iWatch - bad idea

I watch because I have no concept of freedom or privacy. I hope that this scares you. Like it did me.

Record increase in Ice Cap

For the second straight year, Arctic ice cap sees record increase. Last year's increase was 150,000 square miles; this year's is 220,000 square miles. The NSIDC, a government agency, reports the fact but then buries it beneath the usual spin about global warming.
They wouldn't try to fool us, would they?

Elected officials hard at work

House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, far right, speaks while colleagues play solitaire on their computers as the House convenes to vote on a new budget for the fiscal year in the Capitol, in Hartford, Conn., Monday, Aug., 31, 2009.

GDP, cash for clunkers, dollar, debt, depression

Porkulous bill passes

Militarizing Police Depts. With Your Bailout Money

George Orwell, call your office !
by texpat · 02/11/2009 1:57 pm

If prostitution is the world’s oldest profession, then city mayors follow a very close second. In fact, it occurs to me they may be the spiritual offspring of the aforementioned liaisons. Whenever there is loose change or unclaimed dollar bills laying around, mayors can smell them a mile away and if a Sugar Daddy offers free cash, they never stop to question what the vigorish might be. The urban emperors, suburban commissars, the hack and the highbrow, the Republican and Democrat, the apolitical and amoral, the exurban apparatchiks all assemble to line dance down Pennsylvania Avenue like ladies of the evening on the way to a golden score with Big Daddy.

The United States Conference of Mayors has assembled the most ridiculous and repulsive example of government excess I think I have ever seen. Here is a PDF file of the document which stretches to 344 pages. One of the most alarming features of this civic gluttony is the gift list request for funds to buy military SWAT assault equipment for police forces like the examples offered here by Texas blogger and Reason.com contributor, Trey Garrison:
Frisco wants $125,000 for an armored vehicle and $200,000 for a mobile command vehicle. You know, for all that gang tank warfare going on up in Frisco.
McKinney wants $5 million for SWAT toys and stuff.
North Richland Hills wants $51,000 for volunteer patrol volunteers. Let’s throw in $10 for a dictionary so they can look up the word “volunteer.”
Irving wants $5 million for biometric scanners, digital cameras, RFID scanners — nothing Big Brother there.
Grand Prairie wants $1.25 million for nicer landscaping around the public safety building.
And finally, Arlington is really gearing up for urban warfare. Arlington wants $1.6 million for SWAT toys including more equipment for those deadly but camera-friendly no-knock raids, $56,000 for military grade carbines, $625,000 for unmanned aerial surveillance drones, and $130,000 for “covert ops.”

Here is the “Public Safety” wish list from the US Conference of Mayors.
Radley Balko, of The Agitator and contributing editor of Reason, offers these galling examples of cops gone Rambo:
• Sparks, Nevada wants $600,000 to purchase a “live fire” house its SWAT team can shoot up, and another $420,000 for a SWAT armored vehicle.
• Pleasanton, California wants $250,000 to buy a vehicle for its SWAT team.
• Gary, Indiana wants $750,000 for a host of “modernization” upgrades to its police department, including “sub-automatic machine guns” and an “armored vehicl” [sic].
• Hampton, Virginia wants a whopping $3.5 million for “Air Tactical Unit Support and Equipment,” which I’m pretty sure means they want a sweet helicopter for the SWAT team.
• Ottawa, Illinois (population: 18,307) wants $60,000 to purchase, among other things, five “tactical entry rifles.”
• Glendale Heights, Illinois wants $96,000 to purchase red light cameras, and another $67,000 to hire someone to monitor them.
• Toward a more Orwellian America! The following cities requested stimulus funds to supplement, initiate, or upgrade public surveillance camera systems: Brockton, Massachusetts; Buffalo, New York; Burnsville, Minnesota; Caguas, Puerto Rico; Cerritos, California; Columbia, South Carolina; Compton, California; Homestead, Florida; Hormigueros, Puerto Rico; Indianapolis, Indiana; Inglewood, California; Lewiston, Maine; Lorain, Ohio; Lynn, Massachusetts; Marion, Ohio; Merced, California; New Rochelle, New York; North Richland Hills, Texas; Oakland, California; Orange, New Jersey; Orem, Utah; Orlando, Florida; Pembroke Pines, Florida; Ponce, Puerto Rico; Riverdale, Illinois; Shreveport, Louisiana; Silver City, New Mexico; Sumter, South Carolina; Tallahassee, Florida; Warren, Ohio; and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Winston-Salem, North Carolina requested just under $85 million in security-related stimulation. But top prize goes to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is asking the rest of the country to stimulte its economy with a whopping $135 million in public safety-related requests.

All in all, America’s mayors asking for a little over $5.5 billion in public safety “stimulus.”

The city of La Porte, Texas has applied for $700,000 to build a “Lifestyle Center” while the city of Houston wants a whopping $175,000,000 to build the “Metro Houston Intermodal Terminal” in downtown Houston. I could go on, but I am nauseated by reading these documents. Readers will have to carry on in my absence while I try to recover.

Ron Paul Talks Economy With Glenn Beck 01-21-2009

Ron Paul on FOX: Obama Is Confused 01/16/2009

I think I'm going to be sick

If I hear one more person say, "Yes We Can" I may loose it. Lemmings of the world unite, then run to the sea.

You Can't Save Free Markets by Socialism!

No more help, please

By Stephen Fairfax
While the Billionaire Bailout was narrowly defeated Monday, its certain there will be more attempts to saddle all Americans with the bad debts of people who paid themselves $40 billion annually in dividends, plus massive bonuses, stock options (now worthless) and huge salaries.

As small business owners, my wife and I are fascinated by the concern shown by our political leaders for us and our colleagues. The dire warnings of the past few days frequently include phrases like "small business owners need credit to grow their business, send their kids to college, and save for their retirement." How one saves for retirement by borrowing is never explained. Others claim that small businesses will not be able to pay their employees if they don’t have access to easy credit.

Nearly all of these pronouncements come from people who know little or nothing about running a small business. Few Washington politicians have earned a single free-market dollar in honest commerce, and if they did it was generally long ago. Self-appointed "business leaders" are in fact little more than well-paid lobbyists for very large businesses that use government regulations and laws to place small business owners at a disadvantage. They do not speak for us or any small business owner we know.

There's more, and it's well worth the reading. Read the rest.

Ron Paul w/Cavuto on the Bail out

Just say "NO"

We are told that the federal government needs to step into the market place and stem the financial crisis. Please stop and consider that the same powerful people who created this situation now want more power to save themselves from it. They want to take taxpayer dollars to pick up the bill for foolish lending, and irresponsible policies.

These are the same friendly folks that gave us the so called "Patriot Act". The same fine folks that have for the last eight years spent carelessly. Doubled our national debt, debased our currency, squandered our national credit.

This current crisis did not come quickly nor should it have been a surprise. Yet they tell us they need power to fix it and fix it now. I say, "nonsense". Let the market work. Of course it will be painful. We have our leaders to thank for it.

U.S. congressman opposes House resolution on China

2008-08-04 06:22:22
WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Republican congressman Ron Paul of Texas described the recent resolution by the House of Representatives on China's human rights situation as "ill-conceived" and "hypocritical" and he urged the U.S. legislature to deal with human rights abuses in U.S. or those created abroad by U.S. foreign policies.

"I rise in opposition to this resolution, which is yet another meaningless but provocative condemnation of China. It is this kind of jingoism that has led to such a low opinion of the United States abroad," Paul, who had run for U.S. president as a Republican candidate earlier, said in a statement posted on the official website of the House.

"We are not debating a bill to close Guantanamo, where abuses have been documented. We are not debating a bill to withdraw from Iraq, where scores of innocents have been killed, injured, and abused due to our unprovoked attack on that country. We are not debating a bill to reverse the odious FISA bill passed recently which will result in extreme abuses of Americans by gutting the Fourth Amendment," he said in the statement made before the House voted to adopt the anti-China resolution on July 30.

"Instead of addressing these and scores of other pressing issues over which we do have authority, we prefer to spend our time criticizing a foreign government over which we have no authority and foreign domestic problems about which we have very little accurate information," the congressman added.

Paul described it as "ironic" that the resolution calls on the Chinese government to begin negotiations, without preconditions, directly with the Dalai Lama or his representatives.

"For years U.S. policy has been that no meeting or negotiation could take place with Iran until certain preconditions are met by Iran. Among these is a demand that Iran cease uranium enrichment, which Iran has the right to do under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is little wonder why some claim that resolutions like this are hypocritical," he said.

"Instead of lecturing China, where I have no doubt there are problems as there are everywhere, I would suggest that we turn our attention to the very real threats in the United States where our civil liberties and human rights are being eroded on a steady basis," Paul said.

"The Bible cautions against pointing out the speck in a neighbor's eye while ignoring the log in one's own. I suggest we contemplate this sound advice before bringing up such ill-conceived resolutions in the future," he said.

In response to the U.S. Congress' adoption of the resolution on China's human rights situation, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Games said last Thursday that the resolution was an attempt to politicize the Games.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao also rejected the resolution as an abominable conduct by a handful of anti-China lawmakers.

"Such a deed itself is blasphemy to the Olympic spirit, and is against the common wishes of people all around the world, including people of the United States," Liu said.

U.S. President George W. Bush had announced that he would travel to Beijing next week to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

What's wrong with WEA running our schools?

EFF Update - May 6, 2008 - SPECIAL REPORT
A special report with Lynn Harsh on the WEA and the loss to the education system in Washington State.
EFF update June 9, 2008

The History of WA Ferries

Faux Snooze - Put on a happy face

Isn't this the way it always goes? If you don't like what someone says, label them as a kook, a conspiracy nut, whatever. Watch the way they dis Peter Schiff. Then brush him off as a quack.

Talk of more war

The D's and the R's are beating the drum for more war; this time in Iran. Dr. Paul spoke on the floor of the house. Please give a listen and then contact your representative. Let them know that we don't want another war!
There is already a lot of support in the house. What a shame that Dr. Paul was speaking to an empty chamber. Please, don't keep silent!