Libertarian commentary on the news, #14-07C: Stupidity rampant

Posted on 2014-02-13 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Good morning, and my best wishes and prayers that you may have an idiot-free day; forlorn as that hope is for me and my companies and family.  Sadly, many stories today remind us that the idiots (or the stupid) are running around loose.  As usual.

Apparently, the true believers in global warming (and their reformed faith, “climate change”) have come up with an explanation for why nothing is warming up right now, but it is going to start getting warmer again soon.  It is because winds in the Pacific Ocean are causing the ocean to bring up deep cold water and cool things down.  No explanation of WHY the ocean is doing that (I’m sure the Gaea lovers would be glad to tell them about the sentient planet and all that), but of course, it is only temporary and we are still all gonna cook or drown (see my NG comments in a previous commentary).  IF this is true, and not just a religious mass psychosis, it just might be that the earth’s natural systems DO naturally balance out things, like massive releases of greenhouse gases in the past from volcanoes and forest fires and earthquakes.  Just maybe.  Meanwhile, the environists and global warming fanatics continue to demonstrate how stupid they are, and how unwilling to face reality.

Once again, I am reminded just how stupid and image-driven hoplophobes and hoploclasts are, as I read articles about how a gun manufacturer changed some of the design and appearance of an AR-15 so that the gun is now legal in New York.  At least until the government can panic again and spend a few million dollars on a special session to “close the loopholes.”  Funny, huh?  None of us ever thought that those old hokey Star Wars and other SF movie and television weapons would be useful for dealing with stupid laws and even more stupid people.

Tom Brokaw, that prime example of South Dakota Tranzi-dom, now 72, has cancer. It is a shame.  At the same time, considering all the damage the man has done over the decades to liberty and truth, it is hard to feel really bad for him.  He is, to some degree, responsible for the stupidity which seems to infect us so badly today.

I see today that Boehner is again playing games, helping the guy at 1600 Pennsy to ‘rewrite’ the Abominable Act (ObummerCare). Yeah, they are “examining all our options” on how to stick it to the nation yet again.  the ONLY acceptable solution is to repeal it.  (And every other federal health care law since about 1940, if not earlier.)  The longer they wait, the worse the consequences.  It may be that permanent, unrepairable damage to health care (at least under the current government we are saddled with) has been done.  Millions of Americans will die prematurely because of what has already been done.  But seemingly not just the Dems but Boehner and his inner circle are too stupid to do the right thing.

Guess what?  Only 7 US troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far this year .  If I calculate correctly, that is just 1 a week.  Of course, LOTS of other people (including the 21 Jihadis who were blown up by their own instructor) have been killed DAILY in Afghanistan.  As with ObummerCare and so much else, the FedGov has messed up things even MORE incredibly badly in Afghanistan than anyone could have imagined in their nightmares, and just getting out – not just troops but contractors and money  and anything at all – seems the only option left.  Nixon was actually pretty well off compared to what the squatter in 1600 Pennsy has to deal with – mostly because of his own actions. But I fear he and his advisors and the political generals in the Pentagon are too stupid to do what is needed.

It appears that the IRS (one of the more useful minions of the “messiah,” I admit) is now requiring that companies take an oath that they are not cutting their workforce in order to get special advantages in ObummerCare.  Thought crime, I guess. It is part of the patently illegal delay of implementation of the stupid and constitution-breaking “law.”  They can fire people or convert people to part-time, just as long as they don’t do it to avoid ObummerCare requirements, although cutting people or time DOES help them avoid the requirements.  Is this nuts, or what?  I guess it is typically liberal, like “don’t ask, don’t tell” and reams of the garbage spewed out from under the Capitol dome in recent years (not that that spewing didn’t start about the time the dome was built).

In some seriously weird (but funny) news, on Wednesday, eight Corvettes plunged into a sinkhole in Kentucky!  Strange things happen, and I am sure that the TV evangelists are going to see signs of the approach of Armageddon in this incident.  Wouldn’t it be funny if the sinkhole was the result of the collapse of the secret underground tunnel the Fed has been using to siphon all the gold out of Fort Knox? Thanks to Scott for this bit of news!  (I wonder, is this to be blamed on global warming?  And will their local government force them to move to a new location?  Even natural disasters serve government today, one way or another!)

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-07B: Police State Karma

Posted on 2014-02-12 by TPOL Nathan

What a week!  Good morning, all kinds of interesting things going on.  Here are a few of them.  Some really wacky ones, to start from the wonderful world of law enforcement and gun-haters and gun-fearers.

John Morales of Texas, the actor who played McGruff the Crime Dog (remember: “Take a bite out of crime!”) and made thousands of appearance and recorded PSAs played on radio and TV millions of times, is no longer a “scofflaw.”  He was recently sentenced to sixteen years in prison.  With our lousy court system, it took three years,  after police seized a thousand marijuana plants and twenty-seven weapons from his house in 2011. (One weapon was GASP! a grenade launcher.)  Did he think “Crime Dog” meant that he was supposed to be committing crimes?  (One person opined that maybe he took a bite out of crime and just really liked the taste of it.)  But there is more to this disturbing chain of events than just the irony of a public face of “law enforcement” going down for the count.  Cops  stopped Morales for speeding. Then they seem to have found designs in his car for his pot growing operation. Then raided his house (with a warrant, maybe?), and found the plants and weapons.  Karma?  Perhaps.  Certainly a total abuse of their powers, from the gitgo.  The idea that cops can search a vehicle to protect themselves from dangerous weapons surely does not extend to figuring out what is written on a bunch of pieces of paper.  What if they had found something really dangerous, like a copy of the Constitution?  Police state, indeed, and McGruff did (and is doing) his share!

In New York State, certainly, the police state is in full effect.  And another facilitator of the police state is getting a bit of his own back. Thanks to the insane and immoral Safe Act, it is now a felony to have a gun in a school, not just a misdemeanor.  It appears that one of the first victims of this crime (the stupid law) is one of the idiots who helped get the Safe Act passed. Not only that, but all these hoplophobic school types are appealing for leniency in his case because he is such a hoploclast – and hypocrite, obviously.  The report reads like a bad TV script: he was at a school meeting, police were called because someone saw a guy with a gun, and they locked down the school and started searching everyone, including the fifty students this idiot had assembled in the lunchroom.  They found his concealed gun on him, and he claimed he just forgot about it.

Of course, we see this kind of stupidity and karma not just in our homeland. In Mesopotamia, things are NOT going well.  Not only are dozens of people being murdered by both sides each day, but a suicide bomb instructor accidentally killed several of his iraqi pupils during training.   The worst sort of friendly fire.  As Mama Liberty commented: “Now, this isn’t really funny… but, I’m wondering why they’ve not run out of idiots yet.  This makes looking down the barrel of a gun look almost rational.” Of course, given that Islamic penchant for “Inshallah” (“As Allah [God] wills.”), clearly, no one pays attention to little details like safety devices.  It is, I have been told many times, why the Turks created their Janissaries by enslaving young christian men:  they still believed “God helps those who help themselves.”  (I.e., they weren’t Calvinists.)  Their children, raised as Muslims, could not train and fight effectively because they had this “calvinistic” idea that God would not allow them to fail if what they were doing was in accordance with His will and plan for the universe.

On to other news.

House Republicans caved to their leadership, Dems, and the White House, voting for a “clean” debt limit bill to raise the Nation’s borrowing limit without conditions, and increase spending immediately.  Boehner wimped out AGAIN, this time over a military pension provision that would have restored cuts from last year.  He and 27 other GOP types went along with the Dems.  As always, I ask, why bother to have two parties, when they function like this?

Meanwhile, the White House scored another victory for rule without law by once more extending the delay of the employer mandate, and it is the “messiah’s” own law!  Imagine how much attention they pay to other laws, if you can’t be bothered to keep track of how they constantly ignore or outright break the law.

It would logically seem like a good time for impeachment, but never fear THAT happening: Boehner “doesn’t have the votes.” Or the will.  Or, apparently, the brains.

As witness the way Boehner seems to be listening more to a Democratic strategist whinging that you don’t try to impeach someone because ‘They’re Black in the White House’. And just who might THAT be?  A recent rash of e-mails comparing the squatter in 1600 Pennsy to that wonderful guy who “occupied” Germany from 1932 to 1945 reminded me that even people with a skin color close to his said he wasn’t “authentically black” – and his bloodline shows it: half “white” and at least 1/8th Arab, and certainly not raised, socialized, or educated as an “American black,” it is harder and harder to see him as a victim of “racism” even while his supporters and speech writers and overlords seem to use that excuse more and more.

As I have often noted, what I call the “Crash of 2009” is still with us.  A report shows that the high school class of 2004 still has 13% neither working nor studying, and 23% are still living with their parents, a decade later. This is the college (BA/BS) class of 2008, or the post-graduate cohort of 2010-12.  The “Great Recession” or “Great Depression II” actually had its genesis in 2008 and the stupid decisions made by Bush II and his supposed replacement (the “messiah”), which converted a serious downturn into a major crash we are now still living in five years later.  This class of ’04 is just the first of many who are poorly employed, unable to be productive, and dominated as no generation since those becoming adult from 1940-1946 have been.  Dominated BY GOVERNMENT.  It is from this age group, born in 1986-1996, that will supply both the liberty-seeking counter-revolutionaries AND the modern version of the SS and Waffen-SS for 21st Century North America.  It is not a pleasant view.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-07A: Cold weather and politicians

Posted on 2014-02-11 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Good morning.  Apparently, we are supposed to enjoy the cold weather and snow while we can.  We are at two-thirds, a very high level of snow-covered ground for the US right now, which is impressive.  But this is supposed to change, according to the National Geographic, still crying wolf about global warming.  They have maps to show how bad it is going to get, IF you believe that all the ice will melt and raise sea level 213 feet. I don’t.  So, in the eyes of the establishment, that is one more reason I am a bad guy.

It doesn’t surprise me that Pat Roberts doesn’t have his own home in Kansas, as he hasn’t had his heart there for years.  Not that Kansas always elects conservatives, despite its reputation: Kathleen Sebelius and her father were both “bestowed” on the nation as a whole by Kansas, and Bob Dole was certainly a better Army Air Corps officer than he was a politician OR a conservative patriot.  But really (as I’ve mentioned before) is there ANY reason that a state’s two senators OR their representatives shouldn’t have their offices in their state: surely each state could find a couple of suites in the State Capitol for their two senators, who could telecommute to DC for senate meetings, committee meetings, and everything – even whispering to lobbyists.  It would save billions, and help them remember WHO and WHAT they work for.  And you know, maybe if Roberts actually had to LIVE in Kansas City (KS) or Wichita, or even in Great Bend, on a daily basis, he might not do the really stupid things he does in supporting the White House and dealing with the admitted Tranzis in Congress.

DC Police were “forced” to shut down Pennsylvania Avenue on Friday as they arrested a man trying to climb the White House fence, for an hour.  What a crock of garbage.  It takes all of what, sixty seconds to stick a gun up his nose, read him his Miranda rights, and shove him in the back of a patrol car, or at best five minutes if they really get their rocks off by nearly kicking him to death before throwing him the back.  Apparently DC police, the Secret Service, and other agencies are THAT afraid of what people could or might do, that they “have” to use (“forced” to use) tactics that might have fit clearing a town in the Hurtgen in 1945 or a village in the Highlands in 1970 or a city quarter in Fallujah in 2008.  And each incident, each operation, ramps things up

Bill Grigg has an interesting piece of news and commentary at LewRockwell.com about military-style police methods that terrorize communities, and shows how they date back more than 20 years.  (Actually, we can find examples back a lot farther than that, of course, but in “modern” times we find it long predates the USA PATRIOT ACT often blamed for it.)  While I think that some of his comments are totally off the wall and distract from both the news and the argument (like attacking a police spokeswoman for a dull delivery he attributes to being tranquilized to zombie levels), it is a good reminder of what we have come to in a very short time, and why things like clearing off Pennsy Avenue for a full hour is almost “routine” now.  It is going to happen more and more.

It certainly is NOT as much a concern as police gunning down and beating PEOPLE to death, but in Bloomfield, in northeastern Nebraska, the city has reprimanded a cop for killing and hiding the corpse of an elderly couple’s cat.  This sort of evil just adds to the reasons to get rid of the police forces.  Rumors are that he has been doing it for years, but now he has been caught.  I also read El Neil’s emotional sendoff for his cat, Ambrose, which made me emotional, as well, remembering all the feline friends I and my family have lost over the years, which makes me much harsher towards both the idiotic cop and the city which only reprimanded him.

On to some other news.

Deutche Welle reports that the Confoederatio Helvetica (Swiss Confederation) has  narrowly passed a referendum to limit immigration, but the information in the article seems to contradict that claim: while the popular vote was 50.5 to 49.5 in favor, only 10 of the 26 cantons’ voters approved it, and the confederation requires that at least 14 of the cantons approve something like this.  Some libertarians attack a law like this, claiming it just reinforces invisible lines; I see it as similar to inviting someone into your home, or to join your family:  the family and community have the obligation and should have the power to set standards for who you allow to be either a guest or a permanent resident on your property, in your home: at a minimum, some indication that they are not going to abuse others who live there or steal from you.  This is not the same as “open borders” or freedom of travel, but about staying and becoming a part of the community.  This is NOT a perfect situation or solution, of course, it is really a decision that should be made by families and the local communities, including those selling property or renting.  But it is a better situation than the unlimited immigration/mass invasion, increasingly destabilizing and violent, which many other countries (Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain all come to mind) are suffering.

Mama’s Note: Ah, excuse me… but how does that work? 50.5 to 49.5 — someone gave half a vote to both sides? Two people only recorded half a vote? Four of them only 1 quarter of a vote, two on each side? I knew the Swiss were different, but was not aware that their politics were so… fractionated. <grin> Forgive me, I couldn’t resist.

We are down to just nine months to the 2014 election, and in Texas (as usual) things are getting interesting.  Wendy Davis is getting her teeth kicked in by her supporters because she wants open carry to be legal in Texas (or so she claims).  Of course, the entire business is silly and probably intended to distract from a bunch of other things.  Frankly, Texas is as dead as a doornail, as liberal as Georgia, as far as liberty is concerned.  There is no hope in the east, but maybe West Texas has some possible opportunity to become free again.

Mama’s Note: Indeed… I do grow weary of the Texans who tell me how wonderful their state is, and how free they are. And then they act like raped chamber maids if you even mention carrying openly or suggest it is not the end of the world if a concealed gun “prints” or is seen. OC won’t happen in Texas until the gun owners there actually want it. And getting rid of the “license” will take even longer.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-06E: Schools and guns and a bit more

Posted on 2014-02-08 by TPOL Nathan

Apparently the superintendent of a school district near Chicago doesn’t like having drawings of guns on the outside of her schools, even when they are “No Guns Allowed” pictographs in accordance with a new Illinois law stealing rights from people.  This idiot needs to find a career where she doesn’t damage children.  She says that children will misunderstand the drawing and sign.

Actually, Mama Liberty and I really think that this Chicagoland teacher could put up another sign (below) that would work, even in Illinois.  Of course, first she’d have to teach her elementary school students how to read.  I assume that she can, and that at least some of the teachers and staff can, at least at a tenth-grade level.


How about this as an alternative?  Which will protect the children more?


According to that bird cage liner, the WaPo, the White House has suggested that Russia is behind the leaked call from State Dept. official to an ambassador, on which the State Department official says, “F— the E.U.”  Oh, dear, oh dear.  Never mind there are a lot of reasons maybe to even agree with the official, the guy has to learn to SHUT HIS MOUTH.  Clearly, there is no reason why Russia (or Norway, or Turkey, or CANADA, for crying out loud), would NOT be expected to listen to an unsecured phone line and to report what they hear.  Especially considering that Russians view the guy in 1600 to actually be afraid of Putin.

Montana governor could appoint Baucus replacement  as soon as Friday and I have finally realized (silly me!) WHY Baucus resigned early, so that the Dem governor (Bullock) can appoint ANOTHER Dem to keep the Senate firmly in Dem hands and give the new guy a big boost up in the elections as “the incumbent.”  I love Montana and Montanans dearly, but they are so stupid politically to keep sending  liberal statists to Helena and DC – together with a few “conservative” statists.  Baucus was confirmed Thursday as ambassador to China. Of course, Baucus has already demonstrated he has no business being the Ambassador to China, as he admits he knows very little about the Middle Kingdom.  (Apparently, Lieutenant Governor John Walsh was appointed.)

Still I guess he is better than the idiot whom the White House wants to be ambassador to Norway. Apparently he thinks that the place has a president (instead of a king) and has never even been there.  His qualifications?  He raised 1.3 million bucks for the 2012 election – winning side, of course.  Even the WaPo is upset  with this and about 22 other fundraisers given free rides to foreign vacations on the public’s dime.  Anyone who has ever read The Ugly American knows what this means.  It grosses me out.

Mama’s Note: It’s all a silly game any more, I think. Emperors and dictators don’t usually send actual ambassadors anyway, since they can’t afford to allow anyone to speak for them, and so indulging in this childish theater would be meaningless if they were not using stolen goods to pay for it.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-06E: Cannibalistic government

Posted on 2014-02-07 by TPOL Nathan

Governments turning on each other? That was part of my reading this week, along with other stupid government tricks. Maybe if we can portray government at all levels as they clowns they really are, we can all laugh ourselves back to freedom.

In California this week, the state turned on itself, when a CHP officer arrested a firefighter at a traffic accident scene, because the firefighter refused to do something stupid that the trooper ordered. Of course, photos of the scene show that the trooper himself was breaking the law and risking the safety of himself and the firefighters struggling to rescue injured people from the accident. The arrogance and stupidity of cops grows monthly, especially in states like California and Missouri. How long are we going to put up with this occupation force?

The newly in-office Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-NYC) wants to close schools for Muslim holidays. Apparently ten percent of NYC students are Muslim, so everyone (taxpayers and the other ninety percent) get to be penalized. There are lots of technical reasons why this would be difficult, unlike traditional (Jewish and “Christian”) holidays, because of how Muslim holidays are scheduled. I am not sure about the schools, but according to Wikipedia, 37% of NYC are Catholic, 13% are Jewish, 6% are Protestant, and 17% are “unaffiliated.” That totals 73%, so I guess there could be that many Muslims. Seems like they could have “floating” holidays as long as the homework is turned in ahead of time. That way, even worshippers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster could have off whatever holiday that FSM worshippers have, too… Still, better to get your kids out of these institutions. Quickly.

A poll released yesterday (Wednesday) says that more Coloradoans want armed teachers and school staff, rather than more gun laws. This isn’t really surprising, even though the poll was flawed by having only two choices: a good many folks have come to realize that more gun laws don’t stop the nutcases from shooting people up. Or vandalizing whatever.

It was several months ago, but apparently a team of snipers attacked a power substation in California, knocking it out by taking down 17 transformers in 19 seconds and requiring a month to restore it to service. One agency claims it was a serious terrorist attack, but the FBI poohpoohs the idea. Did this really happen? Or was it a training exercise of some type? Or just a bogus event designed to create more panic and more demand for fortification and more security thugs on the payroll? Usually BusinessInsider.com is pretty good, but…?`

Mama’s Note: OK… but I’d like to know who timed the attack. How do they know it only took 19 seconds? Not saying they couldn’t, but it seems suspect to me that they’d mention such an exact time frame for something that was, evidently, not witnessed. Who was holding the stopwatch?

Meanwhile, a USSC justice (Scalia) says World War Two internment camps could happen again. Duh. Panic is panic, and the government LOVES panic, and they LOVE to lock people up. It has happened again and again, and will probably happen pretty soon, both here and elsewhere in the world. Meanwhile, other folks are claiming that the NFL is a co-conspirator in making their taxpayer-financed stadiums into these internment camps, training their security to work alongside Russian and Pakistani “guest-soldiers.” Right now, I want to know if there are any camps NOW. And no, despite the way the people attending the Superbowl in NJ were treated, I don’t think THAT counted.

Mama’s Note: I suspect that the inner city welfare zones are all the “internment camps” needed. Just no need to spend money for fence and guard towers. If they think they’ll be able to round up those who think independently… well, I suspect they are in for a bad surprise.

The US Postal Service is going to solicit to buy small arms ammunition soon, according to an official announcement. This is, of course, a good thing: we would hardly want someone going postal in the original sense of the phrase to run short of ammo. And we all want our mail to be protected against the rampaging mobs when the Social Security checks stop arriving (except that now, almost NO one gets SS checks by mail: they were all forced into direct deposit several years ago, along with retirees and veterans. The announcement does not say how much or what type of ammo: it could be anything from a couple of cartons on .22LR to a million (or BILLION) rounds of everything from .357 Magnum to .50-cal M2 ammo. But what I notice is how the conservative-libertarian comment community gets all het up about it, based on as little info as we have. Of course, one guy points out that the only armed branch of USPS is NOT mail carriers to defend themselves against dogs or mad rent-seekers not getting their coupons, but the “Postal Inspection Service” which has one of the WORST acronyms of any federal agency I’ve ever heard off (except maybe one their branches, the “Postal Inspection Secret Service”) – just teasing. Anyway, the PI Service apparently has not shot anyone in the line of duty in decades, or at least since they stopped shipping mail by stage coach (the kind with horses) and trains with wood-burning engines. And of course (as always) the USPS is broke. So maybe they aren’t buying too much?

Mama’s Note: Why shouldn’t they buy as much as they want? After all, it’s not like they were using real money… or as if they were using their OWN money.

Congress’ own poster child and basket case, Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) says that the top priority for Democrats right now is to write Executive Orders for [the “messiah”] to sign. Funny, I thought that Congress was supposed to be “lawmakers” and not ghost-writers for the (supposed) president. Congress smells more like Augustus’ Senate all the time. Of course, the reason she is reduced to ghosting executive orders is that much of the time, the GOP majority in the House at least acts as a speed bump to the Administration’s race to total tyranny. Still, it is the GOP’s gutlessness (only if you believe that they are truly conservative, and not just sham artists) that has let things go this far. I still figure that they are sham artists, as the next story seems to support.

According to one source, the five Senators most supportive of the “messiah’s” agenda are Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), John McCain (R-AZ), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Rob Portman (R-OH). It is Republicans like these (and a whole lot more) that make me skeptical of what a local politician means when he calls himself a “staunch Republican.” I’m sure that all five of these people are “staunch.” And obviously enemies of liberty.

Speaking of enemies of liberty, apparently the police force of Ankeny, Iowa (population 49,000) serves warrants for a suspected $1000 credit card fraud by conducting a no-knock raid/entry in the middle of the night. AND they ripped out the family’s security cameras – but didn’t get the video already recorded. There is no justification for this kind of aggression. This sort of vicious attack is NOT appropriate for a non-violent crime.

Mama’s Note: Actually, there is no possible justification for this kind of military attack on anyone, regardless of the crime involved. If people give them the authority for one, the other is inevitable.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-06D: New inventions and more

Posted on 2014-02-07 by TPOL Nathan

Good morning, all.  Today, there is some neat news about new ideas and inventions!

A school and lab in Karlsruhe (Germany) has developed a new material which is less dense than water, and stronger (in some ways) than many kinds of steel, AND which can be used in 3D printers!  This, coupled with news passed on from friends about BATFE and other fedgoon agencies in a panic about 3D-printed M-4 and M-16 clones (although using metal barrels), perhaps does see a time approaching when NO government can keep gun control as a real possibility.  Although the big news back in November was that BATFE “proved” that 3D-printed plastic guns were dangerous and exploded, the actual facts were ignored.  A Defense Distributed Liberator pistol printed using ABS (a common plastic used in construction) could fire AT LEAST nine shots, and cost $25 to print on a $2,000 printer.  Even with normal business costs, amortization, and a limited printer life, it is likely that the Liberator could be sold on the open market (admittedly, a BLACK market as far as the goons are concerned) for about $50 (plus postage and handling).

In still MORE high-tech news, researchers at UWis-Madison have come up with yet another way to turn trees and other plant mass into fuel both easily and economically.  Although they are doing it only on a small scale and at a cost equal to $5/gallon of gasoline, this conversion of cellulose to fuel-grade ethanol opens even more possibilities for fuel production on both a large and small scale and probably without the need of the huge infrastructure the petro-fuel industry now requires.  Not only that, but this ends the need to decide between food (as is the case with traditional ethanol) and fuel, and I suspect the price will drop very quickly as the process is refined (pun intended) and tinkered with.

And apparently, Dread Pirate Roberts is back in business on the Silk Road, according to a fascinating interview in Ars Technica. Using Tor and other techniques to work around the government (as more and more people are doing) is a good thing.  We can no longer afford to have the weight of government’s millstone around our necks as we try to swim even across the river.  DPR sounds increasingly not just libertarian but moving from minarchist to anarchist (with a ways to go, I admit).  In particular he (or she) points out “The State is no longer a protector of the people in many ways.”  (Actually, the State has become less and LESS a protector of any people except its own goons and the “elite” for a very long time.)

Mama’s Note: Correction! The non-voluntary government has NEVER actually been a protector of the people, except perhaps in the manner of the farmer protecting the livestock.

In St. Louis, a federal judge ruled that flashing your lights to warn others about cops radaring is “free speech” and cops can’t harass you or ticket you. Or at least not legally, but it took Michael Elli fifteen months to see justice done.  Apparently in Missouri, that free speech was punished by a $1000 fine.  Now, to go after a few thousand OTHER stupid laws…  And see if this ruling will apply across the nation.

Scott referred me to an NBC story about how Colorado pot shops are being terrorized by robber gangs, and asks, where were their guns?  Well, actually, the massive and continuing series of robberies, burglaries, and the like are MOSTLY (according to the story) in Denver.  Now, maybe that is just because the NBC idiots are too lazy to set foot into real Colorado, or maybe that IS the only place seriously being hit.  If so, it is obvious:  Denver has LONG believed that IT is above both the federal and state constitutions and works very hard to keep its citizens AND people just passing through Denver from being able to protect themselves with ANY weapon.  In reading the story, which does talk about similar problems in California (guess what, the whole state there is in the hands of the hoploclasts), it is obvious that government shares much of the blame for millions of dollars of damage and theft.  Why?  Because banks and other financial institutions are afraid of, and refuse to, get deposits from marijuana companies because they are still illegal in the eyes of the feds, including the FDIC and Federal Reserve.  And secondarily because apparently the Denver Police are too incompetent to adjust to, and respond to, the threat faced by hundreds of businesses and probably thousands of citizens.  (Indeed, I wonder how many of the criminals have some tie to law enforcement?)

Speaking of cannabis, apparently a White House minion, Michael Botticelli, admitted to Congress that marijuana is less deadly than alcohol, but not “benign.”  Clearly, the White House can’t get its act together, and the War on Some Drugs is fraying ever more badly.  Whether or not pot is “benign,” we know that the fight against it is anything BUT benign:  leading to thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of stolen money being squandered, each year.  Today, the cops have more excuse for militarization, but what started that trend was the War on Some Drugs, for the last forty years.  Of course, cannabis is not the only excuse for the War, as the next story reminds me.

An 82-year-old retired Army Veteran in Burlington, Vermont, will go to trial in April on felony and misdemeanor charges triggered by a mistake made by a pharmacist in issuing him the wrong prescription, in January of 2013.  He and his wife were attacked by a cop after the pharmacy called the police on them, and the entire thing is insane and evil.  With the end nearing on the “pot front” of the War on Some Drugs, the cops and federal agencies are cracking down on “prescription drug abuse” to keep their jobs, their funding, their task forces, their corruption, and their power going as the cannabis action winds down, state by state.  Now, where are the veterans and the rights groups and the rest of the “concerned persons” to help this man and his wife?

Like Tom (Freedom News Daily), I’d love to see Google, trashy though they are, move out of California entirely, in response to bureaucrats telling them their barge (under construction) has to leave Treasure Island.  How stupid to think that it is wrong – or even requires permits – to build a barge on a site that was constructed to build and maintain ships, and did so for half-a-century.  But that is government for you.

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FreeSpeechMe & Dot-Bit alternate domain registry

Posted on 2014-02-05 by MamaLiberty

By Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger
www.bussjaeger.org

I got an email from MamaLiberty regarding something called FreeSpeechMe. It looks interesting enough to mention, but I don’t know enough about it yet to recommend. Stripped to basics, FreeSpeechMe (FSM) is a Firefox add-on to make browsing “Dot-Bit” sites transparent and supposedly effortless. So what is “Dot-Bit“?

Dot-Bit is… an alternate domain registration system. Not just another registration company like GoDaddy or Network Solutions, but a parallel system, a separate DNS system. Normally, when you’re browsing sites, your computer looks at the names you type in (like “bussjaeger.org”), contacts a Domain Name Server to get the actual numeric address associated with that name, and -presto!- takes you there. Dot-Bit uses a different DNS system to look up address registered specifically to it and not in the conventional DNS.

On the face of it, that’s cool, but… no big deal. You can do as much with your localhost file, although you’d have to keep updating it manually to add new sites. But Dot-Bit doesn’t stop there.

The conventional DNS system has a bunch of [insert gross simplification] nameserver machines scattered across the world which serve as the reference for what domains are where. Those machines are vulnerable to faults such as a major telecom cough – WorldCom – cough locking the standby server offline, then turning off the primary (really happened; I was at work in another telecom company’s NOC that morning… fun… fun), or the FBI ordering them to redirect traffic for your “copyright infringing/terrorism supporting” site to one they prefer.

Dot-Bit is a distributed system. There is no one machine to be turned off or corrupted by government agents.If you’ve looked into new digital currencies like Bitcoin, you know something about distributed systems. [insert gross simplification] People voluntarily let their computer be used as peers to relay info. You keep a record of transactions for your coins, and when you make a new transaction, that info gets bounced around until it reaches you, complete with a virtual papertrail by which you can verify the legitimacy of the transaction.

Dot-Bit uses a similar distributed peer system to relay its domain data. More specifically, it uses the NameCoin system, a competitor to Bitcoin. In general, [insert gross simplification] NameCoin operates similarly to Bitcoin. This is important because…

Yoy may recall that the FBI busted Ross Ulbricht and got hold of his local Bitcoin wallet (which means they got the money; the only way to seize Bitcoins; freezing accounts doesn’t work). You may also recall that protestors used those very coins to send messages to the FBI, by sending tiny fractional Bitcoin transfers to Ulbricht’s wallet (the address of which is naturally in the distributed peer-to-peer Bitcoin universe) with messages attached. So the currency system can send more data than the money itself. Dot-Bit exploits NameCoin to disseminate DNS data.

Which finally brings us back to FreeSpeechMe. To browse .bit (the TLD for Dot-Bit, duh) sites, either you have to manually check the NameCoin-based Dot-Bit DNS for the latest domain updates, or your computer has to know when and how to do it for you. FSM automates the process in Firefox. [insert gross simplification] When Firefox encounters a .bit TLD, FSM goes out to the Dot-Bit DNS system, grabs the current numeric address, and -presto!- takes you there. Transparently.

Obviously Dot-Bit and FSM are stressing the anti-censorship capabilities of their system. Taking everything at face value, they’re right. It’s hard for the feds (or Chinese, or RIAA/MPAA) to find and shutdown a domain registration that isn’t pinned down in any one place. That’s a good thing. Also, as you may have realized from the WorldCom/DNS shutdown story, it can protect the system against accidental/negligent damage as well. That’s also a good thing.

But why stop there? There are various “dark ‘net” systems that work as alternatives to the “real” Internet [insert gross simplification] by creating a parallel physical network. People reprogram their little consumer grade home routers to act more like big time Internet edge routers. These routers interconnect, creating a “dark” Internet over WiFi. No telco DSL, cable company, Verizon FiOS, or whatever needed. It’s very short range, between one router and the next, but in theory volunteers can daisy chain enough routers to cross continents.1 And each router is also a user access point. If enough people were willing to do this, the commercial Internet could be obsolete (I’m ignoring certain bandwidth issues, of course).

The downside to such a dark net is DNS. Conventionally, someone would have to run those [vulnerable!] DNS servers. And the feds (or Chinese, or RIAA/MPAA) would simply move in and do their destructive usual.

Until now. Dark net, meet Dot-Bit. Dot-Bit, dark net. Play nice.2

1. If you wonder if this could be done with smartphones: Yes, it’s been done on a small test scale. We are very close to the point where old-fashioned telephone companies and Internet service providers are utterly obsolete.

2. I would expect that the dark net would need an intial connection to the existing Internet, since that’s where NameCoin/Dot-Bit currently are. But they would gradually migrate over to the free side.

 

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-06C: Guns, schools, and governments

Posted on 2014-02-05 by TPOL Nathan

Good morning, thirty five days into 2014.  Everyone seems to be getting more excited, or is that just me?  We are finally getting some much needed snow in the Rockies and the Black Hills, and it is nasty cold, but if that helps the moisture, good for it!

Arizona legislators join Florida in effort to virtually nullify all federal gun laws , or at least they both are trying to:  these  are bills introduced into the legislatures, but I am not as confident as the writer of this article or those he interviewed that these will even make it to the respective governors to sign.  It is interesting that I read this article just minutes after a friend shared reports that the BATFE and other government agencies are in a panic about hundreds of 3D-printed M-16/M-4 clones showing up, using metal barrels (and presumably some of the screws) but otherwise completely 3D-printed with some polymer (the firing pin supposedly has metal bits in the polymer).  Again, this would seem to be exactly what my friend says: the beginning of the end of gun control.  But I suspect the game is not even to half-time.  Even if these DO pass, there is the same issue as has arisen over Colorado and Washington legalizing marijuana:  the feds will try to force compliance, and I expect that would get ugly.

Mama’s Note: I suspect the same people who followed/obeyed the nonsense before will continue to do so… and the same for those who ignored the nonsense.

The DIA Director claims that Snowden potentially put the lives of U.S. troops at risk; and the DNI claimed that the ‘Lives of members or assets of the intelligence community are at risk.’ My first thought is the “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” from WW2.  “Potentially” every Congressman is putting US troops at risk.  So is every telephone or e-mail call home or to headquarters from a US base somewhere.  And with the NSA and that garbage, I’m not exactly hyper about protecting “members” OR “assets of the US intel community.  Snowden had to make a hard decision, and I think he made the right one: better to risk some people’s lives in the field, or their covers, than allow the thugs in charge to strip away the liberty of every American in the cause of “security.”

Apparently the FDA has launched an ad campaign telling children that ‘Cigarettes Are Bullies’.  This seems to me, to be a total waste of time.  Teddy Bears and stuffed tigers have been saying things like this for a long time, and what good has it done?  Now, maybe if they did some PSAs featuring Smokey and Tony the Tiger???  This current “anti-bullying” fad in the schools and pushed by government is pretty lame.  I saw that Office Depot jumped on it for a while, but then one weekend, wham!  All the anti-bullying merchandise (which was pretty blah) was on the clearance table.  As for the bullying, well, the next story shows who really are the bullies.

A Wisconsin school has “played a game” in which children were instructed to rat out their parents to help build better relationships and stop bullying.  They were asked questions, in front of classmates, teachers, and administrators about whether they or their parents drank, used drugs, thought about suicide and other fun, highly-educational stuff.  Readers know that one of my continuing themes in writing commentary has been “get your children OUT of these government-ruined, theft-funded schools, and this really shows that it MUST be done.  Meanwhile, with lots of western states having their traditional winter legislative sessions, the statists and nannies are all filing bills to weaken protection for homeschooling and private schools so that you don’t have any choice on how to educate your children.

Mama’s Note: Oh, they’ll still have a choice. It might be more difficult, and it might involve some forceful self defense… but it will still be a choice. They just can’t think they can continue to milk the public cow for other things if they want to regain control of their own life.

An example from HSDLA is from South Dakota: “This bill would empower school boards to refuse to grant an excuse if a truancy complaint is merely pending against a child. In other words, even if the person is totally innocent, the school board could prevent them from homeschooling just because a complaint was filed.”  Even I was surprised by the list of sponsors: people who seemed to be friendly to home-schooling in the past.

Mama’s Note: STOP asking for permission!

Back to economics and national politics, MarketWatch reports Obamacare plans to exceed $1 trillion, create reluctant workers (a cost of two million FTE jobs).  Thanks to Freedom Outpost for this great news!  This is much higher than previous estimates, because we know now just how the system is supposed to work, expanding welfare into yet another part of life.  And pushing total collapse that much closer.

LA governor Jindal Calls for ‘High Walls and a Broad Gate’ in regards to immigration.  Well, I’ve heard worse.  Indeed, it makes sense:  indeed, a mark of hospitality:  a good fence and wide gates.  Walls or gates to protect against those who want to sneak in to rob and steal and behave as parasites, and open, broad gates for people to come visit and shop and sell and even settle.  Indeed, I’d be willing to trade two or three honest, hard-working Mexican or Honduran or Columbian folks for just one of the political scumbags that occupy the halls of the Capitol and the bureaucratic offices in DC.

White House Will ‘Make Sure’ Syria Meets Its Chemical Weapons Obligations right after the guy in 1600 PA fulfills all his campaign promises from 2008 and 2012.  Priorities are important.  Notice, NOTHING was said (or is being done) about the rebels and their chemical weapons, or about anything else.  If anything, the FedGov today is selective on what it is going to “make sure” of.

Russia, US Face New Strains Over Missile Defense but it seems to me that we could solve this by some good old-fashioned friendly competition: maybe a contest to see who can knock down a North Korean missile faster?  I see this conflict over missile defense to be as stupid as the attempt to disarm people so that they cannot defend themselves.  Missile defense systems are not really able to be used offensively, but they CAN make it harder for aggressive or just insane governments to do nasty things to your people.  They may not be able to take out a massive attack but can make even the nutjobs stop and think.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that the U.S. inventory of cattle and calves totaled 87.7 million animals as of Jan. 1. That was down by about 1.6 million cattle, or 2 percent, compared with this time last year. The agency says this is the lowest January inventory since 1951.  1951 (I’m told, wasn’t around then) was also a bad drought year, but still: US population was less than half in 1951 as compared to 2014.  Yes, people are eating less beef today, and the average cow produces a LOT more beef than in 1951, but I am glad, drought and all, that I do live in the West where most of the cows are – instead of at the end of the food chain in NYC or Miami or DC.  A typical cow has a live weight of about 1200 pounds, and dresses out at about 650 pounds of meat, or enough to allow 7 people to have a quarter-pound of meat every day for a year.  That’s not too bad; it is the COST of that quarter-pound that has us concerned.  But if things collapse, nobody going to be running freezer-trailers full of beef from Texas or Montana or Wyoming to the Rust Belt or to inside the Beltway.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-06B: White House Pronouncements

Posted on 2014-02-04 by TPOL Nathan

With Super Bowl and the State of the Union address over, it’s politicking time and everyone is going at it.  More and more people are calling for or predicting open revolt.  Others are calling for crackdowns on – well, you name it.  Here are a few stories I’ve seen in the last few hours

The “messiah” tells us, ‘We don’t want two classes of people in America’ which reminded me of an article on Freedom’s Phoenix last week, showing the classic authority pyramid of THREE classes: the “inner party” super-elite of 0.001% or so, their immediate minions (the “outer party” of maybe 5%?) and then the proles: “everybody else.”  This is similar to what Ringo, Weber, and Krautman have suggested IS the Tranzi goal of what could be considered “god-kings” and a “priest” class and then proles.  Actually, of course, we HAVE and WANT two classes: peaceful folks who mind their own business, and people who want to mind everyone else’s business and don’t think anything about breaking the law or inventing laws to let them do so.  Maybe we can figure out a way to get rid of that second class?

As Keystone XL Pipeline clears one hurdle, the White House seems to be planning further delay which makes you wonder about just why the White House let Kerry even accept this silly step of approving the EIS?  Is the “messiah” looking to throw Kerry under the bus?  Scanning briefly the responses the “messiah’s” shill made, it appears like nothing but tapdancing by idiots who don’t know how to dance.

The White House has again made it clear that the “messiah” won’t take executive action to remove pot from the narcotics list, which should not come as any great surprise to anyone who thinks much about it.  What surprised me was to find sources like Reason who seem to be ticked off that he is NOT using his “imperial mandate” to do so.  A tyrant is no less a tyrant just because his decrees are things that you agree with.  Why can we NOT get it through our heads how amazingly stupid it is to give government more power so that it can do something that WE want, when we KNOW inevitably that the government will then use that power to do all kinds of other things, most of which are stupid and evil?

An expert tells us that Obama’s MyRA plan is ‘encouraging people to buy government debt’, just like decades of war bonds and savings bonds and the like have done.  So?  People WANT to believe the propaganda that the FedGov is steady as a rock and that nothing will ever happen.  Just as they are willing to believe the hucksters selling everything else.  The “messiah” and his minions and controllers know that FDR was able to sell them a bill of goods in the 30s with Social Security, and LBJ was able to sell the people a bill of goods in the 60s with Medicare and Medicaid, and they themselves were able to sell a bill of goods six years ago with ObummerCare, so why not one more trip to the trough?  If SS was putting our toe into the polluted water of a communist pond, we are up to our necks, now.  Time to plunge in!     I see that most of my comments today are about the White House and the District of Criminals, so the next story fits in.

I see that a Gallup poll finds that Washington, D.C., is the most liberal place in the USA. Which again, certainly is no surprise (well, except maybe when you look at San Francisco, Berkley, and Boulder).  Polls don’t answer why, of course.  But it is amusing to speculate?  Is it the combination of government employees, lobbyists and corporate parasites on the government and the underclass supported by the dole?  Is it because people know what side their bread is buttered on?  Is it something in the water? Or is it because much of the rest of the country is getting more libertarian and conservative?  Or is it because the entire place is filled with liars.

Lest I be accused of America-bashing, we see more examples of government stupidity in the next couple of stories.

It seems that a new Saudi counterterrorism law criminalizes speech critical of government or society.  Wow!  Isn’t it a good thing that faithful, extreme muslims and Islamic nations so highly prize democracy and freedom?  (A quote from that Islamic website: “It goes without saying that Islam highly promotes democracy and encourages all people to act upon it. However, democracy should be positively perceived and applied, i.e., the positive face of democracy that contradicts tyranny and despotism is to be adopted, not the negative one that gives anyone the right to do anything he or she wants.”)  Imagine if Arabia were a tyranny run by a bunch of despotic gang members like the US and most Western nations are?

Mama’s Note: Not much difference anymore, is there? All of the “governments” that prattle about “democracy” make it clear that the people can “vote” for anything they want, but they’d better toe the line and do what they are told regardless. This is, of course, because all governments assume they have the ultimate authority to rule, however it is expressed. In essence, far too few people can even conceive of actually owning themselves, of having the only legitimate authority over their lives and property.

The UK news is in a dither about a “young” 31-year-old mom who is (according to the coroner) the first woman known in the UK to die of “cannabis poisoning.” Yet, when you read the story, the claim just doesn’t add up.  It appears that they don’t know WHY she died, and the fact that she smoked a small quantity to help her sleep is given as the reason.  Much else in the story doesn’t add up: she was “religious” and “fun” and had a fifteen-year-old son and two other children?  Loved parties?  Normal?  Really?  Of course, deaths from overdose of prescription drugs in the UK was 3,338 in 2011 (latest year I could find), and just tranquillizers and painkiller overdoses killed 807 people in 2013 in the UK.  Seems to me that they have a lot more to worry about.

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This is a Public Service Announcement

Posted on 2014-02-03 by MamaLiberty

By MamaLiberty

“EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN CITIZEN HAS THE RIGHT TO CARRY A CONCEALED WEAPON”

Correction:

Every human being (or sentient being, if you want to get technical) has the absolute, inalienable AUTHORITY of self ownership, which includes the use of any tool whatsoever, for any purpose whatsoever. Every self owning individual ALSO has the absolute and inalienable AUTHORITY to defend themselves, by any means he/she finds necessary, from any other individual who offers credible threat of great harm or death.

No person or group of persons has any legitimate authority to decide anything different for any other individual.

This isn’t limited to “Americans,” and it isn’t limited to “concealed weapons” or even guns.

Just so you know… if you even wondered.

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