're heading?

Keynes vs. Hayek

Inflation

Crash Course: Chapter 10 - Inflation by Chris Martenson - The funniest home videos are here

Quote - Frank Zappa

"The illusion of freedom in America will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre."

Frank Zappa, 1977

Quote - St. Augustine

“Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a vast scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms?

A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of `kingdom,’ which is conferred on it in the eyes of the world, not by the renouncing of aggression but by the attainment of impunity.

For it was a witty and a truthful rejoinder which was given by a captured pirate to Alexander the Great. The king asked the fellow, `What is your idea, in infesting the sea?’ And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, `The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I’m called a pirate; because you have a mighty navy, you’re called an emperor.”

St. Augustine, The City of God

William Grigg in reference to this quote and a recent comment by Bill Clinton on LewRockwell.com:

Displaying uncharacteristic concision — and most likely without conscious intent — Bill Clinton offered a splendid summary of Augustine’s insight, updated for contemporary affairs.

During an interview published in the December 2009 issue of Foreign Policy magazine (which, like Foreign Affairs, is a journal written by and for the Power Elite, in which they extol their own supposed wisdom and goodness), Clinton helpfully defines terrorism as “killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority and go beyond national borders.”

By reverse-engineering this definition we learn that “killing and robbery and coercion” carried out with “state authority” isn’t terrorism; it’s public policy. We can also infer that the “war on terror” is not meant to bring an end to such violence, but rather intended to bring it within the compass of proper “authority.” That matter, in turn, is defined to suit the interests of whatever robber band happens to be dominant in global affairs.

The consistently insightful Chris Floyd, who brought this quote to my attention, adds another key element to the equation:

“Only those states which by their cheerful acceptance of America’s benevolent guidance and abiding friendship have proven themselves worthy can legitimately exercise their authority to kill, rob and coerce. All others must forbear – or else be branded `rogue states,’ purveyors of `state terror,’ which in turn makes them eligible for `the path of action.’”

"According to a George Mason University Study, George W. Bush presided over the largest dollar increase in regulatory spending in decades"

@ 2:02: "According to a George Mason University Study, George W. Bush presided over the largest dollar increase in regulatory spending in decardes".

Rex Murphy on Climate Change

Southern Avenger: Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, and the Tea Party Saga

Murray Rothbard On The Founding of the Fed

Minimum Wage Laws Destory American Samoa Economy

Can I Move To Texas?

20 to 30 Years of Global Cooling?

(For anyone who doesn't know, England is in the middle of a BIG FREEZE and that satellite image is real; not like the photo-shopped images Al Gore puts on the front of his books.)

You can read about the climate scientists who predict a 20 to 30 year period of global cooling here at The Daily Mail.

Here's the intro:

Britain's big freeze is the start of a worldwide trend towards colder weather that seriously challenges global warming theories, eminent scientists claimed yesterday.

The world has entered a 'cold mode' which is likely to bring a global dip in temperatures which will last for 20 to 30 years, they say.

Summers and winters will all be cooler than in recent years, and the changes will mean that global warming will be 'paused' or even reversed, it was claimed.

The predictions are based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

They are the work of respected climate scientists and not those routinely dismissed by environmentalists as 'global warming deniers'.

Some experts believe these cycles - and not human pollution - can explain all the major changes in world temperatures in the 20th century.

Fleet Foxes

Really enjoying this band right now; loving the vocals.

J.P. Morgan Profits From Food Stamps

I Pledge

Market St. In San Francisco, 1905.

Jim Carrey Wants To Save The Planet (An In Living Color Sketch)

One Happy-Face Cookie Maker Sues Another Happy-Face Cookie Maker

This is the problem with government recognizing Intellectual Property as actual Property.

You can read about it here.

Eat'n Park, a Pennsylvania bakery and restaurant chain, says it has caught Plano-based Cookies by Design selling smiley-face cookies that it says are "confusingly similar" to its own.

And it's suing.

Recognizing intellectual property is essentially guaranteeing the value of property for the alleged owner, as exemplified in this case. Eat'n Park is worried they will lose sales to Cookies by Design because they both use a happy face on their cookie. Losing sales = loss of value. Eat'n Park then takes Cookies by Design to court requesting that Cookies by Design be shut down to essentially protect the value of an attribute of Eat'n Park's product (the face with the perky smile).

Given that value of any property fluctuates bases on an endless list of factors, at what point does it make sense for government to play the role of protecting and sustaining the value of a piece of intellectual property? Never. No matter the prior investment, the origin, or the age of the innovation, the value (and therefore the intellectual property) should never be protected by government, if not for any other reason than it is impossible.

Property only exists because scarcity exists; because scarcity exists, property has value. Lets look at two different resources that are both valuable in use, but have very different values in reality: air vs. oil.

Air is very useful; in fact, so useful that if we ran out of air, humanity would cease to exist. The great thing about air is that there is an unlimited supply. Because air is unlimited, it is not scarce, and therefore has no value; it is not considered property. I cannot steal your air, I cannot use your air, I cannot sell your air.

Oil is also very useful; in fact, so useful that if we ran out of oil today, the human population could easily be cut in half due to starvation. We simply wouldn't be able to efficiently distribute food. The unfortunate thing about oil is that there is a very limited supply, and it takes time and investment to obtain. Because its limited and divisible, it can be owned, and therefore it becomes property. I can steal your oil, I can use your oil, I can sell your oil. In all cases you lose your oil; you lose property.

Ideas are like air in that they are unlimited in quantity. One person can have an idea, communicate it to another person, and then they both have same idea without the first person losing ANYTHING. Even without the communication of the idea, a million people could have the exact same idea all at once. In this case it would be indistinguishable as to who owns the idea. We look to government to make this determination, but why? Why should government have the role of labeling one person of the million as the owner of the idea while limiting the use of this idea by the other 999,999 people? In the end, isn't this protection of "intellectual property" simply a suppression of free expression which is the hallmark of any free society? Doesn't it also lead to the suppression of progress and innovation?

The perspective that one can own an idea has deep roots in our society and is not likely to change anytime soon, but every time some moron decides to sue someone for using their happy-face trademark, it should at least provoke a reconsideration of this perspective.

In the end, the protection of "intellectual property" is another example of the corporate sector mis-using government to protect themselves against entrepreneurs, small-businesses, and the little guy. That is a topic for another time.

President Of Iceland Attacked for British Stupidity

I love how the President of Iceland is attacked on the BBC for being undemocratic for forcing a public referendum before passing a law (the ultimate form of democracy).

The BBC media seem to be pretty pissed off at Iceland. Here's another video where the President of Iceland is being attacked:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOyAyw1aOww

I wonder, should the people of Iceland vote against the bill, will the British invade Iceland? Will they be labeled a nation harboring terrorists? Will sanctions be laid? How pissed off will the Dutch and English get?

For a little background, a private on-line bank, Icesave, went bankrupt at the height of the economic crisis. Dutch and English depositors were hardest hit. Their respective governments covered the losses of these depositors, which totaled over $5 billion.

Currently, legislation is being pushed through the Icelandic government to set stringent terms forcing the taxpayers of Iceland to payback the losses. The president, in a move that has seemed to pissed off everyone accept the citizens of Iceland, is forcing a referendum on the bill and this has gotten English and Dutch panties in a naught; probably because they know it won't pass.

In no way is Iceland's government, and the taxpayers of Iceland, responsible for the losses of a private bank. If the English and Dutch governments want to insure the deposits of a foreign bank, its their problem.

Update: This little commentary is simply to give credit where credit is due. It is in no way an endorsement of President Grimsson.

Helen Thomas: Why Do They Attack Us?

The Southern Avenger: Political Science?

Afghan Protest Signs Are Nicer Than Ours

Southern Avenger: A Decade Of Empire

Southern Avenger: The Scam Of Social Conservatism

U.S. Soldiers Are Waking Up

Quote - Hippocrates

There are, in effect, two things: to know and to believe one knows. To know is science. To believe one knows is ignorance.

Hippocrates

The Last Check Has Failed: The US Government Is A Rogue State

After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president’s fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a “suspected enemy combatant” by the president or his designated minions is no longer a “person.” They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever — save whatever modicum of process the government arbitrarily deigns to grant them from time to time, with its ever-shifting tribunals and show trials.

From here.

Peter Schiff Is A True Patriot

Christmas Weekend

Gary Johnson: The Next Ron Paul?

Southern Avenger: Person of the Year: Ron Paul

Bullion Is A Girl's Best Friend

How Government Competes

Corporatism

Lord Monckton Interviews Global Warming Activist Who Relies on FAITH

These people are just as dangerous as any other religious extremist.

Blair Publicly Displays Honest Disdain The Ruling Elite Has On The Poor

I often thought it funny, the left-wing complains about the right-wing capitalist policies big business push through government and the right-wing complains about the left-wing socialist policies liberal-elites push through government. The right-wing will fire back that those big business policies do not represent capitalism and are more in light with fascism or even socialism (not real capitalism); the left-wing will fire back that those liberal-elite policies are centrist and capitalist (not real socialism). Mean while, the ruling elites gain more control and we sit here watching, fighting back and forth about definitions. Well, that actually doesn't seem funny.

This paradox has led me to two conclusions: 1. The left/right paradigm is false and distracts the masses and even politically intelligent from the real issues. 2. The ruling elite might have disagreements and factions, but they do not reflect the left/right paradigm. Its more of a disagreement on how to properly control the people and direct them to their own interests, whether via the military industrial complex and war, or via climate change and taxes on CO2.

Despite the apparent disagreements, what I think both sides of the ruling elite do agree on is much more comprehensive. One perspective I'm sure they all share is a complete disdain for poor people as they share no regret for the harm and death their policies give to them.

As Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright did before him, Tony Blair blurted out a completely insensitive comment over the weekend making very clear the disregard the elite have for the people harmed by their policies while making it very clear this man should be put on trial for war crimes. From theRawStory.com:

In the absence of explicit UN approval, Blair justified the war on the basis of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and long-range missiles and its non-compliance with UN weapons inspections, in defiance of numerous UN resolutions.

The alleged chemical and biological weapons were never found, but Blair said he would have gone to war even if he had known they were not there.

"I would still have thought it right to remove him (Saddam Hussein). Obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat," he said.

He added: "It was the notion of him as a threat to the region, of which the development of WMD was obviously one, and because you'd had 12 years of United Nations to and fro on this subject, he used chemical weapons on his own people -- so this was obviously the thing that was uppermost in my mind."

Lord Christopher Monckton Tears Apart Man-Made Climate Change Activists and Copenhagen

Lord Christopher Monckton gave a very thorough interview on King World News over the weekend that completely tears apart the activists in Copenhagen; the activists negotiating and the activists on the streets. Listen to it here.

Monckton also announced over the weekend he is joining the UKIP with Nigel Farage in an effort to bring governance back to the people of the United Kingdom away from the European Union. He discusses the problems with the European Union in the second half of the interview linked above. An issue he ran into with free-range eggs is rather interesting.

Here's a clip of a speech he gave in the United States a couple of months ago:



Here's the full speech that he gave:

John Stossel Argues Against Global Warming

Our Christmas Tree

Ron Paul Was Right

MEP Nigel Farage on what is wrong with the EU

Letting Be

Peter Schiff debates David Epstein of Columbia University

This is certainly a debate worth watching. There are those in the audience that support either side of the discussion and both individuals are given great amounts of time to make their case and argue over the underlying merits.

Matt Taibbi: Obama's Big Sellout

I don't necessarily agree with solutions Matt Taibbi often promotes to resolve the issues he diagnosis, but his diagnoses are typically spot-on. Here's the intro to his latest diatribe on Obama and the Bankers...you can read the full article here:

Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.

Then he got elected.

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

How could Obama let this happen? Is he just a rookie in the political big leagues, hoodwinked by Beltway old-timers? Or is the vacillating, ineffectual servant of banking interests we've been seeing on TV this fall who Obama really is?

Whatever the president's real motives are, the extensive series of loophole-rich financial "reforms" that the Democrats are currently pushing may ultimately do more harm than good. In fact, some parts of the new reforms border on insanity, threatening to vastly amplify Wall Street's political power by institutionalizing the taxpayer's role as a welfare provider for the financial-services industry. At one point in the debate, Obama's top economic advisers demanded the power to award future bailouts without even going to Congress for approval — and without providing taxpayers a single dime in equity on the deals.

How did we get here? It started just moments after the election — and almost nobody noticed.

One aspect I didn't like about this piece: toward the end Taibbi goes on a mini-rant about the tea-baggers, which, even though deserved (as rants against ignorance is always deserved), it is misplaced. He accuses them as being the problem voter that allows Obama to get away with his misdeeds, but he's wrong. Its the apologetic liberal, the person that looks to Obama and thinks he'll eventually bring peace, help the poor, support the unions, and legalize pot, if only we just let him do his job. They are the problem. At least the teabaggers are protesting SOMETHING. Where are the left-wing peace activists when Obama sends 30,000 troops into Afghanistan? Where are the left-wing socialist activists when Obama is bailing out wall-street and leaving main street to fend for themselves? Some write about it, but noone is putting their feet on the street. They are the problem for the same reason the Christian right were the problem when Bush was president: they excuse all of the major fuck ups, rip-offs, and infringing on individuals because they've been fed enough propaganda to make them think that their president views life the same way they do, and that's all they need to have that warm and fuzzy feeling when they sit down at night and watch American Idol.

Glenn Greenwald: The Strange Consensus on Obama's Nobel Address

Reactions to Obama's Nobel speech yesterday were remarkably consistent across the political spectrum, and there were two points on which virtually everyone seemed to agree: (1) it was the most explicitly pro-war speech ever delivered by anyone while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize; and (2) it was the most comprehensive expression of Obama's foreign policy principles since he became President. I don't think he can be blamed for the first fact; when the Nobel Committee chose him despite his waging two wars and escalating one, it essentially forced on him the bizarre circumstance of using his acceptance speech to defend the wars he's fighting. What else could he do? Ignore the wars? Repent?

I'm more interested in the fact that the set of principles Obama articulated yesterday was such a clear and comprehensive expression of his foreign policy that it's now being referred to as the "Obama Doctrine." About that matter, there are two arguably confounding facts to note: (1) the vast majority of leading conservatives -- from Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich to Peggy Noonan, Sarah Palin, various Kagans and other assorted neocons -- have heaped enthusiastic praise on what Obama said yesterday, i.e., on the Obama Doctrine; and (2) numerous liberals have done exactly the same. That convergence gives rise to a couple of questions:

Why are the Bush-following conservatives who ran the country for the last eight years and whose foreign policy ideas are supposedly so discredited -- including some of the nation's hardest-core neocons -- finding so much to cheer in the so-called Obama Doctrine?

How could liberals and conservatives -- who have long claimed to possess such vehemently divergent and irreconcilable worldviews on foreign policy -- both simultaneously adore the same comprehensive expression of foreign policy?

Read the rest here.

Canadian Science-Fiction Writer Beaten and Arrested at US Border

Read about it here.

Not letting a journalist into your country certainly conveys an ugly smell (as we did with that left-wing activist lady...Amy Goodman I think?), but at least we did it politely and without harm; beating a man, throwing him wet and cold into a cell for three hours, arraigned and charged for a crime not committed without legal representation, and then released on foot, without a jacket, personal belongings withheld, into Ontario's first winter storm, is this not the markings of a fascist government?

Lew Rockwell: The Left Fell into the Climate Morass

It might take a while to sink in, but the global warming cause is on the skids. Two issues are taking the whole project down: it is getting cooler not warmer (and hence the change of the rhetoric to a vague concern over "climate change"), and the email scandal of a few weeks back proved that this really is an opinion cartel with preset views not driven by science.

Oh sure, people are saying that climategate is not really very serious and is only being exploited by Fox News and the like. And it's true that not all measures of global temperature show cooling and that the science can be complex.

On that basis, the New York Times urges us to ignore the outpouring. "It is also important not to let one set of purloined e-mail messages undermine the science and the clear case for action, in Washington and in Copenhagen."

Yes, a clear case. Come on. The whole political agenda of these people is now being seriously questioned. It is no longer a slam-dunk case that we are going to have world central planning in order to control the climate and protect the holy earth from the effects of industrialization. Oh, and tax us good and hard in the process.

But you know what is most tragic to me about this? This whole hysteria led to a fantastic diversion of energy on the left side of the political spectrum. Instead of working against war and the police state, issues on which the left tends to be pretty good, instincts were diverted to the preposterous cause of creating a statist system for global thermometer management.

Read the rest here.

Rand's Tea Party

Neil Reynolds @ TheGlobeandMail: Operation Audit: Fed up with a rogue central bank

For Congressman Ron Paul, the lonely libertarian from Texas who first championed an audit of the Fed, the committee vote was, in itself, a revolutionary declaration. First elected as a Republican to the House of Representatives in 1976, Mr. Paul has since drafted innumerable bills to audit the Fed - all of which his colleagues greeted either with indifference or disdain. This time round, it was different. In the 435-seat House, Mr. Paul signed on 320 co-sponsors, a remarkably bipartisan alliance with enough pledged votes to approve the proposed Federal Reserve Transparency Act.

Not often is Dr. Paul mentioned in the Canadian media. You can read the full article here.

Kucinich: Afghan War A Racket

Lieutenant Allen West: Congressional Candidate

I'm sure this guy is no Ron Paul, but its a pretty good speech.

Ron Paul: Imagine

Justin Raimondo: The Antiwar Right: Our Time Is Near

The political rationale for Democratic hawkishness is always that the Republicans will supposedly beat up on Obama and the Democrats in Congress if they show "weakness." With a strong anti-interventionist tendency in the GOP, the Democratic Leadership Council and its "centrist" allies will have to come up with a different excuse.

Yes, it’s true that politics in Washington is all about partisanship, and to be against this president and his programs is to at least call into question the conduct and motivating principles of his foreign policy – and anti-interventionists shouldn’t hesitate for one moment to take full advantage of this. During the run up to the second world war, Republican opposition to FDR"s strenuous (albeit largely covert) attempts to drag us into the European side of the conflict provoked antiwar sentiment on the Republican right. The group that came together to oppose the Rooseveltian program of war abroad and a highly-centralized, semi-socialist state at home – those we call, in retrospect, the Old Right – came from very disparate points on the political spectrum: the Hooverites, Liberty Leaguers, and Taft Republicans on the right, and on the left disillusioned old-fashioned liberals like the journalist John T. Flynn, and anti-war, anti-Washington Midwestern progressives, such as Senator Burton K. Wheeler, of Montana. Together, they built the biggest antiwar movement in American history, the America First Committee, which, at its height, had 800,000 dues-paying members, and a large activist contingent.

This is the model we should emulate when building a contemporary movement against our policy of perpetual warfare. It will take a broad-based coalition, one that spans the political spectrum and allows for a high degree of variety, to stand against the Empire. But if we’re going to have our old Republic back, it will be a battle worth fighting.

Read the entire article here.

Glenn Greenwald: My Friend The President

Over the past couple of days, Andrew Sullivan has linked to and published protests from various individuals who are quite angry that people "on the left" are being so mean to President Obama, and several of them are so upset that they have decided they are "leaving the left," whatever that might mean. What's most striking about these valiant defenses of Obama is how utterly devoid they are of any substantive points and how, instead, suffuse with weird, even inappropriate, emotional attachments they are. These objections are grounded almost exclusively in (a) a deep-seated conviction that President Obama is a good and just man who means well; (b) their own rather intense upset at seeing him criticized; and (c) a spitting ad hominem fury of the type long directed by Bush followers at any critics of their leader, and generally typical of authoritarian attacks on out-groups critics. Just marvel at some of this:

"Thank goodness people are starting to leave the left. Their abandonment of Obama is as unconscionable as the right's refusal to work with him. . . . This is about decency and working together to solve problems. . . . Obama is almost solitary in his desire and ability to tackle problems of epic proportion while realizing that we live in a very heterogeneous society. . . . The loud-mouths on the Left are becoming nearly as hysterical and vicious as those on the right. . . . I marvel (unhappily) on a daily basis on how myopic and stubborn many of those on the left have become in regards to President Obama. I wonder if any of these people have ever truly had to make hard decisions in their lives. Have they not ever had to weigh all consequences?. . . . These are real choices people, not a schoolyard fantasy, in which our guy, king of the geeks, is finally captain of the kickball team, and now he can pick us fellow geeks and play us all in sweet revenge against the jocks. He is not playing. He is leading. Not even one year in, I am willing to continue to trust his instinct, his grace, his patience and his measured hand. . . .These are the reasons I voted for him. Hope for a leader, not hope for "everything to be completely different from the previous guy regardless of the consequences", which is what I think many immature democrats are upset about. What a bunch of selfish babies. . . . The stuff coming out of "progressive" mouths is all too often on a par with Glenn Beck's abusive rants--both sides (right and left wingers) playing thousand-pound national football with the President as the ball--meaning, kick kick kick, until you bust his dick. This truly makes me sick."

These outbursts include everything other than arguments addressed to the only question that matters: are the criticisms that have been voiced about Obama valid? Has he appointed financial officials who have largely served the agenda of the Wall Street and industry interests that funded his campaign? Has he embraced many of the Bush/Cheney executive power and secrecy abuses which Democrats once railed against -- from state secrets to indefinite detention to renditions and military commissions? Has he actively sought to protect from accountability and disclosure a whole slew of Bush crimes? Did he secretly a negotiate a deal with the pharmaceutical industry after promising repeatedly that all negotiations over health care would take place out in the open, even on C-SPAN? Are the criticisms of his escalation of the war in Afghanistan valid, and are his arguments in its favor redolent of the ones George Bush made to "surge" in Iraq or Lyndon Johnson made to escalate in Vietnam? Is Bob Herbert right when he condemned Obama's detention policies as un-American and tyrannical, and warned: "Policies that were wrong under George W. Bush are no less wrong because Barack Obama is in the White House"?

Read the rest here.

Southern Avenger: Weather of Mass Destruction

Where's the outrage?

I open up theGlobeandMail.com and read the headline: "Greenhouse gases a threat to human health, U.S. agency rules". I think to myself, isn't heart disease and the over consumption of meat the greatest threat to our health? Cardiovascular diseases are the leading causes of death in the West. Where is the outrage toward that?

For those lemings who believe in man-made global warming, get upset about meat. The damage done to the environment at the hands of our consumption of meat is monstrous and we don't even need it. You'd kill two birds with one stone if this get-together in Copenhagen was directed toward decreasing the consumption of meat.

Anyway, who trusts any "U.S. Agency"?

Greek Government Acts to Repress Anarchists

The Greek government has arrested 101 individuals for no apparent crime prior to the violent protests today. Apparently this is just the first of many other planned crack-downs by the socialist Greek government on groups of anarchists:

The bourgeois media report that this is a first leg of an operation involving storming many anarchist havens around the city.

Well, thankfully Hayek was wrong in that socialism obviously does not lead to fascism. One of the linked articles also mentions:

10.000 cops are reported to be in operation in Athens for the prevention of riots.

Doesn't sound like a police state to me.

20,000 Lemings March Through London

Read about it here.

We really should stop man from polluting Mars and causing its northern polar ice cap from melting too...

Difference between bush and obama...

From here.

Southern Avenger: Obama Adopts The Bush Doctrine

Barack Obama: More Of The Same

From www.dailypaul.com.

The War On Kids

The New War President

Justin Raimondo's Obama’s War Speech: An Unconvincing Flop

Michael Moore's letter to Obama here.

Cindy Sheehan's 30,000 Wrongs Won't Make It Right

From MichaelMoore.com:

Obama: "We Did Not Ask for This Fight"
Bush: "We Did Not Seek This Conflict"

Obama: "New Attacks are Being Plotted as I Speak"
Bush: "At This Moment ... Terrorists are Planning New Attacks"

Obama: "Our Cause is Just, Our Resolve Unwavering"
Bush: "Our Cause is Just, Our Coalition [is] Determined"

Obama: "This Is No Idle Danger, No Hypothetical Threat"
Bush: "The Enemies of Freedom Are Not Idle"

Obama: "We Have No Interest in Occupying Your Country"
Bush: "I Wouldn't Be Happy if I Were Occupied Either"

Automatic Mario: Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now"

Automatic Mario: Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" - Watch more Game Trailers

One of FDR's Legacies Goes Broke

The FDIC is broke. If you're American, get your money out of the bank. Buy gold and protect your wealth. The government cannot do it for you.

Scientists Hiding Evidence of Global Cooling

Recently some hackers obtained 160 megabytes of email from scientists working for the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. These emails contain evidence of climate scientists attempting to hide or skew data that would prove damaging to global warming theorists. You can read an editorial in regard to this in the Washington Times here.

There is a lot of damning evidence about these researchers concealing information that counters their bias. In another exchange, Mr. Jones told Mr. Mann: "If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to anyone" and, "We also have a data protection act, which I will hide behind." Mr. Jones further urged Mr. Mann to join him in deleting e-mail exchanges about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) controversial assessment report (ARA): "Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re [the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report]?"

In another e-mail, Mr. Jones told Mr. Mann, professor Malcolm K. Hughes of the University of Arizona and professor Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst: "I'm getting hassled by a couple of people to release the CRU station temperature data. Don't any of you three tell anybody that the UK has a Freedom of Information Act!"

At one point, Mr. Jones complained to another academic, "I did get an email from the [Freedom of Information] person here early yesterday to tell me I shouldn't be deleting emails." He also offered up more dubious tricks of his trade, specifically that "IPCC is an international organization, so is above any national FOI. Even if UEA holds anything about IPCC, we are not obliged to pass it on." Another professor at the Climate Research Unit, Tim Osborn, discussed in e-mails how truncating a data series can hide a cooling trend that otherwise would be seen in the results. Mr. Mann sent Mr. Osborn an e-mail saying that the results he was sending shouldn't be shown to others because the data support critics of global warming.

Neil Young Sings "Fresh Prince" Theme

Muppets Sing Bohemian Rhapsody

The Dollar Bubble

Ron Paul on Afghanistan

Part 2

Rand Paul Is Wrong On Guantanamo

Today the following press release was issued from the Rand Paul U.S. Senate campaign:

“Foreign terrorists do not deserve the protections of our Constitution,” said Dr. Paul. “These thugs should stand before military tribunals and be kept off American soil. I will always fight to keep Kentucky safe and that starts with cracking down on our enemies.”

There are several things wrong with this press release and Rand Paul should apologize immediately for his mistake if he wishes to be a leader in the liberty movement. If he wishes to be a leader in the Tea Party movement, well, he probably struck the right chord. The difference between a Paulian and a Tea Partier might be slim-to-none to some, but for those who have followed Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Peter Schiff, Tom Woods, Thomas DiLorenzo, James Ostrowski, and Karen De Coster, it is understood that while some perspectives between the two groups on the role of government are similar, the difference in intellectual ability of a typical tea-partier and typical Paulian to support their argument is monstrous. Why? Because a Paulian is on a non-stop search for truth, no matter how inconvenient, while a tea-partier would rather make ignorant slogans that serve no constructive end while ignoring inconvenient truths. Rand Paul's quote is more the latter than the former.

Over the past 8 years the use of the word "terrorist" has been pounded into our heads by so many propagandistic politicians simply looking to get a head in the polls; it is hard to take seriously anyone who uses it, especially when the terrorist is someone who was taken away from his home, without charge, possibly tortured, and imprisoned for years against his will. I've been following Rand's senate campaign daily from up here in Nova Scotia and it has been very encouraging. Even if he loses, he will have won simply because he is continuing in his father's footsteps and educating his peers. The amount of work he appears to be doing has been substantial; all the more reason I felt like I was punched in the face when I read this quote.

All men are created equal. All men deserve protection from those who wish to do them harm and violate his inalienable rights. Therefore, these thugs deserve a fair trial, under the constitution the founding fathers wrote, even in its most weakest state. If they cannot be proven guilty, then they should be given the choice as to whether or not they can stay in the United States and live free (if you consider it free) or go back home where they were kidnapped from.

The lives of these men are not worth a few points in the polls. We cannot make the choice to sacrifice their freedom simply to elect someone that supposedly shares our principles.

The U.S. is suffering a huge divide in ideology right now and the liberty movement has a fantastic opportunity to grow because its principles are clear, consistent, and honest. Lets keep it that way and not muddy up our message with the use of neo-con speaking points.

The Southern Avenger: Selective "Hate"

Ron Paul: Gold, Peace, and Prosperity

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

The Southern Avenger - George W. Obama

Ron Paul on MSNBC

Ron Paul on Financial Fraud

The Southern Avenger: Which Way Alternative Right?

Revolution