By Nathan Barton

Good morning!  Apparently much of the country is again shivering in winter, and California is again panicking, this time over not enough snow, water, and mudslides.  Meanwhile, the economy is also still in the deep freeze.

Mama’s Note: Having lived in So. Calif. most of my life, I know for a fact that they have only two seasons: Drought/fire, and flood/mudslides. That’s it. Northern Calif. does have a little more to offer, of course… one of the reasons they’d like to break free. It’s just too bad that Sacramento and San Francisco are in the northern half.

A Wall Street adviser is claiming (and providing evidence) that actual unemployment is 37.2%, ‘misery index’ worst in 40 years, and my own information agrees with the general idea: too many people out of work or not fully employed, and the economy STINKS no matter what Wall Street and DC want to believe or claim.

Also, this ties into two other interesting stories found by Mama Liberty.  Will robots take all our jobs? and will trained animals start providing health care and assistance to the disabled?  According to the fright-headlines of the media, we are to worry that 2014 is the year our jobs will be taken by robots flipping burgers, pouring drinks, and even babysitting.  (Gee, I thought that most people had turned THAT over to a machine – the television – years ago!)  Kentucky’s legislature wants to make it legal to let “service monkeys” help paralyzed people.  (Oh, when was it made ILLEGAL?)

Mama Liberty and I had a lively discussion over the use of robots (not monkeys) in health care and other work, which may show up as a rant in the pages of TPOL some day.  As she noted: “Robots and monkeys don’t need “minimum wage” or medical “insurance.” Amazing what people do to get around the roadblocks… unfortunately, if they spent the same money and effort getting rid of the central planners, we’d all benefit.”  And that is the truth, indeed.

Apparently, the new pope Francis is still, to the disappointment of the media, other Tranzis, and (if you believe those groups, 95% of Roman Catholics and 99% of the rest of the planet) still opposed to abortion, and says ‘I Join the March for Life With My Prayers’.  Now, maybe I am expecting too much of someone in their late 70s, but it seems that physically joining the march(es) would make a far better statement. Even if it were in the Popemobile for defensive purposes.

But this bit of news comes when a correspondent asked me about a report that then-Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires gave a scorching interview to NBC’s Chris Matthews before he was elected.  In the supposed interview, Bergoglio gave a surprisingly libertarian (minarchist, admittedly) view of persistent poverty being caused by the state, as well as defending opposition to abortion, “women priests,” and “homosexual marriage.”  My family and I were really impressed by it.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the entire interview transcript is a forgery, apparently created by someone in England.  Both Catholic sources and NBC deny it ever happened, and both internal and external evidences are pretty strongly in favor of it being imaginary – another example both of people stupidly doing things that can be checked out as true or not, AND of the way people blithely pass on lies and propaganda to dozens and ultimately to hundreds of thousands of people, without bothering to spend five minutes checking on the validity of an email or blog posting.  All the evidence is that despite his treatment by government, and his claim to be following the Word of God, Francis is still a Jesuit and senior Roman Catholic official who follows the church’s centuries-old policy of cooperation with, and endorsement of the state and actively or passively helping to steal away the God-given liberty of humans.  Claiming to speak for the Christ, they pervert His words and corrupted His church into an evil organization while persecuting and killing those who have sought to follow The Way and stand up for God’s gifts of free will, liberty, and eternal life.

Speaking of panic over weather?  Everyone, including the White House, seems to be in a panic about the threat of terrorist attacks against the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and the US is planning all kinds of things.  Mama Liberty has a simple solution:  “Seems to me that if there is that much danger, and I think there may be, why in the world would anyone go there at all? Seems to me like a very good reason to stay home and forget the whole thing.”   Personally, I think that the threat is greatly exaggerated and the White House, various security agencies (outside Russia) and the media are making much ado about nothing.  Personally, if there WERE a significant threat (say, 1 in 10 chance?), I’d just not go: but then, sports don’t mean much to me.  If these people are so enslaved to their pursuit of sports and silly pieces of ribbon and metal, or so desperate to make big bucks in endorsements and future winnings, but still fearful, let THEM pay for increased security, and decide on their own that the risk is worth it.

The UK’s Mirror says that Elizabeth II has begun the process of handing over the reigns (their pun, not mine) to Charles (who might, hideously, be “Charles the III”) to allow for a gentle transition.  This, of course, upsets a lot of people, who believe that Charles has demonstrated he is an idiot over and over, and at age 65 shows no signs of smarting up, and hoped and pray for a King William V instead.  Of course, given the success of the last four elections for a “national leader” here in the US, who are WE to any longer talk about the silliness of inheriting a monarchy?

Mama’s Note: I don’t pay much attention to the “royal” idiots of any country, but the doings of the English are occasionally thrust upon me in moments of slightly lapsed attention while looking at the news. It’s sort of amazing to think that poor old Charles is two years younger than I am… has never had any rational occupation, and never will have. The fact that he’s as goofy as the average Cocker Spaniel is rather pathetic, but hardly germane. England has had an awful lot of loopy “kings,” so one more would hardly make a huge difference. They’ve been mostly defanged for a long time anyway. It’s too bad our “dear leader” isn’t similarly a mere figurehead and impotent.

Here is a fun and easily understood illustration using gumballs to show how poverty in the Third World is NOT solved by continuing massive immigration to the US.  It also explains why immigration and colonization did not and will not relieve problems with overpopulation and crowding, whether we are talking about just from one country or continent to another, or from one planet to another (or to asteroid colonies or whatever).  This punctures one more fantasy (or at least one more element of their propaganda, whether they believe it or not) of Tranzis trying to deny basic facts and principles, like “good fences make good neighbors” and “state welfare systems are bad for people, economies, and society.”

Mama’s Note: Immigration is only one small part of the equation.  What people need in order to counteract or prevent poverty, overcrowding, and all the other ills of current society is freedom. Individual liberty and responsibility, so they can build their own good fences around their lives and property without infringing on the same rights for everyone else. Trying to limit immigration as the only or main “answer” is counterproductive to that liberty for all of us.

According to the Tenth Amendment Center, the state of Tennessee is trying to force the NSA to move from its encryption-cracking operation in Oak Ridge.  This, of course, is interesting if Tennessee (1) can get the votes in the legislature and get the governor to sign it, and (2) can get DC to listen and obey.  Constitutionally (theoretically), each state has a veto over whether a federal facility can be located in their state.  As we know, this has been impossible since Fort Sumpter, and as the recent (last several decades) debacle over where to locate nuclear waste facilities has shown, Congress and the White House do not believe or act like ANYONE else has any say on what goes where: from nuclear waste to prisons to biological contamination to Cuban detainees to the next national park or monument.