Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Obama's 'License To Kill' Being Questioned By Congress

"Congress is finally standing up to President Barack Obama on targeted killing. Almost a year after three American citizens were killed in US drone strikes, legislators are pushing the administration to explain why it believes it's legal to kill American terror suspects overseas. Congress is considering two measures that would compel the Obama administration to show members of Congress what Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) calls Obama's "license to kill": internal memos outlining the legal justification for killing Americans overseas without charge or trial..."

Monday, July 30, 2012

Are You Next?

After 9/11, the government began encouraging local police, private security and everyday Americans to report so-called "suspicious activity" that may indicate a security threat. Taking photos of landmarks, walking "nervously" and writing in a notebook are all activities that have led to people being stopped and questioned. Could you be next?

The TSA, DHS and countless other security agencies have been established to keep America safe from terrorist attacks in post-9/11 America. How far beyond that does the feds’ reach really go, though?

...

Testimonies delivered in recent weeks by former employees of the National Security Agency suggest that the US government is granting itself surveillance powers far beyond what most Americans consider the proper role of the federal government.

...

In an interview with “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer, Drake said there was a “key decision made shortly after 9/11, which began to rapidly turn the United States of America into the equivalent of a foreign nation for dragnet blanket electronic surveillance.”

These powers have previously defended by claims of national security necessity, but Drake says that it doesn’t stop there. He warns that the government is giving itself the power to gather intel on every American that could be used in future prosecutions unrelated to terrorism.-NSA whistleblowers: Government spying on every single American

There's No Tomorrow

Wonderful animation on oil and energy alternatives...

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Ayn Rand's First Appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

via Against Crony Capitalism

Mitt Romney vs Ron Paul on Medical Marijuana Legalization

The evil statist (and lying, dirty, rotten crony capitalist) Mitt Romney, when confronted with someone who clearly has a medical condition that they say is helped by using marijuana for medical reasons, displays not the least bit of compassion for another human being. He instead gives his robotic response, as if he's not really listening (which he isn't) and shows himself without a soul, and as the lifeless ruling class machine (and ready enforcer of the almighty Federal Government's anti-human, anti-liberty "laws") he is...

Contrast Mitt the Loser (here's hoping he goes down to defeat at the hands of that other evil statist, Barack Obama) with the real, the compassionate, the true human being and genuine lover of liberty and opponent of big government, Ron Paul.

"I'm a sexy woman, so stop objectifying me!"

Why is it deemed perfectly okay for women to objectify David Beckham, while men who waggle their eyebrows at pretty young women are considered pigs?

Am I Sexist?

Why Shameless Objectification Can Be A Good Thing

She might have been 20. I am 58. She had long blond hair, and was wearing a short putty-coloured jacket, nude hose – I didn't think anyone wore nude hose any more – and a white miniskirt, trim but straining, tucked primly beneath her. My first sight of her felt like a light blow to the chest. Her body held my interest, but so did her decision to wear a miniskirt on a bike, along with her youth, her loveliness, even the fleetingness of the six blocks I kept her company – she turned right, and she was gone. We owed each other nothing. The inevitable backwash of guilt arrived, as all men know it does. I have a daughter her age. I am married but spent several minutes gazing at a pretty girl's backside. I could hear the charges: objectifier, perv, pig, man.-Why men can't - and shouldn't - stop staring at women

Anti-Natalism For Dummies/ Life Math


Video: Anti-Natalism For Dummies



Bonus video: Doug Stanhope


"God spared him that average 72 year sentence on this shithole planet."



"Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved." ~Mark Twain


It really makes no sense, whatever feeble explanation you put forth. I've heard religious "leaders" say dumb things like "We know he's in Heaven, but we're sad because we won't see him again until we get there ourselves." Bullshit! You're crying because you know it's all over, and that you'll never see that person again. Reality, when it strikes, overrides our indoctrinated fantasies.

All religions are proven an elaborate lie that attempts to hide the harsh facts of existence, proven by all the tears of "believers" shed on behalf of the dead. And not only do we cry when a loved one dies, we try to hold on to our own life, to this one life we can be sure is real, as long as possible. Look at the religious that flock to faith healers and shrines to be cured of terminal illnesses. Heaven awaits them, with its streets paved with gold, but for some reason, they're in no hurry to get there.

Life after death? Spirit leaving the body when it breathes its last? Resurrection? No one believes a word of it.

There is a way to end all this pain, this heartache, and that is to refuse to perpetuate it.

And Then the Darkness

what can i say

nothing

i've reached the point where

I am unable to write

but you can't be a writer if you can't write

can you

it's a paralyzing depression mixed with anxiety


the only temporary fix

is a twinkie or equivalent

eating doesn't help

eating junk relieves a little

and then the darkness


let's in a tiny little light


that's why i can't write


the boost doesn't last long enough


i just would rather lie


and read a book or watch


the umpteenth

Seinfeld  rerun


i talk a good game


in my mind


and know i will


write something real


but for now


i find it


impossible


to be me




Saturday, July 28, 2012

Friday, July 27, 2012

The Medical Establishment Kills 783,936 People in the United States Every Year

In the aftermath of the Aurora, Colorado Batman movie theater shooting, President Obama chimed in on the gun control debate yesterday, saying, "Every day, the number of young people we lose to violence is about the same as the number of people we lost in that movie theater. For every Columbine or Virginia Tech, there are dozens gunned down on the streets of Chicago or Atlanta..."

What he didn't say, however, is that every day 290 people are killed by FDA-approved prescription drugs, and that's the conservative number published by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Hey, Mr. Obama: Prescription drugs kill 6200% more Americans than homicidal shootings

Free Market Environmentalism

Apolitical

Mimi and Eunice

'Free Irwin' Road Show

Peter travels to Terre Haute, Ind. to visit his dad, Irwin, interviewing people he meets along the way.

www.FreeIrwin.com

Me Too!

I can be just like Ben Bernanke and the government and stimulate the economy by spending and pumping money into it. Just give me a printing press, too, then stand back as I help local merchants, car dealerships, and the depressed housing market!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Moving Jobs Out Of The Country

In the never-ending quest for higher profits at lower costs US jobs are being 'outsourced' overseas by the rich to slave labor costing pennies an hour.

via Alexander Higgins Blog

What to make of the Batman shooter?

If we were to listen to sociopaths like Michael Bloomberg or mass murderers like Felipe Calderon then the problem is that guns exist and the solution is to have the government violently take them away from all people... except of course the true criminals like the government, police and regular criminals who would never turn in their guns.

Some Questions About The Batman Shooter

We Are Not Going To Bar Refaeli...

...in fact, we'd like to invite her on our fishing trip.

More photos

Carl Sagan: Make the Most of This Life

Based on a comic at Zen Pencils

Ice T on Guns

"The right to bear arms is because that's the last form of defense against tyranny. Not to hunt...it's to protect yourself from the police."-Ice T

via The Libertarian Patriot

Bipartisan Support

Mimi and Eunice

Land of the Free, Home of the Poor?

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Potshots on the Faith Tribes

I just finished reading The Seven Faith Tribes by George Barna where he breaks down Americans into seven distinct faith groups after interviewing over 30,000 people.  Why seven? Probably because it’s in the Bible somewhere but then again everything is meaningless (also in the Bible, if you read the crap version that is NIV), so does it really matter?
Anyway, I’d thought I would take a look at the various faith tribes as Barna sums them up:
  • Casual Christians: by far the largest group coming in at around 66%, which is the number of the beast minus a digit.  And they certainly are a beastly group.  They have no real standards to speak of, other than to claim they are Christian without really understanding what that means and to not rock the boat.  In other words, they are a spineless, arrogant bunch who believe it is okay to bomb foreign Muslim children (because they are not Christian) and boo people like Ron Paul for pointing out that they should love their neighbor as themselves.  If most people are idiots, then they certainly are proof positive of this as they are the majority of Americans.  The mere fact that the NIV translation is the most widely used version also proves my point that this group is stupid.  They lack foresight and have no true understanding of their faith.  God prefers you sacrifice your children to Moloch rather than be what you are now (that is Bible as well).
  • Muslims: a small group in America, not exceeding 2%, this group is probably a very socially conservative group.  The only problem with this is that they vote Democratic, probably because the two Christian groups are such dicks about the social issues and see Muslims as stupid because they are Muslim (I don’t see them stupid for being Muslim, just stupid for being a person).  They also enjoy religious freedom in America but also want more government in our lives, which means they don’t want to enjoy religious freedom, just the oppression they would invariably suffer should their ballot desires come to fruition.   Generally though, Muslims have much in common with other socially conservative counterparts, which goes to show that you can vote without considerations for major social issues like the right to scramble a baby’s brain in the womb of its mother.
  • Jews: America has more Jews than any other nation on Earth.  I’m going to repeat that: America has more Jews than any other nation on Earth.  So despite having their own country, Israel, which would welcome all 6.5 million of them with open arms, they prefer to stay in this pit stain on the world.  It probably has something to do with their pride in being Jewish and how they are survivors or how the other races and religions are mostly gullible and stupid when it comes to financial matters.  Wait, that’s not fair to the Jews, because they do more than personal finance scams.  They also do a lot of comedy.  In any event, most, save the orthodox ones, don’t see their faith identity as a faith but more as a culture and family.  They are very welcoming to fellow Jews, which reminds me of a saying a Russian friend once said to me: “Don’t do business with other Russians”.  In any case, most Americans (see the first group) has some weird hard-on for Jews not realizing that they are just as idiotic as everyone else.  Also, they are the most unhappy group of all seven faith tribes.  And they make up about 2% of America.
  • Mormons: Mormons feature the largest number of converts each year.  They also feature the same rate of people leaving the Mormon church each year which means they never seem to get above about 2%.  So what does that tell you?  That they are evangelical failures?  That the only thing they have going for them, besides some idiot prophesying while staring at gold stones in a hat, is a good family life.  Which is also what Muslims have and what Captive Christians have and, to a lesser extent, Jews.   So really, all they have as a faith tribe that stands out is Willard Romney.  And he’s not a very good Mormon.
  • Pantheists: For some reason, George Barna didn’t want to make a miscellaneous category, so he instead called it a Pantheist category.  This is made up mostly of followers of the various East Asian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.  For the most part, they tend to live for the moment and appear to have no direction.  This was explain the conclusion that Buddha made, which is that life is an illusion and nothing really matters.  Of course, if you sit under a tree for as long as he did and do nothing with yourself, then you’re going to develop such a pessimistic and pointless outlook on life as well.  As for the group as a whole, they are about 1% of the population, so their vote doesn’t count and I don’t give a crap about their political views.
  • Skeptics: This is the group that either has no faith (atheist) or only entertains the ideas of faith (agnostic).  They are, however, the third largest “faith” tribe in America at 11%.  Generally, they are libertarian in their attitudes about life in that they seem to follow the non-aggression principle.  They tend to not make a fuss in politics, despite a few bad apples, but are more than happy to dismiss religion and blame it on all the woes of this world (everyone needs an enemy).  You will often hear them grip about how all religions start wars but I doubt they could name five religious wars and not even one that America has fought in.  They also tend to ignore the mass genocides that have been perpetrated by atheists in the last century and state that they were communists, not atheists.  I guess religion wasn’t the opiate of the masses after all.
  • Captive Christians: The second largest group which was probably George Barna’s way of keeping the number at seven and stating that not all Christians are “like that.”  They make up 16% of Americans and hold deep convictions in their own faith.  This translates onto their politics where they are suckered into voting for the biggest idiot to promise an end to abortion, among other social ills.  But like many other Americans, they forget that politicians are in the void category of faith and tend to be looking out for the handout rather than appeasing the dumb masses.  So despite having strong moral convictions and maybe trying to let those stand as an example of their faith, they instead show us their faith through their votes.
Actually in all seriousness, each tribe does have something to offer and we all have agreements on a variety of things as George Barna later writes about later in the book.  While I have severe disagreements with some of his ideas (like putting community before self), his observations are useful and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in finding out more about other faiths or their own (or lack thereof).
In any case, while I probably would fall into the Captive Christian category, I am personally disgusted with the political views of many of them, which is outsourcing moral conviction to the State, so I doubt I’d find much time to hang out with any of them.

Alex Schaefer's Chalking Protest

Artist Alex Schaefer chalking as his act of civil disobedience against the collusion between banks and state.-http://youtu.be/pKUHw5YLY4g

How to Stop a Massacre

This video reveals an astonishingly easy way to stop massacres in mere seconds. It requires:

* No police or 911.

* No taxpayer expense.

* Can be deployed anywhere.

* Begins working in as little as five seconds.

* Protects innocent lives

Spread the word: Concealed carry SAVES LIVES.-http://youtu.be/epZod2qyyN4

I Forgot To Take My Pill

You wanted original posts? Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for...

I am taking Warfarin for blood clots (in April I had a DVT and bilateral pulmonary embolism) and take a single tablet a day. I take it in the evening. I'm a forgetful person, so I have my alarm on my phone set for a daily 7pm reminder. The trouble is, I sometimes need another alarm set to remind that I heard the first one. It went off on time, but I was watching a Seinfeld rerun and decided to hold off for a few minutes before dragging myself out of bed and going to get my pill. I fell asleep instead. I woke up at midnight. Now, sometimes I forget if I took the pill or not, but tonight I knew I hadn't, went to get it, and swallowed it with a little water.

I was up so I thought I would bring it to your attention. This damn blog needs more original posts, after all.

Friday, July 20, 2012

U.S. Border Guards Torture Rape & Murder! America's Police State Is Completely Out Of Control

Death on the border: Fascist Border Patrol Agents

Welcome, Guns!

Right-wing Farmers and Left-wing Pigs

Those of us who mistrust the evolution of our current politico-economic system, often look toward dystopian novels to portray a warning glimpse of where we are headed. The two most common examples are 1984 by George Orwell or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. While there certainly are elements of each of these systems in our recent history, for instance, the deliberate maleducation and permanent warfare systems of1984, and the technological bread and circuses mentality of Brave New World. In reality our ruling class cannot afford to go too far in either of these directions, lest they undermine our own ability as slave labor to keep them empowered.
The progressive managerial class revolution and the banking mafia consolidation of the early 1900s conspired to create something that looks, more than anything else, like a warped version of Marxism. Taking Marx’s revolutionary mechanics and applying them against their own original objective in a sense, creating a dictatorship of the super-proletariat, and thus, forming a much more stable class system than before. In fact one might say that Marx’s greatest error was in thinking that the proletarian revolution would be some sort of endpoint in history, when in fact it was just one more cyclical change of hands. Therefore, I submit that the dystopian novel that was the most prescient was the lesser known of Orwell’s: Animal Farm.
Animal Farm was Orwell’s warning to the left about what he saw becoming a greater and greater danger. This danger can be summed up in his quote, “All animals are equal, But some animals are more equal than others”. The book was essentially damned with faint praise. Brilliantly written, yet more subtly than 1984, it could not be roundly thrashed by either right or left critics; but it could be put aside as an afterthought.
Looking at the history of what broadly constituted the labor movement arising in the aftermath of the abolition of chattel slavery, one sees a definite progression in the direction of Animal Farm, in the countries that did not fall completely under the spell of Totalitarianism. At first, the goals were often simple and quite egalitarian, and yet also surprisingly libertarian as well. Freedom for the working man from the oppression of the capital oligarchy (which was itself the result of the British/Hamiltonian system of neo-mercantilism) and the wage slavery which resulted from it. Even in the beginning however, there were many splits and threads. Some sought only the ancient protectionism revived and applied to labor as equally as capital. Marx called this “reactionary socialism”. But by and large, the movement began to gravitate toward the model of the IWW, at least for a short time. TheIWW was non-discriminatory and non-protectionist. Anyone who worked for a boss was welcome, and they applied pressure not to advantage some laborers against others, but as industrial unionists, as a unified working class front against all capital oligarchs. Over time this model of labor organization was growing more and more successful, yet also more and more internally fragile, as the new super-proletariat grew within the shell of the old proletariat, and the capital class began to scramble for new strategies and paradigms with which to defeat them. It was at this time also that Anarchism began to solidify as a political/social/philosophical movement, as a unified model through which this free labor movement could express its ideas. The IWW and its ilk were ostensibly apolitical, if not anti-political, but not officially anarchist. Several prominent members were, and many more were sympathetic to anarchism as a complement of their own movement.
The “progressive” movement of the early 1900s ostensibly sought much of the same “reforms” of working conditions that the apolitical labor movement did, but in a manner that was more amenable to the ruling class. As they grew more powerful, so did the more monopolist trade unions (once called craft unions), who were willing to compromise in order to make short term gains, at the expense of non-privileged workers.
The pigs had begun to diversify themselves from the rest of the four legged bunch. Of course the progressives and trade unionists still found a certain token opposition from hard line Hamiltonian capitalists who clung to the idea that they could simply convert chattel slavery into wage slavery and crush all opposition. But the force of the laboring class had shown most of the ruling class that those days were over. And in fact, this opposition proved exceptionally useful to the New Class forming up. They could position themselves as friends of the working man, albeit in a paternalist, technocratic manner. Their propaganda was the need for experts, rationality, control, to hold back “the excesses of the Robber Barons” and yet at the same time to guide the working class, to make them “efficient”, turning the language of the economists against their own original insights. And when the bankers engineered panic after panic, sacrificing their own lesser brethren in order to foreclose on vast tracts of land and corporate assets, everyone knew there had to be a Plan. And of course there were two. The “Aldrich Plan”, which openly consolidated the banking industry in the hands of a few private oligarchs. This was (rightly) harshly opposed and denounced, only to be replaced by the “Federal Reserve System”, which was de facto much the same plan, but even worse, because it integrated these oligarchs into the national currency.
It was the “progressive” President Woodrow Wilson who signed this act into law. It was the bankers who engineered the ability to wage World War I. It was this same progressive President who entered us into the war, who used the war as an excuse to destroy what remained of the more anarchistic industrial union movement, and its backbone of mutual aid.
Without the mutual aid programs of the free labor movement, the population on the margin of the sub-proletariat, the unemployed, disabled and other “undesirables” were completely at the mercy of the Government. It would be the technocrats who would decide whether or not they would eat or find shelter. All of these progressive, social democratic programs, create a class dependency that would not otherwise exist, necessary as they might be in a world with a crippled, sycophantic labor movement. They hollowed out the social force and class consciousness of the marginal sub-proletariat. No one dares bite the hand that feeds them, until they grow too desperate to do otherwise.
And so it goes on even today, with the “right wing” farmers and “left wing” pigs working hand in hand to keep the system going as long as possible. And sometimes, you can’t really tell who is who:

Summer arrives. Squealer is seen to take all the sheep of the farm aside, and no-one sees them for a week. The sheep eventually return. That evening, as the animals are returning to the yard from work, Clover is heard neighing excitedly from the yard. The animals rush forward to see what is happening. They stop dead when they all see what has startled Clover. It is the sight of Squealer walking upright, on his hind legs. At this moment, all of the pigs leave the farmhouse in single file, all upright on two legs. Finally, Napoleon emerges from the farmhouse, upright and carrying a whip.
It is the most shocking thing the animals have ever seen. It goes against everything that they have been taught up to then. Just as it seems that someone might object, the sheep break into a deafening chorus of “Four legs good, two legs better.” They went on for five minutes, during which the pigs walked briefly around and then returned to the farmhouse. The chance to protest is gone. Clover goes to the gable wall and brings Benjamin with her. She asks Benjamin to read for her what is on the gable wall. All the commandments are gone, and all that is written there now is “All animals are equal, But some animals are more equal than others.”
After this, the pigs and their sows start wearing clothes and carrying whips. They begin to have more direct dealings with the neighboring farmers. One day, the pigs invite a number of the local farmers to inspect the farm. After the inspection, the pigs and the farmers return to the farmhouse for a celebration. After a time, loud noises of laughter and singing are heard through the windows. The other animals are overcome with curiosity, and they approach the farmhouse to see what is going on. They look through the windows to see the pigs and farmers seated around the living room table, playing cards, making speeches and congratulating one another. Mr Pilkington makes a speech telling the pigs how impressed he is with Animal Farm, especially with the hard work and poor rations of the farm animals. Napoleon makes a speech in return, expressing his happiness that the mistrust between Animal Farm and the others is now at an end. He furthermore announces that the animals will cease to address each other as “Comrade,” and that “Animal Farm” will now revert to being called “Manor Farm.” As Napoleon finishes his speech to great applause, the animals outside seem to notice something changing in the features of the pigs, but what?
As the applause dies down and the card game is resumed, the animals creep away from the window. However, they hurry back when they hear a furious argument break out. The argument is because Mr. Pilkington and Napoleon have both played an Ace of Spades at the same time. But as the animals look from Napoleon to Pilkington, from man to pig and from pig back to man, they find that they are unable to tell the difference.” — Last Four Paragraphs of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad by Anna Morgenstern at Center for a Stateless Society published under Creative Commons

Gerald Celente - Gold Seek Radio

Thursday, July 19, 2012

blog of the moment: constructive destruction

king karl of the lowercase blogging kingdom has come close before, was rejected, then reconsidered, then rejected again. a poor fat man had a better chance at a dance than king karl, or so it appeared, until the veil was lifted from our eyes and the dazzling beauty of karl's mind was displayed in all its glory in the following post:

Extraverts are energized by interaction with others, so naturally the opportunity to interact with another gives them a reason to be happy. Thus, when being interrogated or interviewed by a "researcher" regarding preferences for human interaction and the happiness derived therefrom, the extravert will answer affirmatively in order to gain favor of the the immediate audience human, as well as the projected eventual audience of humans who may be interested in the "research." The extravert is biased toward declaring happiness, because that is both what the extravert wants to be true, and what the extravert is gambling on existentially: that every other human is extroverted, too, and is competing for the happiness maximum. Culturally, engaging with others and coming out on top is rewarded both implicitly and explicitly in America.

... Artifice, pretense and charade are rewarded in America, because Americans fear being "boring" or feeling bored. As a culture, Americans to a person despise "boring" things and people, and abhor being "bored." They demand excitement from the tiniest things.

And because Hollywood has told them they deserve and will receive excitement from such things as:

* A high-pressure job that creates pressure needlessly in order to keep high levels of tension among co-workers, to create an artificially competitive work environment based on fear of being 2d place. Like being Donald Trump's Apprentice, or a wannabe chef in some poncey Brit's kitchen.

A society created, blown up/grown/expanded/"progressed" by extraverts will naturally define the extravert view as the norm, as what's healthy, and will be suspicious of introverts, will expect introverts to do all the things the extravert does when behind closed doors.

American society labels introverts negatively because of this --

Categorically, extraverts are the more fucked-up human, and their obsession with "connection" to others (which always implies competition with those others, and a desire to be "best") makes them the more manipulative as well as more cowardly, while also being dichotomous about their powerful exhibitionist fetish. The dark human urges they can't really suppress successfully because they are so other-directed. They don't feel right experiencing ANYTHING alone. So anything done alone by anyone, it must be laden with the things that the extravert fears most.

Extraverts are the mass murderers, mass pedophiles, and organizers of social entities which work solely to promote and protect those violent sexual urges being given free rein.

American culture is run by such people.-sorry, but I don't like people

and so, though karl does capitalize the beginning of sentences, we here omit for dramatic purposes and in honor of non-conformity, the extroverted letters and name his blog our latest blog of the moment.

constructive destruction

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Rape Jokes: Two Views

I personally know someone who was raped. It devastated her. Years later, she still isn't her old self. I don't find jokes about the subject even slightly funny.

View One:

Bret Alan-Rape Jokes Are Still Funny

Some think that the rest of the world cares how they feel. I assure you: no one gives a shit how you feel, except you. Anyone you talk to about your feelings is only listening to be polite and internally wishes you would shut the fuck up. Those who listen patiently to you probably want something from you, either sex or for you to return the favor and sit through their boring bullshit, but they may just want money or a promotion. This is why you have to pay therapists: no one cares about you or what you think or feel.

None of us are interesting, no matter how many boring people we manage to get to read our blog posts. Trust me.

...

For those who don’t know, Tosh supposedly said it would be funny if a heckler got raped. At one point, I was conversing with someone who was convinced that what Tosh said was wrong, wrong, wrong. When I disagreed, they proceeded to tell me what they hoped a large man would do to my rectum while he held me down. This was after some normal, polite discussion where neither of us insulted the other. It kind of took me off-guard how stupid the comment was.

As you might expect, I wasn’t insulted… I laughed, and it was the best rape joke I had heard in a while.

How can I take seriously a person who is so blatantly hypocritical? I’m meant to believe that joking about someone being raped is totally wrong for comedy purposes, but it’s okay for someone to tell me that I should be raped in order to make some sort of point. That almost makes sense… if you subscribe to the “do as I say, not as I do” school of ethics.

I think it's healthy that people make jokes about everything. The holocaust, rape, date rape, prison rape, pedophilia, child molestation, birth defects, 9/11, dead soldiers, dead celebrities, dead babies, having sex with the bodies of dead babies, kidnapping, mothers, sex with mothers, dead mothers, sex with dead mothers… really, there’s no end to what can be joked about. It’s all hilarious if you have the right timing and enough weed. I don't trust someone if they think there is a topic that is off-limits to humor. That person lacks basic control over their own emotions, and I find that to be far more dangerous than off-color jokes.-Rape Jokes Are Still Funny

View Two:

Francois Tremblay: Someone enjoys rape jokes, so they’re okay!

I hope I don’t have to dissect this. This “one person enjoys X, therefore X is okay!” is pure subjectivism and total bullshit. But that’s the bullshit you commit to when you commit to a position as nonsensical as voluntaryism. You end up supporting rape jokes.

...

Rape jokes are wrong because trivializing the rape culture is anti-women! No matter how much any given woman might enjoy it. What does someone’s enjoyment of a thing have to do with it being right or wrong?

Seriously JR, abandon this bizarre ethics of feelings and start thinking rationally about it. I’m not going to allow you to post comments that are against women any more than I allow comments that are anti-atheism or pro-government. People’s feelings are not a guide to reason or public policy.-Someone enjoys rape jokes, so they’re okay!

Read the complete posts at their respective links.

I approve of the following comment at Tremblay's post
Does every man have a right to enjoy telling hateful jokes about women, and should not be judged for doing so? I don’t get this. People are judged for things because we have morality. A woman has the right to judge others for herself, and others have the right to judge her judgment. A woman has the right to hate “niggers,” but does not have the right to “not be judged for doing so.”

You don't have to want to make something illegal to disapprove of it, or believe that favoring free speech means that you can't pass rational judgement on what people write and say.

The Dulls: Honey and a Biscuit

Objective: dullness

Honey Dull sat eating a biscuit. "This biscuit is sure good", she said to the sky, which was a dull gray color. Honey wondered if God was watching her eat the biscuit. She also thought it was funny that a man with a large dog (God was dog spelled backwards- it made her think) asked her if she wanted a little honey with her biscuit. She laughed and told him loudly, biscuit crumbs flying from her mouth, "I am Honey!".

Turned out he was a honey salesman. He had a case full of honey jars.

"Are you Winnie-the-Pooh?" she asked him.

"No," he replied, "my name is Bob."

Honey told him she preferred jam on her biscuits, and asked if he was also a jam salesman. He told her no he wasn't, that he only sold honey. Honey frowned. She got up from her place on the steps and went back inside the house, and didn't come out again until the man and his dog were gone.

22 Year Old Dies In Jail After Being Arrested For Small Amount of Marijuana

Monday, July 16, 2012

Condi

Currently touted as a front runner for the VP slot under Mitt "the liar" Romney, the selection (IMO unlikely in spite of the hype from the noeocon lunatics) of neocon war criminal Condoleezza Rice-A-Phony as GOP running mate would only confirm the futility of placing any hope at all in the Republican party as an alternative to the disastrous Democrats. Neocon crazy Bill Kristol was of course salivating over the possibility.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Former Democrat Whistle Blower: DNC Fraud, Financial Fraud & Govt. Sponsored Murder

...interview with professional photographer and truth activist Michele Thomas. Thomas explains how the Obama campaign, with the aid of the corrupt DNC leadership, stole the 2008 election and handed it to Obama. Michele explains that Jon Corzine played a key role in awarding Obama Delegates which he did not earn, and shutting out Hillary Clinton who was winning - which is why Corzine is untouchable now.

Thomas explains how the 2008 Obama campaign was a COUP of the Democratic Party. She also explains how she believes two other DNC whistle blowers were found dead just days after going public about the criminality they witnessed.

Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign violated Democratic Party rules and engaged in improper and possibly illegal actions to steal the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination from Hillary Clinton, according to a worker for Hillary’s campaign.

...

“I have received death threats from Obama’s people,” she said. “I think I was called a ‘racist’ a thousand times. If you didn’t stand for Obama, you were a racist. It was a way to intimidate you.”-http://www.wnd.com/2012/04/hillary-supporters-untold-obama-horror-stories/

The Sunday Box

What's in the box today? Let's find out!

10 Countries With The Highest Birth Rate

Today in History for July 15th

The Amazing Meeting 2012: BJ Kramer

Is atheism a male controlled, sexist "movement"? The current "Amazing meeting" had only 18% women per-registered for the event. Charges of sexual harassment at past events and sexism in TAM leadership are said to be partly to blame (Do atheists have a sexual harassment problem?) but it's also well known that there are more men who self-identify as skeptics and atheists than women. The same is true of anarchism and libertarianism. Fewer women than men. It's possible (though politically incorrect to even whisper) that the differences in women's brains and their more emotional nature leads them away from objective rationality, hence fewer females are atheists and anarchists (the reality positions). Women's suffrage can even be proposed as the main factor in the enormous growth of government (and along with it, government power over our lives and a decrease in liberty) since the early twentieth century.

Clear Evidence FDA Officials Have ZERO Interest In Protecting The American Public

Israel tortures Palestinian minors: Maha Rezeq

Israeli police officers continue their violence against Palestinian children, brutally attacking and mistreating them in Israeli jails.

American Media

post freedom "I.P. is B.S."

Intellectual property is not real property so...

Feel free to download, share and make copies of all our songs

Who owns the land?

Who owns the sea?

Patents are a waste of ideas built off other ideas like a song

like a song we have sang, a song we have sang for so long

pharmaceutical, agricultural, astrological, autobiographical

imagine a world where ideas are free

where thoughts shared are no one's property

i didn't write this song. we've sang for so long.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

I'm gonna live a long, long time...

Ernest Borgnine's Secret to Old Age

via WC Varones

Statism...

Can Fish Take The Heat?

I hope so, cause I might get some. My filthy little hovel needs a few pets to keep me company, and since it's a tiny, sealed off room with one window that I keep shut during the day when I'm at work, and that gets hot enough to bake a whole chicken in the summer months, a cat or a dog would die. So, how 'bout some little fishes?

image by whatsthatpicture used under Creative Commons

Raw footage of Ron Paul interview from The Bubble film

The Bubble (official film trailer)

The film poses the question: "Is the economy really improving or are we just blowing up another Bubble?"

-The Bubble Film

Quote of the Day: True Friendship

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.- George Washington

Secularism

-http://youtu.be/dA3YF73SNuY

Strange Saturday: Obama Caricatures

Ridiculously Strange Barack Obama Caricatures

Terrorists...

How to Figure the Least Common Factor : Math Conversions

Yglesias Doesn't Understand Ron Paul (or Economics)

Blogger Matt Yglesias chided Ron Paul for his alleged "obsession" with Austrian (free-market) economics, which Yglesias tried to refute without reading any Austrian works. Bestselling author Tom Woods responds.-http://youtu.be/ElDS4AohMfE

Austrian Business Cycle Theory: Answering the Critics

Tom Woods

Austrian Business Cycle Theory

Is Austrian Economics 'Unscientific'?

Thursday, July 12, 2012

George Galloway on Syria

Genetically Engineered Trees - The Increasing Threat

The Growing Threat Genetically Engineered Trees - Award winning documentary film explores the growing global threat of genetically engineered trees to our environment and to human health.

Gerald Celente - The Mancow Show

Europe's Doggy Style

For Europeans, it's not uncommon to take a whole month of vacation in the summer. But the season can be a deadly time for the many pets left behind — permanently. The abandonment of domestic animals by vacationers is a scourge in many countries across Europe. And in France, this summer isn't likely to be different despite campaigns by animal-rights groups against the practice.

-In France, The (Abandoned) Dog Days Of Summer

Haven't they ever heard of pet hotels? Or do they not have such things in Europe? I thought Europe was so much more advanced than America? They do get longer vacations and more leisure time than over-worked U.S. wage slaves, but maybe all that extra free time has just made them lazy. Who just abandons their dog because they're going on vacation? I guess there is no European animal-welfare state. How backward!

Quote of the Day: Fantastic Doctrines

Fantastic doctrines (like Christianity or Islam or Marxism) require unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions. Thus the fear and the hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward. -- Edward Abbey





Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Where is Obama?

The Mainstream Conservative Folds

In what is probably a predictable move, Joseph Farah, Chief Editor of World Net Daily, has decided to vote for Willard “Mitt” Romney:

Based on his long and contradictory political record, I do not have much hope that Romney is going to do a 180 if he wins. I don’t think he will steer the nation on the U-turn course that is absolutely necessary to save us from the brink of disaster.

However, the idea of a second term for Obama genuinely scares me. I don’t believe America could ever recover from such a cataclysm. The country will suffer irreparable harm, if it hasn’t done so already.

While I remain a principled constitutionalist who doesn’t believe in voting for anyone who does not understand and embrace its limitations on federal power, I believe 2012 is one of those rare election years in which freedom-loving Americans will, out of necessity, be forced to vote defensively.

I won’t be voting for Romney because I think he will save America or reverse our dangerous course. But I will likely be voting for him to buy America the time it needs to avoid catastrophe. It’s just that simple – and sad.

And there is the excuse that I have been hearing from many mainstream conservatives like Joseph Farah for over a decade now.  The logic amounts to this:

  1. Candidate A is a <opposing party> and I cannot vote for him.
  2. Candidate B is a <the other party> but does not share a majority of positions I would like him to have.
  3. Voting for a third party candidate or a write-in candidate would be a waste of a vote since nobody else would vote for him or her.
  4. Not voting would really be a vote for the winner (illogical, of course, but no one questions it).
  5. Therefore I must vote for Candidate B because things will be slightly less worse than with Candidate A.

While it is true that Joseph Farah wrote a book in 2008 about not voting for either Barack Obama or John McCain, this year he seems to have finally given into fear.

This is why I no longer count myself as a conservative by any measure.  They constantly talk about principles and going back to the Constitution (which would be a great thing) but when faced with a Republican candidate who won’t do that, they vote for him or her anyway.  Worse still, when a candidate genuinely presents a constitutionalist message like Ron Paul, he or she is mocked, insulted, and criticized by the very people who still agree with him 90% of the time.  Instead, they focus on the “winnable” candidate, not the one they mostly agree with.

This trend has been going on ever since 1988 in the aftermath of Ronald Reagan, who duped the conservative movement into believing he was conservative (he may have been at one time) and still increased the size and scope of government while maintaining the illegal Statist institutions such as the Federal Reserve in the process.  Why do you think Ron Paul ran as the Libertarian party candidate in 1988?  He was so disgusted with the lack of putting principles into practice under the Reagan administration that he decided to try and go his own way.

I am tired of seeing conservatives play the game and fold every time, while claiming that this is the most important election ever.  They are a collection of morons and idiots who think that somehow voting for the guy they disagree with but happens to be in the correct party is a virtue while standing on your principle is a vice.

This is also why I believe that the mainstream conservative movement, the one created by William F. Buckley in 1955, is dying.  They are fading out as more and more people are realizing that they are not true to their principles and are instead shills for the Republicans who at best pay lip service to conservatives’ own causes.

Until conservatives stop voting out of fear, stop voting against something, and start voting for something, they will always be losers.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Quote of the Moment

"I’m 81 years old and I like to speak my mind. As a legacy, on the day I die, I’d like to have a newspaper publish all the things that I find wrong in the United States today. And my first would be to get rid of the politicians."-Ernest Borgnine

h/t to LRC Blog

Borgnine of course just left us at age 95...

Below, a scene from the film role that won him the Academy Award, Marty.

Yeah, right!

I have great blog post ideas in the car on the way home from work, then, once I get home, when I'm actually in front of the computer, I forget them!

How Did Mitt Romney Get So Obscenely Rich?

The Jones Plantation

One cannot change reality by changing the words you use to describe reality. Look beneath the rhetoric, and glimpse the truth.

Restructuring Europe - For Whom?

Sunday, July 8, 2012

A Few Sunday Thoughts

If I stop making excuses for not properly blogging, I won't blog at all.

The word LISTEN contains the same letters as the word SILENT.

"The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know." - Noam Chomsky

A career is haberdashery does not qualify one to be President.

Daniel Boone was a better singer than Pat and Debbie Boone combined.

Give a man a fish and he'll trade it for a bottle of cheap booze. Stop giving beggars fish! Give the fish to your local charity instead!

If you learn to tie a tie when you're young, you'll forget how to wear a tie-dyed when you're not so young.

If you're too lazy and sick to write a real blog post, you'll end up producing crap like this.

Hot

I'm no longer remotely near the ocean (and by that I mean, close enough to the sea to benefit from the cooler temperatures) so even though I'm back in the blogging game, I'm too damn uncomfortable with this dreadful heat using up the whole day, that I'm unable to properly blog. Plus, I'm still recovering from a blood clot in my leg (it's getting better but it's still there). I was staying at a relative's (much cooler) home during my initial post-hospital days, but I've now been forced back into reality (which means, poverty-stricken misery). That being said, I may or may not get to my Sunday Post today, but if you're up late, you're welcome to drop by and check.

The Advantages of Small States and the Dangers of Centralization

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Obama's Accomplishments

Bitcoin Credit Card Coming

-http://youtu.be/uv97sJ3tSDg

T.C. Weekly: Detroit

Introducing T.C. Weekly, where you'll find, well, bits of T.C. This week, T.C. contemplates America's disaster city, Detroit.

It's hard to fathom the fall and decay of a once mighty American city like Detroit. These photographs lend an idea. All that beautiful architecture. Dead. Likely never to return.

Is Detroit symbolic of what's in store for the future? Or is it unique?

I visited Detroit for a day in 1994. Went to see a World Cup match at the Silverdome. The place was pretty messed up. The city too.

How does the city continue to support four major pro teams? It makes the Red Wings dynasty all the more remarkable.-Fall Of An American City
T.C. had barely asked that question, and my poor brain had barley (I was eating some whole grain cereal I shouldn't have) begun to work on the conundrum (I think...what's a conundrum?) when T.C. the blogging machine posted again with more thoughts on Detroit!
Interesting politically incorrect black history of Detroit by one refreshing and honest Dr. Fleming.

It's fascinating actually how he describes the two, albeit different, waves of black immigration. I'm on record, as many others have also, as asserting men like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton plant the seeds of destruction and division. They're evil. How they're always hanging around to prey on a tragic event to further their own sad agendas.

Read more More on Detroit: More On Detroit

T.C. stuff is reposted under Creative Commons

White people built Detroit and invited Blacks in to help. Dr. Fleming gives a personal family history of how there were two waves of Black people who arrived in Detroit during the industrial revolution. The first wave were entrepreneurs, businessmen, craftsmen and artisans...The second wave were the of the natural slave stock (those who more readily accepted slavery) who brought crime, drunkenness and religion. The second wave were successful in turning a beautiful oasis into the current garbage can that it is now.-http://youtu.be/rkFPN5zUw3I

Quote of the Day: Leo Tolstoy on Violence

“All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.” – Leo Tolstoy, The Law of Love and the Law of Violence

Friday, July 6, 2012

Blog of the Moment: Mutualism.info

Mutualism.info

Explorations and expositions of the mutualist anarchist tradition

People frequently tell me that they have trouble understanding what mutualism is, and how it relates to the rest of the anarchist tradition. I can sympathize. Mutualism is, at once, the earliest form of the explicit, continuous anarchist tradition, and one of its newest variations. In between its first flowering and its most recent rediscovery, most of what we think of as the history and development of anarchism has occurred.

To call ourselves "mutualists" in the early 21st century is to take our place in a tradition which reaches back into the mid-19th century, the roots of which are the roots of the anarchist tradition, but the anarchist tradition has been rather ambivalent and forgetful about its roots, so rather than grounding the modern mutualist somewhere near the heart of the anarchist project, I think many of us feel we've climbed out onto a rather slender limb.

In the mutualist revival of the last ten years, mutualists have had to reach back to uncover and explain the original foundations and subsequent development of their traditions, and simultaneously show how this original anarchism responds to contemporary concerns. With the number of active mutualist theorists being small, and their backgrounds diverse, the natural division of that already-complex labor has given rise to at least two divergent trends in the revival.

The first, exemplified by Kevin Carson's work, is reconstructive, a fairly conscious attempt to stitch back together a number of the narrower tendencies which have formed as anarchism developed. It has naturally become a focus for "big tent" coalitions like the Alliance of the Libertarian Left. Because the historical mutualism which Carson most closely identifies may be best understood as the economic component of Benjamin R. Tucker's individualist anarchism, with its plumb-line focus on removing key monopolies, this mutualist tendency has emerged as a "free-market anti-capitalism."

The second tendency looks back to the earliest elements of the mutualist tradition, drawing on the extensive and largely neglected work of Proudhon, but also on influences (from Charles Fourier, Pierre Leroux, etc) which Proudhon did not fully integrate into his work, and on the work of a variety of writers from those early days of anarchism. It combines a sort of archaeological process of rediscovering mutualism's roots with attempts to refine, complete and update its early forms. My own "two-gun mutualism" is an example of this explicitly neo-Proudhonian mutualism.

Both tendencies share the sort of unfinished character you might expect from revivals of long-dormant traditions, which poses problems for us, accustomed as we tend to be to well-established ideologies, amenable to treatment in FAQ form. There is a lot of work to be done—researching, translating, interpreting and updating—before a lot of the most common questions about mutualism can be answered in anything like a definitive form, and before we know if the various revivalist tendencies are destined ultimately to converge or diverge.

To some extent, we can expect the definitive to continue to elude mutualism. Proudhon emphasized the fact that social progress is a matter of experimentation and approximation. While our principles—key among them the ethic of mutuality or reciprocity—may remain fixed, our contexts constantly change, so practical answers to our most frequently answered questions are likely to change as well. Hopefully, we will just get better at applying our principles, and gradually perhaps our questions and concerns will change.

In the meantime, however, there are some things that can be said with some degree of certainty, and some speculations that can be made on the basis of those basic principles. While I pursue more complex, conditional and partisan projects elsewhere, this blog will focus on those bits of truth and certainty that perhaps we can share now. My hope is that it will serve as a useful introduction as well, in the absence of the sort of certainty or presumptive authority of an FAQ.

-by Shawn P. Wilbur The Mutualist's Dilemma

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Walter Block on The Peter Schiff Show

Discussing Ron and Rand Paul, the presidential race, Block's preference for Obama over Romney and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

European Debt Crisis Explained

Via the man I dub "The Great One", T.C.

-http://youtu.be/LKsZ1hqHBHU

The debt levels around the globe are unprecedented in peacetime. The odds of restructurings and/or defaults are higher than most believe. When does debt become unsustainable? The video shows the debt levels of numerous countries have reached "problem" levels. Since the bill coming due in the form of maturing bonds is so large, policymakers in Europe have no easy way out. "Solutions" may include printing money to create inflation or debt restructurings/defaults; or a combination of the two.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Free and Independent

It was just another day for me. Independence? Don't make me laugh! I'm a wage slave. I worked today. Just as well. It was cold and cloudy. The only "Independence Day" worth celebrating will be when we throw the yoke of the Federal monsters (our masters) off and live once again as truly free men and women (and even children- yes, I'm for freeing the kids, too - so let's get rid of the ridiculously evil schools while we're at it). Then maybe we can work at abolishing all hierarchies, even "private" "voluntary" ones (ya hear that, Boss?)...

The Fourth of July was not always a national celebration of the militarization of American society and of the federal government’s never-ending quest for world domination (disguised as "defending our interests abroad"). Americans did not always attend church services on the Sunday before the Fourth of July to "honor" their "military heroes" and pray that they may kill many more human beings in other countries that have done them no harm. Americans once actually read and understood the Declaration of Independence for what it was: a declaration of secession from the British empire and a roadmap for opposing a highly centralized, militaristic empire of the sort the U.S. government has become.

The Declaration of Independence was the ultimate secessionist or states’ rights document. "Governments are instituted among men," Thomas Jefferson wrote, for the sole purpose of securing God-given, "unalienable" rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Moreover, governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" and nowhere else. And "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government . . ."

The way in which "the People" were to express their consent (or lack thereof) was through state and local political organizations. Hence, in the final paragraph of the Declaration of Independence Jefferson wrote that: "We . . . the Representatives of the united States of America . . . are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do."

It is important to note that the word "united" is not capitalized but "States" is, and that the individual states are described as "Free and Independent." Thus, the free, independent, and sovereign states were united in the cause of secession from the British empire. The phrase "united States" did not mean, and does not mean in any of the founding documents, the "United States government," as is commonly believed today. It is always in the plural to signify that the free and independent states are united in their common cause of protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To Jefferson and the other signers of the Declaration of Independence, each American state was sovereign in the same sense that Great Britain, France, and Spain were sovereign states. It was through "representatives of the united States" that the consent of the people was to be expressed (or not).

It was Abraham Lincoln, who Murray Rothbard once described as a masterful "liar, conniver, and manipulator," whose rhetoric began to fog the understanding of Americans of their Declaration of Independence. Lincoln’s twisted language in The Gettysburg Address that focused solely on the words "all men are created equal" in the Declaration, were designed to reinterpret the preeminent secessionist document as an anti-secessionist document. It was an attempt to fool Northern voters into believing in the absurd notion that he was a Jeffersonian.

Read more: Thomas J. DiLorenzo: When Americans Understood the Declaration of Independence

Republished under the following: Copyright © 2012 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Southern California Fireworks Map

This is great for Southern Californians, as long as they don't live in San Diego

Do you fear God?

The Fiction of Intellectual Property

It’s not unusual to hear helicopters over and around my house (I live near, and on the approach path to, St. Louis’s main airport), so I didn’t notice the US Department Homeland Security’s major terrorist roundup only a few blocks away until I saw it on the news late last week.

Oh, wait, did I say “terrorist?” Sorry. Make that “entrepreneur.”

Frison Flea Market has long been well known as the local go-to spot for inexpensive shoes, handbags, DVDs and so forth. It’s open — or was, anyway — on weekends. For a small fee, customers gain entrance to a huge grotto of booths with vendors hawking everything from refurbished computers to old comic books … to apparently new products at incredibly low prices.

How can those prices be so low? Well, the vendors somehow forgot to pay their rent. Not the flea market booth rent, but the rent to Nike, Gucci, Disney and other politically connected companies on whose behalf Congress has created a fiction called “intellectual property” which they can charge rent on, with the US Department of Homeland Security acting as collector (or evictor) as needed.

This arrangement is so transparently silly that it has to be covered up with additional fictions.

For example, the fiction that if you have something Universal Studios doesn’t want you to have, it is “stolen,” even if their copies of it haven’t gone missing.

And the fiction that “intellectual property theft” is a primary vector for the finance of “international terrorism” (if you want to see a real vector of that type, check out IRS Form 1040 — killer drones aren’t free, you know).

And so it came to pass that last Thursday morning, a convoy of government vehicles (with air support — or maybe that was just a conveniently alerted “news” chopper) pulled up to Frison Flea Market, disgorging a phalanx of black-clad, armed agents, who then proceeded to steal … er, “seize” … everything in sight.

Because after all, if your sister can just wander down to Frison Flea Market and buy a purse for $20 without paying an additional $380 in rent on the word “Coach,” the terrorists have won, right?

To break down the absurdity of all this, a real-life example:

The weekend before the raid, my wife and son shelled out several tens of dollars to catch Prometheus on the big screen. The following day, they visited Frison Flea Market, and noticed a bootleg DVD of the movie already for sale in the $5 range. Pretty quick, huh? I have no idea whether it was burned from a print of the movie, or just captured on hand-held camera in a theater. But anyway, there it was.

Standard “intellectual property” justifications for making this bootlegging illegal go as follows: If anyone can buy a cheap bootleg DVD, they won’t see the movie in theaters, or pay full price for the “legitimate” DVD release. The bootleggers are obviously STEALING the movie studio’s profits.

But does anyone honestly believe that people who were hot and bothered to shell out $10 a ticket and pay for expensive popcorn to get the big-screen experience would have settled for watching it on DVD — possibly in inferior form — at home? So much so that they would schlep down to the flea market for the privilege? Or that a real fan would grab the $5 bootleg instead of the superfrap extended edition in the molded tin case, with 58-page color liner notes?

Chances are that bootleg cost the filmmakers, studio, distributor and theater not one thin dime in “lost revenues.” In fact, if the movie is any good and the bootleg is of inferior quality, its mere existence probably boosts sales of the “real” DVD — and ticket sales to the sequel — by introducing people to the movie who wouldn’t have considered paying $19.99 for something they hadn’t had a look at first.

Let’s put this thing on the slippery slope and see how far down it rolls. When you see a movie, you remember it. Or, to put it a different way, a copy of it exists in your brain. But hey — it’s copyrighted. Stop, thief! And if you and your kids go home, start horsing around, and re-enact a scene from the film, Katie bar the door (especially you didn’t rent that swoosh on your tennis shoes) … you’re reproducing it! Bootleggers! Queue SWAT.

If my assessment of “intellectual property” seems harsh, well, I’ve tried to keep an open mind over the years, asking those who favor it to offer any argument for it that doesn’t boil down to “because we waaaant it that way … and we and our government collection agents have guns.”

So far, no takers. But I’ll keep listening.

by Thomas L. Knapp at Center for a Stateless Society republished under Creative Commons.

Total Listening

We may be good talkers but not necessarily willing listeners. Alternatively, we may be good listeners but not necessarily good hearers as we are preoccupied with our own inner chatter. On occasions, when we do hear, we have the tendency to filter what we hear. In contrast, 'total listening', refers to listening with mindfulness, attentiveness, compassion, kindness and all in silence. 'Total listening' is also about listening to our body, our mind and most of all, listening to life. -http://youtu.be/hQSBFC_IlVY

Gerald Celente - Greg Hunter, USA Watchdog July 4, 2012

Glow For It

For your car, that is...

It’s actually a nanoparticle color coating that during the day isn’t even visible, but at nighttime it will make your car light up like the coolest TRON vehicle you have ever seen.

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