Claire's Store
"Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened." -- Billy Graham
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Claire Wolfe at Café Press -
Claire's Store - "Is it time yet?" "That's it! I'm moving to
Hardyville." "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work
within the system, but to early to shoot the bastards." On shirts,
cups, clocks, teddies, mouse pads, cards, posters, tote
bags. [claire]
# Rachel Lucas is back! "Piquance. Impudence. Ordnance." Welcome back, Rachel. [publicola]
# Alexander "Ace" Baker at Strike the Root - The Fed Is Lifeblood to the Root of Evil - a clear, simple explanation of the evil that is central banking. If you printed money the way the fed does, you would rightly be arrested for counterfeiting. [root]
Central banking makes possible the expansion of government power in all forms, most particularly the wicked godfather of all government programs: war. Without central banking, it is doubtful that any of the great wars of the 20th century, or the current debacle in Iraq , would have ever taken place, certainly not on the scale we have seen.
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The creation of new money "out of thin air" takes many forms. One of the most common is that the Federal Reserve prints up pieces of paper called "Federal Reserve Notes" while the Treasury Department prints up pieces of paper called "Government Bonds." The Fed then "buys" the bonds with the new money, which the government then spends on whatever strikes its fancy, usually guns and missiles and warheads and submarines and jets and satellites. But use your imagination. It could be anything. $500 toilet seat? No problem! These wonderful things use resources that could have otherwise been put to different uses, and this lowers our standard of living. You have less stuff than you would have had if the government had not created any new money. How much less? The loss to our economy is truly incalculable, but I don't think it is unreasonable to guess that living standards would easily be double what they are now, if not for central banking.
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I would also point out that most of the great empires in history collapsed, at least in part, because of the continued dilution and devaluation of government money. Money became worthless, and so the division of labor, which depends on money and which is the cause of prosperity, becomes impossible. The people have no choice but to revert to a subsistence economy.
# Bob Wallace at LewRockwell.com - The Good, the Not-So-Good, and the Really, Really Ugly - a review of places to go for news on the web. And places to avoid. Too bad about the Freepers. Their site used to be all right. Now they routinely censor any ideas they don't like, sort of like Democractic Underground. [lew]
Now for the lowest of the low -- the Fascists-R-Us site known as Free Republic. The site is a perfect example of Pareto's Law: 20% of the people have the brains and the other 80% are idgits who couldn't find their butts with both hands and someone directing them with a pointer.
The 80% idgits believe Americans torturing Iraqis is okay because it wasn't as bad as what Saddam Hussein did. They also think Hussein mulched hundreds of thousands of people in shredders, and that he was behind 9-11 and the Oklahoma bombings.
As for Iraqis fighting back, the typical Freeper thinks we should level any town that opposes us, including using nuclear weapons. Of course -- need I say it? -- none of the posters at the site have any intention of making their way to the front lines. Isn't that the perfect definition of a chickenhawk? "You play; I'll stay on the sidelines and tell you were to throw the ball"?
I used to wonder about the psychology of someone who became a Nazi, or a Communist, or a Fascist. Now I understand. Read Free Republic, and you will, too.
# XS Sight Systems - New Products - Illuminated sights for the M14/M1A. Includes tritium front winged stripe or haloed dot and an enlarged aperature for the rear sight. $130. The (more) permanent product page for these sights is here. [smith2004]
