LIBERTY: Cure poverty by getting gubamint out of the way!

Thursday, August 31, 2006

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200608/POL20060831b.html

‘Throwing Money’ at Poverty Won’t Solve Problem, Expert Says
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
August 31, 2006
***Begin Quote***

Ron Mincy, professor of social policy and social work practice at Columbia University, said the government must take action to increase earnings if anything is to be done about poverty, at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Tuesday.

***End Quote***

OH OH I KNOW! Let’s have a war on poverty. We can pass welfare programs with lots of rules and bureaucrats.

Oh yeah, that’s right, we’ve done that!

(For those edukated in gubamint skool, let me remind you of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.)

Well if I was the devil, then here what I’d do to make people poorer:

* Create a system that devalues the value of money. That strategy worked to bring down the French Monarchy.

* Increase taxation, have lots of different taxes. Make it complicated so that experts will have to be hired. And, hide them so no one really knows what they are paying in taxes. Make them waste their time with meaningless tax exercises like saving receipts to see if you exceed the medical deduction threshold.

* Grow the government. Every regulator needs a citizen to regulate. Like that joke about the Agriculture Department employee crying because “his” farmer died.

* Criminalize everything. Make drugs expensive. Make everything as difficult as possible. Make people seek permission from various levels of government and agencies so that they can make the applicant figure out deadlocks of conflicting requirements.

* Impose criminal sanctions of victimless crimes, imaginary crimes, “conspiracy”, racketeering, or lying to the government.

OH yeah, that’s the way things are!

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LIBERTY: “Fair”, “Flat”, or plain old … it’s still a tax … immoral!

Thursday, August 31, 2006

http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/118/5872/fair.asp?wid=118&nid=5872

THE “FAIR” TAX IS A WELFARE SCAM
Monday, August 28, 2006

***Begin Quote***

The “Fair Tax” is at least as bad as the income tax in every way, and worse in some ways. It’s not a tax cut. It’s not a tax elimination. It’s just a strengthening of the tax system by linking it to a welfare program — just like Social Security, which has been a “third rail” issue in American politics for half a century precisely because millions of Americans have a vested interest in keeping the checks coming.

***End Quote***

Oh just what we need is another “dole”! Fair tax, Flat Tax, Income Tax, or Estate Tax is just tax. More of the same piled higher and deeper.

Taxes are an immoral theft of both people’s time and their past, present, and future effort. It’s an ineffective way to accomplish things. It’s inefficient in both how much it costs to collect them (i.e., we pay for the IRS and we spend time filling out stupid forms) and how much it misses (i.e., underground economy).

Let’s start getting out of this hole now!

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LIBERTY: Debunking the English terrorist threat … sounds like F troop doing chemistry! Very funny imho.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

http://www.file.sc/7575f2/

As you probably know, I listen to Free Talk Live (http://freetalklive.com) on a pretty regular basis when I’m commuting via podcast.

[No, not because it’s free!]

It’s an entertaining pro-liberty show. Recently they did a rendition of a Register article that went into the chemistry of the recent English threat.

Having attempted to make explosives in high school chemistry, (hey who knows why; the nerd herd thought it would be a kool if we could blow up the darn place; that’s why I think of any school — public or private — as a prison!), I KNOW it’s not as easy as one might think. Thermite is pretty easy. (And a hoot, when the good brother teaching chemistry singed his arms putting out the fire we created. Accidentally, of course.) Phosphorous burns nicely as well. (Note, don’t throw water on that fire. I remember the same Brother panicking, doing it, and creating a nice steam cloud. Whatta hoot!) Leaving the bunsen burners open just sets off the gas alarm; no boom. Oxygen in a bottle is lame; unless you can put it under pressure, but Boyle’s Law works against you.

So, I listened with a big chuckle as Ian read the article about how do actually do the chemistry in an airplane’s lavatory (laboratory). It his a chord ’cause I know first hand that blowing stuff up isn’t as easy as it looks on TV or james bond movies.

Any way, I snipped it out and put it on a free site for your enjoyment. Yell if you need it done differently.

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Posted by reinkefj

PROD: Thinking about how we DON’T have repeatability in life. Sigh.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

http://www.mises.org/story/2289

The Economics of Groundhog Day
By DW MacKenzie
Posted on 8/30/2006
***Begin Quote***

In Groundhog Day Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a man who relives a particular day — Groundhog Day — many times. In the first instance Phil Connors lives through this day quite imperfectly.

***AND***

The lessons we learn each day are at best only partially valid for the next day. Consequently we can at best hope for only a gradual improvement in our lives as we keep pace with but never overtake changes in our surroundings. Our reality is to live our lives as Phil Connors did the first time he lived through Groundhog Day, not the last time. We are all speculators and our every action is innovative.

***End Quote***

This fellow helped me understand why I like this dumb movie so much. It works in so many dimensions.

(1) We don’t get to do life over. First time thru is our only time thru.

(2) How many times do we get to know what someone really thinks is important? In one the iterations, he discovers what the girl likes to drink. Next integration, he passes that hurdle only to fail on French Literature. It reminds me of the JoHari window. A ton of information is in the two quadrants we can’t see.

(3) Perfect information is NEVER available. So, now we have to recognize that not only are there no silver bullets (i.e., easy solutions), but we probably can’t even see the targets, nor recognize the bullets.

(4) We can deduce a good method from the film. The power of iteration gets you where you want to go. If we can “run the hand twice”, like the poker pros do on tv, then we can get a Phil Colling “do over” . It certainly makes objective setting, followed by small rapid iterations of quick improvements to approach our goal in measurable steps. It ignores the “Hail Mary” pass of breakthrough discoveries method.

(5) It certain argues persuasively that we need to focus on values and process which maximize our ability to make good decisions.

And, it made me laugh.

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Posted by reinkefj

MONEY: “Cheap will” scam

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

I’m the administrator of an estate. Lucky me! So I went and had the will admitted to probate. The clerk and I was chatting and she told me about an entertaining barely-legal scam going on in the poorer section of Middlesex County.

Nearby the clerk’s satellite office, a lawyer has a sign offering a $25 simple will. She didn’t go into details as to what constituted simple. But the scam was that wills in nj can be written with what is called a “self-affirming affidavit”.

Basically the lawyer and witness all state under oath at the time the will is made that these are their signatures and that of the person making the will. It’s not required to be a valid will. The catch is that if it’s not there than after the person dies, the witnesses have to affirm that it is their signature on the will.

Back to our 25$ will lawyer. He writes the will for $25 but doesn’t make it “self affirming”. The when the poor family tried to probate the will, for which no lawyer is needed, especially on small estates, with simple wills, they need his affidavit affirming his signature. They gotta have it.

You can guess what happens now … … right.

Yup, that signature costs them $350!

So much for a cheap will!

HE must be politically connected, because if he wasn’t, he’d be disbarred.

Makes me wish I went to law school so that when I retire I could go “compete” with him. I do wills for $25 just to meet people. Oh well! Arghh!!

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: What is “gubamint”?

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The “gubamint” is the oppressive government.

It’s the logical sum of all government at all the levels. It includes the bureaucracy that serves it. As well as all the things that it creates, usually to hide in plain sight, like the NGOs, the Fed, and the cartels it “recognizes”.

It’s the patriot’s pejorative term for the federal leviathan, huge bloated states, and nosey intrusive local governments that have far exceeded their Constitutional limits. It’s that regulating rule-making taxing gang that can always find a way to screw you, and goes out of their way to do so. Backed up by the SWAT team, it “rules” us with force. It’s the complete opposite of freedom and liberty. It’s the thing that the dead old white guys were so afraid of. Remember that genocide goes hand-in-hand with gubamint. It’s the ultimate expression of force.

It’s guestimated that one in four people work directly for gubamint, or are dependent upon it. That includes those that suckle at the gubamint teat, like the military – industrial complex, the “government school construction” industry, and the “political / legal” consulting industry. And, doesn’t count but doesn’t ignore all those dupes, sheep people (i.e., sheeple), who draw a “welfare” check (like “social security”).

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TECH: Open Source is preferable to activation schemes

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/08/14/202229&from=rss

Open Source
Why proprietary software is dangerous for business-critical applications
Monday August 28, 2006 (05:00 PM GMT)
By: Robin ‘Roblimo’ Miller
***Begin Quote***

But the real point here is that an entire medium-sized company’s executive staff has learned a hard lesson about the dangers of proprietary software, and members of that staff who previously resisted open source are now ready to consider it — and for business continuity reasons rather than as a money-saving measure, no less.

***End Quote***

So to summarize: (1) ALL “activation” schemes limit your recovery ability. (2)  ALL proprietary software is dangerous. (3) Open Source Software give you maximum flexibility. (4) Copyrights, as well as copy protection scheme, don’t protect bit do make life difficult for anyone who’s honest.

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: NJ State is STILL a grave robber

Sunday, August 27, 2006

I was really annoyed a few years ago when my aunt died. after a life of very modest earnings, leaving a small estate to her sister and paying the State of New Jersey 15% for the privilege of dying here. Well it happened again! Another relative had the poor judgement to die while a resident of New Jersey and will also pay 15% to the grave robbing gubamint. Where’s my pitchfork and torch?

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: Getting back to the Constitution repeal the 17th (Direct election of Senators)

Sunday, August 27, 2006

http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200405120748.asp

May 12, 2004, 7:48 a.m.
Repeal the 17th Amendment
It’s where big government begins.

***Begin Quote***

There is only one time when a U.S. senator is really free to speak the truth — when he’s announced his retirement. Since he no longer has to worry about raising money, pandering to voters, or retaliation from his colleagues, he can say what he really thinks about issues no other member of the Senate will discuss. For this reason, it is worth listening to Sen. Zell Miller, Democrat of Georgia, who recently spoke a truth that no senator except a retiring one would dare say.

On April 28, Sen. Miller, the last genuinely conservative Democrat we will likely ever see in the Senate, laid the blame for what ails that august body at the door of the 17th amendment to the Constitution. This is the provision that provides for the popular election of senators.

***End Quote***

Sounds like a good idea to me! Where do we start?

#####

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Posted by reinkefj

LIBERTY: “Eminent Domain” … yet another … another gubamint crime!

Sunday, August 27, 2006

http://www.njeminentdomain.com/state-of-new-jersey-eminent-domain-fines-eviction-and-videotape.html

***Begin Quote***

Under the threat of a $4,000 per day fine from Superiour Court Judge James Hurley, the Halpers vacated their 75-acre farm peacefully.

***End Quote***

Wave good bye to your Fifth Amendment!

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Posted by reinkefj

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