Ohio Decides It
# Andy Steadman at No Treason - Voting for Beer - what if we had to vote for beer the way we vote for politicians and a comparison with the advantage of the market approach. Hehe. [notreasonblog]
# anonymous at craigslist - Sorry I Fouled Your Door - hilarious. Swallow drinks and put down containers before reading, unless you want to suffer a fate similar to the writer of this piece. [picks]
# CNN - Election 2004 - a pretty good outline of the results. As you probably know, we won't know whether it will be President Kush or President Berry until Ohio counts its 250,000 "provisional" ballots. Surprises were Senator Daschle's defeat in South Dakota, eleven states banning same-sex marriage, and medical marijuana in Montana. Traitors Schumer and Boxer held on to their senate seats, by wide margins, as did New York's rabidly anti-gun Representative Carolyn McCarthy.
# Gun Owners Alliance - Lethal Laws - "Gun Control" is the Key to Genocide - A review of a book by Jay Simkin, Aaron Zelman (of JPFO), and Alan M. Rice translating gun "control" laws through history which have provided the ability for the governments that passed them to slaughter people en masse. Unfortunately, this page also links to some explanation of why Mr. Simkin and Mr. Rice no longer hang with Mr. Zelman: Why "lethal laws" Is No Longer Sold by JPFO. Bummer.
# Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - The Whole Hog Special Interest Sandwich - on the difference between pork and bacon.
Taxation: the other white meat.
# Linda Johnston at LewRockwell.com - Congressman Ron Paul - an interview from February of 2002. Long piece with lots of good ideas. [clairefiles]
Technically we are broke now but our credit is still good. A lot of people are broke and lots of companies are broke but they keep going. Enron was broke but they functioned rather well until September 2001. They said they were making a lot of money but it was all fictitious. There were not any real assets. That is the way the country is. There is a false confidence in our economic system, our dollar and our military might. The economy perks along, although slower. We can borrow and tax. We have a strong currency because there is a lot of trust in it. If people decided that there is something seriously wrong and panicked, they would dump our dollars. That would give us a huge inflation and no matter how much we taxed, we would never keep up with taking care of all of the people on welfare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and subsidies. There is no way that just printing money would save us that if the confidence in our dollar is lost. Now we are moving into a new era. Our homeland has been attacked and that means that we are more vulnerable. If our dollar gets attacked there will be major changes. I would not be surprised if those changes come in the next ten years.
Individuals have to live within their means. You and I are limited by the market, and limited much faster. For example, banks stop loaning to us or we lose our job or something like that. The government doesn't live within its means because it has two tools we don't have. They can print money and they have guns to collect money. If we did either of those we would go to jail. The government gets away with running huge deficits for a lot longer but the economic principles are the same. When it finally hurts and there is a correction they cause a lot more harm. What you do to yourself is only hurting yourself. When governments mess up and suddenly it doesn't work, that is really dangerous. We have people dependent and conditioned to think they are entitled to the benefits from the government. When the government can no longer take care of everyone getting benefits, many are really hurt. They will demand it and there will be riots, screaming and gnashing of teeth because the politicians have not taken care of them.
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EDITOR'S Commentary
What strikes you first when meeting Ron Paul is his quiet, courteous and gentle manner. It is a peaceful quality. As I talked with him, I began to realize it is a quality of "no force." There is nothing forceful at all about him. His views are expressed with the strength of the well thought out, cogent argument. Yet, there is not the forcefulness of "you have to think my way" that one often is subjected to in a discussion. You are free to think your way and he is simply saying what he thinks. Don't mistake that genteel manner for being wishy-washy. He is very clear, direct and resolute when it comes to his principles. Those are non-negotiable. That is where his tough, surety of purpose is foremost.
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Ron Paul freely admits that he is a Washington outsider. He never introduces himself as Congressman, he simply says he is Ron Paul. He is exceedingly kind, courteous and respectful to his staff. Contrary to Washington culture, he never expects them to do personal errands or act in a condescending way to others in Washington or elsewhere. He assumes the best motives in people and may point out simply that he just disagrees with them. He hates personal or emotional attacks and never participates in that kind of behavior. When it is done to him, he never takes it personally. Nothing written that goes out of his office will have the name of someone else in an unflattering way. His libertarian philosophy reaches beyond political thought and encompasses a way of respecting others and he does. He is forever the gentleman and maintains his dignity and that of his office at all times. There is nothing manipulative, duplicitous or sneaky about him. What you see and hear is exactly what he is. How refreshing!
# Campaign Extra - 9/11 "black box" cover-up at Ground Zero? - what do you suppose they're hiding? [lew]
Two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center claim they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes" from the jetliners that struck the towers on 9/11 - contradicting the official account.
Both the independent 9/11 Commission and federal authorities continue to insist that none of the four devices - a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) from the two planes - were ever found in the wreckage.
But New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi has written in a recent book -- self-published by several Ground Zero workers -- that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate three of the four.
His account is supported by a volunteer, Mike Bellone, whose efforts at Ground Zero have been chronicled in the New York Times and elsewhere. Bellone said assisted DeMasi and the agents and that saw a device that resembling a "black box" in the back of the firefighter's ATV.
# Mark Reynolds at Strike the Root - Slave Nation - 101 - the United States is a nation of armed slaves. Though we have the tools to throw off our oppressors, we no longer have the will.
So, here I answer my front door and find to my chagrin a woman and a plainclothes police officer with a very visible firearm strapped to his waist wanting to ask me some questions. Feeling that totally ignoring them and slamming the door in their face would be counterproductive, I allowed them free entry to my home and proceeded to try to answer their questions. However, when the questions began to deviate from the original intent, and an obvious threat became apparent, I told them both that they had better get back on track or leave. The officer began to become belligerent, and at that point, I very calmly walked to where I had a .44 magnum revolver hidden from view but very much in my reach, and asked him to either calm down or get back on track or leave. He decided at that point to calm down and so we finished our discussion with no incident. Why did I go to where the .44 magnum was? Because with the threatening track they were on, I had no choice but to shoot them both and then when their backups showed up make an effort to shoot as many of them as possible before I was killed.
What, you may ask was so threatening? THE BUREAUCRAT WAS THREATENING TO KIDNAP MY CHILDREN FROM ME. If they would have made the least effort further in that direction, my children would have ended up fatherless, most likely, but so would have their children. WHY? BECAUSE I AM NOT GOING TO PUT UP WITH SOME GOVERNMENT GOON taking my children from me! There is a VERY deep line in the sand drawn there.
My question to my wife was, WHY AREN'T MEN shooting CPS workers who are obviously involved in KIDNAPPING their children? Why aren't more police officers being gunned down in the line of "doody" for coming into these situations as the hired guns of the kidnappers? Why doesn't it EVER happen? It is because we have become a nation of slaves willing to give up our very CHILDREN to these hired kidnappers.
# Joshua Davis at Wired - The Mystery of the Coca Plant That Wouldn't Die - have Columbian drug lords created a Roundup-resistant strain of Coca? I haven't finished this yet. [whatreallyhappened]
Heap explained that few people knew how to genetically manipulate plants until the early '90s. Then suddenly, even undergraduates were learning the techniques. At the same time, scientific papers were published that identified CP4, a gene responsible for glyphosate resistance. By the late '90s, it's easy to imagine the narcos hiring one unscrupulous scientist to tinker with coca. "Cocaine dealers have a lot of money to do the convincing," Heap said. "Genetically modifying the coca plant is the most obvious defense against fumigation. If I were a drug lord, it's what I would do."
Heap suspects that the US government might keep such a development quiet. The herbicide would still be effective against older, more widely planted coca strains, and, for a while at least, Colombia's eradication campaign would continue to show impressive results. But eventually, as the modified strain spread, coca cultivation would rise again, and spraying would have no effect. In the interim, farmers growing the new strain would get free weeding. "It's critical for the war on drugs that this gets independently checked out," Heap concluded. "But I'm sure as hell not going down there."
